It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Tai Kamiya!
Once again, it's Halloween time. Last year, the author shipped everyone to a haunted castle where they saw dead people…and Mimi got chased around by a rat. This year, however, we're going with something a little bit different…
Lia was sitting in her office as usual, behind her desk, writing about a thousand fanfics and a history term paper on the Boston Massacre at the same time. She fiddled with the cranberry-and-gold elasticized headband sliding around her scalp and did her best to roll up her sleeves. Ken and Davis walked in, the latter wearing a sheet with eyeholes cut in it.
"I told my mom I needed a Halloween costume, and this is what I get," he sighed.
Lia glanced up from her computer. "Hello, boys. What can I do ya for?"
"Improper use of grammar," Ken muttered. "We're wondering what holiday torment you have in store for us this year…or if you're just going to let us have a party and go trick-or-treating like normal kids."
"Actually, I was just about to get to that. Get everybody together and meet me in Studio 13 in like three minutes. I'm just finishing something up."
The boys nodded and skipped off merrily, Davis talking about candy as he left.
"I'm gonna get the stuff that'll pull my teeth out…or maybe just a lot and eat it all in one go…but then I'd get a stomachache…but if I hang onto it Jun or Chibimon might get into it…"
~*~
The amalgamation of assorted monsters, fairy princesses and whatnot stood around a metal bucket in Studio 13, cheering wildly. Cody's head shot up first, an apple clenched tightly in his teeth. Joe wiped off his glasses and frowned at the younger boy.
"That's not fair, he's shorter than I am and therefore closer to the apples!"
"For once, being the youngest has its advantages."
Mimi whined, waving her sparkly fairy wand. "Bobbing for apples is boring. Besides, I don't wanna get my costume all wet. So what can we do now?"
Sora, dressed in one standard obligatory witch costume, thought as she glanced around the studio. "Pumpkin carving?"
"Too gooey."
"What about a three-legged race across the studio?" Yolei suggested, tipping back the hood on her Hawkmon costume (Digimon 02…not the most popular of Halloween costumes but then again Yolei isn't the most popular of Digidestined).
"Too sporty."
"There's always Manhunt," Tai said with a grin. Seeing as how Taichi was blessed with that massive expanse of hair, our Fearless Leader opted to go out dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein.
"Too scary! I'm not traipsing around this creepy set in the dark!"
"Mimi, I thought you were over your whiny phase," Matt, in the oh-so-sexy garb of OVA Mage Clef of Rayearth (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it) sighed.
Just then the doors slammed open with a crack of thunder and lightning. In marched Lia, sporting a rather low-cut cranberry and gold princess dress.
It's not my fault it's low-cut…one size just doesn't fit all.
"We were wondering when you would arrive and situate us with some atrocious mishap that we shall suffer through for the next ten pages," Izzy moaned, costumed as his idol, Bill Gates.
"Now would be the appropriate time for that, Koushiro. For the enjoyment of the readers, I am sending the fifteen of us to one of the most loved Halloween specials in existence."
"The Halloween Tree?" Willis suggested.
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Nicki added. Nicki was sporting the most horribly scary costume…herself.
"Close, but no. We're going to be crossing over to the Charles Schulz classic, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown."
"WHAT?!" the cast howled. "ARE YOU INSANE?"
"Oh, it'll be fun, I promise. Have I ever led you astray?"
Half the team was already heading for the door. Lia glared at them.
"If you don't come with me, like it says in your contracts, you'll have to take the digimon trick-or-treating."
The digimon (well, the immature ones) ambled out in a ragtag assortment of Halloween costumes. Actually, it was mostly their superhero costumes from Batpig and the APT portions of the Fanfic Universe.
"I wanna go to every house on the neighborhood, and then go and egg the Nimoy house and the Buchholz house too!" Gomamon cried.
"We'll go, we'll go!" the Digidestined shouted.
Ken paused for a moment. "But who's going to pass out the candy and stuff?"
"Reo," Lia said, pointing to the scythe-wielding author, who was fishing through the bowl of candy.
"Don't tell me there aren't any Twix, girl."
~*~
Within moments they were sitting outside Charlie Brown's house, still in their Halloween costumes. Lia pulled a clipboard out of hammerspace.
"Okay, here are the assignments…"
"Wait, you're not going to turn us into the Charlie Brown cast, are you?" Tai asked warily.
"Nope, just make y'all chibi and adorable. I'll remain in true form so I can control the fanfic…if I chibi-out, I won't be able to reach the keyboard."
