A/N: Happy Halloween, guise! :B I'm a mad scientist today, got my black lab coat and crazy hair and everything, so... MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA—*Wheezes, snorts, takes breath*—HAHAHAHAHAHA~

Enjoy... if you dare. }:)

Disclaimer: "HEY ARNOLD!" and all original characters pertaining to it do not belong to me. Zack, Phil, Amanda, Ham, and all unrecognizable characters are mine. Steal and perish a horrible, unexplained death.

Flood Watch

Part 1

Lightning struck true, cracking through the sky with a brilliant snap of light. And then darkness fell. More darkness, and more rain, pounding relentlessly on the small house hidden away in the woods, the sounds of fat globs of water slamming into the lake nearly deafening. The water sloshed and rolled, the grass cowering against the ground in the face of yet another of the universe's pompous displays of power.

While the outside of the house was a disaster zone that stretched on for miles, the inside was dry and safe, the violent sounds of rain vague and the atmosphere peaceful save for the occasional roar of thunder. Inside of this house, Zachary Shortman walked hunched into the living room with a thick pink striped blanket thrown over his head and clenched in a fist below his chin, his blue eyes wide and glassy in the light of the candles spread generously across the room. He asked brittlely, "Is the flood watch over yet?"

The eleven-year-old brunette sprawled across the couch rolled his eyes at the question, setting his book down to throw the teen an annoyed look. "We're far a way's away from the actual flooding, it's just rain. Stop being so overdramatic. And take that blanket off your head, you look like an even bigger moron than usual."

Zack raised half his eyebrow at him, wisely choosing to keep his comments to himself. The power had gone off two hours prior, and that meant: no refrigeration, no lights, no computer, and most regretfully, no television. As in, absolutely nothing to defuse Phil should he go off into one of his cataclysmic rants, which he seemed close to wanting to do. He was grumpier than normal, on the verge of something annoying, and for once, Zack outright refused to be the one to set him off. So he just grinned kind of dazedly and nodded his head, not making a move to remove the blanket. "Right, you'll have to forgive me, my mind is going."

Phil just rolled his eyes again and shook his head, before going back to reading his book, apparently intent on ignoring him. Yet, Zack didn't like being ignored and found himself pursing his lips as he walked further into the room, closer to the young squirtling. The boy was clearly trying not to complain about the chill in the house but Zack could see him shivering, his acting never as good as he liked to think, so he smirked slightly and walked across the room to throw his blanket over top him with one fluid movement, though the heaviness of the blanket didn't allow it for a graceful landing. It plopped.

Phil screeched at the sudden weight and assault of stark blackness, his battering against the blanket making him look like a giant pink blob monster on the sofa. Zack couldn't help but burst into laughter, nearly falling on his backside on the coffee table. Well, that resolve to not set him off lasted all of five seconds. A new all time record. "Sorry!" he cried, holding his stomach as he bent over in hysterics. "Couldn't help it!"

Amanda chose that moment to wander into the room and the response was instantaneous. She screamed at the giant blob, the popcorn-filled bowl in her hand flying into the air. Arnold jumped in at that moment and snatched the bowl from the air, releasing a quick breath of relief before his eyes popped open at the sight of Phil throwing the blanket off of himself and across the room. Everything went in slow motion, Swan Lake playing loudly in the mental background as the flash of fluffy pink flew across the room, graceful and majestic in the dim, romantic atmosphere.

It caught easily on one of the many candles and promptly burst into flames. Everyone in the room screamed at this, and Phil threw himself over behind the couch with barely a thought, as if the wooden, highly flammable thing would offer any protection. The blanket was utterly inflamed, lighting up the entire room with it's brilliance as it shriveled up in a black mass, no doubt thinking about setting other things on fire as well. Although it did give them all a perfect view of each other's horror-stricken faces.

Everyone was too shocked to move so when the fire was suddenly obliterated by the aid of a thick white substance and the room went back to it's former dim atmosphere, the relief was almost enough to make everyone pass out.

The room was quiet for a moment, before Zack blurted, wasting no time, "What the hell was that?"

The fire extinguisher being thrown down with a loud clunk to the floor alerted everyone of a fifth presence, and they all snapped their eyes over to see Helga giving them all a rather grim look. "I leave for five minutes and you try to set the house on fire." She clenched her teeth, her eyes thickly glazed with the ruing. "Tell me we have popcorn."

Arnold still couldn't quite speak. He just held the bowl out so she could see, and she sighed. "Good."

Phil lifted his trembling body up from the floor with even shakier arms, and Zack threw him a look, gaining his wits back much faster than the rest of his family. "Philly, I'm surprised at you," he stated, his look mockingly scolding. "Why do you always have to be so dramatic? You nearly killed us all!"

Amanda shuddered, tripping over her words, "And it's raining outside!"

"Exactly, Faith," Zack acknowledged gently, before throwing his gaze back to the shivering, wide-eyed preteen. "Nearly killed us with fire in a flood watch, and all over a harmless little pink blanket. You are truly the master of chaos—"

"Moronic, pea-brained, ignoramus of a louse," Phil ground out in a harsh grumble beneath his breath, barely intelligible as he gave one last hard shudder with his fingers clenched tight in the fabric of the couch.

