Kaitlin had gone very pale very quickly as her mother's voice echoed through the town. "I'm going to die." she muttered softly. She straightened herself up and began walking toward the Skellington house. Holly departed from the group muttering something about having to leave. Lock, Shock, and Barrel seemed all too pleased to let someone else get in trouble for once and slipped away unnoticed. Kaitlin walked into the Skellington's yard where Jack, Sally, and another woman were standing. The woman Hally knew must be Kaitlin's mother but she did not look at all like the all powerful witch she was supposed to be. She was of average mortal height which was rather short by Halloween standards, but she had an elegant stature. She had dark, mystical green eyes much unlike her three daughters, but she had the same dark brown hair that was slightly wavy and hung just above her shoulders. She wore a dark black cloak and long black dress that seemed to have the ABC's on it.
"Kaitlin Dawn, I had to leave the kindergarteners with a sub for this so you better have a good explanation." her mother began her dark green eyes narrowed. Hally wanted to laugh at the thought of the best chaos witch Halloween Town had ever seen teaching little children but she held back her mirth knowing all too well the gravity of the situation.
"Well this part is Vici's fault." Kaitlin said softly.
"Yeah but you started it." Vici interjected.
"Technically no, I just tried to help..." Kaitlin said softly. "Mom I didn't know it was going to go so badly. I was only doing a favor for my friends."
"It's my fault!" Hally said suddenly. She didn't want to face the wrath of an angry witch but she couldn't let Kaitlin take all the blame. "I made her tell me her secret, I'm the one who forced her to use her magic to turn us all back to normal. She didn't want to do this!"
"Kaitlin, you knew better than to use your powers. If something like this happens you should call me. Jack, honestly I would have loved to help. But my daughters are not certified in the field of magic and big spells like this are risky." Her mother said calmly. "We'll discuss punishment later Kaitlin, but right now..." the triplet's mother trailed off waving her hands and in a wave of bright white light the town went back to normal. Hally was pretty sure that all the towns were back to normal now. "This will last you three days maximum, I would love to stay and beat up Oogie but I can't. Kaitlin, Vici, Emily, I expect you to be home at three in order to discuss punishment. No Emily, you aren't being punished." she said before Emily had a chance to ask her question. Kaitlin's mother snapped her fingers and vanished in a flash.
"Well that went better than expected." Kaitlin said optimistically. "I thought she was going to kill me for that one."
"That's because we haven't been punished yet." Vici reminded her.
"Yeah but-" Kaitlin began.
"She's probably waiting until there are no witnesses." Vici continued.
"Victoria stop it." Kaitlin ordered.
"Then she can hide the bodies." Vici continued seeming to be very pleased with herself for coming up with this master plan.
"Honestly sister, at times I really worry about you." Kaitlin said flatly.
"I worry about both of you." Emily said with a shrug.
"Thank you for that Emily." Kaitlin sighed. "Look guys let's just go home. The last thing we want to do is keep mother waiting. Hey Hally, if this is all over before I get back tell me how it turns out ok?" Kaitlin asked.
"Will do!" Hally agreed with a bright smile. "I really hope you don't get into too much trouble because of all of this." She said uncertainly.
"I'm not too worried. After you took the heat like that I'm pretty sure mom won't be too hard on us. Come on sisters let's get out of here." Kaitlin said with a sigh.
"I'm not letting you teleport us." Emily said suddenly. "Don't you remember what happened last time? With the time travel?" she asked sounding rather determined not to let her older sister be the one to teleport them anywhere.
"It was Vici who broke the arms off the Venus De Milo." Kaitlin grumbled.
"Yeah but it was you who broke the nose off the sphinx!" Vici countered. "Let's play magical Frisbee you said, we won't break anything you said."
"Yeah well who was it who teleported poor Amelia Earhart into that alternate dimension?" Kaitlin accused. Emily sighed grabbing both her sisters by the arms and teleporting them away fro the town. Hally did manage to hear Kaitlin and Vici arguing about some Hoffa fellow but these were mortal affairs and Hally knew little about them.
"I'm glad the majority of that is over." Jack said sounding relieved. "Now if you will all excuse me there is a Holiday meeting I must attend to." Sally smiled looking as if a load had been taken off her mind and indeed it had but the main battle had yet to come. Oogie still needed to return his power to the rightful Holidays.
