Lock, Shock, and Barrel all grinned and started poking items.

"Touch, touch, touch!" they cried.

Barrel hit a button and inadvertantly turned on the Tesla coils.

"Oh, cool!" he cried.

He picked up a small device and tossed it into the electrical charges. The device fried and exploded, much to the trio's delight.

"What else should we throw into it?" Lock asked.

"Maybe a chemical," Shock said with a grin. She reached up to pet Loki, who happily chittered. "After all, I'm too emotional to understand volatile and corrosive substances and how damaging they can be when mixed with electricity. So perhaps I should learn."

That got another round of laughter from the trio.

Jack strode up to Jewel.

"Indeed," he said, regarding the task that needed to be done. "I suggest you get started."

The trio let out another round of wicked laughter at Carver.

"Scoop him out like pumpkin guts!" Barrel cried.

"Perform an autopsy!" Lock added.

All three of them started laughing again. Jack gave Finklestein a wry smile.

"I'm afraid I only have so much influence on them, doctor," he said. "Shock got her fill of trouble yesterday--"

"And failed at it," Barrel said.

He and Lock both snickered as Shock glared at them both. Jack ignored them.

"--but Lock and Barrel haven't," Jack said, "and I believe it's been some time since either of them got their troublesome urges out. And they need trouble like a vampire needs blood."

"Yep," Lock said.

"What he said," Barrel said with a gesture to Jack.

Lock smirked and tapped the wrench in his hand.

"I've been thinking," he said, "since I'm more logical than my dear sister, that this wrench is heavy. Heavy enough to dent...whatever this is."

He vaguely gestured to the machine in question.

"So logically, I should test this theory."

Lock grinned and tossed the wrench up in the air, only to catch it with his tail.

"While I logically do this," Barrel said as he tossed another small device at the Tesla coil. He grinned. "Science is fun!"

Jack shrugged.

"I'm not allowing them, but as they are working on behalf of a fellow monster in need, there simply isn't much I can do."

He narrowed his eyes.

"The quicker you get Carver out, the quicker I can assist."

Jewel chuckled, an evil glint in her eye that Carver had never seen there before. "I didn't say you were allowing them to cause trouble in here, Jack. In case anyone besides my husband has forgotten, this is my property as well."

Carver's mechanical eyes widened. So did his grin. He started cackling in a rather skilled rendition of Jack on a 'new and shiny stuff' high. "Best get to it, Dad! It's only a matter of time before I start telling them where your particularly restricted items are kept!" He cackled again, flopping onto his back. "I can't wait to see what happens when five gallons of magnified iron shavings gets chucked into an electrical vortex!"

"NO! That would result in a catastrophic-- What did you do to my chair?!"

Finkelstein twisted about in his seat, trying to figure out why he wasn't rolling down the ramp to chase the trio away from his machines. The motor sound shifted from a struggling hum to an outright grinding racket as he shoved the joystick forward several times.

"You're not going anywhere until you get Carver out of that body," Jewel purred. "That little trick Carver pulled to escape after your last maintenance check left me with a pretty useful idea."

The pumpkin creature rolled onto his stomach to peek over the edge of the table at the wheelchair. When he saw one of the detached table straps wedged into the spokes of one of the wheels, he fell into a fit of laughter that sent him tumbling off the table altogether.

Jack smiled, and gave Jewel a small bow.

"My apologies," he said.

"Oooooh, now you gotta tell us!" Barrel cried.

He started to look around the lab for anything about a five gallon size, and didn't take any care in what he knocked over. Lock tossed the wrench up with his tail and caught it in his hand.

"This looks like it could hold something that size."

He lifted up the wrench and brought it down with a loud BANG! as the wrench heavily dented the machine. Shock tossed the second vial in her hand, then deliberately slammed it on the ground. She grabbed a third, and held it in her hand for the time being, before she scooped Loki up in her other. She let the scorpion nuzzle against her cheek before she set him down on one of the work tables.

"Have fun, precious," she cooed. "Make me proud."

Loki chirped and started pushing anything he could move to the floor: tools, nuts, bolts, screws, notes - some of which, he snipped or tore with his claws first - pieces of scrap metal. Shock went back to the chemical cabinet to decide what to smash next...and where to smash it. There were plenty of machines, after all.

"I'd suggest you hurry, Doctor," Jack said, "while the damage is still salvageable."

Barrel passed by the lab table as Carver fell over laughing. He started giggling too, as did Shock. Lock didn't hear it over another loud BANG! Jack gave Carver a moment to settle down before he picked him up to place him back on the lab table.

“I can’t-- How da-- Wait-- Don’t touch-- Stop-- That’s-- You’ll-- This is-- DON’T!”

The Doctor sputtered indignantly, overwhelmed by everything he needed to say and all the things going wrong at the moment.

Jewel leaned forward to get right up in his face. “Get. Working,” she growled.

Finkelstein’s lips curled in toward his teeth as her gaze bore into his own. His tongue seemed to turn to sandpaper as he tried to work back up the will to speak and remind her who was in charge. Which was him, of course. But…

Carver chose to remain silent and spectate this new dynamic, rather than further antagonize his creator.

