After Telary confirms the readings of a town nearby, the trio lands their ship in a clearing in a bare forest, full of gnarled and dead trees just barely getting by above ground. The moon is already up and shining bright yellow light all around, bringing a kind of gloomy ambience to the place.
Assuring Jiminy that they'll be careful and return as soon as they can manage, Sora, Azlyn, and Telary disembark from the ship's ramp. A low fog hovers just over to ground, so heavy that in places none of the teens can even see their feet.
"Nice place," Azlyn comments sarcastically, surveying the area with a curled lip. "But, at least I still have legs."
"Do you think we should do something about the Gummi ship?" Sora asks, gesturing at the obnoxiously bright vessel standing out starkly amongst the otherwise dull and nondescript pallet of the forest.
The mage shrugs. "I think I landed far enough away from that town," he says nonchalantly. "And it's all locked up, so people can't do anything but gawk at it really."
Sora's frown doesn't let up. "Sure but it's just so obvious that it could, I don't know…"
Telary places a hand on Sora's shoulder and gives him a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry, Sora, we won't let anyone figure out we're not from this world on this trip, okay? We'll be extra careful."
It's at that point the mage takes a step and trips over a protruding root hidden by the fog underfoot.
They set off for the town, enjoying the quiet stillness of the night, until Azlyn calls for a halt, her ears perking up as she looks around.
"What is that?" she asks, hearing some noise in the near distance. It sounds like voices, and a lot of them.
"It's singing," Sora points out as the words become clearer and stronger, obviously being sung by many voices, some more melodious than others.
This is Halloween
This is Halloween!
Suddenly Sora catches sight of a long line of people in various shapes and sizes. And various they are.
A trio of pale-skinned men dressed in formalwear with long black capes glide above the ground at the head of the line, obviously the most well put together and practiced singers in the group. Behind them stumbles a green, oozing monster that looks like it has just emerged from a swamp, sticky wet weeds clinging to its body, then a large brown-furred werewolf dressed only in cut off shorts.
This is Halloween
This is Halloween!
A pair of hunched over women dressed all in black zoom by on broomsticks, their black hats denoting their status as witches. They zoom past the trio and turn a few corkscrews before joining the rest of the monster mash line.
The line continues, singing their merry song about a land where Halloween never ends.
"What is that all about?" Azlyn asks, sounding awed by the variety of creatures at the same time as she's annoyed by their cheery singing.
"Didn't you hear?" Sora replies joyously, already heading off after the procession. "Halloween!"
"Can you believe this?" Azlyn groans to her companion, only to find him staring after the parade, his face a rictus of fear and worry. "C'mon, Tel, please don't tell me you're afraid of a bunch of singing freakshow performers."
The mage shakes his head to clear it, which puts it in perfect rhythm with the rest of his shaking body. "Of c-c-course not," he stammers unconvincingly. "I mean, sure they look spooky, but I'm sure they're just, y'know, regular folks. N-nothing to get freaked out about…"
Bark bark!
Telary doesn't even jump at the sudden noise, so relieved to finally encounter something normal, something as simple as an excited animal.
Until, that is, he turns and comes face to face with a floating bedsheet about the size of a standard Yorkshire terrier. The "sheet" pulls up into a long snouted face with two large eyes poking over it, a nose the shape of a tiny jack o'lantern flickering with orange light. Noticing that it has the mage's attention, the ghostly dog yips once more and moves closer.
Telary flees.
"Telary!" Azlyn calls after him, exasperated. She sighs, realizing that her counterpart is too far gone in fear to hear her. "I swear, that boy is afraid of his own shadow."
Not a moment later, the ghostly dog catches sight of the knight and lets out a low growl, eyes narrowing at the perceived enemy.
Slowly, Azlyn turns to face the undead canine, catching a glimpse of its absolutely murderous countenance. It reminds her of the look Pluto gets in his eyes whenever she arrives in a room.
"Crap!" she exclaims, running off after her companions at top speed.
When she finally catches up to the boys, they're standing on the outskirts of a bustling town square, surrounded by houses and other buildings of all sizes. They all seem to have hired the same designer, dull colors washing out the square and making a clear contrast between the rest of it and the toxic green liquid of the square's central fountain, a terrifying statue of a bat-like creature placed in its exact middle. Off to the side, a ten-foot guillotine hovers over the square.
The creeps and creatures are all still singing of the joys of Halloween, of spooking and scaring and all manner of fear. And yet the spirit is not one of maliciousness, but rather something akin to celebration.
It's our job but we're not mean
In our town of Halloween!
"This is amazing," Sora whispers to his friends, so enraptured by the performance of the townspeople that he doesn't even notice Telary's fear, or Azlyn's annoyance.
Azlyn shrugs. "It's okay," she admits, noting a few twirling dancers, skeletons all. "The choreography could use some work. Dances are supposed to be interpretive, and it seems like all these guys know how to do is sway along. Nothing visually interesting at all."
Sora raises a surprised eyebrow at the girl. "Huh? Azlyn, how do you know so much about dance?"
Telary suddenly perks up, grinning at his counterpart.
Azlyn's expression makes an opposite transformation, hardening into a frown, forehead furrowed. "None of your business."
Sora shrugs, happy to let this new aspect of his friend remain a mystery until such a time as he has a greater opportunity to weasel it out of her. Contented, he closes his eyes and sways gently in time with the singers.
Until the Heartless arrive.
A loud series of familiar sounds suddenly pop off in the middle of the square, and in an instant six Search Ghost Heartless have appeared, their clawed hands swaying along with the music.
"Sora!" Telary cries out, jolting the Keybearer out of his reverie. "Heartless!"
In an instant, Sora's pleasure turns to righteous anger. How dare these creatures of Darkness interrupt such a joyous celebration! Is nothing sacred?
In a flash the Keyblade appears, and with a defiant battle cry Sora leaps down into the fray, catching two Search Ghosts with a single swing.