"This was your doing, Phil?" Helga asked with a hint of unmasked horror, sharing a brief look of trouble with her husband. He had been a very difficult toddler and had proven to be just as difficult in his preteen years—they'd made sure to keep sharp things locked up and out of sight to him, given him a fork with especially blunt ends, kept all of her romance novels locked away in their room even, just for the sake of keeping everyone safe from unintentional… accidents. But they'd never thought of him being a fire hazard before.

Phil snapped his large jellybean eyes on her though and shook his head, his finger going with startling speed in the direction of Zack. "No! He threw a blanket over my head and blinded me!"

"Zack," Helga groaned, exasperatedly throwing her head back as she sagged against the doorway, "you know how your brother gets."

"He was shivering," Zack said in self-defense, his eyes going wide with feigned concern and sorrow for his brother's welfare. Though feigned at the moment, he had been legitimately concerned and thought he could have some fun with it—he just hadn't expected him to try to turn them all to ashes. "Would you rather I allowed him to freeze?"

"You could have just asked me," Phil yelled, shooting a glare at him.

"You would have rejected it and said something about it being tainted with my germs."

"I would not have—" Phil tried to deny, but Zack smirked at him and cut him off swiftly with a, "Totally would have."

"Would not!"

"Would so."

"Would not!"

"Would so."

"Would not!"

"Would so. You know I can go on all day, right—"

"Okay, that's it," Arnold yelled, walking over to set the popcorn on the coffee table. He placed his fists on his sides and glared at them firmly, using his height and more built, adult stature to gain some control over the two. He could completely understand why Helga felt the need to intimidate people when they were kids now, because this was one of his only tools in being able to reign in these kids and keep them from killing each other. "Enough fighting. There's a storm outside, the power's out for we-don't-know-how-long, and we have to wait it out. We're doing this as a family. No exceptions, no yelling, and no fires." He sighed with his eyes to the ceiling.

Zack laughed a little lightly, settling himself down on the couch. "I might have to leave then, I'm too hot for you guys."

Helga snorted, walking over to behind the couch to ruffle up his hair with an amused quirk of her mouth. "Really? That's a bet even I'd wager against, Hair Boy."

Before Zack could shoot something back at her, an elderly voice called out from the hall, "Do I smell barbecue?"

Grandpa Phil walked into the room then, holding up a lantern and squinting to see their faces in the faint light from afar.

His wife and him had come down for a visit as a little vacation away from the inane and tiring escapades of the boarders, his son and daughter-in-law more than happily taking the reigns for a day, as the two ancients were both eager for a day away from the crazies to go visit some different, relative crazies.

The sudden flooding had been unexpected, and they were worried about how the boarding house was faring now in the storm, but there was no means of communication and his grandson and granddaughter-in-law hadn't had the presence of mind to keep a giant inflatable boat in their attic (he deflected their arguments that they lived on an upper slate and didn't have to worry about flooding—always be prepared for a curveball, his father always said, before diplomatically stating, "And never eat raspberries.")

The old man lifted the lantern closer as he wandered farther into the room, scratching his head with his free hand as he asked, "Now what in the Sam Hill happened here?" After eyeing the scorched and still smoking black mass in the middle of the room, his eyes went instinctively to his protégé.

Young Phil standing against the back of the couch immediately averted his gaze downward, and Grandpa tut tutted him, shaking his head.

"Who wants marshmallows?" Gertie popped out from behind him with a toothy grin, holding out a big bag of the little white devils and a couple of wooden skewers, and Phil could have kissed his wife right then for stealing them out of the cabinets this morning despite his scolding her to put them back. Always be prepared, he thought with a grin.

"I still say that ghost story Gerald likes to tell is a bunch of malarkey," Zack mumbled, twisting the marshmallow-clad stick around in his hand over the scorching hot pink shrivel with his head rested in his hand.

Arnold chuckled from his position on the couch, his arm slung around Helga as she leaned tiredly against him. "He swore he looked him right in the eye. He woke everyone with his screaming, and refused to go back to sleep for the rest of the night. I've got to say, he had me convinced."

Zack rolled his eyes. "He was half-asleep. He wasn't in his right mind. He was probably just half sleep walking or something and was hallucinating."

Arnold just shrugged. "He insisted. He still does to this day."

"Of course he does," Zack droned in a deep voice, tapping his fingers against his cheek.

Arnold chuckled again, resting his chin on Helga's head and grinning at his son a bit secretively. "Always try to stay open minded, Zack. You never know."

"That's the exact problem I have. You never know." Zack crossed his eyes a second with his brow furrowed before he just sighed. "I want to know for sure. There's too much gray to sort through."

"I think you should just shut up," Phil groaned from beside him, flipping his brown hair out of his eyes so he could properly glare at him. "Who cares if they exist or don't exist? You just said it yourself—there's no way of knowing, and even if we did have a way, would it really change anything? I hate it when you argue about pointless topics! It's nothing more than an excuse to waste away the brain cells of those around you! I've had to sit here and listen to you drone on and on about this for hours—"

"It's been five minutes—"

"—it seems," Phil finished with a snap of his jaw, like a rowdy alligator. "You might as well argue about whether or not the Milky Way is located between Milk and Cookies or Chocolate Cake and Mint. Why argue about such miniscule details of life, nay, the afterlife, when the outcome of said argument wouldn't even affect you? Moreover why argue about whether or not ghosts exist if you're so sure that they do not? Should this no longer tickle your interest to even bring up considering you have already reached a sure conclusion? You are nothing more than a weak-minded dolt who seeks self-gratification through vain attempts at changing the opinion of others—yes, opinion, because there is no actual proof or irreversible facts to present to the argument that should ever prove a winner in your sick, egotistical game! There is no point!"

