Halloween Town, Night

A group of notorious thugs and cutthroats stalked through the haunted wood towards a strange and twisted little town that had been set partially a blaze. At the center of this ragtag band of dirty and fetid miscreants was a man that was rather finely dressed and clean shaven oddly enough. He was dressed in an early 1800's British naval captain's uniform, although the blue coat had been dyed red, and instead of an officer's shirt he wore a frilled silk shirt often considered as high class by the peasantry and casual wear by the nobility. Getting beyond that, he was a slim man, from head to toe, and his waist was doubly so, his hair was black, curly, and long, so much so to the extent that it reached down to his shoulders. He had a mustache which stretched out to opposite ends of his face, ending in points sharper than most daggers. His eyes were as blue as the sky on a cloudless summer day, although many have claimed that they turn blood red on occasion, the occasion always being right before he killed a man. And the most striking and obvious feature about this man was the fact that if anyone were to stare at his left hand they'd notice that it was missing and in it's place was a shiny, sharp, gleaming silver hook. This man was the notorious pirate Captain James Hook, scourge of the seventy seas of Neverland.

The reason creepy looking village he was walking towards had some buildings on fire was due to his orders. He was feared, hated, older children told younger children he'd come to get them if they weren't good…enough. He was all of the despicable and evil things, but more so than anything else, he was morbidly depressed.

"Oh do cheer up Captain," said a portly, short, balding, and barefooted little man walking in step to Hook, he was the first mate, Smee.

"Cheer up?" Hook repeated, the points of his mustache stabbing low, "How can I cheer up when that damnable brat is still flitting about Neverland, mocking me, and mocking me, and mocking me, AND MOC-"

"Now, now Captain," Smee said reassuringly, seeing how things could've turned badly with the captain's legendary temper sent out of control, "Look, well go into this town, kill everyone there, and then you'll feel all better, you'll see."

"Hmph…I suppose."

Hook did admit, this little excursion was quite different from the normal routine of killing mermaids, Indians, fairies, Lost Boys, and, well, anything breathing that wasn't a pirate, and even that group's protection only came from their perfect servitude and the toss of a coin. Upon arriving in this land through some means unknown, they found the inhabitants and thought them to be some manner of demons, and this place a hell of sorts, as ferocious as everything looked. However, with keeping their distance and observing, Hook and his men soon found that the looks were just about all that was ferocious about this place and it's people, observation showing that the people of this strange land were very likely to be kind, friendly, helpful, and outgoing. So naturally, Hook gave the order for his men to attack mercilessly, which they'd done rather well so far. The people of this place were practically clowns, frightening clowns, but certainly not warriors.

Now, with this in mind, you can imagine Captain Hook's confusion as his own men came running is several droves from the burning town, a town which they themselves were sacking, fear present in their eyes.

The captain of course tried interrogate his men as to the nature of why they were retreating when victory was theirs, or if in fact that was the case. He did this all in a polite manner of course.

"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU GUTLESS, TICK INFESTED IDGITS DOING!" Captain Hook shouted, ready to gut the man who stopped to give the answer.

Unfortunately, his question was not answered in the manner he'd hoped, seeing as how none of his retreating men stopped to answer him, but merely shouted absurd things such as, "RUN!" and "HE'S THE DEVIL!" So Hook had to resort to "hooking" the collar of one of his men's shirt collar as he attempted to run by. The shirt belonging to the man wearing the clothing article, Perkiss, a gaunt, aging, and bearded man of no real consequence.

"Mister Perkiss," Hook addressed the man, no longer shouting as he had his errant employee well within earshot, "Would you be so kind as to inform why you and the other men are running away and not obeying my orders to sack the town?"

Perkiss was perfectly bewildered to find that he was no longer returning to a place he once knew, but in fact impeded by his captain, his own fear rising considerably, seeing past the false face of serenity the notorious Hook faked, and into the malice the man truly held behind those deep blue circles lined with red veins. It was hard for Perkiss to form the words, his thoughts constantly at war with the fear it held for what was behind and the fear for what's in front. It was like being trapped in a burning building while outside there was acid rain. Nevertheless, Perkiss found the words he was looking for, even if they were fumbled slightly in their delivery. "Is-is a muh-monster s-sir."