Azlyn moves in next, planting both feet in a Heartless's chest and knocking it over into the oozy green liquid of the fountain, which unfortunately splashes right back up into her face.
Telary calls down a thunder spell to fry another pair, while Sora finishes off the last creature on his side of the fountain. The threat is vanquished, and the revelers in the square are safe from the Darkness.
Which is why it's odd when a loud booing arises from the crowd, and not the spooky variety either. The pissed kind.
Confused, the Keybearer turns to face a legion of seriously upset monster people. It's an image that could haunt him the rest of his life.
"What's the big idea?" a grotesquely obese zombie woman with mottled grey skin cries out, comforting a similarly round child crying into her patchwork dress.
"You ruined everything!" the slimy swamp creature growls.
The trio all look at each other in utter bewilderment. They'd just saved these people from a terrible fate! Shouldn't some thanks be in order?
"What the hell are you on about?" Azlyn growls back, stepping up with fists clenched. "We just saved you all from…"
"A perfect rehearsal!" one of the trio of vampire singers interrupts, grabbing a rotten tomato from the folds of his cloak and hurling it at the knight, who manages the block it with her shield.
From there the crowd does as crowds are wont to do, hurling all manner of things at the trio; everything from half-rotted pumpkins to still blinking eyeballs.
Telary and Sora cower behind Azlyn's shield, doing their best to avoid being pelted.
"Not exactly the reception I expected," Telary sighs, catching an egg in the forehead. Part of the yellow yolk oozes down his face.
"STOP!"
The voice seems to come from all around the square at once, loud and clear and quite perturbed. The townsfolk stop their barrage immediately, as if hypnotized.
In the silence left behind, the fountain behind the trio begins to bubble and churn, sending more tiny droplets of green ooze out of the fountain. All three turn to face the square's central feature.
Suddenly, a white skull emerges from the ooze, its empty eye sockets managing to look soulful and concerned. It's followed up by a tall, thin body clad in a black and white pinstripe suit. From the cuffs of the suit's sleeves emerge two bony, four fingered hands, crossed over each other just under a bowtie in the shape of a vampire bat.
Sora waits with bated breath as the skeleton man finishes his rise, uncrossing his arms from his chest and placing them on his almost nonexistent hips.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demands, sounding more exasperated than angry. "I thought we were having a great rehearsal, fellows. So, what happened?"
"Jack! Jack!" A tiny, squat man with a face as white as a sheet, dressed in an ill-fitting suit and wearing a long thin top hat atop his head, rushes out in a panic. Words across the white slash on his chest declare him "MAYOR". "Things were going amazingly well, at least I think so if you think they were, until the new ghosts made their entrance and these strange people just went berserk, attacking them and ruining everything!"
"Ruined!" Azlyn exclaims, as if this is the most implausible thing she's ever heard.
"The Heartless were attacking!" Sora attempts to explain.
"Heartless, you say?" the bony man in the fountain, Jack apparently, says, sounding intrigued. One hand scratches his chin bone. "Fascinating! Finally a name to go along with the faces! And such a wonderfully scary one too! I can just see the banners now: Jack Skellington, Pumpkin King, presents 'A Heartless Halloween'! Oh, it'll be my best ever!"
"But the Heartless are dangerous!" Sora protests firmly, getting more worked up than usual in response to Mr. Skellington's thick-headedness.
The Pumpkin King scoffs. "Nonsense. The only danger these Heartless pose is not being able to dance spookily enough by Halloween!"
Azlyn has had about as much of this as she can take. "Oh, would you just forget about Halloween?"
Every single creature, big and small, lets out their most horrified gasp at the sound of the knight's harsh words, some actually recoiling in disgust. The mayor goes so far as to faint dead away, overwhelmed by the sheer horror of it all.
"That might not have been the best move," Telary whispers to his counterpart out of the corner of his mouth.
Jack Skellington steps out of the fountain and onto the grey cobbles of the square, shaking his head sadly. "I think you'll find, my dear, that you'll be hard pressed to get anyone to forget about Halloween in…
Halloween Town!"
The skeleton's words echo around the square. He takes a step back and fingers his chin once more, looking over the trio appraisingly.
"You know what I think might help you three really get into the spirit of Halloween?" he says, with an air of someone making a monumental discovery. "Your own Halloween costumes! And I know just the man to make them for you! Come along, to Dr. Finkelstein's!"
A bony finger points up at a large metal orb looming over the square, sitting atop a large grey tower. A sudden bolt of lightning flashes down from the otherwise clear sky.
"Sure!" Sora exclaims, excited about the prospect of looking just as spooky as the rest of Halloween Town's denizens. Telary looks nervous, and Azlyn rolls her eyes.
"Fear not, good citizens!" Jack calls out to the townsfolk, who still for the most part do not look happy. "I realize this rehearsal's disruption puts us a bit behind schedule, but I assure you that the problem is being handled. In the meantime, perhaps it would be best for you all to return to your homes and practice your individual parts. We'll reconvene as soon as possible, I promise."
Still looking annoyed, the townsfolk filter out of the square, some heading straight into one of the houses that ring the area, and other moving off to their domiciles in other areas of town. Most are muttering to themselves or others about the inconvenience these interlopers have caused.
"Masterfully handled, Jack, simply wonderful!" the mayor gushes, rushing up to the group now wearing an orange face with a bright smile. "No one breaks up a potential mob action like Jack Skellington, I always say!"
"It was nothing, Mayor," Jack replies with a modest wave of his bony hand.
"Well, I suppose I should go see to the decorations committee," the elected official says, scampering off and revealing that his upset face still stares out from the back of his head, frozen. "They'll have to meet with your approval first, of course, but…"
Jack gestures broadly for the offworlder trio to follow him, heading for a gate in the western part of the square.
"Worse than Wonderland," Azlyn mutters under her breath, careful to make sure their guide can't hear. "At least there nobody pelted me with rotten food."
"And there weren't any monsters," Telary agrees, sounding more miserable than angry.
