Wahahaha: Wee, I got the best line from the entire movie worked in here! Yeah, last chapter in Halloweentown. To the Surfing Demon, I say that no, these chapters are not pre-written. I post them as soon as I've finished them. My school's got a funky schedule, and I just had my last final yesterday. Hence, I have today, friday, off! Woot. And I have no idea what you mean by Porta-Skellington. As for Indigo, Mewt is a guy, a friend of Marche's. Anyone who's played FFTA can probably guess who Marche was talking about when he said "finding her", but everyone else will just have to remain in the dark. And I'm happy because I had some great inspiration for stuff about Outcasts of Arcadia. Anyways, R&R everyone! Thankies!
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"You haven't found it yet?" asked Elias. "I am most displeased with that."
The Heartless almost cringed back from him, as if afraid.
"Find it quickly," he said coldly. "I wish to be rid of this world already."
-
"Everything is lost..." despaired Jack, standing sadly in the burnt out clearing. "I couldn't help."
He looked down at his soot-blackened hands.
"I am...nothing," he said. "Bravado. Showman. But when it's really real...everything just slips through my fingers."
He clenched his hands into fists, the ash falling like black snow from them as he did.
"I've lost Halloween," he continued sadly. "Spoiled all. Spoiled all."
He raised his arms up, like an actor taking his final bow.
"And now it's over," he finished. His head went back, face skywards, arms limp in resignation. "The end of Jack. Find a deep cave and hide me, in a million years they'll find me; only dust. And a plaque. That reads 'Here Lies Poor Old Jack'."
He dropped straight back, stiff as a board at the last dramatic note, disappearing in a puff of ashes as he fell to the ground, intending to never speak again until the end, which he felt was not far off.
-
"Jack, Jack, where are you?" shouted Orchid as the trio sped through the dark, gloomy forest.
"Look there, kupo!" said Montblanc, pointing to the clearing, which had obviously been decimated by fire.
They ran over to the pile of ashes that obscured the ground.
"This looks like where they fought," commented Arc. "He's probably not far from here."
They looked about, but found no sign of the skeleton man. Finally, Orchid walked towards the heap of ashes and stared at them with growing frustration.
"Damn it!" she shouted,
swinging the keyblade wildly at the pile. Soot puffed up around where
she struck, unveiling something that had been previously covered.
"Jack...?"
She bent over and brushed the ashes off the
recognizable skull as the other two walked over. She stared sadly at
the face of her breifly known friend.
"Jack..." she said mournfully. "But no...you've got to help us! I...Sally...I mean...Daemon is-!"
"I know," interrupted Jack Skellington solemnly. "He will destroy this world. And I could do nothing to stop him."
"That's not true!" shouted Orchid, quickly recovering from her shock. "You're the only one who can stop him!"
"Then I guess our last hope has gone out," he said gravely as he sat up amidst the ashes, almost as tall sitting down as Orchid was standing up. "It's all over now. Only a matter of time."
"Of course it is if you talk like that!" snarled Arc. "Are you even listening to what you're saying?"
"I am," he answered. "And I say what I mean. It's all over. Everything is lost. I tried to stop him, and I failed."
"You only really fail if you give up now!" urged Orchid. "We can still stop him."
"We?" Jack laughed weakly, standing up and swaying softly. Ashes fell from him like soft, feathery tears of the dead. "I can't do anything."
"That's not true!" shouted the girl.
"I can't," repeated the skeleton.
"We need you, Jack! Halloween needs you!" she said. Then she added softly, "Sally needs you."
Jack opened his mouth to protest again, but paused quietly.
"Sally..." he whispered.
"You can do anything!" shouted Orchid. "You're the Pumpkin King!"
"That's right..." he said softly. Then more loudly, "That's right!"
He turned and straightened, shoulders broad and eyes aflame.
"I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!" he roared. "This is my town, and nobody is going to hurt my friends!"
"Jack..." said Orchid in awe at the towering figure before her.
"Let's go meet Daemon," growled Jack dangerously.
-
"Quickly now," urged Elias as they exited the town, heading into the graveyard. "We've dallied enough on this forsaken world."
The Heartless raced ahead of him, a dark wave proceeding before the man, flooding out of the gates and over the crypts. They hungered, hungered so badly for this world's heart.
