The high fives were accepted with much enthusiasm. After a few more rounds of laughter, the trio settled down.

"It's gonna be hard to top this one," Lock said. "It might be the greatest trick we've ever pulled!"

Shock settled down beside Carver.

"And it was my idea," she said with a grin.

"I should make something to celebrate!" Barrel said gleefully. He got up to do just that, before he remembered the empty spice cabinet and instantly deflated. "Oh. Wait..."

That got Lock and Shock to start laughing again.

"Forgetting something there?" Lock asked.

"Guuuuys!" Barrel whined.

His misery only lasted a moment.

"Although...she doesn't remember, right?"

"Not a thing," Shock said.

Barrel grinned.

"So we should be able to get them back!"

"Gotta be careful, there, bro," Lock said. "If she catches you and asks why, she'll start to remember why she has them."

Shock quickly perked at that.

"...The brooms are still glued in the shop."

She gave a quick glance to Carver.

Carver sat up as that sank in, then flopped backward again. "Booooooones!" she groaned. "I didn't think of that..."

"None of us did," Lock said with a shrug.

"Nothing we can do now " Shock said.

She gave a pointed glance to Barrel.

"And I mean nothing. Let's not set anything off sooner than we have to."

Barrel pouted at her, then went to one of the shelves. It was high up, and only held his things. All three of them had a designated shelf that the other two didn't touch, with Shock's right below his, and Lock's under hers for ease of access. After pushing aside some strange objects he found in the sewer and his old teddy bear, Barrel accessed the snacks he kept for himself. He grabbed a box of bone biscuits that was dwindling down and sat down to finish it off in a huff.

"So what now?" Lock asked.

"I'm sure we can find something to do while the rest of the town is in a tizzy," Shock said sweetly.

Barrel shoved a bone biscuit in his mouth.

"Lith whath?" he asked as he chewed.

"We could always practice," Lock suggested.

Barrel grimaced. Shock shook her head.

"Not tonight. We're supposed to be dejected, remember? Although..."

She went to the armory and came back with with a board game, one she knew was bound to start a fight eventually. That was normal for them, and if any of the graveyard ghouls heard them, they'd be ignored.

"Conquerer?" she asked.

Lock and Barrel perked up.

"Dibs on Ghouls' Gulch!" Lock cried.

"What? No, I want it!" Barrel whined.

Shock grinned.

They'd end tonight on a good note.

While Barrel and Lock were arguing over Ghouls' Gulch, Carver snatch up the Mayor's Hat piece. "I don't care about the Gulch, but you guys better not take any of the Rotting Railway bridges!"

Not that she wasn't planning on teaming up with Shock to get the Gulch anyway, just to mess with them, but she didn't expect them to respect her dibbs on the Railway, either.

Lock quickly snatched the hearse piece before Shock could. Barrel casually took the cauldron while they fought over it so the loser would be denied their second favorite.