Everyone stared at the heavily breathing boy with eyes that had only grown a fraction whereas his had gone practically otherworldly, and they all waited patiently for him to calm down a bit and his eyes to return to normal before Zack just shrugged and said carelessly, "It keeps the mind sharp."

"Well, play chess!" Phil yelled, turning away from him to pout in a corner.

Zack blinked at him a couple times, before he turned his sights back to his family and grinned crookedly. "Topic change then?"

"Oh, I don't know," Grandpa snickered, his eyes twinkling, "I kind of liked the idea of a few ghost stories."

Lightning roared suddenly, causing Amanda to grin and Phil to yelp and cling to Zack's side. Zack only just managed to keep himself from bursting into laughter, his face strained.

"No ghost, no ghost stories," Phil growled in stutters, his teeth chattering.

Grandpa hummed in disapproval at his heir's stick-in-the-mud attitude and chuckled a little. "Not even if you got to tell the first one, young Philly—um, cheesesteak was it?"

"That's the one!" Zack chirped brightly, practically lighting up the room with his beaming grin.

Phil immediately shoved away from his older brother in disgust. "I thought I made it perfectly clear I never wanted to hear that foul name again!" He threw his arms up over his head as another roar of thunder sounded, and he growled. His mood swings often did seem to sync up with the weather, and everyone knew that if it was sunny out he wouldn't be nearly as irritable. Thankfully his eyes lit up, though, and he snapped his eyes over to his great-grandfathers in intrigue. "Wait, I get to tell the first one?"

"You got it!" Grandpa Phil swung his fist in the air with a grin, making Arnold have to swerve out of the way on instinct.

"Hmmm…" Phil mulled this over, his eyes wandering away as he tapped his chin.

Gertie pranced into the room then with a fresh bowl of popcorn, and sat it down on the sofa before saddling up beside the young brunette, her hand going to rest on his shoulder as she smiled at him kindly. "Well go on, Colonel, the sky's the limit with a good horror story!"

"Horror stories are for masochists," Phil said bluntly, his eyes devoid of emotion. A sinful smile spread slowly across his face then, and he turned his devious eyes on Amanda across the room, who did nothing but blink innocently at him. "But I would relish in the chance at scaring Amanda spineless."

Amanda giggled, setting her head on the coffee table over her fingers, her gumdrop eyes large as they gazed up at the ill-intended face of her brother. "I love ghost stories!"

"You love everything," Phil snapped at her, irritated. "Stop loving everything! It's okay to hate!"

"No it's not." Amanda's soft gaze turned a bit firmer, though she never wanted to start an argument with her loved ones, so she left it at that. Her face turned sweet again. "But if you want, I'll pretend I'm scared if it'll make you happy."

Phil's eye twitched.

"Did I miss anything?"

All eyes went up to see the large outline of Ham in the doorway, his tan face looking almost ethereal in the glow of the candles.

"Criminy, Josh, brilliant timing as per usual," Zack drawled, grinning with silvery amusement.

Ham took in the sight of his family sitting in a cult-looking room filled with dozens of candles and all of them sitting around a charred pink mass of smoke and ashes with marshmallows held over on sticks, and almost immediately felt the urge to go back up to his room and take a nap. Instead he sighed and walked over to take a seat on the couch, only to have his butt come in contact with something strange, round, and crunchy. Snapping upright, he looked down to see he'd sat in popcorn and resisted the urge to groan.

Arnold just chuckled and took the bowl away from his seat, patting it for him to sit down again. "Ham, I was wondering where you were. What have you been up to?"

Ham offered no words, simply held up his iPod. Arnold seemed to understand and he nodded his head, but Helga just gripped his shirt in her hand and closed her eyes, releasing a huff of breath.

"Well—" Amanda started enthusiastically to list off all that had occurred, but Ham quickly held his hand up to shush her and sighed. "Never mind, Faith. I don't want to know."

"Aw, such a party pooper," Zack pouted jokingly. Grabbing his marshmallow off of his stick, he eyed his handy work, his eyes shifting from it to the corner of his eye to peek amusedly at Ham. "All we've been doing is sitting around a nice campblanket, and Phil was just about to tell us a ghost story." Snatching Phil to him with an arm around his shoulders, Zack grinned. "Weren't ya, Philly?"

Phil humphed, his arms battling against Zack's side as he attempted to gain freedom. "Let go! I didn't say I was doing anything!"

Zack gasped and immediately let go of Phil, just as he'd raised his leg up to kick away and instead ended up falling straight away to the floor. Zack just looked down at him in mock shock. "No ghost stories?" He smirked. "Well then I guess I'll just have to go first." Clearing his throat with a fist to his mouth, Zack opened his mouth wide to begin when Phil suddenly shot up and slapped a hand over his mouth, scowling fiercely.

Realizing himself, Phil let go of his face quick and huffed, smoothing his hair back down over one eye and straightening himself, his face going blank. "That won't be necessary."

Helga sat up from Arnold's chest and cracked her neck, her eyes more alert than before. She didn't want to miss a second of this. Chuckling a tad darkly, she leaned over into Phil's face, her hair casting shadows across her white face as her eyes practically glowed with mischief. "Going to scare the last hints of daylight out of the room, are ya, darling?"

