"Are you all right!?" Jack cried running over to the rubble and trying to lift it but it was far too heavy. "Guys! Can you hear me!?"
"We're ok!" called a voice from inside. It sounded like George. "We're trapped but no one is hurt." Jack nodded turning back to face Oogie. The Boogie Man had the Head Leprechaun trapped in one of the eggs and as the Easter Bunny went to rescue him he was imprisoned by a swarm of ghosts. Santa was shooting multiple icicles at Oogie who simply melted them away.
"Looks like we're the only leaders left." Cupid said sounding unnerved as he flew above the heads of Santa and Lisa. "Can't say this is looking good."
"I would be able to help if I could rid myself of that ANNOYING RINGING!" Lisa shouted once again making her dark malicious voice pound itself into the heads of everyone in the room. "MAKE IT STOP!" she screamed thrusting her pipe forward almost hitting Jack.
"Lisa look out! I'm on your side!" Jack cried jumping backward to avoid a second swing. "Maybe you should stop swinging that thing. You might get one of us hurt." She swung again this time barely missing his chest. "Hey! Whose side are you on anyway!?" Jack demanded angrily.
"I would be able to tell you if I could see what I was doing. But that stupid ringing has made it impossible for me to concentrate!" Lisa retorted angrily. She could normally send her words directly into the mind of whomever she so desired but since the ringing of Christmas bells had broken her focus she could no longer control where her words went. There was a loud crack as her pipe connected with something hard. "Please tell me that was Oogie." Lisa said drawing the pipe backward.
"No, that was a wall." Jack replied. The one time Lisa lost her edge over him and she was on his side! This was not turning out to be a very good battle. Lisa let out an angry cry and struck out angrily once again. "Still a wall." Jack called to her.
"When I get my hands on that good for nothing bag of bugs I swear I'll put him someplace where not even all the ghosts in Halloween Town will be able to dislodge his head..." Lisa grumbled as she felt her way along the wall trying to determine her location without her mind reading powers giving her the power of sight.
"That threat means nothing to me when you don't have the power to back it up." Oogie retorted smugly as he launched a fireball at Santa before imprisoning him in an egg as well. Lisa perked up at the sound of his voice.
"Oh I do." Lisa replied darkly as Jack turned into his Pumpkin King form and spewed flames from the jack-o-lantern's mouth. Oogie laughed and absorbed the magic with ease. "Just you wait. I'll reorient myself and you'll never see the light of the Pumpkin Sun again where I'm taking you. Come on bug boy! Stop these bells and fight me one on one!" she dared.
"I'm not stupid Lisa. I know how you fight. I think this is more fair when you can't be in my head." Oogie replied calmly as he threw a snowball at Jack making him turn back into his normal self. Jack got back to his feet throwing the soul robber at the back of Oogie's legs as he continued to brag to Lisa. The sticky green string wrapped around the fat bug filled legs of Jack's enemy and the Pumpkin King gave a hard jerk of the Soul robber knocking Oogie right on his face. "You will PAY for that Jack Skellington!" Oogie spat as he pulled himself up.
"I'm not afraid of you Oogie Boogie!" Jack shouted angrily. Oogie began to laugh as Jack stood before him looking brave and ready.
"Well you should be." Oogie hissed. Suddenly there was the soft clicking of thousands of tiny bugs crawling over the manor floor each carrying a piece of cloth. Suddenly the King of Bugs had gotten a whole lot bigger. "Now Jack, you will see the true King of the Seven Holidays!" Oogie laughed spitting bugs out of his mouth with every word and showering the Pumpkin King. Jack held his ground refusing to let Oogie shake him.
"Really?" Lisa asked from the other side of the room. "All I see is a fat guy." Oogie grimaced glaring furiously at the nurse demon.
"Silence you insolent fool!" Oogie demanded. He must have increased the ringing for Lisa was once again too disoriented to fight. This time though she could hardly talk she was only able to send Jack small fragments of what she was saying.
"Fat... hate... look... big...ugly..." Lisa said from inside Jacks head. Jack turned to face the disoriented demoness.
"What!?" Jack called uncertainly trying to piece together Lisa's fragmented thoughts. But Cupid filled in the blanks in Lisa's speech rather quickly.
"Jack look out!" Cupid cried. Jack whipped around seeing Oogie's giant arms hurtling down at him. He had no time to react but someone else did.
"Chain of Hearts!" Aphrodite cried as a golden chain shot from where she was standing on the balcony and caught Oogie's arms wrapped in the golden heart shaped links. This gave Jack just enough time to jump out of harms way before Oogie brought his arms down throwing Aphrodite off the balcony.
"I've got you!" Cupid cried flying up and catching his wife before she collided with a wall. He let out a loud cry of pain from his broken arm but flew down and gently placed her back on the balcony. "Honey are you ok?" he asked worriedly.
"I'm fine, but darling your arm... are you going to be all right?" Aphrodite asked her bright blue eyes were wide with worry.
