Jamie Bennett was a smart kid. A really smart kid, almost too smart for his own good in fact. When he was ten, he was solving the mysteries of Bigfoot, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, etc. When he was thirteen, he came close to solving a mystery. This particular mystery was one secret that no one wanted to get out, a secret that everyone was a part of. Someone took drastic measures to keep this secret hidden, and in a matter of days, Jamie was gone. Jamie wasn't smart enough to stop it, but the project was already in motion. No one was that smart.

At least, that's what they thought.

Jack Frost touched down in the quaint town of Burgess, Pennsylvania. He had visited Jamie last week, bringing him snow days that the young boy never got tired of. They'd made snowmen and even had snowball fights for the history books. Claude, Caleb, Monte, Pippa, and Cupcake had joined them a few times as well, but they all grew weary at one time or another. They still believed, yes, but every child wavers from time to time. They, including Jamie, were already well past the age of when most kids stopped believing, but they would never forget the night that they had practically saved the world. They would always believe.

Normally, Jack visited his first believer more often, but he had gotten a little tied up with a freak blizzard in New York. As the wind flew him to Jamie's home, Jack began to notice several odd things. Burgess, a usually active town, was seriously lacking in the little children playing outside, the adults rushing home from work, and the fire-trucks, ambulances, or police cars. He scrunched his nose in a curious manner. It's so… quiet, Jack thought. Then the church bells began ringing. Who died?

His curiosity was peaked, and he couldn't wait to ask Jamie about it. Jack landed on the sill of Jamie's bedroom window. Once again, Jack was curious. His icy blue eyes scanned Jamie's window. Jamie's closed window. Jamie always left his window open, just in case Jack decided to make a surprise visit. The winter spirit shrugged and decided that his mother had come in and shut the window because it was too cold.

He opened the window and let himself inside. Jack stared at the room. It was the same as always. Mythology books sat on shelves or scattered about with the pages flipped open, textbooks were collecting dust beside his backpack, and clothes were everywhere. But as he stared at the unmade bed, something didn't feel right. A tiny, nagging voice in the back of Jack's head told him that something was wrong. He inched over towards one of Jamie's most coveted mythology books, "1001 Things about Monsters That You Didn't Know."

Jack ran his index finger across the book's cover and brought it to his face. As he got a better look, he saw that his fingers had a thin, gray coating of dust on them. That was completely wrong. Jamie never, never left his book at home, let alone untouched. Slight panic built up in Jack's chest, but he fought down the paranoia, and he softly called, "Jamie? Jamie? You here, kiddo?" No answer.

He tried again. "Jamie? Can you hear me?" he asked as he padded towards the closet, recalling the time that Jamie had hidden there to startle him. "Dude, if you're hiding in the closet, I am so going to get you." He flung the double doors of the closet wide open. His eyes were greeted by an empty hamper that had been overturned, clothes dumped out onto the floor. No Jamie. Jack's eyes fell upon a sheet of paper, a note taped to one of the unused hangers. "Hey mom! Everyone's going over to Claude and Caleb's to study! Let me know if dad comes over while I'm gone. Please tell Sophie that I'll be spending the night. Remember, Claude and Caleb's house is at 4075 Alien Road, love Jamie," Jack read. He noticed that the writing was un-neat, as if the message had been scrawled quickly.

He shoved the note in his pocket because something told him to keep it. Jack didn't like this feeling that he was getting. Everywhere he turned, something seemed wrong, out-of-place. He decided to search for Sophie, Jamie's five-year old younger sister. She might have known where Jamie actually went or if he had come back yet. He brought himself to Sophie's bedroom, remembering the way because of the many times he had been to the Bennett house.

Once he arrived there, he noticed that Sophie was gone as well. This is getting really weird, he thought. Jack looked around the pink room and saw that Sophie's favorite pair of fairy wings lay discarded to the side of her room. As with Jamie's book, Sophie never went anywhere without that pair of wings. She'd once told Jack that she used to wear them for fun, but then she started wearing them because they reminded her of Toothiana. As he had done while looking for Jamie, Jack called for Sophie. "Soph? Are you here? Have you seen your brother?"