"What monster, Perkiss?" Hook growled, raising the silvery point of his faux hand to come ever so closely to the side of Perkiss' eye.

"A, uh, a skinny one sir. He was awfully skinny, and tall too. Taller 'en you 'r I, sir. He's stronger 'en you'd think, him being nothing but bones, dressed all in black."

Annoyed at the cowardice of his man, Hook was about to gut the yellow sod, and order the execution of his chicken-eyed friends, when he heard it. The noise was small, barely inaudible when set against the sounds of the woods and the village beyond, but it was there. The slightest tapping, like the first few drops of rain hitting the window before a storm. Hook looked up towards the town to see a figure walking towards them, impossible to make out, until moonlight streaming through the trees fell upon it.

For all intents and purposes, it was a skeleton in a pinstripe tuxedo, with an overly large, black, bat shaped bowtie. Hook prided himself in being the tallest in all of Neverland, yet this walking relic easily stood a about half a head taller than the captain.

Upon seeing that it'd gained the pirates attention, a feat which should've been impossible due to it's apparent lack of eyes, the skeleton stopped and cleared it's throat, another thing which it lacked. "GREATINGS AND SALUTATIONS!" the skeleton cried, sounding as if it were commemorating it's meeting with a group of armed killers. "Um, am I correct to assume that this is all your doing?" the skeleton asked, pointing a bony finger towards Hook while his other hand waved to indicate the fire in town.

"…You are," the captain answered, so intrigued that he released the man whom he had intended to eviscerate, allowing Perkiss to continue his act of fleeing.

"Ah, yes, well, hmm, how should I put this?" the skeleton began, the bone matter of it's skull miraculously shifting into that of a look of deep thought, contemplating it's words"...While your men's techniques are certainly frightening, no doubt about that, they're a bit too…lethal for our Halloween purposes. So might I ask that you and your friends discontinue such ghastly activities? We'd all be very grateful."

Hook and his men stared incredulously, no one talked to the captain in any manner other than that of subservience and fear, if they wanted to continue to breathe for very long that is. Provided of course that they were incapable of flight, this foolish creature's feet were, without a doubt, rooted firmly to the ground. Now, as outrageous as the skeleton's actions were, Hook did not immediately fly off the handle, after all, the captain was a stranger in a strange land, he shouldn't expect everyone everywhere to know of his insidious deeds, not at first anyway. So, with all the patience of a kindly schoolmaster, Captain Hook asked the skeleton, "Who are you, to demand such a concession?"

"Ah! Where are my manners?" The skeleton said, swatting imaginary dust, soot, and dirt off his person to make itself more presentable, "I am Jack Skellington, The PUMPKIN KING! At your service," Jack finished, with a courteous bow.

"Ah, I see," Hook said before resorting to silence. He took a moment to mull over this information, before making an announcement. "MEN!" Hook shouted, addressing his entourage of thugs, "KILL JACK SKELLINGTON!"

Hook's men, grinning viciously at the prospect of bloodshed, rushed forward, excluding Smee of course (the first mate proving to be more foe than friend when it came to combat on more than one occasion). Hook's men weren't too clear on how they were to shed blood from a skeleton, but they were more than glad to give it a shot.

"Hmm," Jack sighed disappointedly at the seven oncoming, sword wielding pirates, "That did not go as well as I had hoped."

It'd been quite some time since Jack had to resort to fisticuffs, and while the Pumpkin King was not a warrior by trade, one thing he did know how to do on the spot was perform, and a fight was just another stage and opportunity on which to do so.

The skeleton's keen eye sight allowed him to see the first two serious threats; the obvious one being the first and closest pirate running with sword raised and murder in his eyes, the second one was the one right behind him, moving towards the left, staying low and trying to stay unnoticed, that's the one Jack had to worry about. The other five would probably hang back and try to encircle him before truly jumping into the fray.

Jack shot his right foot out high and to the left, then brought it around back to the right, cutting it across the first man's face like a whip. The blow knocked the man off his feet, sending him spinning and down but not out. The force Jack put into the action forced the skeleton to bare his back to the pirate on the left, exactly as planned.

