SystemofEleven

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver shrugged again, but she relaxed her vines enough that Lock would be able to let go of her. She didn't imagine Jack would let him carry her around until he figured out what to do with her.

A loud, dramatic groan pulled everyone's attention away from the two tricksters for the moment. Doctor Finkelstein slowly sat upright in his chair, holding his head closed with one hand. He looked around at all the nearby monsters. He appeared dazed and confused, and most of the crowd backed up to give him space.

"You okay, Doctor?" Corpse Dad asked nervously.

Finkelstein blinked slowly. "I am... not sure what hap--" His eyes found Carver, and suddenly his expression twisted into one of rage. "You!" he snarled at her.

Carver snapped her pumpkin head to face him and sneered. "I mean it's always me, isn't it, Dad?"

"You ungrateful brat!" The Doctor tried to move toward her, but the joystick on his wheelchair was jammed. He jiggled it a few times, then settled for a growl sent in her direction. "I gave you your very life, and this is how you repay me? Disgraceful! You can consider yourself grounded for the rest of the century, young lady!"

"I'd remind you I'm not a lady, Funkelsnort, except I'm pretty sure that's already the only thing you never forget," she snapped right back. She kept her vines wrapped up around her cage, but puffed them out to make it appear she had a bit more volume.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver shrugged, still refusing to look at Jack's face. "Whatever."

She wasn't sure if he was saying it to protect the Doctor or her. It was also possible he just wanted to avoid any more problems until the holiday passed. It didn't really matter, though; either way, she was probably never going to be given any freedom ever again. She shuddered, and gave Lock's tail a small squeeze.

Great. Her tantrum had completely shattered the one thing she cared most about. She couldn't even blame someone else for the problem this time.

...Well, she could, but no one would buy it.

Aaaaand by ranting about what she wanted to do, she had ruined any chance of ever actually being able to try any of it, let alone get away with it.

Bones. She was really bound by the bog, now. Nothing left but an eternal future of misery.

Carver pulled most of her vines in close, tightening them around her cage as much as possible. The only ones she left any amount of slack were the ones holding Lock's tail.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

"Bullshit!" she snapped at her friend. "I could put his brain in a jar and use him as a goddamn prop all Halloween," she continued with a growl. "I could probably find a way to hook it up to some preserved eyeballs and make him watch."

As she spoke, she did manage calm down enough that most of the monsters holding her felt secure enough to let Jack take over. They released her vines, allowing her to lean into Lock for moral support. She refused to look Jack in the eyesockets as she continued to mutter about what she'd like to do to the Doctor.

"Hook a computer chip to his head that makes him do whatever I say without question, not even able to think without permission. Dump him out of his chair so he can't go anywhere, give him one test tube to play with, tell him exactly what to use it for and how, like he doesn't fucking already know..."

One vine whipped out to grab a pebble from the ground and throw it at her creator.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver didn't stop fighting once they pried her off. She writhed in Clown's grasp, several other monsters quickly stepping in to help restrain her flailing vines as they reached out in Finkelstein's direction. Even her fear of Jack wasn't enough to snap her out of her rage.

"Because he deserves it!" she snarled. "Let him see what it's like to be a mindless fucking vegetable!"

The pumpkin creature slammed her head back into Clown's face in a thoughtless attempt to escape from his clutches. He yelped and reflexively let go of her cage as his face was knocked to the side, but she achieved nothing more than a bruise near her stem and an even tighter grip on her vines from the other monsters holding her back.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver sighed as Barrel set her down. "Thanks." She didn't say, "It's not your fault," because in her mind, it pretty much was. But now was not the time to bicker, and she needed to stay calm or she wouldn't manage to get through her punishment.

The pumpkin creature stayed silent for the next several hours, barely acknowledging Barrel and Behemoth as they continually brought her more things to carve. She put just enough effort in to keep Jack off her back, not doing anything fancy or challenging with the faces. A lot of them weren't even faces. Probably the laziest six were just arced slits that she could sort of argue were supposed to be tomb stones. By the time Doctor Finkelstein came to retrieve her for the evening, she'd had plenty of time to bury her anger at Lock and Barrel, get over her terror of Jack, and stew in her indignation.

"Well, well, well," he said as he wheeled up to her. "Sitting quietly, fulfilling your purpose without complaint or diversion... It's marvelous to see you finally functioning properly."

