"Gatomon, please?"
"No!"
"Please? I'll buy you some tuna! And a new bed!"
Gatomon glared at her partner through the mail slot. "I'm not being on the same team as that blond floozy, and that's final."
"What'd Matt ever do to you?" Kari asked, puzzled. Behind that mail slot, she was sure Gatomon was facepalming.
"Not him, the short one!"
"Yeah, Matt. Did he annoy you too?"
Gatomon was silent for a few moments and Kari thought she heard banging. "No, no, no! I meant TK."
"How is he a floozy?"
"Never mind that now. I don't care about this stuff: I'll just join Sora's team since I can't stand Tai and Davis."
"But don't you wanna be with me?"
Gatomon considered. "Hm... not until this is over and you get your bed back. I'm not apartment-hopping with you. But if we're on separate teams then either one of us can take Tai down! We can both destroy his team."
"All right," Kari sighed, "Join Team Sora."
"Y'know, for being the one that makes everyone want to protect her just by existing, you're a pretty terrible recruiter."
"Thanks." They both smiled. As Kari turned to leave, she bumped into a poorly disguised Agumon. "Oh, sorry!
Agumon pushed back the hood of his too-small hoodie. "Kari, can I ask you something?"
"Sure!" She had been going to go talk to Cody, but it could wait.
"C-can I join your team? I just want the puns to stop... I mean, if I'm getting annoyed, and I'm his partner and everything, I can't imagine how terrible it is for everyone else," he squeaked.
"Of course you can!" Kari exclaimed, "C'mon, I'll take you back to the bunker."
"All right, troops, state your name and reason for joining," Tai barked in his best drill sergeant voice. "I am your pun-resident. Your pun-manding officer. The Grand Pungeoneer. Obey my orders without question and we'll go far together. Disobey... and no food. Who's first?"
Gomamon pushed himself forward. "I'm here because this seemed like it'd annoy Joe the most."
Davis nodded. "Pun-derstandable. Next!"
"We're here 'cause you'n' Ken're here!" Veemon said, gesturing to himself and Wormmon.
"Good. Now, all of you, egg drop and give me twenty!" Tai ordered.
Sora looked through her open apartment door. "Can I help you?"
"We're here to join up." Four Digimon were standing outside, Biyomon looking rather pleased with herself. She had gathered Tentomon, Gabumon, Gatomon, and herself.
"Okay, cool. But it's a little early... wait, Gatomon? I thought you were with Kari!" Sora exclaimed. The feline shrugged.
"Nah, she's spending too much time with the blond floozy and his brother's really getting on me nerves. And no way was I gonna join up with Tai... so here I am."
Gabumon glanced at Sora as he reprimanded Gatomon, "I know Matt's been... not himself, lately, but he would never be that promiscuous, especially around Kari. He already has a mate."
"Wait, what?" Gatomon listened as Gabumon explained the meaning of the word floozy. Her eyes widened. No wonder Kari had thought that she'd meant Matt... she decided not to tell anyone here otherwise. Sora was blushing enough already. Although even Sora would admit that with some of the things Matt did on stage "floozy" wasn't stretching it too much.
Biyomon and Tentomon had no idea what they were talking about. "Say, is Izzy still here?" the beetle-like Digimon asked. "He never came home last night!"
"He'd better not be," Sora muttered, the blush fading. But sure enough, Izzy was still sitting in her dad's home office (not that he was ever there to use it anyways...) tinkering with the computer. Of course.
Tentomon knew there was only one way to get his attention, so he zapped his partner with a very low power Super Shocker. "What was that for?" Izzy demanded angrily.
"It's been fifteen hours..." Sora pointed out. Izzy looked at his watch.
"So it has." He made no move to get up.
"Oh no, you are not staying here another night! Do you want my mom to flip out? Do you want to become the next TK and Kari?" she asked rhetorically, preparing to pull his chair out from under him.
"Five more min- hey! Tentomon, help me out here!" he grabbed the desk and hung on for dear life.
Tentomon responded by turning his back on his partner. No way was he getting involved in that.
While Sora and Izzy continued their "battle" Gatomon attempted to make conversation. "I thought you'd be with Matt, Gabumon."