"Good luck dear, and tell Sandy I said hi." Sally said coolly. Jack nodded and turned quickly walking as fast as he could toward the Hinterlands. The Holidays had been restored temporarily and the leaders needed to talk. The curly hill rolled out beneath his feet as he raced toward the dark eerie looking wood where the trees were thick and eventually the Holiday worlds were connected. He walked quickly toward the circle of trees where the Holidays collided and the fate of Oogie Boogie was to be discussed. At last he reached the clearing where it seemed all the Holiday leaders had beaten him. All but one that is. Jack's dark sockets scanned the dark gray surroundings looking from one leader to the next. "Where's Cupid?" he asked uncertainly.
"He should be on his way." Santa replied with a slight shrug. "I'm sure he's just a bit overwhelmed in Valentines Day Town."
"He can't be late to the Holiday Conference! We need him to discuss the plans to attack whoever did this to us!" George Washington said getting a bit too enthusiastic. Had Cupid been there he would have made some sort of sarcastic comment to bring George back to reality but his absence only became more apparent to the others.
"Who did it to us? That doesn't seem as important as what they did to us and how we got back. And why in between that time we combined and we turned into Halloween." The Easter Bunny said, trying his best to break the uneasy silence.
"Jack laddie, the fact that all of us seemed to turn into Halloween Town citizens for a bit does lead us to believe that you know something of how this all came about." the lead leprechaun said looking at the leader of Halloween Town. There was a murmur of agreement from the other leaders and Jack knew an explanation was necessary for the meeting to continue. He had been planning on telling the others what happened from the start he had just been waiting for Cupid to come so that he was not forced to explain everything twice. And of course he was not permitted to give them any names of the people who assisted, Sandy probably already knew. In fact, judging by the twinkle in his bright blue eyes Jack was positive that Sandy knew.
"Well I was waiting for Cupid for this but I suppose that one of you can brief him later." Jack began. "You see the magic had been drained from all of my people just like it had from yours. But there was one who had the powers of chaos. We used the power from this civilian to spark the invention created by Doctor Finkelstien and return our town to what we thought was normal."
"That was when the Holidays combined I'm assuming." the head Pilgrim asked from where he was sitting in front of his designated tree.
"Exactly. Once we discovered the combination of the powers another wielder of the chaos power came. This was not a resident of our town and thusly only took what could be seen and created our worlds from that. Since the magic came from Halloween Town it turned all the worlds into Halloween." Jack continued carefully phrasing each sentence not to give any clues away to the Holiday leaders about who their chaotic helpers were. A promise was a promise. "Finally a well experienced chaos manipulator came and turned us back to normal. But I was given a warning, this would only last for three days." Jack finished the tale of Kaitlin and her family without once giving any hints to the others of who the chaos witch was in Halloween Town. Not that many of the other leaders knew anyone in his town other than himself, there was no taking chances.
"That's very nice Jack, but we must know who did this to us to begin with. I mean, if we only have three days we better make the most of it!" George Washington said getting to his feet as soon as the story ended. "We must untie ourselves against whoever is responsible of our repression! Does anyone know who that is!?" Washington demanded angrily. There were murmurs of no's from all the Holiday leaders except the Pumpkin King.
"Jack?" the five leaders asked together. Jack grinned innocently but his grin faded as the other leaders failed to lighten up their stare.
"We're all familiar with Oogie Boogie by now right?" Jack asked with a heavy sigh. He hated having Oogie in his town causing such trouble for all the Holidays now not just his own. He had already gone after every Holiday before.
"Not that bug filled trouble maker again!" the lead leprechaun said angrily. "You need to do something about that-" but he never got to finish. At that moment the Valentines door flew open and a young woman stumbled to the floor. She dressed in elegant pink robes and her dark red hair was styled with great care and all her jewelry was heart shaped. The holiday leaders knew this woman well, she was the wife of Cupid and she seemed to be in need of help.
"Aphrodite!" the head pilgrim cried leaping to his feet and helping the beautiful young woman to her feet. She was panting hard as if she had run a great distance, her pale and normally flawless skin was stained with tears. "What has happened!?"
"It's Cupid!" Aphrodite gasped placing a slender hand over her heart and catching her breath. "He has been kidnapped!"
