As Sora and his friends entered the town square, they were met with a most shocking sight. For within the town square which bore a centerpiece of the fountain they saw when flying in, they first heard a loud boom and saw smoke billowing from a nearby house's chimney. But that was the tamest part of their introduction. What really threw them for a shock was the moment they looked down, they found the square filled with... "Heartless!" Sora exclaimed. An entire brigade of Search Ghosts. Everyone immediately drew their weapons and prepared for battle.
Sora dashed into action first, swinging his Keyblade at one of them, and...missed? He could've sworn he'd swung the Keyblade straight through its head. As if that wasn't confusing enough, everyone else seemed to be having the same problem. Yet what ended up further befuddling them was the fact that the Heartless were just...standing there. They weren't doing anything at all. They weren't even attacking them. "Uhhhh...What's going on?" Yang asked, lowering her fists slightly, confusion evident in her voice.
Jaune blinked with surprise and started to swing his sword rapidly at the Search Ghost he stood in front of, only for it to phase right through it! Same as everyone else's weapons! "You guys...seeing this too?" he asked. "I...think so?" Pyrrha answered, equally perplexed as the team leader. Nora, frustrated at her hammer phasing through the monsters, prepared to do a great big walloping blow, only for Ren to stop her. The last thing they needed was to cause property damage, no matter how much Nora whined with disapproval.
"They're not attackin' us." Goofy said, surprise filling his voice as he slowly lowered. "But why?" Donald asked, scratching his head as he watched them start floating around without a care in the world. "Ren. Did you use your semblance?" Sora asked, only to receive a shake of the young huntsman's talisman veiled head in response. "No. Even if I did, I'm not sure if it would affect Heartless the same way as it does Grimm." Ren said as the search ghosts started to...sway now?
"Uh... is it just me or are they dancing?" Ruby questioned, seeing how awkwardly they shimmied slowly in place. "If you can call it that." Weiss said, mildly unsettled by them "I think so?" Blake said, waving her hand in front of another Search Ghost. It too, didn't seem to notice her.
Everyone gathered together in the same spot, seeing them all around before joining together at the center of the square where he fountain was. Everyone turned to the sound of a person speaking. He was rather short and had a cone shaped head. His face, like his hands, peach-colored with rosy cheeks and a face with a big smile that appeared to have seems and one eye having a black sclera with a yellow dot for a pupil as the other was yellow with a spiral. His top hat was gigantic, being the same height as the himself but very thin. His body was also cone-shaped - ballooning outward before ending on short, stubby legs with very tiny feet. He dressed in a black suit with a white undershirt and black-and-white pinstriped pants, a pendant or bow-tie shaped like a black widow spider, though it only had six legs and a red hourglass marking. A red ribbon with the word 'MAYOR' printed on a white center was pinned to the left breast of his blazer.
The Heartless gathered in a pattern near the fountain as the man took a megaphone near his mouth when speaking proudly. "And now, allow me to introduce the master of terror, the king of nightmares - Jack Skellington!"
The instant that name was theatrically announced, the Heartless all outstretched their hands and stepped, or floated in this case, backwards, as if clearing the way for a true king to make his entrance. And then, they saw him. Rising up from the green water of the fountain was a tall, lanky, bony figure with a very spherical and rounded skull for a head, slender bony hands crossed along his chest, and a very elegant black and white striped tailcoat and matching pants. Upon his neck was a bat-winged bowtie that raised its wings as he emerged fully. And to top off his dramatic entrance, this figure, Jack Skellington, struck an theatrical pose full of showmanship flourish. Despite his rather dark, grim looking aesthetic however...he didn't seem nearly as villainous as the likes of Jafar or Ursula or anyone else they'd encountered thus far.
"Bravo, Jack! Bravo!" The Mayor cheered, running up to the skeleton. "Those ghosts will be a big hit at this year's Halloween!" "Thank you, thank you." Jack thanked the Mayor jovially, hefting his feet over the fountain's walls. Though a disappointed expression struck his face as he stroked his bony chin. "But their movement still needs work. It's not scary enough." he said, as if he were talking about something harmless and not to be concerned about. Something that didn't fit what Sora and his friends knew full well about the Heartless. "I want to strike bone-chilling terror." Jack continued, striking a scary pose and putting on an equally scary face. Again, he didn't seem to be villainous at all. Yet while he only wanted to bring fear and not hurt or conquer or anything like that, it only brought more confusion to the eavesdropping visitors to the festive world. "I'm going to consult the doctor!" Jack declared in a chipper manner as he walked toward the building that was billowing that cloud of smoke. "Then I'll go attend to the decorations!" the mayor said,running off in one direction,only to turn right around and run in the opposite direction.