Phil pouted at her, his arms crossed. Suddenly his face lip up and he smirked. "You just wait, Mom. You won't have teeth to talk with after I'm done. They'll have all run away from the abuse."

Zack burst out in a buzzing noise. "Bad joke alert! Bad joke alert!"

"Who says it was a joke?" Phil asked him calmly, his face still smirking. "If anyone knows true horror, what really keeps little kids up late at night crying for their moms, it's me."

"Mm, true," Zack agreed thoughtfully, his thumb going over his chin in contemplation. "You are the Family Coward—"

"I am no such thing!" Phil screeched, making everyone's eyes dilate and cringe. Jumping up on the coffee table, Phil pointed a finger dramatically in the air and shouted, "Prepare to have to change your pants!"

Gertie raised her skewer in the air like a sword beside him, the marshmallow dripping gooily from the end, and yelled, "Yes! Listen up, peasants, his highness has a bit of wisdom to bestow upon you!"

Phil blinked a second, surprised, before he grinned, his finger snapping to point at her. "What Grandma said!"

Lightning struck fierce above the spiking, sharp towers of Phillipstein's castle, it's light traveling deep into every dark crevice of it's stonework, revealing hidden spiders with twelve legs and mice with extra tails, all scurrying away in fear as the accompanying thunder struck true.

Deep in the tallest tower of the teetering fortress, Phillipstein was hard at work. Tying off beams into their correct locations and sticking bubble gum where it was needed, Phillipstein yelled for his assistant, "Mandagor!"

At his screech a small, hunch-backed blonde came prancing into the room, a tray of cookies in her hands. "Cookie, Master?" Mandagor beamed, offering the tray up to him.

Phillipstein huffed. "No I don't want your stupid—wait, are those chocolate chips?" Intrigued, Phil grabbed one up from the tray and took a bite. Humming, his eyes suddenly popped open and he spat it out, holding the cookie away from himself in offense. "Raspberries? You're feeding me dried Ogre spit?" Throwing the cookie at her, he turned back around to his controls and began hitting buttons, frustration creasing his brow. "Trying to poison me! My own igor, poisoning me!" Phillipstein raged, slamming his arms down across the table and setting a bunch of buttons aflame with blinking lights and red flashes.

Mandagor merely blinked, her eyes averting down to gaze confusedly at her cookies. "Raspberries are good for your health, though, sir. You desperately need to have more fruit in your diet, all you eat is dry toast and eggs nowadays. And you're always so…" her voice went meek, choosing her words carefully, "stressed. I can't let you get an ulcer."

"Maybe I want an ulcer!" Phillipstein's voice boomed, echoing across the walls as he flew around to raise his arms in the air furiously, lightning striking at that moment and illuminating his form. "Did you ever think of that, Miss Know-It-All? Perhaps I would rather die at my own hand than at the juice of some poisonous leech?" Growling, he snapped back around to the controls and pressed a few more buttons into place, before turning back around and grinning with evil abandon. "We're finally ready, Mandagor…"

Mandagor's eyes widened. "Ready for—"

"The Switch!" Phillipstein burst, lightning striking once more and making his mad form look inflamed with it's sheer intensity.

Mandagor huffed, throwing her hip out to put a stained green hand on it and scold, "Stop doing that, you know that effect costs you five gold pieces an hour. If this insane scheme doesn't work, we'll never see that money back—"

"Silence, Mandagor!" Phillipstein yelled, shooting his hand out to point to The Switch. "Just do your job and pull the stinking switch already! Criminy, it's true what they say about good help—"

Mandagor sighed and shoved her tray into his hands. "I'm going, I'm going, just be patient." As she took the three steps over to grab hold of the giant handle of The Switch, organ music suddenly blared in the background, catching her off guard. Her master suddenly burst into maniacal laughter behind her, and her eyes narrowed. She turned around to glare at him. "Oh, and what is that effect costing us, huh?"

"Shut up and pull!" Phillipstein raged, clenching his white-gloved hands at his sides.

Mandagor resisted rolling her eyes and grabbed both of her petite hands over the lever, using all of her weight to pull it down, heaving herself up and down to give it more force until it finally hit the breaker and electricity zinged across the room, lightning flashing outside the stoney windows and the organ music deafening. Phillipstein laughed.

Suddenly, all the lamps clicked on, lighting up the once shadowy room. The organ music immediately groaned to a stop and Phillipstein's eyes bugged out.

Mandagor blinked, and jumped down from the lever to glance about the room in awe. "Oh my. It was a light switch." Her eyes snapped to Phillipstein and she giggled. "You must have attached the wrong wires!" A little ding rang in the room, and Mandagor clapped her hands giddily. "And my raspberry tarts are done!"

Phillipstein's eye twitched.

Mandagor wandered over to the actual light switch by all the blinking lights and buttons and laughed, placing her finger over it. "I bet it still works."

Phillipstein snapped out of his stupor just enough to scoff at her and grumble, "That would never work, I'll have to rewire everything again before—"

She flipped the switch, and all the light bulbs on the walls exploded into shards of thin glass, electricity flying across the room in waves and making their hair stand on end. The mass in pink on the table across the room twitched, and they both gasped as it suddenly threw the blanket off of itself with a force strong enough to slash a deep dent in the stone walls.

"It's…" Phillipstein gasped, looking faint.

"It's…" Mandagor practically squealed with excitement.

They both screamed at the same time, one terrified and the other delighted, "Alive!"

