Nicktoons & Disney Heroes UNITE!

by Dr.Dude

An evil Syndicate spanning four worlds has formed in order to work for the common goal of universal domination, and it is up to four heroes from those worlds to band together and stop them. However, a slight mistake has brought them to a new world entirely, and an even bigger adventure unfolds alongside their own as they join with a boy holding a key.

15. Cirque Gothique

"So let me get this straight. After fighting off that giant Heartless, you had an encounter with Desiree here, then ended up wishing she was your personal genie, and now she's stuck as your servant thanks to that ring you got around your finger?"

"Yeah, that's actually just about it."

Let's put this scene into context. After our heroes had dealt with their various situations, most of them managed to regroup together and planned on making their way to the Nasty Burger to meet up with Spongebob and Tarzan. When they reunited, and after noting Timmy's different attire, the ghost-busting trio were surprised to see Akira with Sora, Jimmy, and Goddard… However, they were more than a little shocked to see Desiree with them. Of course, the sight of the ghost woman led to them asking just how they came across one of Danny's enemies and why she was even here to begin with. Sora got to explaining, and so this led to the ghost boy asking the aforementioned question and the keybearer confirming it.

…Then the trio of Amity Park adolescent ghost hunters began laughing. Quite hard, as a matter of fact. This made Desiree scowl and Sora give a concerned frown at their reaction.

"I don't think it's that funny, guys." Sora said to the laughing teens.

"Are you kidding?" Tucker asked between chortles, still holding up one of the unconscious Dash's arms as Goofy held up the other, "Miss Genie of the Ring here has caused us a whole heap of trouble the two times she actually decided to be a major baddie!"

"Huh, that's true. She only ever got on our cases by herself twice!" Sam realized, but still holding her stomach as she laughed.

"Yeah, if anything, you can call this karma!" Danny agreed, actually floating about in mid-air as he busted a gut.

Desiree growled, her shown eye notably twitching. Quite obviously, she was not in the mood for talking. Sora wanted to tell her something to make her feel better, but seeing as he ended up putting her in this situation, he considered maybe he wasn't the right person to say it. At least not right at the moment. Hopefully, she'd be in a better mood for him to talk to her later on.

Hopefully.

"Well, there's the Nasty Burger, the grodiest restaurant in all of this sad lump of city…" Akira said as they made their way towards their intended destination, only to find a sight more than foreign to him, "What the heck…?"

At the Nasty Burger, a large line of people had formed at the door, and some people were eating without a care in the world at the tables just outside. It even looked a far cry from how it appeared in Tucker's prior photo of it. Surprisingly clean, devoid of broken windows, and a constant stream of customers! Danny and Sam, being more than familiar with the place, couldn't help but gawk. Tucker, all the while, was feeling quite prideful.

"Finally!" He exclaimed. "People are starting to see how great the Nasty Burger is."

"Gawrsh." Goofy mused. "I've never seen a restaurant this popular."

"It isn't. Not like this." Sam explained. "I mean, the cooking is mediocre and the service is pretty sub-par. It never warranted this many customers before."

"You only say that because you don't even order the meat." Danny's tech-wiz friend shot at the goth.

"And you're biased because you're a meat enthusiast." She shot back.

"Guys, we're not doing this again." The ghost boy got between his friends to stop an argument. "How about we just take a look at what's going on, huh?"

His friends agreed, and with that, the ghost boy looked to Sora, telling him, "You might want to figure out how to keep your new genie hidden. Last thing we need is her causing trouble by granting people's wishes and twisting them."

The ghost-hunting trio, along with Goofy helping Tucker carry along Dash, started heading towards the Nasty Burger. That left Timmy, Jimmy, Akira, and Donald with Sora and Desiree, and even they could see just how awkward it looked between the two of them. The bearer of the Keyblade took a look at his ring, noting how her ghostly tail seemed to be attached to it. Perhaps there was something about it that could allow him to get her to be more discreet?

"Uh, excuse me, Desiree?" He politely tried getting her attention.

"Oh, 'great and wonderful' master," the sarcasm dripping from her voice was more than biting, "how might this humble slave serve you this fine day?"

"Hey, I said I was sorry." Sora tried to tell her. "I didn't mean–"

"Oh, that makes this SO much better!" But Desiree wasn't planning on hearing it. "I wasn't bound because of intended maliciousness. Heavens, no! It was just ignorance outstanding that I became the personal genie of a human who didn't know to think before he spoke!"

Donald, among those witnessing this, couldn't help but wince. He remembered when he got on the receiving end of Daisy's bad mood. Those would make his tantrums tame in comparison! Of course, not that he would admit to having tantrums. No sir.

"Look, this is pretty important business for us to work with," the islander clearly could tell there was no way to placate her at the moment, "so, for now, could you please just hide yourself? You know, like, make yourself invisible or…?"

The ghostly genie crossed her arms and turned away with a humph, saying, "As you command, 'master'. I'm so eager to know what your next brilliant wish will be."

And thus, Desiree dissipated into green smoke, and it all receded into the ring, giving the red ruby a tint of green.

"And here I thought Norm was petty," Timmy muttered to himself, having some brief flashbacks to a certain wish-twisting genie.

"He at least had a cool lava lamp with some nice cushions to stay in," Cosmo pointed out. "Far roomier than a small ring, I'd say."

"...Just so we're clear," Wanda spoke up, "that's more than likely her way of saying, 'Don't come crying to me when there's a problem you can't solve yourself'."

"I wouldn't have guessed." Sora sighed.

"Don't worry, Sora." Gadget assured him. "Seeing as she was trying to use you for a trap, she's just miffed that it didn't go her way. Best to leave her to what she asked for."

While he nodded at the gummi mechanic's words, something inside him didn't feel right with accepting it like that. But even so, he and the rest began making their way towards the Nasty Burger. As it turned out, the wait in the line wasn't actually extensive seeing as people were apparently being served fast with good food. That in itself was something Akira commented he had to see to believe. And sure enough, what they saw inside did appear hard to believe.

People were happily eating away at their fast food, talking with each other like nothing bad was even happening… and not even minding the fact that a lunch lady ghost was floating around and serving the food while it was prepared from the kitchen at a fast rate, nor the tall man in the fine suit who was just observing everything.

Tarzan noticed his friends entering and made his way towards them, "Sora, friends." He greeted in broken English. "Search, go well?"

"Sadly, no sign of any mysterious and out of place keyhole thus far." Jimmy Neutron shook his head. "We did however get rough patches with Heartless and spectral holograms."

"Ghosts?" The ape man was confused by Jimmy's use of words.

"That's more than likely up for debate."

Donald and Timmy rolled their eyes at the boy genius' usual sense of denial. But what could they do? Pointless to convince a permanent skeptic of the magical and paranormal.

"At the very least, it sounds like Danny and the others managed to get everyone who was possessed all exorcized." Gadget explained. "Maybe now we can try figuring out how to get inside Vlad's Castle from here."

"Best plan I've heard all day." Donald agreed. Afterward, he looked around and then asked Tarzan, "Hey, where's Spongebob?"

"He cooking." Tarzan pointed towards the kitchen.

The Lunch Lady Ghost approached the kitchen, telling the fry cook, "Another order of a large Nasty Burger with a side of fries!"

"One Jumbo Dirty Dan with stalks of 'tates, coming up!" Spongebob replied, already preparing the meal with precise handling of the spatula. And in no time at all, one of the restaurant's patented Nasty Burgers was prepared with perfection aside from a container of french fries. "One Jumbo Dirty Dan with stalks of 'tates, order up!"

The group watched as the Lunch Lady Ghost took the tray with the food and took it over to the table that ordered it. The wait time was shockingly short, beyond their expectations, and the sea sponge completed the order in no time at all without even breaking a sweat or time to prepare. And judging by the faces of the customers eating their meal, what should have been a rush job turned out to be incredibly delicious. Akira's hair flickered, and his expression was still one of shock.

"...Okay. Guess all it took was one cook with talent to actually make this place look good." The exchange student commented. "Never thought it would be a walking, talking kitchen sponge."

"Now I just want to see if it's any good." Timmy couldn't help but like the smell of the food around them.

"Oooh, same here!" Cosmo agreed. "Can't we order a meal, please? I sure could go for one of those Nas-Tay Combos."

"Boys, while I'd love to humor your stomachs," Wanda told them, "we don't exactly have money to order food. I'm not even sure our worlds take munny as a legitimate currency."

"Not to mention all the tables look full…" Sora scratched his head, careful not to mess with Gadget. "We'd probably be better off just talking about where to go next outside."

"Sora, it's you~!"

Once more, Sora found himself glomped and trying to keep himself steady. The way his cheek was being nuzzled already brought to mind a familiar incident naught but a while ago. And sure enough, there was Paulina Sanchez, already being touchy-feely with him. And with more people staring.

"I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon, my knight in goofy clothes~!" Paulina was busy fawning over him to notice his embarrassment. "This has got to be fate at work!"

"Er, I'm not sure about fate, but…" Sora replied, Gadget glaring at the girl from his hair, "good to see you too?"

"You have just GOT to meet the others." The hispanic student already began pulling him along. "They're just dying to see you!"

Blinking in stunned silence for a few seconds, Danny and Tucker stared in shock and awe until they realized what happened, "Did Paulina Sanchez actually fawn over Sora?" the tech-savvy boy asked his ghostly friend, then scratched his head dumbfounded, "Dude, what deal with Desiree did he make and how do I get it?"

"Not worth it," Sam told him flatly.

"I mean, maybe a little worth it?" Danny guessed, moving his hands in a way that made it seem he was holding a small item between his index finger and thumb.

"Hormones, a teenager's worst enemy and only way into adulthood," Jimmy groaned at the sad display of attraction for the opposite sex which he would never, ever get into.

Unable to refuse, Sora ended up going with her, giving an apologetic look to his friends and to Gadget, the latter of which just shook her head and went back into his hair. Donald and Timmy looked on with condolences, Tarzan and Goddard looked confused, but Akira and Jimmy simply shook their heads and followed after him; the former with his hands in his pockets. The keybearer was brought to a table where four other teenagers sat. The jock that Tucker and Goofy brought in, Dash, was finally coherent again, but was still rubbing his head to get rid of a headache he was dealing with. The other two were helping him recover before they noticed their fellow clique member returning.

"Hey Paulina, Dash is getting better, though he still seems to mutter about mutant dogs…" Her blonde gal pal said before noticing Sora and looking weirded out by him, adding, "and what's up with the dork in the weird outfit?"

"Weird?" Sora muttered to himself, looking at his clothes. They didn't look weird to him…

"Oh, he's far from a dork, Star." Paulina told the blonde. "This is Sora; the dashing hero who saved me from that giant monster ghost!"

"Seriously? With those skinny arms?" The Asian jock asked, unable to believe it.

"Skinny?" Sora looked at his arms. Sure, they weren't muscly yet, but he was working on it…

"Seriously! He's got this really crazy-looking weapon." She continued explaining. "With it, he was just taking out those monsters by the dozen! He's even got this power to make his injuries disappear, and he can shoot water like a firehose!"