Seeing the open opportunity, the pirate stepped over the wide eyed body of his buddy on the ground, and rushed forward to cleave the skeleton in two. Knowing this, planning for this, Jack brought his foot down, swinging it backwards like a pendulum, and turned his hips to put force into it to connect with the pirate's knee in a spectacular backwards horse kick. The move shattered the man's kneecap, and removed him from the fight, his screaming working as a powerful agent of fear amongst the remaining pirates.

The remaining five pirates, seeing that one of their mates was down, while the other was out moved to circle and take out the skeleton. Jack however was not going to allow himself to be handled and slaughtered like some crazed boar. Looking at the most probably the most ornery of the five, since it was impossible to openly discern which was the dumbest. Staring at the brute in the bandana, Jack waved for him to come forward, sticking out a blackened worm eaten tongue at the man as he did so.

The pirate ran forward, sword first, with the express intent to skewer the skeleton. Not the most brilliant or outstanding of techniques, but effective against most untrained inhabitants of Neverland, there was one hitch with the attack however, Jack was far from untrained. As the pirate got near, Jack focused not on the blade, but on the holding the blade. Being far faster and his arm being way longer than the blade, Jack reached out and grabbed the wrist of the pirate's sword hand at the wrist. The skeleton did not stop the pirate's movement with this action, nor was his intent, in fact he increased it. Jack pulled the blade in the same direction it was headed, just at a different angle; down, and by stepping to the side, Jack managed to not get stabbed. The sword dug itself into the dirt, but Jack didn't stop there, crouching and getting into a wide stance, directing the man's momentum perfectly. He continuing to direct the front of the man downwards, Jack used his free hand to grab the length of rope the pirate used as and improvised belt, and pulled up on it. With everything the way it was, all it took was Jack to stick out his leg, taking away what little balance the man had left, allowing the skeleton to flip him forwards onto his back.

"Got ya!" came a voice from behind Jack, it was one of the pirates he'd just knocked down, the one who had been kicked in the jaw. Before Jack had time to react, the man held him fast in a firm bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides. The man was far muscular than Jack, fighting against the hold would do no good, so Jack simply slipped around it. Almost as soon as the pirate grabbed him, the pirate lost him, Jack had crouched low to escape the man's grasp, though not completely, as the man still clutched at the front of Jack's coat. Jack then reached up and grabbed the man's arms, his bony hands holding firm under the man's armpits. Jack then pulled forward and stepped slightly backwards, using his back as leverage to flip the pirate over him. The move forced the pirate to let go of Jack, and sent him sprawling onto his comrade who'd just shared a similar experience.

Jack knew that the other four of Hook's men had gotten fed up with the embarrassment they had been enduring thus far, he could tell by the crunching of the sticks and leaves as the pirates rushed in. The skeleton ran forward, stepping over the two fallen and entangled pirates as he did so. As he ran, Jack made sure not to run too far or fast, there was a lot that could go wrong with what he was about to do, and if he got too far away from them while doing it, he'd fail outright. Heading towards a tree, Jack took a running leap at it, and used it as a base for him to leap in the opposite direction, performing a midair split as he did so. Fortunately, things were all going according to plan, as the first of the four remaining pirates was exactly where Jack needed him to be. The pirate skidded to a halt due to the pain of the skeleton's foot planting itself firmly in his chest. Before succumbing to gravity, Jack brought his other foot forward and performed a back flip kick to the man's teeth, knocking the pirate off his feet as Jack landed on his.

Jack surveyed his enemies, the two he'd flipped onto one another were finally returning to their feet, the one he just used as a springboard was on his back, clutching his bleeding mouth, down but still a threat, and of course there were still the three he'd yet to touch. Said three were closing in on his position, the first of them screaming, sword raised and ready to split Jack down the middle, but he wasn't who Jack was focusing on, it was the two behind the man that had caught Jack's attention. Jack waited a second or so, just so they'd get close enough, then he crouched as low as he could and propelled himself into the air, spinning forward as he did so, his lithe frame not weighing him down much. Jack soared over the first man who craned his neck to keep the skeleton in sight.

The second pirate saw this and looked up, his reward catching him unawares as Jack stretched his legs and painfully planted his landing in the man's face. The pirate came crashing down, and Jack tumbled forward across the ground as he did so. Jack stuck out a leg with his back on the ground as he turned, the heel of said leg dug into the stomach of the third pirate, knocking the air out him.

