When Jack finally arrived at the Pole, the others were nervously watching the globe. "Bad news." He announced, landing before them with a grim expression that matched everyone else's. "Pitch's hide-out is back but I couldn't find him."
"Fantastic!" Bunny exclaimed, briskly pacing away from the group in frustration.
Gently tugging on Tooth's hand to get her attention, Sandy created an image of one of her fairies above his head.
"You think he'd try that again?" Tooth asked anxiously, the fairies who had come along pulling closer to her in fear.
"He might." North said, already getting his coat and swords. "You're away from your realm, after all. If he's trying the same plan again, we're falling for it."
Tapping the ground twice, Bunny shot North a warning look. "I'll meet you there." He said pointedly, very obviously not planning on riding in North's sleigh again.
"I think I'm gonna go check on Jamie." Jack said quietly, trying hard to remain neutral as everyone looked at him. "He helped us alot last time, I wouldn't be surprised if Pitch decided to target him."
"Fine by me." Bunny responded, jumping into his tunnel and disappearing.
"Alright." North agreed, gripping Jack's shoulder firmly. "But be careful, Jack."
Giving a nod, Jack put on his most convincing grin. "Don't worry about me, I can handle Pitch." With that, they departed; North, Tooth, and Sandy heading for Tooth Palace and Jack riding the wind to the address on the business card Zeta had given him. He needed to know what was going on before he could risk starting a war by telling the others about Zeta. If he was lucky, he could get her plan out of her and then bring it to the others so they could prepare properly.
The fly to Zeta's house took Jack to some snow-capped mountains in the middle of nowhere. If Jack hadn't have known the area already, he might not have been able to find it. As we walked up to the doors of the large house tucked into the mountain-side, he looked to his left to see the crevice he'd been thrown into when Pitch had broken his staff. Pushing back the bittersweet memories, Jack went to knock on the double doors only to have them open as soon as he raised his fist.
"That was a good lie, Jack." Zeta greeted, stepping aside so the winter spirit could enter her home.
Ignoring Zeta's compliment, Jack stepped inside. He was expecting some sort of ambush but as Zeta stepped in front of him and began to ramble about the location of her house, he was beginning to think an ambush was less and less likely. Zeta led him into a cozy sitting room where Jack saw the biggest dog he'd ever seen in his life sleeping curled up in front of a lit fireplace. The dog was the size of a truck and immediately sprung to it's paws upon seeing Zeta.
Sitting on an indigo couch, Zeta motioned to the armchair opposite her and watched as Jack sat down. "Tea?" She asked, pouring herself a glass and looking up to see Jack shake his head. "You're awfully quiet. Earlier today I couldn't get you to shut up." Zeta commented, stroking the dog's head as he laid on the floor in front of the couch and set it in her lap.
"I guess I'm more willing to be quiet and listen than I was earlier today." Jack admitted, still on edge in Zeta's presence despite the casual air about her.
"Fair enough." Zeta sipped her tea and watched as Jack's eyes idly wandered her sitting room. They never left her for long even as they wandered and she could tell he was terribly paranoid. "When I extended this invitation to you, it was under the pretense that you tell me why you're so against siding with me." Zeta reminded the antsy winter spirit sitting across from her.
"Because you're bad." Jack answered without really thinking, his eyes resting on Zeta.
"Am I? You don't really know me." Zeta countered, voice calm and unoffended despite the accusation.
"You threatened the Bennetts." Jack countered right back, breathing deep so his anger wouldn't get away from him.
"You wouldn't listen to me." Zeta said, a small smile playing her black lips. "And you were being very rude."
Unsure if Zeta was serious or simply trying to get a rise out of him, Jack didn't respond right away, opting instead to stare at Zeta incredulously for a moment. "You brought back someone who could destroy this world. I was angry." He said after the moment passed, still having to be careful to watch his tone.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Jack." Zeta sighed, shifting so she could cross one leg over the other, her massive dog having to move his head. "I brought back a man who was wronged by you and the other guardians. I brought back a man who has just as much of a right to guard childhood as any of you. I brought back a man who, after some gentle explaining, understands that trying to go it alone is a stupid idea and is willing to accept a shared role in the grand scheme of childhood."
