Disclaimer: All characters and places of both Frozen and Rise of the Guardians belong to their respective owners.
Beyond the Freezing Point
Chapter 2
Pitch felt the darkness fill up in his fingertips first, before it spread through his arms and then up his shoulders and down his torso simultaneously. The darkness, the fear, oh how he simply savored the feeling of being whole once more. He felt the delicious inky blackness of fear creep under his skin, powerful and wild, simply bursting to come out. The feeling of being solid and the feeling of belief. He felt better than he had ever been in centuries.
Once he simply felt whole, it was time to test his powers. The power he felt inside him was not only strong, it was raging. It had been kept in the dark for a very long time, and in the dark, it had manifested and seeped the life of the one who had locked it up in the first place. When Pitch felt it fill him to the brim, he marvelled at its vivacity and its capabilities, repressed for so long and just eager to be used. The thought of him being able to wield this tremendous amount of energy, of him examining every crevice, every curve, of this ice-cold darkness... why, it was downright seductive.
This was power.
He tried to conjure just a tiny slither of black sand, only to be astonished that the black sand he brought out from the palm of his hand abruptly stretched out in needles, swiftly stabbing the walls and the ceilings near the area he stood in. A maniacal laugh escaped his throat. There was not a hint of modesty at the raw power unravelling under his skin and he was more than willing to let it roam rabid. Was he not, then, a kind master?
He inspected then the black sand in the walls. It was much different from the sand he had created from the Sandman's own. This one was coarser, sharper in each singular grain. Like shards of broken glass. And it was cold. He grinned maliciously as he rolled a grain around his fingers, these diamonds in his hands.
"Who knew your little queen was such a wild card, Jack," he sneered. It was time to test out his newfound strength. Giant coils of black sand slithered around him, before exploding themselves into long thin needles, just as they did before, as they impaled everything in the main hall from where Pitch stood.
The sand did not stop there. It broadened across the floor with every step Pitch took as he strode towards the throne. In a matter of seconds, the sand had coated the whole floor and the wooden throne. Nightmares rose out of the sand on the floor, ready to obey and do his bidding. Pitch sat on the black throne now and gazed excitedly at these manifestations of his newfound power. And now to call for his little pet, who had been in the gallery since those pest-Guardians fled.
Pitch broadened his perceptions, projecting his energy around the castle grounds. He found a presence, bearing an essence of his own power melded with another kind of energy, in the portrait room. From his throne, he plucked a bit of the control he had on his Nightmares, projected it towards the portrait room, before slipping it easily into the centre of the presence in the portrait room. He felt his control bleed into the vessel, like a hand inside a glove, and smiled triumphantly to find that it was a perfect fit. It was always easy work when there was no longer a hint of heart inside a human body. Now all he had to do was sit back and watch beauty unfold before him.
The double doors of the main hall opened through a gust of strong wind. Pitch could barely contain his excited glee from his seat on the throne, as he smiled behind the clasped hands before his face. Thin icicles spread like deadly, razor-sharp flowers around the doors' ornate frame. The ice on the floor coated the black sand like glass as Arendelle's young queen walked in menacing elegance inside her throne room. There was a threatening, electrifying air around her despite her slender and petite appearance.
The ice magic that made her patterned blue dress had dissipated and had reverted back to its previous state: her coronation dress. Her hair was no longer bound to its signature braid, having fallen free from the strong winds she had created from the encounter they had with the Guardians earlier that day. Instead, it fell down to the small of her back in long waves of platinum. There was no wind now, just ice with every step she made with, Pitch noticed, her bare feet.
She was regal in all her untamed power and glory. Her face as that of a doll's; hollow, void of any emotion, with pupil-less glass eyes. A smooth, very thin layer of ice seemed to have formed around her like second skin, and when the light caught her, she gleamed like a porcelain figure. The ice was clear, not unlike glass. Upon closer inspection, Pitch noticed that the ice that coated her was alive; ever-changing to mould in tightly against her svelte form in whichever way she, or her dress, moved.
She stopped before the throne, a trail of smooth ice in the shape of snowflakes covering the black sand that had carpeted the floor. Delighted at all the prospects happening in that moment, and all this potential at his fingertips, the Bogeyman got up from his black throne and made his way down to her slowly, savoring this victory over her. Over that Frost-brat. Before her, he performed an elaborate bow.
"My Queen," he said, taking and kissing the top of her hand. He felt the intense cold of the ice on his palm and on his lips, before he tipped her chin up to get a better look at her face. "How about giving me an exclusive demonstration of your powers, your highness?"
Under his control, the queen gave a slight nod, turned around, walked towards the center of the hall and slammed her foot down the floor. A giant snowflake, irregular and jagged in shape, appeared and expanded. She raised her arms, her hair whipping against her face and from the expanse of the snowflake's surface, giant, serrated icicles grew rapidly, shaking the castle.
"Yes!" Pitch growled over the noise the castle made at the still-growing, lethal structures. Laughing hysterically, he invoked his own powers, fusing black sand with the queen's ice. Black needles rose from the floor to the ceilings, penetrating through the walls and roofs. Outside, the black-ice needles branched out, twisting and surrounding Arendelle's castle and bridge like a wild, thicket of thorns.
Pitch clapped his arms together in pure, unadulterated happiness and with a wave of his hands, the Nightmares galloped out the main hall in flurries of black dust and smoke to inhabit this new world of cold and dark. Once they were gone, he walked back to the queen and took her hand, a vile leer on his features.
"You have done excellently, your majesty," he said, taking her hand and leading her up to the second throne beside his. It froze immediately and icicles decorated it the moment she sat down. Feeling satisfied with everything for the first time in centuries, Pitch settled on his own throne, hands clasping once more before his face.
Come, Jack. Come and take her back.
Already he felt the fear of the townspeople under the chill of the weather. Already he felt the terror in their hearts as the Nightmares roamed and laid waste to Arendelle. His face contorted into one of pure ecstatic malevolence.
I'm waiting.