"C'mon, guys, relax," Sora encourages, fixing his friends with one of his widest, brightest smiles. "You saw how much fun those guys were! When they weren't, y'know, throwing stuff at us. Besides, you heard the skeleton guy, we're gonna get costumes. I'm sure when we do, we'll be just as scary as any of those guys!"
Jack throws open the metal door into the lab with great aplomb, waving his arm grandly. The actual lab, Sora finds as he steps inside, isn't quite worthy of the majestic introduction. It's little more than a large ovular chamber surrounded by metal walls. A bookcase stands against one wall, and directly opposite is a large granite slab. A seemingly dormant Search Ghost lays on it, attached by wires to two large orbs above either side of the slab, metallic points sticking out of them.
And, sitting in a wheelchair at a large oak desk topped by various test tubes, beakers, and one very large book, is a man with an enormously bulbous head covered in wrinkly grey skin. Sora swears he can see a hinge welded into the back of the cranium. Dr. Finkelstein, he presumes.
"Ah, there you are Jack," the man says in a thin, scratchy voice. With one black gloved hand he fiddles with a joystick set into the right arm of his chair, spinning himself around to face the group. His mouth protrudes out like an anteater's snout, and black goggles cover his eyes. He's wearing a grey, buttoned up lab coat and white pants. There are definitely nuts or bolts of some kind in the front of his head. He smiles, a grotesque sight across his misshapen mouth. "So, how did it go, hm? Did my guidance system work as promised?"
Jack frowns and gives a deep sigh. Taking his answer from that, the doctor makes a scoffing noise and slams his fist down on the arm of his chair.
"Confounded things!" he rages, the frown he's wearing even scarier than the earlier smile. "No matter what I try they all just… Aargh!"
"Dr. Finkelstein, before we talk about the creatures, which you'll be happy to know I've learned are called Heartless…"
Finkelstein gives an approving nod and grin.
"I'd like to introduce you to our newest Halloween Town visitors!" The Pumpkin King steps aside and waves a thumb at the trio. "These are, um… Excuse me, fellows, but what were your names again?"
"I'm Sora," Sora answers, stepping up and nodding. "And these are my friends Azlyn and Telary. We're, um, visiting town for, uh, a vacation. Yeah."
"Anyway," Jack continues, "as you can see, their… unique sense of fashion seems to be causing them a bit of disconnect with the spirit of the Halloween festival. I thought if perhaps they had more, er, traditional dress, it might help them integrate."
The doctor nods. "So it's costumes they want, eh? Yes, I can see how their odd clothes might attract unwanted attention from townsfolk." Maneuvering the joystick, Finkelstein heads over to the bookcase. Reaching up he grabs a yellow volume and pulls it out, releasing a mechanism that cause the bookcase to slide against the wall, revealing three small, circular chambers. "Climb in, young ones. I've not got all day, you know."
"These are gonna give us our costumes?" Sora asks excitedly. The doctor gives an affirming nod, and the Keybearer rushes into his chamber with a huge smile across his face. Once he's inside, black doors slam shut, trapping him.
Azlyn rolls her eyes and marches to the next chamber with grim exasperation. Telary doesn't want to be left out, so he reluctantly marches himself into the remaining "pod".
For a few long seconds mechanisms inside the chambers whir and click, then the doors open once again, releasing three large steam clouds into the lab. The trio step out more or less simultaneously.
Telary looks over his new form with trepidation. He sees bandages all over his body, ugly stained things that nearly make him hurl. He's unsure of how exactly he would do that, however, considering a large part of his stomach is left unwrapped, revealing a hole. Closing his eyes, he waves his hand around inside for a second.
Azlyn idly notes that a few tufts of red hair stick out of the bandages wrapped around Telary's head, then looks down to inspect herself. She's wearing a white, double-breasted lab coat near identical to that of Dr. Finkelstein, and her skirt has become wiry black material. Grey and black striped socks lead down into black boots. Something else feels odd, as well. She catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror, and notes that her usual blonde pixie cut has been replaced by large black column of hair with a white stripe running down the side.
Sora moves to the mirror next, inspecting his black jacket over a dark grey shirt. His shorts are an exact match color wise to the jacket, and extend just as far down his legs as his normal bottoms. The most notable feature on the Keybearer's face is a large orange jack o'lantern mask covering his right eye, though doing nothing to impede his vision. Opening his mouth, Sora inspects with clawed, white gloved hands and finds sharp fangs in place of his canines. He smiles widely, impressed with the transformation. Impressed with all three transformations, actually.
"Oh my, don't you three look splendid!" Jack gushes, dancing around the trio with a proud grin across his skull. "You've done wonderful work, doctor, simply amazing!"
"Yes, sir, I completely agree with Mr. Skellington," Telary chimes in, still inspecting himself, his look of fearful apprehension not gone, but minimized. "You have some wonderful technology here." The other two offworlders nod along.
"Now if only I could be as successful with the Heartless!" Finkelstein rages, wheeling up to the slab. So far, the Heartless on it hasn't moved, or given any sign at all that it is aware of what is happening around it. "I thought the guidance system I cooked up would do the trick, but Jack here insists…"
"They move perfectly in time with my devised choreography," Jack explains, frowning. "But there's something about them that just doesn't feel right. Like there could be more."
"Maybe the Heartless just aren't putting their hearts into their dancing!" Azlyn jokes, igniting a fit of giggles in her friends.
"Eureka!" Jack exclaims, leaping upon the slab and gesturing grandly. "That's it exactly! The Heartless need a heart!"
"Huh?" Azlyn gasps, her laughter interrupted by bewilderment.
"A heart for the Heartless…" Sora says, looking pensive but intrigued.
"Might it be possible to add a heart to your guidance system device, Doctor?" Jack asks the wheelchair bound madman.
