Disclaimer: I don't own it. Transformative work.

A/N: Movieverse only, set immediately and a bit post-movie. Title from Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." The wiki for Rise of the Guardians is pretty sparse, but I'm using it to flesh out my characters and Burgess, PA, which I couldn't find on Wikipedia.

Summary: There are other ways to snuff out a light. The Guardians won the battle; but Pitch was going to win the war.

FOR DESTRUCTION, ICE

But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great,
And would suffice.

Prologue: April 9, 2012

There was stillness, and silence, beneath the skin of the world.

"Noooooo!"

A writhing form wrapped in darkness slammed against the cavern floor, the fingers of one gray-tinged hand digging deep into shadowed siltstone. A vortex of black sand erupted on impact, splitting into strands that swirled throughout the cave. Most darted about the empty cages hanging high from stone arches; one guarded the glowing globe poised at the cavern's heart.

Shards of splintered wood fell from above, peppering the figure and a nearby heap of golden cylinders in equal measure. The only sound came from the cave ceiling – a heavy, slow noise of spilling granules, like the packing of dirt on a fresh grave.

And they mean it to be mine.

Shuddering with fury, Pitch groaned.

A chorus of high-pitched whinnies responded, echoing through passages slanted with sunlight and shadows.

He rolled on one side, cheek pressed against the cool stone floor. Pale eyes opened, and fixed on the globe.

Bright, and glowing – broadcasting his failure.

Pitch was on his feet and halfway to the golden sphere without remembering how he got there, a snarl twisting his face. The hole where his tooth had been ached fiercely.

The teeth.

Stopping short, he took a deep breath and turned his back to the globe. Rich light threw soft shadows against the distant walls, and winked back at him from mountains of brass cylinders. Triumph surged viciously within his chest, bursting from his lips in a ripple of sound. "Ah, hahahahaaa!"

Not as many as before, no – the fairies had taken as much as they could with them when they fled. But it would take at least four of Tooth's winged assistants to move one container, and the tunnels had closed against their re-entry even as they emerged into the sunlight.

His home was sealed off once more.

Secure.

"And even now they think they've won," he sneered, circling back to the glowing orb. The lights were back – but not as many as before his first strike; and most were not as bright as they had been.

Pitch ran his fingers across the eastern coast of Brazil, pale eyes alert. Beneath his touch, several of the lights flickered, so briefly that anyone else might not have seen. A smile curved chapped, graying lips.

The Man in the Moon's four warriors, all that stood between him and the world as it should be. And for all their power, not one of them had more than half a grasp of strategy.

Tactics, yes. Short-term solutions for short term problems. And they fought well together, even with their little addition.

Pitch bared pointed teeth in a grimace. I'll deal with him soon enough. Frost had power – and Pitch hadn't resisted the opportunity to try to add the sprite's strength to his own. But the boy was young, and foolish, and had thrown his lot in with the Guardians.

His presence was unexpected, and disruptive to Pitch's plans; but such was the nature of war.

And for all his power, Frost was only a boy, perpetually hovering on the leading edge of childhood. Therein lay the seeds of his destruction.

After all, children will believe anything.

Pitch chuckled, sending raspy echoes winding throughout the caverns.

Beneath his hand, the dots illuminating Western Europe lost their luster.

Onyx trotted up to him, neighing quietly. Its soft noises resolved into a report as Pitch listened. Tunnels closed/lockdown/distant stirring/someone coming

"Show her in," he commanded.

His favored Nightmare whinnied an assent, and galloped towards the western entrances. Black sand streamed through the darkness in its wake.

Pitch had shifted his concentration to Australia, chosen homeland of that waste of fur, when the shadows shifted again. "Ah, Mojca. So good of you to join me."

"I very nearly didn't." The voice that emerged from the darkness was deceptively smooth, carrying with it a sumptuous richness at odds with collapsed, wrinkled skin and her shredded, sagging dress. Eyes of palest amber stripped him to the bone, slit pupils shrinking in the globe's light. "Word of your defeat has already circled the world."

"Good," Pitch murmured.

"Oh? How so?" She stepped to his side, and as he turned, he caught a flash of smooth, bone-white skin tinted faintly green, and long hair shimmering in shades of ivory. "Because I'm beginning to wonder if your little venture is worth my while."

