SystemofEleven

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Agatha smiled up at her boyfriend.

Aww, he’s trying to help his older brother, she thought. And he doesn’t even want the credit! But…

She pursed her lips, considering it. Some alcoholic drinks generally did little in the way of improving taste, and the stuff she brought, even less so. Vodka and tequila both had pretty rough flavors and usually required a chaser if they weren’t in mixers that could overpower them. Then again… Vodka wasn’t really that hard to overpower, and tequila… Well, it had a tendency to slightly fry the taste buds for a few seconds afterward. Wouldn’t really improve the taste much, but it might make the bad taste go away faster after each sip.

“I don’t think it’ll make it taste better,” she said, “but it could at least make it easier to handle.”

She decided not to ask why Lock was drinking the beer in the first place, if he needed help to handle the flavor. If it were anyone else, she would assume that the host was simply partaking to some small degree in whatever their guests brought, out of politeness. But this was a trickster party, and Barrel’s siblings were generally much less interested in being polite than he was. Maybe Lock lost a dare, or something.

The young witch picked up Lock’s drink and gave it a small swish to see how much space there was. Lock had only taken a few sips, so there wasn’t much. But she’d be able to fit a good size shot, and hopefully that would be all it needed. She tipped a splash of vodquila into the opening as best as she could; some didn’t quite make it in and ended up pooling around the rim of the can. Once that was done, she set it back on the table where it had been.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Carver draped a few vines across Barrel’s shoulder’s and leaned on him again as they popped a couple of the snacks into their front mouth. As they munched, they began to tap the back of his shoulder gently enough not to produce any noise for the shortest trickster to pick up.

I think Agatha brought something pretty light that might make the beer taste a little more tolerable. Do you think you could get her to help Lock by mixing some in his drink? Not while he’s looking though, because he wouldn’t trust us at first and any suspicion could ruin the pranks on Chad.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

It took a long moment for Carver to stop laughing enough to stand and speak. "Entertainment might not even be over, yet." Keep drinking it when he's looking, she tapped out to Lock. We can probably convince him it was a fluke. The longer he goes without putting his guard up, the more we can get away with.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Chad slammed his beer down on the table and made a dash for the door she’d indicated. While he was out of commission dealing with the oncoming system purge, Carver fell into a mad fit of cackles. She wrapped a vine around Barrel’s shoulders to help hold herself up.

Ho-hold onto that d-drink, Lock, the pumpkin creature managed to tap through his laughter. Le-let’s see ho-hahahah-how far we can t-t-take this!

Agatha started to let out a tiny cackle of her own. Then a realization dawned on her, and her expression shifted to one of mild horror. That’s where the missing adderpepper juice had gone. And it wouldn’t require the whole vial to spike just one drink past a human’s tolerance, so… What were the tricksters going to do with the rest of it?

Lillith daintily sucked on the tips of her fingers as if she had gotten some pudding on them. Amused as she was, she also realized she had to take the role of responsible semi-adult, again. She kept an eye on the flailing Chad to make sure his health wasn’t going to be significantly affected by the poisoned food or whatever Shock had spiked his drink with. Thankfully, his level of dramatic flailing indicated that he was relatively fine (at least for the time being).

Carmilla caught herself about ten seconds into a gratified giggle. She snapped herself out of it as fast as possible, given her state of mild inebriation. She struggled to put her scowl back in place, mentally cursing Shock for being the kind of monster that the vampiress couldn’t allow herself to outwardly appreciate any of the bitch’s work. But death… watching the sweet justice of Chad’s comeuppance was just too good to hate…

After several minutes, Chad came back into the main room of the lair. He was holding his mouth open and panted, trying to breathe past the residual burn in his mouth.

“Dang, you guys weren’t kidding! Those poison puffs are no joke!” He stopped to take a few long deep breaths. “No idea how you guys aren’t reacting to them at all. You must have spicy food every day to have that kind of tolerance!”

He rubbed his tongue over the roof of his mouth and let out several shorts bursts of air. Finding the flavor not completely gone, he made his way over to his beer. “Swig of this should rinse the last bit of the burn, then we can get the party really rockin!”

Carver could barely contain themself as Chad took a big gulp of the beverage and, instead of swallowing it immediately, decided to swish it around in his mouth first. By the time he realized the heat was getting worse instead of better, it was too late.