"Paulina," Dash looked pointedly towards her, "no offense, but you're really starting to sound like those nerds."

"But it's true!" Paulina turned to Sora and said, "C'mon, Sora, show them! Your key-sword thing!"

Sora, ignoring two of the jocks snorting at the way she described it, just shrugged and put his hand forward, summoning the Jungle King in hand. That of course took the other three by surprise. Paulina was ecstatic, clapping her hands in delight as Sora twirled it in hand and then held it over his shoulder. For added effect, he smirked and rubbed his finger under his nose. Gadget was no doubt rolling her eyes at this.

"It's called a Keyblade, by the way." Sora stated.

"Oh geez, it even sounds as nerdy as it looks." The blonde jock groaned, making the islander and even Paulina frown.

"Right, like a guy who runs from a dog and knocks himself out by hitting a tree has room to judge." Akira snarked.

This of course got the popular clique's attention and they all grimaced at the sight of a smirking Akira Tadokoro. Sora looked between the two. Clearly there was some beef going on. Especially with Dash glaring hard at the apparent delinquent who refused to back down. Paulina, all the while, simply settled with leaning against Sora, making him blush.

"You better watch yourself, Tadokoro." Dash stood up and warned the exchange student. "Just because you got lucky one time…"

"But it wasn't the one time, was it, Baxter?" Akira was smug as he saw Dash twitch at that. "Tell me, who was it that practically trounced you at every gym class since coming here? Running victory laps on the track? Oh, and how about those times at football? Gotta love all those fumbles you made there, Mr. Star Quarterback."

Dash was seeing red as Akira continued talking smack at him. In fact, he was seeing so red that Star and the Asian jock had to hold him back to calm him down. Sora had to guess there was definitely some history between the two of them. He then felt a thug on his head and looked up. Gadget, quietly, pointed towards another table in the Nasty Burger where Danny, Tucker, and Sam along with Goofy and Jiminy were currently sitting at. He also noticed Jimmy, Timmy, Tarzan, Goddard and Donald walking past him and the popular kids to get there.

"Excuse me, Paulina," Sora gently moved out of Paulina's grasp to follow, "but I gotta go see the others about where we go from here."

"Aw, but can't you stay a little longer?" Paulina pouted, and the keybearer had to admit she looked cute doing it. "We're only just getting to know each other."

"Sorry, but this is pretty important." He politely shook his head, at least giving her an assuring smile. "Maybe some other time, when things are better around here."

With that, Sora went over to join his friends, unaware that Paulina was watching him go with a smile. The popular girl noted how he was apparently close to the ghost boy, her other hero, and that alone just made him more charming than he had any right to be with those clothes he was wearing. Oh, she certainly wouldn't mind having more time with him~

Hair flickering, Akira could only roll his eyes at the Latina girl.

So, sitting with his friends, with food served by Spongebob, Sora asked first, "Okay, so we got Amity Park cleared for the most part. What's the plan now?"

"Better question, how'd you score with Paulina and can you introduce me to- ow!" Tucker rubbed the sore spot on his head where Sam smacked him.

"Sorry, hand slipped," the goth girl grinned as she looked away pretending to be innocent.

"Ahem," Danny cleared his throat and tried to steer the conversation back to its intended point. "So, how do we get into Vlad's castle?"

"Not easily, that's for sure." Tucker, after recovering from his knee-jerk reaction albeit glaring at Sam, pulled out his PDA and showed a photo of a series of circus tents. "What was once Amity Park Cemetery is now the base of the Circus Gothica, and no doubt thanks to this Syndicate, they expanded from a traveling show to a full-on amusement park."

"Amusement park?" Danny asked. "How much did they steal in order to make that happen?"

"That's just it." Sam answered. "This all just seemed to pop up without any issue. And with the weirdest ideas for attractions that just seem to keep pulling people in. Among them are a lot of the younger boys around here."

"Younger boys? What, like kids?" Donald asked.

"Yep. Little miscreants at that." The tech-wiz teen answered. "Usually the ones who love causing trouble. They seem to be all over the likes of the C.G.'s new 'Rough House'."

Just then, Jiminy Cricket popped out from Goofy's hat and landed on the table.

"The Rough House, you said?" the royal chronicler asked. "Tell me, there wouldn't happen to be other places like a Tobacco Row or a model home open for destruction, would there?"

"Yeah, those would be there too." The vegan goth confirmed as Tucker showed photos of those attractions. She then blinked in confusion, "How did you know that?"

"I am familiar with such a place made to cater to those dark desires," Jiminy sighed sadly.

"Just what kind of place allows such attractions that encourages kids to be as bad as they please?" the goth girl asked. "Sounds like something Youngblood would be into."

"I don't think we need to worry about him being responsible for that." Timmy shook his head. "We put him on ice."

"Actually, I fear it is far, far worse than that." The cricket shook his head.

"Worse? How could it be worse, Jiminy?" Goofy asked with concern.

With everyone looking at him, Jiminy took off his hat and used it as a seat.

"You see, back in my world, before it disappeared," he explained, "there was this place that was just chock full of temptations. Drinking, smoking, gambling, wanton violence and destruction; this place offered a chance to do all that with no repercussions. But it was nothing more than a ruse to pull misbehaving children in only to curse them and change them into donkeys used as labor for salt mines, or even worse!"

"Hm. A place that promises fun and chaos without cost, but turns misbehaving children into jackamules…" Jimmy pondered on that. "Hm, that sounds awfully similar to the Land of Toys from Pinnochio–"

He ended up cutting himself when he took a look at Jiminy, who was also looking at him with a surprised expression from the name he was just about to bring up. Immediately the dots seemed to connect, and the boy genius facepalmed. How could he have missed something so obvious? Wonderland, Olympus, the Deep Jungle– why wouldn't this of course follow? Seriously, a talking cricket– how did he not see it coming?

Jiminy Cricket awkwardly coughed into his hand, guessing what his reaction meant.

"I suppose the world I came from was a book in yours as well?" He asked.

"Yes, that's correct." Jimmy sighed, confirming that. "And if what you're saying is correct, then one of those who was scattered from your world's disappearance must have landed here and is working with the Circus Gothica in some capacity."

"Which we'll have to deal with if we want to get to Vlad's castle." Danny said. "It's also more than likely the place where we'll find Jazz too."

"And deal with Lydia." Sora looked serious at that.

"You think we can get her to say where she took Alice?" The captain of the royal knights pondered.

"Doubtful." Sam shook her head. "Lydia's a mute and loyal to Freakshow. She couldn't tell you where she took somebody even if she wanted to."

"Freakshow, on the other hand, probably could if you pressured him." Tucker pointed out. "Just gotta take down his entire circus and keep Lydia from helping him. Probably Ember and her singing, too. Easier said than done, but when has anything here ever been, am I right?"

The keybearer summed their next course of action up, "Okay, so basically our next course of action will be going through the Circus Gothica, stopping it, finding Danny's sister, taking down Freakshow and whoever came from Jiminy's world, and we got a way into Vlad's castle."

"That all, then." Tarzan nodded, finally able to speak. "We go."

"Are you all finally done?"

The group jumped, looking for the voice that just spoke.

"In the ring, you imbeciles."

Thus did everyone look towards the ring on Sora's finger, the gem glowing red.

"Oh, look, you finally decided to speak up." Danny snarked. Though he admitted, "I'm actually a bit surprised you can do that in there."

"Just because I'm now a glorified slave does not preclude me from being vocal." Desiree's voice spoke from the ruby. "But since you're all finally finished with your incredibly dull conversation, it appears that you have threats coming to knock on your door."

A scream was heard and they all looked towards the front door. Indeed, there were Heartless banging on the doors, forcing the people outside the restaurant to run for their lives! Getting up from their seats, our heroes knew what to do and rushed out to meet the threat… though Jimmy noticed Spongebob was still in the kitchen, cooking.

"Spongebob, we got Heartless coming in!" The boy genius called, getting the fry cook's attention. "It's time to head out!"

"Just a second!" Spongebob called out, still cooking. "I have to finish this order! Apparently this 'Smash Laxter' asked for a Dirty Dan Deluxe with extra pickles!"

"Spongebob!"

"Okay, okay!" The sea sponge finished the order and then rushed out of the kitchen, karate gloves on hand. "I'm coming, guys!"

"Wait, don't go, weird mascot!" Mr. Irving 'Third Degree' Burns called to the sponge as he ran out. "You're the best fry cook the Nasty Burger ever had in its entire history!"

"Sorry!" He apologized as he ran out. "But my friends need me, and I already work for another restaurant!"

Once Spongebob left through the front doors, the manager of the Nasty Burger fell to his knees and cried out, "Nooooo! Curse you, fast food gods! You've given me the greatest chef to grace these hallowed tables, and you take him away?! Why?! Why have you betrayed me?!"

Rolling his eyes, and watching the popular kids run out as well to watch, Akira got up from his seat and went out as well. Not like he was going to miss out on some action either.

Sure enough, outside were a bunch of Search Ghosts alongside GZPD officers and ghosts with maces. As numerous as they were, they didn't prove that much difficult for our heroes. But when they were beaten, they were followed by more Heartless spawning, such as Shadows and Road Warriors. Seemed that they could work on their own without being summoned by the Bound Biker. At the very least, they were less difficult to deal with than before.

Soon, the ambushing forces were destroyed and our heroes collected the loot left behind. Once they finished, they were treated to the sound of cheering people behind them. Sora, standing next to Danny, felt a bit bashful over the attention. Then he found himself held close by Paulina, who also had Danny Phantom at her other side.

"Oh, never had I believed we'd have two handsome heroes saving the day~!" She said as she held the two boys close. "You both are just what Amity Park needed, and me especially~!"

"Oh, no problem P– I mean, miss~." Danny replied, trying to hide how he knew who she was.

"Really, no trouble at all, Paulina." Sora replied, hardly under the same spell his friend was.

"Hey."

Sora looked up to see Dash walking towards him, a serious look on his face. The islander returned the look, inwardly wondering if the jock was going to make another remark about his clothes or even his Keyblade. Instead, Dash just seemed to look him over, then give a respectful glance towards Danny Phantom. Finally, he spoke up.

"So there might be something true about what Paulina said about you. And if you're working with Inviso-Bill, then I'm willing to believe that there's something worth respecting more than that too." He actually admitted. "So, since you guys are working together… please, just put this place back to normal."

The keybearer couldn't help but blink. Huh, so this guy could actually not be a jerk after all. Who knew?

The islander smiled and replied, "Hey, that's been the plan anyhow. Consider it done!"

"Good," Dash accepted, adding, "'cause if you don't, I'm so going to whale on you, no matter what Paulina thinks."

And back to being a jerk. Ok.

"Yeah, yeah, keep tellin' yourself that." Akira casually walked past Dash with a bump against the shoulder. "Anyway, I'll be comin' with. You guys want an easy way into that circus fright show? I'll get that taken care of for you. Follow me."