Not believing a word of it, Jack crossed his arms. "Right." He said sarcastically, bristling when a familiar laugh echoed from the dark corners of the dimly lit room.
"I told you he wouldn't believe you." Pitch said airily, coming out of the shadows behind Zeta and laying his upper half against the back of the couch, arms folded beside Zeta's head.
"Indeed." Zeta agreed, tilting her head slightly. "Of course he hasn't see how much you've changed."
"Changed!?" Jack finally shouted, standing and barely registering Zeta's massive dog watching him with narrowed golden eyes. "He gave Sandy that nightmare! He's still obsessed with fear! He hasn't changed!" Jack looked from Pitch to Zeta and his anger was briefly overridden by confusion. They were both smiling like they were sharing some inside joke that Jack had reminded them of. "What!?" He snapped, for the first time in his life, not in the mood for any games.
"I didn't cause that nightmare." Pitch said, eyes drifting down to Zeta.
"Surprise." Zeta said softly, grinning at the confused look on Jack's face. "Pitch doesn't have enough power to cause nightmares yet. Manny is keeping his powers from him."
Falling back to his seat, Jack looked between Zeta and Pitch again. "But that doesn't change anything." He said slowly, realization overtaking confusion on his face. "You're both still bad."
Sighing, Zeta stood and was looming over the winter spirit before he could even register that she'd stood. "Time to be quiet and listen again, Jack." She said softly, pausing to see if Jack was going to disobey her. He didn't. "Pitch no longer desires to cause nightmares for the sake of gaining power, he desires to do it because it's part of who he is as a Guardian." Jack opened his mouth and Zeta put her hands on the arm of the chair and leaned in closer, effectively silencing him before he could even utter a syllable.
"Once upon a time, you weren't considered a Guardian either, so don't even say Pitch isn't a Guardian." Zeta countered Jack's unmade argument, powerful green eyes boring into Jack's light blue ones. "Fear is as much a part of childhood as fun. Fear helps children make sense of the world around them until they aren't children anymore and can understand. Fear is a tool. Far better to have such a tool in the capable hands of someone who knows how to wield it than to let it go unchecked." Zeta leaned back a bit, hands still on the chair Jack was sitting in.
"Pitch is going to come back to power with or without your support. With or without the support of the other Guardians. I'm not asking you to like it, I'm not asking you to like Pitch, I'm asking to stay out of my way if nothing else. If anymore than that, I'm asking you to help me make the other Guardians understand how inevitable all of this is when the time comes so I don't have to kill and replace them." Zeta's voice was calm though her eyes burned with a passion that resonated in an unexplainable way with Jack deep in his heart. "Are you with me or are you against me?" She finished, backing off and looking down at Jack expectantly.
Once again, Jack looked from Zeta to Pitch and back again, considered what he'd just been told, and knew that there was only one thing that he could say. "I'm with you." He said quietly, still feeling unsure but knowing that it was the right thing to do. The others would never listen to Zeta but maybe they would listen to the both of them. Jack had to try, he wouldn't be able to live with himself knowing what he did if they didn't listen and wound up dead because of their pride.
Having checked on Tooth Palace, the Warrens, Sandy's Dreamscape, and back on the North Pole, the other guardians had found that Pitch was nowhere to be seen. Upon arriving back at the North Pole, however, they found the entire workshop to be oddly quiet. North was the first to figure out what was wrong.
"Where are all the yetis?" The large Russian asked, frowning and looking around the abandoned workshop.
"And the elves?" Tooth added, frowning just as deeply as North and feeling very uneasy.
"They're out." Zeta called from nowhere in particular, phasing into existence from a sliver of darkness under a window's ledge. "Having a company picnic out in the frosty wastes, I guess." She watched the Guardians spin around in unison to face her, Bunny with his boomerangs drawn and North brandishing his swords. "Whoa, chill guys." Zeta said calmly, holding up her hands in a non-threatening gesture. "I'm not here to hurt you. Yet."
