SystemofEleven

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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!"

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

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

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver took her head off and shook violently while Shock tantrum-ed. She nearly tripped a few times as she followed the tricksters back to the tree house. Anyone else might think she was trying to hide that she was crying, but the trio were familiar enough to recognize she had been incapable of controlling her own laughter beyond a certain point, and was preventing herself from making any noise that could give it away.

She flopped onto the couch as soon as they got in, but Shock beat her to the break down as she had to get her head back on first. The pumpkin creature offered vines to high five them all as she cackled.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

The Mayor spun his head to the frowning side -- or tried to, anyway. In his panic, he overshot and spun all the way back to the smiling side. He blinked in confusion, recognizing that something wasn't right about that. Then he tried again. It took him two more attempts before he regained enough composure to control his faces. Carver lost a bit of her own composure and snickered quietly at him, but quickly became serious again.

Frantic chattering broke out across the crowd as various citizens tried to figure out how they managed to forget Halloween or what to do now. Werewolf and his black cat both started grooming themselves to self-comfort. Agatha puller her hat off and started twisting it in her hands as she looked to her aunts to guidance -- though they were a bit busy clinging to Jack's legs, begging him for a solution.

Eventually Jack managed to get the whole crowd to settle down and sent them off to their homes. He wasn't sure how this had happened, but in the mean time, they needed to begin preparations for next Halloween.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver tapped her pumpkin thoughtfully. "On the other hand, for most of the monsters, there is virtually no difference from one day to another. They do almost the same thing, over and over, on repeat, with only minor variations from year to year, or as a reaction to our... interference. If we don't do anything out of the ordinary, they may remember what they were doing -- just because it's what they always do -- and still not recognize that something is off."

She grinned slowly. "We may not even need to strike. Werewolf checks the countdown just past midnight like clockwork. We just need to be around to watch."

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver refrained from munching on her popcorn. Lack of a stomach meant she could ingest the same popcorn a few times over before it became ground up too finely to reuse. That said, she was going to need as much as possible to get through the hysterics once somebody noticed the countdown board.

"Bite my rusty metal ass!" she snarled at Lock's corpse rot comment. "I'm not the one who had to be reminded what the water balloons even were!"