As the delinquent ignored the growling jock and began leading the group along, the group could hear Paulina calling, "Good luck, Inviso-Bill! Good luck, Sora! I'm rooting for you two handsome heroes~!"

"And you two tell Fen-Twerp that when this is all over, I'm kicking his butt next PE Class for hiding the entire time!" Dash gave one last bit of parting words to Sam and Tucker.

"Duly noted." Danny rolled his eyes.

After walking a distance away from the Nasty Burger, Donald asked the ghost boy as they walked along the streets, "So, that's Dash Baxter, huh?"

The superhero specter answered, "Yep. Leader of the popular clique, head of the jocks, and 'king of Casper High'. Probably sore about losing that position to Plasmius, but very reluctantly we'll fix that for him."

"At least Paulina's pretty nice." Sora said with a smile, though Gadget rolled her eyes at that.

"She's only 'nice' because she sees you as some heroic figure like 'Inviso-Bill'." Sam told him, with the mouse being grateful at least someone said it. "Anything else, she's the most shallow girl in all the school, so don't get attached."

"Okay, I'll admit, I'm not sure what her deal with my outfit is," the islander looked at his clothes, "but she was happy to be safe, so she can't be that bad, right?"

"Ah, innocent naivete." Tucker shook his head. "Clearly, you've yet to experience the politics of high school where you come from."

"Hey, we're just nearing the entrance." Akira's voice got their attention.

Sure enough, the Amity Park Cemetery was just up ahead. However, from what they could see, the gate was blocked by two dark, shadow-like creatures with glowing yellow eyes, almost akin to the Heartless, but were bulky and had gorilla-like arms. And beyond that gate, a large circus practically coated black and white. Tents and stalls abound, colored in similar macabre monochrome and stripes. There even were a few spooky-themed carnival rides, from a roller coaster to even a skeletal carousel with… donkey skeletons? And of course, there was the main circus tent, standing tall and massive over all the rest, a sinister face acting as the front of the tent, 'Circus Gothica' written in a chilling red on both sides, and pitched up with the giant torso of a skeleton overlooking the whole park. From the way the skeleton's skull was moving and light seemed to shine from its eyes, it was also acting as a searchlight.

"There it is, Circus Gothica." Sam said.

"Definitely bigger than it was last time." Tucker commented.

"Are those guys at the front Heartless?" Goofy asked, scratching his head. "They sure lookit."

"I'm afraid not." Jiminy Cricket shook his head. "I had a bad feeling ever since I heard about those familiar attractions. And of all the people from my world to actually be here…"

"So who would that be, Jiminy?" Spongebob asked.

"Someone who never got his comeuppance even back home. After all he did." The royal chronicler answered. "He goes only by…"

—-

"Coachman, knew I'd find you here. Another fine day of profits, eh?"

In a black and red circus caravan, notably much fancier than the other caravans and coaches closeby, two figures sat together at a table with Freakshow talking to the one reveling in the money he was busy counting. The chalk-white man with the pointed nose chuckled as he counted yet another stack of bills and added it to the piles of hundreds that were amassed.

Sitting across from him, watching the other with an amused expression while smoking from an old-fashioned pipe, was a man reaching his elderly years wearing a flat hat, a red double-breasted trench coat with gold buttons, gray gloves, a purple scarf, and black boots. He had a big, round nose and glinting green eyes that would normally be friendly to the untrained eye. But here, both men knew of the other's true profession.

"Eventful, at least." The smoking man, otherwise addressed as the Coachman, replied. "Not as many misbehaving brats as I'd assumed in this packed city, though. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed by the smaller revenue or impressed by how children are being brought up."

"Don't be too impressed." The other man told him, finishing with another stack, "parents around here tend to be either incredible idiots or even strict to an obsessive degree. Fortunately, we've got rebellious and hormonal teenagers to make up for the small number of stupid little kids."

"Fair point." The Coachman let out a puff of smoke from his pipe and asked, "Just to be sure, Freakshow, you're certain nothin' is going to bring our operation here down? From what I heard, that ghost child of yours and his little friends gave your lovely little assistant some trouble when retrievin' that Alice girl for your bosses."

"Oh, hardly." Freakshow waved that off. "Lydia did just fine and she got away without a single scratch on her. Even retrieved the girl without issue. And with your henchmen helping expand my circus on top of empowering my staff to not just put ghosts under my control, but turn all those who come to see the show into labor donkeys, our operation will see nothing but success moving forward… with the Syndicate's backing, of course."

"Fair enough." The Coachman wasn't going to argue with the results when they spoke for themselves. All the same, he added, "Though I am surprised you didn't outright just turn them into Heartless for Lady Maleficent. You know how she likes usin' those beasts for her dark army."

"From what I understand, the Heartless take form based on how powerful the darkness people's hearts are. And seeing as those who easily give into temptation aren't strong, it would be a waste of potential labor and profit for us to just turn in weak Heartless to the witch." The ringmaster of the Circus Gothica explained. "So, why bother disappointing an employer with mediocre troops when we could just have free labor for added personal gain?"

"And you're certain Vlad Masters will support this?" His accomplice asked with a raised brow, fixing the soot in his pipe.

"The man got me out of GIW custody because he knew that I had a loyal ghost as my right hand and my staff had the ability to control them before it was originally destroyed." He replied. "He needs me to make sure nobody gets into his castle, seeing as this is practically the only way there. He needs me in general. You don't need to worry so much, friend. Everything will be just fine. In fact… Oh, Lydia~."

Freakshow then snapped his fingers, and then his assistant phased in through the wall, taking shape and standing next to him. That said, she seemed to shiver a bit, seeing that the Coachman was giving her a raised brow and a smirk. Unlike Freakshow, the ghost seemed to notice something was off about his new business partner. Something much more sinister than these dark creatures. But any thoughts on that were cut off by her master talking to her.

"Lydia, darling, my friend here needs assurance that nobody, especially Daniel, ruins everything we have here at the Circus Gothica yet again." Freakshow told her. "So, be a dear and head out on patrol, will you? And if you find them, deal with them accordingly."

Lydia nodded, though she also wanted to be away from the Coachman's foreboding presence as quickly as possible. She thus flew out of the caravan and began flying off. At the very least, she could take in a small comfort. She'll have fun seeing that cute one with the large key, testing how he would react to certain other… advances.

However, it wasn't just Lydia who was privy to the exchange. Hiding beneath the caravan's windows, an orange-haired girl snuck away, a hand-held blaster in hand.

"Get here soon, Danny…" She whispered under her breath. "The people here need your help more than ever…"

—-

After sneaking past the guards, climbing up the wall and maneuvering past the spikes atop the wall, our heroes, along with Akira, Sam, and Tucker, made it into the Circus Gothica with barely any trouble or injury. Up close, the air in this twisted cirque seemed more menacing than it was up close. And outside of the searchlights the skeleton in the Big Top had been looking for intruders, there were more of those dark creatures out on patrol alongside more Heartless, Syndicate Troops, and ghosts. The Circus Gothica was filled with enemy numbers.

"Ok, I'm going to say moving full-steam ahead is suicide." Timmy said. "Anyone else agree?"

"No argument here, kid." The delinquent looked around. "We could win a couple of scraps, but there'd be more just coming in droves. Best course of action we got is to stay out of their sight."

"There's also a lot more here than there used to be," The tech-wiz of Danny's inner circle noted, "so covering a whole lot of ground, looking for a way to shut this place down AND looking for Jazz will take forever if we're all bunched up like this. And being bunched up to start with will probably get us discovered faster too."

"So once again, we'll have to split up." Jimmy could tell what they had to do here. "Alright, here's how this will go. The objective is to find the source of power behind the Circus Gothica, take it down, and we should have a path to Vlad's castle open to us soon after. If perchance we can put a dent in its operations here, that would also be a positive outcome. So let's not waste time. Tucker and Sam, you keep close to Danny, me, Goddard, Spongebob, Timmy and Tarzan. Sora, you're with Donald, Goofy, and Akira."

"That sounds like a pretty uneven split," Sora noticed how they had the larger group. "Shouldn't we better even the numbers or even split up into more groups than two?"

Hair flickering again, Akira answered for the boy genius, "Not quite. Considering Tucker and Sam don't really have anything to fight with and aren't superpowered like ghost boy here, they're gonna need all the protection they can get. That'll leave us with an easier time of moving around in the circus and looking for what we need."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence." Sam snarked at the biker's words.

"Not apologizing for spitting facts." He crossed his arms in response.

"You be careful, okay guys?" Spongebob told Sora as Donald, Goofy, and Akira grouped up with him.

"You too." Sora nodded back before moving along. "Good luck!"

As the first group went along in a different direction, avoiding being spotted as they moved, this left the larger group to go straight ahead, but left unaware of two shapes flying overhead. Either way, they pressed on, trying to avoid the giant skeleton's searchlights and evading the notice of the minions and monsters walking around. Even trying to keep as quiet as possible to keep being stealthy. Too bad they had to deal with one other issue in this regard.

The fact that some people didn't appreciate being quiet.

"Wow, this circus looks incredibly boring!" Cosmo said, his voice making the whole party freeze. "Seriously, what's up with all the black and white? It could use a little color."

"Cosmo, it's called the Circus Gothica." Wanda exasperatedly explained to her husband. "Of course it's not going to be bright and cheery here."

"Then how is someone supposed to have fun around here?" The absent-minded fairy asked.

"Clearly, you haven't had a rebellious phase in your teenage years." The vegan goth commented. She blinked, getting a good look at Timmy's backpack and star flinger, "Did your weapons just talk?"

"Uh…" Timmy thought of a plausible explanation, "It's normal in my world?"

"Your world's weird, dude." Tucker remarked.

"Not that ours is the pinnacle of reason." Danny added.

"Hey, this spot is pretty clear." Spongebob said as they came up to a rather empty spot in the circus. "No searchlights, no Heartless, no goons… pretty comfy spot, actually. If it weren't for all the ghosts and other such evil mischief, this could make for a good picnic set." he clasped his hands at an idea, "Sandy would love it! We could have a round or two of Ka-Rah-Tae here!"

"I think there might be a reason you'd have to postpone the match, Spongebob." The boy genius looked at one particular caravan. "Look at that."

The caravan, unlike the others, was built practically like a cell, with black and red diamonds coating the outside. On the side, there was also a name written in large letters. 'The Siren Song of the Jestress', written in robin's egg blue and a light violet. However, the caravan itself was empty. The group could only look upon it with curiosity.

"'The Siren Song of the Jestress', huh?" The ghost boy read out loud. "Sounds a little like Ember, but none of this really screams her style."

"Maybe she's under Freakshow's control or something?" The glasses-wearing teen figured. "That was his thing before, after all."