"Daemon!" roared a figure on the twisted spiral hilltop. Silhouetted by the brightly burning moon behind him, the skeleton figure of the Pumpkin King stood imposingly above the mass of darkness coming towards him.
"Please, Elias will suffice," said the half-masked man calmly.
"You will not go any further," commanded Jack, walking slowly and grimly down the hill.
"You cannot stop my forces, Skellington," replied Elias.
"Not by myself," agreed Jack. "But with my friends, I can do anything!"
On cue, bolts of lightning fell from the sky, decimating the tightly packed swarms of Heartless. Light glinted momentarily off the tinted lenses of Arc as he leaped into the air, then plummeted downwards, fist first and shield in hand.
"Planet Diver!" he yelled, unnatural fires bursting out around him. He crashed into the mass of darkness with the force of a meteor, destroying multitudes of Heartless who had no space to run. While they lay about dazed, he came up swinging, sword and shield both, cutting and bludgeoning one and all.
"Fira!" shouted Montblanc, knocking out a gargoyle that had been about to make a dive at Arc while he was busy.
"I can't handle the air also," shouted Arc as he fought with the search ghosts and wight nites. "Orchid!"
"Shooting Star!" she yelled, jumping into the air. She swung the keyblade and released it and it went flying outwards, spinning through the air, a deadly projectile accurately destroying her targets and returning to her hand.
"Strike!" she yelled, throwing it again. Nightshade whirled through the dark sky, cutting into Heartless that had been just about to attack her friend from behind. The black blade came flying back, starting to glow with the energy gathered from the attacks. "Strike!"
Montblanc unleashed spell after spell upon the grouped up masses of Heartless, their knotted clumps making perfect targets as Arc wreaked havoc on any and all around him.
"Wish!" Orchid finally shouted when the keyblade was glowing white with power. The energy gathered at the tip, then exploded out with a brilliant flash aimed at Elias, destroying all in its way. The explosion was magnificent.
"Hmm..." came the voice from amidst the dust as it cleared. "Not bad."
Elias stood in the center of the destruction, barely even scratched.
"If not for all the Heartless between us, that might have hurt," he added.
Then he raised his hand before him, and snapped his fingers at Orchid, who was still falling in midair, having been blasted fairly high up by the last attack.
"Thordain!" he said. Black lightning engulfed Orchid as it fell from the sky and welled up from the earth. Arc, Montblanc, and Jack all stared in horror as they watched their friend be swallowed by unearthly discharge, the likes of which they had never seen before.
The flash was blinding, and when it cleared, nothing was left in the sky.
"Nice try," smirked Orchid
wearily from where she stood on the ground. The air danced around her
in a protective barrier, and pieces of light sparkled green as she
healed herself partially. "Unfortunately for you, I know magic
also."
"A barrier," observed Elias. "Annoying,
but not insurmountable."
He stepped back into the shadows, and when Orchid turned around at the sound of movement, she came face to face with him, his long, black hair drifting behind him in an unfelt breeze.
"Dispel," he said quietly. There was a faint noise, like breaking glass, and Orchid's spell shattered around her like so many broken dreams. As she stared in shock, he calmly thrust his arm, palm outwards, hitting her square in the chest and sending her flying down the slope.
He leapt lightly through the air, landing right in front of her.
"Now, Flower of Arcadia, you die," he said coldly, bringing his hand back for the final blow.
"Aero!" she said weakly, managing a small gust of wind as his arm went back. "Ah...ah...."
His hand plunged forwards.
"Tornado!" shouted Orchid, eyes shut tightly, keyblade pointed before her.
Roaring winds tore up around her, driving Elias back away from her. The ground was ripped open by the raging gale, sending dirt and debris flying in the hurricane force. There was a burst of power as the spell subsided, and for a moment, everything was still and silent.
"Annoying," observed Elias clinically. Then he stepped forwards and raised his hand back again.
Orchid looked up dazidly at him, drained from such a forced release of magic.
"Look out!" shouted Arc as Elias brought his hand down.
He slapped her.
The girl went sailing through the air, colliding hard with a stone monument to the dead.
"Orchid!" squeaked Montblanc in distress.