He shrugs. "I don't see why not," he replies, wheeling back to the bookcase. He pulls a green book out of the shelf this time, and the case moves once more, revealing a long storage space filled with various machines and ingredients. "A heart is a simple thing, really. I could have it ready in five minutes!" He stops and reaches down, grabbing a container from a low shelf. Its shape reminds Sora of discussions of biological hearts in school. He also notes the large keyhole in its middle.
Dr. Finkelstein grabs a few other chests and brings them out to pile on the end of the slab. He frowns at the container.
"It's locked!" he declares frustratedly. "It's been ages since I got this thing, I'll never find the key before Halloween!" Behind the doctor, Jack hangs his head sadly.
Sora, however, smiles.
Azlyn gives him a withering glare. "Oh no, I know that look!" She blocks his path to Jack and the doctor, hands on hips. "There is no way you can go along with this crazy scheme! I'm putting my foot down!" Telary tentatively moves to stand by her.
"Look, Azlyn," Sora says, deploying the puppy eyes he's famous for around Destiny Islands, "if this experiment works, it could mean the end of the Heartless forever! I mean, if all the Heartless have hearts, why would they want to go around stealing them from other people?"
Telary thinks about that and moves around to stand at Sora's side, shrugging off the stink eye it earns him from Azlyn. "Sora could be right, Azlyn."
The knight returns her disapproving gaze to the Keyblade wielder. "You just want to see them dance, don't you?"
Sora gives her a sheepish grin, which is harder than it seems to pull off with pointed fangs in your mouth. "Well, I guess so. Don't pretend you don't, though!"
Azlyn shakes her head violently. "What I'd like to see is all of them eliminated from the universe!" Sora tries the eyes again, and this time she can't help but get drawn in. She sighs as deeply as she ever has. "Okay, okay."
Sora jumps a bit in happiness, his quivering lip turning into a grin instantaneously. He moves past her and towards the slab. Azlyn watches him go with a frown.
"Look Az," Telary says, stepping up next to his best friend and watching Jack do a backflip as Sora promises his assistance, "I realize this is risky too, but the potential benefits are… well, massive!"
She shrugs. "Well I'll tell you right now, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' as many times as I want if this goes badly, okay?"
Telary smiles and gives her an affirmative nod.
At the slab, Sora raises the Keyblade to point at the container's keyhole, and at his command a beam of light shoots into it and unlocks it with a click.
"Splendid!" Jack declares, flipping the top of the heart container open. "You certainly are handy to have around, Sora my boy! How would you like to be in this year's festival?"
Sora's eyes light up. "Oh my gosh, I'd love to!" Azlyn huffs and rolls her eyes, but he ignores her.
"And now for ingredients!" Dr. Finkelstein says, opening the first chest and drawing out a green frog, it belly swollen with air and pulsing rhythmically. "Pulse!" He reaches in again and produces a large black spider, which nearly sends Telary running out of the lab. "Fear!" He drops the spider and frog into the heart, then goes back for a third ingredient: two snakes, one green and one orange, eating each other's tail. "Hope and Despair!" The snakes go into the container, and Finkelstein closes it.
"That's it?" Telary says, looking skeptically at the new "heart". "Can you really make something so complex out of so few things?"
The doctor scoffs, shaking his head like it's the most ridiculous thing he's heard. "Complex? A heart? Come now, dear boy, surely you can't think a thing such as that to be anything intricate. No, no, a heart is a simple thing, as we'll soon see."
Sora frowns. That doesn't seem right to him, the thought of a heart as something "simple". Then again, he's certainly no doctor, so what does he know, really?
Jack helps Finkelstein finish setting up, attaching two thick wires to the heart container with large clamps, then placing electrodes against the prone Heartless's chest. The doctor positions himself by a huge switch up against the wall.
"Goggles everyone!" the wheelchair bound scientist commands, gesturing to several pairs atop his research table. The trio all put them on, then look up at Jack, who makes no move towards the safety equipment.
"No eyeballs," he explains casually, gesturing to his empty sockets. The trio all nod understandingly.
"Here we go!" Doctor Finkelstein shouts, and with a bone-chilling laugh appropriate for someone in his line of work, throws down the switch.
Immediately volts of electricity begin traveling along the wire from heart to Heartless, sending the Search Ghost into wild convulsions. After a few seconds, it begins to rise, back straight and arms sticking out. It even turns its head, its dangling eye swaying as it moves. It looks directly at Sora.
Satisfied, Finkelstein flips the switch again, and the current dies instantly. As does the Heartless, which flops back down to the slab, motionless.
"NOOOOOOO!" Finkelstein cries in pure anguish. After a moment, Jack joins him.
Azlyn grunts angrily and covers her ears. "Oh, would you two just relax? Face it, your experiment was a failure, and that things is as dead as…"
In a single fluid motion, the Heartless rises and lunges for the Pumpkin King, clawed hands reaching out to tear out the skeleton's heart.
Jack cries out and stumbles back, but luckily Sora's response to people in danger is near automatic at this point, and the heroic young mean leaps up on the slab and stabs the Keyblade through the Search Ghost's chest. It manages to swivel its head one-eighty degrees to look at its destroyer before fading away.
"Good show!" Jack says as he rises from the floor, straightening his bowtie casually.
"Huh?" Sora asks.
"Excuse me?" Telary says.
Azlyn is too angry for words.
"Well, that may not have been dancing like I hoped," Jack admits, grinning. "But it was certainly scary, wasn't it?"
"No brain," Azlyn mutters to herself, shaking her head in abject frustration. "There is no freaking brain in that skull, I swear." She steps up to the skeleton and pokes him in the chest hard enough to send him back a step. "You almost died, moron!"
Jack shrugs. "Well, you can't make an omelet without…"
"Memory!" Finkelstein declares, as if the mere word is some genius idea. He smiles triumphantly.
"Well, I suppose that's true," Jack admits with a shrug. "But I was actually going to say 'breaking eggs', so…"
"No, you fool!" the doctor interrupts. "We need Memory to make the heart work properly. It's the missing ingredient that will pull this whole thing together! I'll bet Sally has some. Now, where is that girl? I go to all the trouble of creating her, and she can't even stick around the lab. Now, hm, the last time I saw her was…"
The doctor takes a moment to think, flipping open the top portion of his head and actually scratching at the pinkish grey matter of his brain! Telary has to look away, but Sora and Azlyn smile at each other like it's the coolest thing they've ever seen.