The rest of the night would be chaos as they teamed up, back-stabbed each other, cheated, flipped the board twice, and ended the game as they always did in a brawl, until they finally tired themselves out. The floor was a mess of Conquerer pieces, with Carver the closest one to winning by right of having a bigger chunk of the board under control before it got flipped the second time.

~~~

Most of the rest of Halloween Town simply went home for uneasy unrest. A few citizens found themselves kept awake by the events, none more than Jack.

All of the year's preparations - gone! How did it come to this? Who could have done this? Even Sally didn't have an answer, and quietly tried to reassure him. Neither of them got much sleep.

Dr. Finklestein couldn't sleep either, and immediately went to work trying to puzzle out how they could have missed it. Wolfman howled in sorrow. Behemoth dejectedly tended to his pumpkins. The witches closed shop early, though not without questioning why their brooms were stuck to the walls and ceiling. A matter for the morrow, as the loss of Halloween weighed more heavily on their minds.

In Vampire Castle, the four vampire brothers paced together in a perfect circle. An outsider looking in might consider their perfect pace and distance from one another akin to a dreary carousel moving in perfect time.

"All of that time - wasted!" the smallest cried.

The largest one - Vlad - shook his head as he paced.

"My dear daughters," he said with a sigh. "All that practice, and for what? We've seen many Halloweens, but they've only just started."

"It's a shame for us all," another piped in.

They continued their pacing as they tried to ponder what to do.

Jewel helped her husband with various tests of the ground water, astral alignment, and so on. At one point late into the morning, as they were building a machine to scan the brain waves of everyone in town, she stopped and looked around thoughtfully.

"Carver isn't home yet... I can't recall, did she say she was sleeping over with her friends?"

Finkelstein growled and banged on a rusty bolt with his wrench. "No, she did not. I'll punish her next time I see her. Right now, however..." He tried unscrewing the bolt again with a nasally groan, before snarling and motioning for Igor to give it a go. "Right now, it's better that she's not here getting in the way, interfering with our work."

Jewel nodded. "It's also probably better for her over there, anyway. It's been a very stressful time for everyone, and the four of them can comfort each other better than if she were alone in her bedroom."

"Hrmph. If she had chosen better friends, she wouldn't be grounded all the time and wouldn't have to be alone in her bedroom."

His wife responded lightly, "If you were more supportive, she might not take so much pleasure in giving you reasons to ground her."

"I'll be supportive when the rebellious, ungrateful pumpkin does something worth supporting!"

By morning, most of the town's spirits - literal and figurative - were still down. The streets were still nearly empty by noon. The witches' shop remained closed. Agnes and Aggie slowly took stock and noted anything they needed to replace. Agatha was free to roam for today.

Wolfman had passed out on the steps of Town Hall. The Mayor frantically scrambled for plans for the next Halloween and tried to comfort himself in that the biggest surprises would be even bigger next year to make up for the loss. The Wind rattled around town in a huff, just as dejected as the rest of the town. Jack, however, was keen on getting to the bottom of this.

Things were going do well yesterday...well...what was he doing yesterday? He placed around and his tower as he tried to retrace his steps. Sally had at some point sat down on the one window ledge with a seat and fallen asleep. Zero curled up in her lap and snoozed himself. Jack shot a glance to both of them with a smile, but then went back to his pacing. He bit back a yawn as he once more tried to focus on yesterday's events.

That for some reason, didn't come to mind.

Surely he spoke to the Mayor at some point? Jack glanced out some his tower windows to the square. Even from here, the fountain water shone with slime in the dull pumpkin sunlight. That sparked something.

Fountain...Mayor...it felt like it was starting to come together, but what else was there? Jack glanced at the plans on his desk. No, those were probably more important. Surely he was finalizing...something the day before Halloween. Rehearsals? A last-minute change?

Jack took a seat at his desk and looked over the plans again. All of the graphs, diagrams, charts, and notes made his skull hurt. He placed his skull in one hand and yawned again as he tried to look them over. He'd been up all night. Maybe some sleep would...

As soon as he closed his eye sockets, he started to drift off.

~~~

Lock was the first to wake up in the morning dogpile. Something soft, yet lumpy was under him, and as he shifted, he realized he'd at some point climbed on Barrel to use as a mattress. Barrel was sprawled on his back and snoring. Shock was curled up under him, her hat askew, and her crossed arms serving as a makeshift pillow. Carver was nearby, sprawled on her back with her legs over Barrel's chest, her cage completely open, and her vines spread out over the floor. Aside from pulling off their shoes, none of them had bothered to undress for bed. Lock stretched and climbed down from the pile - then screamed out a curse as he stepped on something.

Looking down, he noticed the black cat from Conquerer under his foot. Lock picked it up and threw it back in the box. Several more cards and game pieces were just as haphazardly thrown back in to clear a path to the slide. Hunger gripped him, and he didn't feel like waiting for Barrel to get up - or whine about the spices again.

