They all had been very silent after the battle. Jack was hanging to the back of the group, not wanting to intrude. Bunny and North were off talking in a corner, Sandy listening in as they discussed possible strategies and what Pitch might be planning.

Tooth was kneeling by a pond, fondly holding an empty canister of teeth. Her sad expression was what drove Jack to approach.

"I'm really sorry about the fairies," he muttered, crouching beside her. He wasn't lying. He hated seeing other spirits in distress, and he probably would have saved more if he could. Probably, anyway-- there is a difference between an anger fueled gang attack and a war: a war for which Jack still wasn't sure where he stood.

Tooth smiled sadly. "You should have seen them, they put up such a fight." Baby Tooth smiled and puffed her chest up a little at the compliment.

Jack chuckled lightly at the little one's antics before his face fell again. "What does Pitch want with the teeth anyway?"

"It wasn't the teeth, but the memories inside that Pitch wanted." She noticed Jack's confusion. Rising gracefully into the air, Tooth hovered over the small lake: she beckoned Jack to follow. He tentatively stepped onto the water, a thin layer of ice forming beneath his feet. So long as he willed, he couldn't fall through, and he was seriously willing despite the shallowness of the water. "The teeth hold the most important memories of childhood," Tooth explained. "That's why we collect them. When a child needs to remember, we can help." Before them, painted expertly on the wall, was what Jack could only describe as a mural: hand painted children willingly lifting up their teeth for her to take. Tooth laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "We had everyone's here... even yours."

Jack knit his brows together. "You can't have," he muttered. "I wasn't anyone before I was Jack Frost..."

"Of course you were. We were all someone before we were chosen." Tooth nodded to her companions on the shore, who had begun to bicker and tease good naturedly.

Jack didn't see her nod however. Blood was rushing in his ears and his heart was beating wildly. "Are - are you saying I had a life before I was born? With a home? A - and a family?!"

She looked closely at him, taking in his wild expression. "You really dont remember?"

"No!" He hopped into the air, bouncing on invisible clouds as he ran to a ledge to perch on, gaining the attention of the other three guardians. He jabbed his staff in her general direction. "If I know who I once was, then I'll know why I'm here! You have to show me!"

"Jack, I can't. Pitch has them."

He whipped around, elated. "Then I'll have to find Pitch!"

Tooth looked like she would have said more, but was stopped by several feathers falling out of her plume. "Oh no!" Her voice was a gasp. "It's happening already. We're too late!" The children's belief was fading quickly.

North snorted violently. He waved his swords about in his anger. "No! NO! No such things as too late!" He stormed back and forth, muttering under his breath until an idea came to him and Bunny was forcefully reminded that standing next to an armed North is a poor choice. "WE will collect de teeth!"

"What?! North you can't be serious! We're talking seven continents, billions of children-"

"Please, you know how many presents I deliver in one night?"

"Or how many eggs I hide in one day?"

"And Jack, if you-... where'd he go?"

North had been turning around, ready to offer Jack a deal: help them collect teeth, they make sure he gets his back; but Jack was gone with only the cold Wind and a tiny pile of snow to ever even indicate that he had been there. He was shooting across an ocean as they spoke. Aiming for Venice (a place he knew Pitch often frequented,) Jack was looking for one of the tale-tell entrances to Pitch's lair.

Jack had been invited into the home of the nightmare king many times (more than any other spirit,) but finding an entrance was a different matter: the holes like to shift and move, and sometimes vanish altogether. But if Venice was where his main lair was, then surely there was an entrace somewhere in or near the city.

Simple logic, really.

All Jack had to do was find a hole, pop down (politely,) and...

And what? Jack paused just on the coast of Venice. What would he do? What would he say? "Hey Pitch, saw you just a couple hours ago when you were stealing literal tons of teeth from the Tooth Fairy. Well she says I once was somebody before I became Jack Frost and that she had my teeth too and that teeth store memories of childhood. Dunno if I ever told you this but I actually have no memory of being human. I was wondering if you would let me hunt down my teeth to try to remember? Preferably without your nightmare horses trampling me to death?"

He sighed, and pressed on in his search. Perhaps he wouldn't use that exact rambling wording, but that was the gist of what he wanted. Pitch was always reasonable to him anyway: give the old man a dose of the innocent doe-eyes and Jack was certain he could get what he wanted.

