The Skeleton & The Carpenter

EVIL 3000

        At his pull, the back doors to the truck flung open with wild abandon. Roger dove in, pulling out all of the handcrafted pieces Hardware Guy had built at the Wood Wizards Contest, not noticing the cracking sounds some of them made as they splintered upon impact with the ground. At last, the tubing! He wrapped all of it diagonally around his torso (a job made easier by the fact that he had only one arm), grabbed both bottles of liquid coolant by their handles, and made a mad dash back towards the EVALs.

Hardware Guy's robot was struggling to get back on its feet when Roger arrived on the scene.

"I'VE GOT THE STUFF!" Roger yelled up to Hardware Guy.

"THROW IT TO ME!"

Roger knew for certain that he would not be able to throw the tubing and the coolant bottles high enough to reach Hardware Guy, but he threw them anyway. At the same moment, Hardware Guy whipped Roger's arm into the air and quickly snapped it back towards the ground, unfurling his mustache's grip from it so it flew towards Roger. The skeleton turned his left side to the projectile, which landed in his shoulder socket where it belonged. Still in motion from the throw, Hardware Guy's mustache whipped itself towards the items that Roger had thrown and wrapped around them, in effect catching them. By the time the robot had managed to stand up, Hardware Guy had used both ends of his mustache to coil the plastic tubing all around its metal arms, neck, and chest. As the tube brushed against the words "EVAL 3000" painted on the robot, a piece of paper was knocked off of it and floated to the ground. The paper had the "A" on it, and was covering up the fact that robot actually had the words "EVIL 3000" on its chest.

With an open end of the tubing held with one side of his mustache and the robot's neck, for stability, in the other, Hardware Guy popped the top off of one of the coolant bottles and poured it into the plastic vein. He discarded the empty bottle and proceeded to dump the other in, as well.

His eye's locked on the stumbling EVIL, Roger stepped back cautiously to avoid getting trampled. He watched the robot's movement slow down as tiny ice crystals formed on its surface, beneath the tubes. Roger again heard a sound like an underground slide whistle, except this time it went from high to low. The EVIL's eye went out. It stood, frigid, its arms and legs perfectly straight like a soldier at attention, before teetering forward and falling onto its face, creating a massive crater.

The small earthquake that resulted from the fallen EVIL must have awoken its sibling, who was still laying face down some yards away. It raised its arms, put both hands firmly on the ground at either side, and did something of a push up. Its whole body quaked, struggling to get to its feet. It was apparently not built to stand up from this position.

"Do we have any coolant left?!" asked Roger in a panic.

"Dunno. Check the tubes." Hardware Guy answered, sliding down from the fallen EVILs shoulder, releasing his mustache's grip of its neck.

They both looked over to open ends of the tubing to see coolant dripping out, forming two puddles which were absorbed by the dirt as quickly as they formed.

"Keep him distracted!" yelled Roger, struck with inspiration and sprinting away, towards the truck.

"How the heck am I supposed to do that?!" lamented Hardware Guy to no one; Roger was too far away to hear.

It was time to improvise. Hardware Guy watched the EVIL struggle to get up and, though his mind might have been playing tricks on him, thought that it was making progress and would be standing in no time. He ran towards it and wrapped both ends of his mustache firmly around its knee. He grabbed both sides of his mustache and gave a mighty pull with all of his strength. The strain was such that he was sure that he would burst an artery in his neck and both ends of his mustache would tear from his face, but neither happened. Instead, the trembling robot's leg was pulled back an inch or so. Minuscule though the distance was, it was enough to disturb the juggernaut's balance and send it crashing onto its face, spread out on the ground.

As the ground finally stopped quaking from the impact, the truck pulled up next to the robot, its brakes squealing as they did their best to bring the speeding vehicle to a stop. Roger leapt from the driver's side door and pulled the back doors open. He had thrown all of Hardware Guy's creations back into the truck and was now throwing them all out again. Once they were in the dirt, he hurled them up against the robot, purposely breaking apart the ones that were not already smashed, and walked all the way around the EVIL, littering the pieces along the perimeter.

"There! Perfect!" proclaimed Roger, beaming with pride.

"Perfect?! This was yer great plan?!" screamed Hardware Guy in disbelief.

"Almost!" exclaimed Roger.

The skeleton threw himself into the back of the truck. It was not difficult to find what he was looking for, as it was nearly empty now. He emerged concealing his treasure in the palm of his hand and hurried back towards the wood piles. Hardware Guy could not tell what it was Roger was doing. From what he could gather, Roger was running around the laid out robot, stopping for just a second every few yards to throw something small onto the wood, and then continuing in this fashion. He had not yet made it all the way around the EVIL when the wood burst into flames, quickly spreading to the rest of the wood, encircling the robot in fire.

"What the...?" asked a perplexed Hardware Guy, catching up to Roger, who was now standing still a few feet back from the fire, smiling with his fists on his hips.

"Think fast." he said, throwing something at Hardware Guy, who caught it with one hand.

It was the pack of matches with which that Johnny Why had accidentally set his house ablaze