Kingdom Hearts: Warriors of Light
Slice and Dice -Chapter 25
Jack and Ti-Day lead the group of everyone who had volunteered to help find Ni-Ne. Thankfully many of Halloween Town's inhabitants were willing to help find one of their own. After walking from town, through the graveyard and by the hooked hill, the group at last approached Oogie Boogie's lair. An old wooden bridge connected Oogie's tree house to the surrounding land. Below was a huge crater-like hole filled with fog from which the giant dead tree grew.
"This is it," Jack said as Sora, Ti-Day, Donald, Goofy and Hercules stepped up to the front to look at the tree house. "We have to get to the top to get inside." Just then many heartless appeared floating around the tree house. "And it looks like it's going to be a lot harder than we think."
"It's ok," Sora said. "That's why we all came together. Strength in numbers."
"What are we waiting for?" Donald said. "Charge!" With that everyone ran towards the bridge together with their pitchforks, clubs and scythes in hand. The heartless lined up to battle the approaching enemies.
"FIRE!" Ti-Day yelled shooting flames at the heartless. A good part of the front line of heartless was knocked out by his spell. The others were taken care of in hand-to-hand combat by the Halloween inhabitants. Ti-Day rushed forward through the group as they fought. He was more eager than anyone to get inside. Jack followed close behind.
"Thunder!" Sora shouted. Lightening rained from the sky and shocked three heartless at once. "Nobody messes with us!" He took off up the tree house hitting heartless left and right along the way. Donald and Goofy were still back behind him, but Hercules was keeping up.
"Hi ya! Take that!" Hercules said swinging his sword around. "We need to get to Ti-Day Sora. He's gonna need all the help he can get."
"Lets go," Sora said running to catch up to Ti-Day and Jack. There were less heartless ahead of the big battle where everyone else was. It didn't take long to catch up to Ti-Day and Jack who where only just reaching the top. "Didn't think you were going without us did ya?" Sora asked seeing Ti-Day and Jack.
"We have to move quickly," Ti-Day said. Jack pulled some doors open to a small room at the top of the tree house. Inside was a beat up couch, some broken shudders and a strange face with a large hole for a mouth that was surrounded by candles.
"That's the entrance," Jack said pointing to the creepy face on the wall. It looked like an Indian mask from where they were standing. Ti-Day ran over to it fearlessly. He looked at it for only a moment and then jumped in and slid down.
"Is he crazy?" Hercules said watching Ti-Day disappear.
"Well, we have to follow him now," Sora said stepping up next. He too lifted himself into the shoot and slid down.
"Coming?" Jack said looking at Hercules who couldn't believe Ti-Day and Sora.
"Yeah…" Hercules said sounding unenthused. He was a little unsure about sliding down a small shoot into some place where the bad guy was hiding. He looked at the shoot and examined its small size. Then forced himself into it and slid down. Jack followed close behind. At the bottom Sora and Ti-Day were waiting. The shoot emptied into a musty, dark room. There was no light anywhere, which made it hard to see how big the place was or where Ni-Ne could be. Hercules came out of the shoot and landed on his head. Jack merely stepped out as though he did this on a regular basis.
"Fire," Ti-Day said quietly. He produced a small flame on the end of his magic staff to light the room. Luckily objects in the room were close enough to reflect the light and some things were showing up. There were skeletons everywhere. Some bats flew around at the sight of the light. In the middle of the room was a crater-like pot in the floor.
"This place gives me the creeps," Hercules said nervously.
"Ni-Ne?" Ti-Day said hearing his voice echo around the chamber.
"Ooooh," a voice said laughing. It was gone as soon as it came.
"That didn't really sound like Ni-Ne," Sora said looking around for the source of the voice.
"Ti-Day… Ti-Day…" Ni-Ne's voice said softly.
"But that did!" Ti-Day said now running forward. He ran around the large pot in the center of the room looking for a door or passageway that would lead him to Ni-Ne. "Ni-Ne! It's me Ti-Day!"
Jack followed Ti-Day. "Oogie Boogie, if you're behind this, so help me I'll-,"
"You'll what now Jack?" said a terrifying voice behind him. A fire started in the pot in floor and a large bag-like man appeared holding onto a fan that was suspended above the pot. It was Oogie Boogie. "Nice of you all to drop in."
"Where's Ni-Ne you jerk!" Ti-Day said turning to Oogie.
"Don't worry about her," Oogie said looking really happy. "She's in good hands now. Maleficent is taking good care of her."
"Maleficent?" Hercules said. "Ni-Ne mentioned her once. She's one of the villains!"
"Oooh, I just love the smart ones," Oogie laughed. "Don't worry about her. You should really be worrying more about yourselves." With that, Oogie jumped up to a ledge at the top of the room leaving the guys stuck down in the bottom. Ti-Day ran towards the fan to climb it, but it moved before he could get there. The fan transformed into long sharp blades that slowly began to spin. Ti-Day backed away to avoid having his head cut off. The blades slowly lowered themselves and soon everyone realized the blades reached all the way out to the walls meaning they were all sure to be diced to bits.
"No!" Sora said running from a blade that was following him. He ran knowing that if he couldn't get away, he would be sliced in half. The same was true for the other three as they too were now running from the blades. "What are we gonna do!"
