All Jack had wanted when he arrived to his little cavern in Antarctica was a quiet place to take a nap, after all, the first week of snow and wintery-weather had been tiring. Saying hi to all his believers and spreading fun was no small task, now that he had been a guardian for a solid ten years. He had been looking forward to taking a bit of a long weekend and freeze himself to sleep in a soft snowdrift. How he had just wanted to relax.

But it was hard to kick his feet up and take a deep sigh when he had a brutal choke hold around his neck.

He hadnt expected the ambush, and from a very old spirit, one he hadnt actually met before, but seeing as he was struggling to breathe with the man's beefy hands locked around his throat, he calculated that the chances of being BFF's were slim. The man was large and strong, built like a farmer from hard times. He had unkept grey hair and stubble and he was dressed in rags. His breath smelled of cigarets and alcohol, and what little air Jack managed to breathe in, he choked on. He didnt know why this spirit had sneaked up on him or how he did it in the white landscape of Antarctica but judging by the man's furrowed brows and the rage in his green eyes, he assumed he had managed to piss off yet another spirit with his flurries.

The old man spoke, but understanding him was another story intirely. He had an accent of some sort, an old accent, one Jack was sure was extinct. Not only was his accent hard to understand, but he spoke in an angry whisper, much like a snake, hissing out his words through clenched teeth. The fact that the lack of oxygen was making the stark white snow darken and blurry wasnt helping Jack any either. Only when the hands around his throat shook him violently did he realise he was being asked a question.

He couldnt make out much of the sentence, because his hearing was starting to ring and fade along with his consciousness. If the old man would just let him breathe he would've been more than happy to answer his question.

What words fell through to his brain did spark up a bit of curiousity and worry.

"..Is...the Pook...ster Bun...mund...WHER...S...HE! Speak...aurdian...f-un..."

The man's broken up sentance rang through Jack's mind, beating against the backs of his eyes and the walls of his skull. Jack thought his head might explode when the old man spirit started shouting at his face, then perhaps the old man could rummage through his pieces of brain in the snow and find the answer he was screaming for. Man, he must've really needed some air.

Suddenly, just when he thought the old man would scream at him again, there was a blunt impact and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground looking up at the white sky. Looking to his side he saw the old man through the fog of his vision. He was a few yards away, struggling to his knees as he held a hand to his head. His head was red, Jack noticed, and the red was growing and dripping down...down...dow-

"-ou stay away from 'im!" An angry voice yelled, one with a different accent. It was loud and it hurt Jack's ears because it was suddenly right above him. He blinked when his face was pulled away from looking at the man and red head. Then there was a hand...no, a paw, on the side of his face and it seemed to ground him to earth and stop his spinning. A grey mass was above him, and then the voice was back. More concern sounding than angry this time.

"-ack...brea...ate...Jack...breathe...mate..."

Oh. Yeah.

His whole torso lurched at the force of his inhale as his starving lungs were finally fed. What came in as sweet air shot out as harsh coughs. Slowly the world stopped spinning and things werent so dark anymore. Blurred images started to focus again and he realised the grey mass above him had two green eyes and long, long ears.

"Bunn-" He tried talking but his voice cracked and his words were cut off by painful coughs.

He could hear every word again too.

"Easy mate, just lie still yea? Im gonna take care of this arsehole."

And then Bunny was easing him onto his side which made his coughing a little less painful and stepped over him to walk up to the old man who had managed to get to his feet. Bunny picked up his bloodstained boomerang and took a defencive stance between the boy and the man.

"What is it this time ya no good sadsack? If you want to see me, you come to me. Dont you ever hurt my friends to get my attention." Bunny yelled, anger seething from his entire frame.

"Im not here to eat a carrot and small talk with you, Pooka." Jack watched the man as he straightened and his right hand disapeared somewhere beneath his thick layers of ragged coats. He appeared almost sad about it. "I've come to do a task I've pondered over for a long, long time and I dont want to drag it out. I'll be quick and then go, it shouldn't hurt much."

Jack had slowly started making his way to his feet, picking up his staff and setting himself into a defensive possition. He didnt know what the history was behind Bunny and this crazy old spirit, but he asumed it invlolved a lot of bad blood.

The old man pulled out something from his rags and it was smaller than what Jack expected. It was a silver ring attached by small beams of metal to a small bottle like glass. The ring was the size of a large bracelet and it had grids eminating from the center of it like fan blades. When the man let it go in front of him, it remained flaoting in the air and the blades started spinning, slow at first then gradually sped up. A whirring sound eminated from it like a small machine reving up.

"Look mate-" Bunny started, one paw going up in a sudden show of caution. Jack didnt know what the little fan-like thing did, but by the sound of it, he assumed it was building up power - power for an attack.

The blades spun faster than ever and the sound only got louder. It started glowing too, a bright white like the sun and Bunny and Jack both sheilded their eyes from its blinding rays. Jack looked up through the sheild of his hand to try to watch it. He saw through the rays of light the old man backing away from it, as if afraid of its power, and only then did Jack realize that the little whirring fan was pointed directly at Bunny.