When he received no answer, Jack took to looking around the room. He saw Sophie's planner for school lying on her desk. He glanced at the page as it seemed that there was nothing important about it, and then he did a double take. The page that had been left open was tear-stained, and it read, "Be at the old Church House at 10 p.m. for the service." It was scrawled in her large, messy handwriting. Jack took the planner as well, on instinct.

"So Soph's gone too huh?" Jack thought aloud. Now, he had two places to check: Claude and Caleb's place and the Old Church House. He thought back to when he was flying over Burgess earlier, when he had heard the church bells. He hadn't thought much about them before, but he was beginning to wonder. A puzzle was starting to form in his mind, and Jack didn't like the picture it was creating. Why would Jamie be gone? If Jamie had really gone to Claude and Caleb's house to study, he wouldn't have left his mythology book behind. Why would Sophie's planner page be covered in tears? What was she crying for?

He pulled out the planner page once more. The more he stared at it, the more he was sure that the tears were fresh. If these were Sophie's tears, she had to have been in her room sometime before Jack showed up. Another question popped into his mind. Why would the page telling her to be at the church be covered with tears?

He was lost in his thoughts, and soon, Jack found himself at the steps of Claude and Caleb's place. The door had been left open haphazardly, and he let himself in. In the living room, Jack saw five history textbooks. He opened the covers for each one, but none of the books held Jamie's name. That only led Jack to believe that Jamie had never gone to Claude and Caleb's house, but he had been somewhere else. Deciding that there was nothing left for him here, Jack began to leave.

As he passed the kitchen, Jack noticed a newspaper sitting on the dinner table. Since nothing else made sense, Jack decided that a look wouldn't hurt. He picked up the paper's ruffled edges and read, "Local Boy, Jamie Bennett, Killed." Jack gasped. "No. No, no, no, no, NO!" he screamed. He scanned the rest of the paper for highlights. From the tidbits of information that he had gathered, Jamie had been buried alive by a mysterious source the day that Jack left. He was found hours later, nearly suffocated in a coffin.

"Jamie Bennett, age thirteen, was found last week, buried alive in a coffin located in the woods near the border of Allentown, Pennsylvania. His mother reported him missing only two hours before he was found, the police say. No one knows how it happened, although, those close to Mr. Bennett say that he had been working on solving a case about the disappearances of mythical creatures. Sources have also said that Mr. Bennett was an avid believer in mythological and fantasy creatures alike, often claiming that he'd met Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, and Jack Frost among others. They say that he had been locking himself up in his room for hours on end, and typing, page flipping, and writing could be heard from the other side of his door. The police deduct that the boy had been abducted from his home during a time when no one else was present. The autopsy done on his body revealed that the lack of air left his body weak, and the paramedics couldn't revive him. The funeral will be held this Sunday at the Old Church House at 10 p.m."

Jack's breath halted. He stared at the paper for quite a while, feeling faint. "Dead. Jamie, my first believer, is dead." All of a sudden, the spirit of winter didn't know what to do. Jamie Bennett was his first believer in 318 years. And now, he was gone. The first kid who'd seen him, heard him, was gone. Dead. And it wasn't an accident.

Jack let out a cry of frustration. He couldn't control the words coming out of his mouth. "MiM, why? Why did it have to be Jamie?" The temperature in the room dropped dramatically, but Jack didn't notice. He just continued to say things he didn't understand, all the questions asking why. "Why would somebody want to do that to a kid?" That was the last question he asked before he rolled up the front page of the newspaper and left the house with it.

The wind knew. It felt his pain, and it understood his silence. It swiftly carried him toward the church house to see the funeral.

Jack's mind and heart raced together, like they were in sync. His thoughts were going hundreds of miles per hour. He thought back to the last time he had seen Jamie.

"Jack, guess what?" Jamie asked, his brown eyes lighting up. Jack looked at him, obviously wondering what had the boy so excited. "You know that Bigfoot stuff I've been working on? Turns out, there's stuff about him that people don't want us to know. I don't know who yet, but I'll figure that out when I'm finished. I know that they know that I know what they've been trying to hide."

"Huh? Okay, that last sentence didn't even make any sense," Jack said, snorting.

Jamie rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure that the stuff I've been figuring out is totally top-secret. I feel like I'm a secret agent or something, uncovering the truth. I'll get a medal and shake hands with the President!" he said, practically bouncing.

Jack chuckled. "You know, sometimes you act younger than you actually are."