After several long seconds, the evil scientist dropped his shoulders and grunted. “Fine. If this is the only way to bring peace back into my lab, so be it. Somebody get me a reciprocating blade and a rotary saw.”

“Please and thank you,” Jewel corrected dryly. She stepped away from the platform and quickly retrieved the requested tools before the trio could try something like throwing them at her husband’s head.

“Your welcome,” Finkelstein replied. “Carver, put your arms above your head. I don’t want them getting in the way while I open your chest.”

Carver pulled his arms back and put his hands under his head like a pillow. “Open me up, Doc!”

The Doctor grumbled quietly to himself, but got started. It took a bit for the rotary saw to create a slit in the chest plate long and wide enough for the reciprocating blade to fit through, but once he switched tools, progress was made much more quickly. Soon, he had a rectangle cut out which was large enough for him to reach through and start unfastening the rivets from the inside.

He stuck his head into the hole to see where would be the best point to start -- and immediately yanked it back out again, hacking and wheezing and waving his arms about his face. His sinuses were so aflame that his body couldn't decipher whether or not his eyes themselves were also contaminated, but his goggles prevented any reflexive rubbing.

“MY EYES! IT--” *cough* “BURNS! WHAT IS-- AAAAAAAAAAH!”

Before he could finish, two very desperate rats flung themselves out into the newly present light and latched themselves onto the first surface they found: Finkelstein’s face. The sound of his attempts to clear his throat, nose, and lungs, quickly gave way to screaming.

Barrel stopped laughing long enough to try to locate the tools the doctor needed. Jewel, knowing the lab like the tip of her fingers, retrieved them first. Lock and Shock settled down so the doctor could work, though Shock tantalizingly tossed a bottle of something particularly volatile in her hand as further incentive for the doctor to start working.

On the work table, Loki scooped up a bolt with the top of his tail, skittered to the edge, and flung it in Finklestein's direction. It missed its target by several feet and clattered along the floor. Shock reached over and gently stroked Loki's shell. The scorpion chittered at her touch and gently poked at her hand with his tail. Reward given, Shock set her focus back on Finklestein.

All three of the trio snickered at Carver's comment. Jack assisted by taking the chest plate and setting it aside so the doctor could work. His subtle amusement quickly became concern when the doctor started wheezing. Jack turned to Carver.

"What did you eat?"

Lock, Shock, and Barrel already started another round of laughter at the doctor's misery, only to double over at the rats. Shock barely managed to put the chemical bottle on the table before falling to the floor with her brothers. Jack ignored the trio and quickly tried to grab one of the rats.

Barrel's laughter got even louder.

"Oh, yeah!" he cried. "We went rat-catching yesterday!"

Which reminded him of the cage of rats in the kitchen that would probably become tonight's dinner. That thought immediately went out the window as Jack tried to pry the agitated rats off the doctor's face and sent him into another fit of giggles.

Lock accidentally slammed the machine again in his own throes of laughter. It sputtered and came to life. He jolted out of his amusement at the sudden sputtering, then looked at the machine. Whatever it was, it seemed to be working despite his prior abuse of it. Lock only grinned and tightened his hold on the wrench. It would just make it more fun when he actually wrecked it.

Shock got ahold of herself long enough to use the work table to hoist herself up. She noticed Loki had tossed himself on his back, kicked his legs up, and thrashed his tail to mimic the trio, with hisses and chitters as he clicked his pinchers. She grinned and helped her scorpion back upright.

"You're getting a beetle when we get home," Shock said, as she pet him again.

Loki let out a soft chirp.

Finkelstein’s screaming and erratic movements terrified the poor rats, whose own eyes and lungs had been burning far longer. When they felt hands wrap around their little bodies, they dug their claws into the Doctor’s skin and held on for dear life. The harder Jack tried to wrench them free, the more desperately they clung.

Jewel rushed to a large tub sink in the corner, normally used for washing beakers and other chemical equipment, and filled a bucket.

Carver took a moment to get himself into a state where he could speak through his laughter, then pulled a hand out from under his head so he could hold up a finger. “O-o-okay, tec-technically that wasn’t s-something I ate; it’s Sh-Shock’s fault it’s in there. And I did put a re-request in for an access hahaha-hatch before the adderpepper got a chance to start ferm-m-menting, so it wouldn’t be nearly this bad if he’d just f-f-f-fixed the body the first time I c-c-complained about it.” With that, he collapsed back into a fit of giggles.

Jewel froze, poised to dump the water over her husband and the unfortunate rodents. “You’ve had an adderpepper, FERMENTING, in your BODY?!” she gaped. “For how long?”

Carver’s shrug was almost lost among all the shakes and shudders from his laughter. “D-dunno… How l-long… have I b-been in th-this b-b-body?” He knew it hadn’t been in there that long, but the adults didn’t, and given his laughter and the current state of distraction, they wouldn’t likely be able to pick up on the exaggeration.