"But I made sure his staff was destroyed." Danny reminded his friend. "There's no way he could have fixed it. Not unless…"

"Not unless he had help, right?" The boy genius figured out the spectral superhero's thought process right away. "Seeing as he's working with the Syndicate, Vlad has more than likely done something to help this Freakshow back on his feet."

"Like having the funds necessary to repair his staff!" Danny realized. "Ugh, of course! Vlad still had money in his pocket before all this Syndicate business. Of course he'd be able to get Freakshow on his side with that kind of finance! Jeez, how else can a rich fruit loop make things difficult for me?"

Just then, Tarzan felt something was off and looked up. Two shadows flew in the sky, coming down towards them. Both of them appeared to be charging some form of purple light… and the light seemed to emit some kind of noise. Tarzan's eyes widened as he saw the lights getting bigger. They weren't ordinary lights!

"Get down!" Tarzan suddenly shouted, getting everyone to duck.

Good thing, too, for the purple lights hit the caravan and blew it into a pile of burning driftwood! Looking up to their attacks, Danny couldn't help but grimace and hold back a groan. Standing on a high-tech hoverboard was a female figure in a red and black suit. A figure he knew quite well.

But a whistle got the ghost boy's attention and looked to the definitely unfamiliar guy near her. Riding on a high-tech hoverbike (and immediately making Danny's inner-boy jealous) was a male wearing the exact same suit as the girl, but was blue instead of red. He had to resist rolling his eyes. So this is a contrasting duo thing now? Who was this guy?

"Wow, these things pack more of a punch than I thought." The guy mused as he looked at the smoking high tech laser gun he held in his hand. He then patted the hoverbike, adding, "And this bike is just so awesome! Seriously, just listen to it purr!"

He put his hands on the handles and revved up the engine. The girl seemed to roll her eyes under her mask, but Danny could only tell that due to the movement of her head.

"You are SUCH a boy." She sounded exasperated, yet was amused by his enthusiasm. Composing herself, she aimed her bazooka at the ghost boy, telling her counterpart, "But stay focused on the job. Take out the ghosts, but avoid causing collateral damage."

"Yes, ma'am." The man nodded, aiming his ecto-gun at the ghost boy as well. Using his other hand to adjust something on his bike, he said, "And good thing I got some good music for this."

A hard metal song began playing from the hoverbike, and our heroes took that as another cue to avoid another blast from the ghost hunters' weapons! And right on cue, drawn to the sound, Heartless, Grunts, Doomsday Troopers, and shadowy minions appeared! With Tucker and Sam running for cover, this left our heroes to face off against the numbers coming at them along with the new enemies that they just started dealing with.

"Hey, who are these guys, Danny?" Timmy asked as he used his Freeze Glove on some Heartless before using the star flinger to shatter them.

"Ghost hunters!" Danny answered, blasting away at a few Grunts and blowing up some robots. "One of them's unfortunately someone I know, and she's got a grudge against me for several accidents that took a toll on her life! The other guy I don't know, but he's clearly new at this…" He dodged another blast fired from the male hunter, taunting, "because he clearly can't aim!"

Putting the gun away, the hunter replied, "Maybe, but there's plenty more where that came from!"

Clicking something on his wrist, the hunter extended out a long chain whip glowing orange for him to grab. He then swung it, lashing it out on the ground before whipping it forth at the ghost boy! Danny quickly flew up to avoid it, but then he had to barely dodge shuriken-like discs being thrown by the female ghost hunter! He then flew off as the two ghost hunters gave chase, unfortunately leaving the others to deal with the foes before them.

"Oh no!" The fry cook gasped as he karate-chopped one of the shadowy figures, making it dissipate into dark wind. "Danny's being pushed away from us! We gotta help him!"

"Enemies block!" Tarzan reminded Spongebob as he ran a Search Ghost through with his spear. "Can't help!"

"Well, this plan went bonkers after a few minutes!" Timmy felt the desire to snark as he kept flinging stars at Doomsday Troopers.

"Just keep at it, guys!" Jimmy told his friends, using the tornado blaster to blow a variety of foes away. "Danny shouldn't take too long… hopefully!"

Speaking of Danny, he still flew about in the air, being pursued by the pair of ghost hunters and evading their attacks as best as he could. The blasts he could handle avoiding, as well as those thrown weapons, missiles and lasers. However, he actually found himself having more trouble with the new hunter's whip. It seemed to keep extending just enough to try and reach him. And worse… the guy was taunting him.

"What's the matter, ghost boy?" The ghost hunter kept whipping at Danny. "Is running away the best that you can do?"

"I dunno," the ghost boy retorted, dodging another lash and returning fire, watching the ghost hunter move out of the way of the ghost ray, "at least my running and aim are better than yours!"

The male ghost hunter pulled back the whip and began swinging it above him, replying, "Is that a fact now?"

After a couple more swings, the ghost hunter swung it like a lasso and the chain whip actually wrapped around Danny before he could go intangible! The ghost boy then found himself pulled back, and his neck was then grabbed by the hunter's hand, being pulled in so he could get a good look at the mask. Unfortunately for Danny, the visor still hid the identity of the person underneath, and he had no idea whose voice it was, so it ruled out anybody he knew at school.

"You know, looking at you up close," the hunter remarked, "you don't look like much."

"You're not exactly on my top ten enemies list yourself!" The ghost boy retorted, then kicked at his chest to escape, escaping the chains when they loosened!

While the male ghost hunter was stunned, the huntress took on the initiative and pulled out a multi-barreled gun and fired them all at the spectral superhero! Reacting quickly, Danny put up a green ectoplasmic shield around himself to block the multi-barrel powered shot, though this also had him being pushed further back from its force. While she clicked her tongue at this, her partner just watched this, evidently impressed.

"I have GOT to get one of those." He commented.

"You can try when you get better at this job. Now focus!" She reminded him.

"Got it, got it."

With that, the male ghost hunter pressed a series of buttons on his dashboard, and then hatches opened from the sides to reveal multi-barreled missile launchers, firing each and every missile towards the halfa! Dispelling the shield, Danny kept flying back, shooting ghost energy rays at the missiles and making them explode in the air. However, this also gave the male ghost hunter a way to take him by surprise, ready to fire pink rays point blank from his hoverbike! It looked like this would do Danny in for certain!

"Still better than this other guy…!" The ghost boy charged up one more ghost ray with both hands and fired, taking out the hoverbike and sending the ghost hunter flying off of it!

The male ghost hunter gave a surprised shout as he was hurtling towards the ground. Danny avoided the falling wreckage of the hoverbike, only to realize too late that its rider was going to make a hefty splat on the ground! However, fortunately for the halfa, the huntress he was more than acquainted with cut him off and went in to save her partner in his place. With quick speed and masterful use of her hoverboard, she managed to catch the male ghost hunter and stand him gently behind her. From there, her mask seemed to glare at the ghost boy as she went ahead and out of sight.

"Are you okay?" she asked the boy in her arms.

"My pride's the only thing hurt…" he muttered, then snickered. "Though being carried by a pretty girl helps."

"Smooth, pretty boy," she quipped back.

Danny blinked at this, wondering what that was all about.

"Well, new ghost hunter aside, at least he isn't that big a problem… at least I hope he won't be." He mused as he began flying back towards the Circus Gothica. "Man, gotta wonder if Sora's having as much a problem as we are right now."

—-

"Man, for a supposed popular circus, it's not catching me like it should." Sora couldn't help but muse as he, Donald, Goofy, and Akira were walking through the Circus Gothica. "What's the point of making a circus that's pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect?"

"Tell me about it." Goofy concurred, looking around nervously. "This place gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's almost like there's nobody around but bad here."

"Aw, don't be so jittery." Donald waved off the knight-captain's concerns. "It's not like we can't handle a few Heartless and grunts we might come across."

"Then what about those large robots and ghosts?" The knight-captain asked.

"Um…" Donald looked somewhat nervous. "Let me get back to you on that." He then scratched his feathered head with a frown, "Still, why come to this dump?"

"It's meant to appeal to teens looking to stand out in a crowd by dressing in black and pretending that life has no meaning if you conform." Akira answered the mallard before giving a shrug. "Personally, I find this place to be a bunch of cra… crud. This place was originally shut down because it was outed as a closet burglary ring."

"Yeah, Danny did mention that…" Sora recalled that when the halfa originally described Lydia back in Wonderland.

"So you dealt with the tattoo lady who worked here back in Wonderland, huh?" The biker asked, making the three of them stop walking, and Gadget and Jiminy Cricket popping out of Sora's hair and Goofy's hat.

"How do you know that?" Donald suddenly came up to Akira and demanded to know, hands on his hips and his frow slightly more furrowed than usual.

The biker simply shrugged and replied in response, "Eh, it's not that hard to figure out. I mean, Heartless? Walking, talking animals? Magic? Not exactly normal around here, and this place has ghosts as a constant issue."

The court wizard groaned as he facepalmed. Of course it would be easy to tell they weren't from around this world.

"Wait, but that doesn't answer the question." Jiminy Cricket pointed out. "How do you know about what happened? It's not like we said anything about it."

"Being a psychic tends to let you know a few things."

At that, the trio jumped, forcing the mouse and cricket to hold on tightly to avoid being thrown off.

"Psychic?!" Sora exclaimed in surprise. "So that's how you knew my name and did all those moves back there!"

"Yep." Akira confirmed, popping the 'p' with a smirk. "Kinda like how your friend Danny is 'Inviso-Bill'."

"Oh, so you read our minds to learn that, too?" Gadget asked.

"No, that's easy to tell since they both share the same face, voice, hairstyle, height, and body." The confirmed psychic corrected. "Everyone else here doesn't seem to connect two and two together since they're kinda… Well, I can't really say it in a nice way, so let's leave it at that."

"They're idiots, nothing wrong stating that." Desiree's voice chimed in from the ring.

"Hey now, no need to be mean…" The islander said to the genie.

"No less true, 'Master'." She rebutted. "And by the way, behind you."

"Huh?" He turned… and found himself bumped into, landing on his rear. "Oh!"

He looked up, seeing he was face-to-face with a young teenage girl with a slender female and a quite attractive facial structure. Her eyes were aqua blue and her hair was long and auburn, reaching to her hips. She wore an aqua headband, a black long-sleeve v-neck shirt, aqua pants, and a pair of simple, black flats. In her hand was some kind of high-tech handheld blaster. She appeared to be lightly blushing as she was laying on top of him after the bump brought them both to the ground. He lightly blushed as well as he felt two soft things on top of himself.

"What is up with me ending up really close to pretty girls?" Akira read Sora's mind as the girl got herself off of him and helped him up.

"I'm so sorry about that!" The girl told him. "I was trying to keep from being found by the monsters around here. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Just surprised, is all." The keybearer replied, dusting himself off. "So far, you're the one actual person we've seen in this circus. Anyway, my name's Sora."

"Nice to meet you, Sora. Wish it were under better circumstances, but you get what I mean." The girl shook his hand. "I'm Jasmine Fenton. But you can call me Jazz."

"Fenton? Oh!" Goofy exclaimed. "So you're Danny's older sister!"

