The Last Guardian Ch 1

It wasn't supposed to end like this. Pitch stretched a pale hand toward the rapidly vanishing ray of light, but it was too far off. There were too many Nightmares. They poured though the closing portal in an inky tide, blotting out the last feeble beams as the earth closed in overhead. Everything was darkness, a blackness so thick even his eyes couldn't see though it. The Nightmares shrieked around him, the sound echoing though his very being. He was going to disappear. The Guardians had won. Their light shown too brightly to allow him anywhere to hide, and the children of the world would forget him.

 I don't want to fade away.

 I don't want to be forgotten.

 I can't...be...

Pitch Black's birth had come from an all-consuming darkness, and he knew now that his end would be the same. There was nothing but this endless, starless night.

Strange voices hissed in his ears, taunting and cruel. He tried to ignore them, screamed at them to be silent, but he could not drown them out. They simply laughed. The sensation of falling through the bottomless void never ceased. Things swirled around him, but he couldn't make them out. Even the molten glow of the Nightmares' eyes was absent. The darkness was absolute. Overwhelming. Darkness eternal. This would be his fate.

Then, without warning, the shadows surrounding him dissipated like a curtain being drawn aside. Pitch wasn't falling. He was standing on solid ground, back in the world above. He stood blinking in the sudden brightness. This had to be false. There was no way the darkness would have let him off so easily. Yet...nothing looked out of the ordinary. It was a busy city. Humans milled about, oblivious to his presence. They passed by, and occasionally through him, without a care. That was hardly unusual for adults in the light of day, though. Pitch blinked a few more times, and glanced around. Snow still lay on the ground. Dogs barked and children laughed. Normal. It was all too normal. This is an illusion, he thought. A trick of my own Nightmares. It had to be, but how could it affect him, their king?

A flash of movement on a nearby rooftop caught his eye. Jack Frost. The white-haired boy bounded down from his perch, creating an icy trail and nearly tripping a few unfortunate pedestrians. He turned , heading straight toward Pitch. The Nightmare King felt a surge of unease. What if this wasn't a bad dream? Had the Nightmares brought him back to disgrace him further?

“Jack... “ Pitch began.

Oblivious, the boy passed through him, chasing after some children and trying to pelt them with snowballs.

No. No, this was impossible. Even someone like Jack... The one person who had almost sympathized with Pitch. Jack, the only Guardian who truly knew what it was like to be unseen and unheard. This had to be an illusion. Pitch whirled frantically, gazing at the world around him with a growing dread. No one looked at him. No one spoke. He wandered aimlessly though the streets as day faded to evening. It stretched too long to be just a fantasy. Time was passing much too normally.

The crowds thinned and the Moon rose. Try as he may, Pitch couldn't startle so much as a stray cat. As the night wore on, strings of shimmering gold wove their way into his vision as the Sandman began to work his magic. The round little Guardian floated by overhead without so much as a glance in his direction. No. They had to see him. Even if the humans couldn't, the Guardians had to. They were spirits, as he was.

“SANDMAN!” He shouted into the sky. “Cease this play. I know you can see me. I get it, you've won. I've lost. Is that what you want me to say?” He clenched his fist, molten silver eyes fixed on the shining dreamsand. But Sandy didn't even bat an eye. Pitch snarled. How dare they toy with him? He started to run after the diminutive Guardian, but he felt rooted to the spot . The hissing voices began anew.

 You will never again see the light. Not daylight, not starlight, nor Moonlight.

 No one will remember you.

 Your existence will be erased from the consciousness of this world.

 You are alone.

 Unwanted.

 Unneeded.

 Even the Guardians have forgotten.

 You will wander the land for eternity, unseen and unheard by mortals and spirits alike.

“NO” he screamed, his own voice sounding thin and feeble. “I AM THE NIGHTMARE KING. I AM PITCH BLACK, AND YOU WILL SERVE ME!”

Pitch Black. Kozmotis Pitchiner. Neither matter anymore. Neither will be remembered, they responded lazily.

Pitch was alone in the street. The dreamsand tendrils faded, and stillness reigned. The Moon gazed down silently, but then again, the Man in the Moon had never bothered to speak to him. Was this truly his fate? Was he truly not needed in this world?

You have no place here.

The path he walked hadn't even been his own choice. Unlike the Guardians, no benign Man in the Moon had granted him magic.

The darkness will take you.

It had been forced upon him, and he'd had to carve out his own place in the world. That had been a very, very long time ago.