Jewel gave a long-suffering sigh, before throwing about half the bucket’s contents over Finkelstein’s head. His screaming gave way to spluttering, and the now-soaked rats finally decided to take their chances. They released their hold on his face, wiggled their wet little bodies out of Jack’s grip, and scampered off across the lab. They crashed into a few things on the way, but they quickly managed to find some good little crannies to vanish into.

Jewel sighed again. “Catching those later is going to be… so much fun.”

Fineklstein snatched the bucket from her. He raised it to his face and chugged whatever of the liquid made its way into his mouth, letting the rest run down his face. Once his throat had been thoroughly rinsed, he lifted his goggles and poured the last few quarts directly into his eyes.

His wife, hands now free, shook her head in deep resignation and started walking for the door. “Keep an eye on everyone, please, Jack. I need to go find the tongs we use for handling radioactive materials…”

Lock managed to stand again after a moment. His sides felt like someone jammed them with needles, but the show of Jack's failed attempts to get the rats off Finklestein's face nearly sent him to the floor again. Barrel sat up, saw how the doctor's lips stretched when Jack tried to pull them away, and fell back on the floor.

Jack shot a quick glance to Shock at the mention of her name, before he went back to trying to pry the rats away. Shock had her index finger for Loki to tap his claw against, and mid hi-five turned to them.

"My fault for wh-?" she started, before her brain caught up to the current conversation. "Oh, right, the adderpepper."

She grinned at Carver as Loki finished the "hi-five".

"Couldn't take what you dished out."

"Neither could Barrel," Lock said.

He shot his little brother a smirk. A faint gray tinge appeared in Barrel's cheeks from the remembered backfire of his trick.

"H-hey!"

Lock stuck out his tongue.

"The downstairs bathroom will never be the same again."

His tail flicked with residual resentment at having to clean it. Barrel growled and tackled his older brother.

"Carver gave me the adderpepper juice!"

Lock went down, but managed to shift enough that he at least wasn't trapped under his brother's weight.

"And you failed at using it!"

Both of them stopped at Jewel's exclamation, as they immediately became more interested in the new source of trouble. Lock wriggled himself free and pushed Barrel away from him. Shock ignored them and casually leaned against the lab table. She snickered at Carver's new trick.

"It's been days at least," she said.

All three of them started laughing again as Jewel doused her husband, but it wasn't nearly as loud or as hard as before. Jack, who had since put his focus one one rat and was using the tip of a bony finger to try to wedge under its claws, suddenly found them more slippery. One of the rats crawled over Barrel's foot in its escape before it disappeared, which got a giggle from the youngest trickster.

"I can help!" he offered, with a small lick of his lips.

All of the trio started another round of laughter at Finkelstein trying to clear the adderpepper juice.

"It's the trick that keeps on going!" Lock cried.

"And this is exactly why you three--" Jack started, then caught Carver in the corner of his eye socket and corrected, "--four aren't supposed to have it."

He turned to Jewel with the implication in his tone that he wasn't going to ask how they got it to begin with - this time.

"I believe we'll be fine for the moment."

Shock settled down first. She held out a hand for Loki to crawl into and lifted him back up to her ear.

"So long as he--" she vaguely gestured to Finklestein, "--behaves, we'll behave."

Shock smirked at the doctor once he got his goggles back on.

"So unless you want your lab blown all the way to Oogie's lair, I would suggest you keep my current emotional frailties in mind."

Lock and Barrel grinned.

"And we still--" Barrel started.

"--Have science to do," Lock finished as he picked up the wrench again. He used it to point to the machine he somehow managed to turn on. "Like that. Pretty sure it's supposed to be busted, so I might have to re-test my hypothesis."

"And there's so much trial and error to see what plays nicest with the Tesla coil," Barrel said.

He grinned and started to wander the lab - in Jack's sight - with his hands behind his back as he perused the potential mayhem like a critic in an art gallery.

Carver continued laughing as the bickering started back up from his earlier manipulations of the trio, but suddeny stopped and glared at Jack’s mistake and self-correction. “Hey! Barrel just said that I’m the one who got a hold of the stuff. I managed to play a trick on four people at once! Why am I still only a footnote on my own prank?”

“Make that five people, Carver,” Finkelstein snapped. “Your little trick is going to make this process much longer and more difficult young lady! Do you have any idea how much painstaking work I put into this body? Is any of my effort ever appreciated? Of course not! And for all I know, you did this solely as an excuse to get your hooligan friends access to destroy my precious experiments!”

Jack positioned himself to better keep an eye socket on each of the trio. He briefly glanced at Carver.

"I--" Jack shook his skull. "--It was a good trick."

He briefly checked on Barrel, then Lock. Shock took advantage of Jack's attention on her brothers to calmly walk up the ramp behind Finklestein while he ranted and raved at Carver. She wrapped one arm around the old man's shoulders, then clamped her fingers over his lips to shut them. Shock didn't hold back on her strength as the tips of her fingers clawed into his flesh.

"If you say 'her' or 'young lady' one more time, I'll rip them off," she said coldly.

She kept her grip on the doctor's mouth and snapped her fingers with her free hand. Lock and Barrel quickly searched the lab until Barrel found a roll of duct tape and tossed it to her. Shock let go of Finklestein's chest to catch the tape, then quickly started to wrap it around the doctor's mouth.