The bottom of her dress boiled with inky shadows, moving with life of their own. A face pressed out at him from the darkness, bottomless mouth gaping wide. Spindly arms stretched across the floor, grabbing for his ankles.

Pitch didn't move. "You knew my conditions when you approached me," he said flatly. "Now, be silent."

Mojca stilled, and the visage that faced him was senescent rather than seductive.

Good. Pitch didn't bother looking her way; instead, he kept one hand pressed to chill metal as he circled the globe, headed towards a small, select pile of brass cylinders. "I've set aside your portion. I want to know the results; but if any disagree, they're yours to do with as you will." The heap barely reached his waist, but these teeth were possibly the most important of them all. He shot her a narrow-eyed glare. "You will keep me informed. Regularly."

Lips, marrow-red, curled in a smirk. "Of course."

Anger clenched his fists, knuckles creaking with the force of his fury. Black nails gouged gray skin. "Mojca," Pitch said evenly. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that my being here is anything other than exactly what I've planned." And if you choose to believe I'm trapped, then you're a greater fool than I thought.

His Nightmares circled closer, tightening around her like a noose. Shadows in a shade of black found only on the dark side of the moon loomed high, threatening to swallow her whole. Pitch noted with satisfaction a sudden flurry of activity as the imps imprisoned within her trailing skirts went wild, limbs jerking free from the thick liquid that kept them part of her.

But it seemed there were still some tendons holding her vertebrae in line. "Oh, really?" she spat. "Because it looks to me like the Guardians set your own fear against you, and you're bottled as tight as you were at the end of the Dark Ages! The great Pitch Black, master of Nightmares, defeated by a pack of children and a sprite, while the Guardians are stronger than ever!"

A Nightmare snapped at her arm, ducking back just in time to miss a swipe of sharp claws. Mojca snarled, her teeth as pointed as his own. A shred of shadow dangled from the Nightmare's jaw for a moment as it champed at tattered cloth, before it dropped the scrap with a snort of disgust.

"But they're not," Pitch cut in smoothly. He picked up one brass container, fingers running over the diamond pattern locking him away from the owner's memories. "Did you think this was going to be easy? Going up against the Guardians, powered by the belief of a billion children, with centuries to entrench? And you thought they would be defeated in a single battle? Ha!"

No denying Pitch had hoped for it, and thought it nearly certain after consuming the Sandman – but she didn't need to know that. They were called contingency plans for a reason, after all. And the Nightmares were far from the only hand in his deck.

"Don't tell me you're not more powerful that you were a mere week ago, Mojca. I know you are." He drifted closer, his free hand reaching out to ghost along her waist, riling the imps up more. "Last time I saw you, these little ones didn't even have the energy to wake – much less get angry when my Nightmares got close."

At his silent command, Onyx swooped in and scruffed her, drawing a pained hiss as black teeth closed about the nape of her neck and yanked her from the ground. The sound made Pitch smile. "Well?"

"I am," she gritted, one clawed hand raised, frozen mid-swipe. The imps had cowered back within her skirts, vanishing almost completely from sight. "Barely."

Fear stained the air, and Pitch breathed it in, reading every nuance as it flowed thickly over his tongue. Lying. Oh, bad girl. It was almost hidden beneath the sharp shock of fear-for-self, but the underlying note of fear-of-discovery was a sour, subtle tang obvious to any connoisseur – which Pitch most assuredly was.

"I'm sure you'll manage." A flick of his wrist sent the cylinder spinning, end-over-end, at Mojca. Onyx dropped her, but one sharp-nailed hand caught the container anyway. Eyes locked on the mountains of glittering brass as his Nightmares started to swarm, moving through the piles with intent, it was Pitch's turn to smirk. "Now, get to work."

Mojca made it two steps before she pushed the bounds of his patience again. "But – you can't keep hidden forever. As soon as I make the first offer, the word will be out! And then the Guardians will know!"

"Oh, my dear – such little faith!" Pitch smiled, gentle expression a contrast to the violent glee lighting his narrow features. And such little foresight; they knew as soon as Tooth's fairies couldn't return to collect the rest of the teeth. "I'm counting on it."