So sorry for the delay in any updates. My computer got a virus and had to be rebooted completely so I lost the original chapter for this. This here is the re-write and hopefully it is okay. I'll get something longer and in Jack's POV soon I swear.

Days passed and the Guardians were still no closer to getting through to Jack. The young winter spirit had tried already to escape many times only to end up knocked out by Sandy with no memories of it when he woke up. They had all tried countless times to get him to open up but the only one that had any luck was Sandy. Sandy and Jack would sit there for hours and exchange images as a form of story telling. Jack would still try to communicate in his impromptu language but in fell on deaf ears anyway. They didn't need words when they had pictures to tell the story.

Bunny and North were both given sharp glares when they entered the room and it was only a matter of time before they would become so uncomfortable that they would have to leave the room. Bunny could usually last longer than North by ignoring the boy and working on new egg designs but eventually the silence would get to him and he would be forced to leave the room. Tooth didn't have much luck in getting any closer to the child either.

Any time they would enter and Sandy wasn't with them, sometimes even if Sandy was there, Jack would go completely ridged and refuse to turn his back to anyone in the room. He would simply sit there and stare at whoever entered the room. The tension lessened somewhat when they gave back the wolf fur cape he had been using but they still refused to give back his skull mask for fear that the antlers could be used as a weapon.

The room had also been cleared of anything that could be turned into a weapon after Jack mutilated a chair and later tried to choke Bunny out with the leftover sweater. Now all that remained in the room was the bed that Jack still refused to sleep in. He had made his nest underneath it and refused to be moved now.

Bunny, Tooth, North, an Sandy were in North's office as they talked about what they could possibly do about Jack to help him with his new Guardian duties. Part of the problem though was that he had no believers. Jack was of course wild but that all led back to the problem that no one had ever seen him. The Man in the Moon alerted them to his creation three hundred years ago and Jack had been in the wilderness all this time. They could hardly just let him lose on the children nowadays and 2012 was hardly a time for a child stuck centuries in the past with no social skills what so ever.

Sandy was floating in front of the other Guardians as he relaid the stories that Jack had shared with him. Images flashed in rapid secession. They were to fast for even the Guardians to decode so they started simply yelling out guesses.

"A new cookie recipe?"

"A Tyrannosaurus with a toothache?"

"Look Sandy, I like ya mate, but, uhh- not like that."

Sanderson gave them all disapproving looks before simply forming words above his head to convey the tale.

He played out the scene as Jack had told it. Jack's favorite story to share was his encounters with the shadow. He told of living in the wild and surviving off his wits. At first he tried to communicate with the specter but the was just relentlessly attacked in return so he stopped. Jack quickly abandoned his staff in favor of weapons that caused more damage.

The Guardians were surprised that the boy seemed to have no clue about his powers but if he really had no memories then it was all too possible that he didn't even know how to use them.

Sandy showed them the fights between a dark figure and a small boy. All the fights showed Jack and the shadow running around the woods dodging and striking as equals. It seemed to just be a game at first. A way for Pitch to entertain himself. As time went on however, they could see it taking on a darker tone. Pitch started to attack in earnest. Most of the time Jack was on the receiving side of the hits as he was unable to defend himself from the shadow tendrils. He turned to weapons of equally

devastating force to help him in his fight against Pitch.

Pitch would show up when the boy was hunting or when he was out patrolling. Jack was the one believer that kept Pitch tied to the Earth and it was because Pitch went to far.

The Boogeyman would come out of nowhere and Jack would quickly have to jump out of the way or risk being hit. Jack would try to get in close under Pitch's guard but a Nightmare would always form in time to save the Nightmare king from he attack while Jack was left wide open to everything Pitch sent his way. They saw as Jack received every scar. They watched as he became more desperate.

They watched as he was blinded. Jack and Pitch were at it again and Pitch was being especially vicious today. He didn't give Jack a chance to counter attack or to really even defend himself. All Jack could do in this fight was run. He boy was sprinting through the woods and snow much as he had done with Bunny but it hardly mattered when Pitch simply followed on a cloud made of Nightmare sand. Jack tried all the tricks he could think of to try and get away. Nothing worked and Pitch was quick to take advantage of that. Jack was able to dodge the wisps of sand by jumping into a tree and taking off from there. He used his claws to hold on to the branches better but in the end a well timed swat from one of Pitch's Nightmares was enough to push Jack to the ground.