"Well, yeah. If I grow up too fast, I won't be able to see you guys anymore," Jamie said stubbornly. Jack just laughed at him, and Jamie rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I'm doing something kind of dangerous. If Toothiana asks what I'm doing, don't tell her. She'll freak out over me as if I'm about to jump over a ledge."

"Now you sound more like a teenager," Jack said, ruffling the younger boy's brown hair.

Jack was brought back to the present as the wind gently placed him down on the sidewalk in front of the old church house. His stormy mood was reflected as the sky became cloudy, and the temperature dropped. A light snow began to fall in the quiet town of Burgess, and the winter spirit strolled into the Old Church House.

Everything about the place screamed funeral. White roses and candles were lined up and down the hallway. The lights were dimmed, and soft music was being played on an organ. The funeral had begun. Jack spotted little Sophie sitting beside her weeping parents, hugging her knees to her chest. "Heya, Soph," Jack said softly, coming to sit down beside her.

Sophie looked. Blonde hair covered a spring green eye with gray specks, but the other eye was red and puffy, from crying, Jack supposed. She latched onto Jack's hoodie, forgetting that no one else could see him. She sobbed, and her tears froze against Jack's body. "He's gone, Jack! My brother's gone." Sophie hiccupped. Jack swiftly glanced around to make sure no one saw her, but her parents were too preoccupied with their tears to notice. He hugged her back tightly.

"I know, Soph. I know," Jack said comfortingly, patting her back. It felt to wrong for him to be trying to help someone else feel better when he was just as messed up, but he couldn't help it. Besides, his mind was elsewhere at the moment.

"How did you know, Jack?" she asked between her crying fits. Leave it to the kids to keep asking questions.

Jack decided to tell her everything from the beginning, starting with the last time he'd seen Jamie, and continuing until he pulled out the note he'd found in Jamie's closet. "He left this note in his closet. When I found it, all the stuff in his closet was thrown around, and nothing was where it was supposed to be." He handed Sophie the note, and with much difficulty because of her dyslexia, she read it.

When she finished, she scrunched her brow. "Jamie couldn't have written this. He never went to Claude and Caleb's house. He said he was going to the library, and he never came back."

Now, Jack's paranoia began to come back. "You think that note was a forgery?"

"What's a forgery?" Sophie asked.

Jack sighed. "Nothing. Do you think Jamie really wrote this note? Look at it again. Please."

Sophie re-read the note with less difficulty this time. When she looked back up at Jack, confusion was evident in her young features. "Well… this hand-writing is definitely my brother's, but I don't understand why he wrote it. Why would he say that he was going to Claude and Caleb's if he really wasn't? Maybe there's something else in it. Something right before our eyes that we're missing."

Jack thought that Sophie was on to something, and he felt that the little girl was definitely wise beyond her years. Just then, Jack began hearing whispers as Sophie muttered to herself. He looked up from the girl and saw that Mr. and Ms. Bennett were no longer crying hysterically for the boy they lost before his time, but they were staring at Sophie. Jack realized soon enough. Because they couldn't see Jack, the Bennetts thought Sophie was talking to herself!

Carefully, Jack took the note from the little girl and stood, nudging Sophie. "Hey, Soph, your parents are looking at you like you've lost your mind." As if to reinforce Jack's statement, Ms. Bennett began to nudge Mr. Bennett and whisper more, neither of them taking their eyes off of Sophie. Sophie turned and saw, then asked if she could go to the bathroom to 'wash her face'. Smart kid.

Sophie dashed off to the "bathroom," leaving her parents staring after her with worried expressions. Jack followed, his mind clouded with more questions. If Jamie didn't write the note, who did? Were they trying to frame Caleb and Claude for his disappearance? If Jamie did write the note, why would he say he was going somewhere he really wasn't? It made no sense.

Jack turned the note upside down, held it up to the light, marked on it with pencil for indentations on the paper like they did on the detective shows that Jamie watched, and still nothing came up. He did the last thing he could think of. He brought the paper to his nose and immediately recognized the strong scent of the cologne that Jamie's mother had gotten him for Christmas. After that, there was no doubt in Jack's mind that Jamie had written that note. Since Jamie had written that note, there must have been something important about it. He just needed to find out what.

