Shout-Outs:

m.h.77: Thank you for the kind words. You made me smile. I'm glad you enjoy my story so.

Smashing Sandcastles

Chapter 3

By Lightning Frost

When Toothiana was teleported inside the memory of the boxes keeper she didn't know whose memories she was visiting. When she materialized she was still clutching the golden bedazzled box. Lifting it in front of her face, Tooth recognized the face and it broke her heart. It was a smiling face with brown messy hair and big childish brown eyes, that face was no more. The box belonged to Jack Frost and these memories were banished to the darkest part of his mind.

Jack woke up with a sick feeling in his stomach. He clutched his staff all the tighter as he counted his breaths. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. It wasn't his normal summer sickness he got when the Summer elves came and invaded the place, this was like stomach-full-of-lead.

Usually to avoid the summer's heat he stayed at the North Pole so the heat rays wouldn't hurt him at his lake. He'd come back in the evenings to cool down the night and freeze over the lake again.

"North, do you feel anything….weird?" Jack asked rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and leaning on his staff. When North turned Jack was scared, North had been crying. Something was defiantly wrong.

"Jack, I do not know how to tell you this." North began. Jack floated up to the rafters to listen, he just didn't want North to see him react.

"Jamie, is dead." North finished but Jack made the wrong move by sitting on the rafters. He felt like he was falling and he really was. The fall was like a hundred years but in reality it was a few seconds. He hit the ground like a bug hit a windshield.

Jack was numb and his cries hung in his throat. He twitched on the ground and moaned as he felt the magic die. His first believer, gone just like that and he didn't know. He couldn't stop it and he'd only known the boy for all of winter and spring. That's not long enough, and Jamie was so special, so full of magic and light. How could a spark turn into ash that fast?

"H-how?" Jack finally stammered out and North lowered his head.

"Did you tell him you weren't at the lake in the summer?" North asked. Jack barely shook his head.

"He went looking for you and went on the ice, it cracked and he fell through and drowned. It was just now Jack. His light just went out." North said and Jack used his staff to pull himself up.

He asked the wind to carry him to Burgess as fast as it could. When he got there he dived into the water where the boy floated lifeless. He emerged from the water, staff in hand and carrying the dead boy bridal style. Water dripped from his pale and pinkish skin, dead rings were around his eyes, his hair clung to his head. The boy Jamie Bennett was no more, and it was all Jack's fault. And for the first time, in a long time, Jack Frost- the Guardian of Fun- cried. His center was broken, for death was never funny.

When the memory ceased, Toothiana reappeared at the battle. Nearly all her fairies had been captured and the teeth discarded. Where a giant toothbrush was in her hand, a memory box held its place-Jack's memories that he cared for no more. His center was broken, hers would be too if Pitch ever got her memory box, but she kept hers somewhere nobody would ever look for it.

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Sanderson watched his comrade reappear from the memory box, into battle. He watched helplessly as her fairies were attacked and captured and her safeguarded memories stolen from before her. The same way his freedom was, when he wasn't looking. Sandy was so consumed in the battle he hadn't noticed Pitch move for the kill. The darkened version of himself was fighting one on one with Tooth now, using bronze sand whips and she fought with her swiftness and a mouthwash gun she had tied to her feather belt.

"Sandy, I don't want to hurt you!" Tooth cried as she tried to dissolve his sand whips with mouthwash. And I don't want you to be hurt Toothiana, the real Sandy thought but like all his other thoughts, it was spoken aloud to Pitch.

Pitch had Tooth where he wanted her. The dark sandman was a diversion, he had her lured over a shadowed ground. He pulled the spike back like drawing an arrow on a bow. Her wings were in the right spot and he released the spike. It flew through the air and embedded itself in the crystal pink wings. Toothiana fell from the sky and plummeted to the ground through the shadow, into Pitch's lair.

"TOOTHIANA!" Sandy cried knowing full and well that Pitch could hear him.

"Scream Sanderson! Scream for her because she'll be joining you soon enough! Who's next on the list of Guardians Sandman? Who shall fall next?" Pitch raised his voice and his laughter in a sadistic way.

"Don't hurt them! Hurt me instead!" Sandman begged but he knew Pitch was not one for mercy unless it prolonged the game. But all games eventually had to be won, though which side wins is always a mystery.

"I will hurt you Sanderson, I'll hurt you all but you'll get the full extent of my wrath! Shall we attack the kangaroo next? He's one of your oldest friends, is he not? What would he think if a dark version of you came and fought him? What would they think if you were the reason for their downfall?" Pitch asked before extending his shadows and embracing the Sandman in his dark grasp.

A/N: I really have nothing to say but this chapter was a bit tough. For Jack's memory I wanted him to be away from the Guardians and the memory was from a picture I found on the web of Jack holding Jamie who was dripping water and the ice was cracked, so this memory was formed from that and to have a reason for why things happen in here that isolated him. I know this wasn't really a Sandman chapter but his time will come. Hope you enjoyed.