Jack quickly got his feet under him, stood up, and turned on the spot. He turned in time to see the pirate he leapt over swinging wide at him. Jack kicked upwards, catching the man by surprise as the move popped the blade out of his hand. Keeping his leg raised, Jack used his base leg hop a step forward and brought his raised leg down like an axe, cracking the pirate's collarbone.

Jack smiled at himself for how well he was doing. By his timing, he now had to contend with the two pirates he had flipped earlier. Unfortunately, Jack was not as fast as he thought, and his timing not as accurate. Jack had just enough time to turn around and do nothing as one of the two previously mentioned pirates took a running baseball swing at Jack with his sword.

WHOP!

Sword made a sickening sound as it cleaved through the neck of Jack Skellington, silencing the air. Jack's body fell in a heap like a ragdoll, as the skull clattered and rolled nearby.

"Finally," Hook muttered, annoyed that it took his men so long to deal with a single enemy. Hook's men gathered around the prize that was Jack's skull, the one who separated it from the rest of the skeleton had earned the right to claim it as his own. The man picked it up as the rest gathered round to study it in detail. The champion had been perturbed disturbed, since the swing of his blade, although clearly killing, felt as if he had hit nothing. But he shrugged it off, dead was dead wasn't it?

The pirates all pressed in to look at the skull, amazed that something so frail had caused them such trouble. They gazed intently at Jacks head, seeing no sign of the spark of awareness it'd possessed mere moments before. Even when a few had been so bold as to stick their fingers into the eye sockets, nothing.

"RAAAAARGH HA HA HA!"

Suddenly, the flat teeth in Jack's head became very sharp, as he twisted his face into the most frightening the men had ever seen. His banshee like laughter and scream cut through them like wind off of a jagged frozen glacier. The pirates freaked out and dropped the skull, a few of them falling flat on their asses as they struggled to get away from the skull on the ground which continued to laugh like a mad man. The heart rates of Hook's men continued to sky rocket as their attention was drawn to Jack body. It sprang lithely to it's feet and started running at them jerkily, the bones clanking loudly as the bumped next to each other as it made it's horrifying, awkward and disjointed rush towards them. It stopped moving once all of Hook's men started screaming and making a mad dash to get away from the horror that was Jack Skellington.

Captain Hook scowled as his men ran around him in order to flee back to whence they came. He'd see to those wretches proper, their days were now numbered, but only after he dealt with this troublesome skeleton. "If you want something done right…" he growled low to himself, "Smee!"

"Y-y-yes captain?" the stout first mate stammered, standing by Hook's side more out of fear than any sense of loyalty he may have possessed, having decided to fear the wrath of the devil he knew as opposed to the wrath of the one he didn't.

"Return to the ship," Hook ordered. Time had proven that Smee was more of a hazard than a help to whatever side he was on in a fight. Sadly, Hook was certain that Jack would not accept the dolt into his ranks at that time. But no matter the reason, Smee was just glad he was given permission to get the hell out of there.

Hook glared at the skeleton as it attached it's body to it's head once more. Jack looked at the man and asked, "Do we really need to do this? We can both walk away from this right now and neither of us will get hurt."

To this, the sharp corners of the captain's mouth turned upwards in a rather sinister and malevolent smile, "Now, now Mr. Skellington, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to properly face my men. I can't very well kill them for doing something I did myself…well, I suppose I could, but it more a matter of principle. The men would lose faith you see."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Well my parrot took ill recently, so I've been taking it out on everyone else. Not to mention when I was younger my mother didn't hold me enough, that and I've got a terrible toothache. Blah, blah, never knew my father, blah, blah. Look, we don't all damn night, so I'd like to get straight to it, if that suits you."

"You're really not going to go away on you own are you?" Jack asked disappointedly as he got into a wide fighting stance."

"…No." Captain Hook answered wolfishly as he unsheathed his sword.