Jack caught up to Sophie by the stairs that led up to the attic of the Old Church House. She had wiped her eyes, and now there was only a bit of redness still on her face. Her eyes were still slightly puffy, but if you didn't look too closely, you couldn't tell that she'd been crying. When Jack approached her, she patted her long black dress that had become wrinkled from running. "I want to go back to where you saw that note, Jack," she said simply after a pause.

He wondered why, but he didn't question her. Sophie had known Jamie longer than Jack, and if anyone could figure out that note, it was her. She was like a kid genius. He looked around and suddenly realized why she had led him here. This was in the opposite direction of the way her parents were facing, and they wouldn't see if they left. If they had tried to go out the side door, Sophie's parents would have seen her. He stared at the open window above the little girl and wondered just how smart the five-year old was.

He hopped out the window, and the wind lifted him up. He reached back in and grabbed Sophie, careful not to let her pull him down. "You're going to have to walk, so carry the corners of your dress so it doesn't get dirty," Jack instructed her.

She pouted. "And why can't you carry me?" Sophie whined.

"Do you know how weird it would look to people if they saw you floating in mid-air on the way back to your house? Not only are people going to think you're crazy, but they're also going to think you're a ghost or something." Or possessed, Jack added silently. That Exorcist movie really shook him up.

With this statement, Sophie conceded to Jack's demands, and she began walking through the woods behind the Old Church House with Jack floating above her, giving her directions. A silence ensued that was understanding and reminiscent. Jack understood that Sophie needed time to think and process what had happened to her brother, and Sophie was thinking about the things that had occurred on the last day she saw Jamie alive.

She had been inside, watching Jack and Jamie have a snowball fight with Pippa, Cupcake, Monte, Claude, and Caleb.

Suddenly, Jamie ran inside of the house, looking slightly frantic. He shuffled through papers on the kitchen counter, obviously looking for something. His features relaxed as he seemingly found whatever he was searching for, and then they hardened again. He read something quickly, frowned, and dashed up the stairs, to his room, and locked the door. He didn't know that Sophie had been watching the whole thing occur from the comfort of the couch.

Sophie looked at him curiously. After some time had passed after Jamie had locked himself up again, Sophie followed and listened by pressing her ear against the door. She heard hard, sharp strokes of a pen coming from his room. She heard him rip something and tear a piece of tape. After that, she heard several pages turn, and she heard him writing again. The annoying younger sister in her wanted to barge into her older brother's room and demand to know what he was doing, but the smart sister in her told her that she didn't want to be a part of what Jamie was doing.

Eventually, her curiosity won out, and she raised her fist to knock on the door. Before she could make another move to knock, she heard Jamie get up from his desk and move towards the door. Sophie panicked, and she raced down the stairs as fast as her little legs would carry her. Just as soon as she plopped herself down on the couch and grabbed a book, she heard Jamie's footsteps on the stairs.

He was smiling like he had been when he was outside, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. Jamie proceeded to return to his snowball fight as if nothing had happened. Then, Jamie started talking to Jack alone.

Sophie stumbled on a rock as she thought of something. She asked Jack a question. "Jack… can I see that note one more time?" Jack handed her the note. It had jagged edges like she had suspected, and a piece of tape had been folded back over the top edge of the paper. "Jack, when you found this note in Jamie's closet, was it taped to his hanger?"

Jack thought back to when he found the note. "Yeah, why?" He really didn't see anything significant about whether or not it was taped to the hanger. What did it matter? It was all about what the note said, wasn't it?

"Because, the last day I saw Jamie alive, he came inside from a snowball fight. He read something, and he locked himself in his room again, and I heard him writing with pen. Notice how the note was written in pen? Then, I heard him tearing a piece of tape. After that, he left and went back outside and talked to you. I think that note is what he was writing."

Jack's eyes widened. Then, Jamie knew something. He knew something before he got abducted, and he tried to write it out in this note. "Is that all you heard?" Jack asked as they neared the Bennett family's front door.

Sophie shook her head in an adorably innocent way. "No. After he tore some tape, I heard him write some more, and I heard him flip some pages."

Jack thought for a moment. If Sophie had heard Jamie writing after he had written the note they had found on the hanger, it was possible that Jamie had written another note, possibly telling them how to solve the hidden message in the first one! He voiced his thoughts to little Sophie, and he finished by saying, "If there is another note from Jamie, it'll still be in his room, right Soph?" he said, leading her up the stairs to Jamie's room.