Mimi whimpered. "I'm scared of this…"
"Let's see…Tai, you'll be Charlie Brown, and Kari, you'll be Sally."
"Reasonable enough," Kari said, adjusting her bunny-ears headband.
"T.K., you'll be Linus…" Lia handed him her younger sister's blue fleece blanket, secretly purloined.
"Matt, you'll take Schroeder…"
"Thank God I took piano lessons over the summer," he sighed, toying with a lock of hair.
"Sora, you'll be the Cute Little Redheaded Girl…"
"Typecasting," she muttered.
"Mimi will be Peppermint Patty and Yolei will be Marcie…"
"Yay! You are soooo my idol, Mimi!" Yolei purred.
"And the rest of you will be random cast members."
"What about Lucy?" Nicki asked, folding her arms across her chest.
Lia pointed to herself.
"Now wait a minute!" the chestnut-haired soccer player growled. "Why not me?"
"Simple. Lucy has a crush on Schroeder and…"
"Say no more! Say no more! I want no part of that portion of the show!"
"I thought so. Now, as for Snoopy…"
Lia reached into hammerspace again and pulled out Gatomon, Shadowmon, and Gabumon.
"I need a volunteer!"
"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me pick me!" Shadowmon cried.
"Depends on what you want it for," Gatomon hissed.
"Snoopy the dog," Lia said simply.
"Forget it, I'm a cat," Gatomon snapped, going back to the studio.
"No deal, sister," Gabumon added, walking off as well. "I'm not acting like an idiot. Besides, I'm not a dog either. I'm a lizardy-dog-wolf thing that nobody quite knows what I am until I digivolve!"
"I'll do it! I'll do it!" Shadowmon cheered.
Cody sighed. "It's going to be a long night."
~*~
Lia set up shop at Lucy's psychiatry office…well, it's a lemonade stand with a sign that reads 'psychiatric help, 5¢' but bear with me. She sat at the little milking stool, having a simulcast web chat with Reo.
"So…how's everything going back there?"
"If that freaking doorbell rings one more time, I'm honestly going to kill somebody."
Lia nodded. "And the digimon?"
"Took off an hour ago. I don't expect them back any time soon."
Lia was about to say something when the metallic 'plunk' of loose change dropping into her coffee can cut her off.
"Hang on a sec, Reo, one of the kids wants me."
She got up from her stool and leaned over the counter, finding her chibi-boyfriend scowling at her, his little piano tucked under his arm.
Now, when it comes to the whole chibi thing, think seven-year-old Matt wearing sixteen-year-old Matt's wardrobe. Kay?
"You're the psychiatrist, help me…I've put twenty bucks' worth of nickels in there so I better get my money's worth," he pouted.
"Reo, I'll call you back later."
Reo goes back to his duties as Digimon Cast candy distribution officer.
"Let's see…one for the little mermaid…one for the Harry Potter…six for the Terriermon and…a Pikachu? Get the hell outta here, kid! You ain't getting nothing from me! Go back from whence ye came, vile creature!"
Meanwhile, back in the Peanuts strip, T.K. was running around waving his arms wildly, his security blanket tied around his neck like a cape. T.K. and Kari end up looking pretty much season one-ish, just wearing this season's stuff…and supposedly more mature. He paused at the psychiatry stand, jumping up and down like one of those kids that desperately need Ritalin.
"Lia! He's coming he's coming he's coming!!!!!"
The brunette author leaned over the stand. "Dare I ask who, even though I already know the answer."
"The Great Pumpkin!"
Matt, who's been sitting on Lia's lap for the past paragraph, snickered. "Yeah, sure T.K."
"He is too coming! I have conclusive evidence!"
"And just what does this Great Pumpkin of yours do, Little Brother?"
T.K. grimaced. "First of all, right now I'm the same age as you so shut up, Matt. Second of all, the Great Pumpkin flies out of a different pumpkin patch every Halloween and goes all over the world to deliver candy to good little boys and girls."
"T.K., that's about as farfetched as the time you thought Mom was an interdimensional time thief and a spandex-wearing sorceress from a world where the strongest power is belief."
Lia thought about this for a moment. "Wait…"
"The Great Pumpkin is real, and I'll prove it! I'll show you!" T.K. hollered.
"Uh-huh. Why don't you go rave like a lunatic elsewhere, T.K.?"
"You suck, Matt. I still say Tai would've made a better brother than you."