"Don't worry, Doctor!" Jack assures the old man, closing his head in a friendly manner. "We'll find Sally and your ingredient for you." He turns to look at Sora. "If you wish to come, of course!"
"Sure!" Sora agrees, and Azlyn wonders when it was exactly he became spokesman for the group.
Just then the lab's door slams open, revealing the once-again white-faced Mayor, wringing his hands nervously. His eyes are red from crying.
"Oh, Jack, it's horrible!" he says to the Pumpkin King, hanging his head and blowing into a tissue made of spider webs. "It's… It's just so…"
"What is it Mayor?" Jack asks.
The mayor looks up, wiping his eyes. "The Heartless! All of the sudden they started attacking people, chasing them all about the square trying to hurt them… It's chaos!"
"I told you so," Azlyn whispers cockily to her counterpart.
Everyone else reacts with great concern. Well, almost everyone.
"I needed a new test subject anyway," Dr. Finkelstein says with a nonchalant shrug.
"I'll handle this, Mayor," Jack assures the little two-faced man.
"We'll help," Sora pledges. The quartet race out of the lab for the town square.
When they arrive, the scene is utter chaos. Search Ghosts and Shadows chase the citizens through the streets, and large purple winged Heartless terrorize them from above with blue orbs of dark energy.
"I told you so!" Azlyn repeats to Telary, even as she and Sora leap into the square to protect the denizens of Halloween Town.
Sora slashes through a pair of Shadows menacing a werewolf, while Azlyn slices open the belly of a Search Ghost.
Telary chases after a trio of Search Ghosts harassing the vampire trio, firing off a fire spell that fries them before they can do much damage.
Jack uses his height to his advantage, leaping up and slapping down two flying Gargoyles in quick succession, before rending them asunder with his sharp, bony claws.
Four new Heartless arrive, resembling Telary's bandaged zombie form, swinging their long arms as they advance. Azlyn notices one graze the wing of a tiny bat child, and her instincts take over, hurling her shield hard enough to separate head from shoulders.
Sora and Jack slash through the other three, and Telary uses a gravity spell to crush a few more closing in on a little boy wearing a devil mask. In no time, the square is Heartless free.
"What was that?" asks one witch to the other. "I thought the Heartless were here to dance, not hurt us!"
"Relax, citizens!" Jack calls out, cupping his hands together to amplify his volume. "This is only a temporary glitch in mine and the doctor's experiments, I assure you! Dr. Finkelstein and I are at this very moment preparing an artificial heart that will be used to fully control the Heartless. As soon as we figure out some of the, uh, more technical difficulties, things will return to normal, I promise!"
This seems good enough for the citizenry, who all disperse to go back to their own lives as soon as the Pumpkin King has finished speaking.
Except three little children, huddling by a bathtub with four moving legs.
"Did you hear that?" the tubbiest boy, dressed in blue and wearing a skull mask, says to his cohorts.
"A heart!" the devil boy Telary had saved from Heartless moments ago chimes in. "A heart to control the Heartless. What should we do?"
The third member of the trio, the only girl, scoffs loudly at her partners' stupidity. "Isn't it obvious?" The boys stare back into her purple witch's mask that perfectly complements her witch costume obliviously. "Tell Oogie Boogie!"
Giggling madly, the trio hop into the bathtub and urge it forward with all speed.
"Vlad, have you seen Sally anywhere, by chance?" Jack asks one of the vampire trio, the shortest.
"I zink she vas in ze graveyard," he answers in an odd accent. "Lazt I heard, anyvay."
"G-g-graveyard?" Telary asks fearfully.
Jack nods, smiling impishly. "And it will be so lovely in this moonlight! Come along, friends!"
The group follows the Pumpkin King into an area near the outskirts of town, full of tombstones decorated in all manner of shapes and sizes. A small one near the entrance even looks like a doghouse, the name ZERO written on a small sign in the ground beside it.
Out of that grave rises the ghost dog that had so scared Azlyn and Telary earlier, barking and yipping happily at the sight of Jack. Zero floats around his master, sniffing joyously.
"Hey there, Zero!" Jack greets the dog as it licks his bony face. It would be sweet, Telary thinks, if it wasn't such a disturbing image. "Have you seen Sally, boy? We could really use her help."
Zero yips and flashes through the air, stopping to hover over a large granite slab with BURTON carved across its face. He barks loudly, and in a moment a girl emerges from behind it. Every part of her looks patchwork, haphazardly sewn together, from the stitches in her face to the messily patterned dress she wears. In her hands she clutches a few dead flowers.
"Oh, hello Jack!" she greets the Pumpkin King, stepping to him and looking up at him with soulful blue eyes. After a moment though, their brightness dims. "I heard those dreadful Heartless attacking, so I hid. Oh Jack, I fear they may be too scary even for one of your festivals!"
Jack shrugs off the accusation. "I assure you Sally, this is just a temporary glitch." He winks at her. "And we could solve it faster if you'd give us your Memory ingredient. You know, the one Dr. Finkelstein gave to you…?"
"You mean, this?" Sally holds up the deceased bouquet in her hand. Jack reaches out for it, but she pulls back, a worried look on her patchwork face. "I'm not sure about this, Jack. There's still time until Halloween! Why, with your brilliant mind, I know you could…"
"Trust me, Sally," Jack says as reassuringly as he can. He places his hands on her shoulders and looks her dead in the eye. "This heart is going to work like nothing you've ever seen before! The trouble will pass soon enough, you'll see."
The patchwork girl nods and hands over her flowers, still frowning intently. Jack accepts them gratefully and lopes off on his long legs, headed out of the cemetery. "Thank you!" he calls over his shoulder.
