Really guys, really? Six review last chapter? Come on!
Anyway, This chapter contains a few elements from the Nightmare Before Christmas sequal video game, 'Oogie's Revenge.' So that's one more thing to add to the disclaimer list. Oogie!
Oogie: "That's what I'm talkin' about! Oogie's revenge! Darth doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or Oogie's Revenge. Gah, I love saying that!"
You died at the end.
Oogie: "Oh…"
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Chapter 47: Oogie's Revenge
"Where are those little brats?"
Axel had lost Lock, Shock, and Barrel's trail several minutes ago. They had been running all through the trees in crazy patterns, probably trying to lose anyone who tried to follow after them, and they had done a good job of it.
"I'm starting to wish we'd brought Nehrut with us." He said. "He'd have found them by now."
"Don't worry." Goofy said optimistically. "I'm sure we'll find them troublemakers eventually."
They kept walking, and eventually picked up some new tracks. They were different than before, but Donald and Goofy identified them pretty easily. They were deeper than the original tracks, and looked barefooted.
"They got their bathtub back." Donald concluded.
"I'm sorry, 'bathtub?' You're joking right?" This mission was starting to sound more and more ridiculous. "Whatever, let's keep going."
They followed the trail the bathtub had left, weaving in and out of trees. The tracks were nice and deep, making them easy to follow through the dirt and mud. There was a surprising lack of bushes in these woods; it was almost entirely trees in this place. There was something a bit odd about it.
After a few minutes, they could hear a whispered conversation between three little voices. Axel, Donald, and Goofy slowed their pace, sneaking toward the voices. They hid behind some of the thicker trees (there weren't many), and listened.
The first one, a boy, said, "Just wait until Mister Oogie is in charge! Can you imagine what we could do then?"
The second, a girl, said, "I know! I wonder what he'll do with Jack?"
The third, another boy, answered, "Maybe he'll make him into snake-and-spider stew!"
They giggled. "And all we have to do is take the doctor's new thing?"
"Yeah! We just wait for the skull-guy to soften the town up, and take it!"
"What about Jack and that Sora?"
"We can sneak right past them!"
"And when we get it back to Oogie Boogie..."
"The town will be all ours!" They all laughed.
Axel traded looks with Donald and Goofy. "Looks like we need to stop them here." He whispered. They nodded to him.
Axel counted down from three, and they charged into the clearing where Lock, Shock, and Barrel were talking in their tub. Shock quickly cranked the faucet in the tub, activating a trap.
The walls of a thick, iron-bar cage rose from the ground under the feet of Axel, Donald, and Goofy. A lid slammed down on the top from a tree above. The three of them hit the bars and slid into the ground. The cage emitted a flash of light, creating a magical shield. The kids jumped out of their tub and ran over to the side of the cage.
They pulled off their masks and laughed. "We got ya!"
"Just like the skull-guy said!"
Heartless appeared all around the cage, but they ignored the kids, and walked or crawled toward the cage. The ones with hands scooped it up, and some of the Shadows crawled under to move it on their backs.
"See ya!" The kids called, putting their masks back on. They laughed and jumped into their tub. It was still for a moment, before it started walking back to town.
"Not again! Phooie!" Donald said to himself. He plopped down in the cage next to Goofy.
Axel sat down in the cage, leaning his back against the bars. He sighed and rubbed his temples.
Roxas is never gonna let me live this one down. (1)
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"Come on!" Jack was calling to a group of stragglers, including a very large clown on a unicycle and a trio of witches on broomsticks. He held open the door to the town hall, and they rushed in with hurried thanks.
The panicked looking mayor turned to him. "Are you sure you'll be able to hold them off, Jack?"
"Of course!" Jack said reassuringly, prodding the mayor into the hall. "You've got nothing to worry about." He said over his quiet whimpering. "We've got it all handled. Just stay inside."
When the mayor walked in, and Jack closed the door, Sora and Riku walked up to him. "The doc refuses to leave his lab." Sora said.
"That guy is waaay too attached to his toys." Riku added, clearly annoyed.
"Sally won't give an inch either, Jack." Sora added sympathetically. "She says she wants to be as close to you as possible, and the lab is just as good as Town Hall."
Jack didn't look totally convinced, though Sora hadn't expected him to. He seemed about to protest, when Yuffie appeared by his side in a puff of smoke. "They're coming!"
Sora, Riku, and Jack sprinted toward the town gates. The rest of their party was waiting there, gazing down the hill at a small army of undead soldiers. They had absolutely no rythm. They marched however they wanted, crawling over things, or kicking stuff on the way.
