Chapter 6: To the Rescue
Jake raced through the forest, not exactly sure where he was going. It was already dark out and the woods seemed harder to navigate. Jake: "I can find it if I'm looking for it, I can find-" his thoughts were cut short from a familiar barking sound reaching through the forest. Zero's form came into view just over the last hill, trying to catch up to Jake. When the dog did afew seconds later, Jake noticed he didn't look so great. Zero's nose was flickering, and he was flying lower to the ground. "Man, they did a number on you, huh, Zero? They shouldn't be able to hurt a ghost. Are you okay?" Zero whimpered, trying to make his nose glow brighter to light the way. "That's okay, don't bother, Zero. Let me find it myself." Zero's light went back to flickering and he floated down to the ground. "You'll be okay, right?" Jake asked. The dog whimpered again, then went to sleep. Jake wanted to take Zero back to the house but there wasn't time for that. He would have to rely on the dog's own ability and then turned back down the path. "Alright, calm down, Jake. I can find the portals if I'm looking for them, right? I never understood that but, err, I REALLY NEED TO FIND THEM!" he yelled. Jake turned a corner sharply and suddenly slammed into a tree. "Ow, dumb tr-" He took another look at the only partially moon lit area. Six trees where encircled before him, and they all had something on them. Jake stepped into the center of the trees, looking around. It took him a moment to find the Christmas door. It was completely brown now, blending into the tree itself. He took a breath and opened it. When he looked inside, nothing was there. Suddenly a cold wind came rushing from the darkness, and sucked Jake inside quickly.
Elf: "There. I fixed it!" the pint sized worker called to the other elves. A machine started up again, the elf jumping down. "So is that it?" other: "Yeah, that's all that's broken for now. I tell ya, all this started when Santa disappeared. We're likely to break down completely, soon." he said, flipping through pages on a small clipboard. "I know it's weird, but it'll be okay. Jack and Mrs. Clause have been doing a great job, even if they haven't found Santa yet." The other elf gave him a skeptical look, "Like you trust him. Come on, it's not like you can tell me you're happy with all this." "Of coarse I'm not but you're not being fair-!" he stopped as a cold burst of wind suddenly came through the room. Orange and brown leaves, never seen in Christmas Town blew into the room, and outside again.
Jack looked up as the strange wind suddenly died down and the leaves carried by it came to rest at his feet. That was when the sound of excited and curious elves from one floor above filled the air. elf: "Hey, look! Someone's coming over the hill!" other: "Who is it?" third: "I don't know. It kinda' looks like..." fourth: "Yeah, it does. Hey, Jack, do you know-? Jack?" the elf looked around but Jack was already gone.
Jake admittedly had no idea where he was going and was taking his best guess in direction. He had always wanted to see Christmas Town but now found himself ignoring it. There were more important things to do right now. He looked up as the road he was on opened and he saw just over the end building the top of the workshop that had been described to him so well over the years. He ran down the street but just as he turned the corner something grabbed him. Jake: "Hey, let me-! Dad!" Jake exclaimed happily, realizing it was Jack who had caught him. "I missed you!" Jack: "I missed you too, but what are you doing here?" Jake suddenly relized the answer to that, "You gotta' come back right now, Dad. See there were all these bats and then Lock, Shock, and Barrel grabbed us and Santa was there and-" "Whoa, slow down." "And, Dad, Oogie Boogie's back." he finished. "What? How?" Jack asked, not sure he believed that. "They brought him back with a spell. Now Mom, Cindy, and Luke, and Santa Clause are all trapped and we gotta' help them!"
Jake: "So how do we find the portals from here?" Jake asked as they ran over the snow and past the borders of Christmas Town. Jack: "Remember what I told you about being able to find them if that's what you were looking for?" "Yes." "That's all there is to it. The reason no one had even found them before is because no one knew they existed." Jack explained. "So how'd you find them?" That was a good question and it took Jack a second to come up with an answer, "I guess I was looking for them," he answered off handly, "Ah, there they are." They stopped at the top of a hill where circled just at the base infront of them were the six trees. They slid down the hill, walking inside the circle. The sight that greeted them, however, was not a pleasant one. The Halloween door had turned brown just as the one to Christmas Town in the Halloween world had. The pumpkin faced door no longer had its evil grin, but it looked sad and scared. Jake was actually getting rather scared himself and had to ask, "Dad.. what's going on?" "I'm not sure, Jake." he admitted, then opened the door. They both entered the portal, the pumpkin door slamming behind them as a wisp of leaves blew past.