The two ran at each other, victory assured in each of their minds. Once Hook got in range, Jack shot his left leg out high and to the right, in the same exact manner as he had when he first faced the captain's men. And just like the initial encounter, Jack cut it across with the intent of striking his opponent's head. Jack however hit nothing but air as Hook dodged the blow by bending backwards, feeling the wind of the attacks rush by his nose. Jack was not dismayed however by this fact, Hook's head was not his real target, he just needed to get momentum for his next move. The skeleton spun with kick, bending his root leg so that his right glided above the ground as he spun in his attempt to sweep the captain's legs out from under him. Hook however saw this and managed to jump the attack. After hitting nothing but air not once but twice, Jack rooted his right leg and began to become upright, shooting his bony claw towards Hook's sword wielding hand in an attempt to wrest the weapon away from the opposition before it could be used against him. However, before the skeleton could make a successful grab, Hook brought down the appendage for which he was most famous for, and used the crude prosthetic to twist Jack hand away, puncturing the Pumpkin King's shirt and coat sleeve as he did so.

Jack stepped back in order to compose a new sequence of attacks. After three failed attacks, Jack was beginning to doubt his preconceptions of his own success. Sadly, things did not continue to go Jack's way. Quite the opposite in fact, as Hook saw Jack backup and began to press the offensive. Hook's style of attack had no style, it merely consisted of a savage slashing to the left and the right, back and forth. But while the captain lacked grace, skill, or any semblance of technique, he made up for it in speed. The attack kept Jack backing up, and it was so constant and fast that all he could do was reflexively dodge or deflect the slashes, leaving him no time to try and formulate a plan of attack. It was fortunate that Jack was nothing but bones, since a couple of time over the course of the fight, Hook would've easily slashed the skeleton's wrists and throat if he'd possessed either.

As it was however, Jack was still fighting a losing battle. With him constantly on the defense and being backed up step by step, it was a mere matter of time before Jack would get backed up into a tree or trip, and Hook knew it. Jack then began to time Hook's slashes, what he was about to attempt was risky, but it was his only option at this point. Jack deflected one of Hook's left swings and ducked the blade as it swung back to the right. Getting low fast, Jack scooped up some dirt and leaves from the forest floor, not an easy task considering the state of Jack's hands, and threw the mass up into Hook's face, causing the captain to flinch.

That moment of clarity and pause was all Jack needed. Jack did a forward somersault into the air, sticking his right leg out at the leap's summit. He descended like a javelin with the express intention of bringing his foot down in just the right spot he needed to dislocate Hook's sword wielding arm. As it turned out, Hook was quicker to recover from the distraction than Jack had anticipated. The pirate brought the flat of his blade up to block Jack's airborne attack, even going so far as to further brace the blade by bring his hook up to the back of it. Due to this, not only was Jack's attack a complete failure, but the angle at which Jack hit the sword completely threw off Jack's sequence of actions, making him botch the way in which he intended to land. Jack fell backwards, stretching out his hands to catch the ground in some way that'd let him recover from this fiasco. But before his bony fingers could touch the blackened foliage along the drab forest floor, Captain Hook delivered a kick to the small of the skeleton's back. The kick completely robbed Jack of any possible means of gracefully recovering from his failed attempt, as it landed him face down several feet away from the captain.

"Please," Hook snorted, unimpressed, as he slowly stepped towards Jack, "I fend off aerial attacks from people who are truly capable of flight on a daily basis, your cheap acrobatics are nothing to me." Hook then raised his sword, and ran towards Jack, with the express intention of ripping the skeleton to shreds. Fortunately, before Hook could bring down the proverbial axe, Jack got his hand under himself and spread his legs. Leaning forward up and lifting his legs into the air, Jack kicked out to the side, becoming a whirling blur of black and white as he spun on the ground performing a superb windmill. The spinning attack didn't hit Hook, but it was more than enough to keep the captain at bay. Jack spun faster and faster until his heel caught on the ground and, due to his considerable momentum and light frame, sent him spinning to his feet.

"…Alright," Hook began, "I'll at least admit that you certainly have more style than the brat."

