SystemofEleven

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver joined in laughing at Barrel as he left. She wasn't worried about his sour mood; even if there wasn't about to be the Trick of the Century to get him going again, he'd eventually get them back. Everyone in the group always did.

"I will never turn down a sleepover, but I'm rather curious to see how he would attempt to ground me..." The pumpkin creature pulled a key ring out of her cage and casually twirled it around the tip of a vine. "Seeing as I changed all the locks in the lab this morning."

---

Agatha spent most of the rest of the night sulking in her bedroom. Her aunts closed the shop early, and Agnes had wordlessly bought her an extra large tub of candied crocodile tongues as soon as they were finished cleaning up the broken glass. Aggie may have been known as the more social of the two older witches, but her sister was much more in tune with teenage emotions and drama. The only thing worse in a pining young woman's heart than rejection, is for a lack of rejection to be nothing more than a tool used by the other monster to get what they want. Agnes silently made a bet with herself how long it would take before their niece cycled through the sobbing into a throwing-things-at-the-wall rage.

Once everything was all cleaned up and Agatha was settled, the two elder witches made their way across town the the Finkelstein property. Jewel let them in, and after a quick explanation of the situation, the Doctor was (relatively) happy to give them some glue dissolver from his supplies. Relatively, of course, because one of his creations had been involved in the incident. Even if there wasn't any real damage done, it still reflected back on him. The ladies waited down in the entry and chatted while he rolled himself upstairs to retrieve the dissolver.

Jewel would later think to herself that she was not at all surprised to find out he had discovered the cabinet raided, its entire contents gone. Her husband, on the other hand, was perpetually unable to fathom how sneaky and rebellious his creations could be, and was shocked at this turn of events.

Igor watched his master begin to vibrate with rage, and helpfully pulled a nearby switch. Blue lightning shot out of the tower into the sky with a thunderous roar just as Finkelstein raised his fists and screamed into the void, "CAAAAAAAAARVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

The witches glanced upward, then toward each other, and simultaneously nodded.

"Well, we could use the exercise, anyhow," Aggie said.

"Won't hurt us to to use out legs to get around for a few days," Agnes agreed.

"Have a lovely morning, Jewel."

"Do come visit us at the shop sometime."

With that, the witches left.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver grinned, enjoying both the high of having pulled it off as well as getting to watch the antics of the trio on their own high.

"On the upside, at least he remembered which witches he was supposed to be talking to," she snickered.

Loki was hanging out in the comfort of Carver's cage, casually squeezing a foam sponge with his claws. At the sound of his mom's voice saying his name, the scorpion let out a grainy "chirrrrrukk?" and brought his face up to a space between the bars. Carver obligingly opened the door and let him crawl along her vines toward Shock.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver leaned on Lock, scowling at the crowd. Her pumpkin had to stretch almost to its limits, the way the back corners of her mouth were folding down. She could see, even with a slight relax in their posture, that most of the onlookers were still suspicious despite the witches vouching for them. How dare they always assume the worst of her and her friends! Just because they were right most of the time, didn't make it fair.

Agatha piped up in their defense. Well, one of their defense. "Barrel came in to talk about--" she coughed as she remembered he was hiding that from the other tricksters. Luckily the smoke made for a good excuse. She quickly finished, "recipes. When the bottle broke, the first thing he did was help me and Aunt Aggie get out safely!"

Aggie and Agnes nodded in agreement.

"Whatever, they're not gonna believe us, anyway," Carver griped. "Let's go somewhere else. We're obviously not wanted here."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Barrel grinned at the teen witch. "I mean. I have a reason to come back now."

@LePouvantail

Agatha nearly swooned. Before she could think of a properly flirtatious response, however, the sound of shattering glass and the spread of noxious smoke derailed all conversations. Visibility dropped quickly in the shop. She gripped her aunt's arm as she blindly fumbled with the edge of the counter to find their way around it. A large hand found its way to her back -- and Aggie's other arm, but the younger witch couldn't see that -- as Barrel helped to guide them toward the door.

