The Best Halloween Ever


A 'Judith Strikes!' fic by Brother Grimace




The young woman known as Judith barely had time to scream as Daria Morgendorffer's spring-loaded bed flipped over, around on one side, and smacked her face-first into a padded wall in the blink of an eye!

"GAH-!" Judith choked out, as the bed fell away from her. "DA-"

The curse was choked away as the bed slammed back into her, driving her back into the wall! "You little bi-"

The bed struck again with a room-rattling WHAM!

"I'm gonna ki-"

WHAM!

"You're gonna pay-"

WHAM!

"Burn-"

WHAM!

"Your-"

WHAM!

"House-"

WHAM!

"To the ground-!"

WHAM! BAM! SLAM! BAM! WHAM! WHAM! SLAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff..." Judith mumbled, words and spit dribbling from her mouth.

Even the red cloak that Judith wore seemed shaken as she took a single, unsteady half-step away from the padded wall, where a perfect impression of the back of her body was visible.

"The case for antidisestablishmentarianism has never been more threadbare... ah... ah... ah... oh, sh-"

Judith's eyes went wide as her foot settled solidly upon the floor - and a very loud CLICK! echoed through the room-


WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!


The bed settled back into its original position as Judith, actually able to carry a tune, began to sing in a punch-drunk manner. "Cause you know that if you live in your imagination... tomorrow you'll be everybody's fascination... in my victory... just remember me... when I make it shineeeeeee..."

Judith shook her head clear; a determined glare in her eyes. "Oooooooh... I hate realities like this!" she hissed. "First things first, though."

Crossing the room – and watching her step for other surprises – Judith easily dodged the spring-loaded executioner's axe, the hurled boulder from the closet and the jury summons as she made her way to Daria's desk, and took the spare pair of glasses in the top drawer.

Placing the glasses inside her cloak, she then drew from within an energy pistol so mean and evil in appearance that the sun actually went behind a thick cloud formation when rays of sunlight coming through the window sparkled off the weapon.

"Now, let's see," Judith said, and the chorus of seven Benedictine monks over in the corner began to sing Ave Satani as she clicked through the weapon's settings. "Toasty Warm, For Hot Beverages Only, Tanned, Ouch-That Stings, Where's The Aloe Ointment, It REALLY HURTS, Grilled Like A Cheese Sandwich, If I Could Spend Time In A Broiler, Smoking Hot Babe, Burning Man Dance Fever, Water Only Makes It Worse, Oh God Make It Stop, Welcome to Pompeii, Carbon-14,000 Degrees, and 'Here's Zeus – LIVE!"

The monks – and their unseen musical accompaniment – continued to perform, the music building upon itself as the dial on the weapon clicked and locked on 'Here's Zeus – LIVE!'

Judith pulled a second identical weapon from her cloak; the second weapon made a rapid series of audible clicks as the young woman held them close. "Now," she said, an evil smile covering her face, "Let's see just how hot the 'Barksdale women' really are."

Holding both weapons at the ready as she passed through the door to the bathroom that Daria and Quinn shared, Judith prepared to kick open the door –

"Daria – what do you think of my costume?"

A sound that could only have been a scream rocked the bathroom as Quinn Morgendorffer – dressed in a life-size 'Hello Kitty' costume – suddenly appeared at the door.

"GAWD, Daria, what's your damage?" Quinn huffed, as the cloak pulled a shrieking Judith (who dropped both weapons) from the bathroom in its mad dash to escape the human-sized cat-figure. "You're so weird – even on Halloween!"

The bubbly redhead looked down at the dropped weapons, and held them up. "Well, at least you know how to make up a costume," she continued, looking down the barrel of one of the weapons. "This is really cool-"

Quinn's eyes went wide as a platypus, wearing a stylish fedora and a silver ring on its right flipper, appeared from nowhere, grabbed the weapons – tipped his hat to her - and disappeared!

"MOM!" Quinn squeaked, all but flying from the bathroom as she raced through her room and downstairs. "MOM! Daria and Jane are upstairs doing weird things again with weird outer garments and plastic models of sci-fi movie guns and weird animals from Australia – but the platypus did have good taste in haberdashery, and good manners...!"

