Pitch stood at the altar and began the experiment. He raised his hands and closed his eyes and focused on the fear. Slowly black sand seeped from all around and began to swirl around him and the ceremony circle. With each grain that joined in the miniature storm, a fear that a person held joined in as well and Pitch could hear them all. He heard what the men, women, and children of the world feared but he blocked out the sounds of their voices to focus on the task at hand. As he increased his focus on the goal he placed before him the sand responded to his wishes and it began to twirl faster and faster creating a hurricane in his dark and twisted dungeon home. The sand spun faster and spread to all the corners of the room but as the speed picked up each grain of sand released the fear it held inside in the sound of a scream. Slowly there were more voices joining in and it became a maddening symphony of fear and agony.

Pitch lowered his arms and opened his eyes to view his handiwork and was smiled a crooked smile. "Beautiful," he said.

Getting back to the task at hand, Pitch walked to the center of the ceremony circle and placed a small vial, filled with dust, in the center of the circle on the floor. Before leaving the circle to return to the altar he took out another small vile filled with crimson blood. Opening the two vials he poured the blood of his old acquaintance into her ashes and returned to the altar to wait for the ceremony to be completed. Suddenly a brilliant flash of light consumed the entire room and the symphony of sorrows was silenced, when the light faded away and the dungeon returned to its dark and frightening appearance the sand cleared away leaving a body covered by a cloak laying in the circle. Pitch looked down at the body and let out a sigh and said, "Are you just going to lay there?"

"Humph, you never let me relax Pitchy. Weren't you ever told that women need their beauty sleep," the figure asked as she slowly rose from the ground.

"If that were true then you wouldn't have needed that flower I provided for you all those years ago." Pitch commented as he went down the steps to help his guest, "But then again, even with all those years I gave you it doesn't look like you did much sleeping. Actually…I think I see some crow's feet."

Gothel immediately spun around and slapped Pitch across the face and he simply turned back to look at her face. It was true that without the flower she had begun to age and wither due to so many years of using the flower's power but due to Pitch's timely rescue he managed to preserve her by making it appear as though she turned to dust. "Oh Gothy, is that anyway to repay the person who saved your life?"

Gothel simply turned her back to him and began to make her way towards the chambers she always used when visiting Pitch in his "secure" home. "What if I told you that you didn't need the flower and that girl any longer," Pitch asked.

"It doesn't matter anymore. The power has been cut away and that girl is back with her family in the palace, rejoicing my absence," Gothel called back as she started to leave the room not looking back to answer.

"Let me rephrase the question," Pitch said. "What if you could just simply be immortal and not have to scour the world looking for yet another item or substance that will sustain your life?"

This caught Gothel's attention and she turned back to look at Pitch to see if he was simply playing her again. But his eyes were cold and hollow…but they were also serious in his question. "I'm listening," Gothel said.

Pitch gave another crooked smile and motioned for her to follow him the doors behind him. Silently she followed wondering what game he was trying to play with her. After knowing each other for so many centuries she knew that Pitch always loved to have fun toying with people's weaknesses and fears, and he had done so with her more than once, but from the look in his eyes she could tell he actually had something for her.

After passing through several ominous hallways they stopped at a gigantic pair of onyx doors that shimmered in the pale light of the moon, or whatever was left of it so far due to the ongoing eclipse. Pitch took no time to admire the doors and pushed through them revealing a room that was covered in the roots of trees that grew in the forest above the hidden lair. In the center of the room a demented pedestal of withered and dead tree roots held up a gigantic black crystal the size of a football. Without warning Pitch opened a skylight that allowed them to view the nighttime sky and instantly her eyes were drawn to the moon as it faced directly above them as if it were staring that them from above. Gothel looked to Pitch for an explanation but he put a finger to his mouth, signaling her to stay silent and she obeyed. Pitch took a deep breath and looked up at the moon as it was covered in shadow completely and said, "I have brought her."

Instantly the crystal lit up with a radiating white light signaling the life inside the ancient gemstone. Gothel jumped back in surprise but Pitch was unfazed and walked up to it and placed his hand on it and lowered his head and said, "Yes, she is right here before the crystal."

With that the white light began to flash and Pitch stepped away in amazement as the crystal projected and image above itself. In the light it shined a black figure in a cloak appeared and was the size of a tire but Gothel could not see who it was because the figures hood was up and it had its back to them. But slowly it spun around and removed its hood to reveal a younger looking Gothel and the actual women look to Pitch for an explanation. Smiling in his crooked, chilling way he walked towards her and placed an arm around her shoulders and said:

"How would you like to be a Guardian?"