Mystery Fanstuff Theater 3000/Spirit/9

"Why can't she have a house nearby? She could have just moved in down the street, but no," Sean trudged along, falling more behind the further they went, "she had to live on the other side of town!"

Sean plopped down on the sidewalk and lay on his back. "I'm tired! Can't we take a break?"

"You're just out of shape. I could carry you on my back the whole way no problem." Kali poked him in the side with her foot.

"Would you?"

"Just shut up and get up." Danny glared at him and began walking again.

"Man, this sucks." Sean crossed his arms and pouted.

"Here we are." Andy walked up and rang the doorbell. The wind chime on the patio rang out as the screen door creaked open and a young woman, who looked about Twenty-five years old, stood aside and invited them in.

"I'm glad that you finally came to visit. I was getting worried about you." Chris's voice was soft and inviting, as though everything was alright, as if they weren't going to be fighting demons.

"Chris, you wouldn't happen to have any food, would you?" Sean's stomach grumbled audibly and he smiled meekly.

"Sure, but we should first get the merging over with. It'll only take a few minutes, nothing big or spectacular." Chris let them sit in the small living room around a small glass table.

Kali looked Chris over. She was tall, about 6' 3" and skinny. She was wearing black jeans with a red v-neck shirt. Kali noticed that her almost red eyes clashed with her soft brown hair, as if they weren't supposed to be that color.

"Kali, why don't you take a seat next to Danny. Then we can get started." Chris had gestured to an empty spot next to Danny on the floor. Nodding, Kali sat down and waited for someone to explain how they were going to finish the merging.

"Madison, would you hand out everyone's stones, please?" Madison quickly passed out all the stones. The room was now reflected with a masquerade of colors. Chris's aura was the weakest by the looks of it. It was a simple silver aura that flowed slowly and in no pattern, like waves in the ocean.

Without warning, all the stones glowed and melded into their bodies respectively. Their aura's then disappeared and the mask of colors that had once decorated the walls faded to nothing.

"Was that it?" Kali looked up at Chris.

"Yes. Told you it wouldn't be spectacular. Now, we can get ready to attack the demons." Chris turned serious and swiftly changed the subject to how they should go against them. She seemed to get lost in her own world as she described who should battle who.

"Andy, you by all means should avoid fighting Kuro. She's too fast. Danny and possibly Madison are the only ones who can match her speed. Andy, you'd best be against Naari, because just the sight of light weakens him. Madison and Sean should avoid him. Madison, you can..."

Kali tuned Chris out and watched her face instead. It was creepy, how all of a sudden, her eyes had turned cold and focused, but only Kali seemed to notice it. Maybe it was just because they knew her well.

Turning her gaze to the box, which had been left open, Kali noticed the orb had turned black. No colors swirled around in it, and it seemed to absorb any light that could possibly reflect off it.

Kali looked up and saw everyone looking at her. "What?"

"Chris asked if you could tell her about Meg. You know, just to get an idea since she's watching those little brats Andy calls siblings." Sean leaned back against the small sofa.

"They are not brats!" Andy hit Sean on the head and then walked back to his seat next to Kali.

"Meg? Well, what do you need to know?"

"Just a general idea. No need to go into details." Chris watched her intently as if she were interrogating her instead of asking a simple question.

"Well, she usually doesn't talk much and never loudly. She is good with little kids. She has empathy and-"

"Empathy? Really...can she do anything else? Telepathy? Telekinesis?" Chris's eyes bore holes into Kali waiting for an answer.

"Not that I know of and she'd tell me."

"Well, other than the empathy part, she seems like she can be trusted." Chris seemed to relax out of her cold stage and go back into her nice mode.

"What does empathy have to do whether or not she's trusted?" Andy asked. Honestly, it made no sense.

"Nothing too much, really. You couldn't understand."

"OK, that made absolutely no sense to me, whatsoever," Sean said and scratched his head.

"Fine. Just stop pouting." Chris smiled, falling back into her more normal look. "Well, having empathic abilities means that your mind is open to other people and their feelings. A psychic, like Saku for example, would have no trouble getting into and controlling someone whose mind is so open. Get it now?" Chris raised an eyebrow.

"Kind of..." Sean shifted off of his foot, which was rapidly falling asleep.

"Okay, so, is there anything else we need to do? I doubt we're going to have much time before we have to battle at least one of them." Kali hugged her arms around her legs in an attempt to keep warm. She'd decided Chris must definitely like the cold. "Am I the only one who's cold?"

"No. I'm freezing. Only Danny doesn't mind the cold." Sean scowled at Danny who glared back.

"I have the element of fire. Of course I won't get cold. You can swim well and Andy can see in the dark like a cat. Simple as that."

"Why don't you just enjoy the rest of your day while you can and I'll meet you at Danny's house tomorrow at noon. I have a hunch we should encounter one of the demons by then." Chris got up and led them to the door. Sean practically ran outside, glad for the heat for the moment.

"See ya, Chris!" Madison called and waved goodbye. "Now," Madison looked at them eagerly, "who's up for some lunch?"