"Oh, you guys know Dann–" Jazz finally noticed Donald and Goofy and then trailed off when she saw the anthropomorphic duck and dog. "Uh…"

"Look, it's fine, Jazz." Akira rolled his eyes as he got her attention next. "They're not from around here and they're helping your brother out. They're good."

"Oh, Akira." Jazz definitely recognized him by the way she narrowed her eyes and placed a hand on her hip. "You're here, too? How's the swear jar I recommended coming along?"

Akira actually had a sheepish blush on his face as he looked away with his arms crossed. First time Sora actually saw him react in a way that didn't look outwardly cool.

"Swear jar?" The islander asked.

"Oh, for a while, Akira here had quite the potty mouth and it became a concern for the school… outside of his usual fights with Dash." Jazz explained. "So, I came up with the idea that he uses a swear jar to put money in every time he curses so he knows better than to use foul language in front of other kids."

"The only 'kids' that I talked like that around are close to our age!" The exchange student complained. "And besides, it's not my fault Baxter has an ego the school over-inflates."

"Maybe, but that swear jar is getting you less visits with Principal Ishiyama." She told him. "I'd call that progress."

"I'd also get less visits with the principal if Lancer wasn't such a toady for the popular clique." He rolled his eyes.

"Uh…" Sora, Donald, and Goofy weren't sure whether they should cut in with this.

Noticing the looks they were getting, Jazz said, "Okay, we'll just talk about this later. We need to shut this place down, and fast. Whatever this place is doing to people, it's bad."

"What's going on?" Donald asked.

"Freakshow, the ringmaster behind this circus," Danny's sister explained, "is working with some guy who only goes by 'the Coachman', and–"

"The Coachman?!" Jiminy hopped out of Goofy's hat and towards Jazz. "You're certain of this, miss?"

She double-took at the talking cricket before looking at Akira. One look from him basically told her that she should have to just go with it.

"I'm going to need a head examination after all this is done." Akira heard her thoughts while she said out loud, "Y-Yes, big nose, red coat, flat hat and everything. Whatever power he has, he's been turning everyone lured into coming here into donkeys used as labor!"

The royal chronicler sighed at this, shaking his head. He really hoped it wasn't that man causing trouble here. But if he was, then something had to be done to stop him. The cricket only barely escaped Pleasure Island before his world fell to darkness, and the man never did pay for what he did to all those boys, their own naughtiness notwithstanding. Fortunately for him, it seemed the others agreed.

"Alright, that's our next stop," Sora stated, ready to act.

He turned to Donald, and the duck sneered, "Like I'd let that big palooka get away."

"Yeah, kids may be handfuls, like Donald's nephews, but doing that…" Goofy was more horrified than angry, but that fear for the safety of others gave him determination.

Sora smiled, happy that he and Donald could agree on doing the right thing and having Goofy's support on the matter.

"How does turning human children into animals work?" Gadget had to ask, however.

"The Coachman has some form of magic that he's capable of using to manipulate people's baser desires to tempt them into doing bad things, eventually turning them into - and I mean no insult saying this - literal jackasses." Jiminy explained. "Why, back in Pleasure Island, there were so many temptations that it made all those lured there easy pickings for him. He must have helped Freakshow reinvent the Circus Gothica so it could do the same to a wider audience!"

"If that's the case, then where are the people being kept?" Sora asked.

"Fortunately, I know where they are." Jazz turned and began to move. "Follow me!"

Thus, they followed after Danny's sister, keeping quiet and out of sight from the monsters and minions that were patrolling the circus. All the while, the keybearer, the one closest to her, couldn't help but wonder about her. She appeared to be 16, so she'd clearly be the older sibling. Did she perchance know that Danny was a superhero? And what was that she had in her hand the whole time?

"Just throwing this out there," Akira commented, pulling Sora away from his thoughts and making him jump, "you have some really loud thoughts."

"You could warn me before reading my mind." The Keyblade wielder replied.

"I did tell you I was psychic, man." The biker reminded him, "Not my fault you didn't prepare your mind in advance."

"Here it is!"

Jazz's voice got their attention as they reached a hidden part of the Circus Gothica. The area was heavily populated by boxes and crates, not to mention cages… all full of mewling donkeys. Any cage which was empty would end up filled with more labor animals by ghosts and some of those shadow-like brutes lugging them about with rope or their ape-like hands. A lot of the animals were braying like… well, the equines they were. However, others there were pleading for help, with actual human voices, only to be silenced by the lashing of whips.

"That just about confirms it. The Coachman IS behind all this!" Jiminy Cricket knew this scene all too well.

"Wait, so ALL these donkeys were people?" Sora was shocked at the scene.

"Every single one." The cricket shook his head. "And all of them are bound to either the salt mines, another circus, or much worse if we don't free them quickly!"

"The hell they are!"

Without anyone giving the signal to go, Akira already rushed in, kicking the gate open and catching the ghosts and guards' attention. His hair was already flickering several colors as he prepared to use his psychic powers on the fiends. To start with, he conjured four afterimages of himself, colored blue, to his sides, standing diagonally around him as he got between two of the shadowy henchmen. The afterimages then started spinning in place, picking up speed as they spun before starting to turn red.

"I got you now!" Akira called out, and then the afterimages burst into flames, forming a ring of fire around himself and engulfing the shadowy minions in it, making them disappear in smoke. Looking at the approaching ghosts, he pumped his fist up and jeered, "Alright, who's next for a beatdown?"

Sora, coming down with Donald and Goofy as they readied their weapons, couldn't help but ask the psychic, "You just couldn't wait for us, could you?"

"Eyes on the enemy!" Was all the delinquent replied with, as a bunch of Heartless appeared to assist the ghosts remaining.

Without any more words to waste, they got to fighting the enemies as they appeared. The ghosts, when they were stunned out of their intangibility, got to be easy pickings for their attacks, especially since they appeared weak to Donald's spells. Blizzard appeared to do quite well on the specters, freezing them in place and making them easy pickings for beating down. After that, beating down Heartless was the usual standard affair; destroying the Shadows between the times they delved into the ground and when they rose up from it, taking out the Soldiers while deflecting their kicks, hitting the Large Bodies from behind, and of course eliminating the Search Ghosts before they could steal health from the party. This battle would leave the group with plenty of items and materials to pick up, and plenty more munny to save up for better weapons in the item shop once they made it back to Traverse Town.

After that, with Jazz joining them, they began setting the donkeys free from captivity. However, once they were all free and the donkeys that could talk were expressing their gratitude, they were left with a particular issue. Freedom was one thing, but how were they going to change them back to normal? Donald figured he could give it a shot with his own magic, but though he tried his hand at changing their forms, all it did was simply put their outfits back on their persons. So there was nothing they could do on hand.

"This is some serious dark magic!" the mage squawked in anger, hitting a cage with his wand as if it was a malfunctioning remote and he angry about missing his shows before trying another time… getting yet another donkey their clothes back. Sleeping his shoulders, the duck groaned in exhaustion, "Whew… This is… a very powerful… curse…"

"Hey Jiminy," the gummi ship mechanic asked the conscience, "was there ever a way to undo this sort of magic?"

Sadly, Jiminy sighed and replied, "As much as I hate to say it, I don't know. Seeing as we only escaped from the Coachman instead of stopping him, we never figured out a way to do it."

"Talk about inconvenient," Akira crossed his arms. "So we've to go get this Coachman directly to figure this out. Trying to scour this place is going to be a pain in the…" He trailed off, noticing Jazz eying him. "...butt."

"If there's any place that would actually get his attention, it would have to be at Freakshow's Big Top tent." Danny's sister looked towards the tent in question. "From time to time, he'd announce that there'd be this scheduled show there for the audience to watch, and that's exactly where the tempted got transformed into donkeys. We take down whatever's doing that over there, we should get him coming to see what's happening."

"So, all that remains is getting all these people to a safe place." Goofy looked at the donkeys. "We could try escortin' them over to the entrance, and then– woah!"

But just then, he was grabbed by a green tentacle, as was Donald! A green octopus floated in the air and roared, scaring the donkeys and watching them scatter in order to get away! Then it flung the wizard and knight-captain into another part of the circus before Sora destroyed it with the Jungle King.

"Donald! Goofy! Jiminy!" Sora called out their names.

"Watch out!" Jazz warned the islander.

Sora barely rolled back, dodging a green skull covered in green fire. He looked up and immediately recognized his attacker. How could he not with her green skin, multitude of tattoos, and her spiky mohawk?

"Lydia!" He exclaimed, readying his Keyblade. "You're not getting away this time! Where's Alice? Where did you take her?"

Lydia, of course, didn't respond. She simply smirked and beckoned him to go after her. While this would indeed charm any boy of weaker willpower, especially thanks to her own brand of beauty, Sora was no average boy. In fact, he was quite frustrated at the sight of her. He took it as a taunt. A dismissal of his concern for the girl she kidnapped.

"Alright, if that's the way you want it!" The keybearer readied himself for a fight. "I'll make you show me!"

Lydia had a small look of disappointment on her face that faded quickly. Seems this boy was too innocent to really appreciate the subtle efforts she was putting for him.

"Don't expect to cut me out of this one!" The psychic stepped up next to him. "I'm a bit worked up from her stupid stunt, too. Hey Jazz, feel free to step back on this one."

"Step back?" Jazz asked, holding the blaster she had forward. "Do you think this is for show?"

Just then, she pressed a button on the blaster, and it unfolded to surround her with body armor, a helmet, and a larger blaster. Suddenly, Jazz was all decked out in a high-tech suit with a blaster arm, with the original blaster acting as a control. Both Akira and Sora looked surprised as Jazz stepped forward, barrel aimed towards Lydia.

"Time to put the Fenton Ghost Peeler through the paces yet again!" She exclaimed.

The fight began in earnest once Lydia started summoning her tattoos to aid her in battle. Like before in Wonderland, her tattoos weren't entirely an issue, but whenever they were destroyed, Lydia would just create more. Hitting her would also prove more difficult. Unlike the other ghosts, she knew how to use her intangibility to her advantage, making Sora's attacks phase through her before countering with an ecto-blast or even a swift kick to his body. The tattooed ghost even knew to turn invisible so her enemies couldn't find her while her tattoos tried swarming them.

It got to the point where more and more tattoos started to form and fighting them head on wasn't going to cut it for Sora and Akira. Fortunately for them, Jazz used the Ghost Peeler to blast at the living body art, literally peeling layers off of their forms before they ended up dissipating into green smoke. The biker whistled at this, more than impressed with Danny's sister for the quick thinking and impressive tech. But then his hair flickered, and he quickly turned and used his powers once more, concentrating on making more afterimages of himself in front of him and behind him.

"Stop right there!" He called out, and suddenly the four afterimages turned into ice spikes, cooling the air around them!

The cool air also stunned Lydia, turning her visible once more and slowing her down due to the chilled air. This finally gave Sora the opening he needed to have at her with a few strikes of the Keyblade before she turned intangible and phased through him to recover. From there, she summoned more tattoos to her side and began having them form around herself. The keybearer recognized this tactic as well.

