Everyone was furious.
Tooth sat down in sorrow. She held an empty tooth box in her hand while Baby Tooth sat on a broken tooth box beside her.
Bunny told North, "Okay, all right, I admit it. You were right about Pitch."
"This is one time I wish I was wrong," North replied. "But he will pay."
"I'm sorry about your fairies." Jack said to Tooth.
Tooth sighed. "You should have seen them. They put up such a fight."
"Why would Pitch take the teeth?" Cadence asked.
"It's not the teeth he wanted," Tooth explained. "It's the memories inside them."
"What?" Cadence gave a quizzical look and Jack's interest increased.
Tooth got up and led the two teens across the lagoon where a mural was painted on the cliff wall. It was Tooth surrounded by children who were giving her their teeth. The water under Jack's feet hardened with each step, allowing Cadence to follow them.
"That's why we collect the teeth. They hold the most important memories of childhood." Tooth narrated. "My fairies and I watch over them, and when someone needs to remember what's important, we help them. We had everyone's," Tooth looked at both Jack and Cadence, "Yours too."
"My memories?" Jack asked as if he were in shock.
"From when you were young," Tooth answered. "Before you became Jack Frost."
Jack shook his head. "But I wasn't anyone before I was Jack Frost."
"Of course you were. We were all someone before we were chosen."
North entered the conversation. "You should have seen Bunny." He chuckled.
"I told you to never mention that!" Bunny scolded.
Jack was struggling with this new information. "That night at the Pond. . . I just. . . why, I assumed. Are you saying I had a life before that? With a home? And a family?!"
"You really don't remember?" Tooth asked.
"He really doesn't." Cadence said.
Jack's face was blank. "All these years, and the answers were right here. If I find my memories, then I'll know why I'm here." Jack was ready to fly up. "You have to show me!"
Cadence knocked on Jack's head, as if she were knocking on a door. "She can't, genius! Pitch took the teeth!"
"Then we have to get them back!" Jack rubbed his head from where Cadence knocked on it.
Everyone turned back to the mural as it began to disintegrate. "Oh no!" Tooth cried. "We're losing them! We're too late!"
"NO!" North boomed. "No such thing as too late! I have an idea! WE will collect the teeth!"
"What?" Tooth asked.
"We get teeth! Children keep believing in you!" North declared.
"We're talking seven continents, millions of kids-" Tooth was about to panic before North interrupted her.
"Give me a break!" North chuckled. "You know how many toys I deliver in one night?"
"And eggs I hide in one day?" Bunny added.
North turned to Jack. "And, Jack, if you help us, we will get your memories."
Jack looked at the other Guardians, who assured North's words with smiles, before looking at Cadence.
Cadence nodded her head and Jack smiled at North.
In Shanghai, China, North shot out of a chimney and raced across the rooftop. "Quickly! Quickly!" He shouted as Bunny popped up a roof away.
"Here we go, here we go," Bunny chanted.
Jack zipped past Bunny with Cadence holding on to him. "Hop to it, rabbit!" Jack laughed. "I'm five teeth ahead!"
"Yeah, right," Bunny replied. "Look, I'd tell you to stay out of my way, but, really, what's the point? Because you won't be able to keep up anyway!"
"Is that a challenge, cottontail?" Jack asked with a mischievous smirk.
"Oh, you don't want to race a rabbit, mate." Bunny returned the smirk.
"Guys, this is about Tooth! It's not a race-" Cadence tried to yell over the wind, but was overheard by North on his sleigh.
"A race?" North asked Jack and Bunny. "This is going to be epic!"
"Why do I bother using logic against you when I know you'll never listen?" Cadence asked Jack.
"I thought you'd have learned by now!" Jack laughed.
Tooth darted around with Baby Tooth struggling to keep up. "Four bicuspids over there!" She pointed left. "An incisor, two blocks east! Is that a molar? THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!" Tooth was so overwhelmed by the sensing of her tooth-finding abilities, she didn't see a billboard until she flew right into it. "Ow."
Jack and Cadence leaped on top of the billboard to check on her. "You okay?" Jack asked.
"I'm fine." Tooth rubbed her head. "It's been a long time since I've been out in the field."
"How long is a long time?" Cadence asked.
"Four hundred and forty years." Tooth smiled. "Give or take."
Before they could respond, Tooth noticed a tiny glow under the pillow of a little girl in a nearby room. And without another word, Tooth rushed off.
Inside a dimly lit bedroom, Jack was about to snag a tooth when Bunny popped out of a hole in the floor and grabbed it, laughing in Jack's face. Jack gave an annoyed look before blasting Bunny with some ice from his staff.
"Ah!" Bunny cried as he was hit.
On the outside of the room, on the fire escape, Cadence held their bag of teeth open for the new tooth.
"What was that noise?" Cadence asked.
"Nothing important." Jack replied with a satisfied grin.