Carver let out a screech of a volume and pitch only possible due to her utter lack of vocal cords, and launched herself off the table at him. In a blind rage, she wrapped most of her vines around his face and chest and used the rest to wrestle with his brain cap. He shrieked, swaying and squirming to try and get her off. In their struggle, the control switch on his wheelchair was repeatedly knocked around, causing the chair to move back and forth and spin about in place. One of the wheels fell into a large gap between two pieces of cobblestone. A few moments later, a another jam of the control switch sent the chair tumbling over sideways.

Carver managed to get the brain cap open just as they both fell out of the chair, and Finkelstein's remaining half of a mind flopped out onto the street. She didn't have time to figure out what to do from there; Jack came running around a corner to investigate and intervene.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver wrapped her vines around Barrel's wrists to try and pull them apart and away from her cage, but was quickly overpowered by the two boys as they both quickly moved to grip her vines.

"Would you idiots take a second to-- Ow! Stop yanking that!"

She struggled in their grasp, but was at a disadvantage here. When Barrel said it was her idea, she joined Shock in hollering at him. She even rammed the back of his head with her cage for good measure.

"Thanks a lot, dumbass!"

The pumpkin creature scowled at Jack as he took back control of the situation. She wasn't brave -- or stupid -- enough to challenge him to his face. She might mock Doctor Finkelstein for his inability to contain her, but even if she could get out of whatever punishment Jack had in mind, she wasn't going to beg the question.

"Shock..."

"Sh-Shock..."

"Shock seriously--"

It didn't take long for Carver to abandon the idea of talking down their leader as the Pumpkin King pulled out all the stops. She cowered behind Barrel's bulk. Nope, was definitely not going to mess with that guy. She kept clinging to Barrel's back as they trudged toward town. Part of her wanted to spend the trek ripping into the boys for not catching a hint, but the rest of her was too nervous to make any real noise with Jack marching behind them.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver chirped, "We cover most contingencies beforehand. But we didn't really think to account for, say... Lock getting distracted by his girlfriend and dosing himself with the potion, or Barrel going off script because somebody mentioned food. Really, there's all sorts of ways things can get messed up when somebody forgets how to focus on the job they're supposed to be doing."

She laced some of her vines together like fingers and rested her chin on them. "Of course, I wouldn't get the count down wrong. But then, that wasn't my job. So who really knows?" she asked sweetly.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

"I think you three--" Jack noticed Carver on Barrel's shoulders, then quickly corrected, "--four know perfectly well why I'm here."

@LePouvantail

Carver reached a vine in through her cage, up into her head, and out her mouth. It was the closest she could get to sticking her tongue out at him, and she was still salty about being relegated to a side note again.

The pumpkin creature booped Zero on the nose and ran a vine along the top of his head between his ears. She let the trio take the reins in this conversation, partially because Jack clearly didn't think she was worth the trouble anyway and partially because it would break up the flow when the other three were talking in sync. She finally joined in when he included her in the question about the countdown clock.

"Oh, it's absolutely correct, Jack!" Carver piped up sweetly. She made sure to say it in exactly the way they had spoken when they were lying through their pointy teeth as children. The Pumpkin King had picked up on it after a few decades, and she liked using the resulting suspicion against him. "We would never make the town actually miss Halloween!"

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver grumbled as she followed Shock into the other room; it might be useful, but invaluable was probably going a bit far. Didn't make it any less irritating, either. She made her way over to Barrel and climbed up his body to perch on his shoulders, wrapping her arms around his forehead to hold herself up. It wasn't as comfy as riding Behemoth, but it worked well enough to give her a good line of sight.

"Jack doesn't know what day it is. He doesn't believe the countdown. My parents can probably use their SCIENCE," she threw in a dramatic flail of a couple vines, "to figure it out, but it'll take them a while. Until then, we can probably keep messing with them, going back and forth about what day it really is. Unfortunately, I doubt Jack'll bring the Mayor down here with him, so we don't get to watch his reaction, but... Should still be fun!" she cackled.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver nodded. "They figured out the how and guessed the who." She grinned and wiggled what passed for a browline over her top pair of eyes. "They don't know whether to believe the countdown anymore. Apparently Carmilla has a human calendar, and she thinks we might have snuck in and messed with that to trick everyone twice."

The pumpkin creature then narrowed her bottom two sets of eyes and splayed her lower vines outward, flopping down to rest her cage on the floor. "Though of course when I say we, I mean they blame you. I barely got side mention for maybe helping you and probably knowing what you were up to."

She crossed her arms. "Nobody trusts me to not get into trouble, because I'm friends with you, but nobody ever gives me credit when I actually do get into trouble, because they just assume you guys put me up to it. Even when the pranks are my idea!"