The monster towered over them in bleary-eyed fascination, it's blue eyes foggy in the dim lighting of the castle and body covered in a black trench coat the evil scientist had thrown over it to hide the horror of it's grotesque, rotting body. A patch of stitches went straight across it's melting face, it's arms uneven and hands two different sizes. It's hair went straight up in a crazy blond mess from the electricity still thick in the air, and it blinked down at them. A moment passed where the room was still and Mandagor and Phillipstein held their breaths, when suddenly the monster grinned crookedly and crossed it's arms. "Criminy, what kind of a welcome party is this? No balloons, no snacks, nothing? A monster creation like me doesn't just come around every day you know! Have a little enthusiasm!" It smirked.

"Huh—" Phillipstein squinted his eyes at him in baffled shock, before Mandagor squealed and grabbed the monster by both it's hands, leading it over to the table of buttons across the room where the cookie tray was sitting. "Oh, we're terribly sorry, Mr. Monster," she apologized sweetly. "We don't have something like this happening too often. We weren't sure how to prepare."

"Please," the monster chuckled, rolling it's eyes good-naturedly, "Mr. Monster was my father. Call me Zachary."

"Okay, Mr. Zachary." Mandagor beamed, letting go of it's hands to grab the tray from the table and offer it up to the abomination. "Raspberry cookie?"

Zachary eyed the tray with a hint of strangeness in it's face, before it just grinned a little nervously and chuckled. "Nah, thanks, I'm good. I can't eat anything but raw flesh after nine o' clock. Anything else gives me a stomach ache." It chuckled again. "You know how it is."

A frown touched Mandagor's face, but she wiped it away easily enough and sat the tray back down, clasping her hands together as she gazed up at the monster in awe. "We may have some lemonade, newt eye, and frog toe in the refrigerator downstairs if you'd like. Also some leftover hearts that didn't take." She smiled wide.

Zachary's eyes lit up but before it could respond, Phillipstein crashed into their conversation, stomping over towards them with a scowl, "Hold on just a second! Nobody is eating anything but townspeople tonight! And that's final! Stop with this idle chatter and get out there and terrorize people!" Phillipstein pointed angrily at the door.

Zachary just shrugged. "Whatever, bro. It's your story." Eyeing him up and down with eyes sharp as led and yellow as the cheese laid out in the mousetraps across the room, the monster asked, "But why do you want to terrorize townspeople? What did they ever do to you?"

"Don't question me…" Phillipstein scolded skeptically, eyeing him with disdain. "I created you for destruction! Now go out there and destrucify!"

"That doesn't even sound like a word—"

"Silence, igor!"

"You know," Zachary broke into the fighting, leaning against the control panel on an oversized hand, "I don't know if I'm really the 'terrorize the townspeople,' 'tear down buildings and breathe fire' kind of guy… Why didn't you just find a dragon or some other mystical being to do your dirty work?"

"Wrong era," Phillipstein said dryly. "All the dragons have long evolved into geckos and seem to be forming some kind of carriage insurance agency. But that isn't the point!" Phillipstein poked the Zachary monster in it's stomach, his eyebrows furrowed dangerously. "You are the type to terrorize and destroy! I designed you specifically for it! And I know you're not malfunctioning because you've only been here five minutes and you've already given me a raging headache." He rubbed his temples. "You were born for this."

Zachary chuckled. "Hey, whatever you say, little man, but look at me. I've got free will, don't I?"

"A fatal error I will not be making again—"

"I can move my legs, my arms, I have a fully functioning brain." Zachary twisted it's arms about, when suddenly a hand fell out of it's socket and the monster quickly screwed it back into place with a laugh. "Maybe not fully functioning everything mind you, but I can think. And I'm not too sure this is a very good idea."

"Good idea—" Phillipstein nearly raged.

"Hey now, Junior, hold your horses." Zachary placed a hand on his head to keep it from shooting off like a steam whistle and grinned down at him humorously. "Maybe I would be more obliged to go along with your crazy scheme if I knew what this was all about? I'm all for a little payback if you've been wronged or something."

"Wronged," Phillipstein spat, his chest heaving and eyes bitter, "Such a weak word for the injustice I've seen."

Mandagor sighed, "Here we go."

Phillipstein threw his finger up in the air, causing Zachary's hand to fall away in surprise at the melodramatic action, and he shouted to the Heavens, lightning flashing overhead, "They banished me for wrecking the Fall Festival!" The organ music blared again twice in dramatics.

The room fell silent then for a few moments, before Zachary threw it's eyes over to Mandagor and asked, "What the hell is that?"

Mandagor smiled kindly. "The Fall Festival is a traditional party they do every year for newly betrothed couples and young teens looking for love. Everyone is entitled to go, but Master refused and instead destroyed the party in a huge fit. They cast him out because of it." Mandagor sighed. "And me."

Zachary looked at her in concern. "Why you? You're so nice."

Mandagor lit up at the compliment, before she frowned and looked down in shame, kicking some dirt away with her foot. "I helped."

Zachary did a double take of her in shock. "You? But why?"

She smiled a tad sheepishly. "I was betrothed to the town huntsman and I hated him. He was a real jerk, so when Phillipstein started throwing food around and smashing tables, I sort of joined in." She coughed awkwardly, shuffling her feet.

"Betrothed? But I thought you were an igor?"

Mandagor giggled, standing up straight so the sack of flour could fall out from her back, before rubbing off some of the green on her hand to reveal pale skin. She shook her head at him with a grin. "It's all just for show. Phillipstein does love his theatrics."

