"My, my... Isn't this exciting?" Pitch teased, enjoying all the furious reactions he was getting. Six pairs of eyes all glared at him and he smirked at the littered bodies.
He feigned his surprise "But oh! What is this? All my puppets have been killed off?" His eerie eyes landed on Rapunzel, enjoying how broken, scared and yet furious she looked all at the same time. "Naughty princess" he tsked
Rapunzel growled angrily "That's Queen Rapunzel to you"
"Do I look like I care, princess?"
Maintaining the bubbling storm inside her at bay, Elsa stood stiffly, her grip on the blood stained icicle tightening, her knuckles turning a shade whiter. She grit her teeth and hissed " You are sickening" If looks could kill, Elsa already had her intense blue eyes piercing through Pitch's chest. "You used innocent people to do the dirty work for you. They didn't do anything to deserve this"
"Used" His voice was soft yet sinister "But I did not kill them" Pitch smirked at how all six of them stiffened. "You did, then again... This isn't your first time killing someone off so brutally isn't it Elsa?" He chuckled darkly. "An ice pillar through Berk's chief's chest. How colorful"
A barbaric scream broke the tension and Elsa launched herself at the black robed man in blind anger, the sharp shard of ice in her hand aiming to hit Pitch. She didn't have enough time to realize he had already disappeared and in his place stood a sobbing boy. Elsa tripped purposefully, praying she had missed, to her horror, the moment she turned a deep gash on the boy's arm was already flooding with blood, she trembled and involuntary tears escaped her eyes.
Pitch cackled in laughter, causing all hell to break loose as Anna sprinted to slice him with her sword. Similar to what he did with Elsa, he vanished in a mist of black sand and replaced an innocent and confused townsfolk in his place. Anna no time to break her momentum and crashed against the person, tumbling over and down to the bloody cobblestone floor of the palace courtyard. Merida stood frozen in place, unable to decide whether she should shoot or stay stationary. What if she hits an innocent child as well? She could not risk that... She had already killed too many people today. People that didn't deserve to be slaughtered simply because they were possessed and ordered to kill and drag their friends and families along with them to the dark side. She swallowed the lump in her throat and charged without weapon at Pitch who was enjoying the show of Merida's friends involuntarily creating a massacre. Her horrible mistake, the immortal had impossibly fast reflexes and he caught the princess by her throat then raised her in the air. Merida struggled to breathe and she clawed at Pitch who smirked at her poor attempts to save herself. She already started to see black spots in her eyes as the last of her breath was squeezed out of her throat, her face turned purple in suffocation and she cried desperately.
Air invaded her lungs as she suddenly fell from Pitch's grip, hitting her back hard on the floor and still limp from being deprived of air she did not notice the mixture of blue and orange blurs that attacked the grey skinned immortal. Her blue eyes tried adjusting to the intense light, her ears rang as she heard crackling of ice and then a blinding explosion of whites and cold made her squint. A glimpse of someone's sapphire eyes and the sparkle of silver hair in the moonlight was what she saw before she fell into a black abyss.
"I never should have left" a voice evident with guilt and sadness was the first thing Merida heard, her consciousness restoring, but she could open her eyes.
"It's not your fault, Jack" Whispered Hiccup and she could already imagine how his green eyes would soften.
"Bullshit!" Jack cursed and Merida heard the stomping of feet then the crackling of ice. "Merida is unconscious and almost died! Anna's arm is sprained, Rapunzel is traumatized and won't talk! I could have stopped all that from happening if I simply agreed to come to the damned festival!"
"There is nothing you could have done" Hiccup's voice was suddenly laced with anger. "Pitch has gotten stronger the last time you faced him"
Merida's breathing hitched, she wanted to speak and tell Jack she was alright, she wanted to hug him and reassure him that he wasn't to blame. But her eyelids remained shut, she could not move her limbs and her back ached.
"How do we expect to defeat him when he can already mind control people and trap our minds in nightmares?" Jack's voice was muffled and Merida assumed he was rubbing both his palms against his impossibly pale face in frustration.
"The same way we defeat every opponent we face" a much different and feminine voice interrupted, Merida faintly heard grunting and hissing of pain then footsteps approaching the bed she lay on. She felt a cold palm pressing tenderly against her forehead before - who she assumed was Elsa - continued to speak. "Together. If we were able to win a war against Drago, who had an army of dragons and an alpha under his control, we can defeat this bed time pooper."
A moment of silence before Hiccup spoke, a hint of playfulness in his voice. "Bed time pooper? Really E?"
"A better term than naming an island Itchy Armpit, H"
Relief washed over Merida when the feeling on her limbs finally returned, her eyelids fluttered open and she saw the relieved expressions replace the solemn ones Elsa, Jack and Hiccup had. Merida's bottom lip hurt, but she managed to smile. "Ey," she chuckled at the horribly dirty way her friends looked. "Aren't yer faces a sight to see"
Visibly becoming self conscious, Elsa chuckled nervously and ran her fingers through her thick and tangled platinum blonde hair, strands hung above her dirt and blood covered face, a small scratch on her jaw. Jack's usually tousled hair looked incredibly messy, his brown coat stained in frozen dirt and Hiccup's neatly braided hair came loose, his overgrown locks covering his face.
"Will you look at that, just woke up from a possible coma and already insulting the way we look" Jack joked, his sapphire eyes twinkling.
Wincing at the pain on her back Merida tried to lay comfortable, momentarily realizing that they were already inside Corona's palace in one of the guest rooms. The bright and sunny day outside perfectly masking the darkness of the previous night, Merida had to stop herself from crying st the thought of the many lives they... She took the last couple hours.
"What happened?"
"Pitch tried to kill you" Hiccup said simply, looking as if he did not want to talk about it.
Merida rolled her eyes "yes, aye noticed but after that"
"Jack came," Elsa began, sitting down on the chair next to the bed. "He and Hicc attacked Pitch, I ran to Anna whose arm was sprained due to the impact of Jack's icy explosion" The pale woman spared the immortal boy an accusing glance. "And..." Elsa bit her bottom lip nervously, contemplating whether she should or shouldn't tell her. "Mer, he took Eugene"
Merida's hands balled into tight fists and she grit her teeth angrily, no wonder Rapunzel refused to talk. That grey skinned ghost took her husband, "He took goat"
Elsa bit back laughing at Merida's nickname for Eugene "Yes he did"
Drawing in a deep breath, she ignored the images of her frenemy being tortured in Pitch's dark lair, crying out desperately for help but vomiting sarcastic witty remarks at him at the same time. True that they weren't very close, but Rapunzel was her friend. And whomever Rapunzel cares for, Merida does too including that witty goat in a Royal suit.
Opening her eyelids and eyeing the kingdom of Corona through the window she knew what she had to do, even if she didn't know how to do it exactly.
"Then we're going to take him back"
