"Thou shant mess with me sister."
"I'm not moving one inch until you tell me what in Christmas Town your planning."
"If thee hast thine own health in mind thou shall shutest thine mouth!"
"Don't you threaten me; I can tell Oogie that you can talk."
"Watch thine mouth sister. Thy tongue shall be thine downfall."
"Don't you go telling me what's going to be my downfall. You'll be the downfall of all of us if you keep the 'Master Plan' to yourself. Well you can just do it on your own because I am not moving from this spot until you-"
"Toil come thus little sister. Leave thy older sibling to perish at the fault of her own stubbornness."
"Hey! That's not fair! She's six she'll follow anyone blindly-hey! HEY! GET BACK HERE!" Trouble called as her older brother lead her little sister away through the bottom of Oogie's manor. She let out a frustrated shout feeling like that if she didn't follow Double she was going to have a rough time of it later. At last she ran after him catching up with her siblings almost instantly. After all, she had her powers the spell had not effected them.
"Pleasure to see thee sister." Double said with a smirk the glowing blood colored orb like eyes floating in his dark and deep eye sockets darted briefly in her direction. "Hast thou realized thine ignorance. Or perhaps thou art frightened of our master's darkened manor-"
"You watch your mouth!" Trouble snapped angrily. "You better be glad that I'm coming with you because there is no way that your going to be able to get anything done with just Toil." Toil glared at her older sister angrily.
"I can do anything you can do!" Toil shouted angrily. "And I can do it better." Toil let out a cry as a blast of wind knocked her to the floor. "DOUBLE! TROUBLE'S BEING MEAN!" Toil cried running after her brother and clinging to his arm.
"Tattle Tale." Trouble grumbled. "Oh sure go running to big brother like a little baby! Double! Trouble's being a big meanie and I don't have the power to stand up for myself!" Toil mocked, making her voice obnoxious, loud, and highly annoying.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!" Toil screamed jumping up and down on the ground sending shock waves and sound waves in such force Trouble had to use a shield of wind to deflect them. The two sisters were so involved in their argument they failed to realize their older brother had stopped walking. His pale fists were clenched and his posture was erect, his entire composure should have been a warning to his sisters had they noticed it.
"SILENCE THINE TONGUE, FOUL SOULED HARPIES! ELSE THEE SHALL HAVE THINE MOUTHS SEWN SHUT!" Double shouted his dark voice echoing off the walls as he whipped around facing his sisters. His sisters' activities came to an abrupt halt as if they had been doused by icy water. They stared at their older brother in stunned silence. His orb like eyes, which had been blazing with the intensity of blood colored fire, had died down. Slowly, his fists unclenched, his body relaxed, and his mouth formed his normal icy and frightening smile. "'Tis better." he said at last turning around and continuing in the direction they were going, through the dark underground tunnel leading toward the Torture Casino. Trouble walked carefully behind him keeping her distance, and Toil cowering behind her afraid to get too close to Double in case he got angry again.
"That whole sewing our mouths shut. That was just an empty threat. You wouldn't really try something like that... right?" Trouble asked uncertainly. Double made no move to respond, walking quickly down the passage. "Right?" she asked again putting a bit more emphasis on the word 'right'. She was not liking his silence.
"'Tis a possibility." Double replied icily. Trouble found herself slowing to allow the distance between she and her frightening older brother to increase. "Hurry dear sisters. Test me not." he warned. Trouble did increase her pace but not to the point where she was even with her brother. "Thou tryest my patience. I fear if thou dost not increase thine pace it shall be increaséd by force." At once Trouble and Toil sped up until they were directly behind their older brother. "There, now that thou knowest thine place, the plan shalt be revealed to thee." Double said calmly. "The Town waketh to find all powers have been diminished. All magic hath vanished from the land leaving it barren to the standards of the lowest class. The mortal. As the chaos dies down the town shalt realize that thine Master must be in control of a stunt so maddening as this. When that time arrives we, dearest sisters, are nowhere to be found."
