The fire created by the helpful student at the beginning of the attack has died down to nothing more than smoking embers in the grass. Jack had seen the boy get carried off by one of the mares, unconscious and being dragged by the leg of his pants. It is an unpleasant mental image and one Jack isn't likely to forget for a long time. The looks of pure terror on everyone's faces will be seared into his memory. They had been wholly unprepared for this and there wasn't much he could do in the first place, but it still makes him feel awful.
Now, Jack assists in clean up as best as he can. He leans the crook against a wall and takes the broom from North's outstretched hand. It's going to be difficult trying to sweep up all the glass in the mansion if every window had been broken. Jack wonders, for the first time, what they're going to do about all of the open panes.
As they work, they talk, mostly about small things in an attempt to keep the mood light. Jack comes to find that Bunny is a shape shifter of some kind (but Bunny won't tell him about it and Jack can't fathom why that is. He just wants to know).
"So, does everyone have whips or is that just Sandy?" Jack asks, idly sweeping glass into a pile.
Sandy tosses his head back in laughter, slapping his hand to his knee and shaking with mirth.
"No, Jack," Bunny says, a great big grin on his face, "not all mutants have an ability that makes up for what they lack physically. Sandy is a bit shorter and while his ability is useful in a mental sense, he can't dream his opponents to give up."
And as if on second thought, Bunny tacks on, "No offense, Sandy." The man in question shrugs carelessly in reply.
"Some people don't need weapons. Some of us are lucky enough to be able to rely on our abilities alone. I mean, North's got swords but those are just for aesthetic. Who wants a seven foot mutant running at you with sabers?"
They share a laugh, but the good feeling doesn't last long, the reality of the situation seeping in around the edges.
The wind blows in through the broken windows, tousling Jack's hair and plucking at his t shirt. A powerful gust spreads the tiniest bits of powdered glass out of the pile he has yet to sweep into the dust pan. He can hear Tooth shivering; can see Bunny's breath steaming in the air. He looks at his hands, clenches the hand not holding the broom into a fist and can feel his partially healed cuts pulling the surrounding skin, small dots of blood have oozed through the bandages. Jack can't take the bandages off, not yet and his hands feel so thick with the gauze covering them. He's lucky he hadn't needed stitches at least.
The crook leans against the wall innocently, nondescript, blending perfectly with its surroundings. Jack looks at the open windows, then back at the crook and makes his decision.
He sets the broom aside and grabs the staff, gripping it with determination.
Approaching the windows, he sets the end of it along the edge of the window. Jack takes a breath, tightens his grip, lifts the staff and taps it against the wood. A small spark goes up and frost blooms in its wake. The Guardians move around behind him, slowly making their way to other parts of the ground floor.
Jack presses the crook back down more firmly, lets his power pour into the wood beneath his fingers and takes off running down the bank of windows. Thick ice creeps up the sides of the frame, climbing toward the ceiling and blocking the hole over. By the time Jack reaches the end of the bank of windows, ice has taken the place of glass and the wind is unable to penetrate the barrier.
He walks back to where the Guardians stand, balancing the staff over his shoulder. He grows uneasy at their wide-eyed stares.
Jack clears his throat, looks away and says, "That should be a little better. Might have to- uh- to do that with all the windows…" He trails off awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot.
They've all gathered together again, grouped in a little lump in the open space around them and each one of them staring at Jack.
He feels so foolish for thinking that, maybe, now that he's around other mutants, he wouldn't be stared at. But it seems he was wrong. He clears his throat inelegantly again and twists the staff his hand, the back curved portion behind him brushing his hair a little.
"I'm gonna… I'm just… I'll be going now. To- um- clean elsewhere." He nods decisively and makes to pass the Guardians. A large, warm hand flings out and curls around his upper arm, jerking him to a halt.
"Jack," North's voice is low and careful, "that was fantastic. How old are you?"
"Uh, 17."
"You've got to be at least level 3. At least."
Jack looks at the others' faces and where he first saw judgment and fear, he now sees awe and wonder. They're not staring at him, but at the iced over wall behind him. The ice must be 4 inches thick and is still see-through. The outlines of the ground and trees outside waver and steam rolls thinly off the ice. If Jack listens closely enough, he can hear the minute clicks of the ice cracking, the heat returning bit by bit to the room and contrasting with the cold surface.
"Would you be able to do the rest of the windows?" Tooth asks, looking from the window to Jack.
Jack shrugs, feeling his cheeks warm a few degrees and avoiding her direct gaze, "Yeah, easy."
Half an hour later and the manor is much cozier but not quite back together. The ice is a poor substitute for glass and won't last for very long. But it gets the job done and keeps it bearable while Jack and the Guardians are still inside (even though Jack seriously prefers the cold and would be more comfortable sleeping in the snow outside than he is sleeping under layers of blankets).
They end up in Manny's office, a safe-haven recently, it seems.
Baby Tooth loosens her grip from Tooth's feathers, fluttering down with her powerful pint-sized wings and pattering her way across the floor rug over to Jack.
She climbs up into his lap where he sits in one of the chairs in front of the desk. She squirms until she is comfortable and Jack holds her hands in his and she messes with his fingers while the Guardians discuss.