Maybe the six portals had something for hills as Jack and Jake appeared atop the curved hill above the Halloween Town pumpkin patch. Lock, Shock, and Barrel's tree house was outlined against the light of the moon, although it somehow seemed darker than the moon made it appear. Jake: "Let's go save 'em. We could scare them into a second grave." Jake started down the hill but Jack stopped him. Jack: "Stay here, Jake." "What? But why?" "I don't want anything to happen to you. Go get the Mayor and tell him what's going on." "Aw, but he can't do anything." "Jake." "Alright... I'll hurry." Jake dashed down the hill and toward Halloween Town.
Lock, Shock, Barrel, and Oogie Boogie were sitting around the spiked turn table in the center of Oogie's lair playing cards. Shock and her brothers had their cards facing out, so off coarse the black monster across the table was winning everytime. The black and green flame was still burning, lighting part of the room in a green glow. Lock: "Hey, boss, while we're sittin' here playing poker, couldn't we be out causing some trouble in town?" Barrel: "Yeah, get out abit." he suggested. Shock: "You have been cooped up an awfully long time." Oogie raised one eye at them. Oogie Boogie: "I told you, we're going to wait until that runt gets back. Then we'll have some fun." he laughed to himself and the other three started to wonder is eight years of wherever the heck their boss had been hadn't done something to him. He had certainly had plenty of time to contemplate revenge. What he had in store probably wasn't going to be pretty. Meanwhile, across the room. Luke: "When are they gonna' let us go? I hate to wait. I wanna' leave." the three year old complained. Cindy: "You're tied up Luke, so it's not really your decision." "That's not fair." he commented, then crossed his arms indignantly. "Hey, Luke, how did you-?" Cindy started to ask, then relized she had been untied aswell. Sally brought her hands infront of her, not sure of what was going on, then felt a hand on her shoulder. Jack: "Miss me?" Sally gasped, turned around and threw her arms around Jack's neck. Sally: "You're alright!" "You're surprised?" Of corse Cindy and Luke were thrilled, but Cindy looked over her shoulder to make sure they hadn't been noticed. Luke: "Yay! You're back!" Well, that was pointless. The four across the room looked up immediately. Lock, Shock, and Barrel scattered as Oogie Boogie tipped over the table. His yellow eyes were burning and the room seemed to hit another shade of black. Jack: "Take Cindy and Luke and leave," he said to Sally. Sally: "But what about you?" "I'll be fine," he answered seriously. Cindy untied Santa quickly, running back over. Santa: "You again. I knew you had something to do with this." he said to Jack. Whatever had smoothed over in the past eight years seemed to be gone. "Well I did come to save you." Jack said, mostly ignoring him. Sally moved Cindy and Luke into a corner, seeing Lock, Shock, and Barrel blocking the exit. Those three, who had caused all of this, still had something up their sleeves. Shock pushed a button on a small black box and suddenly the entire room lit up and started to move again. The armed cowboys in the walls turned on as the floor started to rotate. Shock: "We tried to keep things the same for you, boss." she called. Lock: "But we added afew things!" He grabbed the box from Shock and pushed in another button. Spikes rose out of the floor and ceiling as the buzzsaw started to swing rapidly. The room looked like a death trap and essentially it was. Oogie: "I've been waiting a long time for this, Jack." Jack: "Haven't we done this before?" he asked, getting out of the way as another row of spikes rose from the floor. "You have alot more people to disappoint this time," Oogie commented evilily, looking over at the small group of people in the corner. The buzz saw blade whirled down from the ceiling, slicing through the middle of the room. "I never quite understood you, Jack," Oogie said laughing as the traps avoided him, "Everyone admired you and you thought it was a bad thing!" he apparently found this funny. The room continued to whirl of metal and daggers while Lock, Shock, and Barrel fought over who could orchestrate them. Oogie Boogie was enjoying himself, coming up with plenty verbal onslaught. "And as if worship wasn't enough, you go off and impersonate Sandy Clause! One holiday not good enough? Ha, you're not the only one who's ever had an identity crisis." the black monster was laughing at all of this, not really bothering to pay attention to anything else. "And- uh, hey, where'd he go?" Oogie turned around quickly to see a saw blade coming toward him. His form dispearsed to get away from the blades, and regrouped itself afew feet away. "Ha, nice try. It wont be as easy as last time." he still wasn't sure exactly where Jack had disappeared to. It was hard to tell with everything moving