"So did I, but he's been acting very strangely, muttering about revenge and making TK love him again. Then he went and joined Tai, so I figured if this team wins everything will go back to normal," he explained.
"It will," Biyomon assured him, ignoring the slap fight going on in the background. "If anyone can knock some sense into them, it's Sora."
The fight suddenly ended when Sora realized that Izzy was sitting in a swivel chair. "I-concede... just-stop-spinning-me!"
Sora relented. "Go home. We've got a meeting tomorrow."
"Fine. C'mon, Tentomon." The two left, Biyomon slamming the door behind them.
"What about us?" Gatomon asked, "Tai's making Matt live with him and no way am I going back there when there's four guys. Human males are disgusting!"
"I have to agree with you there... how did you stand Tai and Davis for that long?" Biyomon wondered.
She received a smirk in response. "Ear plugs and bribery. But with them 'training' Ken and Matt, those won't be enough."
"She's right," Gabumon agreed. "I would just stay with Matt's dad, but he'd forget to buy food again." Both of them gave Sora their best puppy-dog (or kitty-cat) faces.
She gave in. "All right, you can stay here, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell Mom that we're feeding three Digimon now."
"Is this really such a good idea, Yolei?" Hawkmon asked. "You could get arrested for this!"
"Bah, it won't be that bad! All I have to do is get up there!" She and Hawkmon were standing on the fire escape three stories down from Cody's apartment. Sure, she'd sent Kari to talk, but that was just a diversion. Her real plan was to sneak in while they were busy. "Do your thing!"
Hawkmon sighed. It would be pointless to argue. He Digivolved into Aquilamon and Yolei hopped onto his back. They flew up to Cody's window only to discover that it was locked. "Darn! Time for Plan B. Use your attack!"
"Um, let's wait and see if Kari can persuade him, "Aquilamon suggested.
"Ugh, fine, we'll give her five minutes. But if she doesn't convince him fast enough, it'll be time for Operation: Blast Laser..."
After letting Agumon into the bunker, TK explained the basics to him then called his mom from his Ladybug*.
"Hey, Mom. Yeah, I- how'd you know? Kari told you? Okay, next question: is Tai still out there? ... a police officer escorted him out last night and he came back? Wow... yeah, I need to get Patamon, but if Tai... wait, he has what? Why does everyone keep trying to kidnap me?... All right, I'll wait... say, while we're talking, can I get a real cell-" he closed the "phone". "She hung up on me!"
"Why is Tai stalking you?" Agumon asked. "Usually he only does that kind of stuff to Izzy."
"I don't know! Maybe Matt put him up to it or something."
Agumon considered this. "Maybe. Or he's mad at you for the whole Kari thing and wants to make sure no one interferes with his revenge."
"No one else ever has to deal with homicidal older brothers... I'm gonna regret asking this, but what has Tai told you about his plans?"
Agumon told him what he knew. "... and then when he steals his mom's estrogen medicine stuff-"
"Okay, that's enough," TK interrupted. He'd taken enough biology to know where this was headed. Now there was no way he was going over there alone. He thought about e-mailing Matt, but he didn't want a fight to break out.
On second thought, it would be a good idea to let Matt know about Tai's plans, just in case. So he tapped out a quick e-mail on his D-Terminal. "There. That should take care of things."
Kari and Cody had finally reached an agreement: Cody wouldn't have to join any of the teams. He'd be the judge if they needed one. Armadillomon wanted to join Team Yolei, so he would be allowed to; they needed him for even teams anyway. Plus, he had a deep hatred of puns. Kari was just about to leave when she noticed something circling outside Cody's window. "Can I open this?" she asked, recognizing it. Only Yolei...
"Go ahead. She can give you a ride back," Cody said as Kari opened the window. "Faster than going down all these stairs."
"I don't like stairs," Armadillomon commented.
"You knew we were out here the whole time? Co-dy!" Yolei pouted. "How far can you jump, Kari?"
She gauged the distance. "Far enough. You ready, Armadillomon?"
"As I'll ever be," he gulped.
They jumped, barely making it. "Sorry, that was as close as I could get," Aquilamon apologized.
"It's okay... hm, has anyone had lunch today?" Kari asked.