Elias walked slowly up to her limp form as she struggled to regain control of herself and get up. He stood above her, staring harshly down on her twitching figure.
"You have caused us much trouble, Keyblade Master," he said softly. "Now I ask you to leave."
His hair and coat fluttered in an unseen wind as he gathered energy to him, preparing a finishing spell. Orchid looked up, eyes terrified, helpless against the demon above her.
"No!"
A bony hand wrapped around the delicate white flesh of Elias's neck, and threw him away in rage.
"Daemon!" yelled Jack as he stalked over in fury. As Elias began to rise, he leaped and grabbed him by the neck again, then slammed him back against a masoleum wall, holding him pinned there. "How dare...you treat my friends like that!"
For a moment, and only for a moment, it looked like there was fear in Elias's single visible eye.
Then it was gone, and replaced by a dazed look, as if he were far away.
"What...what's happening?" asked Orchid as she stumbled to her feet and stared at the forms of Jack and Elias, and the nimbus of swirling light that was forming around the latter.
Suddenly, Elias blinked, and everything was back to normal.
"Skellington," he said calmly, acting for all the world as if he wasn't in a death grip by the man, "as much as I would love to stay, and finish you off properly this time, I have other pressing matters to attend to. So, kindly, if you would please let me go..."
"Let you go?" raged Jack, slamming the man back against the wall again. "After what you did?"
"Do not say I didn't give you a way out..." murmured Elias as he brought up his hand between them.
He snapped his fingers.
"Freezeblink!"
There was a blast of freezing wind eminating from him, sending the Pumpkin King and everyone else, Heartless included, flying backwards.Then a pillar of ice shot up from the ground, incasing the skeleton entirely, then shattering harshly, leaving him cold and limp on the ground amidst the shards.
"And now," said Elias, as Orchid ran to Jack while Arc and Montblanc fended off the Heartless, "I take my leave."
There was a fluttering of dark wings, and then he was gone.
-
With Elias gone, cleaning up the remaining Heartless had been almost no problem. No one had suffered anything serious, excepting Jack from Elias's parting attack, though there was no permanent harm that a few castings of Cura couldn't fix. All that was left was to seal the keyhole.
"Do you know where it is?" Arc asked Jack. The man shook his head.
"When Sora was here, it was where Oogie Boogie's house once stood, but from what you've told me, it'll be somewhere different now," he recalled.
"Well, Orchid can sense it, right, kupo?" suggested Montblanc. He looked up to the girl, and she nodded.
"Yeah...it's near by," she said. She held out Nightshade in front of her and slowly started turning around. Halfway through her rotation, she stopped. "This way."
She started walking forwards, smoothly avoiding the gravemarkers in her way until she was heading up the twisted spiral hill that dominated the center of the landscape. She easily walked to the top, keyblade held before her, then stopped as she reached the peak.
"Where is it?" asked Arc as the other three came up the hill behind her.
"It's..." She turned suddenly, at a right angle to the hill and faced the moon. The others watched in horrified interest as a most unnatural thing happened.
The moon turned. On the farside of it, now revealed to them, was a keyhole.
"But...it's so far away, kupo," said Montblanc.
Not hearing her, Orchid reached forwards with the keyblade. It was hard to tell in the dark if it was just a ball-sized moon with a keyblade-sized hole floating a few feet away from her, or if it was a regular-sized moon with an enormous keyhole on it, hovering a million miles away. Maybe it was the same thing. Either way, she reached the tip of the keyblade into the hole, the pulled it back out, trailing the familiar strand of light. She turned it, and there was an omnipresent click. And then the keyhole was gone.
"I guess that's that," said Jack. He smiled his skeleton grin. "That's a nice trick."
"Thanks," smiled Orchid as she started back down the hill. They walked down together, Arc trailing right behind. But Montblanc stood there, staring at something on the ground. He reached down and picked it up.
"Was this here before, kupo?" he asked quietly, staring at the luminescent circle of white. It was translucently pale, and shaped like a smooth river stone, almost perfectly round, like a miniature discus, barely bigger than his paw.
"release me."
Montblanc stared at the stone for a moment. Then he shrugged, and put it in a jacket pocket. It happened by coincidence that it was the same pocket that he kept the crystalline fragment that radiated lightning.