“HOLY SWEET HOT STUFF, IT’S IN THE BEER!” Liquid ran down his chin onto his shirt as he made his exclamation. He quickly closed his mouth and forced himself to swallow what remained, before falling right back into panicked flailing and heavy panting.

Carver lost all control and burst into hysterical laughter. He lost his grip on Barrel’s shoulders and fell to the floor. Lillith brought her hand up to her face, pressing two fingers to her brow as she sighed. Carmilla cracked again and quickly took a drink to hide her expression. Agatha simply stared, unsure of what to do.

Chad noticed none of this. Between the flailing and the hollering, he was completely occupied right through the point he had to race back to the bathroom.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

“Yes,” Carmilla replied to Lock. She sipped her drink and watched everything going on around her.

Barrel lacks the self control to pretend he likes it, or even just keep his mouth shut about how much he hates it, Carver tapped out. “So Agatha. How have things been down at the shop? Put any new potions in stock lately?”

“Oh! I meant to tell you! We figured out how to modify the daphnius potion for your heads. We can make it in larger batches, but with a longer set time and a softer wood variant. If you soak a whole head in it for a few days, the product would be a lot more durable and wouldn’t rot as quickly.”

And before you try telling me to do it myself, the target would start asking questions if I consumed a liquid of any kind, which is the exact opposite of what we want. I’m not brave or stupid enough to suggest Shock do it. But you’re welcome to try, if you are.

“Huh, that might be useful. I’ll probably give it a shot. What’s it going to cost, though?”

Plus, now that you so helpfully brought up your utter lack of ability to hold your liquor, you might actually be able to stay above the table with this beer. Win-win!

“Not too much more expensive than the original version,” Agatha said. She popped another poison puff in her mouth.

Lillith gladly obliged, leaning down so he could reach. “Rodent rolls and blood pudding, if you would. Thank you.”

“Dare accepted!” Chad marched over to the snack table and chucked a couple puffs in his mouth. He frowned as he chewed. “Weird, they don’t seem hot…”

He shrugged and took a swig of his beer to wash them down. Within a very short moment, his eyes widened. “OH. Oh, THERE it is! Slow burn! SLOW BURN!” He took another gulp, but it didn’t help at all. If anything, it seemed to spread the flavor around his mouth and make it worse. Waving his hands at his mouth and breathing hard wasn’t helping, either.

Suddenly, he froze. “Oh… Oh, shit. Oh, SHIT! Where’s your bathroom?!” He hollered, looking around frantically.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Agatha winced sympathetically and nodded. “I guess somebody’s gotta do it. Probably wouldn’t want him dying and becoming a permanent resident of the town…”

Carver snerked. “I think he’d fit right in with the redneck zombies across the lake. They have the same taste in alcohol, and a shared IQ of six between them.”

Agatha bit back a chuckle and sampled one of the poison puffs. “Wow, Barrel! I never forget how good you are at cooking, but it still always surprises me anyway!”

“What I have is not talent,” Carmilla corrected Lock. She drained her glass again before continuing. “It’s trained skill. Your sister is the one with talent, which remains relatively unrefined. But I suppose there’s some potential, there,” she added with a sniff.

Chad thanked Shock with a grin. As she walked away, he turned where Lock had indicated and put on what he imagined to be a good ‘game face’.

“Nine seconds left on the clock,” he said in a hushed but very serious tone. “Three opposing players blocking, no one to pass it to, and no path to get closer.”

He bounced on his toes, still talking. “His team is two points down. If he makes this shot, they win the championship. If he misses, he’ll go down in history as the biggest let-down the Halloween Town Hares have ever faced. Will, he, make it?”

Chad jumped into the air and threw the beer can at an unnecessarily high arc. “He takes the shot!” The can descended, hit the side of the trash bin, and bounced off it, coming to rest on the floor a foot away from it’s target.

The blonde boy dropped to his knees, yelling, “Nooooooo!! It’s a rim shot! And there’s the buzzer! There, is, no coming back from this! A young man’s career ended; an utter failure! How, will he, go on?”

He slumped down in defeat. Then a few seconds later, cheerfully hopped back to his feet and walked over to pick the can up and drop it in the trash normally.