Matt grinned evilly. "If Tai was your brother, that would make Kari your sister."
"Can we say 'incest?'" Lia added.
"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" T.K. hollered, running off.
~*~
"Davy, I'm not putting my hand in there. It's squishy."
Chibi-Ken backed away from the pumpkin on the little card table, flailing his little plastic spoon around wildly. Davis giggled.
"Aw, come on, Ken. It's just pumpkin goo."
"Yeah, but I'm not touching it. I know what'll happen. I'll put my hand in there and have to dig out all the seeds and stuff and orange pumpkin junk will get under my nails and it'll be hard and I'll be tangerine for a week!"
Davis winked at the camera. "Isn't he cute?"
Cody, who's not chibi-ish because he's short enough as it is, sighed. "I'll clean out the pumpkin, you wuss."
Just then T.K. in his security blanket cape came running by, still flailing his arms wildly.
"He's coming he's coming he's coming he's coming he's coming!"
"Davis, T.K.'s scaring me," Ken whimpered.
"Yeah, he's scaring me too."
Cody, being the only one in his right mind today, rolled his eyes. "Who, T.K.?"
"The Great Pumpkin!"
Ken shook his head. "That's impossible. There's no such thing."
"Nuh-uh, Izzy told me there was! He had the calculations and everything!"
"Well Izzy's a big fat liar and he always says the opposite as me because he still thinks he's the only genius in the group and if I get something wrong he can laugh in my face because he's not a nice genius like Stephen Hawking!"
"Did Matt tell you to take your lunacy elsewhere?" Davis asked.
"Yup," T.K. stated.
Cody shook his head. "I'll tell you what. Here's thirty-five cents, go call somebody who cares."
T.K. ran off, trying to find somebody who would willingly wait up all night in a pumpkin patch for his so-called Great Pumpkin.
"Davy?" asked Ken as he fiddled with his little pink Card Captor Sakura hat.
"Yeah, Ken?"
"When we get back home, remind me to stay as far away from T.K. as humanly possible."
~*~
A group of various cast members were sitting on and around a fence, kind of just sitting there. Well, Chibi Joe was sitting there. Chibi Mimi was on his lap giggling, Chibi Nicki was trying to kill Chibi Yolei, who was cowering behind Chibi Izzy and making fun of Chibi Nicki's Dragonball Z shirt.
"DO NOT DISS DENDE, YAMCHA, AND TRUNKS, YOU PURPLE-HAIRED HUSSY! THEY RULE!"
Izzy pouted. "What about me? Does this mean you'll only like me if I have muscles the size of watermelons, really small irises, big hair that turns blonde and sticks up like Tai's, and spend twenty-five out of thirty minutes in an episode standing around and hollering at the top of my lungs?"
And just then, conveniently, T.K. came running by with his blue blanket-cape, waving his arms for all they're worth.
"HE'SCOMINGHE'SCOMINGHE'S…oh, hi Peppermint Mimi. Hi Yolei, Nicki, Izzy, Joe."
"We're not good enough to get our own separate 'hi…' wait, who's coming?" Joe asked.
"The Great Pumpkin."
Izzy nodded. "Ken told T.K. there wasn't any so I said there was just to be able to contradict him about something. It's this Santa-Claus gourd that distributes saccharine to offspring that have been obedient to their parents."
"Uh-huh, right Izzy. T.K., did Matt pay you to run around like a nutcase?" Mimi asked.
"No, but Cody paid me to go away!"
"How much?" Yolei asked, going for her wallet.
T.K. pouted and slumped off, muttering something about the Great Pumpkin.
~*~
And at the Kamiya house, Tai was slowly but surely going insane.
"I swear to God, Kari, if Shadowmon sings 'It's Suppertime' once more I will kill her. And then myself for not killing her sooner."
Kari nodded blithely, probably listening to the voices inside her head again.
"Here's T.K."
T.K. was now trudging along the street, halfheartedly drawling in a Ben Stein monotone.
"He's coming…he's coming…he's…"
"Who, T.K.?" (As if we didn't already know.)
"The Great Pumpkin. He's supposed to come out of our pumpkin patch tonight and deliver candy to all the good little boys and girls."
"Cool! Let's go sit in the pumpkin patch and watch for him! And we'll bring Snoopy!"
"YAY!" Snoopy hollered, getting down off her doghouse.
As T.K. and Kari skipped off, Tai hurried to chase after them.