As they approached, Sora tried again to count them. He got to ninety-four when Kairi said, "One hundred ninety."
"How did you count that fast?" Yuffie asked. She shrugged.
They lined up in front of the gate; left-to-right it was Bariss, Nehrut, Kairi, Sora, Jack, Riku, Mickey, Yuffie. They brandished their weapons, ready for battle.
"So about two-hundred?" Bariss asked. Kairi nodded.
"Too easy." Riku said with a smirk, summoning the Guardian.
Jack held up his hand, engulfing it in fire. He lifted one finger, and pointed it forward at the army. "CHARGE!"
The eight sprinted down the hill at the army, weapons and otherwise held aloft, showing no fear. At the same instant, the Cauldron Borns' unruly march turned into a rabid charge up the hill at the defenders.
They met with a clang of weapons, and the fight was on.
Mere minutes into the fight, it became clear that the Cauldron Born were dangerous enemies.
Being devoid of both heart and soul, they never questioned orders. And their orders here were only to destroy. They were perhaps better than Heartless, because they could still think about how best to achieve their orders. They felt no fear, no doubt, and no regret. In short: near perfect soldiers.
It wasn't long before Sora became separated from the rest of his friends, and found himself surrounded on all sides by Cauldron Born. Three of them charged in from different directions, and Sora cast a fire spell. The flames revolved around him, burning the enemies that charged into them. He leapt into the group ahead of him and beheaded a soldier with a clean swipe of Oblivion.
He swept low, and literally took out the legs of another. He blocked a strike from another one's sword, and leapt away from an axe strike that could have killed him. He blocked a strike at his legs, and a follow up attack at his head, then struck through the soldier's chest.
He jumped into the only clear space he could find, back into the gates. He saw that a few of the undead soldiers had already slipped through, and that Mickey and Bariss were trying to deal with them.
"There are a whole lot of them out there." Roxas said. "You probably won't be able to keep them out of town indefinitely."
I'm afraid you're right.
A Cauldron Born with a spear stabbed at his chest. He knocked the weapon out of its hands, and cut it in half with a single strike. Two more appeared in its place, sporting gruesome-looking swords. Sora parried the first strike, and ducked under the second. As he came up he struck one with a fireball. He jumped over the head of the other one and took its head off before he touched the ground again.
In a matter of minutes, everyone was fighting in the town itself. The strength of the Cauldron born had been reduced from one hundred ninety to one hundred ten. They were now fighting in separate areas of town. Sora, Jack, and Nehrut were in the town square by Dr. Finkelstein's lab. Riku, Kairi, and Yuffie were at the Town Hall. And Mickey and Bariss had managed to stay near the town gates.
"These guys are really getting on my nerves." Nehrut said as he decapitated one out of about forty soldiers.
Sora ran right at them, with Jack at his side. When he got close he shouted, "Jack!"
"Prepare to scream!"
Sora jumped into Jack's arms, and he held him in a dancing position. He spun the Keybearer like a top, and then did the same. As they spun, magically created ghosts emerged from the air around them. They spun with them, inflicting some punishment to the Cauldron Born that got too close.
They stopped, and Sora lept into the air above Jack's head. He stuck there, and hovered in place over him. He spread his arms, and seemed to shake all over. His body flashed with dark red energy, and balls of energy shaped fittingly like jack-o-lanterns burst from his skin. They hovered around him for less than a second, and then blasted toward the soldiers, exploding on contact.
He did this twice, before switching places with Jack. Now the Pumpkin King was floating above him, and doing something similar. His body was surrounded by pale blue light. From inside of his bones shot the same magically created ghosts from before. They floated around his head momentarily, before blasting toward the Cauldron Born and inflicting as much punishment as possible.
And then there were less than ten remaining. Jack landed on the ground, and picked Sora up again. He tossed him into the air, and all around him flew the pumpkins, the ghosts, and scarlet bats. Sora seemed to float in the air for a second, before he backflipped in the air and came back to the ground.
He landed in front of Jack, and the second he did, they struck a pose. The ground cracked open, and light burst from it like the laser effects at a rock concert. The remaining ten Cauldron Born were hit by the light, and destroyed immediately.
Sora wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Well done boys!" Jack congratulated. "Now, let's go see if we can lend our friends a hand!"
"Um, actually guys..." Nehrut interrupted. "You might want to look at that."
He pointed up. Jack and Sora followed his finger, and received an unpleasant surprise.
