Halloween Town
First Appearance: KINGDOM HEARTS (2002)
Origin: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
If you live for that one night every year at the very end of October, you will consider Halloween Town your perfect paradise; dark, gloomy, full of the unknown and the downright frightening, this town packs a powerful peculiar punch that will send shivers up your spine for the rest of the year. It is to this menacing metropolis that Sora's troupe finds itself next.
Sora's party arrives at the Graveyard in Halloween Town, dressed to the nines in their scary get-up, and is greeted by Zero who zips off toward Guillotine Square - and right there, Jack flies down on a coffin sleigh with skeletal reindeer and wishes his old friends a Merry Christmas; it turns out he met 'Sandy Claws' (Santa Clause) in Christmas Town and was so inspired by the festive theme that he decided to bring Christmas back to his home town and wants Santa's blessing for the event. However, before they can seek Santa, they have to go to Sally who has made Jack a Santa suit for the special occasion, so the group sets off to find her.
They find her at Dr. Finkelstein's lab, where the doctor is entertaining the three troublemakers Lock, Shock and Barrel with the prospect of an invention that he intends to be their playmate. Much to the doctor's dismay, they start throwing the parts of the invention around; this is the last straw for the doctor, and he refuses to proceed with building it. Also, it turns out Jack's suit isn't ready either so while he waits for it to be tailored, he walks off to go and collect Santa Clause, an act which sparks Sally's desire for Sora's gang to keep an eye on the skeleton. With this in mind, the trio goes to destroy several pesky Heartless who have made an unwanted appearance, cornering the Mayor. The Heartless are destroyed before they can say "BOO!" but Jack is so concerned about Santa's safety if he were to be in the town that he hires the trio as bodyguards.
Elsewhere, trouble is brewing with the three troublemakers when suddenly Maleficent appears out of nowhere and decides they will be of use to her, though her purpose is still unclear. Meanwhile, Sora's entourage plus Jack goes through the door to Christmas Town located in the Hinterlands. When they arrive, they find nothing less than they expected: a beautiful, snowy surprise lit up like a Christmas tree by jolly lights, and in the centre of this small town is Santa's workshop. After a fight with some Heartless they meet an angry Santa inside the place, who goes off to investigate a sudden crash inside the workshop, dubbing it as trouble that Jack has brought along with him.
The crash is due to Lock, Shock and Barrel in the company of Maleficent; she is pleased Jack has brought Sora and friends along since it will be easier to deal with them once and for all, but Santa catches her out and she disappears, leaving the three naughty children to run away. After an order from Santa, the gang traces their footsteps back into Halloween Town on Curly Hill, where the scheming Maleficent revives the evil Oogie Boogie - a walking bag of bugs - from his defeat in the heroes' last adventure as an act of vengeance. Due to his lack of energy, Maleficent whisks him away and in his place puts a giant floating Heartless with a cage in which Lock, Shock and Barrel stow themselves during the onslaught. Sure enough, the Heartless goes down quicker than a vampire in sunlight and the three children run off to find Oogie - which is bad news for Sora's group since they know of his tyrant plans, so they resolve to find him and put him down once again.
Meanwhile, it seems Santa has lost his way and has wandered into the Hinterlands while looking for Jack to talk to him about Christmas, where Sally tells him to return to Christmas Town immediately for fear that something bad happen. Suddenly, Oogie - on Maleficent's orders - flies at Santa and kidnaps him, which is the first stage of Maleficent's plan to destroy Christmas Town and make Sora come running. Fortunately, Sally escapes and reports what has just transpired, at which point the group goes running off to Christmas Town to rescue Santa, who, at this point, has been strapped to a conveyor belt in his workshop by Oogie with plans of turning him into a Heartless.
When Sora and his friends arrive at the workshop, they are ambushed by Oogie. One good turn, though, is that Sally manages to retrieve Santa, forcing Oogie to do battle with the angry group of warriors on his strange conveyor belt contraption. After whooping Oogie where it hurts, the sorry sack of slime bursts at the seams - literally! - and they have ensured the safety of the town. Now with this frightening fiend out of the way, Jack goes about business as usual, planning to bring Christmas to Halloween Town with his now-complete Santa suit, but the real Santa makes him realize that Halloween is where his strengths lie. To make matters even better, the Mayor comes along and whisks Jack away with exciting ideas of Halloween; as they are walking away, Jack's Santa suit starts to glow, unlocking another path for Sora and his pals to a fresh new world, to which Sora gladly heads off.
Sora and friends make their return to this spooky land after venturing to other worlds and once they land they find Jack picking up mislaid presents in the Hinterlands, dressed in his Santa suit, before helping him return them to Santa in Christmas Town. It turns out that the presents were actually stolen and unfortunately Santa pins the blame on Jack which in turn spawns a hunt for the real culprit. A disturbance in the workshop leads them to Lock, Shock and Barrel - who are sorting through toys for something - and instantly Sora's gang thinks the three are the real thieves. The three of them deny it but true to their natures, they cause a ruckus and Sora's posse is forced to detain them.
After some interrogation it turns out that the three miscreants were rummaging through the toys for parts to Dr. Finkelstein's experiment, the one whose parts they threw around during Sora's first visit. After the three depart for Halloween Town the gang reports back to Santa that they aren't the ones responsible for the missing gifts, before being interrupted by Sally who arrives with news that the Heartless have made a return in Halloween Town's town square - and they've been playing with presents. The group rushes back there immediately and snatches back the presents before the doctor wheels his way out of his lab and exclaims that his experiment has been stolen. Word is that he was pottering about in his lab when he was attacked, and when he woke up, the experiment was gone. The Heartless seem to be the obvious suspects but the doctor denies this claim and Jack comes up with a cunning idea to trap the real thief by setting up a trail of presents that the thief will follow.
Before they put the plan into effect, they head over to Santa's workshop to fabricate some faux gifts and after they are done, Santa recommends a spot next to his house where they can spring their trap. They lie in wait in a massive wrapped box - a beautiful, fake present - and when they hear the thief approach they pop out to catch it - and come face to face with the doctor's experiment itself! They quickly turn the experiment into nuts and bolts but Santa quickly adds two and two together and realizes that all the experiment was looking for was a heart, which it thought could be found in the Christmas presents which are symbols of love and friendship. With the mystery now resolved, Sora and co. leave for another adventure elsewhere.
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