"And since you aren't getting the hint, I'll make this simple," Shock said as she pulled the tape as tightly as she could. "Shut the fuck up and work."

She leaned down to pretend to get a better grip and kept wrapping the tape around his lips. She lowered her voice so only Finklestein would hear.

"Or I will rig this place to explode. I saw you have nitroglycerin, and I'm dying to show you how good my timed explosions are so you'll maybe stop insulting my intelligence."

Shock stood up and ripped the end of the tape from the roll and shoved the doctor forward.

"Tick-tock, doc," she said, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear and with the most syrupy-sugary sweetness she could muster. "I feel my emotional frailities starting to get out of control."

Lock and Barrel both started laughing, though at their sister's tone, there was a distinct tinge of nervousness. Jack just crossed his arms and watched Shock. Admittedly, she wasn't the only one who had gotten fed up with the doctor's incessant talking.

“Oh, and how would you know?” Carver grumbled. “You don’t even know what the actual trick was. This was just an accidental bonus…”

Jewel returned -- wearing a gas mask with connected oxygen tank, and brandishing a pair of thirty-inch wrought iron tongs -- just in time to see the pumpkin creature stick several vines out the newly created opening in his chest and rip off one of his creator’s gloves while the doctor struggled in Shock’s grip.

“Hey Shock, hold his arms down, will you?” Carver pulled the glove into his body and used it to retrieve the juice-soaked pepper. He only got a few seconds to wave it in front of Finkelstein’s nose before Jewel made it across the room.

The mask hissed as the female scientist breathed through it. “I will take that now, thank you very much.” She pinched the pepper between the very tips of the tongs. Hhhhnnn…. ksssssssh… “Nice to see it’s not an actual adderpepper.” Hhhhnnn…. ksssssssh… “The taint won’t last nearly as long. This will be safe to dump into the sewers with the rest of our usual toxic waste.”

Jewel held the tongs out as far from her body as possible as she walked. A lead-lined iron box opened with the tap of a foot pedal. In went the pepper, the lid slammed shut, and only then did she remove her gear.

“I was going to suggest allowing my husband the use of the mask while he worked, to avoid further complaints, but I see someone has already taken care of that…”

"Gladly," Shock said.

She made sure to hold her breath as she reached over the wheelchair and grabbed Finklestein's wrists. She pulled his hands behind the chair and made sure to grip just shy of breaking bones as Carver waved the pepper in his face. She let go when Jewel entered, then calmly walked down the ramp.

Lock and Barrel both snickered as their sister wandered back over to the chemical cabinet.

"He just couldn't help himself," Jack said calmly.

Shock shot Finklestein a devious smirk, then calmly reached up to pet Loki...where her hand would also conveniently be near the nitroglycerin container.

Having his lips forcibly held shut did little to stop the Doctor from at least attempting to speak. Several muffled noises escaped his nostrils as he first attempted to scoff at Shock's correction of his pronoun usage, then to lecture her about... something, then to threaten her. All of this went ignored, and he quickly moved on to sounds of rage, surprise, indignation, and then pain as the pepper was held to his face. All of his attempts to express his ire did absolutely nothing to prevent him from breathing in the fumes at full-force, and the compromised position of his jaw prevented him from coughing them back out. He managed to get a short reprieve to catch his breath when the pepper was removed from his presence. Once he could breathe again, he looked over toward Jack to see what the holiday leader was going to do about the situation -- only to find the Pumpkin King casually discussing with Jewel the position he was in, and making absolutely no move to help! He screamed through his nose, demanding their attention and assistance.

Carver grabbed his creator by the collar and yanked Finkelstein to meet his gaze. “Every thirty seconds longer that I am stuck like this, I am going to tell my friends a new special thing to break beyond all recognition. Plans and research burned, delicate machines smashed, chemicals dumped, your wheelchair motor dissected. Now, Get. Me. OUT of here!”

Finkelstein stared wide-eyed at the threat, somehow even more put off by the thought of a slow methodical destruction of his precious work than by Shock’s threat of simply blowing up his entire lab altogether. Perhaps he simply hadn’t thought she would be able to make good on that threat when she made it, but with Jack’s utter compliance in this…

He looked over at Jewel in hopes of finding some level of support, but found nothing but impatience in her stance and complete apathy in her gaze. Finally, he slumped his shoulders and nodded. Fine. Whatever it would take to keep the little pack of tyrants from destroying everything he held dear. He quickly got to work undoing the internal rivets holding the two upper chest pieces in place.

Carver, for his part, lied back on the table to give the evil scientist full access to work -- but cheerfully began a verbal countdown while he waited. Finkelstein worked faster, even with a hint of desperation, but the pumpkin creature knew that there was no way it was going to get done in under half a minute.

“...Four, three, two, one. Lock, the underside of that machine you’re messing with has some accessible wiring. Why don’t you see what happens when you strip the protective coating, cut them, and reconnect them all at random? There’s a soldering iron in the cabinet behind Barrel.”