When he was gone, everyone shared confused expressions at each other. "That guy Jack Skellington is in control of the Heartless?" Yang said skeptically.
"But he wasn't having them do anything. Except perform like in a theater." Jaune noted curiously.
"Yeah. He looks scary but he seems like a nice guy." Nora said with a smile.
Weiss hummed, crossing her arms when looking where he left. "I don't know. Looks can be deceiving."
"He looks SO cool!" Ruby squealed, her eyes practically twinkling with delight and awe. "He's so tall and thin but he's got such a cool looking suit! Do you think he really is just a skeleton?! If he is, does he eat?! CAN he eat?! Is he alive, dead or a little of both?! Ooh, I wonder if he can take himself apart and be just fine!"
"Oh good grief..." Weiss groaned as Blake looked upon the sight of Ruby fangirling over someone they just saw with a bemused expression. Yang looked at her sister with an amused smirk and shake of her head. At least this meant they likely wouldn't have to be constantly sacrificing candy to feed the birthday beast.
Team JNPR was at a loss for words at their fellow team's leader going utterly bananas over Jack. Eventually Goofy spoke up, saying, "He does seem different from the other people who had control over the Heartless though. They ignored us entirely. Even when Sora had his Keyblade out." Sora nodded in agreement as he looked down at his weapon. "Right. Leon said the Heartless would always come after me because they were afraid of it. But even after I attacked one, it didn't react. Maybe that Jack guy really isn't so bad, if he's making sure they don't hurt others?" Donald and Goofy gave a synchronized shrug in response.
"It's like he just wants to go with the theme of scaring people instead of hurting them. Which I guess fits with the fact this is a Halloween based world." Blake said, looking back where the skeletal man in question strutted off. "Maybe we can ask him about it? He said he was gonna go visit some doctor." Nora suggested.
Everyone else nodded in response to Nora's idea, though a certain someone was still off in her own little world. "Ruby?...Ruuubyyyyy." Jaune called out, waving his hand in front of his fellow team leader's face. "Oh, let's just go. She'll catch up with us." Weiss said, not willing to wait around for her to snap out of it herself. They were on a timetable after all.
Ruby finally snapped out of it when Zwei barked to get her attention. She noticed her friends walking off and Zwei sniffed the ground while scurrying after them. "Wha-Guys!? Hey, guys! Wait up!" she said when chasing after them.
As they made their way to the laboratory where the doctor Jack was looking for worked, the group peered inside curiously, looking at the rather daunting and grungy interior. The sort of place one might expect of a mad scientist. And sure enough, there was jack speaking to a diminutive, wheelchair bound figure clad in a lab coat as white as his beady black glasses covered face, with a beak-like mouth with many missing teeth, and a very bulbous head.
"I don't understand. Maybe the guidance system was damaged in the explosion." Jack said, nodding toward the rather charred area of the lab where the source of the big BOOM clearly occurred. "Nonsense. My devices are always perfect!" the doctor, Finklestein as he was known, objected indignantly. Right off the bat, the group could tell that this doctor was a bit of a megalomaniac, though nowhere ear the villainous level. Just simple vanity.
Jack was going over a large book filled with scribbles that could only be related to whatever they were doing to that Search Ghost on the long wide table. "Oh! I've got it!" Jack announced in an epiphanic fashion. "Why of course! The Heartless need a heart!" Jack said, as if realizing something obvious. Though the eavesdroppers got more than a little worried at the implication of his words. "Doctor, do you think we could add a heart to that device?"
"Certainly. A heart's not all that complicated. Let's get to work." Dr. Finklestein said nonchalantly as he drove his wheelchair to the far end of the table. The rest of the group, while worried, continued watching, wondering where they were going with this.
"To make a heart, first take a container with a lock..." Jack said, reading the text of the book out loud. And sure enough, the doctor suddenly pulled up a stitched together, disturbingly pulsing heart with...a padlock on it. Definitely not what was expected, much to the relief of those watching them. But then the doctor realized as he looked at the padlock... "We need the key to this thing first!"
"Well. Guess they're not really up to anything evil, after all." Jaune said with a smile of relief.
Sora was watching the heart the doctor took out and thought to himself before speaking with the others. "If they need a key, I think I can help them out."
Everyone was surprised as Donald asked, "You're really gonna unlock it for them?"
Looking to him and speaking like it was perfect, Sora told Donald, "Why not? If they succeed, we won't have to fight the Heartless, right?"