Zachary blinked. "Wow." It's face suddenly split open in a grin filled with mismatched yellow teeth and wolf's fangs. "A big party then, huh? With ladies? That sounds like fun!"

"Fun," Phillipstein growled out in a yelp, his eyes popping open in outrage. "You call the central point of all evil in the universe fun?"

Phillipstein took a few heavy steps towards Zachary, and Zachary blinked it's yellow eyes at him in surprise as he suddenly jumped up and grabbed it by it's collar, pulling it down to growl, "Let me tell you a little thing about love, you newborn twit. The life of the regular town fool is to be born, married off, thrown into a meaningless career, have a couple kids, and then to die while the cycle just starts over again in it's monotonous circle, over and over and over again while the world rots away into nothingness! There is no progress, there is no life! There is nothing but foolhardiness and dim-witted, hopeless idiots who are completely content to know nothing of the world outside of their own! Well they may be happy in that meager existence but I have better things to do than be paired off with some eyelash fluttering, giggly, frilly little priss! Love is nothing more than fabricated nonsense designed to keep the masses busy while the gods play chess with our heads!"

Zachary looked at him as if he were the mismatched, deformed monster of the two of them. "Oh please, do you think I was born yesterday?"

"No, I think you were born twenty minutes ago!"

"Be that as it may, just based off common sense, I do know a few things, and that is that love can never be a bad thing."

Phillipstein scoffed, turning his back on him as he glared into the darkness. He grumbled harshly, "Try getting your heart broken. See how you feel then, idiot." Turning back around with a fist pounding into his chest, Phillipstein yelled, "They all called me crazy for thinking different! They cast me out for trying to save their souls and threatened to hang me! Now there's been a bunch of idiots out there with pitch forks and torches calling me a grave robber and mad man!" He laughed maniacally, throwing his head back as the organ blared. "Well who's crazy now, huh? I created life!"

"Still you, crazy."

Phillipstein sputtered to a stop, the organ exploding at the back of the room as he suddenly yelled, "I am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"I am not!"

"Oh-ho, but Phillystein," Zachary smirked, leaning it's hulking body over to stare closer down at him, "you are so."

Phillipstein huffed, holding his arms out to his creation with sneering lips and flat eyes. "Do I look crazy to you?"

"No, you look perfectly normal." Zachary cackled. "But all the psychopaths do."

Phillipstein growled, slapping himself in the forehead. "I have truly created a monster." His arm shot out almost sharp enough to break space, pointing towards the door one last time in a no-nonsense manner, his eyes deadly. "Go."

"Okay." Zachary grinned goofily, shaking the castle with it's steps as it headed towards the door, and soon out of the castle towards the village.

Mandagor watched the friendly monster out the window in worry, visible even from several miles out, before she turned her eyes on her master, truly frightened for the first time in weeks. "Do you think everything will be okay?"

"Oh no," Phillipstein grinned evilly, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, "they most certainly will not be." Lightning struck.

"Five gold coins—"

"Shut up."

"Where is that moron?" a voice roared from down the hall, crashing Mandagor's house of cards into a hill. She huffed, throwing her head into her hand as her other tapped testily against the table.

Her master predictably burst in a second later, his hair and eyes wild. "Where is the dunderhead? Why can't I see the flames of the village and screams of the townspeople yet? It's been hours!"

"Do I look like I know?" Mandagor slammed her fist down on the table, her patience trickling down to it's last few grains with her 'master.'

Phillipstein eyed her distastefully, his tone dripping with sarcasm, "Well, I don't know, Mandagor, you usuallyknow everything." He turned his back on her, throwing his arms in the air. "But what do I know? I'm only an evil genius!"

"You're an evil pain in the neck—"

"What was that?" He snapped around to her with murderous eyes.

Mandagor fluttered her eyes away. "Nothing, Master."

Phillipstein humphed at her, rolling up the sleeves of his lab coat as he walked over to look out the window of the tower once more. Still, he could see the village, but no explosions or bloody carcasses being thrown into heaps. Instead there were bright, colorful lights and the faint sound of music and laughter. It was horrible.

Phillipstein stared forlornly for a few more minutes, while Mandagor attempted to salvage her house of cards, when he suddenly pivoted around, shouting loud enough to echo off the walls and destroy Mandagor's house again, "That's it! We are going down there!"

Mandagor's frustrated eyes suddenly lit up, and she clasped her hands together excitedly. "Oh my gosh! Really?"

Phillipstein's rigid body twitched at the unmasked enthusiasm in her voice, and his face fell flat. He rolled his eyes. "Yes, really."

Mandagor squealed, dancing and twirling around the room and leaving Phillipstein to clench his teeth and seriously question his life.

"So then I said, 'Babe, if you liked it so much, you should'a told me to put a ring on it. I'm a horrible abomination of nature, not a witch! I can't read minds!' " Everyone burst into laughter along with Zachary, all the girls swooning behind it, when a hand suddenly shot out and grabbed the sleeve of it's trench coat, pulling it to a more remote spot of the party.

Zachary blinked in confusion at being pulled away from it's adoring crowd, when it suddenly felt a hand latch onto it's collar and pull it down to stare into two furious green eyes.

Phillipstein, dressed in a cloak with a mass of goat fur covering his brown hair and hanging from his lip in a mustache, bared his teeth in his monster's face. "What are you doing? This doesn't look like mass murder!" he hissed.