Sally turns to Sora, Azlyn, and Telary, looking at the trio pleadingly. "You must convince Jack not to go through with this Heartless Halloween idea! I've had a… a very bad feeling that this will all end terribly if you don't!"
"You and me both, sister," Azlyn agrees.
"At least keep an eye on him, won't you?" the girl asks, looking at Sora hopefully.
The Keybearer nods, resolute. "You have my word, Sally. Nobody will hurt Jack while I'm around."
"I hope that girl doesn't think I'm going to share my 'I told you so'-ing with her," Azlyn comments as the trio leave the graveyard, following Jack Skellington from a distance.
"Could she be right, though?" Sora asks, sounding concerned. "I mean, I was all for this at first, but ever since the Heartless started attacking… I don't know guys. Jack seems pretty eager to control the Darkness of the Heartless. Do you think we'll have to take him down?"
Telary looks worried, but Azlyn just shrugs it off.
"Well hey," she says as flippantly as possible, though it doesn't quite lighten the mood, "at least it's just this Jack clown. I mean, it could be much worse…"
KH-KH-KH
Far away from Halloween Town, in a place even those whose existence celebrates fear dare to tread, the trio of children from the town square arrive in a dark room underneath a terrifying mansion.
They all huddle inside their tub, clinging to each other as they shake in fear at the sight before them.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" Oogie Boogie singsongs, skipping around his private entertainment room flapping his burlap arms. "A heart, you say? A heart that can control the Heartless! Well Lock, Shock, dearest Barrel, this is the best news I've heard all day! In years even!"
"W-w-we thought you'd like this, Mr. Oogie," Lock, the devil child, stammers nervously, more relieved than pleased to have his boss's praise.
"I was the one who heard about it first!" chimes in pudgy Barrel, before being pulled down and conked in the head by the purple clad witch Shock.
"That sad sucker Jack has just made himself the ultimate mistake, boys and girls!" Oogie declares, stopping in his revelry and turning to loom over his minions. "Now I got a mission for y'all! Up for it?'
"Yes sir!" all three children chime in in unison.
"I want you three to get into that Dr. Frickfrackstein's lab and nab that heart, then bring it back to me!"
"Whatever you say, Mr. Oogie!"
As the children depart in their tub, Oogie reclines back on his self-made throne, contemplating his future.
"Why, with that heart my control of the Heartless will surpass even Maleficent!" He collapses into a fit of giggles thinking about what he'll do to that arrogant witch once the Heartless are his alone to command. "Yessir, when the Heartless are under my command, there'll be no more bandying about with princesses and silly Keyholes, no way! Just the greatest show in the universe, starring me, Oogie Boogie! I can just feel the adoration now, oh yes I can. 'Cause I'm the Oogie Boogie man!"
His maniacal laugh once again echoes in his chamber of death.
KH-KH-KH
It takes some more time to gather a few more pieces Dr. Finkelstein insists are necessary for the heart: a jack-in-the-box for Surprise, comedy and tragedy masks for Joy and Sadness, and a burning coal for Rage. Throwing those in with the Forget-Me-Nots' Memory and adding another Heartless for testing meant that they could begin their experiment anew.
Finkelstein looks over the assembled heart in his lap like a proud papa gazing on his newborn. It feels a bit creepy to Azlyn, and she says as much.
"I'm sure this experiment will work, Doctor," Jack assures the scientist with a skeletal grin.
"Or create a new batch of Super-Heartless," Azlyn mutters to Sora, who also looks concerned with this new attempt.
"Nonsense!" the Doctor rages, having apparently heard the comment. "Why, this may be my safest experiment yet! I even tied down the subject!" The Heartless is indeed restrained with thick leather straps. Finkelstein begins wheeling over to the slab, artificial heart in his lap. "Every possibility has been prepared for!"
Just then, out from the shadows darts Barrel. The tubby boy rams directly into the wheel of Finkelstein's chair, sending the old mad scientist flopping to the ground and the heart flying through the air.
It comes down into the hands of Lock, who stands on the rim of the moving bathtub with Shock beside him. Giggling, Barrel slides to the door and jumps in too.
"Later, losers!" Shock mocks with a high pitched giggle, raising a tiny fist in the air. She hurls it downward and throws down a fine purple powder that explodes into concealing mist upon contact with the lab floor.
The mist fills the room, choking the occupants and erupting coughing fits all about the laboratory. When it finally clears, the troublemakers are gone.
"Confounded hooligans!" Finkelstein rages, shaking his fist in the air with impotent rage. "When I get my hands on them they'll be sorry they took my heart. That's a promise!"
Jack and Sora rise and help the scientist into his wheelchair, which Telary returns to an upright position. "We'll catch them, Doctor, don't worry," the Pumpkin King says assuringly. "Come along, fellows!"
The quartet race out into the square, but find it quiet and empty, with no sign of the troublemakers to be found.
"We lost 'em!" Azlyn growls, clenching her fist.
Telary raises an eyebrow at her. "I thought you didn't want the experiment to happen, Azlyn?"
"True," the knight admits with a shrug. "But I wanted to be the one that busted it up, not a bunch of snot-nosed punk kids!"
"But where did they go?" Sora asks, still looking around and hoping that he'll find some trace or clue. "How do we find them?"
Jack suddenly perks up, giggling madly. "It's so obvious! Zero! Oh, Zero!"
The ghostly dog comes flying through the air, barreling right through its master in its eagerness to come. Realizing his mistake, Zero backs up to look up at Jack.
"Zero is the best tracker in Halloween Town," the Pumpkin King explains, grinning his ghastly-pleased grin. "Find Lock, Shock, and Barrel, boy. C'mon, I know you can do it!"
Zero rises into the air with a determined yip, his glowing pumpkin nose twitching as he samples the air. After a moment, he yelps triumphantly before shooting off for the graveyard.
"What a dog!" Jack exclaims, rushing off. The trio chases after him, finding it difficult to keep up with his long legged strides.