Finkelstein let out another screech of protest, waving at all the rivets on the floor as if to say, I’m working, I’m working!

Carver grinned. “Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight…”

The Doctor dropped his tool, grabbed one of the saws, and switched to working on the connection at the neck.

“...Seven, six, f--” Carver fell silent as the mechanical head became completely detached from the life force emanating from his cage. Finkelstein relaxed a tiny bit and allowed himself a smug little smile -- until his creation held up a ball of vines with a few long tips poking upward like fingers. Which he used to finish his countdown.

What followed next was an incoherent mess of shadow puppeteering, letter-shaping, and miming from a mass of wiggling plant matter. Jewel nearly went cross-eyed trying to understand what Carver was trying to communicate. The trio, on the other hand, would know to listen to the subtle tapping from the one vine he still had tucked into his body, and hear the instructions he was giving to Barrel.

Shock calmly pet Loki again.

"I don't think he took me seriously," she said casually. "Do you?"

Loki chittered and gently bit her ear. Shock calmly picked up the nitroglycerin.

"Didn't think so."

She tossed one of the two remaining jars of paralyzing fluid behind her solely so Jack and Jewel would pay more attention to that while she swiped the nitroglycerin and a potent acid. She turned her back to them so they wouldn't see what she held as she picked a spot in the lab to work in. Shock smirked in Finkelstein's direction, though it seemed the good doctor was currently more focused on trying to get his wife's attention than he was on her.

Jack looked over at her when he heard the glass shatter, and the puddle of paralyzing liquid grew bigger. He watched Shock walk away from the cabinet, and, figuring she had gotten bored with its contents for the moment to destroy something else, checked on her brothers.

Lock had beaten the machine pretty badly with the wrench, and at Carver's suggestion, grinned. He grabbed a wire stripper from the toolbox.

"Sounds like it's time for another experiment!"

Jack chuckled, but then looked at Finklestein.

"It sounds like that machine might do more damage than the trio. Wouldn't that be a sight to see?"

He trusted Jewel would make sure Lock wouldn't go too far in the re-wiring. Lock retrieved the soldering iron at Carver's direction and crawled under the machine to get to work.

Barrel had since found the stash of spare body parts, and was putting them together at random with the roll of duct tape. He giggled as he listened to the countdown. Jack did another round of checking in on the trio, and turned his attention to Shock. He noticed that Finklestein became more frantic when she got back to the chemical cabinet, and as amusing as this was, it might not also be unwarranted, knowing the eldest trickster's more methodical sense of trouble.

Shock had since stashed the nitroglycerin out of sight near Jewel's desk, where it would be safe from her brothers' mayhem. She noticed Jack's eyes on her, and held up the acid.

"I was just looking for the perfect thing to use this on," Shock assured him.

"I see," Jack said, then turned to Jewel. "Any suggestions?"

Shock and Barrel turned as Carver's head hit the floor. Both of them smirked at random gestures that followed its conclusion, but listened for the tapping code.

"Oh, that's a good idea!" Barrel cried.

Jack, having watched Craver's gestures, tried to make heads or tails out if it, only for Barrel to go to another part of the lab and pick up a small can of paint. He then went to the head-sorting machine near the creation slab and dumped huge globs of paint on each head. Once each head was dripping with gloppy paint, Barrel picked up the remote and turned it on. The machine gently span and showcased new heads. As Barrel messed with the remote, it started to spin faster and faster - and with it, it began to splatter paint in every direction.

Jack quickly picked up Carver's chestplate to use as a paint shield. Shock took advantage of the new chaos to gather bomb supplies.

For most of this, Jewel remained completely unconcerned with the trio's mayhem, keeping her gaze decidedly locked on her husband. Who, after failing either to convince Lock not to do what Carver had told him to, or to prevent Carver from giving out any more instructions, went back to frantically sawing and de-riveting as fast as he could manage.

Meaning neither of them was paying any attention to what Shock was doing.

Jewel’s curiosity got the better of her when Barrel clearly understood the chaos that was the pumpkin creature’s silent communication. She glanced over to see what information he had gleaned from all the waving -- and immediately guessed the rest of the plan when she saw paint going onto the heads. She bolted for the door, managing to close it behind her just in time to avoid getting splattered.

Finkelstein, however, was not nearly so lucky. He let out a screech as his goggles were suddenly covered in a glob of blue paint. Upon trying to wipe them clean, he discovered that his gloves had been hit with a stream of red.

White the Doctor was busy trying to regain his lost vision, Carver spread out all of his vines to catch as much of the flying colors as possible. He then proceeded to smear the paint all over the exoskeleton, attempting to blindly draw various funny faces and childishly obscene pictures.

While loudly tapping out another countdown.

Jewel waited several seconds for the majority of the paint to be spent before coming back in the room. She cleared her throat, then spoke as if nothing had interrupted her train of thought. "My suggestion would be the spare body parts," she said toward Shock, in response to Jack's earlier inquiry. "I don't think my husband should be in any position to make any other creatures for... a while. And it seems your brother has already gathered several of them up for more efficient application," she added.

