Chapter 1

"Whoops!" Jack said as he dodged yet another pair of arms trying to grab him. "Okay, that one almost got me." Jack glared playfully at the odd girl standing before him who just threw some rope that he froze before they could tighten around him. She wasn't ugly, really. In fact, she was rather pretty with black hair that fell to her hips and bright, if not a little eerie, red eyes. She honestly was just odd, if that tail jutting out from her lower back was a real tail. He then froze her to a tree at the edge of the clearing and side-stepped just in time to avoid another grab at him.

This one was a male. He towered over Jack by nearly a foot with Jack reaching to just below his shoulder. He was pretty attractive with his long brown hair in a high pony tail, and with those same eerie red eyes as the girl before, he would have mistaken them for siblings! Tooth would have chastised him for letting his teeth become long, sharp fangs like that if she could ignore the giant scaly wings that were on his back.

"Oh, come on! I'm here 10 minutes and you people are already trying to capture me? What gives?" Jack whined as he froze the guy, rooting him to the ground.

"As nice as it has been chatting with you, I have to go before more of you start coming at me from nowhere." Jack turned and ran into the forest as fast as he could. After a couple minutes of running, he stopped in another clearing, smaller than the first, and leaned against a tree, softly panting.

"All that flying and not walking has gotten me out of it!" Jack exclaimed to no one in particular. "Okay, Wind! Maybe you could give me a hand now?" He looked to the sky expectantly and was soon greeted by a playful breeze across his cheek. It then proceeded to tug at his hoodie, as if excited to take him to the sky.

Now, the Wind is Jack's oldest companion and if anyone knew him better than himself, it would be the Wind. For three centuries, the Wind was his only friend before he met the Guardians and though it started out as a playful companion, it soon became a gentle friend and an unwavering source of comfort and support. So the Wind acting like it had the first time they met was a bit unnerving.

"Hey! Slow down!" Jack laughed as it tossed him in the air. "Do you know where we are?" It spun him in the air to give him a good look of the area where he saw nothing but trees in his immediate line of sight. "I guess we're farther from Burgess than I originally thought," Jack shrugged.

When he looked to the sky again, he was surprised to find that the sun was barely peeking out of the horizon and to that direction; he was able to make out a faint trail of smoke rising from the ground. The Wind jerked to the west as if it read his mind and he couldn't help but ask "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

He was happy to finally have somewhere to go. And if the people there weren't hostile, then maybe they could help him get home. As they sped west, high above the trees, Jack deemed it safe enough to finally lose himself in thought and think about everything that happened that led to now.

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A Few Hours Earlier

It has been a year since Pitch's defeat and Jack has learned to balance his Guardian duties with his duties as an elemental. He was trying new methods of painting because he'd been helping Bunny paint eggs last Easter and it was their way of bonding with each other. The first few sessions were full of suspicious glares from Bunny and mischievous smiles for Jack but soon, they were helping each other.

While Jack speeds up production for Easter, Bunny throws in comments and constructive criticism on his painting. Jack just left the Warren after his summer hibernation to practice a new paint blending technique on some leaves that Bunny showed him. He felt like someone was watching him but after looking around a few times and finding no one, he shrugged it off as an animal or the like. After a few more trees, He was just finishing for the day and the sun was just setting when he felt a shiver run down his spine and he turned around just in time to see a shadow snake up his feet, around his body, and bind him tightly.

"Why hello, Jack. Where's that rabbit you've been spending an awful lot of time with?" Pitch asked as he materialized out of the shadow of a tree. "Hey Pitch, I've been wondering if you were still alive. How'd you make it past your nightmares?" Jack taunted, but Pitch just ignored him and continued with his questioning. "Did he finally get tired of you and sent you away?"

"That's none of your business, Pitch!" Jack tried to freeze the shadows with little success. "Oh Jack, you should know better than to try and freeze shadows" Pitch tutted as if to chastise a misbehaving child. "But, you are right. It's none of my concern, especially since I won't be seeing you for a long time." With that, Pitch forced his jaw open and poured a sickeningly sweet liquid into his throat. Jack sputtered, but Pitch covered his mouth before he could spit any of it out and pinched his nose to force him to swallow.

Pitch then let Jack fall to the ground in a coughing heap. "Wh-what was that?" Jack questioned as he tried to get rid of the taste on his tongue and determine what the effects of the liquid would be. Pitch towered over his crouched form and smirked down at him as his vision started blurring.

"Don't worry, Jack. It's not going to kill you." The last thing Jack saw before he lost consciousness was the retreat of black robes into the shadows, as dark as the blackness he was falling into.

When Jack regained consciousness, his hand automatically shot out in search of his staff and when his fingers brushed against the ancient wood, he sighed in relief. Whatever Pitch had done to him, at least he still had his staff. He stood and checked himself, pleased that he couldn't find anything wrong. A quick glance at his surroundings and he determined that he wasn't anywhere familiar. Jack willed the Wind to take him up so he could see where he was but after a few moments of waiting, he finally concluded that he couldn't rely on the Wind for now.

He was just starting to walk in the direction he thought his pond was in, he couldn't be too far after all, when his path was blocked by a woman. She had bright red hair with equally red eyes. She looked like those video game women Jamie showed him one time. Even more so with the horns sticking out of her head and the unusual amount of body hair she had, which totally covered her arms and legs.

"Uhm, Hi, can you tell me where I am?" Jack asked tentatively when the woman suddenly lunged at him, her speed surprising him. It was only with the experience of sparring with Bunny and his inhuman speed that Jack was able to dodge the arms trying to catch him.

"I'll take that as a no?" He put as much distance between himself and the woman and took her in from his place in the clearing across from her. She looked human enough if you disregarded her horns and whatnot. And although he only knew a few spirits, he was pretty sure he's never seen one like her. But she's got to be a spirit, right? Otherwise, she shouldn't be able to see him.

The woman lunged at him again and he tried flying over her, having completely forgotten that he was grounded at the moment, thus letting her catch him.

"Right, no flying" he muttered to himself. He looked at his captor and noticed her teeth elongating to fangs and just when she was about to bite into his neck, he sent a wave of frost at her and knocked her back into a tree.

"What are you? A vampire or something?" Jack asked, half joking, mostly disturbed. He didn't know vampires preyed on spirits. The woman just growled at him but before she could lunge again. He froze her up to her neck.

"Can I know why you're attacking me?" Jack questioned, but the woman just snarled at him. "Okay, I'll just assume you have severe trust issues and leave you here. The ice should melt in a day or so." Just as he turned to leave the clearing, two more of the strange people appeared and Jack sighed. Of course something like this could only happen to him. He got into his usual battle stance, staff at the ready, and charged.

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"So, Pitch sent me to this place and some people attack me out of nowhere, though I can't exactly call them people 'cause they look more like human-animal hybrids than anything. And now, I'm trying to go to the source of that smoke even if it could be a small forest fire for all I know because it might just have people that can help me?" Jack ranted on to himself as they approached the source of the smoke. Soon, he could make out 4 human silhouettes and 2 other moving shadows.

He hovered a few ways from the group's makeshift camp to observe their behavior and determine whether they were friend or foe. Cautiously, he landed just behind the tree line surrounding their small clearing and tried to listen in on their conversation not noticing how one of the figures have vanished. A twig snapped behind him and before he could do anything else, he was knocked unconscious and cursing his own carelessness. North would have his head for not paying attention.