Zero leads the quartet all through town and into the Graveyard, flying past tombstones in his determination to track the heartnappers.
Zero suddenly takes a sharp turn left, rushing through a gate and down a long path, surrounded in both sides by mottled, near dead trees.
The path continues for perhaps a mile before they reach the end, a large field with a hill rising out its middle, growing thinner at the top until it ends in a curly cue.
"Moonlight Hill," Jack explains, gesturing to the odd topography. "But where would they go from here?"
Zero answers that question, zooming off for the far end of the field, past the curling hill. The group follow him until the dog suddenly stops, yipping and barking at something he sees on the ground.
Or rather, in the ground.
Jack jumps in without hesitating, and the offworlders follow, one by one landing in a pool of green sludge, darker than the kind found in the square's fountain but no less gross. Jack gestures for them to continue and they do, trudging through the syrupy liquid.
"I hope," Telary says, grunting a bit as he struggles to push his bandaged leg through the thick slime, "that these costumes don't come with a cleaning deposit. Because, let me tell ya, we're not getting it back."
The tunnel ends in a few yards, emerging at the bottom of a hill sloping upward. Something like the point of a tall tower can be seen just over the horizon.
"Aha!" Jack exclaims, pushing through the last few slimy feet and sprinting up the hill with grim determination. "I just knew he had to be behind this!"
"Behind this?" Sora asks as he follows the Pumpkin King up the hill much more slowly. When he arrives at the top he looks out at the valley below, an enormous mansion seemingly made chaotically out of dozens of structures with no rhyme or reason, rising so high in the sky the tip of its tallest tower pierces the clouds. Backdropped against the brightness of the full moon, it manages to inspire terror. "Whose mansion is this?"
"Oogie Boogie's," Jack replies through angrily clenched teeth. "My eternal rival! He's tried to ruin Halloween for me for years!"
"Wait a minute. Boogie?" Telary exclaims, fear flooding his body. "As in, the boogeyman?"
"The very same," Jack confirms with a grim nod. "Oogie is my opposite and eternal rival. I scare for thrills, fun, and entertainment! He only uses his powers to create true terror, the kind that leaves grown men and women gibbering in madness and despair."
"Sounds like just the kind of guy I have the Keyblade to take down," Sora says, summoning his weapon in one gloved hand.
"Look down there!" Azlyn points out, pointing down to the base of the manor, where the crawling bathtub can be seen crawling around aimlessly, the three hooligans riding along inside. The heart is nowhere to be found, however.
"I've got this one, guys," Telary says, twirling his staff with aplomb. He raise it high into the air. "Feather Fall!"
The quartet leap off the hill's edge, their descent magically slowed enough that they land with incident.
Azlyn lands closest to the tub, and leaps forward with a triumphant growl. "Got you now you… Huh?"
Inside the bathtub sit three dolls dressed up in the costumes of Lock, Shock, and Barrel. The heart isn't within.
"Those little sneaks!" Azlyn huffs indignantly. "They must have… yarrgh!"
Leaping down from above come the real Lock, Shock, and Barrel, each kid latching onto a different part of the knight, kicking and punching with all their might. It wouldn't be much individually, but combined, it's enough to be distracting, if not terribly painful.
"Azlyn!" Telary yells stepping forward to help his friend. A wild kick from Shock, however, impacts him in the jaw and sends him sprawling to the ground. Seeing a potential enemy downed, the witch girl leaps off Azlyn and towards him. Panicked, the mage raises his staff. "Thunder!"
Magical energy gathers, but Telary is too unfocused from the kick to the face and his fall, and as such the bolt shoots down a few inches too far off target, crashing straight down into Azlyn's tall hair.
The electricity of the bolt ignites something in the hair, coating the knight's body in a dazzling blue current. She doesn't seem adversely affected, but Lock and Barrel take a full body shock each.
After a few seconds the light show fades, steam rising from all over Azlyn's body. Lock and Barrel fall to the dirt, stunned.
Shock is luckily distracted by the fate of her fellows, and before she can regain her composure, Jack Skellington picks her up in one bony hand, staring down at her sternly.
"What did Azlyn do?" Sora asks, looking over his still steaming companion.
"Yeah, even I was shocked," the knight admits with a sly grin.
"Ha ha," Telary deadpans, poking around in the tall column of hair atop the girl's head. Finally, he finds something. Pushing the hair back, he reveals a giant metal bolt rising directly from Azlyn's skull into the air.
"No wonder she's been so grumpy," Sora jokes with a grin.
"I suspect that this metallic object acted as some kind of lightning rod," Telary explains, smiling at the oddness of it. "The costume must carry electricity incredibly well, but also be insulated enough to keep you from harm. Fascinating!"
By now Lock and Barrel have recovered, and Jack tosses Shock down to sit beside them. Putting on his most serious face, the Pumpkin King looks down on them like a drill sergeant in interrogation mode.
"I promise that if you three cooperate, I'll see if there's some way I can mitigate your punishments," the skeleton man bargains, sounding more serious than he ever has. "But you have to tell me something in exchange: Where is Oogie Boogie?"
The mischievous trio say nothing, only giggle further amongst themselves.
"What's so funny, eh?" Azlyn says, getting in Shock's face with a tough look. "Tell us where Oogie Boogie is!"
"Why, I'm right here, sweet thang," bellows a deep voice, amusement dripping from every syllable.
The heroic quartet whirls to see Oogie Boogie, a squat creature that seems to have been made out of a stuffed burlap sack. Dark eyes gleam at the group, and in the smile they see there are no teeth, only wriggling pink worms. His arms end in soft points, and in one of them he holds the artificial heart.
"Give that back!" Sora demands, stepping forward with the Keyblade poised to strike. Behind him, Jack Skellington steps forward as well.
"What, this thing?" he mockingly asks, waving the heart around airily. "The instrument of my triumph, the tool I'll use to take over this miserable town and then give that uppity witch what for? This heart?"
