As the spooky cavalcade returned to Dr. Finklestein's laboratory, Jack presented the forget-me-not to wheelchair bound scientist. His beaked mouth curled into something resembling a smile as he rubbed his gloed hands together. "Yes. This is it," the doctor said as he set it by the other ingredients for the heart. "Now, just one more ingredient. We need 'surprise' to complete the heart. The Mayor should know where it is."

"So do we head to his office or something?" Weiss asked Jack. Looking to a clock in the room, Jack shook his head. "At this time, he should be preparing a game in the boneyard for this year's Halloween. Let's head there. I'm sure he'll be glad to help us." Jack said, leading the way. "A Halloween game?! Awesome! Come on, everyone! Let's go!" Ruby cheered, following quickly in Jack's heels. A display which, despite the smiles it drew to Sora, Donald, and Goofy's faces, earned a weary sigh from Ruby's teammates and friends. They had a feeling this was going to be a long visit.

Little did the group know that outside of Halloween Town's borders, the three mischievous children had already informed their boss - Oogie Boogie - of what Jack was planning. He was a somewhat short and very rotund man but his body appeared to be made from a gray burlap sack material tied together with thread. He had stumpy legs without appendages, like his arms that ended in points, like the flacid cone shape on top of his head. His eyes were inward curved sockets that made him look menacing and his smile equally unsettling with the stitched pocket loom to them.

Laughing in malignant but curious amusement, Oogie Boogie found himself unable to believe his luck. "A heart? That bonehead Jack is really making a heart? I'll be jiggered. That works for me!" The idea of finding some way for creatures like Heartless to obey somebody else was a splendid idea to Oogie. Having worked alongside Maleficent and the others, he wanted so badly to have control over them but she always denied it to him. Now he had the opportunity to show her what he was truly capable of. "Oh, when I get my hands on that...!" He paused as he looked at his arms and shrugged. "Well I've got no hands, but I'm still gonna nab that heart and control the Heartless! Eyahahahahahaha!"

The powerful cackle kept Lock, Shock and Barrel trembling with terror as they clung to one another. Even though they gleefully worked as Oogie Boogie's henchmen, that didn't mean they weren't afraid of him. Despite that fear however, they were curious to see just how scary this might make their wicked idol.

Everyone followed Jack back to the cemetery where they met Sally. At first, there was a bit of confusion as to why they were back here, but Jack had quite a surprise for them as he opened up the sarcophagus at the far end of the fence. "Right through here, everyone." Jack said before giving an exuberant leap into the sarcophagus and...vanishing? Everyone else went wide-eyed before looking to one another uncertainly. However, Sora and Ruby both followed suit after Jack, jumping in as he suggested. "Come on, guys!" Ruby called out as she vanished in the seemingly bottomless sarcophagus. "Wak!" "Hey!" Donald and Weiss respectively yelled out, before letting out a mutual sigh. Impulsive as those two were, it looked like they had no choice by to follow after them. So without further ado, everyone jumped in, one after the other.

A moment later, everyone emerged single-file in a brand new location. Which left Weiss sputtering as the ghostly adorned Schnee tried to once again make sense of this worlds logic. It was almost as nonsensical as Wonderland. Thankfully, she was spared the headache as she and everyone else saw the Mayor fiddling around with several graves. "Jack! And our new arrivals! Welcome to the boneyard. So, have the Heartless been taken care of?" the Mayor inquired. "They're still being a bit temperamental, but we're making progress. All we need now is a bit of surprise to fix things up." Jack answered. "Surprise? Well you're in luck, Jack! I just finished setting up a new game for the Halloween Festival. Care to help me refine it?" The Mayor's offer made the rest of the group look at each other before Jack excitedly stated, "Absolutely, Mayor! Ruby? Would you like to play the game?" The birthday huntress lit up like a star at the offer. "Yeah!" she replied with an excited nod. To which the Mayor replied "Wonderful! Ghosts rise from those tombstones. Check the tombstones in the order the ghosts appear. If you get it wrong, you're in for a surprise!"

"Ooh. A game of chance? Fun!" Ruby said as she stood across the seven tombstones at the middle of them. She looked slowly to and fro but heard one of them at the right side when she wasn't looking. When she turned and saw no trace of it. As she did, another ghostly scream was at the left. Only as she noticed the last few moments of it's nearly invisible body was she able to tell it hovered above the center left tombstone. The third and final ghost was within her vision at the second from the right. A curious hum as she looked to the right most one's, Ruby walked to the far right while carefully examining around it. When she got in close and touched it... BANG!

"GAAAAAH!" Ruby shrieked and jumped back as the tombstone flashed with a sound like a deep booming firecracker went off. "Wow! That is quite a surprise, Mayor. And what a scream, Ruby! I just knew you were something special!" Jack said, finding the game the Mayor made to be thrilling to watch but also enjoyed the creativity behind it.

"Whoa...that was...AWESOME!" Ruby said, hopping to her feet and walking back to her friends who were not quite as enthusiastic about it as she was. "Do we really have time for this?" Weiss said impatiently. "Yeah, I...don't exactly understand why we have to do this." Ren agreed. Nora gave him a nudge with her elbow, saying, "Aww come on, Ren. It's just a little fun. Nothing wrong with that, right Pyrrha?" she said, earning a nod of agreement from her red haired teammate.