"Fine." Cupid replied with a nod. "But nobody messes with my wife!" He turned round angrily and pulled out his bow with his good arm and tucked it under his arm. He then pulled out an arrow with his good hand, watching the battle below.
"Cupid what are you doing? You know you can't shoot without..." Aphrodite began but she trailed off as her husband loaded the bow using the wall, the ground, and his good hand. Once loaded he proceeded to pull the string back with his teeth and released the arrow. It was a direct hit into Oogie's chest. The Boogie man stumbled backward into the far wall with the neon skeletons hanging down. This gave Jack an idea, a risky one, but one that just might work.
"Lisa!" Jack called as Oogie stumbled forward trying to pull the small arrow out from his massive bug filled body. The distraction loosened his hold on Lisa slightly. "Use Impale!"
"Are you crazy!? I can't see anything and you want me to use Impale!?" Lisa demanded angrily. Impale was a strong attack that Lisa did not use very often for she proffered hand to hand combat. But it was a powerful attack and it was dangerous to use if she couldn't tell where she was aiming. But Jack knew she knew the layout of the manor from when she had gone into Oogie's head earlier. She had a good memory and he hoped it was good enough to work.
"Use Impale on the far wall with the skeletons! You remember that wall from earlier to the left of the balcony!" Jack called.
"You're a moron, but whatever. It's not my funeral." Lisa replied with a shrug. Her crimson hair flew behind her and her hands took on a blackish glow. The wall behind Oogie turned jet black and he stumbled forward quickly to try to get as far away from it as he could. At once a series of long black spikes shot from the wall in rapid succession. One caught the King of Bugs in the back of the neck slicing open the cloth that kept his bugs inside. The black vanished and Lisa's hair fell back down to her waist. "Did I hit him?" she asked smugly letting Jack know in her own little way that she had managed to get rid of the Christmas bells in her head and was now perfectly fine. Bugs began to spill from the back of Oogie's neck. He tried desperately to stop them and managed to do so as he reached normal size. As he shrunk seven beams of light erupted from inside of him one striking each of the seven leaders and then bouncing off into the sky to give the rest of the people their powers back.
"Finally! Back to normal!" Cupid said sounding relieved. Jack nodded, he was about to lunge on Oogie to stop him from getting away when something else grabbed his attention. One of the bugs from Oogie's inside was fluttering near the trapped Holiday leaders.
"Nobody move." Jack hissed feeling his bones tense up as he saw the glowing crimson form of a butterfly hovering inches in front of the egg holding the Head Leprechaun. The butterfly seemed to be made of pure blood colored light and with each beat of it's small wings it drew closer to the egg. But it did not touch it, instead it fluttered to the next leader. Cupid shot at the small creature and his aim was perfect but as the arrow struck the frail glowing body the entire arrow turned to blood and dripped uselessly to the floor. At once the small creature darted toward Cupid examining him from every angle. At last it seemed satisfied and vanished leaving behind a small puddle of blood where it last landed. Jack looked to Lisa waiting for her to tell him where the creature had gone.
"It went home, probably back to Oogie, you got lucky." Lisa announced but of course she could not just leave it at that. No, that would be the nice thing to do. "That was a baby though, otherwise I could never get into its head. So you still have at least one more of those nearby."
"Jack what was that thing!?" Cupid demanded as Jack and Lisa released the other Holiday leaders from their prisons.
"Do you remember before I took over Halloween Town? Back when the there was a fight about how Halloween Town should be run?" Jack asked as he released the last of the leaders. All of them nodded gravely. It had not been a happy time. Half of Halloween was full of pain and danger the other half of thrills and chills. Eventually Jack's parents solved the dispute, deciding that Halloween should be a time of thrills and chills and no danger. By the time Jack took the throne, they banished all of the demons longing for pain and death to the Underworld which was located just below the surface of Halloween Town. "The Underworld is ruled by a malicious and black hearted dictator, a woman so evil she takes pleasure in hearing people scream in agony. It took a lot to banish her to the Underworld when I took over, she was-no is-a dangerous woman. And that butterfly is her trademark." Jack explained gravely. "Which means we're going need to have a talk."
"But first." Lisa began grabbing Cupid by the good arm. "I made a promise I intend to keep." She placed one of her gloved hands on his bad arm but to everyone's surprise Cupid did not cry out in pain. Instead there was a loud crack as his arm healed up. "Now, NEVER expect me to do that again. And do expect to do something for me in return."
"Lisa Harper, I am impressed." Santa said with an approving nod. "I would have never expected that to come from you."
"Really? Am I on your 'Nice' list now?" Lisa asked her sarcasm was vicious and harsh but that just showed she was back to normal.
"Lisa, you brutally beat your fiancee and his mistress to death with a lead pipe. And then went on a vindictive killing spree." Santa replied flatly.
"You say that like it's a bad thing." Lisa replied mocking shock in her voice. "Look, I'm out of here before I decide to do anything else helpful. Have fun in the Underworld Jackie boy." She added maliciously before flipping her long luxurious blood colored hair and walking off.