Shock stirred a bit at the scream.

"Keepitdown," she said in a tired slur.

Lock used his tail to flick a game piece in her direction. It smacked against her hand. Shock brushed it away as it hit, then tried to roll over - a difficult task with Barrel collapsed on top of her. She groaned and tried to shift, and only when she failed two more times did she better wake.

"H-hey!" she cried as she tried to squirm out from under her little brother. "Move it, deadweight!"

Barrel only loudly snored in response, which got Lock to laugh at her misfortune. Shock grabbed a nearby game piece and threw it at Lock. He grinned and threw another one back.

Carver's vines lazily flopped around until they found some part of each of the two, and haphazardly smacked them both. She could throw a good stinging slap or solid punch during the mid-sleep fights, but now was don't-wanna-wake-up time, and she could afford to be more sluggish.

Her head was on its usual shelf, leaving her silent. But she tried to convey with vague motions and pointing that their ruckus -- well, mostly Shock's squirming, but that was kind of Lock's fault too --was shifting Barrel around. And she liked where her leg rest was currently positioned.

Shock growled and pushed Carver's cage, as it was within her reach. Lock laughed and tossed a game piece into Carver's open cage, then dodged another vine.

"See you downstairs!" he said cheerfully, before he dove down the slide.

Shock threw another game piece at him right before he disappeared. It hit his foot and ricocheted back to the floor.

"I hate you both," she muttered.

She tried to shift again to get out from under Barrel. She managed to slide her legs out from under him on the other side, so now his body only pinned her across her waist and back. Shock then kicked his side to try to wake him. Barrel again snored louder, and clumsily tried to brush her foot away. Shock tapped her fingers along the floorboards for a moment, then kicked at Barrel from one side and sharply elbowed him at the other. That got him in mid-snore.

"Wh-wha--?"

"Get. Off."

Barrel sleepily nodded and rolled over, now completely pinning his sister's legs. He hardly noticed Carver's legs falling off his chest as he did.

Carver, deprived of her leg rest, immediately draped them over Shock's back as compensation. She closed her cage too, though it took a bit of fiddling to get the latch done. She could use that piece next time they were playing and the others were distracted. With that done, she unraveled a few of the vines fro her leg frames and wrapped them around Shock's arms and chest. As well as being a nice position to cuddle, it also made it more difficult for Shock to continue disturbing her.

Shock fought the vines when she saw then unravel from the framework, but with Barrel hindering her movements, it didn't take long for Carver to tie her wrists together, then pull them into her chest. She bit at the vines to try to make Carver let go, and tried again to free her legs from under Barrel, to no avail.

With nothing else she could do, Shock let out a frustrated shriek. Barrel snorted awake again, acknowledged the shriek, then shifted for comfort.

Carver rolled her cage toward Shock so she could cuddle her with all of her vines. One went across her best friend's mouth to gag her. Once Shock was forced to settle down and accept her fate, Carver snuggled the rest of her body closer and went back to sleep for a little bit longer.

It wouldn't be without an attempt to bite the vine in half, but Shock quickly realized Carver used one of her thicker vines for precisely that reason. She struggled again to free herself, either from under Barrel or from Carver's vines, but the more she struggled, the tighter the grip, like a boa constrictor.

An impatient growl echoed in her throat, but the pumpkin creature had her right where she wanted her. Shock gave up and shifted only enough to make herself reasonably comfortable, then slowly let herself drift off again.

The sound of laughter woke her up after a time. Lock had come back and found the scene had gotten worse in his absence.

"A little tangled up there, Shock?"

Shock turned enough to glare at him. She tried to retort, but then remembered the vine covering her mouth. Still, she settled on a muffled threat. It of course only made her little brother laugh even harder.

Her shifting and struggling combined with Lock's laughter got Barrel to finally wake, now that the last throes of REM had passed. Barrel yawned, sat up, then reached behind him to scratch his back. When he finally moved, Shocked pulled her legs free, curled them in and kicked him off.