Jack cast a shield spell around all of them at once. The blades bounced off of the shield, but it wouldn't last forever. Ti-Day used the opportunity to leap towards the center again. He managed to make it above the blades, but he was spinning very fast holding onto the center rod. As Jack's spell wore away everyone started running again. Jack found a pattern and instead began jumping over the blades as they pasted him. Ti-Day managed to jump away from the blade fan and grabbed onto a wall.
"It's not gonna be that easy," Oogie said seeing that Ti-Day had successfully escaped the blender of death. A machine popped out of the wall next to him with three shooters pointing guns at Ti-Day. Oogie pulled a lever and like a slot machine, three like images appeared across the shooters' heads and they began shooting at Ti-Day. He had no choice but to let go and jump back into the hole. He landed on his back, which meant he didn't have enough time to get up before a blade reached him.
"Ahhh!" Ti-Day shouted as a blade sliced one of his legs. He was lucky it wasn't completely severed, but by the pain and blood, he had to have been cut at least halfway through. He got up to avoid being hit by the next blade. Hercules watched him struggling and knew if the blades weren't stopped soon, Ti-Day wouldn't stand a chance of making it out alive.
Hercules looked to the center of the blades at the rod in the middle. If he could just reach it, he might have been able to break the blades off. He started running with the blades and concentrating hard on the center. Then when he found the opportunity, he leapt towards the rod and latched on. He was sitting on two blades, spinning so fast that the room was merely a blur. He put his hand around one of the blades and started twisting it with all his strength. The blade bent and eventually tore off. He stuck the blade into the ground hoping it would catch the fan and slow the remaining blades down. It did. Then he reached for another blade and tore it off also planting it in the ground. Now only one blade was left, moving rather slow because of the friction from the other too bend up blades. Hercules kicked the last one off and finally there were no more blades left. He let go of the center rod and flew backwards into one of the walls. Some skeletons fell down on his head.
"Ti-Day, are you alright?" Sora said seeing Ti-Day as he bled. Jack ran over to help Ti-Day, he used a piece of Ti-Day's cape to wrap the wound.
"You broke my toy!" Oogie said sounding mad. "Looks like you don't know how to play fair." Oogie walked over to a control panel in the wall. He took a pair of dice in his hands and threw them into the hole where everyone was still stuck. The dice rolled and landed next to the four guys while they were still catching their breath. "Snake eyes!" Oogie shouted. That means I win!" The dice began to shake just before exploding. Everyone shielded themselves from the blast. Oogie pushed some buttons on the control panel and the flames in the center pot grew. Then he started throwing more dice into the hole, which were much bigger explosives.
"Watch out!" Sora shouted rolling away from the exploding dice. Hercules picked up Ti-Day so he wouldn't have to walk on his injured leg. Jack, Sora, and Hercules took off in different directions trying to keep moving so Oogie couldn't target them. "Thunder!" Sora shouted hitting Oogie right on.
"Ouch! Now that's just RUDE!" Oogie shouted throwing five dice at once at Sora. Five turned out to be too many to outrun at once and Sora ended up getting burnt. "Ahh!"
"Stop!" Someone shouted from above. Oogie was frozen in time, one of his dice in his hand.
"Huh?" Hercules said stopping. Ti-Day looked just as puzzled. Jack and Sora looked at each other.
"What made you think you could beat him without us?" Donald asked appearing in the corner of the hole where the shoot emptied. Goofy was with him.
"Donald, you have no idea what we just lived through," Hercules said. "Ti-Day got sliced and Sora just got burned."
"Yeah, yeah," Donald said. "Story time later, defeat the enemy now." Donald used a hover charm to fly up to the ledge where Oogie was now frozen. He picked up one of the dice explosives that Oogie had and threw it at him.
"Errrr," Oogie groaned. He couldn't move or do anything about it.
"You gonna help or what?" Donald said looking at everyone. Goofy, Jack and Hercules climbed up with him and started hurling the dice bombs at Oogie. Sora and Ti-Day just tried to avoid any misses. Because of the time spell, Oogie wasn't really taking a whole lot of damage. Ti-Day picked up his staff and cast a hover charm on Oogie lifting him off the ledge. He brought him down to the fire pit in the center of the room.
"Lets see him act tough now," Ti-Day said looking mad. Donald released the time spell and watched Oogie as he floated above the fire. "Ok Oogie, now you're the one in trouble, so talk… Where's Ni-Ne?"
Oogie was looking nervous as he dangled above the fiery pit. "I- I don't know," Oogie said trying to stay away from the flames. "Maleficent took her. She's not here anymore!"
Ti-Day looked absolutely pissed. He lowered Oogie to the point that the tips of the flames were touching him. "Where's Maleficent?"
"Ahhhhh! Oogie shouted, his straw bag body catching on fire. "I don't know! Please, let me go!"
"Not so fun when you're the one burning is it?" Sora said rubbing his own burns.
"Ahhhhh!" Oogie screamed. "Captain Hook knows! Find him, he'll tell you!" Ti-Day pulled Oogie away from the flames to ask another question.
"Where is Captain Hook?" Ti-Day asked, still angry.
"Neverland!" Oogie shouted feeling the burning pain as he body was slowly eaten away by fire. Ti-Day was still mad. It was Oogie's fault that Ni-Ne was nowhere to be found and now she was in some other world. Ti-Day released the spell right over the pit of fire and watched Oogie drop and burn.