Jack was walking along the edge of the Burgess forest when he felt the wind shift with the arrival of a few other elementals. Had he still been alone and not yet a guardian, he would have begged any other soul to speak with him or even cross paths with him to just steal a glance. But he'd been a guardian for a couple of years now, and he had been warned by his fellow guardians that other elementals may give him more attention, but perhaps it wasn't the attention he wanted. When they first suggested of him being bullied or even attacked by angry, jealous elementals, he had waved it off carelessly. But with a couple of summer and autumn sprites approaching, he wished he hadn't been so keen to fly off half way through that discussion of how to protect himself. He decided to go with being friendly, couldn't hurt, maybe they did just want to talk to him, to make friends.

When the elementals - there were five of them - came up to him, he almost thought they were there to make friends. But what had started out as playful banter turned a little more rougher when he noticed they had started calling him certain things and then not-so-nice names. He also noticed they weren't beside him anymore, they were instead all around him and he felt cornered. He gripped his staff tighter.

When he spat something back to defend himself, he realized he should have tried to ease his way out of the situation by mentioning the time. But that wouldn't have worked because they were all immortal, each of them had all the time in the world.

Let's just say it didn't end well, in fact, they had started taunting him about beating Pitch. He had started ignoring them with a hurt face, trying to block out all their words while walking away quickly, his staff gripped in both hands.

All their cruel words swam through his ears and he wanted to tell them to stop. He couldn't take anymore when they started insulting the guardians. Bullying him was fine, but he would not tolerate mean words about his friends…about his family.

"ENOUGH!"

In one quick turn, he had swung his staff at them, shooting ice and snow into them and blowing them off balance in the wind.

"Hey!" One sprite cried accusingly, "Stop it!"

That was when the first stick was thrown. Jack wasn't expecting it, it didn't hurt much, although when the others started joining in, it did.

"Stop, please!" he had cried, shooting ice at them and missing as they laughed and brought their blows down upon him. The sticks got bigger. He had cried out in pain when something hit him at full force in the arm, shocking him and sending him tumbling to the ground, his staff falling from his grip in the process. He only had a split second to realize that what the red haired summer sprite had thrown a rock before looking up and seeing they were all leaving the sticks behind and picking up rocks and small stones. With fear in his eyes at hearing their cruel laughter, he started scrambling toward his staff that lay feet in front of him. The stones hit him with power and he closed his eyes and grit his teeth at every one. One hit him in his lower back, a few at his legs, one at his already sore arm, and a few larger ones that landed across his upper back. The force knocked him to his knees. He struggled to get up fast enough before the second onslaught of stones rained down on him.

"Where you goin', guardian?" The autumn sprite asked.

"He can't even defend himself!" laughed another.

"Where's your precious family now?" another blow.

"You are undeserving of the guardian title!" Another trip.

"Worthless!"

"Useless!"

"Pathetic!"

He had finally gotten his feet back under him when an autumn spirit, a large boy with flaring brown and red hair, let loose his fold on a stone about the size of a small adult fist. The stone sailed through the air, and purely by chance, hit the winter spirit in the side of his head. Jack's body immediately tilted to the side by the force as he collapsed, unconscious.

"Oh shit!" One summer sprite exclaimed, the one with the red hair. All assaults had come to a halt in shock.

"What did you do?!" He turned to the autumn sprite who was frozen in terror.

"I…I didn't mean to hit him in the head!"

"Well you did, genius!"

"Shit, we're gonna die." A female summer sprite exclaimed, breathlessly.

"Is he dead?!" another asked.

"How should I know?!" one answered.

They all crept toward the motionless body of the winter spirit that lay in the forest floor.

"He's bleeding."

"What should we do?"

"Get outta here!"

"But what if-"

"No, we gotta go before the guardians find out!"

With that, all the elementals left in a panic, all shouting how they were all going to be captured and tortured horridly. It took them no longer that ten seconds to clear the area without a trace, leaving jack to lie on the ground, a stream of blood flowing from the wound on his head.

The first time Jack awoke, or at least, gained a little bit of consciousness, it was to a cold feeling being pressed against his head. Oh his head. It hurt. He moaned at the feeling and the sound of his own voice seemed to echo, painfully throughout his skull. He scrunched up his eyes tight, as if trying to squeeze the horrid feeling out, but that only seemed to make the roaring of his ears become louder. But then it was replaced by a voice. Whoever was talking must have realized he was having a hard time blocking out all the painful noises of his head, because they were speaking in soft, low tones, slow enough for him to take the time to try and interpret the words spoken.