Lillith started dancing a slightly creepier variant of the jitterbug, which resembled a skeleton jerking its joints as it stalked living prey.

Carmilla shook Carver’s vine away. She shot Shock an obligatory dirty glance as they passed each other on the trickster’s way back from the refreshments table. The vampiress poured herself another helping of wine and put the bottle down for someone else to partake later. She decided to nurse this glassful slowly; the regular inclusion of blood wine with dinner at the vampire castle had built up her alcohol tolerance quite well, but three glasses in under ten minutes -- plus what she had imbibed before Chad’s unwelcome arrival -- would be a stretch even for her.

Once they were sure Carmilla wouldn’t interfere with Shock’s prank, Carver recoiled their vine. Next up on their agenda: preparations for more mayhem. They tapped out a quick message to Lock, telling him to drink some of the crappy beer.

It’ll keep him off guard, they told him. See how much he’ll take before he figures out the pranks aren’t accidents.

Chad, having completely missed Shock’s tampering due to his theatrics, turned around just in time to have a helpfully pre-opened fresh can of booze pressed into his hands. “Hey, thanks!” His smile dropped a bit when she said she was the singer in Lock’s band. “Oh! Dude, I’m sorry! You’re actually not that bad a singer. I’m just used to guys doing the whole, growl-y scream-y kind a’ music. You know, like that dude in Linkin Park, singing ‘With You’.”

He then softly sang a rough attempt at a line from that song, as a demonstration.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Agatha awkwardly leaned sideways toward Sobki, keeping her eyes on Shock and her current target. “Umm… Is he always like this? Because… I mean… Why do you hang out with him?”

“Oh, sorry dude! Didn’t mean to be rude, there. Super cool you have a band!” Chad nodded approvingly. “Actually, now that I think about it, having chicks is actually a pretty good idea.Give the audience something extra to pay attention to during live shows.” He wiggled his eyebrows with a glance at Carmilla. He didn’t know for sure she was one of the singers, but it was a pretty easy assumption that Lock had recruited his girlfriend and her sister for the show power of hot twins.

Carmilla’s indecisiveness immediately resolved itself. She bared her fangs and took a predatory step forward. She didn’t get far; a vine quickly snaked out and grabbed her by the ankle.

Carver turned so her front face was toward the uninvited guest, but the back side was visible to the younger vampiress. She lifted the tip of another vine in front of her kissy lips just out of his line of sight, then pointed at Shock.

Lillith closed her eyes for a long moment, running an internal monologue about maintaining grace and poise. Then she resolved to ignore Chad as much as possible and just enjoy the party for what it was meant to be. She joined Lock on the dance floor with not a little bit of relief for the distraction.

“Nah, Chud’s the one with red hair and suspenders. I’m Chad!” He shot a friendly grin toward Shock, before looking over at Barrel. “Poison puffs, huh? Sounds spicy! I’d probably need a bit more booze and a really good dare to try ‘em.”

Having suddenly reminded himself of the beer in his hand, he chugged the rest of it and crushed the can against his forehead. “Yo, where’s the trash? Wanna take a long shot!”

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Chad waved a hand at the trio. “Nobody invited me, I just sorta sensed there was a party on, and there’s no party like a Chad party! I even brought booze!”

Carver grinned with both of her mouths, glad she got all the cameras set up beforehand. The guy was going to regret crashing this party, and she was going to relish every moment.

Upon hearing the announcement that Chad could stay, Lillith hid her expression of mild horror behind a long delicate sip of punch. Her sister, on the other hand, made no such attempt to hide her reaction.

Carmilla threw back her entire glass of wine and poured another. She crossed her arms, silently debating with herself whether the entertainment of watching Shock ruin the idiot’s day would be worth the annoyance of dealing with his presence until then.

Chad, completely oblivious to the tension in the room, pulled a can of beer out of his jacket. “You can put that box wherever, dude. I got mine, so that stuff’s to share. Enjoy!”

He then cracked open his can and wandered to the center of the roulette wheel. “Nice light, by the way! Weird choice in music, but I can work with it. Be better with guy singers, though.”

Agatha’s eyes widened. She stuttered some sort of apology and shuffled away over toward the refreshments table. She did not want to be standing anywhere near Chad when the trickster bomb went off.