When they reached the outside, Agatha jumped up to hug Barrel around the neck, still coughing. "My hero!" Then she quickly pulled away and made a show of brushing off her dress and politely clearing the rest of the smoke out of her lungs with a few small, much more dainty coughs. Right. She couldn't act too affectionate toward him. Had to let him keep his pride in front of his siblings... She turned to assist Aggie.

Having no lungs to be bothered by the smoke, Carver closed her eyes and focused on her outward senses. She could use her eyes for a common sort of sight, but even without eyes -- or a head, for that matter -- she had a certain awareness of her surroundings. She didn't need to see to know it was the shortest trickster who pressed a broom into her grip. That meant it was the wedding broom. She quickly grabbed her godzilla glue and unraveled her vines. When they weren't curled and twisted around each other and her metal framework, her arm vines were a good four feet long: easily enough to reach the ceiling and glue the broom in place.

The next broom she received went up her cargo pants, against her leg frame, and tied there with the vines from that leg. She grimaced -- she had prepared herself for this, but dammit, she liked these pants -- and broke the bottle daphnius over herself. The stain quickly hardened the fabric and a few small patches of vine where it soaked through too much. A yelp and some curses later, and Lock was helping her limp back out of the shop. She scooped up Loki and tucked him into her cage on the way out; Shock would not be merciful if he got hurt or forgotten in the confusion.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Once Lock came in and derailed the bicker train, Carver turned back to the counter and began putting her miscellaneous items back into her cage. She made sure to re-organize its contents a bit, being just a tad slow and methodical about it, but not so much so that the witches would likely notice or care. She needed it to take long enough that the daphnius potion was still on the counter by the time the smoke went off. Speaking of which...

Carver tapped the root vines that functioned as her feet in a similar manner to a humanoid impatiently rolling their fingers. Most of her signals had to be necessarily modified from the trio's basic system, but they did the trick. Bonus, it helped to break up any patterns the other citizens might notice in shared body language shortly before hijinks ensued. This one would be rather obvious to anyone who bothered to consider it a signal in the first place:

Places!

She jerked a single, thin vine toward Barrel, then Agatha. It quickly coiled up and relaxed, as if she were simply working a kink out of it. This one was her own special sign, and her target knew exactly who she was sending it toward.

Dumbass...

Carver gave Barrel just enough time to get over to his assigned position, then signaled for Loki to break open the swamp smoke.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver scoffed. "As if there isn't enough straw in this town of perpetual autumn to pack them safely? I don't let the Doctor use me as his personal ego prop; what makes you think I'm gonna let you use me as a free portable container?" She wished she had carved in lips so she could sneer at Shock. Instead, she slammed her cage door shut with the last few scorpion products still inside. "How about I just take these as payment for carrying all this crap all the way down here?"

Carver didn't throw an actual tantrum, but bickering was such a normal state for the tricksters that the witches would definitely get suspicious if they got along perfectly the whole time they were there. When Barrel cornered himself into buying something he wasn't prepared to pay for, she shook her head and opened her cage back up. Let him be the target of Shock's -- real or pretend -- wrath for a few minutes.

A couple minutes later, and Shock was accusing her of forgetting the bottles they all knew where with Lock. Okay, back to bickering.

"Corpse rot, you did! I grabbed the whole pile you told me to!"

Aggie and Agnes watched all this with an air of annoyance and resignation. They both knew to expect some amount of trouble from the tricksters, and at least this sort of trouble wasn't as bad as whatever usually resulted from them getting along. Still... Agnes curled a lip on one side of her long, beak-like mouth. She was tempted to tell them to settle up and clear out.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

"Yes, ma'am," he said, before turning to Agatha. Barrel gave her a little smile. "Besides. It's always more fun when you're learning with someone."