They shook their heads. "Let's go to that new revolving sushi place." Yolei suggested.
"Maybe we should pick up something for the others," Kari offered.
The girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"Hey, man, can I talk to you about something?" Matt said to Tai. The self-proclaimed "pun-resident" blinked.
"Sure ya can," he replied. They stepped into Tai's bathroom and closed the door. "I've been waiting for this day to come!"
"What, no puns?" Matt joked, silently cursing his own stupidity.
Tai shook his head. "A friend's love life is a serious matter," As Matt gaped at him, he continued, "So, she crushing on someone else? Reject your gifts? Say she's busy when she's just messing with some stupid flowers? Spill, man!"
Those were all reasons why Tai and Sora's relationship had collapsed before high school even began... or they'd turned thirteen. All the more reason for Matt's firm belief that twelve-year-olds shouldn't date.
"I don't want a sister, Tai," Matt warned, causing the other boy's face to turn a variety of colors before going back to normal.
"Agumon told him about the scrapped plan? Ah well, now I don't have to hurry back there. My real plan is working!"
"I'm almost scared to ask," Matt sighed.
"Yeah, I kinda realized that turning TK into a girl would make Kari hate my guts... it'd prob-balls-ly just make their relationship stron-girl, with my luck. So my new plan is to make sure he can't go collect Patamon so Yolei's team has to start down a member. Pretty good, huh, Matt?"
Matt was stunned. "That's actually a... a decent strategy!"
"Exactly! Now, back to training! I have to go creep on your brother."
Tai found himself on the receiving end of a noogie. "At least find a better way to say it!"
"I have to go, um, pun-posely keep him away from Patamon?"
Once Matt stopped the noogie, Tai grabbed some bread, a roll of duct tape, and a giant pair of scissors. Shoving it all in his pants, he ran for the door. "Time for an elevator stalk-out!"
"What's taking them so long? I'm hungry!" Agumon complained.
TK didn't even bother to point out that they'd already had lunch. Less than a half hour ago. "Yolei's probably doing something illegal again..."
"We're back!" Yolei announced, having unlocked the door without them noticing.
"Did you bring any food with you? I'm starving!" Agumon whined.
Kari shook her head. "We would've brought you guys something, but someone ate so much sushi we ran out of money."
Armadillomon looked very pleased with himself. "They shouldn'ta kicked us out, though, y'know?"
"Didn't Cody ever tell you to show some restraint?" Hawkmon asked.
"Usually he does, but he said this time it wasn't as important," the gluttonous Digimon answered.
"Tai told me the same thing before I left!" Agumon exclaimed.
Yolei glared at the wall. "I know what they're trying to pull, right, guys? Guys?"
TK had already started telling Kari about his earlier conversation. Yolei watched them, not paying attention to the words. Why did they always have to do things like that? Just because they were dating didn't mean they could ignore her like this! Suddenly, Kari gasped and began marching TK out the door. "Hey! Where are you going?" Yolei cried, noticing the Digimon had disappeared on her. Oh, no, the kitchen!
"Chill, we're not leaving the building!" TK called back to her before Kari slammed the door behind them and locked a random three out of the four dead bolts.
"My brother has some serious explaining to do," Kari growled. "This is too far."
"Yeah, usually he keeps the ball gag for Izzy since he hasn't figured out how to ditch them yet..." TK commented.
She rolled her eyes. "I meant threatening castration, but that's messed up too."
They stepped into the elevator only to find Tai already standing inside. "Need a 'lift'?"
TK tried to run back out, but the door had already closed.
"Relax, willya? I left my pun-tility belt upstairs," Tai continued, "Nice of you two to 'drop' by, though."
"Wha- you didn't," Kari said, glaring at her brother.
"No, because Ken wouldn't let me use his wire-cutters. Isn't it just none-ball-eivable?"
TK sighed. Time to bite the bullet. "All right, two questions: Why are you here, and why do you have it out for me so bad?"
Kari seemed to be wondering the same thing, so they stared at Tai. He was starting to feel pun-comfortable. "Um, well... I'm not trying to stop you guys from getting Patamon!" The elevator stopped and all three got out. "I... uh... planned a picnic!" The second question was left unanswered.