Carmilla’s eyes flashed at his comment. One the one claw, she wanted to be offended at his callous dismissal of her vocal skills. On the other… Shock was the lead singer for this song, and Lock was the one who wrote it. Which meant she also rather wanted to smirk at her rival and her sister’s boyfriend. Decisions, decisions…

Carver swung himself hard, so that when he let go of his perch, he went flying sideways in a smooth arc. One of the couches broke his fall. He quickly made his way to the refreshments table as well. He was going to need a lot more popcorn than he could reach from up there.

Banding Together in Halloween Town

The next half hour went by pretty smoothly.

Agatha swooned a bit over Barrel approving her dress choice. Barrel shot her a thumbs up.

Lillith mixed up the pumpkin punch in a bowl and took the bottle from her sister just long enough to give the drink a small kick. The two of them then made use of the trio’s least-chipped ceramic goblets, alternating between the punch and straight blood wine.

Agatha surprised everyone by pulling a bottle of high-end vodquila out of her bag. She offered to add some to the punch to increase the flavor range, but Carver recommended against it, citing some science-y jargon that seemed to indicate that the chemical interactions would negatively impact the concoction. Lock backed them up; he didn’t want to admit that he wouldn’t be able to safely drink the punch if it got too alcoholic.

Shock kicked on the music and the party got into swing. Literally, in Carver’s case; he decided to hang himself from the eight ball ceiling contraption and mix upside down high-fiving of his friends with vine flails that passed for dancing.

Even Carmilla was starting to loosen up. She stood at the edge of the roulette wheel with a mildly grumpy expression on her face, tapping her feet and bobbing her head to the beat of the music.

“Yooooooo!” A voice interrupted as a rosy cheeked face popped in through the window. “The Chad is here! The party can now officially begin!”

A moment later, said individual reached to grab the ladder, missed, and fell into the lair.

Barrel, who had been emphatically gesturing as he explained to a politely nodding Sobki how to make jellied slugs without accidentally making slug jelly, suddenly had a mildly heavy box land in his outstretched arms. He looked down and read the label: Bludlite Select.

“Nice catch, bab-BARREL!” Agatha corrected herself quickly. “Nice catch, Barrel!” Internally, she beamed. As much as the youngest trickster tended to play dumb to avoid having his siblings catch on when he was sabatoging their pranks, he clearly was constantly paying more attention to hs surroundings than anyone else. And those reflexes! He didn’t hesitate or even have to look to catch the 12-pack that came flying!

Chad popped up to sitting position immediately after landing on his back. “Woooo! Party boi’s in the ho-ouse!”

Banding Together in Halloween Town

Turning away from her... distraction, Carmilla sniffed disdainfully at both of the trickster ghouls. Truthfully, she was jealous that the impromptu up-do looked good on her twin and would therefore look good on her, but she refused to stoop so low as to request Shock's help in replicating it. When Lock made his own jibe about entertainment, she stomped back to the couch and snatched the bags from Carver.

"Lillith, I carried all of this here. You can make the punch."

With that, the vampiress shoved the bags into her sister's arms. She pulled a bottle of blood wine and a corkscrew out of one of the bags. It wouldn’t likely matter in the long run if she started drinking before the party got into full swing, and besides, she also needed something to make it easier to tolerate being here.

Lilith rolled her eyes, but obligingly took the bags after taking one more moment to pat Lock affectionately on the head.

Carver’s front mouth smirked. “They weren’t, but thanks to Jack and Jewel, Finkelfart doesn’t get a say in the matter anymore. Jack even let them get away with manslaughter, wrecking everything in sight until I was free.” Her back mouth grinned as widely as the puckered lip design allowed. “You should have seen it! Shock even built a bomb and no one stopped her!”

“Bomb?” A voice echoed down as Agatha flew into the window on her broom. “What are we talking about?”

She swooped down to hover by Barrel, careful to try and make her skirt swish in just the right manner for him on the way down.

“Wow, Agatha, even Sobki beat you here! Aunts forget how to close the shop on their own?”

The teen witch offered Barrel a hand to help her down from her broom as she answered the pumpkin creature. “No, I just couldn’t decide what to wear.”

“Don’t you only own two outfits?”

“That's why it's such a hard choice!”