"If you win this game, then you get a prize. The 'surprise' you're looking for," The Mayor said joyfully. "At least I've an idea of what you're searching for." Though still uncertain, Weiss decided to go next when standing far enough back that she could see all seven tombstones, easily. "Alright. I'm re-"

"Wait Weiss!" Jaune said, suddenly leaping in front of her. "I'll do this in your stead. I'll save you the pain of being frightened. Just tell me which tombstone, and I shall do it." he said, trying to sound brave and valorous...yet it wasn't having the intended effect in the slightest. Weiss simply glared at him in annoyance, while Pyrrha looked on with a mildly hurt expression. Weiss gave a sigh and waved her hand, saying, "Fine. The far left, the second from the right and the very middle." Jaune wasted no time marching to the tombstone, carefully inching his hand toward it. And just before his finger could poke it...

*BOOM*

"AAAAAHHH!" A loud boom rang out around him, making Jaune leap back with a high pitched, girly scream. The massive pumpkin at the other end of the boneyard had exploded with the only bottom potion and some sections of its sides remaining. The expected result as the leader of Team JNPR scrambled back, practically hiding behind Pyrrha who tried to comfort him. "What a hero." Weiss muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Wow! That was an even better scream! I knew you were all something special, but I didn't think you'd be so good at scaring and BEING scared!" Jack praised the frightened Jaune, who once again found himself feeling utterly embarrassed. "Wait a second...Blake, doesn't that sound like the girl who screamed in the forest during the Beacon initiation?" Yang asked, driving Jaune's embarrassment even further as Pyrrha comforted him. Her question prompted Blake to raise her brow dryly at her partner, as if saying, 'Really, Yang?'

"Hey, there's something inside the pumpkin." Sora said, drawing their attention back to the exploded husk. Resting within was a box of some kind. "What is it?" Ren asked. Donald reached down to look at it, and just as he noticed the little knob on the side, it suddenly began to rotate extremely fast with a distorted music-box tune, followed by-

BOING

"WAAAAAAAK!"-a wood-carved jester head springing out of the box with a scary expression. "Surprise!" The mayor cheered cheekily as Donald flailed down onto his bandage covered rear. The item was without a doubt, a jack-in-the-box. A classic item of surprise for children. "Heh. Well, guess this game really did have quite a sur-prize. Eh?" And of course, Yang couldn't let such a situation go without a pun, resulting in the usual reactions from the group. "A-hyuck! Oh, I get it! Cause it was surprising, and we won it as a prize!" And as usual, only Goofy enjoyed it.

"We've done it, everyone! Now we just need to get this surprise back to Dr. Finklestein, and we'll have ourselves a heart!" Jack said, picking the jack-in-the-box back up. "Thank you for your help, Mayor. This is sure to get the Heartless to calm down and dance as we need." he said gratefully. "My pleasure Jack. I'm looking forward to the festival!" the Mayor replied, waving to the group as they made their way back to the lab.

As they strolled back through the square, Weiss and Blake exchanged a concerned glance at one another. Both of them were of the same mind as the other about the Pumpkin King's "Jack. Are you entirely sure we should go through with this?" Blake asked, feeling like it might have been better to call the entire idea off. "Of course! We're so close, now. Just need to hand this to the doctor and he'll have us a heart to control the Heartless," Jack said with the same blithe as ever when walking up the stairs to the laboratory. "All our effort is about to pay off."

When they entered, Dr. Finklestein turned to them and Ruby presented the Jack-in-the-Box to him. "Yes. This is it," Dr. Finklestein said with a pleased tone as he set it with the other ingredients. After which he held up the beating artificial heart. "There you go. This time it's sure to work." He moved his wheelchair around to the other end of the lab table to hook it up to the machine like before.

Just as he came around the corner of it though, Barrel slid himself in front of Dr. Finklestein, making him fall forward with a yell of surprise and losing the heart. It flew over and onto the table before landing in the hands of Lock, who laughed in snark beside Shock before they ran together out the laboratory. Ruby and Pyrrha moved to help Dr. Finklestein get back in his wheelchair when asking, "Who were those three?"

"Lock, Shock and Barrel. The three greatest trick-or-treaters in all Halloween Town but also the biggest trouble makers!" Dr. Finklestein said bitterly as he was plopped back onto his chair, fixing his goggles. "The nerve of those little hooligans, stealing my work!"

"Don't worry, doc. We'll get it back. Come on, guys!" Yang said eagerly, rushing out the door with everyone else following closely behind. When they got outside however, there was no sign of them. "Where'd they go?" Pyrrha asked, looking around frantically with the rest of the group. All they saw was the vacant square. "Agh! We lost them." Sora groaned.

Thankfully, Jack had a solution. He reached one of his hands down to pat his knee, calling forth his ghostly canine companion. "Zero! After the, quick!" he exclaimed. The ethereal canine bobbed its head in affirmation before elegantly sailing through the air, and even through a wall to pursue the kids. "Come on, fellas! Let's go!" Jack exuberantly called to the rest of the group as they followed where Zero flew off.

They had to get that heart back before whatever those three planned to do with it came to fruition!