SystemofEleven

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver waddled awkwardly along until they got to the treehouse. She looked at the rope bridge and ladder for several long moments before sighing deeply. She leaned over the ledge very carefully and called out, "Hey, BARREL! I need your arms!" She then dropped to sit in a disgruntled heap next to the ravine to wait for him to -- hopefully -- come get her.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver grabbed the batteries, poked her head out the door to be sure Finkelstein had gone back into the bedroom, and then quickly ducked into the laboratory to replace them with freshly charged ones. She ran a few excuses through her mind in case the Doctor came back out to see what she was up to, but she didn't want to wait.

It took her a few minutes to get everything switched out and make sure she hadn't left any traces of disturbance. As soon as she was done, she retrieved Shock and left a lot more quickly -- but no less quietly -- than they had come in. Once they were a good few blocks away, she stopped and looked at her friend expectantly. There was no way the trickster was going to let her get away with any of that, and she'd rather get it over with.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver resisted the urge to retort, "You didn't give me a brain, remember? You wanted me to be empty-headed. Too bad you failed on that." It was an argument she knew she couldn't win, and the longer it went on, the longer he'd be sitting there with the door wide open, making Shock more uncomfortable and setting the pumpkin creature up for more punishment later from both of them.

He finally left. She quickly got to hiding the screen again, nodding to Shock. "Stand by the window, that should help. I'll get the batteries switched out. I don't have a way down from the window that wouldn't probably hurt you, so you'll still have to take the ramp out. Best to wait a few minutes for them to get started up again, though."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver paused the video before shrugging. "Because they keep things interesting. Corpse Kid and Bat Boy do the same thing every day, with only minor variations. The vampire twins are fine, but stuffy, and Agatha is always working. You're always doing SCIENCE," she said with an exaggerated accent that sounded nothing like Finkelstein, "Sally's always either sewing stuff or mooning over Jack... There's nothing for me to do. The Boys shake things up."

She gave the Doctor a sly grin and tilted her head to the side. "Would you rather I entertain myself in the lab? I'm sure I could go a whole week without blowing it off the hill..."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

"No, of course not," Carver said surprisingly calmly. "I was watching a recording of a time Lock and Barrel helped me pull a prank on Shock. I didn't realize the volume was so loud. Sorry about that."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver didn't really have a throat to grab or strangle, but her vines could still be bruised. She flinched at the shout, jerking her head to the door. A second, more muffled, cry came from somewhere else in the lab.

The pumpkin creature quickly shoved Shock toward the hiding spot behind the bookshelf before reaching for the remote. She flipped through the channels as rapidly as she could. She landed on a shot of the tree house, where Barrel was flipping through some books and working his way through bowl of fried spiders, right as Doctor Finkelstein burst through the door.

He had a blanket haphazardly draped over himself and his whole chair.

"ARE THOSE HOOLIGANS IN MY LAB AGAIN?!"

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver leaned away from Shock slightly in preparation to dodge a hit. "Corpse flowers are an aphrodisiac... That's how I distracted Jewel and the Doctor..."

She quickly added, "I closed the bedroom door and opened the window, so it shouldn't be too strong in here! I just... expected we'd be gone altogether a little bit sooner..."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver cackled maniacally. "See why I didn't think there'd be an issue telling him she'd be watching him? The only way she could be more obvious was if she was wearing a dwarf corpse flower on her outfit!"

She continued laughing for a minute before something occurred to her. She turned to Shock. "Actually, speaking of corpse flowers, how are you feeling? That took a bit longer than I was expecting, and they don't affect me so I forget sometimes..."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver grinned right back. "Barrel forgot about the bug. And I've been giving a few people advice that may or may not make things a little bit more entertaining."

She used a remote to turn on the television. It was already on the correct channel; she set it to rewind at 30x speed. The witches ran backward around the back room of the store in a blur, periodically joined by customers who were gone again in a flash. It took almost twenty minutes before Barrel showed up on-screen, and a few more seconds before he disappeared again. Carver quickly pushed play.

From off screen, Agatha could be heard saying, "Barrel! HI!" It didn't take long before she led him in view of the camera.

The pumpkin creature leaned forward to watch the fruits of her labor.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver got to work plugging everything in. "It's not that he thinks no one without his brain is his equal. He keeps Igor around and is pretty good friends with Jack, remember? The problem is that, since he created us, he sees Sally and me as his property, not so much as people. Jewel gets a pass because that shared brain basically makes her an extension of himself. As far as he's concerned, anyway."

She got everything ready and walked over to sit next to Shock. "On to other topics, you remember how Barrel helped me bug the Witches' Shop a while back, so we could monitor what they had in stock that they wouldn't tell us about?"