Figured I must as well start uploading my Toontown stories. Here's the first one.
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"How does this stupid thing fit together?"
Weird Curly Megaquack gave a frustrated sigh and kicked her half-assembled Cashbot suit. Yee-ouch! Hard metal met her furry toe, and she hopped around in a circle, trying to get the pain to stop.
Her best friend, Little Lefty Bumbercrunch, looked up from her own fully-assembled suit. "You're putting the arms together backwards," she said. "You've got the upper arm pieces on the bottom and the lower arm pieces on top."
"Well, I'm sorry, it's hard to figure out which pieces go where when they all sort of look the same!" Curly shot back, pretending to be offended.
"Especially when we're shaking with excitement," Violet Fiddlefidget added. The little lavender mouse examined the two-and-half green-clad suits laid out on Curly's purple-tied floor. "Or maybe nervousness."
"Try pure FEAR!" Curly yipped, rearranging her suit's left arm.
The three friends laughed, but Curly was only half-kidding. She'd heard that many, many Toons, all much more experienced than her and her friends, had gone sad fighting the CFO before - due to Goon swarms and the CFO's own system of putting safes on his head to use as helmets. In other words, it sounded quite a bit harder than fighting the Sellbots and their big floppy puppy of a boss.
"Aww, come on, Curly!" Lefty slung an arm around Curly's shoulders. "Like you always say, what's the worst that could happen?"
"We could go sad," Violet piped up.
"Big deal," Lefty said with a shrug. "We heal, re-gag, and try again."
"Easy for you to say!" Curly wrung her gloved hands together, fully expecting a puddle of sweat to plop out. "I just got my geyser, and I don't want to lose it!"
"500 points is a lot to get back," Violet nodded.
Lefty grunted and hoisted her suit into her hammerspace. "Well, come on, guys. Time waits for no Toon."
"Yeah, but does the CFO?" Curly quipped.
"He doesn't know we're Toons yet, remember?" Violet giggled. "That's why we did all those hard tasks - to get these!" She thumped Curly's suit, causing one of the arms to fall off. "Oops."
Curly let out another sigh. "Looks like the CFO might have to wait a little while longer."
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A train whistle pierced the eerie darkness of Cashbot Headquarters. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Curly thought it was about the loneliest sound in the world.
Violet took Curly's hand and squeezed it several times. "We can do this!" she squeaked.
"Yeah, we can," Curly said, straightening her shoulders. "Last one to the gold doors is a counterfeit Cogbuck!"
She and Lefty took off. Violet stood there for a few more seconds, mumbling, "But aren't all Cogbucks counterfeit..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed her teammates way ahead of her. "Hey, wait for me!"
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"I am so not letting you stand on my head!" Curly hissed to Lefty.
"Well, somebody's going to have to stand on somebody's head," Lefty whispered back. "These doors are way too big to open."
"Fine," Curly said with a sigh. "Lefty on the bottom, me in the middle, and Violet on the top, because she's the smallest."
Curly climbed carefully onto Lefty's shoulder and then put her feet on her head.
"Ow!" Lefty hissed, whiskers twitching. "Watch it!"
"Sorry," Curly whimpered. "Okay, Vi, come on up!"
Violet hoisted her chubby self up over Lefty and onto Curly's head. Good thing we're Toons, Curly thought with a grin. Only Toons could pull off something like this.
On the bottom of the pile, Lefty suddenly giggled.
"What's so funny?" Curly snapped, although she didn't doubt for a moment they looked silly.
"I just realized what we have here. A mouse standing on top of a dog standing on top of a cat."
Curly and Violet slapped their hands over their mouths to muffle their delighted Toon-laughter. That was a surefire way to get the Cogs to notice you.
"Okay, Violet, push!" Curly ordered.
"The sign says, 'Pull,'" Violet retorted.
"Okay, then, pull!"
Violet took hold of one of the door's huge golden handle and gave it a solid yank. The door creaked open, knocking all three startled Toons to their backsides.
"We did it!" Curly whisper-shouted. "Let's go!"
As Lefty, Violet, and Curly crossed into the doors, they pulled their Cashbot suits from their hammerspace and put them on. Curly sighed with relief. After becoming claustrophobic in her scrawny Telemarketer suit, it felt good to be cute and stubby again.
"Hey, you're just in time!" Curly's bunny friend, Miss Snuffy Whiskerbubble, turned from the elevator doorway, her broad Robber-Baron shoulders nearly knocking over Peaches, a little blue cat in a Money Bags suit.
"Yeah, we were about to start without you," joked King Oscar Rufflepop, a dark-blue dog in a Penny Pincher suit. Root Bear, a brown-bear Number Cruncher, and Cool Fancy Whistlefidget, an bright orange dog in a Tightwad suit, nodded and chuckled.
Curly clumped toward the elevator as fast as she could - which wasn't very fast. No one could run or jump in their Cog suits. They could only walk slowly, steadily, seriously. Yikes, Curly had realized after about 1.5 seconds in her Sellbot suit, it must really be a bummer to be a Cog.
"Oh, yeah, sure," she joked. "You were really going to go in and face the CFO with five people."
"It's been done," Root Bear said.
The eight friends piled onto the elevator, and the doors slid shut in front of them. For a terrible instant, Curly felt as if she'd lost all contact with the outside world.
The elevator rose, making the dogs' ears sway in the breeze. There was silence in the elevator - unusual for this group - someone was almost always talking. But right now, nervousness made sure the only sound was the elevator music going BUMP ba-DUMP BUMP ba-DUMP.
Or maybe it was Curly's heartbeat.
It was kind of hard to tell.
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The doors slid open again about a minute later, though it felt like hours to Curly. A orange monkey in a Loan Shark suit met them.
Curly let out a relieved puff of air. Mata Hairy. She'd heard of her. She'd tell them what to do. And besides, anything was better than the CFO greeting them.
"Hello," Mata Hairy screeched. "I'm Mata Hairy. Follow me into the Vault and be very quiet. I'm laying a trap for the Cashbot CFO."
"As opposed to the Lawbot CFO," Curly whispered into Violet's big round ear. Violet giggled quietly and took a playful swat at her.
And then, before they could even get off the elevator - he was there. Didn't make any noise, didn't announce he was coming, nothing. If Curly had blinked, she would have missed him. He simply glided into the room, as silently as a cat stalking its prey - a very large, scary, evil cat. If the VP had tried to do that, something in the back of Curly's mind chuckled, he would have smashed headfirst into the wall.
But there was no time to giggle over that image now. She looked up - about forty-seven feet up - into the very angry and very-not-crossed eyes of the CFO.
And nearly fainted.
"Drat!" Mata Hairy gave a whisper-shout of her own. "We're too late!"
The CFO's cash-register face twisted as if he were eating roadkill. "Ah-ha!" he cried. "Toons! I thought I smelled something Toony in here!"
Well, you don't smell that great yourself, Buster, Curly thought indignantly. Like one of those cars that need their exhaust pipes fixed. Pee-you! Wait a minute -
Without anyone telling him, the CFO had figured out instantly that they were Toons. And with a wiggle of his huge fingers, their Cashbots suits were reduced to thin air.
Yeah. She was going to have to get used to that, too.