"With what food?" Kari asked, stopping at the door to TK's apartment.
"This!" Tai proclaimed, pulling a loaf of bread from his pants. He knew that thing would come in handy! The younger children stared at him wide-eyed.
"Um, I'm pretty sure those pants don't have pockets," TK noted, his back against the door as he tried to unlock it left-handed. No way was he staying. He'd been mentally scarred enough for one day.
Tai beamed. "You're absolutely right! They're comfy and easy to wear because they don't have any pun-kets to get in my way!"
"Tai, we didn't need to know that, and we don't want your pants bread," Kari said bluntly.
"I thought you'd be the 'yeast' likely to refuse it, after all, it's 'breader' than what we get at home," her brother replied, pouting. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed TK trying to escape. Time for Plan B. "I can't let you do that."
"Ugh, why couldn't Mom wait five more minutes to go back to work?" the younger boy muttered. "Is duct tape really the best you've got?"
The taunt didn't work. "Looks like you're in a sticky situation," Tai giggled as he taped TK's ankles together. He cut another strip of duct tape with his giant scissors.
Kari just stood there and smiled. Suspicious behavior! "You're not gonna try to loosen him up?"
"Nope. Just taking a few pictures for Mom," Kari informed him, focusing her camera on Tai's failed attempt to get TK's wrists taped. The younger boy decided that enough was enough and punched Tai in the gut.
"I'm sure my mom would want to see these too... this can't be legal," TK commented as he and Tai began a slap fight. Kari took even more pictures. Tai let out a girly shriek and ran away, taking his pants-bread with him. TK fell over on his back, complaining about how hard it was to get duct tape residue off. "I found Tai's giant scissors," she told him, holding up the two-foot-long Hello Kitty monstrosities Tai left behind.
"I don't want to know," he murmured, staring at the sheer absurdity of Kari separating his ankles with... wow, even the blades were pink and sparkly!
"There! All gone. Need anything else while we're here?" she asked, pulling the duct tape off.
"I'll shove some stuff in a suitcase," he replied, darting through the door before anything else disturbing could happen. Within ten minutes he and Patamon emerged, the latter sitting on top of a medium-sized rolling suitcase.
"Let's hurry up and leave before he comes back! Tai's scarier than all the stuff you keep in you backpack. Don't you have a locker or something for your nasty gym shirt?" Patamon complained.
TK smiled. "I missed you too, buddy."
Around 9 p.m. Yolei realized that there were only two beds in the bunker. "How're we gonna do this?"
Hawkmon was perched next to her on the armchair. Her vague question had woken him, Agumon, TK, and Kari. Only Armadillomon was still sleeping.
"That's the last time we watch Batman and Robin," Agumon yawned, "Why does Tai like it so much?"
"Prob'ly the constant puns," Kari murmured, "So many ice puns..."
Patamon was the only one to have stayed awake through the whole film (they'd been watching it on the suspiciously-aquired TV.) "Do what, Yolei?"
"Bed down for the night. Anyone want the floor?"
Armadillomon was curled up on the less-hideous couch next to Agumon. "We'll take this couch," the dinosaur said.
"I'm fine with the other couch," Yolei remarked, wondering how the queen-sized sheet would fit on either cot. She solved the problem by shoving them together.
"Looks like you guys get the beds!" Patamon chirped, flapping over to the less-hideous couch. This way he might actually sleep at night.
TK and Kari looked at each other and shrugged. Wouldn't be the first time... "Say anything and you're sleeping in the bedroom," Kari warned Yolei. The older girl kept her mouth shut.
The chorus of good-nights was said, and the leg lamp turned off.
"Tai, can we pun-lease sleep now?" Ken whined, hating how he was being forced to use anything that could possibly pass for a pun... actually, now that he thought about it, Davis had pretty much just said to stick the word "pun" into whatever he could.
Tai gave a moan from the corner where Matt had thrown him after seeing Kari's pictures. She'd e-mailed them to everyone.
"It's eleven o'clock. Anyone here get up before noon?" Matt asked, glaring at Tai.
"We've got a meeting then," Davis reminded him, "Gomamon, wake us up at ten."
"Got it! Veemon, you know where I can find a bucket?"
On that frightening note, the boys all went to sleep.