Quinn's squeals rang down the hall as Daria Morgendorffer (Jane Lane beside her) opened the door to her room – and both stopped as they saw Judith hanging upside down, glaring at them as she (and her cloak) hung suspended upside down in duct-tape cocoons in the middle of the room.

They shrugged in unison.

"Meh," they said as one, walking inside.

Daria closed the door as Jane (dressed in the wet black leather look of 'Trinity' from The Matrix) walked over and looked Judith over, ignoring the way the inverted young woman looked at her with surprise before glaring with hate at Daria. "Oh, jeez, amiga," she said, " not another evil counterpart from another dimension trying to kill you, torture you or have her sordid way with you and not invite me in for a three-way?"

Daria (dressed as Pippi Longstocking) ignored Judith as she shook her head. "I don't care how many times you say it, Lane – you're not going to get a movie role just because you say that you're a lesbian."

"Well, who says that I can't enjoy clam chowder as much as a sausage-fest?" Jane said suggestively, waggling her eyebrows, "Besides – if they think that I'm a lesbian, imagine just how many casting calls I'd get to go on... and the food they'll toss my way. After all, 'E.F.' trumps 'F.F."

The currently unbound, bespectacled young woman looked at Jane. "E.F.?"

Jane looked Judith over, and smiled as she turned back to Daria. "Yeah – 'Eat First.' That's the one thing I miss about dating Tom. All of the free dinners."

Daria rolled her eyes. "You're sick."

Jane snapped her fingers – and the monks broke out into a soulful chorus of 'Sexual Healing' (accompanied by excellent backup music as they danced) as Jane began to slowly dance around Judith.

Daria shook her head as Jane, running her hands across her body in a playfully seductive manner as she let them slide slowly over her hips and up to her neck, had an obvious effect on Judith (as the front of her catsuit showed). "Well," she said, glancing back in Judith's direction. "I guess someone here doesn't have a problem with that idea."

"Hey, Daria!" Jane laughed. "I've got an idea! If you've got a chocolate bar and can skip out of here for fifteen minutes, maybe we can tame this wild beast!"

"Yeah, yeah," Daria sighed. "Let's get rid of her, so we can get to the party at the Zon."

Jane practically bounced on air. "Ooh – let me do it, let me do it!"

Daria dropped her head. "Well, since it was your idea..."

The smile on her face lighting up the room, Jane raised her hands in the air and clapped twice – and then, punctuated it with a loud, throaty 'UHH!' as she thrust her hips forward.

In response, a pair of mechanical arms reached down from the ceiling and turned Judith right-side up – followed by a third arm that gently took the pair of glasses that Judith off her face.

The girls watched with satisfaction as another arm came down and slapped Judith soundly; the pair of arms that held Judith moved her across the room and held her in front of the closet (her glasses replaced by the arm that took them) where yet another arm came down to open the door, while the arm that slapped her swatted Judith into the closet!

A brilliant blue flash erupted from the closet, followed by another as two of the mechanical arms balled up the cloak, and the left-handed one threw it into the closet behind Judith!

"Nice speed," Jane said, as the right-handed arm gave the other a 'thumbs-up'.

"Sounds like it," Daria agreed.

"Yeah, but we'd better teach those things some control before they kill someone with that fastball," Jane noted.

The arms all disappeared as Quinn bounded into the room, followed by Helen Morgendorffer (wearing her Lara Croft outfit). "Well, Quinn?" Helen asked, looking annoyed.

Quinn's eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open at the sight of the (otherwise) normality of Daria's room. "But – but I saw it!"

Helen dragged Quinn out of the room. "Come on, Quinn," she told her younger daughter. "It's Halloween – so your father won't mind if I put a little something extra in your warm milk to calm you down."

Daria smiled as Helen glanced back at her and Jane. "Girls – why not come down for some Halloween-theme snacks? We can't let all the paralegals eat them all."

"We'll be right down," Daria said.

As the door closed, the two girls turned to one another. "Halloween treats, your sister gets annoyed and we have fun with an evil counterpart," Jane said. "What's not to love?"

Daria nodded in agreement. "This really is the best Halloween ever!"


END