rapidly through out the room. He knew one thing though. Oogie's form once again fell apart and then rematerilized right infront of Sally and the others. Cindy: "You jerk! Leave us alone!" "You've got quite a mouth for such a little kid, kid." Oogie looked around, "Are you just going to abandon your family like that, Jack?" he yelled, looking at the four people infront of him. Santa just glared at him while Luke attempted to stay out of sight. Jack: "No, not quite," Jack answered, causing everyone else to turn. The black flame was just beside Jack who had a smile on his face. Lock, Shock, and Barrel gasped, looking at their boss and not sure what to do. Oogie growled, "So you think you've got an ace up your sleeve, huh? Well I hold all the cards here. What do you plan to do with that?" Lock and the others had managed to maneuver though the traps and get nexted to Oogie Boogie. Lock: "Ah, boss, that flame is, uh, how we brought you back..." he said as quietly as he could. One of the Boogie Man's eyes bugged, now well aware of what all that meant. "Alright, Jack, fine, let's make a trade. You're family and friends, for that fire." Oogie's lower half dissolved and encircled the four now hostages. "What do you say?" There was an obvious nervous tone in his voice as his just restored world lie in the balance, yet his eyes were still flaming against his black form. Jack wasn't completely calm about this either. This was his family they were talking about, but he had no reassurance that Oogie Boogie would keep his word..... and every reason to believe he would not. Jack: "You only care about power and reputation," Jack said, "you wouldn't give that up for anything. I'd give it all up for what I have now." The green flame fell from the stand, slamming onto the the floor. The flames erupted, hitting the ceiling of both the cave and the lair in a burst of black, green, and orange. Oogie Boogie roared in anger but before anything could be done his form colapsed again, the mass of bugs twitching, trying to break free of one another. Everyone got out of the way just as there was another eruption of green fire that shook the walls. Everything started to shake, rocks falling from the ceiling as the remaining energy from what was once the Boogie Man swirled around the room. Santa: "We need to get out of here!" he said, stating the obvious. That was going to be easier said than done. The top of the room suddenly colapsed, destroying the stairs which had led from of the lair. Shock: "What do we do now?" she asked as more rocks came cascading down around them. Cindy: "Well you three started this problem! Don't you have another way out?" Barrel: "We never thought we need one!" Jake: "Hey! Hey, up here!" Everyone looked up. Jake threw a rope down from the ledge of ground revealed after the stairs had been crushed. This was far too familiar, only this time their were eight people and everything was falling apart. That was when several more ropes were thrown down through the small opening, the faces of several town citizens appearing behind them. When Lock, Shock, and Barrel were pulled up as the last in the group, the entire building, tree and all colapsed in on itself. Jake: "Aw, man, I missed all the fun." A spiral of green energy rose from the remains and then burst, throwing sparks everywhere..... So that was it. Oogie Boogie was gone for good now, but what about..... Lock and his two other cohorts responsible for almost killing Jack and his entire family, not to mention destroying Christmas, were trying to quietly sneak away. They ran around a corner of the forest and an unearthly roar followed, scaring them back out into the open. They turned around petrified, only to see Jake laughing at them. He had gotten ahead of them in order to try out his awakened talent. Jack: "When did he learn how to do that?" Jack asked, sounding proud that Jake had gotten the ability to scare people senseless while he was away. Sally: "Like father like son." she commented. Mayor: "Now, someone can explain what's going on we assume?" The rest of town, most of which had shown up, were all looking confused at exactly what had happened. "Jack, how about a little help." he pleaded, his cheerful face present. Jack: "Tomorrow, Mayor." he answered. "Uh, but, Jack..." "I promise I'll explain everything tomorrow. In the meantime, you might want to do something about them," he looked over at Lock, Shock, and Barrel, and then over at Santa who was still looking angry over the matter, "And, Mr. Clause, your wife is awfully worried about you." Santa: "Yes, I'll be heading back in a moment. But, Jack, I just wanted to tell you something. I may think that this entire place is an insane asylum, however, I figure you must be doing something right to have such wonder children." kids: "Thanks!" Santa smiled, then snapped his fingers and disappeared with a spiral of snow flakes.
Chapter 7: This is Halloween