After several hours of searching all over Europe, this "simple logic" was biting Jack in the butt. Not one hole could be found, and it was almost morning here in Venice.

Abnormally exhausted, Jack floated on down to a rooftop and sat down.

Normally Jack saw the little holes all over the place: he never entered unless invited (or, at least, he was never caught inside uninvited, to his knowledge.) Now all he saw were rabbit holes and sewage pipes.

So why the sudden change?

There was the distant jingle of sleigh bells overhead. Jack looked upwards just in time to hear a booming laugh and North's sleigh getting sucked through a portal. He smacked his forehead.

Of course the entrances weren't to be found: they were all closed! Pitch was at war! If he left the entrances open, he would be basically screaming "here I am! Come and ruin my entire operation!" Pitch, Jack knew, was once a war general, so he would know better than that.

Pitch and the Guardians were at war. Jack couldn't find Pitch; but he could probably find the Guardians much more easily. If he could find them, then it would only be a matter of time before they came across Pitch again.

With a whoop of adrenaline, Jack shot into the night sky. It would only be a few more hours until daybreak in the Western Hemisphere: Pitch couldn't last long in sunlight and would no doubt retreat underground during the daylight hours, so Jack had to move quickly if he wanted his teeth as soon as possible. (Assuming, of course, that Pitch would even attack tonight.)

Within minutes he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and was speeding across North America. The Wind was whispering in his ear, leading him on an exhilarating goose chase. Jack laughed and laughed and let his old friend buffet him about and send him spinning across towns, dropping a thin layer of snow and frost in his wake. He spent another hour circling the country. With only three more hours until sunrise, Jack sped towards Burgess: if Pitch or the Guardians weren't there, Jack supposed he'd call it a day and find the Guardians at a much more leisurely pace; maybe after a nap: he hadn't slept in at least twenty years.

But at last, he struck gold. A sense of dread and fear settled on Jack and increased as he got closer and closer to the town. There were sleigh bells and neighs and shouts: a battle.

There was a massive cloud over the town with specks of- ... no, that wasn't a normal cloud. It was floating mass of Nightmare sand with nightmares pouring out of it that were being slowly picked off by Bunny, North, and Tooth.

Jack almost missed the golden swirl surrounded on all sides by black sand: he almost missed Sandy in the middle, attacking vigorously with his golden whips: he almost missed Pitch letting loose a twisted black arrow that impaled the little man in his heart: Jack almost missed the taunts, and how slowly and bravely Sandman was absorbed into the sand.

Almost.

Jack saw it all.

He halted in mid-air. Tears poured down his cheeks, freezing halfway with layers of new tears freezing until they fell under the weight. The Wind whistled in his ear and called his name, terrified at the boy's silence and stillness. Jack didn't answer his friend.

Sandman was dead.

Jack may not have had much if any love for the other Guardians, but he'd always liked Sandy: the little man hadn't tried to pressure him into becoming what he was not or cast him away, and he'd listened to Jack the few times they had really talked. He'd liked Sandy so much.

But Sandy was dead.

Jack was in too much shock to register anything else. This time he did miss a gigantic wave of nightmare sand bearing down on the last three Guardians: he really did miss them high-tailing it out of the way, fighting to gain enough ground to escape in a portal.

They did not fail to see him. Jack's emotions were getting the better of him. He couldn't even tell what emotions he was having.

Kind Sandy was gone, and Pitch killed him; but Pitch was always so kind as well, always gave his ear to Jack, and Pitch would run with Jack and help him rescue other spirits and eternal creatures of the earth; and did the Guardians really deserve this: they were good people like Pitch was a good person; but they had never listened to him or stayed to talk and Bunny hated him so much; but Sandy was kind; but Sandy was dead and --

There was a sound similar to an inverted explosion. Gazes flew to the sound to see for the first time that Jack Frost was present. Ice flew like sparks from his tightly curled body and the wind blew in earnest with such fierce intent that they all feared Jack was bringing about another blizzard. Nightmares were blown away in the gust: the sleigh toppled end over end before it finally righted itself and took its chance to dash through a portal. Pitch himself was sent flying, his fading voice falling on deaf ears as he called to Jack.

They all suddenly remembered that, despite his soft nature and kindness, Jack Frost doesn't just command the elements of cold and Winter. He IS the cold: every magical fiber of his being had been turned into Winter's Boy Master when he was born from that lake, and the cold that hailed him as indisputable ruler and king made up his entire being.