"That would be a huge relief." Weiss said, liking such an idea.
"Yeah. If all Jack wants is to make the Heartless part of some act, I doubt he's gonna have them attack us." Yang said with a shrug.
Ren nodded in agreement to her. "He's clearly only into the idea of scaring others or performing. Nothing that would involve actually hurting people. If somebody like that was in charge, that'd be a nice change of pace."
"And maybe other Heartless would eventually want to work for Jack and stop hurting people all around the worlds." Ruby said optimistically.
"I don't know if I'd go that far, but that would be a good bonus, at least." Pyrrha said in a realistic way.
"Aww. I like fighting them, though." Nora said in disappointment before sighing. "But I guess if everyone else wants to not do that, then I'll deal."
Sora was glad everyone else was on board and smiled eagerly. "Besides. I wanna see the Heartless dance, too. Don't you?"
Deadpanned from realizing what Sora was doing it for as much as ceasing any fighting, Donald replied with a dry tone, "Not really."
Jack and Dr. Finklestein were still looking around the laboratory for the exact key they needed until hearing Sora approach. "Excuse me? I can help you unlock that heart of yours."
Delightfully surprised, Jack asked him, "You can? How?"
With his Keyblade out, Sora took aim at the beating artificial heart and released a small trail of light that clicked it open. Now it could be properly used for the experiment.
Jack and Finklestein watched intently as that trail of light slid into the keyhole and unlocked the heart without even touching it. "My! That was amazing!" Jack said with awe and fascination toward the deed of...Ah yes, he didn't know who the newcomers were. "Uhhh, and you are..." he said uncertainly, pointing toward his new guests. There was the Keyblade's chosen one's cue. "Sora." he introduced himself. Strutting over to the group in a very lanky, bendy fashion, Jack exuberantly said, "Well done, Sora! I'd like you to be part of this year's Halloween."
The invitation made Ruby gasp and perk up with excitement. "Really!? Can I be part of it too, Mr. Skellington!? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleeeaaase?! It's my birthday!" she asked exuberantly. Her energetic enthusiasm made Jack chuckle at the devilishly adorned huntress. "Your birthday!? Why what a coincidence! It's mine too!" Jack replied with just as much enthusiasm, though a bit more eloquently. The mention of that fact alone was more than enough to get Ruby excited. She liked Jack already, but now she was absolutely adoring him. "You absolutely can, Ms. uhhh..." "Oh thank you so much! Oh uh, my name's Ruby Rose, Mr. Skellington." she said, curbing her enthusiasm, worried she may have come off as a bit overbearing. Thankfully a chuckling Jack assured her that was not the case in the slightest. "Hahah! Please Ruby. Just call me Jack. I dare say you and I shall become wonderful friends." That little comment was more than enough to make Ruby let out a squeal of joy one would expect of a fan shaking hands with their favorite celebrity. Her behavior made Donald and the rest of her team sigh with embarrassment. Especially Yang at Ruby pulling the birthday card. Sora and Goofy however couldn't help smiling at her enthusiasm.
Though with all that dealt with, Sora decided to bring attention toward the proverbial elephant in the room. "What's this Heartless doing here?" he asked, pointing to the motionless Search Ghost.
With his attention to the Search Ghost laying on the lab table, Jack answered Sora's question. "Oh, the Heartless came to town just recently," His tone sounded rather disappointed. "What's frustrating is I can't get them to dance with me." He smiled again when presenting Dr. Finkelstein. "So. The doctor and I are trying to improve the guidance system. He's quite a genius!"
Weiss turned to the machine. "A guidance system? For Heartless?"
"If we had something like for Grimm, life would be so much easier." Jaune said, thinking that would be nice.
"But then we'd be out of a job, wouldn't we?" Pyrrha noted, optimistically.
A look of realization before thought crossed Jaune. "Huh. Fair point. I guess all my time training to be a huntsman would have been for nothing."
Blake's ears twitched when seeing Zwei sniff near a large bookshelf that was packed to the brim in each nook and cranny. "Hey, Ruby?" she said, pointing to Zwei when talking to her friend.
Ruby saw Zwei and worried what Zwei was doing by sniffing around inside somebody's home. "Zwei, no!" she said before picking him up. "You do that outside, you don't-" she noticed a large piece of paper sticking out one area. One spot Zwei was happily panting at as his little paws wiggled at it. "Oh, you were looking for this?" Ruby said when taking it.