"Wait! There's no such thing as a Great Pumpkin! Kari, you're not going to find anything and if you get sick again I'm gonna die! KARIIIIIIIIIII!"
Tai sat on his front steps, looking depressed. Mimi, Yolei, and that cute little redheaded girl otherwise known as Sora walked by.
"Hey Tai!"
"Hey Peppermint Mimi, hey Yolei, hey Cute Little Redheaded Girl Otherwise Known as Sora."
"Why does everybody keep calling me that?" Mimi and Sora shouted.
"What's the matter, Tai?" Yolei asked, ignoring her older peers.
"Kari's gone off with T.K. the village raving lunatic to watch for the Great Pumpkin. I know they aren't going to find anything out there, and I'm afraid Kari's going to be disappointed and go into depression and I'm going to have to d…"
Mimi cut him off, waving her sparkly wand at him. "We're not trained to deal with this sort of stuff. You need help, go talk to the resident psychiatrist. In the meantime, if there is a Great Pumpkin and Kari sees it, tell him I've been a really good girl this year…except for that one time I wore white after Labor Day."
~*~
Tai plunked a nickel into the coffee can set on top of the psychiatry office and waited for Lia to respond. Nothing happened.
"Hey Lia! I know you're sitting right there, even if I can't see over the countertop! I need help."
Matt, still sitting on Lia's lap and looking absolutely adorable, frowned at his big-haired friend.
"I was here first! Find your own psychiatrist, she's mine!"
Tai snorted. "You're such a spoiled brat, that's what you are, Matt Ishida! She's my psychiatrist too!"
"Guys, come on!" Lia hollered. "Let's act our real ages here, okay?"
Matt nuzzled closer to her. "It's not my fault Tai had to come here and spoil everything."
"What do you want, Tai?" Lia sighed, ignoring her little boyfriend.
"Kari's gone off with T.K. to go search for the Great Pumpkin. You and I both know there is no such thing, so…"
"Hey, they're stupid gullible kids. Let them get out there, freeze their little butts off, and then they'll realize the whole thing's baloney. And you can be the proper older sibling and laugh and tell her you told her so. It's what I would do."
"Okay! Thanks Lia!"
Lia deposited Matt on the stool and came around the side of her 'office' carrying a football.
"Hold it. Standard obligatory Charlie Brown rules. Run at it."
She held the football in punting position as Tai came barreling towards the pigskin. Just as his foot left the ground, Lia slid the football out of Tai's kicking path, sending him airborne for a brief moment before he thumped back onto the hard ground. Matt was laughing to the point of tears, while Tai let out the standard response to such Charlie Brown-isms.
"ARGH!"
~*~
And in the pumpkin patch far away from the rest of the cast?
"Got any threes?"
"Go fish," Kari said, exasperated. "T.K., it's been a really, really long time. Maybe he isn't coming."
Shadowmon pulled a digital clock out of hammerspace. "It's been five minutes, moron."
"Really? I thought it was a lot longer!" T.K. said, snuggling his security blanket.
"Hey T.K., did Izzy really tell you there was such thing as a Great Pumpkin, or was he calling Ken's bluff again?"
"……Both."
There was an awkward silence for a few moments…well, it wasn't all that silent considering Shadowmon is our Snoopy. She was doing the Snoopy Dance while whistling Gershwin's Linus and Lucy.
That's the official Charlie Brown song…you know which one I'm talking about.
"…So…how about those Medabots, huh?" T.K. asked in an attempt to keep the conversation going.
"The animation is terrible…and now they're putting Mon Colle Knights back on."
"Lia's cracks about VeeMondo will never end."
Well, this is getting boring. Let's see if there's some excitement elsewhere. Maybe. Hopefully.
~*~
Nicki bought a pair of your good old standard plastic vampire fangs and packets of theatrical blood and was going around with two red permanent markers 'biting' people. The majority of 'bitten' folk were the guys…Izzy thought there was some hickey action going for a minute but was greatly disappointed. Her next victim happened to be sitting on the ground next to a psychiatry office playing Beethoven on his miniature Baby Grand.
"You know something, Schroeder…" Lia sighed; quoting the Broadway musical based on the comic strip we're all stuck in at this moment.
"That I'm incredibly…WAAAAUGH!"
The adorably adorable eight-year-old ran around screaming and clutching his neck.
"I'VE BEEN BITTEN!"
Lia grabbed him by the shirt collar and hoisted him to eye level, examining the 'bite marks.'