Kozmotis Pitchiner. The malevolent little whispers had called him by that name. He remembered it, even though he had long ago abandoned it. It was perhaps the only clear memory from before the shadows invaded. Everything else was patchwork, little snippets of things that must have been. Only the aftermath had been carved deep into his mind. You failed. Pitch closed his eyes, as if that would somehow silence those voices. He tried to remember.

Kozmotis Pitchiner was the man he had once been, a Knight of the Cosmos. He had protected people from the darkness. That had been centuries, millenia ago. Pitch dimly recalled battles, and fear. There was door, and voices. The same cruel, taunting voices that were now haunting him. Fearlings.

Yes, you remember us.

Something had made him open that door, but it was gone from his memory. Open it he had, and then everything turned to darkness. He had fought that darkness, that much was ingrained in his mind.

He had battled it for what seemed like ages, and finally subdued it enough to control his own thoughts. When his eyes could once again see, they beheld a ruined landscape. He knew somehow that he had once protected that land. Now it had been destroyed, and by his hand no less. The sight had nearly broken him. He couldn't recall the people or the places, but he knew they had once existed. There had been something important, something he should have been able to remember, but he couldn't. Everything that had been was gone, and it was because of him.

No, he had reminded himself. It hadn't been him. While he lay in darkness, the Fearlings had used his body as a vessel to wreck havoc on the world. He repeated that to himself again and again. He was still Kozmotis Pitchiner. However, as he gazed out over the smoldering ruins, he knew that he was lying to himself. The Fearlings were not gone. He could feel them, locked away in the back of his mind, slowly warping his thoughts. They were a part of him now. He wasn't even human anymore. His skin had turned stone gray as if carved from marble, and he could bend the darkness to his will.

The voices had purred, telling him that this power, this ability to bring fear, was good. Power. He had strength now such as he had never before wielded. The shadows were his to control, and why shouldn't they be? It was tempting, so very tempting. Something gnawed at the back of his consciousness, but he had brushed it aside. No, whatever it was had been from his previous life. He could never return to that. He had decided then and there that Pitchiner was dead. This new him, Pitch Black, would move forward somehow.

He had learned very quickly that humans could no longer see him. They could sense him, however, and his presence caused them great fear. That fear vitalized him. He'd been loathe to admit it at first, telling himself that it was purely the influence of the shadows that now lived in his mind. However, the more people he frightened, the stronger he felt. Inspiring fear wasn't the same thing as being evil, right? Of course not. Fear wasn't evil, it was the force that kept people safe and under control. He was doing this world a favor. He terrorized travelers on dark paths at night. Better they meet him and his shadows than bandits and wild dogs. He haunted old ruins and abandoned places, frightening curious passersby or wayward wanderers. Better to believe that a demon haunted the crumbling old building on the hill than to have some unfortunate soul get crushed by a collapsing wall. People locked their doors at night and kept bright candles shining. They spoke of monsters, dragons and witches. Parents told scary stories to their children, warning them of the dangers of the night.

Those stories, and the sense of dread that resulted from them, gave Pitch his greatest strength . The fear of children was so pure. The reality of the hungry wolf in the forest was just as terrifying as the fantastic sea serpent waiting to swallow ships whole. The world was full of dangers both real and imagined, and what better to counter them than fear? Pitch Black had found his place, and truth be told, he enjoyed it. Scaring kids was fun, and it was for their own good.

He became the shadow outside the window at night, ensuring children stayed safe indoors. He became the monster that would spirit away kids who misbehaved. He was the dark beast that would devour any little girl or boy who went into the woods alone. They knew him, feared him, and believed in him. Their fear strengthened him and in return he kept them safe from the real dangers of the world. He never did like the term Boogey Man though. However, it brought him the notoriety that he needed, and belief in him spread throughout the world. That had been the peak of his existence. There were other beings in the world at that time, as spirits came and went with the strength of human beliefs, but most either avoided him or tolerated his presence.

Then, everything changed. The Man in the Moon, who had until then been a silent observer of Pitch's escapades, decided fear was no longer the way to go. Pitch had a feeling it may have had something to do with setting off the Dark Ages, but that was really all the humans' fault. He didn't control their decisions, after all. They could choose to face their fear or give in to it, he had no say in the matter. The Moon had never complained about his actions before, so Pitch didn't see why he should do so now. Just because Europe was having a miserable time of it didn't mean the rest of the world was too.