"You want that page?" Dr. Finklestein said, looking over the information of the massive book he was reading. "One day when I was reorganizing my bookshelf, I found that torn piece of paper on the shelf. It wasn't with any of mine and contained something I could only describe as part of a storybook. I planned on throwing it away but I've been busy helping Jack with this year's Halloween festival. Go ahead and take it."
"Oh, thanks." Ruby said before putting Zwei back down and folding the torn page away in her pocket.
Sora smiled realizing they were another step closer to getting Pooh's friends back! But they could focus on that later. For now, they wanted to see just what Jack and Dr. Finklestein doing in this experiment. "Okay, Doctor, let's continue." Jack said, getting things back on track, and drawing everyone's attention to the table.
"The ingredients for a heart: Pulse...Emotion." Everyone went wide-eyed at the sight of the first ingredient. A frog splayed out on its back letting out a strange, almost strangled series of croaks. "Terror..." Dr. Finklestein continued, bringing their attention to a grey striped, scary looking black spider. The sight of it wriggling its legs made the girls cringe at the unnerving sight. "Fear..." Jack continued as everyone's eyes shifted to a sheet of cracked glass. As the doctor ran his hand along it, it let out a screeching sound almost like a scream, which made Blake wince. Suffice it to say, her faunus ears were more sensitive to the sound than everyone else. "Hope and despair..." Then came the last ingredient which looked...oddly adorable. Two striped, stuffed snakes with beady eyes, one brown, the other lavender, eating each other's tails. With a dramatic gesture toward the table, and to the pulsing, no longer locked thing in question, Jack announced, "Mix them all together, and we have a heart!"
As Dr. Finklestein made his way toward a big switch attached to a series of machines attached to the table, the group exchanged a look of confusion. Jack only seemed to list the emotions that were necessary for scaring people. "Uhhh, I think Jack's missing a few emotions in that heart." Ruby whispered. "Just a few?" Weiss asked dryly. It was quite obviously more than a few. But they didn't have time to discuss it further as the machine sparked to life, followed by the Heartless snapping up, its clawed hands stretched out stiffly in front of it as the sparks ran across its body. "IT'S ALIIIIIVE!" Nora yelled out dramatically.
But a moment later, its head slumped down followed by its entire body falling right back down onto the table, motionless once more. "It failed!" Dr. Finklestein bemoaned in a defeated tone. Jack reeled his head back with dramatic sorrow, laying one hand to his shaking head and the other to his chest at the experiment's failure.
The doctor was utterly irritated by this setback as he crossed his arms and looked over the book again. "Maybe we're missing some ingredients? Let's try adding memory." As he said that, the doctor pried the cap of his head open like it was a lid, shocking everyone but jack as suddenly his brain was exposed in all its wrinkly glory. "Sally?" Dr. Finkelstein called out, reaching up to scratch his brain. That nearly made everyone hurl in disgust. Well Jaune actually DID become sick as he ran to a trash can and threw up in it. "Sally!" the doctor called again. No answer at all. It was for that reason he slammed his fists to the armrest of his wheelchair before turning to Jack then slamming his head shut again when saying, "Good for nothing girl! Don't know why I bothered creating her!" he grumbled as the girl in question didn't arrive when called. Turning toward Jack, Finklestein said, "Sally' got the memory we need. See if you can track her down."
Jack was more than happy to acquiesce to the doctor's request. Especially if this memory would get the Heartless to dance like he wanted. "No problem," he replied, smiling ever so enthusiastically before turning to the others as they got over the gruesome display from the doctor. "Sora. Ruby. Would you like to come along?"
Respectively, the two youthus gave a simple and immediate answer to him. "Sure." "YES!" With the second one being all the more enthusiastic to say the least. Donald and Weiss looked to the two youngest members of their group, unable to believe how willing they were to accept such a ridiculous idea. "Well. Looks like we're on a search mission." Weiss said with a sigh.
"A-Ahem. Doctor, if I may ask, where can we find Sally?" Pyrrha asked politely after helping a queasy Jaune back to his feet. "Probably at the cemetery, at Curly Hill. That's where she often goes off to." Dr. Finklestein said dismissively, going over the pages of the book again with utmost focus.
As soon as the Doctor gave them their needed directions, Blake's ears suddenly twitched, as if picking up a faint sound. Yang noticed her head turn sharply toward the door with a tense expression on her face. "Blake? What's wrong?" Yang asked. "I just heard something outside." Blake's serious answer voice made it clear whatever she heard wasn't something good. Everyone looked at each other with concern, though Jack didn't seem to share it. "You did? Hmmm. What could it be?" Jack wondered curiously, walking toward the door to the lab. Surely it couldn't have been anything bad, right?