Lock, being under the machine and currently working on the re-wiring, was protected from all the paint spatters. The machine started to jitter and sputter as he got some of the wires reconnected - bare now, thanks to the wire strippers. Whichever Finklestein ended up fixing the machine, they were going to have to rip out and re-do the wiring entirely. He peeked out long enough to see what Barrel's "good idea" was, then ducked back under once the paint started flying.

Jack used the chestplate to protect his skull and bowtie long enough to duck behind a different machine. His suit would still need cleaning, as a few splatters hit him before he got to safety. Shock happily took Jewel's suggestion to dump the acid over Barrel's "creation" of random corpse parts, and then what pieces he hadn't used yet. A burning, acrid smell filled the room as the acid ate away at the dead flesh, bone, and muscle, and hissed and bubbled at the floor. The only reason it didn't eat a hole in the floor too was due to the Finklesteins' lab safety reinforcements.

"What a mess," Shock said gleefully.

She tossed the empty bottle on top of the mess of melted body parts, then cheerfully gathered a few more supplies, before she started tinkering. Shock left the nitroglycerin where she hid it, but still made the occasional trip to the chemical cabinet. She did also notice a jar of silicate powder that would work beautifully for what she had in mind...

Neither Shock nor Barrel minded the flying paint. Barrel laughed at the paint that landed in the Tesla coil and fried, then picked up random objects to "catch" the splatter to create "art" out of them. He took care to avoid the acid pile, but once the paint stopped flying, he quickly looked for something else to do. Shock, covered in paint herself, just kept tinkering with spare parts and chemicals.

Jack dared to come out once the coast was clear. The entire lab now looked like an art room exploded. Lock crawled out from under the machine once the jittering became too dangerous for his comfort. With how the machine spazzed, he doubted he needed to do much more to damage it. He looked over to Carver's body, and snerked at the "drawings".

"What's that supposed to be?" he asked, as he pointed to what looked like a hooded figure between a pair of legs.

Shock just focused on her work as she listened to the tapping. She turned her head to see what Carver was doing now.

"I'm kind of busy at the moment," she said. "Lock can do it."

"Lock can do what?" Jack asked.

Like Jewel, he was trying to make sense of Carver's gestures.

"This," Lock said.

He jumped onto the work table that Loki had been knocking things from to use as a springboard to get to one of the round metal plasma balls used in the creation process. He held the wrench in his tail as his fingers gripped the round, smooth surface. It took a moment to properly pull himself up onto the top, then started disassembling the wires and opening the casing on top. Lock tossed the cover to the floor, then threw the wrench inside the large metal sphere, before he jumped down to the floor.

"Hey, Barrel - pull that switch over there!"

Barrel ran to grab the one his older brother pointed at. The plasmas ball turned on, but the wrench inside rattled and created quite a bit of racket as the electric charges lifted it up and dropped it.

Carver slowed down his gestures just enough so that the adults would be able to see him mime with five long vines and the tip of one more, to create a noodly stick figure to walk through the air with a disproportionately long “extra limb” dangling between its legs. Meanwhile, he tapped out, I don’t know what it actually looks like; that’s just how some of Sally’s books describe it. Man-hood. With that, he went back to madly flailing and giving another set of instructions, which Lock was elected to carry out.

Jewel let out a tiny sigh at the visible part of Carver’s explanation of his doodles. She silently watched as Lock climbed atop the electrical sphere, but quickly stepped over to pull the emergency shutdown switch before the machine could get properly warmed up and cause a dangerous amount of damage.

The female Finkelstein finally spoke up, quite firmly. “Let’s not bring the ceiling down on top of everyone in here, shall we? Thank you.”

She gave each of the trio a sharp look to make sure they understood not to press the limits she was setting, then turned back to watch her husband.

Who was quite furiously snarling through his nose and pointing at the box of spare parts where Carver’s old mechanical limbs had been disposed of.

A quick examination alerted Jewel to a problem: One of the legs had already been partially dismantled, and an arm was still mangled beyond easy repair, after the pumpkin creature had jammed it in the Doctor’s wheelchair.

“Apologies, but it appears these limbs are simply non-usable. Would you be alright going without until I can make you some proper upgrades? With your input on the design, of course.”

Carver lifted up his vines to make the vague shape of a pair of eyes and a mouth, then ran another along the outline of those features. He tapped out a quiet message for the trio to translate, as well: He couldn't make a head to see or talk with, as his carving knives were part of his arms.

Lock and Barrel both sniggered at Carver's explanation of "manhood".

"You could always just ask," Barrel said with a shrug.

Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know, but picked up enough context from Lock and Barrel to somewhat guess Carver's interpretation on the drawing. He shook his head when he picked up on the initial euphemism.

The rattling stopped. Lock glanced at Jewel. His tail flicked in annoyance, but he gave her a curt nod to acknowledge her point.

"Fine," he said, then grinned. "Guess I can go see what Shock hasn't smashed yet."

He ran over to the chemical cabinet. Barrel had found a jar of leeches and was snacking on them when Jewel gave him "the look". He just shrugged and stuffed a few more in his mouth. Shock saw Jewel in the corner of her eye.