In the next city, North stood by a boy's bed. "Piece of pie!" He said softly. But as he reached forward, he fell into a hole that Bunny was trying to get out of.
While North and Bunny tried to free themselves, Cadence slipped in and stole the tooth from under the pillow and left a quarter in its place. She glanced at the two before bursting into laughter and climbed back out the window.
"Oui! Cadence, that's my tooth!" Bunny whisper-yelled at her, but she was already on her way with Jack to the next tooth.
Tooth reached under a child's pillow and pulled out a tooth. The tooth was perfect, but a mouse had already tried to claim it. Baby Tooth tackled the mouse and started beating it up, when Tooth was able to pull her back.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Tooth calmed the fairy. "Take it easy, champ. He's one of us. Part of the European division." She then turned to the mouse and asked if he was okay in French, "Ça va?"
The mouse began to squeak angrily and threw his hat down in a rage.
Bunny had snagged another tooth. But when he reached the roof, he heard a crackling sound of ice and frost. "Crikey!" Bunny slipped and tumbled off the roof, passing Jack and Cadence, who had grabbed the tooth from Bunny at the last minute.
"Yes!" Jack high-fived Cadence, but Sandy snuck up behind them, grabbing the tooth from Cadence's hand. "No!"
Everyone met up on a rooftop in New York City. The competition had been good fun, and they all held large sacks filled with teeth.
"Wow!" Tooth was impressed. "You all collect teeth and leave gifts as fast as my fairies."
The other Guardians blinked at the word 'gifts'.
While Cadence was trying to hold in fits of laughter, Tooth surveyed their panicked expressions. "You guys have been leaving gifts, right?"
While the male Guardians were too embarrassed to reply, Cadence let loose on her laughing and had began snorting with each breath intake. "Epic fail on that one, guys!"
A few moments later, the Guardians were standing in line at a coin dispenser in a laundromat. They each took a turn stuffing wrinkled bills into the slot, changing cash into coins.
Sandman was the first one outside. He was about to fly off, when he spotted Cadence leaning against the outside wall of the laundromat. She was clutching Jack's staff, since he needed to get money from the machine, and she was the only one Jack actually trusted enough to keep his staff safe. But she also looked like she was on the verge of passing out.
Sandy shook her awake, and she was a little dazed as she came back to reality. "Huh? What?. . . Oh, (yawn) hey, Sandy."
Sandy made images above his head, indicating his concern for Cadence's well being.
"Oh, no. I've actually been tired for the past few weeks. I haven't been able to sleep so much since school started again." She replied.
Sandy thought for a second and a sand-lightbulb illuminated above his head. He brought out a small box (the size of a ring box) with a clasp on the front. He opened the empty box and then let a handful of dream-sand seep into the box. Once the box was full, the box flipped shut and the clasp locked.
Sandy handed the box to Cadence with a smile.
"Wow, thanks Sandy!" Cadence returned his smile. She placed the box with the pocket of her parka and zipped it closed, so that it wouldn't fall out.
Jack then came out of the building and came over to Cadence as Sandy took off. "Ready to go?" Cadence asked.
"First, I want to give you something." Jack said. He reached into his hoodie pocket and brought out a necklace box. When he opened it, it revealed a velvet choker necklace with a vividly purple snowflake pendant. It actually sparkled with real blue magic. "Since I missed your birthday a few weeks ago, I spent days making this. I was going to give it to you the day I got back, but we had some complications."
Cadence took the necklace and clasped it around her neck, showing it had a perfect fit. "I love it! Thanks, Jack!" Cadence hugged Jack, who excitedly hugged back.
"What's going on here?" Bunny's voice startled the two teens apart from their hug.
"Nothing!" Jack's voice cracked.
When the Guardians and Cadence were back in the sleigh, they failed to notice a Nightmare spy watching as they lifted off into the sky. The Nightmare then vaporized down a street drain, slipping into the sewer.
Pitch was inside his darkened lair, standing near a light-covered Globe, exactly like one in North's Workshop. Hanging on the walls around his head were the stolen fairies in cages, staring out at the Globe.
Pitch poked his finger at the Globe. He turned to the Nightmare spy that was slithering into the room. "Why aren't the lights going out?" Pitch asked the Nightmare.
The Nightmare let out a soft whine.
"THEY'RE COLLECTING THE TEETH?!" Pitch's voice boomed.
The Mini Fairies began twittering at the news. Their hopeful, tiny, voices echoed throughout the lair.
"Oh, pipe down! Or I'll stuff a pillow with you!" Pitch took a deep breath. He turned back to the Nightmare. "And what of the girl, Cadence?"
The Nightmare snorted in reply.
"Ah! So Jack has a thing for this little creature? I can use that!" Pitch chuckled. He turned back to the Globe and formed an image of Sandy in nightmare sand. "And as for the other Guardians, they can have their last hurrah. For tomorrow, all of their pathetic scrambling will be for nothing."
Pitch crushed Sandy's image with his fist.