"Non fatal."
Nicki emerged from a nearby bush, cackling evilly and chomping on her plastic fangs. She waved her permanent markers around triumphantly, trying not to choke on the fangs in her mouth.
"That wash sho funny! The look on your fache, BakaYama!" she lisped.
Matt growled. "I'm gonna kill you!"
"You'll have to catch me firsht!"
The little blonde midget had no desire to waste his energy running after Nicki, but trudged over to Lia, who was rummaging around hammerspace for a Wet-Nap.
"She's so mean to me."
"Maybe she just doesn't like Beethoven."
~*~
Well, a good couple hours passed and it was getting cold and dark. Kari, Shad and T.K. were still sitting in the pumpkin patch, still waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
"T.K. I'm cold, I'm hungry, I'm tired, and your stupid Great Pumpkin isn't coming! I wanna go home, get a cookie, and maybe brass knuckles so I can kick your sorry pumpkin-loving butt!"
"But Kari, I'm sure he's coming! Izzy said…"
Shadowmon snorted. "What does Izzy know? This is the kid that puts mustard and jellybeans on his eggs! Ooh, fireflies…I wonder what it's like to have part of you glow like that…" The black-and-blue cat glanced over at Kari.
"Tai was right and I should've listened to him! I…I…you're such a blockhead, Takeru Takaishi! If I never ever see you again, it'll be too soon! I'm going home! Snoopy?"
Shadowmon got up from her gourd. "Yeah, let's go. If we hurry, we still might have time to put that drawn and quartered Pidgey in Buchholz's mailbox and make it to every FOX Studio before they shut off the lights and stop passing out candy."
Thus, Kari and Shadowmon left. T.K. hunkered down in the patch, wrapping his security blanket around his shoulders…that is, until Lia's sister arrived from hammerspace, yanked it back, and backhanded the kid.
"Nobody touches my Fleecy!"
And she left T.K. as well.
"DAMMIT, WHERE ARE YOU, GREAT PUMPKIN? HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?"
After a few more minutes of shivering, T.K. gave up.
"Looks like Izzy's calculations were off. I bet the Great Pumpkin manifested in another local pumpkin patch. Oh well. I wonder how long it'll be before Matt stops making fun of me. Maybe by Thanksgiving, if I'm lucky."
He tipped his hat back from his eyes and wandered out of the patch, feeling rather defeated.
No sooner did T.K. leave than a lone figure was seen getting up from the middle of the pumpkin patch. It just so happened that it was the original, one and only Pumpkinmon.
"Hello?! Um, I'm the Great Pumpkin…mon. Hello?! Is anybody here? I'm supposed to be giving out candy or something? Guys? HEY!"
~*~
Back at Digimon Studios, Reo was chasing Culumon/Calamon around the set waving el Lemon Scythe frantically as the perpetually-on-Prozac koala absconded the candy bowl. The original digimon were trading candy.
"Crap, not another box of Good 'N Plenty!"
"Did you guys hit that house where the old dude gave out Post-It Notes?"
"That's what we get for crossing over to the Simpsons."
Lia finished up fixing her cast, then grabbed a pillowcase and a flashlight.
"Wait, where are you going?" Ken asked, trying to get the permanent marker off his neck.
"And why wasn't I in this?" Willis asked.
"And where was I in this whole fic?" Cody added.
"And can I come?" Matt questioned.
The brunette author rolled her eyes. "Cody, you were avoiding Nicki and her markers, Willis, you were locked in the closet trying on your Playboy Bunny costume so you could show Reo, Matt…you can come…if you wanna take my sisters trick-or-treating."
"…I think I'll stay here and…um…make sure there isn't any Anthrax in the Halloween candy."
Joe frowned. "Matt…isn't that a little…"
"Oh come on, Joe! I'm kidding!"
Mimi waved her pink sparkly wand. "I know what we can do now! Let's give Matt half a bottle of Prozac and see what happens!"
"What?!"
Tai grinned. "Yeah…I bet somebody around here has some…there's gotta be a manic depressive…maybe on Alienators…"
"No! Lia…Lia I wanna come! I'll carry your sisters if I have to!"
And T.K. was sitting in the corner, dressed as Goth T.K. "Halloween…it destroys me."
~*~
Happy Halloween from the gang here in Lia-dom!
Sugar! Whee!
I got Matt hyper…oh, the fun I'm gonna have tonight. *rubs hands together evilly*
Now review! Pleasepleaseplease?!