"Oh no you don't!" Sora ran straight for the tattoos and slashed through them to try getting to Lydia, surprising her and forcing her to fly backward. Then he held up his Keyblade and called out, "Thunder!"

And with that, a lightning bolt struck down and hit Lydia, shocking her and dealing more damage. In response, she would try blasting him with a ghost ray, but Akira pulled Sora out of the way, saving him. The psychic then used his powers to quickly conjure an image of a radiant angel with a blade to hit Lydia. Though the damage was low, the distraction in turn allowed Jazz to fire a blast from the Fenton Peeler at the tattooed phantasm! While she would barely get out of the effects, she still felt weaker upon being hit.

Lydia weighed her options as she looked at the keybearer and his two allies. She had not expected him to actually get this strong, but she still felt she could easily take him if not for the other two. Worse, the messy-haired human had weird powers unlike ghosts and the halfa that she couldn't make heads or tails of his moveset. Not to mention the human girl had a weapon that could take her down to a weaker level if allowed. No way was victory possible at this point.

So she did the next-most logical thing. She flew off to get away.

"Hey! Get back here!" Sora of course gave chase. "You're not getting away that easy!"

"Oh geez. One track mind, this guy." The delinquent sighed and went after the islander. "Hey, wait up!"

"Hold on! We still need to help out the people here!" Jazz called after them… but she went after them anyhow. "Geez, Danny, where do you find these people?"

—-

By the time Danny managed to return to his friends, he found most of them were exhausted after dealing with a whole bunch of enemies all at once. Tarzan had to resort to using Healing Herb sparingly in order to get everyone back in full condition, and still they were tired from the fight. Not that he'd blame them. He was pretty exhausted dealing with those two ghost hunters.

"Okay, that definitely wasn't part of the plan, but we survived." He said as he talked with his allies. "Of course this means that we can't exactly rely on being stealthy around here now."

"Unfortunately so." Jimmy confirmed. "As such, this leaves us with no choice but to take this place down at the source: the Big Top."

"Why do they call it the Big Top anyway?" Cosmo couldn't help but ask. "It looks nothing like those fun spinning toys you use your fingers to spin up until they stop spinning because they usually finish spinning depending on how you used your fingers to start with."

"Cosmo, remember to breathe." Wanda told her husband. "Too many stupid questions are bad for your health."

"But I ask stupid questions almost every day and I feel fine!" He rebutted.

"Hopefully we'll meet Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Akira on the way there." Spongebob said. "Surely they found something that we didn't."

"Uh… would donkeys count?" Tucker pointed towards the way they came.

Confused by Tucker's odd query, they all looked to where he aimed his finger, and sure enough they saw donkeys of all shapes and sizes running about in the circus. Certainly an odd sight. Even odder that there were those wearing clothes. And that there were so many of them. And… screaming like people?

"Uh oh, I think I know what this is about." The boy genius watched this odd event going on with realization in his eyes. "Considering Jiminy's earlier explanation, these are no doubt people cursed to become donkeys, like in the book."

"...Well, I never thought we'd actually be dealing with a storybook come to life, but there it is." Sam blinked.

But then the sounds of shouts reached their ears as they saw two figures falling towards them. Danny flew up to catch them, and sure enough he recognized the pair. Donald and Goofy, with Jiminy Cricket barely holding onto the knight-captain's hat. He floated back down and gently got them onto the ground so they could dust themselves off. They nodded gratefully to the ghost boy for the catch as well.

"Gawrsh, I think I saw half the town from up there…" Goofy said groggily, holding his head.

"Donald! Goofy! Jiminy!" The sea sponge was glad to see them. "That was close! What happened? Where's Sora?"

"He's back where we got thrown from." Donald explained. "Some freaky octo-ghost grabbed and threw us away before we could figure out what to do to get all the cursed people to safety! Sora, Akira, and Jazz have gotta be dealing with it while we're here."

"Wait, you guys found my sister?" Danny was at least glad to know his older sister was safe–

"More like she bumped into Sora and fell on top of him. But yeah, she's okay!" Goofy confirmed.

Danny felt himself twitching. Something about that choice of words…

"Look, we've got no time to lose!" Jiminy Cricket spoke up to all of them. "If there's any way we can help undo this curse, we have to deal with the Coachman! The Big Top should be our best place for that as well."

"Huh, convenient, we were about to go there." Timmy blinked. "Glad we're on the same page."

"Let's move, guys!" Danny told the group. "It's very likely there are more people in there too."

So with that, the band of heroes, rejoined by Donald and Goofy, made their way towards the Big Top, avoiding the search lights emitted by the skeleton, though they still dealt with the likes of minions, Heartless, and ghosts on the way there. But after fighting through them, and also making sure they didn't hit the donkeys running about, they eventually made it to the entrance of the large tent. Looking at it up close made Spongebob shiver, it resembled an ominous skull-like face with red sockets.

"Here we are, guys." Danny told his friends. "The Big Top."

"Why does it have to be so scary?" the sponge asked.

"Because it's cool," Sam replied, getting questioning glances from everyone. "Come on, it is!"

Looking around, the group could see the inside of the large tent. Sure enough, around the walls were seats just full of people and children, gazing upon a large ring where, for some reason, a concert stage was placed with large speakers blaring music loudly. And on that stage was a familiar figure to the three ghost experts. A pale-white female ghost with teal flaming hair done up in two ponytails with two locks of hair framing her face (resembling a sharp-angled "M"), and light purple lipstick. She had curled and curved lines near her eyes as well which could have been makeup or a tribal tattoo.

"And there's Ember McLain herself!" Tucker pointed her out. "See? Told you this was her song."

"Okay, but if she's supposed to be this punk rocker," Timmy had a question, "why is she dressed like a clown?"

Looking back at Ember, she indeed wasn't wearing her usual rebellious outfit. In fact, she was wearing a black and red jester outfit with a white frill collar and flat shoes. It was practically made solely to hug her curvy body tightly.

"Yeah, that definitely isn't the right sort of outfit." Sam noted. "Knowing Ember, she should have had that incinerated before entertaining the thought of wearing it. They must have her controlled to be their 'Jestress with the Siren Song'."

"Any sign of Sora, Akira and Jazz?" Goofy asked, looking around.

"No, seems they haven't gotten here yet." Donald shook his head.

"They should be fine. What we have to concern ourselves with is disrupting Freakshow and the Coachman's operation." Jimmy Neutron told them. "Let's sneak around and see if there's anything here that should be a clue."

The group of eight then made their way into the shadows of the seats to avoid being detected by the Search Ghosts up above, using their eyes as search lights at the same time as spotlights. Though as they moved, they could hear Ember sing her song yet again on that stage.

A ghostly wail to be sure.

"It was, it was September," she sang, her eyes opening to reveal red sclera,

"Winds blow, the dead leaves fall~

To you, I did surrender,

Two weeks, you didn't call~"

As he snuck under some seats, Spongebob listened to her singing through his holes. He then blinked, looking down to see his foot tapping to the beat. He quickly shushed his foot, making it stop tapping so he could continue tip-toeing.

"Your life goes on without me,

My life, a losing game~

But you should, you should not doubt me-

You will remember my name~"

She then belted out, "Oh, Ember, you will remember,

Ember, one thing remains~

Oh, Ember, so warm and tender,

You will remember my name~"

"Well, she's no Chip Skylark or Britney Britney," Timmy commented as he snuck with Jimmy, "but she sounds pretty good."

"Actually, sport, I don't think we ever heard Britney Britney sing." Wanda actually pondered.

"Really?" Cosmo was surprised to hear that. "I could've sworn we all heard her single, 'Hit Me Twice' at one point."

"I'd ask just what you're talking about," Jimmy told him, "but this is no time to be distracted by her singing. Do you see anything that might be important?"

"Your heart," Ember continued singing as the group continued searching without her noticing, "your heart has rendered,

Your walls, now bear the shame~

Like dead trees, in cold December,

Nothing but ashes remain~"

"Hey, fellas, look there!" Jiminy Cricket finally spotted something, pointing his umbrella towards the stage, "Right on the catwalk!"

Everyone looked to the top of the stage, seeing the walkway with spotlights focused on Ember. But among them was a peculiar device with Freakshow's staff attached to it, emitting signals through a satellite dish, its waves being mixed with Ember's song across the circus tent, and perhaps even beyond!

"That's it!" Danny couldn't believe he was glad to see it. "Nice work, Jiminy!"

"Oh, Ember," she continued singing, the group inching closer on their target, "you will remember,

Ember, one thing remains~

Oh, Ember, so warm and tender,

You will remember my name~"

"You know, this explains a lot about what's going on here." Tucker commented as they made it behind the stage.

"That she's been mind-controlled the entire time by Freakshow and she's not doing this of her own free will?" Donald asked.

"No," Danny's tech-friendly friend corrected, "that her singing sounds a bit stiff this time around."

"Right, because you're such an expert." Sam rolled her eyes.

"Oh, woah, woah~!" Ember began the finale as Danny floated up towards the catwalk.

"Ember, you will remember,

Ember, one thing remains~

Ember, so warm and tender,

You will remember my name~"

"Just one focused shot, and..." Danny began charging a ghost ray at the device.

"Yeah, you will remember my name~!"

But just then, before Danny could fire, a whip suddenly lashed out and gripped his wrist right before pulling him to the floor. Then the whip pulled Danny up and threw him into the ring of the Big Top with a heavy slam! He looked up and saw, much to his dread, the Coachman smirking at him as he wrapped his whip around one hand and tapped it against his other gloved palm, Freakshow standing next to him.

"Come now, ghost boy," Freakshow asked as Danny's friends went to help him up, "you didn't really think we'd leave my staff out here in the open without a plan, did you?"

"Freakshow!" Danny recognized the ringmaster.

"And you must be the Coachman we've heard about." Jimmy Neutron looked at the man.

The Coachman simply smirked in response and said, "It's good to hear my reputation precedes me. Have you boys and girls been enjoyin' the show while you were here causin' a ruckus?"

"What was there to enjoy when you turn everyone who comes here into donkeys?" The average kid rebutted.

"Everyone who came here expectin' to have their fun came here for that, and they got it." the man with the round nose replied. "It's only fair that they pay for it. Can't go around bein' misbehavin' brats and indecent adolescents without payin' the price."

"And do they ever pay! Ha-ha!" Freakshow laughed as he gestured over to Ember. "Thanks to my restored staff combined with Ember McLain's powers over her songs, not to mention the Coachman's expertise in the art of temptation and profit, we've created a newer, improved, and ultimately richer Circus Gothica! Now we practically have the world eating out of our hands and filling our pockets!"

"Yeah, under the Syndicate's watch." The halfa snarked. "It's still clear you couldn't have gotten this far without Vlad's help or a bit of cosmic luck!"

