Mystery Fanstuff Theater 3000/Spirit/7

Note: Yeah. I wanted to make this story a bit longer and try to get more humor in it, so here's the result! You have been warned. *grins*

I am SO SORRY that this took almost another week to get up! At first, just wouldn't load on my computer, and then the file wouldn't load correctly!! ARGH!! Anyways, it's up now and I'll have the next chapter up soon after that. This did not get beta-read very well because Amy Love is only able to get on once a week, and I sent my chapters in too late, so point out any mistakes that I made so I can revise it before next chapter!!!

Danny raced Sean back to the house and closed the door as quickly as he could. Sean, whose reflexes weren't as good as he would've hoped at the moment, ran right into the door. Had this been a cartoon, he would've had swirly eyes and birds flying around his head. Instead, he only got an annoying buzzing sound in his ear and a neat, red circle on his forehead.

"Aren't you the graceful one," Danny said and opened the door carefully so he didn't hit him.

"Ugh....that was so mean," Sean complained. Danny put down a hand and pulled Sean up.

"C'mon. Let's get some rest. We're probably going to see Spirit tomorrow, and she'll scold us if we fall asleep during the merge."

"Can't we just call her Chris now? The demon things know who we are, and Chris is our elder by......a lot. They'd find her first anyways," Sean said.

"Well, you already have, and I suppose you have a point. Whoa. That's scary. Never thought I'd ever say that."

"Hey!"

"Night Sean!" Danny ran to his room and got ready for bed.

"That was mean!!" Sean yelled after him.

"I'm your brother! I'm supposed to be mean to you once in a while!"

"Key phrase 'once in a while'!"

"Tough luck, bro!" Danny yelled back. Sean grumbled and headed down to his room.

"Man, this sucks. It's only nine and he wants me to go to bed. Might as well put some music on." Sean shrugged and threw a shirt off his walkman. Putting on the headphones, he played the CD.

"Wah!" Sean shouted and tossed off his headphones panting. "DANNY!!! WHY DID YOU PUT BRINTNEY SPEARS IN MY CD PLAYER!?!?" Sean could hear Danny laughing upstairs. 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' was playing from the headphones and Sean cringed. "The original songs are always so much better....."

Sean took out the copy of the Britney Spears CD and threw it in the garbage. He then stuck his hand in a pile of junk that littered the floor and grabbed a bag of cookies and a Beatles CD. "Cool. At least they're original." Sean turned his walkman back on and stared at his ceiling thinking of ways to get back at everyone on his list.

• * *

Andy, Kalico, and Megumi walked down the sidewalk. Kalico was getting annoyed by the silence that hung like a drape in the air, and was very thankful when Andy announced that they were at his house.

It was a small house, only one story high but it looked simple and cozy. There was an old fence lining the back of the yard with vines that Kalico recognized as Earnest Markham's growing along them. The dark velvet red flowers were in full bloom along the length of the fencing.

Her gaze snapped back to Andy as he let them in. Megumi waited for Kalico to go in front of her before she went in.

Two blurs toppled them both over the moment Andy had closed the door. Andy couldn't help but grin as he looked at the reincarnated overlord get tackled by his little sister.

"Kristine, be nice." He scolded playfully.

"Will you play with us? Andy's been gone all day and all Krissy wants to play is dolls!" Jamie pouted and stared at Megumi. Gently lifting the toddler off of her stomach, Megumi patted him on the head.

"Sure. Kali will be more than happy to play dolls with Krissy, won't you?" Megumi's tone implied that Kalico didn't want to disappoint the children.

"Kali, Meg, these are my little brother and sister, Jamie and Kristine. Krissy, Jamie, these are my friends. They're gonna be spending the night, but I don't want you to bug them, okay?" Andy picked Kristine off of Kalico and set her on his shoulders. Kristine squealed in her high, childish voice and giggled.

Jamie tugged on Megumi's shorts and looked at her with his big chocolate brown eyes. "Can I have a piggy back ride, too?" Megumi lifted him onto her shoulders and tried not to cringe when he accidentally pulled on her hair.