As the sound grew to an unbearible ringing, and the light made the snow look dark, Jack saw that Bunny had turned away from it, and was shouted angrily at the old man. Bunny's ears were flat against his shull, trying to block out the sound, but he didnt realize it was pointed at him.

Jack didn't know what the little fan did, but as it built up power and speed, he knew he had to act. Bunny was in danger, from what he didnt know, but he'd be damned if her didnt save him. Jack gripped his staff within white knuckles and called upon the wind and the cold and the snow to propel him toward his friend at a break neck speed, one arm reaching out to him just as the sound and speed and light peaked.

"BUNNY!"

Jack tackled bunny out of the way and was hit with a force of light and heat which sent him flying backward and skid through the snow, dropping his staff in the process.

White hot electricity coursed through his bones and blood, making his back bend up from the ground in a painful arch. His mouth fell open in a soundless scream.

"JACK!" Bunny cried out in horror as he watched his friend writh on the ground.

Jack was in agony for what felt like an eternity, but in reality, the process was rather quick. He felt pain in his chest as if it was being ripped apart by boney fingers, clawing to get to his heart, to get to his center. Bunny watched helplessly as a blue light was sucked from the boy's arched chest and rushed back to the little fan and into the bottle. With one last blast of light and sound, the machine slowed and the sound lowered, like a big factory shutting down, and left the boy to lie bonelessly in the snow.

"Jack!" Bunny screeched, his paws moving fullspeed to his friend's side, and slipping in the snow to a stop. Bunny looked back over his shoulder at where the old man stood, now holding the little bottle and fan in his hands and sadly admiring the little blue light inside. He coaxed the little light out into his palm as the light from it reflected off his face. Bunny watched in confusion and panic as the old man pressed the light to his chest and watched it desolve into him. The old man gasped, and when he opened his eyes, they had turned from a sad green to a dull blue.

"Well," He started, walking slowly up to the boy's staff which lie on the ground. "Its not what I came for," He picked up the staff and Bunny turned away with tears in his eyes after watching frost develop on the rod. "But its a start."

The old man raised the staff into the air and the wind picked up,, swirling snow and ice around them in a strong and brutal embrace. Bunny's tears fell as he sheltered Jack's limp body with his own, protecting from the storm and the raping of his abilities. By now the old man's hair turned from a grey to a stark and he floated off in the wind of the storm, and Bunny could only watch helplessly.

When the old man was gone, the storm settled down and Bunny shivered from the harsh weather of the Antarctic. He pulled his attention emedietly to the boy beneath him, his paws flying up to the pale face. His eyes shone with concern as he felt Jack shiver violently under his touch.

"Jack?! Jack, look at me, please mate, open yer eyes..."

Jack moaned in responce and Bunny's heart lept at the sound. At least the boy was still alive. But his fear for him multiplied tenfold as the snowy locks slowly started turning brown. His skin became a peachy color again and when his eyes fluttered open in pain, chocolate orbs ate away at blue.

"Jack...yer eyes mate...they're..." Bunny said, more to himself.

"B-Bunny...I-I..m...c-c-cold-d." Jack whispered weakly between chattering teeth. Bunny's fur bristled against the wind and he pushed down his confusion and worry and slowly started gathering the hurting teen in his arms.

"Okay Frostbite, okay...I'm gonna get ya someplace warm, yea?"

Jack didnt have the strength to nod as Bunny lifted his prone body off the snow, and his head fell back against a furry bicep. Jack gasped as he was lifted, his whole body achy and sore. Bunny nuzzled the teen forehead with his nose ina comforting manner and pulled him flush up against his body in an attempt to share his warmth. Jack's face found warmth in Bunny's thick fur as his face was pressed up against the Pookan warrior's chest.

Jack could feel himself quickly losing consciousness and let himself fall completely limp against Bunny, his brown locks catching falling snowflakes.

"You just stay with me, a'right mate? I'll get you warmed up in no time, you'll see, but ya gotta not freeze on me first." Bunny half joked, trying to push down his concern, or at least, push down Jack's fear.

The only responce he got was a violent shiver and so he held the boy to him even tighter. Then he started thinking about the Spirit that had done this to Jack.

Bunny struggled to hold in his rage as he trekked through the heavy snowfall of Antarctica. Feeling Jack shiver violently in his arms didn't help to bring down his temper, but it made him think of more important things. First, get Jack to safety and to warmth. The boy had already started to turn blue, and Bunny feared his nickname "Frostbite" would have a whole new meaning to it. After Jack was settled underneath heaps of comforters and sleeping in Bunny's own burrow, then Bunny would track down the Spirit that did this to Jack, and take back what was rightfully Jack Frost's.

His frosty abilities and the boy's staff.

With those thoughts, he tapped a spot on the ground that was safe, and that wouldnt start an avalanche, and hopped in.