Spirited Away on Halloween: Hirac's Return

I know, I know, I renamed it "Return of the King". I don't feel like changing it halfway. My fanart for the story is increasing by the second if you want to check it out. It's under my fanart profile, towards the back couple of pages.

One main road ran through the middle of the starched-white town, flanked on both sides by a river of water, suds, and cloud-gray articles of clothing. Every now and then, a bridge would lead across the river of washing fluid on both sides to the attorney's office-like buildings. Jack and Pyramus picked up their pace once they saw something other than an office jut out of the horizon; once they got close enough, they saw it was a pair of giant marble statues of Pumpkin Head.

The statues sat up on pedestals that came up to Jack's knee, the statues themselves stood at their tallest at 27 feet. In one statue, the Pumpkin Head held his head towards the flourescent sky, one of his long arms stretching towards the heavens. In his palm he held a small, plump dove, which was compacted into a tiny little ball of bird, its tiny eyes staring off into space. The other statue, across from the other one (following the symmetrical theme of "Halloween" Town), had its chest puffed out in a triumphant manner, its middle leg bent slightly to support the odd balance of the statue. The second Pumpkin Head held one hand to its chest in a fist.

Jack charged the nearest Pumpkin Head, soon finding himself in gargoyle form in Pyramus' powerfull armlock. The large one snarled in his ear and jerked the skeleton-goyle's arms in punishment. "Control yourself, Jack, or we're doomed to failure."

Jack snarled in hatred at the stone Pumpkin Head, whose arm was extended to the sky in an almost angelic manner. "What has this monster done! Thinks he can ruin my town and replace it with this symmetrical monstrosity, and then make himself out to be some kind of god!"

Pyramus shook his head, sighing mournfully. "It's scary."

Jack wasn't paying attention. His eyes were scanning his once-beloved home, where all of his memories once stood. Now, instead of the grays and blacks he had known for all of his life, all he saw were those ugly, white, dull, polished to perfection-

Wait a minute. That was it!

He relaxed in Pyramus' clutch, the stone gargoyle reading the signal right and letting go. "Wait a minute, that makes sense."

Pyramus' ears twitched. "What makes sense?"

With a shake of his bones, Jack had calmed down enough for his body to change back into his normal form. "Look at this place. It's perfectly clean, open, symetrical." Jack spread out his arms to accentuate. "Whoever took over my town is some kind of evil dictator who's bent on making a Utopia!"

"Huh?"

Jack got a strange feeling that he was losing his thick-headed friend, so he stopped. "Never mind."

&&&

They got over the statues eventually, and good thing too, because they were everywhere. As they marched deeper into "town", the statues became more and more frequent, almost to the point where Pyramus had trouble seeing past the thick forest of marble Pumpkin Heads. Jack was beginning to feel a little lost; the cat, the elf, and the jelly ball were still in his chest, not even a flutter coming out of them. His mind was sufficiently numb after he nearly tore the marble statue of Pumpkin Head a new one, but thoughts of home began to stir in his brain once again, and it made his heart ache. The pumpkin sun, the constant (if imperfect) smiles, the comforting embrace of the dark, the comforting embrace of...

Jack clutched his chest and held back the tears once again. He didn't want to think of what had happened to Sally, wherever she was. He rubbed his throat in a worried way, hoping to push back the welling tension locked in his chest. He mentally fussed at himself, Don't think about it, Jack. The more you think about it, the more you'll panic. Besides, you need to be there for Pyramus, he'd fall apart if you did.

Pyramus' clanking feet suddenly stopped.

Jack turned around to see Pyramus' head lowering, his wings tucked, and his ears back. "Is something wrong?"

Pyramus shook his head. "It is none of your concern."

Jack sighed and backtracked until he was next to the gigantic gargoyle and rested his elbow on the monster's shoulder. Pyramus' eyes were closed, and his breathing was noticeably controlled. His tail sagged and brushed against the ground, making a soft scraping sound whenever it moved. Jack patted Pyramus' head as if he were a dog. "Pyramus, stop. This is about all your little gargoyles, isn't it?"

Jack had no idea where that question came from; he didn't really know, or care, about Pyramus' family. The fact that Pyramus actually nodded made him jerk back in surprise. "They are all gone... Thisby is gone..."

It made sense. Jack stroked Pyramus' head and patted his horns in a comforting way. "Pyramus, I know it's hard. But you have to be strong. Think about what they would want you to do. They'd want you to be strong and fight for them, wouldn't they?"

Another nod.

Jack smiled, finding his own words more comforting to him than to Pyramus. "There. Now, think about it; they can't all be dead, can they? And we can always find you another Thisby-"

Pyramus suddenly rose, holding his wings out and craning his head above Jack in an imposing manner. "And if I told you that your woman could be replaced, what would you say?"