The Nightmare stood over him and growled. Jack looked shocked and tried to growl back with a bark and whistle at the end. The Nightmare cocked its head and nickered back. Jack concentrated before chuffling back in a perfect imitation of a caribou. They were interrupted by Pitch as he shooed the Nightmare away.

The Nightmare king smirked down at the trapped boy. Jack tried to get up from his vulnerable position on his stomach but the sand around him made him re-think that. He tried instead to simply keep Pitch in his line of vision.

Pitch started to talk to him but Jack couldn't understand a word. He assumed that it was just for the purpose of hearing his own voice. After the monologue that Jack didn't understand Pitch turned to face he boy and summoned some sand to his hand. Jack looked up defiantly before Pitch smiled down at him eerily. Then the sand slashed down out of his hand and into Jack's face.

Jack screamed and clutched his face as he tried to move his body so he could get away. He curled up in pain as Pitch laughed and disappeared. Jack lay on he forest floor panting and whimpering in pain for a long time before he was able to pull himself up and try to get back to his cave.

The Guardians watched as he pulled himself through the snow and they could see the blood trail that was being left behind as the boy limped onwards. He made it to the ice and they saw as he slipped slightly on the slick surface before making I to the cave and crawling inside.

He huddled around the small fire and removed a small piece of metal that had been resting in the fire. He looked a the glowing tip before bringing it to he chest. He clenched his teeth and shoved the metal onto his skin to seal the cut shut. He repeated this process with every cut on his body until only the large cut over his eye was left. He set the metal back into the fire so it would be hot enough and then lifted it up to his eye. He placed it over the cut before dropping it and screaming again in pain.

Jack crawled over to the painting on the back wall of the shadow man and smeared his blood-covered hands over it again. Now it was covered in past blood and the fresh blood from today.

He snarled before dropping his hand from his burning eye and punching the rock where Pitch was drawn. His rage quickly fled and he whimpered before burying himself in the furs in a corner.

The Guardians watched as the story ended in shock. They knew that Jack's life had to be hard but that seemed beyond cruel. They couldn't believe that even Pitch would sink that low.

North was the first to speak, "what can we do?"

Sandy raised his hand.

"We have to help him. After that we are not going to just let him be."

"We already decided to help, Tooth. We just need to know how."

Sandy floated up and shook his arm around trying to gain attention.

"We need 'im to fulfill his Guardian duties but we can't let 'im be around kids. I mean, bloody hell, I don't even know if we should be around 'im! He might not be able to come back from something like that."Sandy threw a ball of sand dust past Bunny's ear. It startled him enough that he scampered back a few steps before realizing what had happened. "Sandy, what was that?"

Sandy flashed a few images above his head.

"Train him? You want us to treat him like dog?"

Sandy shook his head before thinking it over and shyly shrugging. He conjured another image and let a scene play.

"There's no guarantee it will even work. Can we even take that risk, mate?"

"We might not have a choice. Man in Moon would not have picked hm if we didn't need him.

Regardless we have to get him well enough to fight with us even if we have to take an odd approach."

"It could be the only option we have guys."

"Tooth is right. We need to do this even if it is questionable."

Sandy gave two thumbs up and nodded in excitement because he thought that this was the right course of action.

"How are we gonna do it then? He's not exactly a bundle a joy in there. He won't even let any of us near 'im, let alone trust any of us to help!"

"We will have to work with him and get him to trust us, Bunny. It will be hard but we need his help and he needs ours."

"Alright mate, say by some chance this works, what do we do then?"

"He is one of us, we do nothing."

"If you think that is what we need to do then I guess I'm with ya," Bunny shook his head but didn't protest anymore than that. They all turned to look in the direction Jack's room was in. It had been quiet for far to long and that usually meant nothing good for the Guardians concerning their young ward.