"Jack!" Tooth said, her voice holding nothing but glee as she flew up to the winter spirit. She had been nothing but a bundle of energy all day. She was even to the point of annoying her own fairies.
"Hey," Jack greeted her, as he sat on the small ledge that over looked the Burgess pond. It was his favorite place to come when he need time alone to think.
"You okay," Tooth asked as she sat down beside him. Her excited mood immediately changed as she became worried about Jack.
"Yea, I'm good," he said swallowing his emotions. He would put on a face for Tooth, besides his own problems could wait.
"Come on," Tooth said, as she grabbed his hand. She could hear that there was something wrong with Jack's voice, but she decided not to push it. Jack would tell her when he was ready.
"Where are we going?" Jack asked as he followed.
"You'll see," Tooth said with a smile.
They both flew for about an hour before Tooth finally stopped. They have flown north, they had gone up near Quebec. When she did stop, she stopped at one of the most beautiful places that he had ever seen.
"Beautiful isn't it?" Tooth asked as he watched Jack become speechless from the setting sun over the trees. "I found it last month when I was out gathering teeth," she said with a sign as she sat on a cliff ledge.
"I-" Jack started. He had no idea what to say as he sat beside Tooth. The setting sun looked mesmerizing as it painted the sky in so many wonderful colors.
She looked over at Jack as he watched the sun set. She was about to say something when out of the corner of her eye Tooth saw something black move. Turning her head, Tooth screamed out, "Jack run!" as she pushed him away from the attacking nightmare. As she pushed him away, she pushed him off the ledge that they were sitting on.
"Tooth!" Jack screamed as he fell over the side of the cliff. He was quickly able to stop himself from plummeting into the ground, but he ended up watching helplessly as Tooth was dragged away by several nightmares.
Jack flew towards Tooth, but it was too late. The nightmares were gone and so was their prisoner. Jack looked around again, before flying as fast as he could to North's workshop.
"North!" Jack shouted as he flew into the workshop. "North, Tooth has been taken!" After he again received no reply, Jack started to look around. It wasn't like the Russian to be too far away from his main office. As he was looking around, it was then that he noticed that the place was destroyed and all the Yetis gone. "North?"
Jack tried to find the other guardians but all he found were the broken and destroyed homes of each guardian. The warren was destroyed, all of Bunny's paint plants were destroyed, and his egg guardians destroyed as well. Sandy's home, or sand palace, literally looked like a child's destroyed sand castle. The realization dawned on Jack, they were all taken captive, he was alone, and all of the guardians were gone.
Jack flew back to Burgess where Jamie lived. He didn't know what to do. How could Pitch be that powerful after their battle two years ago? North had said it had taken Pitch since the dark ages to confront them. So there was no way that Pitch Black should have been able to take the guardians.
Jack hated to admit it, but he was alone and a little scared. He was scared of what Pitch could do. If Pitch was strong enough to take four of the guardians, then what good could he do?
"I should have saved her," Jack growled at himself as he paced back and forth in front of an old, decaying, brick wall. Jack and Tooth had just started dating two months ago. Jack had begun spending more and more time at the Tooth Palace until finally Bunnymund had snapped at them. He had put into words what the two of them could not. "Why couldn't I save her?"
"Ha, talking to a wall won't get your girlfriend back Jack," said a feminine voice from the shadows scaring Jack out of his thoughts.
"What? Who's there and how do you know who I am?" Jack asked backing away from the voice, and into the wall that he had just been pacing in front of.
"Me? I'm just a nobody," said the voice from a different shadow as the wind blew.
The voice had started to ring a bell but he still wasn't sure who the voice belonged to. "You still answer my question."
"Yes I did. You ask who I was and I told you I'm nobody, I'm just a voice in the wind," the voice replied with a chuckle at her own joke.
Jack thought to himself, 'Okay it's a female voice, but where do I know the voice from?' He tried to think of all the people the voice belonged to. "My question, you did not answer," Jack said, the irritation plainly heard in his voice, "was how do you, know who I am?"
"Oh that," the voice chuckled coming from yet another shadow. "I hear things, I hear the words lost in the wind, and let me tell you Jack, there are a lot of words about you lost in the wind."
"Wait," Jack said as he finally realized who he was talking to. "I know you. You're the Northern wind, Neve Winters," he said as Neve stepped out of the shadows.
Neve was 5'7", very pretty, and very hard to tell her age. She had deep sapphire eyes, long black hair, pale skin just like his own, and impish features that resembled his own. She wore a knee-length dress that had snowflakes on it, with long sleeves.
The last time Jack had seen Neve, she was causing a lot of trouble, even more than himself. The last time she had saw her face to face was during the blizzard of 1968. She had caused the massive snow storm to blow in and Jack had come trying to stop the storm. But just his presence had made the storm worse, and Bunny had blamed him for the almost ruined Easter.
Jack's curiosity about what happened to the guardians made Jack cautious about why Neve was here. He could be mad at the girl in front of him later. He finally decided to ask. "What are you doing here though?"
"Oh you know just going with the wind," Neve said, chuckling to herself about her own pun. "I thought that I would like a change in scenery, see what I've missed these last few decades," Neve said with a shrug. "After all, I had to go into hiding after the fiasco in '68."
"That's a lie!" Jack said before he could stop himself. He knew that if Neve was here, it was because she wanted to cause trouble.
Neve spun around and faced Jack, her anger was starting to boil. "Oh is it? And you, Jack Frost, just happen to know why I'm here," Neve said as her anger growing. What Neve hated the most was people prying into her life when they had no business and right to do so. Neve's anger was boiling even more because of this boy in front of her was acting like he owned her. "So now I have to tell you why I go, where I go, and when I go somewhere. You don't own me Jack Frost. You don't know why I'm here and have no right pretending that you do!"
"What? I never said I did," Jack said in a hastily defense. "What is your problem Neve?"
"My problem is you and the other stupid guardians! You're supposed to keep us safe!" Neve yelled as tears started to stream down her face. With that she finally broke down and wept. As she wept, Neve sat on the curb and said, "You guys were supposed to protect us from Pitch and others like him."
"What are you talking about?" Jack asked as he went over to Neve. He had never seen the girl cry before. In fact, he had never seen anything but laughter coming from the spirit.
"My home was destroyed by Pitch's nightmares and they tried to take me as well," Neve said looking at the ground not wanting to meet Jack's gaze.
"What? Why would he try and take you?" Jack asked himself quietly. Slowly, Jack's anger was becoming concern for the wind spirit. He knew what it was like being hunted by Pitch's nightmares. "Why were they hunting you?" he asked a little louder.
"I don't know, the man in the moon said that I would no longer be alone. If this is what he meant by not being alone then I think I would rather take being alone," Neve said still looking at the ground, her voice full of pain.
"Wait did you say man in the moon?" Jack asked in a surprised tone.
"Yeah so what," Neve said playing with the hem of her dress. "He talks to me all the time," Neve said as she looked up into Jack's eyes.
"He talks to you all the time," Jack said shocked.
"Yes that's what I just said," Neve was starting to grow irritable towards Jack again.
"I never heard of the man in the moon talking to anyone except for us guardians and that's once in a while," Jack said trying to keep his tone in check. "If he always talks to you," Jack paused "That means you must be a guardian!"