"Was that a threat?" Bunny demanded, ready to attack at a moment's notice.
"Calm down, Bunny." Jack sighed, stepping into the workshop from an open window. "She just wants to talk to you guys. I think you should listen."
"Normally I wouldn't judge a book by it's cover, Jack, but she looks exactly like Pitch. It's sort of hard to be calm." Tooth cut in, barely able to keep her eyes off of Zeta long enough to speak to Jack.
"Rude." Zeta muttered, going ignored as Jack spoke again.
"I know. But just listen. Please." He asked, glancing at Zeta out of the corner of his eyes and giving his fellow Guardians such a pleading look that it even gave Bunny pause.
"Why don't you just tell us what's going on, Jack?" North questioned, tearing his glare away from Zeta to look at Jack.
"Because that's my job." Zeta cut in cheerfully, gaining everyone's attention once more. "See, I have a bone to pick with you guys, so to speak. A bone that apparently could pass as the male version of myself." She tilted her head a bit as she spoke and then held up a hand to silence Bunny who was about to say something. Most likely something that would kill Zeta's diplomatic mood and launch her straight into war mode. "I'm of the firm belief that Pitch is a Guardian whether you all like it or not and I plan on making that belief a fact. It'd be super swell to not have to beat you all to a bloody pulp to do that, but I'm not opposed either." Zeta finished, unable to keep herself from smiling at the livid air around the Guardians.
"I know it sounds bad, but she's going to do it no matter what. There isn't any stopping her." Jack said, earning the glares of his fellow Guardians for what was an obvious betrayal. "She isn't saying Pitch is going to rule or anything, she just wants to give him equal status to us! Fear is more important than you all realize."
"Listen to yourself!" Bunny shouted, pointing a boomerang at Jack. "You sound like you're off your rock!"
"I know!" Jack shouted back, practically clinging to his staff as though it were a security blanket. "But you don't know what Zeta is capable of! You don't understand what will happen if you don't stand down!"
Easily the most hurt by Jack's betrayal, Sandy had heard enough. He slowly rose from the floor on a cloud of dream sand and in an instant was armed with two whips.
"Right good thinking." Bunny muttered, flinging a boomerang at Jack only to have it caught by Zeta.
"San Frantastic." She breathed, incinerating the boomerang in a flash of blue fire. "I guess that means it's my turn again." Zeta caught Sandy's whip as he lashed out at her and the sand it was made of turned to dust and fell to the floor. The Guardians were shocked but Zeta quickly pulled them from their stupor with two simple words. "Let's dance."
Letting out a battlecry, North charged at Zeta, swinging his swords at her and meeting a clash of metal as Zeta was suddenly wielding swords identical in build to his but different in color. Zeta kicked North in the stomach and he flew into the opposite wall. She then caught the kick Bunny had aimed at her with her now unarmed hands and threw him into Tooth who was rushing towards her. Zeta caught another dream sand whip as it went straight for her head and it turned to dust as well. Sandy continued to conjure whips and did his best to keep Zeta distracted while North got back into the fight.
Standing silently behind Zeta, Jack watched the fight, his heart full of sorrow. He wanted so badly to help his friends, but he knew how it felt to be excluded. Now that he knew how it felt to be a Guardian, a status that Pitch had indeed once held, he couldn't imagine losing it. To become invisible and irrelevant again. Jack steeled his resolve and watched as Zeta easily stood her ground against the other Guardians, never moving from her spot in front of him. Quite suddenly Jack realized that Zeta was protecting him. She could dodge Sandy's whip attacks but that would leave himself in the line of fire so she caught every attack even when fending off another Guardian.
In that moment, Jack felt something inside him shift. He'd known it was there the day he'd chosen to go after his memories instead of being there for the other Guardians during Easter but he'd squashed it down and ignored it. Jack felt an odd darkness within himself. He felt a similar feeling whenever he caused mischief but this feeling was far more intense. Before Jack could really think about his actions or try to reign in the odd feeling, he was blasting Tooth out of the air with a frigid wind.
