Light in the Black

nelaime

"Head's up, Gramps!"

Pitch let out an annoyed, low growl before the snowball even hit the back of his head. Behind him, the laughter of four very familiar elementals filled the normally dead air of his underground hideout. Without a doubt, he concluded his grandchildren would be the death of him if he ever suddenly lost his immortality.

Looking over his shoulder, scattered amongst the surface he'd been walking past, were his three grandsons of Winter, Autumn, and Summer, and his granddaughter of Spring, holding their stomachs as they cried so hard that tears were spilling from their eyes. And as always, Jack Frost's faithful mini tooth fairy was in tow, no longer scared of the place she'd once been imprisoned in.

"Remind me again why I got stuck babysitting you four?"

"It's not babysitting," Jack retorted, flashing his signature smile that dripped with fake innocence. "It's family bonding, and it's what Mother wanted."

"Yes, we mustn't upset her, of course," Pitch muttered as he turned back to head down the corridor.

"Aw, c'mon, Pitch!" Jack let out a hearty laugh, and Pitch had to greatly refrain from just slipping into the shadows to escape; he had promised Seraphina he would try. "You can't be a sour apple all the time! You'll get even more wrinkles if you keep scowling like that."

Pitch paused, looking back over his shoulder at his former rival, letting a small smirk pull his lips upwards. "Are you calling me old, Jackson?"

"To be fair," Alex spoke up, an eyebrow raised in a defiance he shared with his brother. "He isn't exactly calling you young when he calls you Gramps."

"You're not so innocent yourself, Alexander."

Alex groaned, sending a half-hearted glare towards Jack's amused expression and snickers. "I hate it when you call me that."

"It is your name, is it not?"

"Yeah, but-" Alex threw his hands around as he ranted, not realizing Jack and Chris were mimicking him from behind. "-I like to distinguish myself from my mortal life! Ever since the mortals came out with that one musical, all any of my siblings ever do when they see me is sing that damned song!"

"ALEXANDER HAMILTON!" The other three spirits sang off-key, causing Alex to whip around and glare daggers their way.

"For mine and Alexander's sanity-" Pitch chuckled softly. "-I might just lock you three in some of those cages I still have lying around until the next season."

"What good would that do?" Jack enquired as he finally managed to get his laughter under control. Mostly. "We could still be as loud as we want."

Pitch blankly stared at his grandson before answering.

"Because I could easily drop you off in the opposite season for a nice, long vacation."

"No way!" Chris immediately protested, calling to the wind to propel himself into the air, away from the tendril of shadows that had started inching closer to him. "I refuse to be forced to hang around the elves or the yetis or especially Jack's Antarctica militia!"

"His what?" Daisy began laughing. "You mean his armada of cuddly, flightless birds?"

"Well, it's not like I'd want to be stuck in your Sahara that you, for some reason, insist is a paradise," Jack mumbled.

"We could easily arrange to just leave you in the darkest depths here," Pitch pointed out. "A lovely reminder of your stay that one Easter, yes? How many years has that been now? Eight?"

Jack glared at Pitch, opening his mouth to most likely retort with something about Pitch's humiliating defeat at his hands, when the familiar sound of the ground rumbling and opening up stopped him short. The rabbit hole appeared between the elementals and Pitch, and out hopped Bunny, who immediately stood tall as his eyes fell upon Jack. The spirit of Easter looked anything but happy.

"I've been looking all over for you, ya gumby! North sent out the lights two hours ago!"

"It's not-" Daisy began, but Bunny quickly shook his head.

After Old Man Winter's attempt on Jack's life seven years ago, the Guardians and all of Mother Nature's children remained almost constantly on edge, afraid he might suddenly escape Pluto and strike when they least expected it. But all had remained relatively calm amongst the spirit world until the previous months.

"There's been a few new outbreaks on America's East Coast," Bunny explained. "Manny wants us to go check on the children in the affected areas, see who's ill and who's healthy, what we can do to help, if we can do anything to help..."

Jack nodded, his frame becoming rigid at Bunny's words. The outbreak of the Coronavirus had swept across the world within the past few months and the numbers were steadily rising with no sign of stopping. It had made Easter this year hard for Bunny, having to pull some pretty elaborate tricks to get eggs to children who weren't allowed to go out to egg hunt. America, it seemed, was now getting the short end of the stick, and Jack had gone with Bunny on several check-up missions to the affected areas.

It seemed almost unnatural to Pitch, seeing Jack so tensed up and the other elementals mellowing out as they all gathered around Jack.

"Can we come too, Bunny?" Daisy asked, her tone begging. "I'm sure Mother won't mind."

Bunny seemed to ponder for a moment before nodding. "A few more pairs of eyes couldn't hurt. Go meet the others. We'll go in pairs of two."

Pitch kept himself quiet. Even though his relations with the Guardians and the elementals had greatly improved, it still wasn't his place to offer help. There wasn't much he could do anyway. Though he did suspect that the Sandman knew he was drawing out as much fear as he could through children's own creations of nightmares to allow Sandy better success at turning them into carefree dreams.

Alex, Chris, and Daisy quickly dispatched from the lair to meet with the other Guardians while Bunny and Jack left via Bunny's tunnels. Jack kept up with Bunny fairly easy; their impromptu races were starting to pay off.

"Where are we going this time?"

Jack couldn't see Bunny's face as he continued leading the way, but he could feel Bunny's hesitation before giving an answer.

"Burgess."