"Wasn't planning on it," she said, then glanced to Dr. Finklestein. She brought back her sweetest tone. "At least, not yet."

"Shock..." Jack warned.

Shock simply went back to tinkering.

"Like I'd blow this place up with my family in it, or all the toys we haven't played with yet," she said. "Really, Jack, that's not practical."

"But there's always after you three leave," Jack said, "and what gets left behind."

Shock grinned and moved so he could better see exactly which chemicals, parts, and wiring she had - minus the silicate powder, which she kept behind the device she was building. If Jewel wanted to inspect, the chemicals in question would be annoying to clean up after, but not too dangerous. There also weren't enough materials for anything too complex.

"Don't worry, Jack. I know exactly what I'm doing."

She watched Finklestein get Jewel's attention regarding Carver's limbs and smirked, then calmly went back to work. Jack still watched her suspiciously for a moment, but left her alone when he couldn't find anything too out of place.

Lock had since pushed a metal cart to the chemical cabinet so he could access the ones on the top shelf, when he heard Carver tapping. He turned his head to translate.

"We can make you a new one," he said cheerfully.

"We'll stop by the pumpkin patch on the way back," Barrel said. He licked his lips, both to catch some leech juice, and at the thought of getting a good pumpkin to eat while they were there. "Yum!"

"Three eyes?" Shock suggested after a quick glance at Carver. "You haven't rocked that look in a while."

"And a second mouth--" Lock said.

"--On the back of the head!" Barrel finished.

They all grinned in excitement.

Nah, this is more funny, Carver replied to Barrel's comment. And it was, nothing that could actually be between a person's legs could ever be as hilarious as picturing the literal interpretations of descriptions like 'cave of wonders' and 'writhing joystick of love'. He really didn't want to ruin the wonderfully ridiculous images that flooded his mind every time he read one of those books.

Finkelstein detached the cage from its mount in the exoskeleton, pulled it free, and shoved it in Jack’s direction with a glare. That finished, he forcefully gestured at his face, then the trio, then the door.

“Oh good,” Jewel said cheerfully. “It looks like he’s finished. And just in time to avoid the mess Shock was about to make, too! If you four wouldn’t mind helping Carver out of here, I’ll get to work cleaning up the lab. Once it’s in some semblance of order again, I’ll start on a new, proper design for a body upgrade.”

The Doctor pointed again at his taped up lips, snorting out attempted demands. Jewel smiled at him sinisterly. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten about that, dear,” she told him. “As far as I’m concerned, this--” she waved about at the current state of their home, “--is all your doing. Unfortunately, given your limited mobility, I can’t make you clean it up yourself. So instead, until Igor and I have made a satisfying amount of headway, you can stay right where you are, exactly as you are.”

Her husband let out another screech through his nose, which she completely ignored.

Carver wished he still had a head, either to smirk or burst out laughing; he couldn’t decide which. In any case, he wanted to revel in Finkelstein’s comeuppance, and it was only so satisfying when he couldn’t specifically add to the aggravation.

He hesitated a bit when the trio offered to make him a head themselves. They weren’t altogether unskilled at it, but he would probably never quite get over their first attempt at “helping” him with one. On the other hand, though, at the very least, he could trust them to make a serious attempt to do the best they could and take his sense of style into account. One more thing to set them apart from his creator...

Lock casually tossed something particularly corrosive onto a nearby machine and grinned at the hissing and sputtering of melting metal and wires. Barrel had since finished the jar of leeches, and was now chugging the preserving liquid from the jar. Shock was just putting the finishing touches on her device as Finklestein thrust Carver's cage into Jack's arms. Jack shifted Carver to hold him comfortably.

"All right, you three," he said. "Playtime's over."

"Aww!" Barrel whined. "We didn't even find the metal shavings yet!"

"Bet those would have been catastrophic," Lock said with a grin.

Shock made one last tweak to her device as Jewel called their mayhem to a close.

"Pity," she said. "We were about to have a blast."

She and her brothers all snickered in unison. Shock reached up to pet Loki before she stood up.

"But we had fun, didn't we, precious?"

Loki chittered and gently pinched her ear. Mom was happy, they caused trouble together, and he had a fat, juicy beetle in his future. Shock ran the tip of her finger over his shell.

The trio all burst out laughing at Finklestein's screeching through his nose.

"All that brain power--" Lock started.

"--And you can't figure out tape!" Barrel grinned.

He loudly knocked on Finklestein's skull plate, then tossed the empty leech jar over his shoulder.

"Thanks for the snack, anyway."

Shock got Lock's attention and gave a small nod to Jewel's desk. She crossed her arms and subtly pointed towards the bottom where she hid the nitroglycerin. Lock nodded, and caught her warning to be careful as she subtly tapped a message with her fingers. Shock then strolled up to Jack and Carver to keep their attention while Jewel dealt with her husband.

"Well, that was fun," she said brightly. "We should really--"

"--Do this--" Lock continued.

"--Again sometime," Barrel said with a grin.

Jack glanced down at Shock.

"There won't be a next time," he said, "because from now on, Carver will stay with me."