"Here Kali. Keep Krissy busy for a while and I'll get a room ready for you guys, OK?" Andy put Kristine onto Kalico's shoulders and turned down the hallway. Kristine stared down at Kalico and Kalico looked back up at her. They blinked once. Twice.

"Kali, just walk around a little bit! You now how to play with kids, don't you?" Megumi twirled in a circle with Jamie laughing on her shoulders. "See? It's not hard."

Kalico glared at her little sister and walked carefully around the room. She turned backwards and waltzed around a table.

"Wheeeeeeee!" Kristine bounced up and down on Kalico's shoulders.

"Alright, Krissy. Piggyback ride's over. Kalico and Meg need to get some rest. We've got a lot to do tomorrow." Andy picked up the twin toddlers and turned to Kalico and Megumi.

"Like I said, it's not the cleanest place, but you've got your privacy." Andy led them down a small hallway. There were two doors, one of each side.

"The one on the left is my room that I share with the twins. You're room is right across the hall. The bathroom is down and to your left on the right side. I'll have dinner ready in bit, if you want to get cleaned up."

"Thanks, Andy." Kalico opened the door to their room and walked inside. Andy wasn't being modest when he said it wasn't the cleanest place, but it wasn't dirty either. Andy had done a good job of dusting it, and the sheets for the beds had recently been cleaned. There was a mirror hanging on the wall across from the single window and two beds on either side of the room.

"I'm going to put the twins to bed and start dinner." Andy started out the room but stopped when he felt a weight lifted from his left arm.

"If you're going to give us a place to stay, the least we could do is help with dinner." Megumi took Jamie into Andy's room and set him in a small bed. Andy followed suit and put Kristine in her bed next to Jamie's.

"You know, guests don't have to help cook and stuff," Andy threw over his shoulder as he walked down the hall.

"I don't mind. I like cooking. Kalico never seemed to get it. She once tried to cook those chicken nuggets in the microwave. The first thing that went wrong was that there weren't instructions for the microwave, and she put it on a plastic plate! The plate melted and the chicken nuggets caught fire." Megumi laughed. "They looked like pieces of charcoal!"

Andy laughed to himself, but burst out laughing when he heard Kalico yelling at Megumi from down the hallway.

"She sure can hear well." Andy commented.

"Yeah, but she prefers talking to listening." Megumi found an apron and tied the strings in a bow nimbly behind her. "So what are we making anyways?"

"I thought that since you guys are from Japan, we could try and make some Miso soup. Unfortunately, I've only made it once a long time ago, and I lost the recipe it seems." Andy scratched the back of his head and filled a pot full of water.

Megumi shook her head at him. She grabbed his hands and set them on the counter, then turned and dumped the water out. She turned and smiled at him.

"If you had tried to cook anything in that pot with so much water it would've boiled over! Here, let me show you." Megumi set to work getting everything ready while Andy watched, hands still lying on the counter.

• * *

Sean fell asleep halfway through his CD, but Danny found it impossible to sleep again.

"Damn insomnia," he muttered. Sighing, Danny got out of bed, stretched, and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. He closed the basement door to Sean's room again so his snoring was muted slightly.

"Is the poor little human sleepy?" Kani laughed as Danny glared at him the best he could in his half-awake state.

"What the hell do you want?" Danny asked in an annoyed voice. The last thing that was going to help him sleep was a cocky, soul-eating demon. Counting sheep may work for some people, but counting demons has the opposite desired effect.

"Well, considering that you're powerless without your stone, I should just eat your soul here and now, but Saku seems to think that we should give you time to get a little plan together. That way you'll have a neat and organized death."

"Do all you demons talk a lot, or do you just like to hear yourself talk?" Danny mumbled. He turned and began walking back to his room.

"Hey! You're not supposed to walk away from me!" Kani yelled at him, making himself sound very un-demon like.

"You said that we need to have a neat and organized death, right? Well, I plan like shit when I'm tired, so I'm going to get some sleep. That is, if a certain demon would be so kind as to stop telling his dear Master's plans to his enemy and my brother STOPS SNORING!" Danny yelled down the stairs.