Lock, Shock, and Barrel's bathtub had bat wings. They were flying past the full moon directly toward an upper window of Dr. Finkelstein's lab. Even as they watched, one of them through something at the barred window, and it exploded. The tub flew right through.
There was a scream from the inside.
"Sally!" And for once, the Pumpkin King was truly afraid.
Not hesitating, Nehrut lifted the three of them into the air with his mind. They flew up as fast as they could to the window, and dove inside.
Apparently, the kids worked fast.
They stood in a tall, roughly octogonal room with two more barred windows on two other walls. There were a few metal tables sitting around with chemicals or machine parts on them. On one wall sat the remains of the doctor's puppet-like experiment from Sora's last visit. He could still see the hole where the Keyblade had punctured its metal chest.
At another wall was something eerily similar. It had a barrel-shaped chest with a few odd-looking controls. Two long, claw-like arms extended from the sides with three, pointy metal fingers. The feet were bird-like, with extremely sharp talons. The head had no definite shape, but looked like a floppy metal mask stuck to the top of the chest.
Apparently, the doctor hadn't learned his lesson last time.
Sally was already restrained by thick ropes with a gag over her mouth, and stuck in a corner near them. Lock, Shock, and Barrel were in the center of the room, still in their tub (its wings had retracted). "Get away from me you brats!" The doctor shouted.
There was a quick motion, and the doctor cried out. He had been tipped out of his wheelchair, and was now unable to get up. The kids laughed, and the tub walked toward the new machine in the corner.
"Freeze punks!" Nehrut shouted. The tub stopped in its tracks, and Lock, Shock, and Barrel turned around.
"You three have a lot of explaining to do!" Jack said, hands on his hips.
"Why are you here?" Sora asked, summoning the Keyblade in case this got out of control. With these three it was very likely.
"We're getting the experiment for Oogie Boogie, of course!" Barrel exclaimed.
"Don't tell them that!" Shock shouted, and slapped him in the back of the head. His mask fell off, and he scrambled to pick it up.
"Oogie?" Jack exclaimed in disbelief.
"That's right! As a matter of fact, he might be doing all sorts of nasty things to your friends right now!" Lock said. They laughed.
"Donald, Goofy, and Axel?" Sora said.
Roxas's figure suddenly appeared. He leaned over and whispered to Sora, "I'll see if I can find them. Maybe they left a trail."
"Just try to hurry." Roxas ran off through the wall, and disappeared.
"And now," Sora said, taking up a fighting stance, "It's time you three got a spanking."
"You just try it!" They shouted in unison. They pulled out a strange variety of projectiles. A fight broke out immediately, and it somehow became like a song, too. The tub sprouted wings again, and took to the air.
"La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la,
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la."
"Hail to Mister Oogie,
You will never win!
When you find our booby traps,
They will do you in!"
In the air, the pranksters dropped those booby traps. There were large, exploding scarlet dice that detonated whenever one got too close. There were also large bear traps that acted of their own accord. They snapped like metal jaws, attempting to take a chunk from someone's leg. Shock sang,
"First, we heard our boss was back,
To take this town away from Jack!
We knew you'd fight to set things right,
So we brought bad guys to attack!"
Jack and Sora took the next verse. They leapt into the air, attempting to knock the three out of their tub.
"Stop! I've had enough of you!
Your punishment is overdue!"
"You've instigated chaos here,
And turned this town onto its ear!"
They were unsuccessful. Lock pulled out what Sora thought was a toilet plunger, and hit him in the head. He lost his grip on the side of the tub, and fell down to the ground. He hurriedly jumped away from an exploding die.
Jack was dislodged from the tub during the next verse.
"Hail to Mister Oogie,
Put them to the test!
Keep 'em guessing all the time,
Never let 'em rest!"
Nehrut used his mind to scoop up some of the exploding dice, and tossed them at the airborne tub. They exploded when they hit the reinforced bottom. The tub shook, and Barrel nearly fell out. He dangled on the edge for a moment, before Lock pulled him back up and tossed a bear trap at Nehrut.
"Then Mister Oogie Boogie Man,
Can take the whole town over then!
He'll be so pleased, I do declare,
That all worlds should beware!"
Nehrut threw two bear traps up at the tub, and they gnawed their way through the wings on the sides. The wings were severed, and they fell to the ground, vanishing in twin wisps of smoke. The tub fell to the ground with a loud crash, and the bottom of the tub broke open. They looked a bit dazed and jumped out.