He didn't realize he had cracked one eye open until the dim light of the room seeped into his vision and made him blink groggily. He tried to focus his vision on the large blue-ish, grey mass that swam above him, but he couldn't keep his eyes open long enough for his vision to clear. He felt as if he was trying to speak, felt his voice vibrate through his throat and skull, lulling him back into the darkness. But not before he heard another, deeper voice above him.

"-ostbite."

The second time Jack awoke was in the morning and the pain of his head came back again, but not as fiercely as it had the first time he had gained consciousness. He mumbled something incoherent as he weakly shifted his head from one side to the other, away from the invading sunlight. The first time he awoke must have been sometime during the night, because unlike the first time, the room was bright with sunlight, not dimly lit.

He had cracked his eyes open and took in the room he was in. The walls appeared to be made of packed dirt and roots and the window by the bed was large and round with a wooden frame. It reminded him of the houses in that movie Jamie had shown him, with the short people and the elves that were tall and had long, blonde-

"Frostbite?" A deep voice asked hesitantly to his right. The voice sounded surprised and anxious, concerned, almost.

His neck felt too heavy to try to turn again so he just blinked tiredly and sighed softly in response. Then Bunny was by his side, bending down slightly, peering down at him with his long ears alert and his nose twitching the whiskers about, taking in everything before him.

"You with me, mate?" He asked softly, resting his paw across Jack's brow. His green eyes searched for recognition in the winter spirits reaction. Jack blinked when the paw lay across his forehead, the contact making him flinch. The Pooka frowned at the boy's reaction to the gentle touch.

Suddenly memories flooded Jack's mind, of stones, cruel words and the other elementals. The memories made him wake up a bit more and try to sit up rather quickly.

"Bunny-!" He found himself falling back in pain just as quickly as he had tried to propel himself up. His vision swam and his ears rang painfully again, but they weren't as bad as the previous time he had awoken.

"-oa, easy, slow down mate. Just take your time, a'right?" Bunny's paws were on his shoulders, steadying him and lying him back against the bed, keeping him in place. "You had quite the blow to ya' noggin, jus' relax, a'right?"

"Bunny, there were sprites and they…they…didn't want…they didn't want to be friends…I guess." Jack finished sadly, grimacing at the pain in his head. He reached up an arm to feel his throbbing head and was met by the feeling of cloth, bandages, wrapped around his silvery hair which had a slight pink tint to it from the blood.

"How did you find me?"

Bunny sighed and sat back down on his chair beside the bed.

Had he been sitting there the whole time? Jack wondered.

"Baby-Tooth actually did, and she came to meh. Guess she figured I was closer or somethin' like tha'."

"Probably a wise decision, Tooth, Sandy and North would've freaked."

Bunny raised an eyebrow. "I had my moment of freakin' out too. Its not every day Baby-Tooth leads me to a winter spirit lyin' on the forest floor, bleedin' his brains out."

"True." Jack shifted a bit, moaning a bit when he aggravated the sore spots on his back, where the stones hit.

"You feeling any betteh?" Bunny asked, watching the boy's body movements with skilled eyes.

"A little, I'm pretty sore. My head hurts."

"That's alright, at leas' it stopped bleedin'. Here, I brought ya some soup earlier," Bunny frowned, reaching over behind him to the bedside table and reaching for the bowl of soup Jack hadn't even noticed. "it was hot. I bet its ice cold now."

"Perfect. Thanks Bunny," Jack replied with a smile, sitting up a bit more, albeit slowly, when Bunny set a few extra pillows being him to support him.

"And no more heart attacks for me, a'right? This old Pooka can't take much more. Thankfully all your head needed was a few stitches and some ice and rest for a few days. No mind games, got it?"

"Alright, alright…Kangaroo." Jack smiled and accepted the soup gratefully.

The next time Jack saw those elementals they were all limping and had various wrapped wounds adorning them. When they saw Jack they scrambled to get as far away from him as possible, muttering about some crazy kangaroo with a boomerang. Jack just smiled and with his staff over his shoulder, went on his way.