Chapter Text
The storm's that covered the greater part of the globe were not natural, not on Easter morning this late in the year. It didn't help that Aster had run his circuit the night before when he finished with his googies in order to find the best hiding places for them and there hadn't been even the barest hint of these storms brewing. He still had his job to do though, and aside from sending one of his googies to North with a message about these unnatural blizzards, but Aster had no idea what was causing these, but the if the weather patterns held true as the storm front’s moved then there would be some hellacious storms in the south within the next couple of days.
There was no natural cause for this storm, but there was nothing Aster could do about that at the moment, he had his duty to the children first and foremost. Though if the shadow looming in the storm in front of him was any indication he might yet be able to take a few moments here and there to straighten things out.
“Oy! You the bloke responsible for this dustup, or are you just bloody starkers being out in this crook weather?” Aster asked, cautiously approaching. When he was a few steps away from being able to put his hand on the figures shoulder, it turned, and the weather cleared just enough for Aster to finally make out the boy's features. Black and white, it was like the lad was stripped of all color, at least that was Aster's first impression. Upon looking closer he realized that assessment was wrong, the boy's eyes were just a very dark blue, not black as they had seemed at first. Everything else seemed accurate though, short white hair over pale almost greyish skin, and the fingertips gripping his staff looked frozen with frostbite, the skin blackened and cracked. The short cloak he wore could be doing nothing to protect him from the storm raging around him, yet he wasn't shivering, and his clothes were older and simpler, grey pants and some kind of simple off white shirt. He seemed darker than that somehow though, every shadow cast by a lock of hair or his clothes seeming darker than could possibly be natural, even in the watery light of this storm.
The most unnerving thing about the boy though was the complete and total lack of expression on his face, and if he hadn't seen the boy turn Aster would have been certain that this was someone dead, frozen at the heart of the storm perhaps. But even as he watched the boy, and he was just a boy he couldn't be older than sixteen, stepped closer to him, and one of those frostbitten hands raised towards the Easter Bunny as if he intended to pet through soft fur.
“Jokul!” The sharp word came from somewhere off to the side and both boy and bunny jerked appart, the boy's hand going back to join the other on his staff, and Aster's hands going to his boomerangs as the voice registered as Pitch Black. “Oh, should have expected to run into you.” Pitch stated, looming out of the shadows in the wind, even as Aster shivered, the boogeyman looked completely comfortable. “Good evening, Bunny... How are you doing this fine Easter Morning?” There was sarcasm and a perverse joy in his voice.
“Pitch Black, what in the hell do you think you're doing you crook?!” Aster demanded, his voice nearly a growl of rage at realizing exactly who was messing with his holiday, though snow and ice were new, probably having to do with that Jokul character.
“Why... having fun.” Pitch stated, fading in and out of the shadows in the storm, though the boy just stood there, still staring at Aster. “Do you like him? Isn't his power lovely, my Fearling Prince.” As the words left Pitch's mouth, something in Aster recoiled in horror as his eyes returned to that blank face and the dark shadows in it. “Jokul... why don't you show the Easter Bunny what you're capable of. Kill him.”
There was a split moment, as if the expressionless lad was taking a moment to process the command before he jumped forward, staff swinging towards Aster faster than he could have thought that the boy could move. Aster didn't have thousands of years of military experience and Pookan reflexes for nothing though, and even during his own moment of shock his body was dodging, quite certain that letting the boy's staff touch him would be very bad. Especially if the ice coating the ground where the crook of the staff had just touched the ground was any indication. Pitch was laughing, but Aster couldn't focus on that, only on dodging and trying to attack the impossibly fast fearling creature that was now facing him.
A fearling... they hadn't though that Pitch could create them anymore, it had been so long since these horrors had come to face anyone, though this boy didn't seem at all like the fearlings of old. “Now now, Bunny, I think we've had just about enough play time.” Pitch suddenly said, shadows rising up out of the ice around Aster and it was all that the pookan warrior could do to dodge that trap, though his shoulder slammed directly into the staff that the fearling was swinging towards him. Aster let out a pained scream as it felt like his arm had frozen solid, the muscle and joint stiffening as the fur froze with a thick coat of ice.
Jokul seemed to pause then, but Aster didn't pay much attention to it, dodging another fierce shadow as he cursed a blue streak into the air. An ice sprite of some kind, Pitch had corrupted an ice sprite into his fearling prince, but where had he found one with so much power? Ice sprites just weren't this strong, not in the spring when their season was weakening and giving way to new life...