"You make it sound like I should complain about either of those." The ringmaster chuckled. "Like I'd really look a gift horse in the mouth. Or perhaps a gift donkey in this case?"

With a chuckle of his own, the Coachman added, "But now you lot have gone and messed with that gift horse, so it's up to us to clean it up. And fortunately we got just the tools to do it!" With a crack of the whip, the Coachman summoned more of his henchmen, on top of more Heartless and ghosts before announcing to the controlled crowd, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! For today only, with musical accompaniment by Ember McLain, we of the Circus Gothica humbly present your resident ghost child alongside his abnormal friends ready to fight wave after wave of our generous and able-bodied workers… and are going to meet their end!"

With that, the Coachman's skin seemed to turn a dark shade of pink and his eyes grew fiercer and his ears grew pointed. He then went into a full-on maniacal laughter as the monsters charged towards our heroes! Tucker and Sam again had to run for cover to avoid being pulled into the massive fight, but much to their dismay, Large Bodies appeared to block any escape they had. This forced Danny and the others to try and protect them while fighting off foes at the same time. Not an easy feat, to be sure.

But that wouldn't stop them from trying. Tarzan swung his spear through the heads of the Large Bodies, destroying them while also knocking the smaller foes away. Spongebob simply karate-chopped the Search Ghosts once Timmy and Donald froze them with ice, breaking them apart. Goofy helped Tarzan with defending Tucker and Sam by spinning around in mid-air and hitting some henchmen several times with his shield. Goddard helped distract some ghosts while Jimmy blasted them with wind.

However, once the initial wave was gone, another took its place with more enemies. Notably, a new Heartless had appeared as well. It appeared to be a bunch of Shadows standing atop each other, with red jagged mouths and pink dots on their cheeks. The one on the bottom wore blue pointed-toe shoes, poofy blue-and-white striped shorts, and a blue jester shirt with white frills for sleeves and a collar, along with white buttons. Atop that one were two similar Heartless atop each other, their faces poking out of a blue and white robe with a single blue patch and separated by a blue belt around the 'waist'. And at the very top, actually wearing clown makeup over its face, was yet another similar Heartless, wearing a blue and white jester hat with the Heartless emblem front and center, one eye open and the other hidden by makeup, fuzzy peach-colored hair around its head, and wearing a white frill collar with two blue buttons, a blue and white striped shirt with frills for sleeves, and holding orange and brown maracas of varying colors in its hands. The stack of Heartless seemed to do a rather comical jig with the top Heartless shaking the maracas, and suddenly the rest of the enemies seemed to have a red aura around them!

"Jumpin' Jupiter!" Jimmy Neutron quipped, barely avoiding a mace attack from a ghost that actually left cracks in the ground. "That Circus Clown is making its allies stronger! Keep your guard up, everyone!"

"Wait, I dealt with a robot with a similar gimmick back in Bikini Bottom!" Spongebob recognized the formation. "I think I know how to deal with this one!"

The fry cook then went to attack the Circus Clown. If he recalled correctly, he just had to take out the bottom Heartless and then hit the ones up top soon after to destroy the whole pillar. However, before he could reach the dark creature, he actually jumped back when another Heartless tried to hit him with a flaming torch! This one was similar to the individual Heartless making up the Circus Clown, but it was just the one Heartless with a jaggedy red smirk, holding a flaming torch in hand, and wearing a purple jester outfit with pink slippers, baggy purple and white striped pants, a pink belt with a white buckle, a purple shirt bearing the Heartless emblem, white rimmed oversized sleeves, a white frill collar, and a purple and white jester hat atop its head with many funny little points and purple jangles. This Heartless was joined by others as they surrounded the Circus Clown, also emitting a red aura.

"...Or maybe not." Spongebob squeaked. "Guess it has jester friends."

"More like Pester Jesters." Cosmo remarked. Then he blinked, "Hey, naming these things is fun! No wonder you guys like doing it."

But then the aptly named Pester Jesters all seemed to dance as well, and our heroes felt as though a heavy burden was placed on their backs. It was as if their strength was sapped!

"Oh great! Not only do they have Heartless pumping them up; now they have Heartless putting us down!" The buck-toothed boy complained, watching his stars just bounce off one of the shadowy goons. "That's gotta be cheating!"

"Not good!" Tarzan could tell when his spear didn't pierce through the back of another Large Body. "What we do?"

Freakshow laughed as it appeared things were getting grim.

"Get ready, folks!" He announced. "Here comes the grand finale…!"

But that finale would not go as he expected. Instead, before the Heartless, ghosts, and shadowy henchmen could finish off our heroes, Lydia crashed through the tent, hitting the ground and sliding on it before falling unconscious. Freakshow called her name with concern, and soon after, Sora rushed in with Akira and Jazz following behind.

"Sora!" The fry cook jumped for joy. "Boy are we happy to see you!"

"Hey guys! Was just dealing with Lydia here." Sora waved, a slight glare towards the ghost girl. "Did I miss much?"

"Kinda dealing with cheap Heartless that give themselves strength buffs and us strength debuffs on top of enemy waves." Danny explained. "You know, the ever-growing scale of difficulty."

"Oh, is that all?" The biker stepped forward. "Then I can clear the room. I know what they're afraid of…"

Once again, he conjured four afterimages of himself standing diagonally in a line from him. The afterimages grew dark as they moved around him, becoming four spheres of darkness that moved faster, growing in speed and attacking the foes in the ring. Just then, the spheres exploded, taking the enemies with them! The moment the Circus Clown and the Pester Jesters were destroyed, our heroes felt their strength return!

"What?!" Both Freakshow and the Coachman exclaimed in shock at this feat.

"Now to just take care of one last thing." Jazz aimed the Fenton Peeler blaster towards the stage and fired!

What was she aiming at? Why, Freakshow's staff! And once it hit, the staff broke apart and the machine started to break down! Outside, the skeleton in the Big Top deactivated, no longer emitting lights or even moving. And the donkeys started changing back into humans, cheering to have escaped their incredibly dismal fate. Back in the circus tent, the audience was broken from their hypnotic spell and looked confused by what was going on.

"No no no no no no no no!" Freakshow panicked, seeing his staff broken and shattered into several pieces. "Not again! I kissed up to Masters so much just to get that fixed!"

"Blast it all!" The Coachman was frustrated by this new situation. "I told you placing it at an obvious spot was a terrible idea!"

"What's the matter?" Akira taunted as he and the others surrounded the pair. "You were saying all that good smack just a bit ago. No more tricks up your sleeves?"

Freakshow sneered as he noted Lydia's unconscious form nearby. He couldn't rely on her for a quick escape at the moment, and the Heartless still popping up were hardly any of the strong ones that could be relied on. They could probably try creating a portal to escape through, but they needed a proper escape route to get away from being potentially caught. So, seeing no other option, and perhaps out of desperation... he looked back to the stage.

"Ember! Now would be a good time for an assist!" Freakshow called to the ghostly rocker, who was busy looking to the ground for some reason. "We put your powers to good use, so now is a good time to make up for it! Help us out already!"

"...Help? You?"

Ember's voice seemed cold. In a way, rather tranquil. Her hair seemed to burn fiercer than ever, and her hand not holding her guitar was clenched into a fist.

"After you dipsticks mind-controlled me?" She continued, the venom in her voice growing. "After you messed with my head to use my music? After you put me in this stupid clown suit?!"

When Ember brought her face up to glare at the two ringmasters, her eyes were glowing hotly and her jester outfit was beginning to burn off her person, revealing her original outfit. Attractive and appealing in nature, consisting of a black choker around her neck, a black one-shouldered crop-top, one long glove that covered most of her right arm, and one black bracelet on her left arm. She also wore a pair of skintight latex trousers with a silver belt and skull boots.

"Alright! So she'll help us out then." Sora was relieved at the idea.

"Don't be so sure." Jazz told him. "She's glaring at all of us."

"Oh, I'll 'help', alright." Ember continued, beginning to float in the air. "I'll help myself to a special song I came up with for everybody in this tacky circus!"

She began turning a dial on her guitar, and a pair of backup punk ghosts appeared behind her with instruments of their own. They started playing an ominous tune similar to that of a circus merry-go-round as Ember turned up the dial on her guitar to a flame symbol. Once the beat began to pick up, she then sang once more.

"Been kinda manic," Ember belted out, "Murder in my eyes,

I tend to thrive when people panic,

Feel most alive when screaming at you through the static,

I make my entry dramatic,

BUT THE EXIT WOUND WAS MORE TRAUMATIC!"

As she sang her new song, everyone then found themselves being surrounded by more Heartless! Shadows, Soldiers, Large Bodies, and Search Ghosts among others filled the growing numbers.

"I start a fire just to watch it all burn," she sang as she shot fire from her guitar to begin setting the Big Top aflame, "It's in my nature that I'll never learn,

Homicidal tendencies I've come to terms,

THE VIOLENCE IS ALL JUST A PART OF MY NATURE!"

"I can't be reasoned with," she watched as the heroes began fighting against the Heartless while Freakshow and the Coachman were trying to sneak off with the unconscious Lydia, "My whim sways like the wind~

The broken state of this society,

That even I can see,

This is the end~"

But before the villains could escape, a larger Heartless suddenly formed in front of them with a stomp! In the midst of destroying another Shadow, Sora gasped at the sight of a familiar monster stomping in, forcing Freakshow and the Coachman to step back.

"The Trickmaster?!" The keybearer exclaimed. "She brought it back?!"

"I think we've seen that Heartless tend to take similar forms depending on the hearts they got!" Jimmy told him as he blasted at a pair of Soldiers with his tornado blaster. "Just be careful of that with all the enemies around here!"

"I never lost and that's not gonna happen!" Ember belted out, "I can't be stopped, so what's the point in asking?!

I wanna watch it all burn,

I wanna watch it all burn down,

THIS TRAGEDY'S A COMEDY SO TURN YOUR FROWN AROUND!"

She let out a marvelous wail that echoed throughout the burning Big Top. And the moment she did, suddenly all the Heartless in the ring began to twitch, spontaneously start walking and moving in a rickety fashion with audible snaps of bone.

"This culture is a coaster, are you ready for the drop~?" The rocker sang.

Another wail boomed from her mouth, and then the Heartless began to visibly change before them. The Soldiers and Large Bodies didn't appear to change much, but the change was notable. For the Soldiers, their outfit became black instead of blue, their claws became yellow, they had spikes on their wristbands, and they had red markings on the upper half of their torsos. Their helmets curved down in the middle of their faces, and two horns on each side of the helmets that curved and bent upwards. The Large Bodies now had a darker color scheme, the trim across their bodies was colored red instead of yellow, their manacles were now gold colored with a zig-zag pattern, and they had beige colored shoes with two black buttons on each. They had beige helmets that surrounded their faces, zig-zagging from the bottom and the top, and with two curled horns on each side.