Zachary's eyes lit up at seeing it's creator and it grabbed Phillipstein off of the ground, swinging him in the air. "Phillystein! You made it!"

Phillipstein screeched, slapping furiously at the monster's arms to the point they suddenly fell off of it's body and he crashed into the ground on top of the limbs.

Groaning, Phillipstein sat up, putting a hand to his head to try to rub away an ache. It took him a second more to realize it wasn't his hand, and his eyes popped open to see that he was still gripping onto the hairy green limb that had grabbed him. Throwing it down in shock, he screamed and went scurrying backwards on the ground.

Zachary eyed it's limbless torso with amusement. "Could you have designed this any more crummy?" It caught sight of Phillipstein backing away then and blinked, walking after him. "Hey, wait, little guy, I could use some help!"

Phillipstein scrambled up from the ground, adjusting his mustache quick before yelling in a hush, "You don't deserve help!" Half his mustache fell. "I send you down here to wreak havoc and here all this time you've been cajoling with the lollygaggers?"

"I've been whating with the huhs?" Zachary raised half an eyebrow. It chuckled, amused with it's tiny master's antics. "Nah, little man, I was just having a good time." It grinned. "These guys are cool. I mean," it swung it's torso to the right, the long black sleeves of it's trench coat swinging in the direction of it's fan club, "I was going to destroy them, but then they had this limbo competition, and I couldn't pass it up! I detached my legs down to nubs and completely swamped them, and I guess they liked it 'cause suddenly there were a bunch of girls falling all over me, and then, well," it smirked, "I couldn't destroy them then. They're my friends."

"Friends?" Phillipstein raged, forgetting himself, and grabbed it by the lapels of it's coat. "They're not your friends! You are a monster! Have you seen yourself?"

Zachary smirked in his face, further enraging it's tiny creator. "You really shouldn't let your appearance define yourself, you know. It'll hold you back in so many respects."

Phillipstein shoved away from him, disgusted. "Idiot!"

"Hey, Zachary," one of the village men came up to put a hand on it's shoulder protectively, his skin dark and hair pitch black as he stared down at Phillipstein with a hint of warning, "is this little old man bothering you?"

Zachary smiled at him serenely. "Nah, Jaronimus, we were just having a little discussion. Hey, could you get my arms?" It gestured with it's head to the two mismatched, discolored arms on the ground.

"Sure, buddy," Jaronimus said kindly, picking the limbs up from the ground and putting them under his arm. He glared at Phillipstein then. "I trust you won't be bothering Zachary here again." It wasn't a question.

Phillipstein gaped at this man's audacity for daring threaten him away from his own abomination. He scowled then, his eyebrows furrowing down sharply as he took a tense step towards the two respective freaks. "Now you see here, you ignorant gnat—" His mustache fell off.

The room exploded in screams, women fainting, children heading for the hills and punch and food flying across the room from shaky, panicked hands. "Phillipstein!" Jaronimus screamed, his face going as white as the full moon overhead.

"Nobody panic!" the town butcher cried bravely from the wooden stage across the room, gripping tight to a rope with his lemon-shaped face handsome and tan in the light. All the ladies in the room had to immediately fan themselves as he flew across the room by rope and kicked Phillipstein in the chest, propelling him across the room to slam into the wall. Joshua threw the rope away and sat his fists on his hips, glaring down at Phillipstein's dazed face, the goat fur laying somewhere across the room now and his cloak's hood fallen down to reveal his messy brown hair. "You're not welcome here, beast! We thought we made it perfectly clear the first time! Give us one good reason we shouldn't hang you as a witch now!"

"Because I'm not a witch?" was all he could manage from his spinning head.

A mass of brown hair and green cloth could be seen soaring across the sky moments later, a deafening scream waking up half the village.

Joshua yelled after him angrily, "And don't ever come back!" He slammed the doors shut.

Zachary laughed at this unexpected outcome to the night, a girl on each arm as it gazed out the window. "You think you know a person." It shook it's head, smirking devilishly at the raven and redheaded beauties on his arms. "Shall we be off, ladies?"

Sophia giggled, leaning further into the monster's chest as she nodded her head, while meanwhile Pamella was still attempting to figure out how to dislodge his arm again so she could escape. Finally after another minute's worth of struggle, the ginger-haired sweetheart sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Ah, why not?"

The three walked off back into the party, the building exploding in cheers as the music started back up ten times louder than before.

Meanwhile Phillipstein was attempting to pull his head out of a gopher hole, groaning and growling for a few minutes before a gopher suddenly latched onto his nose and he yelped. In a burst of pure adrenaline, he forced his head out of the hole and batted the furry little thing off of his nose, shuddering as it went scurrying back into it's burrow. "Disease infested rodent!" Growling, his fury catching up with him, Phillipstein threw his head back and roared, "Mandagor!"

"What?" Mandagor appeared beside him, blinking her wide eyes in confusion. "Did things not go well?" She giggled, her tone going a bit playfully sarcastic as she leaned down to look at him, "How surprising."

The mad man's breath came out in a harsh gasp, wondering why he even yelled for her if she was going to be like this. His eyes widened then, and he eyed her with his own special brand of evil genius bafflement. "Wait a second, how did you get out here so fast? Weren't you at the festival?"

Mandagor rolled her eyes with a smile at the assumption, standing back up straight to cross her arms. "Of course not. We were banished. That would be against the rules. I just wanted to get out of that dreary castle for once." Her face tinted with blush suddenly as a male voice called behind her, and she wrapped her hands behind her back. "Oh, and I might have to give my two weeks notice two weeks early, too."