Then Aster had no more time for thinking, no longer trying to fight he had to get away to warn the others, otherwise this would catch them by surprise as well. But both Pitch and his fearling were attacking him full out, and it was all he could do to avoid another quick freeze, but he ended up snared in shadows for his efforts. “Now Easter Bunny... you're mine.” Pitch was saying, and Aster growled his defiance, refusing to go down so easily, never to this creature.
Then there was the sound of bells and bright scimitars forcing Pitch back even as shadows shattered in the blizzard air, and Tooth was helping him back to his shaky feet, only for him to dodge the swipe of a crook ended staff, pushing the fairy out of the way as Jokul came after him again. The sprite was persistant and it was all that Aster could do right now to stay ahead of him, but thankfully the fearling creature was slowing at a fair pace. The blizzard seemed to be winding down too, and it gave the Easter Bunny a flash of insight to what must be happening. The fearling creature was young, and though strong his strength was fading fast, perhaps faster than Pitch realized while he fought North and Sandy not far away.
So Aster calculated and then acted, taking another blow from that danm staff in order to knock it out of the boy's hands and send it scittering across the street. There was still no expression on the boy's face as he looked up at Aster, his staff gone and his frostbitten hands empty in front of him. There was no pleading as Aster's powerful hind legs kicked him, sending him tumbling away in the oposite direction from his staff... but there was a cry of fierce pain as the blizzard abruptly ended, howling winds stilling immediately as the last few flakes of snow hovering in the air fell straight down. The clouds were still there, but the storm was well over. The boy was curled around himself clutching his gut and Aster knew he hadn't hit him there, in fact it hadn't been until after the boy had finished tumbling that he had cried out at all...
Looking over, he saw Tooth holding the boy's staff, the relic broken clean in half in her hands and a fierce look on her face as she watched the fearling creature gasp. “Finish it off, Bunny.” She said, her voice nearly as chill as the storm had been, and you would have to have known her very well to hear the tremble in her voice.
Aster nodded, knowing full well the pain she had suffered at the hands of Pitch Black and his Fearlings and why this new fearling couldn't be allowed to live. He had suffered similarily after all... But as he approached the gasping creature, and looked down at it, something in dark blue eyes made him hesitate, wondering who this had been before he had been corrupted into a fearling and if there was anything of that stranger left inside of him. Aster never got the chance to find out.. Howling in rage, Pitch's shadows flowed around the boy, dragging him down as the nightmare king retreated for now.
Aster knew it was his imagination, something inside of him looking for what couldn't possibly be there, but he saw the boy reach out, and thought he saw a flash of hope, or fear, as Aster reached back to try to catch him before the shadows took him.
They were in North's workshop, more specifically the infirmary attached to the lower levels as the Yeti medics rubbed healing salves into Aster's frostbitten arm. The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it had felt at first, healing quickly under the talented hands of the chief medic.
“I do not understand... Pitch has been threatening to make Fearling Prince, or Princess, for many, many years now. If could be done, why has not done it before?” North was asking, Tooth hovering anxiously while Sandy made thoughtful pictures above his head. “And who is Jokul boy to become creature shaped at Pitch's will?”
“I don't know, North.” Aster said again, a low rumbling growl in his throat which was a noise that had apparently startled the other guardians and they had seen him during and after battles before. This was new... he had never had to fight a child before.
“I'm certain we'll find out more than we want to know.” Tooth stated, her voice still cool though she was shivering now, and it was only a moment after she spoke that North wrapped her in his arms, offering comfort and peace to her wounded spirit.
Aster ignored them with ease of long practice, thinking instead on the pieces of wood siting on a nearby counter, what remained of Jokul's staff. It hadn't harmed Tooth when she touched it earlier, though when she had made to leave it behind Aster had stopped her, running furred paws over the gnarled wood carefully and frowning as he felt the life inside of it. North had already declared that it was a crucial part of the Jokul boy's magic, and that he could practically taste the winter spells laid into the enchanted wood, but there was more than just magic in it and Aster couldn't quite put his finger on it.
“Something ain't right. That was way too hard, but got incredibly easy after Tooth broke that staff.” Aster stated, growling to himself again as he ground his teeth in frustration. “No one puts that much power into enchanting something... You said that yourself North.”
“Yes... but boy might not have known better... Pitch has done much more foolishness in past.” North stated, disdain clear in his voice even as his grip tightened around Tooth. “Come... we will rest for tonight while Bunny heals and tomorrow we will formulate plan of attack. We will find and destroy fearling creature and then will seal Pitch once and for all.”