Kani first stared at Danny, who was now leaving, then glared at where he had been standing. "Humans are so annoying." Satisfied with his decision, Kani stepped back into a portal and disappeared.

• * *

"Would you like some dinner, Miss? It is very late." Ben, one of the butlers at the Peter's household, tried in vain to get Madison out of her room.

"I'm fine. Go rest or something. If I get hungry, I am perfectly capable of getting it myself." Madison called back, though not as rudely as she would have if it were anyone else.

"May I come in, Miss?"

"It's a free country."

Ben opened the door and came in, closing it behind him. Ben was not what people pictured a butler as. At least, he's not what Madison pictured a butler to be. She had expected an old geezer with grey hair and an old tired voice, so she hadn't liked the idea of hiring one. Instead, Ben was around twenty five and owned a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He had brown hair that was parted and combed only when her parents were around, and was the rest of the time unkempt.

"You know, you're going to make yourself sick not eating dinner every night," he scolded.

"Sure."

"Especially if you're going to be out and about taking care of things outside of your school life." Ben sent her a knowing look.

"Sure." Madison was a little more skeptical now. 'Could he be Saku in disguise? Or maybe he just resembles a human.'

"C'mon, Madison. At least eat dessert."

"I'll come down and eat when I get hungry. Are you happy now?" Madison glanced at him with a slightly annoyed look.

"Sure. I'll tell the cooks to save you some food, your Majesty." Ben mock bowed and headed out the door. Madison shook her head.

'I swear that guy is NEVER serious. No WAY he's Saku.' Madison hopped off her bed and opened one of her windows a bit more. Madison lay back on her bed, sinking into the covers. She flipped onto her stomach and hugged her pillow, stopping when her hand ran against a familiar object.

Madison shook her head to get rid of the thoughts that same up and removed the item from under her pillow. Hiding the small army knife in the bottom of a drawer, she lie back down and fell asleep almost instantly.

• * *

Kalico watched from the doorway as Megumi gave Andy a refreshers course on how to cook Miso soup. Personally, she couldn't cook anything, so when Megumi wasn't around she has sandwiches. As embarrassing as it was, the 'microwave incident' really happened, and Megumi reminded her of it every time she tried to cook something.

Finally, hazard after hazard, their dinner was finished without being burned. Andy turned to get Kalico, but his trip was cut short when he noticed she was already sitting at the table watching them. Megumi made sure that the stove was off while Andy got some bowls from a cupboard.

"Did you two have fun cooking together?" Kalico asked. Megumi served the food since Andy was still trying to remember how to use chopsticks correctly.

"Andy kept getting worried over whether the Shiitake mushrooms were tender enough. It was funny, because he kept poking them with his fork." Megumi sat down and grabbed a pair of chopsticks.

"Well, no one in my family save myself likes mushrooms, so I have to leave them out of everything." Andy gave up trying to use the chopsticks after the pork fell off for the third time. Instead, he took to stabbing the meat with them.

Kalico watched all this pitifully and Megumi got up to help him. "Here, put these fingers under the bottom one. Okay, then put you middle finger between them. No! Put your thumb HERE and this finger on top."

Andy moved his fingers around until he got it right. "Like this?"

"Yeah. Now try eating with them," Megumi said, sitting back in her own seat before her food cooled.

"Hey! It worked! Cool!" Andy grinned and continued eating.

"You know, you two look really cute together. Just standing there cooking. It was adorable!" Kalico talked as though they were a couple little kittens in a windowsill. Both Andy and Megumi choked on their food and retorted at the same time.

"Now hang on a sec-"

"Kali I swear Omae wo-"

They stopped and blushed, then continued eating as though nothing had happened.

'Just like in all those stories you read. They never want to admit it, especially when someone else points it out.' Kalico smiled at the irony and went back to eating.

Leaning back in her chair and stretching, Kalico yawned. "That was a good meal. You guys should cook together more often!"

"I'd say we should go to bed soon. It's ten thirty now, and we've got a lot to do tomorrow." Andy rinsed the bowls and put them in the dishwasher.