Yet somehow the Moon had decided that he was going to change the rules of the world, and change them he did. He created the Guardians. The Sandman, a fellow spirit who had roamed the world alongside Pitch became the first. Then the shining Tooth Fairy, and the rogue Nicholas St. North. After him was that the accursed Pooka Bunnymund. Once North had even asked Pitch to join them, as if serving the Man in the Moon who had suddenly turned his world upside down was an honor of some sort. Oh, they were supposed to protect children, that was what they all said. But Pitch had been doing that for centuries, and he had been doing a splendid job of it. They spoke of balance, but four to one hardly seemed like balance to Pitch. No, he was convinced that Moon had decided that Pitch Black was no longer necessary, and this was his way of politely asking him to disappear. Only Pitch Black wasn't going to disappear. The Fearlings hadn't defeated him, and neither would these so-called Guardians.

At first there had been a sort of uneasy peace. Pitch went on with his job of spreading fear and darkness, and the Guardians took to the various points of the globe to counter it with hope and light. Rather than preparing children for the realities of the wide world, they sought to cover them up with shiny baubles and bribery. Pitch and the Guardians confronted one another more often, and with four against one, Pitch began to lose. He grew weaker, and each fight left him with fewer believers. It became almost impossible to move about in the light of day, and even the light of the Moon sapped at his power. He was reduced to hiding in the shadows and sulking in dark places. Still he hung on, refusing to simply vanish into obscurity. He had needed a new plan, and found it in the Sandman's dreamsand.

Though he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the four Guardians, Pitch managed to steal some of Sandy's magic, and spent ages working to alter it to his will. It took everything he had, for the light of the golden sand was strong, and his last defeat had left him painfully weak. He refused to give up, and eventually Pitch's persistence paid off. The golden sand turned black with the power of shadow, and Pitch gained the ability to create dreams just as the Sandman could. No, not dreams. Nightmares. He gave them shape and life, and they obeyed him. When he was still too weak to leave the darkness of his lair, they went out into the world to corrupt the sweet dreams of children, and fear once again seeped back into the world. Kids began to believe in him again, and Pitch Black gained a new title, the King of Nightmares.

Everything was going perfectly. One Nightmare could corrupt a good dream, and create another Nightmare. In this way, Pitch was able to build his own army. Now, he could challenge the four Guardians, who had grown complacent in his absence. He could return to power. It was they who had destroyed the balance of the world, and he would take it back. If he couldn't take it back, then he would make certain that the next tip of the scales would be in his favor. Fight or flight, and he was tired of fleeing.

It was the beginning of the end. Pitch hadn't counted on the appearance of the winter spirit Jack Frost. At first it seemed as if Pitch had found a kindred spirit. Jack understood him, if only just a little bit. They could have even worked together. Until Jack had shown up, Pitch hadn't realized just how lonesome his existence had been. To have another spirit on his side... Pitch had even lowered his defenses enough to confront ice sprite on his own turf, in Antarctica. It was perhaps the most vulnerable he'd ever been.

Jack hadn't listened. He turned on Pitch, just as the others had. With Jack's power, and the help of some extremely determined human children, Pitch had fallen. The five Guardians had won. He would be doomed to this fate just as the whispers said. That knowledge terrified him more than anything, the idea of existing without existing. Even at his lowest point, Pitch had other spirits to talk to, just as Jack did. Now, there was no one. No other spirits could see or hear him. He was alone, just him and the voices that haunted him. The darkness closed in.

“No... Please...This cannot be my fate...I have fought far too long...”

“Nightmare King. Awaken.” Like a distant summer breeze, he heard a young woman's voice. It was barely audible, and faded away as swiftly as it had come.

Pitch opened his eyes. Something glinted silver in the darkness, drifting along on glowing wings. A butterfly? He saw them sometimes, on those rare occasions where he dreamed. Pitch reached a hand toward it and it vanished. There was a shrieking cry around him, and Nightmares scattered like leaves on the wind. There was no silent city. There was no endless void. The Nightmares had almost conquered him, but somehow they had been driven back. He was in his lair, lying on the ground in front of the great Globe. The lights that represented the children who believed in the Guardians sparkled gold, casting a faint glow over everything. Above him, Nightmares circled and whinnied. The voices were silent. Pitch simply lay there on the cold ground, too exhausted to move. Had he truly been spared? And by whom? That voice felt somehow familiar, though he was certain he'd never heard it before.