Phillipstein's eyes widened. "What?"

Christian, the freshly declared barbarian, came stumbling over to stand beside her, adorning animal pelts of all furs wrapped proudly around his body. He grabbed her hand, grinning as she smiled shyly back. Mandagor explained sheepishly, "Christian got himself banished so we could be together, and he apologized for stinking so bad, so we've decided to betroth ourselves to each other again."

"You what?" Phillipstein's pupils dilated. "I thought you hated each other!"

"I never hated Manda," Christian spoke for the first time, sticking his tongue out at the genius, not the least bit afraid despite his title as mad man. He threw a possessive arm around the shorter girl, grinning in pride. "I was just fakin' it to be a jerk."

'mandagor giggled, her face flushing. "You were such a doody head."

"You were a bigger one," he said affectionately.

The newly engaged couple walked away without a thought more, too lost in their conversation to remember Phillipstein existed, let alone that he had essentially just fallen back into the dirt and was staring vaguely upward through eyes shot through with veins.

At that moment, only one coherent thought managed to form in his head. "Criminy."

"And they all lived happily ever after," Phil despaired, hanging his head.

Everyone blinked.

"Uh, Phil," his father asked carefully, bemused, "what's so bad about that?"

"Didn't you hear me?" Phil asked with dreadful eyes, falling to his knees before the coffee table. "They lived!" He threw his head down to clunk against the woodwork of the small table, keeping it there.

Everyone exchanged wary glances, some warier than others, while Gertie just grinned spiritedly in her seat on the floor beside her husband, bursting into raucous applause. "Bravo! Bravo! Bellissimo! Encore, encore!" She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

Phil burst up from the floor to fall into a bow. "Thank you! I'll be here all week—heck, I'll be here until I'm eighteen."

"Thirty-five," Helga scolded him. He was not getting out of here so easily.

Phil cast her a flat look. "Right, Mom."

"No," Amanda's voice suddenly came slowly from her perch in the corner of the room, her eyebrows slowly furrowing downward, "you married me off with Chris?"

Phil threw a secretive smirk in her direction, before he turned his head back around so he still wasn't facing her and pulled his sleeves down a bit more to compensate for the chill in the house. "I don't know what you're talking about, Amanda. You weren't anywhere in my story."

"Yes I was!" Amanda glared at him, her tiny fists clenching at her sides on the chair, and both Arnold and Helga had to resist cooing at how adorable she looked trying to be tough. "I'm not dumb! I was in it, Zack was obviously in it, you were the main character, and Ham was in it too! The only people you excluded were Mom and Dad!"

"I figured they were the lords over the land," Phil stated listlessly, merely stating facts and not even denying his inclusion of their family members in his tale. "And really, why would they bother going to a stupid little festival when they could be having feasts?"

"Because we like to party hard?" Helga threw out there with a shrug, Arnold rolling his eyes behind her. He added, humoring her, "Yeah, gotta have some way to melt the pounds off with all that food."

The two burst into snickers, Helga with a hand to her mouth and Arnold trying to hide it behind the fabric of his sweatshirt.

Phil blinked at them, rather blasé at the moment, and Zack couldn't resist muttering beneath his breath, "Like you rabbits would ever have a problem with that."

Helga snapped her head to him suddenly, and Arnold stopped laughing. Helga asked severely, "What was that, Zachary?"

Zack fluttered his eyelashes at them, making his eyes wide in angelic innocence. "Nothing, Mother Dearest."

Helga hummed at him lowly beneath her breath, keeping an eye on him. "Right, that's what I like to hear." She fell back into the couch then beside Arnold with her arms crossed, and her husband chuckled, somehow finding it more amusing when Zack was annoying her than when it was him. Grandpa meanwhile shared a conspiratorial grin with the teenager.

"Well," Phil went on to say after a few moments, deciding this wasn't entertaining anymore, "I think my story was great."

"It wasn't even a ghost story," Amanda said with a firm frown.

"I'm just disappointed you didn't go with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Zack muttered, regarding Phil with his eyebrow high.

"Why?" Phil asked blandly, going over to reclaim his chair beside his brother.

"Because it's so you! Much more you than Frankenstein. He's too…" he clicked his tongue, searching for a good way to phrase his point, "consistently hysterical." He chuckled. "And I swear sometimes you have multiple personality syndrome."

Before Phil could respond, Amanda suddenly stood up from her chair and walked to the center of the room, the coffee table before her as she looked with a blank mask in Phil's direction. Then Zack's. "You want Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?" She smiled sweetly, dividing the look between her family members before resting on Phil's suspicious face. "I'd be more than happy to tell it." She giggled.

Lightning cracked.

A/N: Dun dun DUUUUUUN

Well, I hope you enjoyed the first segment here. This'll probably go up to three parts, four at most. I'll try to get the next one up before Thanksgiving... uh... When's Thanksgiving again? xD Well, happy Halloween all the same, guys! :D Have a spooky one! And try not to die. Jack O' Lantern roams about this time of night, you know. He gets kicked out of hell a lot... That's rough. XD

Don't forget to go on History dot com and look up the history of Halloween. I do it every year, 'cause I'm a nerd. xD Just don't go wandering off alone, you may get stuck in the afterlife, and beware of crazy cat ladies. But most of all, have fun! :D

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