Jack ran forward, and Hook raised his sword once again, bringing it down diagonally towards the skeleton. Jack ducked the blade, spinning and raising his leg in order to deliver a spinning back kick to the captain's face. Infuriated and quick to recover, Hook crouched low and lunged forward in order to thrust his blade deep into Jack's chest, grinning savagely at his own success. Now, while this has certainly proven to be fatal for every number of those Captain Hook had felled before, Lost Boy, mermaid, indian, and even pirate alike, such was not the case with Jack. Jack, being a skeleton and nothing more, lacked lungs, heart, and many other vital organs which made a typically fatal attack nothing more than a simple case of something getting stuck in his ribcage.

Using this golden opportunity to his favor, Jack grabbed Hook by the wrist. The skeleton then pulled up and twisted the captain's remaining hand away from the saber. Frantic, now that his weapon was removed from his grasp, Hook raised his sharpened prosthetic to strike at the skeleton. However, his attempts at self defense were foiled, as his opponent wrapped a bony leg behind his own and placed a palm to his nose. All that it took was a push to knock the captain off his legs and on his butt. By the time he looked up to glare at Jack, he was staring at the tip of his own blade.

"This ends now," Jack sternly stated, giving Hook an absolutely unforgiving scowl.

Hook, at seeing that the cause was lost, knocked the sword tip to the side, and took a page from Jack's book by throwing dirt into the skeleton's face. Jack flinched due to the sod being thrown into his face, and by the time he laid his sockets on Hook once more, the pirate was off and running.

"Oh no you don't," Jack vowed. He then gave chase after the rouge captain.

Jack's run after the captain should have ended quickly. While Hook did have superior speed when it came to hand to hand, Jack had never met anyone who could match his speed in footwork, his knowledge of the woods and the length of legs only adding to his advantage in the chase. However, it was not The Pumpkin King's intention to actually catch this man. Jack had dealt with Hook's sort before. Hook was like Oogie, simply besting them in physical confrontation was not enough. Jack intended to follow Hook back to wherever he and his men came from, and scare them half to their graves or further. He would drive home the fact that this was his home, and they were not welcome here.

They ran through the woods, and by the time they made it to where they were going, it was Jack's turn to be shocked and afraid. What Hook had lead him to, where they had gone, was not anything Jack had ever seen before. It was a crack in the air, as if the air was a jigsaw puzzle with a single piece was missing. And from this crack, a wholly unnatural and frightening phenomenon, and electric blue light poured. It was into this thing that Hook had run headlong at and leapt into, disappearing instantly.

Some time later…

"Here you go," Sally said cheerily, handing Jack his shirt and coat, all punctures and cuts from dealing with Hook now gone.

"Hm?...Oh yes, thank you Sally," Jack said distractedly, taking his clothes from the ragdoll and putting them on. After Hook had gone through the anomaly, Jack returned to Halloween Town , to see who needed help, snuff out fires, and of course to get Dr. Finkelstein. Currently he, Finkelstein, and his assistant, Sally, were out in the woods, studying the crack. Or to be more accurate, the doctor was studying the tear, while Jack and Sally waited for him to say something. For the last hour or so, Finkelstein circled the crack from his wheelchair, opened his head a few time to pick his brain for any significant ideas, had none, and stayed silent.

"How are you Jack?" Sally asked.

"I'm fine," Jack said reassuringly, placing his bony claws lightly on Sally's shoulders. "Would've been a lot worse off I didn't have these," Jack said, clicking his metal tap shoes together. As skilled as he was, Jack was still just a skeleton, making him far more frail and fragile than the average enemy. If it weren't for the shoes and the weight they carried, all his kicks could have very well shattered his own legs. He'd have to remind himself to get something for his hands as well, so incase of another emergency he could at least throw a punch.

"Jack?" called a voice from behind the skeleton. Jack turned to see a well dressed portly man with cone shaped head that bore a face on either side, one ecstatic, the other dismayed. This was the mayor. The mayor was about to address Jack further, but the crack caught his attention, causing him to stare at it cautiously with his woeful face.

"Yes mayor?" Jack asked, shaking the short abomination from his glaring.

The mayor then switched to his joyful face with a cranking sound, and said, "I am pleased to inform you that after taking stock of the town and it's citizens, that we have suffered no casualties. I shudder to think what might've been without you here to stop them."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, "How is everyone?"