"Uppity witch…" Telary mumbles to himself, a thought forming in his brain. "Maleficent! You're in league with Maleficent!"
"Scum of a feather," Azlyn chimes in, scowling threateningly at the burlap bandit.
"I might be 'in league' with that nasty sorceress right now, but with this heart…" With all possible haste, Oogie stuffs the heart directly down his gullet in a single gulp. The heroes gasp at the sight. "With this heart, I'll leave her in the dust! Or, should I say Darkness. Oh, HEARTLESS!"
The trio take a step back in unison, eyes darting round, awaiting the inevitable flood of Heartless. For a few seconds, nothing comes.
Then, swooping done from the sky to float at the shoulders of their dark master come two Gargoyles.
It's not very impressive, and definitely not what the boogeyman had in mind. He looks at his "army" in bewilderment and pure disgust.
"What the hell gives?" he cries out in anguish, rage lacing every word. So caught up is he in anger and frustration, he fails to notice Jack and Sora rush him.
Luckily for him the Heartless do, flying forward to take the heart of the Keybearer. It's quick work for Sora to slash them both through, but by then Oogie has regained his senses. With a scowl, he throws down a pair of dice and takes off.
The dice explode as they hit the ground, and Sora rears back to avoid the flames. Jack, however, makes no move to stop, rushing through the flames and out the other side without losing a step, his suit aflame.
Oogie takes a worried glance over his shoulder, and his terror at seeing the charging Pumpkin King distracts him, leaving him unable to see the bathtub scurrying past his feet. He trips and goes down, hard.
Jack Skellington stops on a dime, hovering above his rival wreathed in flames, so far spread now that even his eye sockets are full of fire. Looking up at that sight, Oogie Boogie knows true terror.
Without a word, the Pumpkin King slices his sharp finger through burlap skin, unleashing a tide of multicolored bugs, all crawling over each other to escape.
"N-n-no!" Oogie cries out in despair as h slowly deflates. "This wasn't, this isn't… It can't end now, it just can't. I… I…" The last bug flees his carcass, and Oogie Boogie is no more.
Jack inspects the remains, but the artificial heart is as gone as Oogie.
"Well that wasn't hard," Azlyn says, grinning. "I mean, usually there's some kind of big giant, y'know, thing that we have to…"
At that moment the ground begins to shake and quake, the enormous manor swaying from one side to the other. Darkness spreads across it, until all of the structure is covered in it.
For a moment, all is still.
And then the darkness rises, oozing its way back up the manor in reverse, until it all gathers into an orb at the top.
Parts of the manor's wood have been replaced with swathes of fabric, the same burlap Oogie had inhabited only a minute ago.
"Okay, I spoke too soon," Azlyn admits to herself.
"What's going on?" Jack asks Sora, who merely shakes his head, as confused as anyone.
"I think we need to destroy that orb, though," he says, pointing up at it. "Look!"
A great burst of Darkness erupts from the orb, fading out until it becomes a cloud of Shadows with tiny wings. Sensing the power of the Keyblade, they fly for the group in a swarm.
"C'mon!" Sora cries, jumping up and grabbing the edge of the manor, pulling himself up. "We've got to get to the top!"
The others follow his lead, keeping an eye on the flying Shadows baring down on them. They dive, but Telary raises his staff and lets loose a fireball that consumes half the swarm. The other half Sora uses a thunder spell on, consigning the creatures to oblivion.
They climb and climb until they reach the top, the orb of Darkness as tall as Jack, giving off continuous sparks of dark energy.
"What should we do?" Azlyn asks.
"Destroy it," instructs a wispy voice. There's a sudden gust of wind, and when it settles, the specter of Oogie Boogie floats before the group, looking at them with pleading terror. "The Darkness… Inside me… Set me free, please! I-I'm scared…"
Sora nods, extending the Keyblade. Light gathers at its tip and shoots into the Darkness, erupting in a white light that expands to consume its dark energy. In moments, the orb is gone.
"Thank you," Oogie's shade says with a voice of pure relief. "Thank you, for setting me free."
The group looks at the spot where the ghost had faded for a moment, until suddenly the manor begins to shake once again, the preliminary stages of collapsing in on itself Telary posits.
With another Feather Fall, the party jumps to the safety of the hill, landing just in time to watch the manor utterly implode.
"What happened to that Boogie guy?" Azlyn asks.
"The Darkness consumed him, I guess," Telary explains, as best as he knows how. "In the end, he didn't control the Heartless, they controlled him."
"Like Clayton," Sora says. Telary nods at him.
"So, this is where it leads, huh?" Jack says, sounding as numb and hollowed out as dead, dry bones. "Using the Heartless is nothing but trouble. I realize that now. I don't think I'll ever forget it."
Behind the group there's the sound of leaves rustling, and Sora turns to see Lock, Shock, and Barrel fleeing into the underbrush. It seems they've learned their lesson too.
The walk back to Moonlight Hill takes longer without the secret passage, but eventually the party reaches it. Telary takes a minute to marvel at its odd natural formation.
"I mean, this kind of thing doesn't just occur in nature," he says, inspecting every inch. "I mean, this had to have been made by… something."
Sora barely takes notice of the mage's words, stopping to stare at the moon shining perfectly through the hole in the middle of the curly cue, directly to the spot below his feet, where a small headstone sits.
A headstone with the shape of a keyhole on its face.
Sora summons his blade and steps back. Light gathers at its tip and shoots into the headstone. There's a flash of light, and suddenly the Keyhole is gone, replaced by the letters R.I.P.
Rest In Peace. Now, Halloween Town and its citizens can.
And there's the bulk of Halloween Town. The dénouement/epilogue should be finished soon.
Special shout out to B.T Emmett's great review. I am so honored by your kind words, and those of everyone who has reviewed. Not that my silent followers don't have a place in my heart too, however. That kind of encouragement is really what gets my juices flowing, creativity wise, so thank you very much and I look forward to hearing from you if you choose to review again, as well as everyone else who feels drawn to.
Until next time!