"Where is everyone?" Joe wondered. It was 11:55 a.m. and only Team Sora was at the soccer field.
"That's odd... we're the ones that don't live together," Tentomon commented. Izzy was putting the finishing touches on his "civilized" way for this to go.
Gatomon's ears twitched. "I hear Yolei yelling."
"...I'm sorry, but that's what you get for stealing my camera!" Kari finished as her team came into view.
"You did take pictures of us sleeping," TK pointed out before he noticed that the team had arrived.
Yolei rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but soy beans? Really? Oh, hey, guys," she added as an afterthought.
Sora sighed. This was getting off to a great start. "We agreed on the whole 'challenges' thing, right? Last place on each team gets eliminated?"
"I still can't believe Tai wanted a death match," Yolei responded. "We only spent three hours figuring this stuff out..."
"Speak of the devil," Hawkmon said, "They're finally coming!"
"We only just got here ourselves," Armadillomon huffed.
Tai's team came in running, exhausted and out of breath. Before any of them could speak, Cody (who had arrived before Sora's team) held up a hand for silence.
"Thanks for paying attention," he began. Armadillomon applauded.
"Uh, thank you. Now, here's how this competition will work. Your team leaders each have a set of demands. The overall winners get their reasonable demands met; the losers have to work off the group tab at Yolei's store." Matt and Joe shuddered involuntarily. Feeding the Digimon had racked up a larger amount than even Digitamamon would ask for.
Cody continued, "There will be a total of seven challenges, starting with a drawing contest. Why Tai would suggest that I have no idea. Anyways, the winning team in each challenge gets three points, second place gets one point, and last gets a random punishment. All the teams will eliminate whoever does the worst in each challenge. Any questions?"
Half the group raised their hands/paws/other appendages. "No? Great! Tai, tell everyone your demands."
"First of all, as the Grand Pungeoneer I think you should all be more o-pun minded. Things will remain as they are, but Kari will come home. Also, she will break up with her boyfriend-"
"WE'RE NOT DATING!" TK and Kari shouted in unison.
"Suuure you aren't. You're just saying that so I'll let my guard down. My last demand is ice cream. I need it."
Since none of Tai's demands were unreasonable, the only people who spoke up were on his team.
"You should've demanded shome cake! Cake goesh great with ice cream!" Veemon shouted.
Ken scoffed. "He should've demanded Gomamon learn how to tell time so we wouldn't've been late."
"Hey! I know how to tell time!" Gomamon defended.
"Then why did you wake us up at 11:50?"
"It took longer than I thought it would to find everything I needed, okay? And I wanted your first time waking up together as a team to be special!"
"You filled up a few buckets, then you used Marching Fishes on us! And then you dumped the buckets on us!"
"I wasn't sure if you guys would wake up or not..."
Sora handed Izzy a notecard. "Sora has requested that if our team is victorious everything will go back to the way it was before Tai's descent into madness," Izzy read off, "That includes living situations. Also Matt, Tai, and Yolei will write apology letters to those they've wronged."
Gatomon added, "And Miko has to go!"
Kari facepalmed. "I've told you a hundred times, we can't do that!"
"Unreasonable," Cody decided, "Any other objections?" Other than some grumbling from Tai and Davis there were none. "All right, Yolei."
"Tai and Davis will stop with all the puns!" she announced, "And Davis has to give Kari her bed back and clean the whole room."
Davis and Tai protested, but Cody figured it was fair enough.
Tai decided that he had to talk again. "Everypun come back here tomorrow, same pun time, same pun channel!"
* The Ladybug phone... oh man. TK's mom seems like she'd be protective especially with Tai's and Oikawa's creeper-ness, but no way would she get him an actual phone. Those things can only call home and 911 (I'm pretty sure, anyways...). I was gonna go with the Firefly GlowPhone that I grew up seeing commercials for but I wasn't sure if those were from 2002 so I went with a fictional one instead. Nigie (that's her new nickname, because something something KND) says they're from Wimpy Kid. Good enough for me.
Author's Note: Yeah, I should work on something else... but this needed me to finish so Nigie can do the next one. So yeah, the next stuff will be really fun to write. Also I have a poll now. Vote or something whatever review!