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Flying over the cityscape, Anna drinks in the beautiful view as the dying rays of sun poured over it all and made every building gleam. But the flight isn’t for mere pleasure- she’s on a mission. Well, sort of. The Arendelle sisters have formed an alliance with the Guardians of Childhood. Elsa has been asked to help North and Jack Frost with a problem at the North Pole, while Anna… gets to patrol Burgess in Jack’s absence. Make sure children look both ways before crossing the road. See that nobody runs a red light. Important stuff, sure, but not exactly the exciting chases and fights that she had hoped for.
Until a certain shadow mercenary catches her eye, causing mischief in the city he believes to be unprotected by any superheroes. But to her annoyance, he isn’t impressed by her at all. Not in the way she wants, anyway…
*****
“So you’re Pitch Black,” she observed, trying to keep her voice cool. “I thought from what the Guardians told me you’d look a little more... menacing than this, you know?” She willed herself to get angry to keep her inner fire burning. To not let him sense any of the nervousness she felt at facing the Guardians’ worst enemy alone in this alley in an abandoned side of town in her first confrontation with him.
At that, the specter-like figure gave her a hollow smile. “And you’re their newest recruit? I thought a member of the exclusive, powerful Guardians would look a little more…threatening, you know?” He looked her up and down, slowly enough to make her almost cringe. “Looks like the qualifications for saving the world are low enough for even dainty, pretty little girls to meet.”
“How about this?” Anna offered sweetly. “I use you for a punching bag for a little while, and I’ll let you decide how dainty my fists feel when they’re knocking some of your teeth out. Sound good?”
“Or, alternatively to the schoolyard threats, I go my merry way, you go back to doing the kiddie assignments the Guardians save for you…” he disappeared. Immediately, her fists were up and covered in fire as she looked around carefully, on guard. “…Unless you’re up for taking a break to have some fun tonight out in the city.” On the last word, his voice came from somewhere behind her.
She spun around quickly to throw a fireball at him, only for him to disappear even faster into the shadows. It had been a weak shot, and she scowled.
“Fun? With you?” Anna half scoffed, half laughed. North had warned her Pitch was incredibly manipulative and good at riling people up if they let him, but she couldn’t help herself. He was making fun of her and it was riling her up. And she hated it. The only way she knew to combat her unease around him was by acting as tough as she could.
He was truly maddening. It wasn’t just that he was taunting her—he did that with every superhero, and generously—it was that unlike the Guardians, he really did not see her as any sort of threat. Just because she was short and moderately cute?
“The only fun I’d have with you,” she told him flatly, “is throwing you into expertly designed maximum security prison to rot in, you creep.”
“Are you sure about that?” He still had not appeared; his voice seemed to come from everywhere at once in the misty shadows that surrounded her in the alley. “Because you’ve spent more time talking to me than doing any of that punching you mentioned.”
At the sound of his mocking, she sensed a presence to her right where the darkness grew ever so slightly heavier. Bullet-quick, she dove over to where she sensed him and shoved him against the wall, pinning his arms in as secure and vice-like a grip as possible. She covered most of her body in bright flames to keep his shadows away.
The pure look of surprise on his face made her feel satisfaction at finally having the upper hand. She even indulged a smile at him, but it melted away when he met it with a leer and a laugh.
“Trying to get physical already? Sunfire, I haven’t even taken you on a date yet.”
Her face burned, and not from her fire.