With a gulp, Jack nodded and backed away. The guilt settled into his stomach. "You're right... wrong choice of words... I'm sorry."

The stone gargoyle sniffed his disgust and tossed back his head. Almost as soon as he did, his eyes snapped up, his ears quivering. His muscles tensed as he leaned back into a fighting stance. Jack startled and turned around, his bones swelling as the gargoyle him threatened to surge out-

He couldn't believe his eyes!

"ZERO!"

Jack wasn't prepared for the teeth.

&&&

Jack and Pyramus found themselves running for their lives, a mutated Zero hot on their tails. This Zero had grown several feet from head to foot, being the size of a wolfhound by this point and still growing as he chased them. Out of his cloth-like body he had "grown" four leg-like extensions (stretches of cloth, or whatever Zero was made out of, which curved into little paws at the end) which were now pounding the ground after our two heroes. He had also grown several sharp fangs which had already torn away part of Jack's coattail.

Jack couldn't help but call out to Pyramus, who was running three feet in front of him in order to smash away Pumpkin Head statues. "You'd think the town was enough, but now he's gone after my dog!"

"What now?" Pyramus called back.

"I don't know!" Jack scre- The jelly ball fluttered in his pocket. "Wait, yes I do!"

In a dazzling feat of agility, Jack leapt up and bounced off of a falling piece of statue, reached into his chest, pulled out the black cat, and threw it into Zero's face!

Gratefully, Zero still had the attention span of a garter snake, and quickly took off after black cat. Jack landed on the ground and took to the air as a gargoyle, Pyramus quickly following. They flew upward until they were well out of Zero's sight rang and leveled out, flying blindly into the horizon.

"I swear," Jack began to monologue, "If I ever find that idiot who did this to my town, I am going to have his head in a silver pie plate!"

"Do you think he did that to the rest of Halloween Town?" Pyramus asked.

"We can only hope not," Jack called. He turned his head as Pyramus began to straighten up in the air. "Pyramus, why are you-"

BRCRUNCH!

Pyramus landed vertically on the castle wall, catching the Pumpkin King by the neck just before he fell. "You need to watch where you are going."

Jack sighed in disbelief. "You'd think doing that once was bad enough..."

&&&

They had landed on Pumpkin Head's main castle wall, knowing that because the entire castle screamed "PUMPKIN HEAD" from its orange stained glass windows to the pumpkin vine engravings on the front door. Huge flags fluttered overhead bearing the Pumpkin Head's visage, along with several smaller banners of gray and black. Despite the gloomy flags, the castle itself was adorned with the brightest of colors; it looked so natural, too, almost as if the hues had been soaked into the stonework. The fortress seemed to be carved out of a solid stone, because there were no seams or creases indicating brick laying.

It sure didn't make the gargoyle's job any easier, though. Jack decided that the best way to go would be inside, so he tried every single window he would come across; most of them were locked, and one of them fell off the hinges in his hands to reveal a room with no other doors (naturally, they didn't go inside that one). Pyramus and Jack kept climbing the outer walls, slithering like lizards over turrets, windows, and mantles where gargoyles should have rested.

Pyramus settled himself on a ledge, surveying the landscape, and Jack wiggled next to him and tried to balance himself on the one corner that Pyramus' bulk did not occupy. "Well, Pyramus, we're running out of sides. North, West, and South, all of the windows were locked."

The gargoyle sniffed the air delicately, sneezing before continueing. "The air, inside the castle. I can smell my children."

"You can what?" Jack quipped.

"They're inside!" Pyramus rocketed up the wall, leaving Jack to catch up. He bound like a rabbit straight up the side of the castle wall and up one of the flagpoles, stopping at the very top of the highest one. Knowing he wouldn't fit, Jack found a different pole and began to shimmy up the side, only to trip on his toes and fall flat onto the ceiling.

"What are you doing!" screamed Jack.

Pyramus didn't answer him. He took a breathe and-

Jack wasn't surewhether to cover his ears or to sing along. Out of that oafish gargoyle's throat came the eeriest of noise, a sort of cross between a French horn and a whale's song. All of Jack's senses left him for a bit, for the strange wail of the gargoyle was so loud that Jack could feel the elf in his chest wake up and scream in terror, but he couldn't hear it.

When Pyramus stopped, Jack had little time to recover before a trapdoor opened below him and he dropped into the castle, Pyramus diving in after him.

DONE! One day- well, actually two days of typing to write this one.

Not too proud of this one. Could've done better. But it was the best I could do under such short notice. I want to move onto the STORY, dangit!

No notes I can think of.