"Come on, Montblanc! We're gonna leave without you!" shouted Orchid teasingly.
"Kupo!" he squeaked as he came out of his daze, then hurried down the hill. He tripped and rolled the rest of the way down, causing Orchid to giggle and Arc and Jack to chuckle. He protested, "Not funny!"
"Come on," smiled Orchid, helping him up. "It's time to say our goodbyes."
---
"So, why have you summoned me?" Elias asked the head assistant coldly.
"We have made a breakthrough, Lord Daemonwing," rasped the Heartless emotionlessly. "The barriers guarding their hearts are finally starting to crumble."
"How far?" he asked.
"Not far. But enough to let the Master in. They are not yet controllable, however, there have been certain advantages we've gained."
"Such as?"
"The darkness has crept into their hearts, Lord. It is a start. Notably, we've unlocked some of Malificent's taint in the silver haired boy. He had quite an interesting ability."
To demonstrate, the Heartless turned to its fellow workers and signaled. The others nodded and went to their workstations, flipping various switches and dials on the control panels. There was a humming sound, then dark lightning shot down the wall from electrodes and struck Riku's comatose, twitching body.
The boy cried out in pain, and for a moment, his eyes were open.
Then he was limp again, and before him stood a Heartless, the likes of which had only been seen once before.
"He was given the power to make a Heartless replica of the Keyblade Master," explained the head assistant coldly. The newly formed Heartless, standing in the middle of the room, was for all the world like a fourteen year old Sora, complete with keyblade. The only difference was that this one was inky black, with no color at all, except for two glowing yellow eyes.
"A great asset," noted Elias calmly, walking around the Heartless, inspecting it.
"We have also managed to graft the technique onto the subject for the Grey One," added the head assistant. At this, the other assistants worked another succesion of levers and buttons, resulting in a loud humming. Elias turned to watch in interest the large glass tube that dominated the center of the wall between the control panels, opposite of where Riku and Leon hung from chains. In the tube was a clear liquid, faintly green and bubbling. In it floated a young man with long black hair that floated about in the substance. His right eye was now uncovered, unlike how it was normally, and revealed a mechanical lense installed where his optics should have been. He floated almost peacefully, single eye closed as light from below gently caressed his naked skin. His belongings, including two wooden hilted katana, his clothes, and two slick black guns, sat in a recepticle at the foot of the tank.
"Now," grated the head assistant's cold voice.
Black lightning ripped through the serene waters of the tank, and the body inside writhed in agony as it struck him. Then it was over, and a dark form stood before the tank.
"Very good," admired Elias softly. The new Heartless stood tall, an exact, but blackened replica of what floated in the tank. It was unarmed, but had sharp, vicious claws. It had only one eye, and that was a fierce, glowing orb of hunger. "And the other?"
The head assistant paused, almost as if afraid, then spoke.
"The Master...has not been able to reach him. He is very strong," admitted the Heartless.
"I see," said Elias quietly as he stalked over to the limp form of Leon. His half-revealed face betrayed no emotion, not rage nor disappointment as he studied the downcast form of Squall Leonheart. He whispered to the unconscious form, "You cannot escape us, Leonheart. You may be the strongest, but even the strongest shall bow before the Master."
---
"Well, goodbye, Halloweentown," said Orchid fondly as she stared at the world through the gummi ship window. They had all resumed their normal clothes, a fact of which Arc was highly pleased.
"Where are we off to next, kupo?" asked Montblanc.
"Well..." said Arc as he studied the control panel. "We haven't been to Traverse Town in a while. Might as well check in with those guys."
"So we're heading to Traverse Town now?" Orchid said cheerfully as she turned in her seat. "Ooh, then we can tell Sora all about our adventures!"
"Yeah..." started Arc. Then his eyes grew wide. And he grinned. "Nope. First things first."
"What are you talking about?" she asked as he started setting in the destination into the navi computer.
"Apparently, there's a new tournament at the Coliseum," he smiled. "Maybe some real oppenents for me to test my blade on."
"Oh, brother," moaned Orchid. "Just can't pass up a fight, can you?"
"No way," laughed Arc happily.
"Well, then," said the girl, smiling a little. "To the Coliseum it is!"