The Search Ghosts had more varied changes. Some looked akin to Frankenstein's Monster, with red hair atop their heads while large bolts were sticking out of the sides, brown coats bearing the Heartless emblem, spiked wristbands, and patchwork boxing gloves for hands. Others looked akin to wolfmen, with green fur and green wolf ears, black coats, and overly furry green hands with sharp yellow claws and brown belts around the wrists. The most fearsome looked akin to vampires, with purple skin, pointed ears, black top hats with bat wings and curved ridges, 'sharper' points on their mouths to simulate fangs, black vampire coats with pink sleeves and collars along with a gray undershirt, and two dark balls of fire floating at their sides.

The Trickmaster had changed too, sparking a sense of recognition from our heroes. But unlike before, this time the Trickmaster undertook a different color change. The red sections of the Trickmaster's body became magenta, the black sections became lavender, save for its arms, which became a dark shade of steel blue. Its clubs became striped with black and white, and its feet and the gold tinges on its body and head both became yellow with a slight green tint.

But the most notable change was with the Shadows. After several disturbing sounds of bones breaking coming from them the Shadows had grown taller and slimmer, taking more humanoid forms. Their crooked antennae became quite long and fell back behind them. They appeared to be rather muscular, and their hands were very large, each one sporting five clawed fingers. Their feet, like those of a normal Shadow, were long and lacked digits, but they resembled more like boots than feet. Their bodies were also lined by several faint, blue veins of color.

"Been strung up like a puppet," Ember sang as the Heartless transformed, "Time to watch you fall!"

"What's going on with the Heartless?" Timmy freaked out, dodging a blow from a boxing glove. "Suddenly they turned even tougher!"

"It's Ember's song!" Tucker pointed out, ducking to avoid a kick from an evolved Soldier. "Somehow she's changing them!"

"Just like Lydia did with the Trickmaster back in Wonderland!" Donald realized before firing a quick Blizzard spell at one of the wolf-like Search Ghosts. "Wak! Do all ghosts just have powers over the Heartless or something?!"

"How should I know?" Danny asked, blasting away one of the evolved Large Bodies. "This is all news to me!"

"I can't be reasoned with," Ember took great satisfaction in watching the fires spreading further, "My whims sway like the wind~

The broken state of this society,

That even I can see,

This is the end~"

"Well we better take care of this fast!" Sam warned, seeing a burning part of the tent actually fall and crush one of the Soldiers. "This place is coming down!"

"I never lost and that's not gonna happen!" The rocker ghost began spreading fire from her guitar like a flamethrower, "I can't be stopped, so what's the point in asking?!

I wanna watch it all burn,

I wanna watch it all burn down,

This tragedy's a comedy, so turn, that, frown, a-ROUND~!"

Ember began laughing her heart out as she reveled in the destruction happening around her. It felt so good to be her rebellious self again. And the fact that her music could actually change these dark creatures, if not make them stronger, only gave her plenty more ideas to work with. She also found that in the midst of all the distractions, Freakshow and the Coachman actually did manage to escape through a green portal that was already dissipating. She'll get them later. After all, despite being mind-controlled, she knew how to work that stuff out herself.

And on top of that, she got a great show of all those Heartless causing a ruckus for the dipsticks before her to deal with. The next time they met, she was going to get something bigger~.

"I never lost, and that's not gonna happen!" She went for the big finale. "I can't be stopped, so what's the point in asking?!

I wanna watch it all burn,

I wanna watch it all burn down,

THIS TRAGEDY'S A COMEDY SO TURN YOUR FREAKIN' FROWN. A. ROUUUUUUUND~!"

"See you next time, dipsticks~!" Ember bid them farewell before flying off with her band, just as more of the Big Top came down and destroyed the stage.

"Guys, we're outta time!" Goofy told the others. "The place is comin' down faster than we can fight!"

"Out back! Quickly!" Tarzan pointed his spear ahead after managing to destroy one of the evolved Shadows.

And with no time to lose, the heroes quickly ran towards the back of the Big Top, dodging debris and Heartless along the way. Managing to luck out of a large confrontation with the evolved Trickmaster, they all got out of the back entrance in time for the Big Top to collapse in on itself, becoming a burning mass of cloth and metal. With that, the Circus Gothica was beaten, at least for now. Freakshow and the Coachman had escaped with Lydia, and now Ember was free to do whatever she desired. They knew full well they'd deal with them again in the future.

…But coming out of the rubble, the evolved Trickmaster survived, its juggling clubs lit up with fire!

"Oh come on, can't we just call it a day with this place?" Timmy complained.

"Guys, have we got anything big we can use against it?" Danny asked as they watched the Trickmaster stomp towards them.

"Define big," Donald said, "and I spent most of my magic in that last battle!"

Sora could see most of his friends were exhausted by the battles they had faced in the Circus Gothica. And it appeared Akira couldn't help since he too was tired from the running. He also wasn't sure if the Fenton Peeler would work on this large Heartless like it did with Lydia. The keybearer thought hard on what he could possibly do to help his friends.

Then he recalled. He did have something he had yet to try.

Looking at his ring, he called, "Hey Desiree! You can grant my wishes, right?"

"That's what I'm bound to you for, yes." She didn't like to be reminded of it.

"Then I've got a wish ready for you!" He held his ring out towards the evolved Trickmaster. "Desiree! I wish for you to blast this Heartless to ash!"

Green smoke poured out of the ruby, and thus formed Desiree who shrugged at the wish.

"I'll admit, not a bad wish like I expected." She said, looking towards the giant Heartless just about ready to fire a fireball with its clubs. Her hand began to glow with pink ecto-energy as she charged it as well, "So you have wished for it, so it shall be!"

And before the Trickmaster could attack, Desiree fired her ghost ray at it, though the blast was actually much larger than anybody expected. It overtook the giant Heartless, pushing it back and destroying it molecule by molecule! Soon, the Heartless was completely wiped out, and all that was left was a large trail in the ground from where the blast was made. Everyone else looked surprised by the sheer power… as did Desiree.

"Wow…" She looked at her hands. "That was more power than I usually bring out on normal days. How did…?"

The ghost genie then looked at her ring, which she noticed was glowing gold. She looked at the chain connected to it, seeing it glow the same way. But the glow dimmed as the chains trailed further away from her ring. Eventually her eyes caught sight of her master…

"Hooray! Amity Park is a ghost-free zone!" The fry cook exclaimed, happy that they finally took care of the Circus Gothica. "And we freed all those people who turned into donkeys too!"

"Not quite." The boy genius corrected him. "There's still one big 'ghost' we need to take care of."

"Then let's close his portal for good!" Danny declared, looking towards the castle.

"Alright! Are you ready for this, Sora?" Timmy asked.

But a groan was what escaped the keybearer's lips, getting everyone to look towards him. The islander looked drained, as if he had spent just a lot of energy all at once. He was barely struggling to keep up on his own two feet! The genie ghost noted his shaky form and dimly lit ring and compared it to the ring brilliantly shining on her own finger. Then the boy ended up fainting, hitting the ground face-first.

"Sora!" His friends all called out, already going to help him up.

It was then Desiree figured it out. And when she did, she finally smiled maliciously towards the ring on her hand.

"Well, well…" she purred, "so there is a benefit to this accidental servitude after all~"

—-

Valerie figured her partner's first ghost hunting mission on the field wouldn't go as expected. Not like her first outing did either. She mostly chalked that up to her not being used to the equipment at the time. As a result, she felt that was also the case for her partner with his tech as well. He only started his training recently, after all.

But evidently to her, it wasn't being unused to the tech and tools of the trade that was the issue for him at the moment. Riku, having taken off his mask, was busy looking at the wreck of his hoverbike in disappointment.

"I can't believe that guy totaled my bike!" He groaned. "Seriously, this thing was amazing! I swear, next time I see that guy, I'm gonna– oof!"

But then he got cut off when Valerie hit him over the back of his head.

"Before you get any ideas, hot shot," She told her junior and made sure he listened, "we're going to go over what just went down. Got it?"

"Yeah, got it…" He composed himself, looking directly at her.

She nodded, approving that he at least was willing to listen.

"Now, we both had the ghost on the run. That much was clear." She stated, to which he nodded in confirmation. "Now tell me, what was it that changed that?"

"He used his powers to total the hoverbike–"

"Nope. That happened because of what changed." She cut him off. "How was he allowed to do that?"

"Because I was intent on beating him?" He hazarded a guess that she might approve of.

"Yes and no. Now while that may have been good motivation for you," she wasn't going to judge him for that if he believed that was the case, "you also let it go to your head and let yourself be pulled into his taunting games. He loves to talk, and you humored him, allowing him to get the better of you when you had several ways to both detain and/or destroy him. This was how he destroyed your hoverbike and nearly sent you to the ground."

Riku couldn't help but sigh. There was no denying she was right about everything.

"Yeah. Got it." He said.

"'Got it', what?"

"Got it, ma'am."

Valerie nodded. She could actually get used to this senior ghost hunter thing.

"Ok, good. So long as you know, you'll be better prepared for when you get another chance at him." She told her junior. "Until then, I'll make sure you get a better handle on hunting ghosts."

He smiled at her, which she had to admit was pretty charming, and said, "I'm holding you to that, ma'am."

She returned a smile he found quite pretty. This outing to go after the ghost boy didn't go as planned, but at the very least they knew they'll do better as a team next time. That being said, Valerie knew that he had some very odd friends, some notably human and looking like kids. She could've sworn she saw Tucker and Sam there… but no way that could be, right? Still, she knew she was going to take down the ghost who ruined her family.

At the very least, she'll have Riku by her side.

"So…" Riku then looked back at the crashed hoverbike with an unsure look on his face. "Repairing this isn't going to come out of any potential paychecks, is it?"

"It probably is." Valerie answered honestly. "I mean, I work this job and as a mascot for the Nasty Burger to save up money for college. It's not cheap."

The islander ghost hunter-in training sighed at this. He really hoped this would be a one-time thing.

—-

Hoo, finally got this up. Planned to get this finished before Christmas, and what happens? I get it done ON Christmas, but need it beta'd before submitting it. Speaking of which, thanks again to The Swordslinger for being my beta reader for this.

Anyway, updates: finally finished that screenplay so the author of the book it's based on is currently going over it herself, so I'm finally free to get back to my own writing again. Namely this chapter and another story I got in the works. Hopefully that one will be up by January. I tend to do more when I put myself on a deadline apparently.

Also, thanks to Nesthor5000 for pointing out this story actually made it to the Kingdom Hearts crossover fanfic recs section on TVTropes. I was honestly not expecting that to happen when I began writing this fanfic as a means to get back into writing my own stuff, but dang, this is awesome! I'm not sure if it's proper to request this, but if anyone interested could actually try giving this story its own page, that would be amazing too!

For those who don't know the second song Ember sings, it's 'Mad Laugh Riot' by Brandon Yates. Why is it used here? Well, think about who voices Ember and whom she also voices that wore the jester outfit, along with where the track comes from. I'm sure you'll get why.

See you next time as we get to the next chapter of the Amity Park Arc! Hopefully soon next year.