Empty Life of a Meaningful Death

Something more ancient than the Moon has been in the shadows...waiting. Where every dark thought goes, every fear disappears to, every ill intent and horrible emotion...it is the evil side of darkness. Pitch was one thing...he was part of the world order that kept everything in balance. When Pitch was defeated by the Guardians and the role for the ruler of darkness was momentarily vacant...it awoke that ancient evil and gave it a taste of what it could have. It lures Pitch towards the entrance of the Underworld and attacks him, making him fall in the River Lethe.

Pitch has forgotten everything.

Warnings: Some swears, feels, Greek mythology and it's characters and places, ending might end in death of one of the RotG characters. Not sure yet. Not Beta'd.

Prologue

The Guardians had defeated him and he had disappeared into the shadows after escaping his own nightmares. They had been horrible. He saw glimpses of faces from his mortal life but it had been so long ago that even if he wasn't the nightmare king they would still be fuzzy because it was oh so long ago.

There was pain and sorrow. Agonizing pain but it wasn't physical. His chest ached...it longed for something, for someone.

He remembered guarding a prison. He saw himself, a different part of himself, a more human part of himself, dressed in full battle armor. He was loyal to his cause, whatever that had been. And the reason for his ache was what fueled him everyday to give it his all.

Pitch stumbled and fell as he was assaulted with fuzzy and hazy memories of places and faces he couldn't name. His chest ached like he never believed. It hurt...it hurt so bad. She was in danger. The only one who mattered to him. His whole world. "DADDY!" it was that scream, that scream of a terrified little girl, his little girl had over powerful him and made him give into temptation. He willingly jumped into the darkness in an attempt to save her. He fell to his feet as he remembered very clearly how he was pulled into the darkness all those years back.

"S-Sera...Seraphina!" Pitch yelled.

The earth rumbled in response then then all went still. All was silent for a moment. Pitch felt so weak. With the memory of his daughter and the emotion of fear of losing her, he passed out for a moment.

ELoaMD

All the Guardians were at the North Pole celebrating their victory when the entire palace shook. When the shaking subsided they all paused and looked at each other. All of the elves and Yeti's stopped as well and looked at North and the Guardians in slight fear and curiosity.

"Uh...near by avalanche?" Jack suggested.

No one really looked convinced but North nodded and accepted the excuse, "Yes...yes must be it. Just avalanche..."

No one moved really as they continued to look at one another and around. Something was off, they could feel it, but they didn't know what. So they waited to see what else would happen.

They needn't wait long though.

The giant globe with a light that represented every child who believed flickered and then turned off completely. It was followed by all of the lights in the palace.

Sandy made whips out of his sand, North drew his swords, Jack prepared his staff, Bunnymund grabbed his boomerangs and Tooth and a few of her fairies prepped up.

Then the lights flickered back on and everything was back to normal.

"Uh...does that usually happen?" Jack asked.

North shook his head gravely. "No...something if very wrong. I can feel it."

"Aye...I can too. Every one of my instincts are on overdrive. The globe just flickered for the Moon's sake! What? Did all the kids in the world stop believing for that amount of time and then believed again?!" Bunnymund demanded.

"That's never happened before..." Tooth said, worry seeping in. "Ever."

"So...what do we do?" Jack asked.

Sandy pointed to the Moon that was full. The light shone in and they all listened but they heard nothing.

"He would answer us in time of danger right?" Jack asked.

"Course...right?" Bunnymund asked.

"Everything seems normal once more. Let us remain vigilant but...for now, we have duties in the morning. All of us." North said and the others nodded.

"Right but tonight we're supposed to be celebrating...so, turn on the music again, pass over some cookies, and let's party," Jack said with an encouraging smile.

Though they were all a bit tense and worried about what it could all mean, they took Jack's advice and relished in their victory as much as they could. But still, none of them could get rid of that feeling in the back of their minds that something was wrong.

ELoaMD

Pitch awoke feeling weak and disoriented. He stood on shaky legs as he tried to remember how he had gotten so weak. A sound of a horse woke him and he saw his nightmares but this time he was more angry than he was scared and they were under his control once more. He tried to gather and summon as much of his shadows and black sand to see where he was on power level when something caught his attention.

Everything dark and remotely ominous landed in his jurisdiction. He was the master of the night and king of nightmares. He was the ruler of darkness. But this was something new. Something old...

Pitch frowned deeply. He himself was very old so for him to think of whatever this was as old was something. It wasn't just old...it was sinister. It was alluring too. It called to him like a moth to a flame or a bee to honey.

He neared the entrance of the underworld and his curiosity grew. Anything dark coming from the underworld that wasn't Hades surely fell into his territory. He smirked at the prospect of gaining a new weapon.

Easily passing through the gates and by passing Cerberus Pitch looked for the power that was calling out to him. It was almost this hypnotic rhythm. Like a lullaby.

Shadows came from nowhere and surrounded Pitch. They accumulated into this beast of oozing darkness. It was hard to describe because it had no real form at first. Then it grew into a beast shape.

After some time of shadows just adding one after another one, the beast was standing on all fours. It was giant, a good two stories tall, and wide as a building. It was black from head to tails, there were six. Its arms and legs were bulky with muscles but it thins out going into his stomach, almost skeleton like. It didn't have fur, it looked more like leather. It was dripping blood, and Pitch guessed not its own. A strong stench of iron and copper filled his nose from the almost ink black liquid that was dripping to the ground. Shadowy thin tails whipped all around it, lashing and wanting to destroy everything they got close to. Its eyes were pitch black but fire surrounded them, its fangs were so bright that they contrasted to its darkness and Pitch could see the pure wildness and primal instincts of this demon, it drooled and clawed the ground in impatience...wanting to tear something to shreds.

Pitch stood his ground and demanded, "What are you?"

The creature just stood there until all of the surrounding shadows finished adding to him. Then is let out a screeching howl that sent Pitch flying backwards. Sadly his interest in the beast made him forget which river he had been standing next to. Pitch fell into the River Lethe and the effect that should have been instantaneous wasn't. The world...stopped for a bit.

Pitch Black had been the ruler of darkness. It was a cruel and evil part of the world, but a needed one. For there is no good without evil and no evil without good. The world lived in balance and with Pitch gone...balance was off.

ELoaMD

When Pitch Black appeared at North's palace, he had called in the Guardians who appeared as quickly as they could and they had him surrounded. Each one of them was ready for the battle they were sure would come but they weren't ready for what happened next.

Pitch groaned and opened his eyes to see five figures stand around him. He blinked a few times before he asked, "Who are you all? And for that matter...who am I?"