When they entered the deceased boy's room, that uneasy feeling came back over Jack. Something still didn't feel right, but he didn't want to disturb Sophie by voicing his opinions aloud. He led her over to the closet and opened it so she could see inside. "That's the hanger I found the note on," he said, pointing to the object. He saw Sophie frown.

Careful not to mess up her dress, Sophie knelt to search through the messy pile of clothes on his floor, the frown still on her face. "This isn't right. Mom made Jamie clean his closet that morning that he died because dad was coming to visit…" she trailed off. Then, she got an idea. "…Unless when he was taping up the note, he dumped everything out of his hamper because he was hiding something!"

Jack quickly knelt to search along with her. "We don't have much more time left to search through stuff. Your parents won't think that you're in that bathroom 'washing your face' forever." Out of the closet went jeans, shirts, hats, gloves, and sweaters. They searched pockets of pants, hoodies, and jackets, and still nothing turned up. They were both growing quite frustrated as they saw the last item of clothing: a pair of shoes.

"Oh, come on, Jamie! You wouldn't have hidden a secret message in these shoes! They're too far down below everything else!" Sophie said to no one in particular in an exasperated manner while hopelessly throwing up her arms.

Jack shook his head and reached an arm out to keep Sophie from walking away. "Well, we could still try." He stuck one hand in one shoe, then the other, and nothing. She shook the shoes gently like a child would shake a present when they were trying to figure out what was inside.

"See? I told you: there's nothing in there. Jamie must have hidden the second note somewhere else," Sophie said in a know-it-all manner.

Sighing and feeling that Sophie was right, Jack began to stand. Then, his eye caught something, the last thing that was still in the closet: the hamper. Slowly, Jack set the hamper up right, and he heard a deep thud. Sophie jerked her head over at Jack, and they both leapt for it to see what was inside. Jack's eyes widened. "A book." Yes, it was another one of Jamie's books, "Mysterious Times: They're out there!"

"That must have been the page flipping that I heard last week!" Sophie cried softly.

"Do you think that Jamie wrote a note and hid it in this book?" Jack asked.

"Well, let's find out."

Together, they searched the book forwards and backwards, but they found nothing. Jack was beginning to get disappointed. This felt like a dead end. He forced himself to keep looking because he owed it Jamie and Sophie. But, where could Jamie have hidden the note if he really did write another one? He tried to think back to the last things he heard Jamie say. Sophie had said that after she heard him writing, he left and went back outside to talk to Jack. That meant that his recollection must have started after hers, and if that were true, Jamie might've been trying to tell him something that would help.

"You know that Bigfoot stuff I've been working on? Turns out, there's stuff about him that people don't want us to know…"

"…I know that they know that I know what they've been trying to hide."

"I'm pretty sure that the stuff I've been figuring out is totally top-secret…"

"Well, yeah. If I grow up too fast, I won't be able to see you guys anymore…"

"Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I'm doing something kind of dangerous…"

"Jamie was trying to tell me something," Jack murmured. If only he could figure out what… "Bigfoot!" Jack suddenly shouted.

Sophie looked up at Jack, startled. She wondered if all the pressure was finally getting to his head. "Um, Jack? I think you should sit down…" she said in a low voice.

Jack saw the looks he was getting from Sophie. He shook his head to reassure her. "No, no, no," he said. "You said that after you heard Jamie writing the note, he came outside and talked to me. That's where my last memory of Jamie starts. He was telling me something about Bigfoot and how there was stuff he knew that nobody wanted him to find out. I think he was trying to tell me that he knew he was going to get abducted. I'm pretty sure that Bigfoot is the keyword here." He went on talking animatedly while flipping through the pages of the book. "I think he hid it in this book because when I first saw him with it when he was ten, he, Claude, and Caleb were talking about Bigfoot. And-"

"Okay, Jack, I get it. You think that if we go to the Bigfoot page in this book, we'll find a clue about how to solve the first note. Sheesh, you need to work on your rambling skills. You can go on forever," Sophie said, cutting him off. Jack rolled his eyes at her as she took the book and flipped to the article about Bigfoot.