"Well," the mayor began, switching back to his other face to take up a look of deep contemplation, "More than a few houses were burned badly, so some will need to live with others, and rebuilding should take months. The wolfman had his arm lopped, but since they didn't use silver, it should grow back in a few weeks. Also, the clown had his face torn off, but I believe that was a preexisting condition."

"So everyone should be alright?" Sally asked.

"Well," the mayor said as he switched to his happy face and smiled, "…yes, actually."

"What were they like?" Dr. Finkelstein asked without taking his spectacled eyes away from the crack.

"Excuse me?" The mayor asked, perplexed.

"Jack, what were the people who attacked us like?"

Jack stopped and pondered a moment, "They weren't from the normal world."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, from the few times I've been there, the things the weapons they had were more advanced. These men used swords, not to mention their style of dress was not like anything I'd seen before."

"Are you sure?"

Jack gave it a hard thought before answering, "I'm positive. Those men were not from the normal world."

"Father," Sally began, "What is this?"

"Well," the doctor began raising his glasses in order to rub his eyes, "I'll need to begin experiments in order to test it, but my hypothesis is that this is a gateway."

"Like the holiday woods?" Jack asked.

"In the capacity that both have the potential to transport one or several; things from one place to another, but that is where the similarities end. This gateway, this tear, is an abomination, an unnatural occurrence."

"But what could do something like this?" Sally asked, just barely grasping the concept that something like this was in existence.

"I do not know. The other planes of existence, the places beyond normal world, beyond the Holiday Woods, are separated by extremely powerful and old forces, forces so great that the inhabitants of these different places are probably unaware of the existence of a place beyond their own. And for something to oppose those forces, to overcome them, whether by intentional means or accident, even for a little bit, takes a misuse or powerful saturation of some great and terrible power."

"So it's nothing to worry about?" Jack asked, his mind already beginning to whir with ideas for possible uses or themes the tear could hold for the festivities next Halloween.

"Quite the contrary," Finkelstein stated, his face, as impossible as it sounds, becoming more grim and foreboding than the usual fare, "Whatever is causing this, if it continues at it's current strength, or worse, increases in strength, it has the potential to completely tear asunder the very fabric of the boundaries which separates all dimensions, causing them all to collapse on each other, resulting in untold amounts of devastation and havoc."

"So that's…bad?" The mayor asked, switching to his pale face, confused.

"Very."

KRA-KOOM!

There was a great gust of wind as the crack began to suck in surrounding objects. Leaves, dirt, braches, everything.

"We should get out of here!" the doctor yelled above the roar of the wind, as the crack began to pull him towards itself. The mayor, in an uncharacteristic act of heroism, rushed to grab Finkelstein's wheelchair, then the four of them tried to make a break for it. It was easy at first, they made quite a bit of headway, so much so that they could make out the glow of the lights from Halloween Town . But soon the crack began to pick up power, as they ran, the four soon had to contend against fiercer obstacles, as branches and stones became logs, boulders, and the very trees themselves. Even the earth beneath their feet opposed them as it slid towards the terrifying blue light.

Jack, for the first time in a very, very long time, experienced fear. The exhilarating pull on his chest, the clutch of dread in the pit of his stomach, the catch in his throat from surprise, the wavering uncertainty that took his heart, it all would have been quite refreshing had the situation not been so dire. Jack looked to his fellows and saw something far too horrifying and terrible to occur to be appropriately expressed by any mortal words from one to another.

Finkelstein and the mayor were making good ground, despite the terrain of the forest floor and the shortness of the mayor's legs, but they were no the ones in immediate danger. What demanded his attention was the fact that Sally's leg caught on an old and twisted root which reached above the ground. The ragdoll fell with an, "Oh." Not that of genuine fear, or true dismay, but of mild surprise.

Jack stopped his own flight and rushed to the lady's side and helped her up. It truly was remarkable. In times when things got bad, and they did get bad, usually just before they got worse, Sally never truly despaired, not since a nightmare so very long ago. Jack never truly understood why Sally could take moments like these in stride with a half smile of pride. Somehow it never truly connected to him that it was what he was doing at that moment that gave her such confidence. The idea that no matter the situation, Jack Skellington would come find her. Then, with a style and flare that no one could even hope to imitate or replicate, they'd pull through fine together, always together. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

While Jack was busy helping Sally to her feet, he was struck in the chest by a flying brach. The blow was by no means powerful enough to break any of the bones which made up The Pumpkin King, but it was strong enough to knock him off his feet. Jack was actually lifted up off his feet and…well that's just the thing, he never made it to the forest floor. The suction of the rift caught Jack's light frame and pulled him fastly into the abyss.