Lock ran at Nehrut with the plunger, swinging it in one hand and holding a bear trap in the other. He sang,
"When our Oogie is the king,
We'll get away with everything!
You cannot scold us for our pranks,
To new King Oogie let's give thanks!"
Nehrut ducked under the bear trap Lock threw, and used his mind to throw it right back. Lock swung his plunger like a baseball bat, and it hit the ground and was still. Nehrut scooped the little devil up and tossed him at Barrel. He continued,
"Don't be foolish! Think now,
All this danger isn't fun and games!
When this town is back to normal,
Do you really want the blame?"
Sora swung at Shock, who was trying to hit him with a broom. He didn't like the fact that it was glowing green, and didn't want to see what would happen if it hit him. She ducked under the swing, and jumped at the Keybearer, swinging the broom at his face. He just barely managed to duck.
"Hail to Mister Oogie,
This is so much fun!
We make mischief day and night,
Our work is never done!"
Jack came back with hands burning. He swiped at Barrel. The kid pulled out what looked like a frying pan and blocked the blow. Then the frying pan started to burn as bright as the hand it held at bay. He broke it free of Jack's grip, and swung hard at Jack's head. Jack caught it again, and froze it. He tossed the thing away.
"I told you once, I told you twice,
To straighten out your act.
You'll never get away with this,
And that, you brats is fact!"
Lock, Shock, and Barrel came together in the center of the room, standing back-to-back-to-back. They pulled out armfuls of exploding dice, and threw them at their respective opponents.
Sora jumped over the explosives, and threw fireballs at Shock.
"I've had enough of this disgrace!"
Nehrut caught the dice with hardly a move, and threw them at Lock.
"So take us to the hidden place!"
Jack dodged away from the projectiles. He looked as if he was dancing to the improvised beat.
"Where our friends sit locked in a cage!"
Jack and Sora blasted fire at the trio, while Nehrut propelled more of the explosives into their midst.
"Or you will face our rage!"
There was an explosion, and when the smoke and dust cleared, Lock, Shock, and Barrel were lying on the ground, unconscious.
Nehrut scanned their minds. They felt blank, and he didn't expect them to wake up in a while. Something bothered him, though.
"How did we just sing that song without any rehearsals?"
Sora and Jack could only shrug.
"Would one of you help me already?" The doctor asked. He was still on the ground, and had remained miraculously unscathed throughout the fight. Sora and Nehrut walked over to him and helped him back into his chair.
Jack rushed over to Sally's side, and took the gag out of her mouth. He hurriedly undid the knots on the ropes, and helped her up. He embraced her tightly, and he kissed the top of her head (which barely came up to his collar bone).
Nehrut whispered to Sora, "That's sweet and somewhat creepy at the same time."
"Like being in the same room as Riku and Yuffie when they're being... friendly?"
"Exactly."
Jack and Sally parted, and he walked over to the unconscious kids. He picked them up by the napes of their necks, and used the rope to tie them together in a corner. "Well, now we have to drive the rest of the invaders out of town, find our friends, and Oogie."
"The first need no longer concern you. I ordered a retreat." Came a voice.
There was a flash of fire, and the Horned King stood in the room. He ignored their drawn weapons, and walked calmly toward the doctor's new experiment. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."
"You!" Finkelstein shouted. "Get away from that!"
The Horned King ignored him. He ran a rotted hand along the surface of the machine, and said. "Your friends are in Christmas Town, my boy," He said, without turning around. "As your better half has no doubt discovered by now."
He turned around, smiling, and said, "I look forward to watching the battle that will undoubtedly unfold there."
Sora ran toward him, Keyblade ready to run him through. The Horned King laughed low in his throat, and vanished along with the experiment. Sora's blade struck nothing but empty air. The creature's laughter echoed in the room.
He grunted in exasperation, and dismissed the Keyblade.
He turned around to the doctor and asked, "What exactly was that that he took?"
"I was struggling to create a new robotic lab assistant after those brats didn't work out and the old one was destroyed." Finkelstein answered. "It wasn't finished yet, though."
Roxas arrived on the scene again, appearing right in front of Sora in a flash of blue light.
"Guys, they're in... Okay, what'd I miss?"
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I hope you all liked that impromptu musical. It's not a good fic without one! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, because there's another one next chapter.
(1) It only now occurs to me that Axel is getting completely thrashed in this fic. He was captured by the Brotherhood, pummled by Ruxik, imprisoned by the titans, and now he's been captured by a few kids who are like, seven years old...
Review please!