"Hey Andy, I was wondering, why aren't your parents around?" Kalico asked.

Andy faltered for a moment, and then said, "They go out a lot. My older brother Michael isn't home often either, so I usually take care of the twins. Mom and Dad are probably just coming back late is all."

"Sorry. We're probably more trouble to have around than taking care of Jamie and Krissy," Megumi replied. She could feel an underlying tiredness about him, but didn't say anything.

"There's no reason for you to be sorry, unless you decide to stay up all night and I have to stay up keep an eye on you. Just ask Sean, I'm not a morning person."

"Neither is Kalico. She looks like a zombie in the mornings." Megumi smirked back at the glare Kalico sent her.

"Alright, then. It's decided. We will go to bed by eleven thirty." Andy said.

"Yay! Let's play a game until then!" Kalico said in a fake happy voice.

"Anyone up for Twenty Questions?" Andy asked.

"I was being sarcastic."

"I thought it was a great idea. Do you wanna play, Meg?"

"Sure. It's better than Truth or Dare."

"Okay. Kali is overruled. Who wants to go first?" Andy asked. He retrieved the game from a closet while Kalico and Megumi played Janken, a Japanese version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, to see who got to go first.

"No fair!"

"Stop pouting."

"Five out of seven?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"So, who won?" Andy asked.

"I did, even though I let her do best two-out-of-three and three-out- of-five." Megumi sat down and picked out a card.

"If Meg gets to go first, then I get to be the green piece!"

"Alright by me. I wanted to be yellow anyways," Andy said.

"I'll be blue. Who's guessing first?" Megumi asked.

"Let Kali go. I'm sure she feels bad about losing so horribly in Rock, Paper, Scissors," Andy teased.

Kalico glared at him and took a red chip, placing it on the number one.

"The category is 'I am a person.' Clue one: I love trash." Megumi waited for Kalico's guess.

"Umm....a dog?"

"No." Kalico grabbed another chip and placed it on five. "Clue five," Megumi grinned, "is I have black fuzzy eyebrows."

"What kinds of clues are these?!"

"Funny ones. Now guess or put another chip down." Megumi watched her put a chip on nine.

"Okay, clue nine is 'I am a Muppet.'"

"That one weird thing.....Oscar or something." Kalico snapped her fingers as if it would help the answer come to mind. "Oscar the Grouch?"

"Yup. Good job." Megumi put the card at the bottom of the deck and Kalico moved her little green question mark piece.

"Okay, Meg, pick a number." Andy looked over the card.

"Twelve."

"I'm named after a president."

"Teddy bears."

"Good guess, but try another clue."

"Twenty."

"I'm orange and black."

"Four."

"Nermal is a problem for me."

"Garfield the Cat."

"Yup!" They kept playing until their self-imposed curfew rolled around. It ended up with Andy in first and Kalico and Megumi tied for second.

"Man, I'm bushed." Kalico yawned and leaned back against the sofa.

"Andy, you wouldn't happen to have something we could use for pajamas, would you?" Megumi picked at a thread coming lose at the bottom of the over-stuffed chair she was leaning against.

"I'm sure I could find something. Let me check." Andy got up and went down the hallway.

"Ya know, he said that his parents were probably coming home late, but isn't it a bit beyond 'late'?" Megumi leaned forward so she could look at Kalico in the face.

"Dunno. When his parents come home isn't something we can control. He's got more important things on his mind right now, remember?" Kalico yawned again and sat up when Andy came back out.

"I've got a couple large tee shirts you could wear, and some sweatpants, but it may be a bit warm for 'em." Andy held out the clothing to let them pick. After saying their goodnights they quietly slipped into bed and waited for sleep to come.

• * *

^_^ Hullo!! I promise that I will get more action in soon, but I need to get these chapters out of the way. I have the end planned out; I just need to get there. A special thanks to Oz Shadowskin for reviewing almost every single chapter! I'm glad someone's telling me what they like so I can make sure I don't get rid of it through the story. No notes for now except that homework sucks, but that usually a given, right?