@LePouvantail

Agatha slowly broke into a smile again. Ah, yes, of course! He'd simply been too shy to ask her outright, and had backpedaled to seem as if he weren't pushing. And to ask Aggie to be there as a chaperone, why, he truly was a gentleman at heart!

Carver ignored all the witches as she started putting her cargo on the counter. Once her "hand" vines were clear, she opened her cage and started pulling out a few more. With practiced skill, she "accidentally" dropped her bottle of daphnius potion out of the cage as she rummaged around for the rest of Shock's goods. She visibly caught the bottle with a spare vine before it hit the ground and set it on the counter to be "out of the way" as she finished unloading. A few other miscellaneous items similarly fell and were placed about for temporary safekeeping. The pumpkin creature muttered quietly to herself about just making Shock borrow Behemoth's wheelbarrow next time, just for good measure.

Aggie kept an eye on the two newcomers until Agnes arrived, then focused back on Barrel.

"So, uh, about what we discussed... You're sure beetle's eyes aren't a good substitute for spider eyes? They seemed similar enough, but I don't want to ruin the recipe..."

@LePouvantail

Ah. There it was. Aggie immediately re-assessed the situation. The tallest trickster didn't merely wanted to learn about potions; he wanted to learn about potions he could use against his siblings. She harrumphed, but nodded and played along. "Of course I'm sure. The two may be the same on a basic level, but beetle eyes have a completely different texture and consistency. If it doesn't ruin the flavor, you'll still feel like you're crunching through sand."

Her eyes twinkled. "Now you'll pay the full price for proper, quality spider's eyes, or you can leave my shop and eat some more of that popcorn you like so much."

Meanwhile, Agatha was giddy with the belief that Barrel was so shy, he hadn't even admitted to his siblings he liked her yet. No wonder Carver had told her to be subtle! He would be so terribly embarrassed to know that she already knew of their attraction!

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Aggie eyed him silently for a long time, trying to come to a decision. Finally, she gave a short nod. "Fine, but you'll have to accept my teaching methods and actually put the work in. I won't have any lackadaisical pondering in my potion lab. It's an art form and a concrete science, and you will respect it or else regret it."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

"Didn't think? I offered to--" Agatha was quickly cut off by Aggie, and backed down with a huff. Still, she muttered to herself quietly. After a moment, a thought slowly started to form, and she fell very quiet...

Aggie sighed and kept her focus on Barrel. She didn't even have to verbally respond to his claims of innocence; he may be the friendliest of the tricksters, but everyone knew he loved a good prank as much as anyone.

"Well, then, I suppose the first question would be... Do you want formal lessons, or just someone around to make sure you don't detonate something by accident?" She put a very slight stress on the words, by accident. Some kind of explosive would probably be one of his first five attempts, almost guaranteed. The trio hadn't used flash-bombs in a few decades, and she suspected it was because they had run out since Boogie stopped supplying them with... toys...

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver chortled. "I'm sure I could find some way to spin it so he's still in the dark. But yeah," she shrugged, "we could find another source of entertainment if we really needed to. Kind of what we do, after all."

---

Barrel glanced sideways at Agatha shyly as he talked about white baneberry, and her shriveled little heart gave a flutter. This was it! He was going to ask her out! The youngest witch beamed, thinking about how much effort he'd probably gone to, trying to find a casual way to find a way to spend time with her.

Then her face fell when he turned back to Aggie and asked for, "a more experienced teacher."

...Oh.

So, he wasn't asking her for a personal tutoring session that might possibly turn into something else... He just wanted to study potions.

And he apparently didn't think she was good enough for the job.

Agatha was caught between being upset he brushed her off romantically, and being offended he brushed her off professionally. She settled on being offended. She could at least do something about that.

Aggie ran a gnarled hand across her chin thoughtfully. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, her niece interrupted her. Agatha crossed her arms and puffed out her chest. "Hey!" she piped up indignantly. "I'm plenty experienced!"