And the King of Winter brought about a storm to match the tumult he felt inside.

In the morning it would be discovered that underground pipes and wells had frozen solid and burst. Unsecured windows were blown open. Electrical lines snapped and broke under the strain. Several trees were uprooted and many roofs sustained damage.

But in the moments just before morning, Jack was found by one of his winter siblings: a sister with ice for hair, frost for skin, and steel for irises, she crouched down beside her brother. Jack's face was painted with rough frost from his tears and his skin had an unnerving bluish tint. He was clutching his staff to his chest as though it were his last life line.

The sister remembered when he had saved her once, backed up by none other than the nightmare king himself. She had been dragged to Florida in mid-summer and trapped in a muddy and murky pond, unable to move or summon any ice, doomed to a slow death. She had been melting as she cried for anyone to please come. She had been so afraid. But her brother Jack had come. He had sucked her right up out of the muck with a vortex of wind then had rushed on the power of a northern storm to take her up into Canada. When they had landed and she had regained herself, Jack introduced himself and explained how he had known to come for her: in all the bustle, she hadn't noticed a second figure lurking in the shadows as Jack pulled her from that pond, but the figure had been none other than Pitch himself, who had picked up on her terror and had called Jack to save her. They had both been kind.

Jack and Pitch had saved her life.

Now Jack needed her help. She scooped him up into her arms: he, like all other winter sprites, weighed next to nothing (though fall sprites weigh even less,) so even she could easily carry him. Throwing him onto her back and wrapping his arms around her body, she summoned a trail of ice before her. The sister was regarded as one of the more powerful ice sprites, but even her power was small when compared to Jack. And yet it was just enough to get the job done.

She began skating northward on her materializing trail of ice, racing against the rising sun. She was fast. She had been a professional Olympic figure skater when she had been mortal and knew her way on ice better than anyone. Enhanced by magic and a hundred years of training, she could reach speeds any other skater could only dream of.

By mid-morning she was halfway into her mother country Canada and already curled up in her little ice hut. She had given Jack her snow pile bed. The pale blue tint had slowly begun to fade and the frost melted when he finally cracked one bleary eye open.

"Sarah?" His voice was creaking, like he was an old man.

Sarah smiled, having not expected him to remember her name, given that they had only met the one time. "How are you feeling?"

Jack rubbed his head and sat up: the snow shifted and crunched under him. "Not too bad, I guess... what... what happened?"

His sister shrugged. "No idea. I was just minding my business on the border, enjoying the late cold and throwing some black ice around when there was this weird boom and a sudden ice storm. I figured that there was only one winter spirit around who could do that. When the storm quieted down after, like, a whole hour, I came in and there you were, collapsed in that favoirite town of yours, blue and covered in frost. I think you made quite a few pipes and stuff explode."

Jack groaned and butted his head on the wall; which was a bad idea, given his headache. He rubbed his temples.

That damage would no doubt be an absalute nightmare for the people of Burgess to deal with.

"So, what happened? Can you remember?"

Jack shook his head. "I... I'd rather not... not right now at least."

Sandman was dead. Killed in a war between Pitch and the Guardians. And Jack had been running around, all concerned with himself.

He sniffed and pushed himself to his feet. "Woah!" Sarah rushed in front of him. "Don't you think you should rest for a while longer? Whatever happened took a lot out of you if it made you pass out like that."

He shook his head again. "No, I'm fine really. It's mostly just the headache. I'm headed further North anyway. I just..." he chewed his lip. Jack really did want to tell Sarah, but he didn't want to worry her, and just the thought of Sandy hurt too much to bring it up. "I need to clear somethings up." She didn't look convinced. He laughed and held out a fist, pointing out his little finger. "Pinky promise. I'll be fine."

Sarah sighed, but relented with another small smile. "I'm holding you to that."

A/N

Well, I must say I really am impressed with this story getting attention! RotG is one of the more dead fandoms, and yet this is getting some nice support. I may have already mentioned this, but this story is going to be heavily tied in with book lore in part 2: also plenty of headcanons.

Expect to see Sarah again in later chapters, as well. We won't see her for a little while, but she will be a recurring character.

I'm sorry the ending of this chapter seems kinda rushed. I'll probably do so revision on it in later updates, but I can't think of how to improve it right now. Suggestions welcome.

That should be all. So long Lovies!"