Chris waved back and smiled. Once they were out of sight, Zinc removed himself from the shadows.

"I thought I'd told you to never come here. If they hadn't been preoccupied, you would've been spotted."

"I came to hear about the girl; the sister of Life." Zinc chose to refer to Kali by her element stone. "It seems that Saku found a good target. She will be very interesting to play with."

Chris glared at him and then headed back inside as he disappeared.

"Hey, Kali, what's up? You've been fidgeting for a while. Is something wrong?" Madison sipped her water and watched Kali.

"I've just had this creepy feeling that someone was watching us. Something's not right. Wouldn't the demons have followed us by now?" Kali looked at them all, although avoiding Sean whose mouth was crammed with food. He would have made a wonderful chipmunk.

"Who knows? They are demons after all." Danny shrugged and poked at the remainder of his meal. "I'm done. Anyone still eating?"

Sean raised his hand, still chewing his food.

"Anyone besides Sean?" Nobody answered, so Danny asked for their check and waited for Sean to finish.

"I can't believe that we were at Chris's house for that long! I'm mean, the girl's nice, but she can't keep you awake for more than ten minutes, let alone the four hours we were stuck with her!" Sean took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "I mean, she really creeps me out."

"You say that as if she's a demon herself. What's so strange about her?" Madison asked.

"You mean besides the fact that she always seemed to know when the demons were coming and what to expect and the minor detail that she's really millions of years old?" Andy left the tip for the waitress on the table as they headed out.

"See? Even Andy agrees with me on this!" Sean pointed to Andy with his thumb and emphasized his name. "That never happens!"

"Well, I suppose that's odd, but like you said, she's our elder by millions of years. Of course she'll have experience. She fought the demons last time!" Madison put her hands on her hips. "You can't possibly stay mad at her after all she's helped us with."

"Okay guys, enough on the topic of Chris. We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves, so cool your jets and let's head home. I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired. I haven't slept for the past few days, so I want to sleep while I can." Danny clasped his hands behind his head like usual as they walked home.

"I'm starting to get that feeling, too, ya know? Like someone's watching us." Andy watched his feet as he walked as if they would show him if something were amiss.

"Well, I guess we'll find out when we get home," Kali smiled and watched the sun go down. "If Sean hadn't taken so long to eat we could have seen the whole sunset, you know."

"Well, excuse me for being hungry," Sean pouted.

"I'd rather bug you about it. It's more entertaining." Madison waved goodbye as she headed to her house.

"Sean, you go on ahead. I'm going to go for a walk before I head home. OK?"

"Whatever, Pyro." Sean grinned.

"Pyro?"

"Yup! See you guys later!" Sean jogged off around the corner.

"Kali, I'll walk Meg home just in case, so you can go on ahead to your house. Things should have cooled down by then." Kali nodded and walked off in the opposite direction of Andy.

• * *

Andy lifted the leaves of one of the many potted ferns on the doorstep and picked up a small silver key. He opened the front door, returned the key to its hiding spot, and walked inside. As usual, he was tackled by Jamie and Kristine.

"Guess what?! Meggy gave us both piggy back rides today!" Kristine bounced up and down clapping her hands.

"And I wasn't stuck playing house or tea party the whole time!" Jamie rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a small paper crane. "And lookie what Meg taught us how to make! Isn't it cool?! Look! I can blow it up!"

Jamie blew into the small paper origami until it expanded large enough for the young boy. Jamie handed it up to Andy. "You can keep this one. I can make another one later."

"Well, thank you. Where is Meg? Kali will probably want her home before dinner." Andy put the crane gently into his pocket and lifted Kristine onto his shoulders.

"Meggy's upstairs. We were playing with Jamie's blocks just now. Wanna play?!" Kristine bent down so she was upside down in Andy's face.

"I'll play with you guys, but I gotta take Meg home first, Okay?" Andy used one hand to poke her forehead, causing Kristine to giggle and sit upright.

"I'll race you upstairs, Andy!" Jamie didn't wait for an answer before he ran down the hallway.

"But you got a head start!" Andy chased after him and ran into their room. "Wow." Andy looked around the room. "It's so clean." Usually, the twin's side of the room was littered with toys, paper, and sometimes Andy's homework, depending on whether or not his backpack was in their reach (which was getting harder to do because they were getting taller).

"Yup! We all cleaned it up together! I found my Mr. Bubbles!" Andy set Kristine down and she ran to get 'Mr. Bubbles', an old brown bear with a blue bow tie that hung by only a couple threads.

"Hey Andy. Did everything go well?" Meg asked.

"Yeah. Nothing really interesting happened though. Even Sean wasn't up to playing pranks today. I think he's trying to trick us or something." Andy walked out of the doorway, looking around the room. "I'm gonna need to get used to not tripping over their stuff in the mornings. I might actually get out of the house without falling tomorrow. "

Meg laughed while Kristine petted her bear saying that she wouldn't let Andy step on him. Jamie was looking out the window.

"Hey Andy? What's that?" Jamie pointed out the window.

"What's what?" Andy and Meg walked over the window, just as a scythe broke through the window.