Jack has no idea what to do, where to go now- the fragile roots he'd begun to set down have already been ripped from their foundations. He listens as the Guardians plan and argue over what to do next.
Their words are gentle, soft spoken and colored with concern in the tones of their voices. Jack could fall asleep to this, listening to them, sitting in the office of a vague headmaster he's never even heard of, let alone met. But the sick twist of dread and apprehension in his chest keeps him awake.
"Why did that guy take the students anyway?" Jack asks, suddenly.
There is a moment of hesitation in the room before North says, "The students are what makes the school. Without them we are nothing- our mission is to show them that they are not alone and to keep them safe. What happened tonight has more than likely affected their faith in us as the Guardians. Pitch knows this."
Jack picks Baby Tooth up, sits her on the arm of the chair and stands to pace a bit. The staff leans against the back of the chair. Jack kicks the bottom of the staff, catches the upper half of it and twirls it mindlessly around his wrist.
"Who is Pitch Black?"
"Pitch used to be a friend, an ally. But his and Manny's views differed so much that they began to fight. Pitch left us to pursue his own path. His own mission, you could say. Like ours but radically different." Bunny says.
Jack taps the staff to the floor, watching the frost spiral over the surface and melt almost immediately after. He looks up at the others and asks, "What do we do now?"
"In other news: Father Sturges, a widely known priest from a small New York City parish, famous for his anti-mutant rants, has gone missing. Sturges disappeared from the St. Peter Roman Catholic church where he resides, late last night…" The radio channel changes with a click.
"…theories over his disappearance have exploded on the internet, thousands of falsified tips have flooded into the New York Police Department and many more have begun to argue about it. Was he abducted by a mutant? More than one mutant? Or was he abducted by a normal person attempting to incriminate the mutant community? Is he even still alive? We may not find out for a long, long time…" Another click and the channel changes again.
"…I happen to think it's a good thing Father Sturges has gone missing. Without him preaching his hate to the uneducated public, there will be more room to learn tolerance-."
"Are you kidding me, Jeanette? Father Sturges's disappearance is more than likely the beginning of an uprising! You don't know what those freaks are going to do! With Father Sturges out of the way, mutants have less to do with 'tolerance' and more to do with taking over! Don't you forget about mutant registration, either. Father Sturges supported that and so do I. With registration, things like this will be less likely to occur without repercussions."
"Did you really refer to the mutant community as 'freaks'? You're gonna get your just desserts, Alan. Oh, you wait. The moment you leave the studio, the mutants will be on you like wildfire…"
Pitch Black waves his hand and the radio behind him dies out in soft static, leaving only the sounds of trickling water- a constant in this underground place- and the children.
It's easy to hear the children crying where they are imprisoned beneath the thick concrete floor, in the drainage pipes. His boots tap loudly in the wide open space as he walks toward the open grate.
The grate is a large, circular aperture with thick iron bars across it. The wet, dirty faces of the children peer up at Pitch from below. His smile curls like smoke across his face when a particularly noble freckle splattered child shouts angrily at him, "Let us out!"
He ignores the child and instead posts a menacing mare above the grate. She pants humid breaths and clatters her front hooves over the bars, scaring them. The whinnying she lets out sounds horrifyingly like laughter.
Each drainage pipe is separated from the other by walls of rubble or compacted black sand, allowing only 10 to 15 students to stand inside each- a prison cell of sorts. Water runs down through the grates, into the pipes and through heavy, metal mesh flooring. If any one of the students were to break through the mesh to the pipe below, he or she would find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of drains and tunnels spread over miles and miles. And if that isn't discouraging enough, well, then the wicked creatures of Pitch's fabrication that reside in the tunnels should be more than convincing.
Pitch sets horses as sentinels to each cell, admiring the palpable terror on the air. Their fear gives him strength and oh, it is exhilarating. So much fear in such a contained space it nearly makes him dizzy with power. It's been such a long time since he's had any real power to speak of. Sure there's his sand-shifting but that is but a mere parlor trick in the face of his true ability. He has already weakened his foes considerably by taking away what is most precious to them: their believers. Without the students to populate the entirety of the school and to give the Guardians purpose, they will surely wither with their loss. Pitch is certain of it; how can he not be? He has lived for much longer than most of the Guardians but for Bunny, he's clever and self-assured.
His old friend, Manny, wasn't even at the school when he attacked. It was like he left it clean open for Pitch to dive right in. The absence of their precocious leader struck Pitch as very suspicious and has been cautious ever since the realization that something was off even before his arrival.
He paces the length of the control room he's taken up as his own. Its location had been ideal and still is now that he's got a captive audience. He stops in front of a globe- its surface made of blackened metal, bronze looking in places where it is not tarnished with little red lights glowing sinisterly. The globe is a replica of the one from the school, though anathema to everything its counterpart stands for. The imitation nearly is a fourth of the size of the original, the red lights showing the populous of normal people rather than mutants.
Pitch's smile returns, twice as odious as before, as he gazes up at his creation. Pride takes him over for just a moment. He was not present at the original globe's creation but it was more than easy to reverse-engineer the technology involved.
Pitch longs for the day when he can watch those lights flicker and go out by the millions. If everything goes according to plan, it won't be too long before his fantasy will become reality.