Previously:
Clara caught his eye and smiled widely. "We're more ready than you think we are, Jack."

Jack still hesitated. That purpose was going to be important. But there was nothing more revealing than a challenge. Perhaps they will discover their purpose in the coming fight. Everyone depended on it.

"Then let's issue the challenge."

It was night. As it tends to be when any immortal does their work. It was neither an advantage nor a disadvantage; night time was when they were all strong. Yet, there was a certain edge to the shadows this time. Like they knew something no one else did. An empty feeling that came from when you know there is too much to learn in too short a time before a big test. The loss of hope as you realize it's too late, so you may as well sit back and watch the fall from grace.

Jack felt the empty hopelessness of a teacher given too few materials without even knowing the curriculum, only the subject. The knowledge needed too specific, the subject matter too broad. With no way of knowing if his students learned the right information. And no time to cram more into their brains.

"'Beware your fears.'" Jack muttered, remembering what Ralf said so long ago. "'Beware your woes.'"

Fear. Jack used to only fear the thing itself. It's different when you have a family once again. He's started fearing he would lose them again. Especially since they didn't have the millennium of experience he and the other immortals did. He knew their victory depended on not just him, but Clara, Zordah, Corzat, and Tasha. He hoped the months of practice was enough.

"How long after you woke as immortal did you figure out your purpose?" Zordah asked Jack. It was just them—and the moon—on a bench at a park not far from Jamie's home.

"I didn't learn it until after Bunny started doing his thing." Jack answered. The icy immortal had just explained their disadvantages concerning their Purpose.

Zordah whistled. "That's a long time."

"I'm a special case." Jack said, somewhat self depreciatingly. "I was alone for the entirety of that and had no memory."

"How long did it take the others?"

"Anywhere between a few months to 100 years."

"Still too much time." Zordah acknowledged. He sat back to look at the moon.

Jack was still the only one to hear Ralf. Even his newly reunited family couldn't hear him. Ralf theorized that it had something to do with them knowing each other before Ralf became the Man in the Moon.

"So what now?" Zordah asked after they'd both been quiet.

The oldest being alive let out a long, tired sigh. "We do some aided soul searching."

"Yippee."

"What's your Purpose?" Clara asked curiously after he'd explained to her, Corzat, and Tasha the problem.

"Joy."

"What—really?" Bunny said, surprised. "I thought it would've been fun or something."

"No." Tasha said, a knowing smile on her face. "It is joy."

Clara, Zordah, and Corzat smiled too. Memories of simpler times more than likely running through their minds.

Jack smiled too, before turning serious again. "The others have more experience helping others find their Purpose than I do, so I'll let them take over."

They had no more than a few months of working on finding their Purpose when their plan to challenge Pitch Black was enacted. They couldn't wait any longer. More and more elves and fairies were being transformed into shadowy copies. They couldn't take much more. Somehow it was happening inside their bases. No one knew how Pitch made it in; it was supposed to be impossible if the immortal didn't want it. Not even Jack could enter without permission now that they knew he existed.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Jack asked from the other side of the portal in the alley way. Clara was leading Tasha to the edge of the alley, preparing to enter public view and therefore public knowledge.

Zordah and Corzat hadn't undergone any drastic physical changes since becoming immortal so they wouldn't draw much attention. Because of this, they stayed with Jack in St Nicholas' workshop. This made them good secret weapons against Pitch in the first confrontation.

"We don't have much choice, do we?" Clara threw a smile back at him. "Don't worry, Jack. We'll be fine." Then she stepped onto the streets of New York.

The plan was to just draw eyes. Dressed in wolf pelts in the summer with white silvery hair, and with vines crawling up and over Tasha's arms, they drew more than enough eyes. No one stopped them, (they weren't the craziest anyone in New York had seen) but they certainly got people's attention. That's all that was needed to get Pitch's attention.

A few days of this in more than one location was all it took for Pitch to find them after that.

"Well, well, well." An echoey voice surrounded them in the forest.

They'd waited for him in the forest near where Jack had died. And where Pitch claimed to have come into being. All of the Guardians were there to help as the family of five confronted him.

"I see you've found her." Pitch emerged from a tree, as if he'd been hiding in the trunk. "You realize this changes nothing?"

"How so?" Clara asked confidently. "You sneak around and know much. But not all."

"Oh? Do I not, Clara?" A predatory grin graced Pitch's face. He glanced at the others. "Ah, Zordah, Tasha, Corzat. You've also joined us. How nice."

Zordah did not give any indication that he was unnerved by the fact that Pitch apparently knew about him. Something Jack drew strength from.

"Pitch Black. We will give you this one last chance to stand down and retreat to whatever shadowy depths you came from." Tasha said, pounding a thick staff into the earth. It came to her in the last few weeks during an exercise with the Tooth Fairy.

"Or what?" Pitch calmly said. "You'll shove that stick up my—"

"Never mind what we'll do." Corzat interrupted. "I think it's more than clear what we're going to do. And I think you know perfectly well how things are going to end up with you. The question is how you're going to go. Quietly? Or my favorite way?"

Pitch smiled again. "I admire your spirit, but really. How could you think this could go any other way?"

In the next moment, they were all regretting choosing a place that naturally made shadows in the daytime. The night shadows grew until they became separate from the trees.

Many small forms Jack recognized as the elves and fairies turned shadows broke off and charged. Swarms of the small shadows attacked each immortal, making it impossible to get to Pitch to throw any kind of shot that may have helped their case.

In fact, Pitch chuckled in his echoey voice and faded away before the shadows had fully made contact.

"Jack!" Tasha cried, seeing the frosty immortal on his back, warding off a particularly vicious fairy from his face.

"I got it!" Jack called back, though his situation hardly improved.

"Jack!" Clara screamed.

Zordah, who had rushed to help Jack up, turned immediately to his sister. He'd had less trouble from the shadows. His skin turned to stone so he was able to shrug the little blighters off.

"Jack!" Clara cried again. "They're here!"

Now Jack saw what had her so scared. At her feet lay already three decapitated bodies of the zombies Mitch the Mad had under his control at one point. More were emerging from the shadows all around them.

"North! Tooth, Sandy, and Bunny, get out of here!" Jack shouted. "Clara—"

"Awwooooooo!"

Five dire wolves burst through the trees. "Climb on!" Clara said to her family.

Once all were mounted, the wolves took off. They were running along the beach, finally out of reach, when Clara turned to Jack. He was flying low next to her. "I know my Purpose."

"Me too." Corzat said.

"I might have an idea for mine." Zordah said next.

"Me too." Tasha threw in.

Jack grinned. "It's about time."