"JACK NO!" Sally shrieked as Jack flew towards the rapidly closing phenomenon.

Upon seeing that the crack was in fact sealing up, and increasing it's pull all the more for it, Jack closed his eye sockets and prayed. He was not of any particular faith, as his dominion has changed meaning, purpose, and faiths, as the centuries passed by. But he did pray, for something or someone, to whomever or whatever held dominion over this…thing, to stop it. To close the crack and make everything right in the world once again. Then, as spectacular as it may sound, it did, the rift sealed up.

With Jack on the other side.

Jack Skellington, knowing that he'd been flung into the abyss, opened his eyes, and immediately regretted doing so. The place he'd been transported to was frightening and far too strange…even to a skeleton of his distinct tastes.

It was a strange place this void, this world between worlds. Jack floated, for there was no earth to which his feet could ground themselves to, at least non that affected him. There was the same blue light all around him as before, but that was not all. In addition to himself and the refuse from his own world, there was a great deal of wonders. There were giants who were so gargantuan that they could eat mountains as one would eat a Turkish delight, schools of fish who swam this way and that inside orbs of water that had become misplaced in this in-between place. Entire tracks of land that were by some miracle stable enough to allow the indigenous life forms to continue their lives on their villages undeterred, yet still quite disturbed. And there were beings so strange that they defied any comprehension or description, so much so that Jack forced himself to look away for fear of going mad. And despite all odds, Hook was there, floating in the blue abyss, swearing vengeance upon a great deal of names and things, Jack's own name being included among them.

But more miraculous than the other beings and objects that had come to be within this place of nowhere at all, was the rifts. Tears and cracks, much like that which Jack himself had gone through were scattered throughout, incalculable in number, like multicolored stars across a blue night's sky. They looked in and opened up in worlds and places Jack never even dreamed could exist. From these places poured jewels, and lava, and sand, and ships, fields, and stars, and just about anything that could be named or imagined. These windows into the worlds would sometimes open and closed so fast that if one were to blink they'd never know, it was from one such place that a great blackness snatched Hook and disappeared from sight, that frightened Jack. There were other windows that were open for so long, pouring the so much of the essence of that world into this place that Jack was certain that more of that world was here than it was in it's original place.

It was beautiful, this void. It was terrible, this nothing place. It was wondrous, this world between worlds. It was frightening, this universe of nowhere at all. But as many different and odd things this place held, terrifying and beautiful as they may be, Jack found that as the hours passed, he'd have to get used to them. Because as far he could tell, there was no way out of this place.

"Ah," came a cool and sly voice, like that of a great serpent creeping upon it's prey, "You'll do fine."

Jack looked all around for the source, but couldn't find it.

"You have exactly what I need," although the voice spoke in a whisper, it surrounded him and pervaded from deep within his own head. It was feminine, a woman's voice, no doubt about that, but far too predatory to be truly benevolent. "You have just the right touch of destiny."

KRA-KOOM!

There was a blinding flash of light and Jack found himself kneeling down in the grit and grime of some dank alley. He looked around himself, wiping the muck from his knees as he did so. It was night time, that was clear enough from the gloom and the open air. But he needed to look at the cars, street lights, and the dress of a few passerby to finally realize where he'd been sent. This was the normal world, he'd realize it anywhere.

He was fortunate to land in a place such as this, since all he needed to do was find a cemetery, or a abandoned house, or something else deeply tied to his realm, and he'd be home in just few hours time. And he could feel it calling to him, the bitter winds, the sensations of dread. But along with the calling of Halloween Town was something else, it was the need for the familiar, but it was urgent none the less. He couldn't explain why, but he needed to find whatever was pulling him that way, to satisfy the inexplicable desire to get somewhere he'd never been before, or to get to something. He could've ignore it, should've ignored it, but where would the fun in that be?

So Jack did the only thing he could do at that moment. He walked.