Welcome and thank you for coming, today's featured fan fiction will be one of love, drama, humor, and two poor unfortunate raccoons. You will laugh, cry, and feel that mushy, cuddly feeling when you see people in love….. usually.

Anyways, you will find some of your favorite characters displayed in this story, but not all of them. I will try my best to portray them as close to their original characters as I can while giving them further development. So without further ado…

Love Bandits

It is a quiet morning as the dawn break in the city of Happy Tree Town, located in Happy Tree Valley within Happy Tree Forest. All one can see when gazing across the land is green with a clear blue sky. Flowers, trees, and plants paint the landscape with modest touches of urban meddling thrown in the scene. Even the houses themselves resemble the very trees in nature. No one can suspect anything bad happening here. Sadly, this is a nice, cheerful place with a dark, tragic history. This place, whether from divine intervention, forces beyond mortal understanding, or as a cosmic joke, is enchanted and/or cursed. All who venture and live in this area of the world are gifted with immortality, living without fear of a permanent death; something parallel to the Garden of Eden.

At first, this does not seem like an awful agreement: A beautiful place where you live with nature with the modern comforts of home without the fear of death. This notion, however, is far from the truth. You see, with the power of immortality, this land is cursed with bad luck. If it had not been for the immortality the valley grants, no one in Happy Tree Town would expect to live beyond the end of the week or even the end of the day. In this place, you always come back to life days after death…. but as a wise man once said, "Immortality hurts". When you die here in the valley, it hurts. It ends once you have fully died and recovered back at the Happy Tree hospital.

Welcome to Happy Tree Town, enjoy your stay.

8_8_*

"Come on, are you done yet?"

"Almost."

Two figures stood at the entrance in the back of the super market in the early morning. Both are the same height and figure. They are greedy green brothers and partners in crime. They are Lifty and Shifty, the thieving raccoon twins of Happy Tree Town. They share a common hobby: stealing. Their appearances match almost exactly with each other: their green fur, striped tails, grinning smiles, even their voices closely match. The only difference that helps tell one another apart is Shifty's fedora hat, which the younger sibling, by three minutes, Lifty lacks.

"You call that lockpicking?"

"I'm working as fast as I can."

"Not fast enough obviously. You're slippin' if it takes you 5 minutes to pick a lock."

"Oh I'm sorry bro, how about you try your hand at picking a single-bitted, six-wafer configuration lock with a magnetic brand tamper-sensitive alarm hooked to it using a hard plastic lockpick without tripping the trigger and letting every single cop in a 5 mile radius coming after our furry tails? I'm su~re you can do much better!"

"… shut up and pick."

The one picking the lock manages to get the lock open.

"Open sesame" He says with a grin. They both chuckle and enter the store together. There are aisles and aisles of food around them. There are fruits, produce, cheese, sugars, treats, meals, meats, and plenty of other assortments of goods.

"Whooaa," Lifty exclaims. "Would you look at all that stuff? We could live like kings if we took all this!"

Shifty adjusts his hat, taking a quick look around. "Yeah, too bad we don't have a truck big enough to take them all. So let's focus on something more valuable."

"What's that, bro? Gold, jewelry, a plasma TV?"

The older sibling beams a knowing smirk. "Cash, cold hard cash." He makes his way to the cash register. "There's nothing in the world more valuable than currency, bro. You trade precious gems and gold for the stuff and everyone accepts it. Even more so than credit cards." He takes the cash register from the desk, handing it to his younger brother. "It's what we strive to earn. Everything runs on money, the one who has the most can have whatever they want."

Lifty takes out a large bag from his pocket and places the register into it. "And if we take all that money, we can get whatever we want, right?"

He nods. "You bet, Lift." He takes a look over his shoulder, seeing a shining watch on display in the case in the counter. The green raccoon looks at this piece of fine craftsmanship with self-indulgence in his eyes. "…. Of course… doesn't hurt to pick up a few things along the way." He hops over the counter and takes a look at the lock on the door of the counter.

Lifty raises a doubtful brow towards his brother's actions. "Uh, you sure about that? I mean, it's a pretty good looking watch…. Expensive too… but don't we need to get out of here before the manager gets here?"

Shifty waves his brother off. "Yeah yeah, this won't take any time. You mind tossing the lock pick?"

The younger brother obliges his brother's request and tosses him the lockpick he brought with him. He catches the instruments and gets to work picking the lock. When he does, however, a loud wailing sound starts blaring through the speakers and startles the raccoons out of their fur. They swiftly gaze around, the alarm catching them off guard.

"What'd you do?" The younger brother asks in a panic.

Shifty eyes bug out in fright, scanning the lock for the answer. "… aw no! There's an alarm connected to the case!" He quickly opens the door and scoops out the watch, tossing it into the open bag in Lifty's grip. "Let's get out of here!"

"You don't have to tell me twice." The two kleptomaniacs rapidly make their exit to the back of the store, only to see someone blocking the door.

"What the hell? What's goin' on…" The large, lumbering figure with antlers walks through the door, looking inside the building. The blue moose is wearing a store manager's uniform with his name badly written on the nametag: Lumpy. While not the brightest lightbulb in town, it doesn't take him long to see the problem in front of him. There are two people in the store, before work hours, holding a large bag with something inside of it. He realizes in that moment that they must be shop lifters! He points at them with the angriest face he could muster. "Hey you two, stop right there!"

Their gaze turns towards each other. "Uh oh…" Neither of them wanting to be caught, they did the only thing they did naturally: They ran in the opposite direction with the bag in their hands.