One down.

She then shifted onto her knees, knowing she'd take Carver with her, then tried to slam the pumpkin creature into the floor.

Carver was only slightly disturbed by the movement at first, but immediately came back into consciousness as she was slammed back down again. Several of her vines came loose in the initial moment of shock, including the one used for the gag. Once she was aware of hr surroundings, knee'd Shock in the side before trying to wrestle her back down.

One moment of shock was all she needed. Shock pulled her wrists free before Carver could ensnare them again, and grabbed for a handful of vines in each hand to keep Carver from completely trapping her. She then brought up a foot to kick Carver's cage.

Barrel finally woke up enough to acknowledge what was going in, and grinned.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"Better - ngh - hope she...wins," Shock said as she tried to keep Carver from latching on again, "because you're - gah! - next!"

"Me?" Barrel asked, confused. "What'd I do?"

"You only pinned her under your heavy corpse all night!" Lock answered with a grin.

Barrel glowered at him.

"I'm not that heavy!"

Lock poked his stomach.

"Could've fooled me! How many pumpkins did you put away yesterday?"

Barrel threw a punch at him. Lock, in a rare moment of appreciating his shorter height, ducked down in an easy dodge, then slid a leg to trip him. Barrel fell back into the floor - and into several of the leftover game pieces Lock hadn't bothered to put away. He kicked his older brother, only for Lock to repay it with a tackle. The two of them tumbled over towards Shock and Carver.

Carver grabbed onto the foot just before it struck her cage and yanked it upward to try to pull Shock off balance with her own momentum. Her own foot swiped out to hook the leg Shock was putting her weight on. She accepted contact from a few blows as she tried to get a better hold on her friend's torso.

Shock found herself thrown off-balance, and the only reason she didn't completely crumble to the floor was due to Carver's vines now ensnaring her chest. She tried to stand on her one free foot...only for Lock and Barrel to come tumbling over.

The brothers bowled into the girls, leaving the four of them a tangled mess of squirming limbs and trying to crawl over each other to get away.

Carver ended up second from the bottom of the squirming pile of bodies, but luckily for her, Shock had ended up below her. Now that the intitial moment of shock had passed and she was fully awake, she was able to waste no time reassuming her dominant position. She unraveled all the vines from her arm and leg frames and tied up all of her opponent's limbs. She even grabbed onto Shock's hair to pull her head back, making it difficult for the oldest trickster to even move her upper body comfortably by the time her brothers had rolled off of them.

Once she was certain Shock wasn't going anywhere, she tapped out her familiar message: Say uncle!

Lock utilized the commotion to slip away. Barrel hardly comprehended what happened, and by the time he disentangled himself from Shock and Carver, hunger overrode his desire to fight. He left the girls to it as he headed for the slide.

Shock found her arms pulled behind her back now that Carver had taken back the advantage. An attempt to kick the pumpkin creature away only allowed her friend to ensnare her ankle, with the other being caught in Carver's vines as she fell to the ground again. Shock curled her legs in and managed to deliver one final kick before Carver completely immobilized her.

"Screw you!" she cried upon getting Carver's message.

Nearby, Lock had dusted himself off and had settled himself to watch the results unfold.

"Not sure she could," he said, then pondered it. "Although..."

"Shut up!"

That only got Lock to laugh. Shock tried to twist herself free, only to find herself more tightly ensnared. After several moments of struggle, she was finally forced to concede.

"Urgh! Okay, uncle!"

Carver made a note to kick Lock later, but calmly waited for Shock to give in. As soon as the yield was made, she released her friend and slithered away to carefully reweave her vines back into her frames. She motioned for someone to retrieve her head for her, not really expecting anyone to do so.

Once she was was all back together and her head was back on, she stretched her arms up and asked, "So, what's the plan for today?"