"I get it!" Trouble said excitedly. "As far as those idiots in Halloween Town know, we aren't here!" When the mansion was investigated the Halloween people would never think of them. As far as they know, Double, Toil, and Trouble didn't exist. In fact, they never did.
****************
"Jack! Jack is that you!?"
"Sandy!?"
"Santa!?"
"CUPID!?"
"So it's not just our town than is it?" Jack asked looking at all the Holiday Leaders as they sat in front of their designated Tree. Currently they were in the hinterlands, center of all the holidays, where a massive group meeting had been called into effect.
"Apparently not." Cupid replied irritably. "I've got an entire town full of arrows that are actual arrows and a bunch of people who couldn't fly if their lives depended on it." Cupid sighed putting his head in his hands, his blonde hair was wild from running around constantly trying to control the panic.
"My elves are to tall to fit in the houses." Santa added. "And no one knows who's being naughty and who's being nice anymore." Santa leaned his head against the bottom of the tree. Above him the Christmas tree shaped door was steadily loosing its sparkle.
"At least your people were relatively human to begin with. You try telling a bunch of hens they need to learn how to act like people." the Easter Bunny snapped. "I mean take me for example, I'm the Easter BUNNY. Now I'm the Easter guy in bad need of braces!"
"What about us in St. Patrick's Day Town laddie?" the lead leprechaun asked irritable. "Our four leaf clovers have become three leaf clovers, our people can't even remember where they left their gold!" That sparked panic through the seven leaders who frantically began to discuss the problems their certain worlds were being faced with.
"Calm down everyone!" George Washington called. "We're all in trouble. Independence Day Town can hardly get our fireworks to explode. And arguing about it isn't going to help us fix this!" He had a point but still a Holiday managed to object.
"Easy for you to say, you're Holiday is over for the year. Halloween, Christmas and we still have preparations to do!" the Head Pilgrim, co-leader of Thanksgiving Day Town, said angrily. "How are we supposed to get all the Thanksgiving cooking done the 'old fashion' way without any magic!?" he demanded.
"You could try... I don't know... cooking it normally." Cupid interjected. The Head Pilgrim ignored him trying his best to avoid getting into a fight with the best archer in the Holiday Worlds. The tension between the leaders during the pause was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
"Even if we do fix this problem, we'll have an impossible amount of catching up to do." Jack pointed out. His addition was not a helpful one, but he was right. There was a loud sigh as all of the Holiday Leaders realized the hopelessness of their predicament.
"So how do we break it to the mortals that our Holidays aren't exactly going to be up to their standards this year?" Santa asked closing his eyes as if trying to make the problem vanish. He opened them again looking questioningly from one leader to the next.
"Do we have to tell them?" the Head Leprechaun asked hopefully. The other leaders glared at him furiously and he gave them an innocent grin. "I'm just saying that communication between us and the mortal realm has always been difficult."
"He's got a point, we can't exactly go over to their world and tell them, we can't cross over unless it's a Holiday." The Easter Bunny said with a shrug. Silence fell once again over the leaders like a thick blanket; even the wind seemed to have stopped.
"I guess the only thing to do is go on with our lives as normally as we can, and try everything possible to fix this." Jack said shaking his head. At once people began to object but he cut them off. "I don't like it all that much either, but we have to do what we have to do. Plus, whoever did this to us must not want us to fulfill our job. We can't give them that satisfaction."
"He's right. We need to stand strong to see this through." George Washington agreed sounding such more at ease than everyone else who had been all day. "With all of us working on it there's no way this will last, we'll be the United Towns of the Holidays!"
"Who saw that one coming?" Cupid asked sarcastically turning to go. "I'll keep an eye open for the culprit but my main concern is if anyone finds out how to fix this they share it with everyone. Agreed? It's only fair if one Holiday is fixed all of they should all be."
"Right." they agreed all returning to the Holiday from whence they had come. It was worse than they had first thought. One Holiday is one thing but all seven? This was more trouble that any one person could cook up. Whoever the culprit was he had help. And Jack had a good idea who the mastermind behind this chaos was. It was time to pay an old enemy a visit.