"Hey! Come back here!" The moose goes after the two thieves, making a quick detour to grab a nearby broom to beat them into a pulp. "Rape! Rape! Ra-er… I mean thieves!"

Lifty glances over his shoulder in confusion. "Did he just-"

"Less talking, more running!" They swerve and twist around the aisles as the blue moose chases them down. Going through the aisle with cleaners, Shifty grabs a bottle of floor cleaner. "Time to give him the slip." He opens and pours the cleaning agent behind him.

Lumpy sees this. "Hey, you have to pay for thaaaaaAAAAAAA!" He ends up slipping across the trail of slippery goo left by the raccoon, flailing his arms to get himself to stop. The thieving raccoons turn left at the end of the aisle. Lumpy, on the other hand, rams face first into a wall of potato chips. Chips flew everywhere!

Lifty and Shifty dash out the market, leaving a disoriented Lumpy in the center of the pile of salty snacks.

"Gah… uuh….mm?" There is a crunch noise in the pile. "Mmmmm… pizza flavored chips." The dimwitted moose starts eating the chips in tasteful bliss.

8_8_8_

The thieving twins did not stop until they reach the park. They park themselves on a nearby bench, trying to catch their breaths.

"We did it," Shifty huffs, leaning against the bench to give his feet rest. "I don't see the dumb moose chasing us anymore, must have lost him."

Lifty moans in exhaustion, pulling the bag onto the bench. "Good thing too. I couldn't run with this hunk of metal on my shoulder." He pulls open the bag and reveals the cash register they stole. "How much you think is in there?"

The older sibling shrugs. "Dunno, but we're about to find out." They both chuckle evilly at the thought of the large sum of cash in the register.. He punches a few buttons on the cash register and the cash shelf pops open. The two look inside to find their newly acquired riches. They find 20 dollars worth of dollar bills and 89 cents worth of pennies, nickels and dimes.

Lifty stares at the diminutive amount of cash, eye twitching. "That's it? That's all? Just twenty stickin' dollars? I didn't break a high security lock and get chased down by damn moose just for 20 dollars!"

Shifty, while just as distraught as Lifty, holds his hand up. "Whoa whoa, don't lose your head yet. We still have the watch… " He reaches into the bag and lifts it out. "With this baby, we can pawn off this sucker for some serious cash."

"Yeah…. Yeah your right." He calms down, taking a few deep breaths. He pockets the 10 dollars while his brother takes his half. "Heh heh, almost lost it there." He look up towards his brother, who starts examining the watch for it's value. "How much you think that thing is worth? 5 grand? 10 grand? Maybe one of those rare antique watches worth millions?"

"5 dollars."

Lifty froze, blinking in confusion. "Huh? I must be hearing things, I thought you said it is worth only 5 dollars." The younger brother chuckles, thinking it's his sibling's sense of humor.

Shifty's serious expression, however, told his younger brother it is not a joke.

"This watch is a fake," he exclaims with anger. "A damn plastic display model!" He throws the phony watch against the ground. It shatters into pieces upon contact.

"WHAT?" In a fit of rage, the little brother grabs the cash register with both hands and smashes the object against the watch with all his might. Both the register and the remains of the watch break into millions of bits and pieces. "THIS IS COMPLETE BULLS#$&!"

"Hey hey! Watch your tone." A bear in a rather bright set of yellow pants and large afro strolls down the pathway with a sweat band around his head. The 70's disco fever of the town and "lady's man": Disco Bear. He looks at the two sternly.

"What's it to you, Pops?" Shifty inquires, getting off of his seat.

"I'm having my morning jog. Ya know, getting in shape to look my best for the ladies. Oh yeah!" He adds this remark with a pelvis thrust, much to Lifty and Shifty's disgust. "Don't need to have myself exposed to your brother's bad vibes this early in the mornin'. Will ruin my chances with the chicks." He takes out a comb, brushing his poofy hair.

The raccoon twins roll their eyes.

"Yeah, whatever." Shifty folds his arms, staring Disco Bear off. "Look, we had a rough morning. So how about you make like a banana and split?"

"Hey now, what's the bad attitude for?" He pockets the brush, looking at the smashed stuff on the ground. "By the look of it, you two woke up on the wrong side of the bed. You should try workin' on that."

"Shut it, fat boy!" Lifty remarks angrily. "We just woke in the early hours in the morning to break into the super market! I had to pick a lock with a plastic lockpick, get chased by a stupid moose, and steal a cash register only to find out it only 20 bucks in it and the watch we stole isn't a real watch!"

Shifty slaps his forehead and groans in frustration. 'The stupid,' he thought to himself. 'It burns.' He couldn't believe that his brother spilled the beans about the heist in front of someone. To someone they hardly even knew! Now he's probably going to run off to the nearest police man to tell on them or worse, try to subdue them. He really didn't want to face a bear, out of shape or not.

Much to Shifty's surprise, the 70's styled bear, while annoyed by the fat comment, simply shrugs his shoulders. "Whatever man. While you guys try to steal a couple of dollars, I'm workin my skills to steal what really matters." He smirks, adjusting his afro with his hands.

Lifty's furious expression drops to confusion, tilting his head. "Huh?"

The older brother also raises a brow at the bear's remark. "Steal what? You don't look like a thief."

Disco Bear chuckles knowingly,"Oh I steal alright." He makes a rolling motion with his hands. Then he takes left and right hands upward and downward respectively, with the index finger pointing out, and with a quick thrust of the hips, he strikes a pose.

"I steal the hearts of women. Aw~w yeah!"

That concludes this chapter, tune in for the continuation of the story in the near future. Hope you enjoyed today's chapter, be sure to review to let me know what you thought.