There was a pause in the room as everyone, even Zeta, turned to Jack in surprise but he didn't give them time to register what had happened, choosing instead to aim his staff at Bunny. That was what it took to bring everyone out of their stupor and now Jack and Zeta worked together to fight the others, Zeta handling Sandy mostly and occasionally keeping anyone from getting too close to Jack when he was busy and Jack blasting back North, Tooth, and Bunny whenever he could get them in his sights. He didn't want to cause them any real harm so he only hit them with frigid wind, knocking them into walls and crashing them into other solid objects.
The fight didn't last much longer once Jack joined in, as Zeta focused on tiring out the Sandman and Jack's blows to the others began to take their tolls. Soon all of the Guardians were on the floor, too exhausted to continue fighting and everyone but Sandy bruised and even a little bloody. Zeta gave Jack a grateful nod and was pleasantly surprised when he actually returned it. Then a new figure entered the workshop-turned-battlefield: Pitch Black.
"My, my. You weren't lying when you said you'd make them listen like you did with me." He observed, looking at the downed Guardians and smiling when Sandy tried to conjure up a weapon only for his sand to fizzle out.
"I haven't quite got to the listening part yet but you won't believe who pitched in to help with the whole "beating them into submission" part." Zeta replied, smiling and tilting her head at Jack.
"Oh?" Pitch asked, quite surprised. "Aren't they still your friends? Aren't Zeta and I still bad?"
"I get it now." Jack replied softly, making eye-contact with Pitch and knowing that the Boogeyman understood what he meant when his expression softened.
Trying very hard not to make a sound high enough to break every window in the North Pole as her boys had their moment, Zeta spun around to face the downed Guardians. "So now that you're all broken, watch and listen." She said, clapping her hands and turning her gaze skywards to the moon. "I want you all to hear this next part." Zeta then cleared her throat and cupped a hand to her mouth. "Hey, Manny!" She called, pausing and cupping the same hand to her ear. Zeta made a show of pouting and then cupped her hand to her mouth again. "Don't be like that, Manny, I just wanna talk!" Zeta called again, once again cupping her ear and then shrugging.
Dropping the act, Zeta looked at the Guardians once more. "Manny holds the same power over all of you that Pitch once held over the world, but I've never heard a peep out of any of you. Not even now. You all got your asses handed to you and he chose to do nothing. Do I hear a single word of criticism? Nope." Zeta turned to look at the moon and then her hands suddenly became alight with blue, purple, and black flames. "I came here as an equalizer." She hissed, bringing her hands together and shooting a ball of fire straight at the moon.
At first the others said nothing, just watching Zeta. The big four didn't think anything would happen but Pitch and Jack knew better and simply waited quietly. After a bit, the moon's glow turned faintly blue, then purple, and finally black before turning to dust right before everyone's eyes. There was silence at first and then North, Bunny, and Tooth all screamed, all three of them and Sandy wanting desperately to hurt Zeta but none of them having the energy.
Their screams eventually died and before anyone could get out any "you monster"s, Zeta picked up where she left off. "And as an equalizer, I think that both the negative and positive Guardians should have the same amount of power. Welcome to sharing, bitches."
Despite himself, Jack started laughing. He tried to stifle it but it got harder when Pitch joined him, followed shortly by Zeta herself. The other Guardians were too shocked to speak even as the laughter eventually died down. Jack couldn't help but think about how much he'd have appreciated Zeta's intervention back before Manny had chosen him. How much he'd have agreed with her and how much darker he might've been for it. He'd always loved to prank Bunny and pranking humans had become one of very few joys he got in his early years. Now Jack thought that perhaps he was never meant to be as wholesome as he'd gotten around the other Guardians, maybe fun didn't need to be so innocent just because he had the title of Guardian. Maybe he was always meant to be a little dark.