Lock - pretending to be on one last round of admiring their handiwork - had carefully slipped towards Jewel's desk and used his tail to feel for what Shock hid. He'd barely gripped it, when he cried out in unison with his siblings:

"What?"

"But what about--" Shock protested.

She didn't need to work to keep Jack's attention now, not when he'd just started an argument."

"--Him staying with us?" Barrel asked.

Lock kept his tail carefully positioned as he passed Jewel and joined his siblings so she wouldn't see what he'd pilfered.

"He practically lives at the lair anyway!" Lock added.

"Come on, Jack!" Shock said.

"Please?" Barrel begged.

"You didn't let me finish," Jack said, gently. "It's not permanent. I want to personally ensure anything else I need to sort out with the doctor gets taken care of, and it's easier if I know where he is so I don't miss anything. Right now--" he gave a quick glance around the lab, with the smoking pile of corpses, wrecked machinery, and still-dripping paint, "--his prior guardians need time to decompress and sort a few things out themselves."

While Jack spoke, Lock subtly shifted the nitroglycerin to one of Carver's vines for the pumpkin creature to put inside his cage.

The trio frowned, but nodded.

"Okay, Jack," they said.

Jack smiled.

"Come on," he said. "It's been a long day, and I believe you four need to get to the pumpkin patch."

Lock, Shock, and Barrel nodded, then started to leave with Jack, when Barrel remembered something.

"I was gonna pull the switch!" he cried.

Barrel turned and dashed across the lab. He dove over the lab table, knocked off whatever Loki didn't get to, and grabbed the switch. Barrel yanked it down with a grin as the room filled with lightning, much to his older siblings' amusement. Satisfied, Barrel rejoined the group.

They would be almost halfway down the ramp when a loud bang accompanied by a softer swoosh came from the lab. Shock grinned.

"Told him I could time my explosions."

That got another round of laughter from the trio. The silicate powder getting all over the lab was the perfect cap-off to their mayhem.

“More catastrophic in the long run,” Jewel said dryly. “And the process of scraping millions of tiny melted metal flecks off of various surfaces to avoid potential significant danger later on would have been quite a fun task, which I would most certainly have included you in.”

The female Finkelstein’s eyes flashed behind her goggles as she heard Shock put the slightest emphasis on the word, blast. She quickly stepped over to the mechanism the oldest trickster has last been working on to give it a quick inspection, just in case.

The Doctor growled and tried to slap Barrel’s arm away, but his tiny gloved hands did little more than bounce uselessly off the boy’s girth. The thick rubber gloves also prevented him from making any progress when he switched to scraping away at the edge of the tape.

Jewel ignored them both. At a cursory glance, the materials Shock had used would make an annoyingly sticky mess, but wouldn’t create enough of a shockwave to create any significant damage. The triggering mechanism wasn’t particularly incendiary, either. She couldn’t make out right away how it was supposed to be activated, but as the tricksters were all meandering in the general direction of the door and weren’t close enough to activate it, it likely didn’t matter.

She started making rounds of her own, making note of what needed to be cleaned or fixed as soon as possible versus what could reasonably be put aside for a few hours or days.

Carver responded in time with his friends when Jack said the pumpkin creature would be staying with him. He flailed about, half of his movements being utter nonsense while others were fairly obvious mimery, such as forming a shape roughly like the twisted tree above the trio’s lair and its accompanying treehouse.

The extra flailing also helped to disguise the movement of vines which were being used to open his cage and tuck the nitro vial inside.

He paused slightly in confusion when Jack said ‘get you four to the pumpkin patch,’ but decided not to draw attention to it. If the Pumpkin King had forgotten about taking Carver home with him, Carver was definitely not going to remind him.

He curled a bunch of vines together into a ball with two thick ends twisted together and sticking upward from one side, giving Barrel an obvious thumbs-up regarding the lightning switch. However, quiet tapping carried a message: Nice timing, genius. Should have pulled it one of the times he was screaming.

As the group left the main lab and headed down the ramp to exit the tower completely, Jewel shook her head, rang for Igor to come assist, and got started on cleaning up the ridiculous mess left behind. The dissolving body parts would likely have to be disposed of first, as the pile was exuding toxic fumes from both the flesh and what was left of the tape.

Before that however, she wanted to set Shock’s little project to the side. Better to avoid tripping over it and accidentally setting off the trigger.

She crouched down and carefully scooped it up. She had just enough time to feel the weight shift of liquid rushing prematurely from one chamber into another and figure out the exact timing method Shock had used, before the timer jumped from thirty to zero, and the bomb went off in her face.

Two kinds of viscous liquid flew outward from the device, pushed in opposite directions by the sudden small explosion between them. Jewel’s hair was blasted upward and formed into a halo of goopy spikes. Her face was blackened by ash from the initial detonation, and likewise covered in splatters of goop. Luckily, her goggles had protected her eyes from both the blast and the projectiles.

Not that Jewel could see at the moment, but the puddles on the walls, floor, and machinery on one side of the room were already hardening into a chemical cement. The other side would be easier to cleanup in the short run, but would leave a residue which would appear completely transparent from some angles -- but quite sparkly from others.