On the page, several things were marked with blue highlighter, red pen, and pencil. pixellated images were taped to the section, and post-it notes were crammed into just about every space imaginable. "Jamie had a bit of an obsession, didn't he?" Jack murmured. He ran his finger over the page, and a post-it note that was loosely attached came off. He fingered it delicately and read it aloud. "Put away Clue board-game. Huh. That doesn't seem very important."

"I'll say. Why would he put that in there if it didn't have anything to do with Bigfoot?" Sophie asked. She glanced at the place where Jack had removed the post-it note from, and suddenly, the reason why it was there made sense. "Jack, look!" she said, pointing.

In the spot where the post it note had been, there was a message from Jamie. "He must've put that post-it there because it said Clue. He was telling us that there was a clue hidden under it." Sophie attempted to read it aloud, but her dyslexia was a complete roadblock. "Tinsf Leffen ot Ache? Huh? What's that supposed to mean? Is that some sort of code?"

Jack took the book from the confused girl. He quickly read it and arched an eyebrow at the little girl. "It says: First Letter of Each."

Sophie's cheeks burned red, and she looked away. "I knew that."

"Sure. This must mean that we need to take the first letter of each word in Jamie's message," Jack said. He pulled out the note and re-read it. "Hey mom! Everyone's going over to Claude and Caleb's to study! Let me know if dad comes over while I'm gone. Please tell Sophie that I'll be spending the night. Remember, Claude and Caleb's house is at 4075 Alien Road, love Jamie."

"So we need to take the first letter of every word? But that would mean the message said, 'HmEgotCaCtsLmkidcowIgPtStIbstnRCaChiaARlJ.' That doesn't make any sense. Maybe the first letter of every sentence?"

Jack considered it. It made much more sense if the message was first word of every sentence rather than first word of every word. "Then, the message would say, 'HELP…R'. I think he was trying to write HELP. So why would he add that extra part about Claude and Caleb's address?"

"That's not Claude and Caleb's address because there's no such thing as Alien Road. Maybe Jamie's trying to tell us something else…" Sophie proposed, but she got cut off. A ring came from somewhere in the room, alarming them both. "That was Jamie's cell phone."

Jack cautiously followed the ringing sound to Jamie's desk drawer. He opened the drawer and pulled out Jamie's new Samsung Galaxy S 4 and saw that Jamie had just received a text. Shouldn't this person know that Jamie's dead by now? Jack thought, confusion showing prominently on his face. He unlocked Jamie's phone by typing in the password MYTH, and his eyes bulged at the text he read.

Sophie appeared, looked over his shoulder, and asked, "Well, don't hide stuff from me. What does it say?"

Jack gulped and read. "I know what you're doing. Tick tock, time's running out, so you'd better hurry."

Sophie visibly quaked from the fear. She stared at Jack through her big green doe eyes. "Who-who's it from?" she stuttered.

"…It says 'Blocked Number'," Jack replied nervously.

"W-we should get out of here," Sophie said. Jack had a feeling that they weren't the only two in that room, but there was nowhere for anyone else to be hiding. He handed Sophie Mysterious Times and shoved the note in his pocket once more along with the cell phone. He then grabbed Sophie's little hand, with the other hand holding on firmly to his staff, and together, they jumped out of Jamie's window. "Jack, what the heck are you doing?" Sophie screamed hoarsely.

"We've got to get you back to the funeral home," Jack said at last when the Old Church House was in view. "You've already been gone too long, and your parents are probably suspicious. I don't want them to come looking for you and find out that you snuck off somewhere." What he didn't tell her was that he had a sneaking suspicion that they were being watched the entire time. And if they were being watched, who was to say that no one had been watching Jack since he first entered the Bennett house?

He set her back down in the place where they had first taken off, and Sophie handed Jack the book. She then took off, leaving Jack to his bothersome thoughts. Why was he even doing this? Was it because he wanted to avenge Jamie? To find out who did it? He didn't know, and in fact, he hadn't even given any thought to it.

Every bone in his body screamed for him to tell the Guardians, and his muscles almost obeyed. In an act of sheer willpower, Jack restrained himself. He knew that this was important, but he didn't want to go to the Guardians with every problem he had. He never relied on the Guardians much anyway, and he wasn't going to risk looking weak or soft.

…Of course, everybody has their moments of weakness, right?