Yay, Chapter five is finished 3. It's slightly short, but it gets the plot moving which is always a good thing XD. Not too actiony this chapter, but it will get more suspenseful as the plot moves foreword (especially after the election X3). Plus, those who read this story, should check out AotTC now that it ties in better 3. Also, Power of the Wol and I have a game of spotting the refs in our first fics going, see if you can find them XD. Hmmm what else, oh yes were writing a mash up of our TT fics that will be posted on her account here (on DA it will be on mine) But its still in the works at the moment XD;. That's about all for now.

Sarah and Sketch belong to Atrox

Pearl belongs to Katie Partisha

I own every other original character and idea in the story, but I do not own Toontown or the Cogs.

Oh, another warning: Slight bloodshed does happen in this chapter in one scene.

Chapter 5

Lets Talk Terms

Cold and dark, that's how it always was; cold and dark were the dreams that passed by his eyes as he slept. Sometimes the darkness dipped with blood, fresh and crimson as the day it was shed. He would look at his hands, they too were a dark ruby, and nothing would wash away the grave sin that had been stained to his tainted heart.

The souls of his past often came to torment him; their pain merging with his own. Their screams echoing throughout the darkness were deafening, nothing seemed to quiet the roars of pain and suffering. Anguishing, tormenting and torturing every fiber of his being without end; his cries of distress so great they could reach beyond the realm of dreams. Those who heard them had nightmares too, about what could possibly make such pitiful wailing. For few had seen the misshapen one, and those who did always wanted to forget they had…

There was a sharp wrapping on President Mc'Cogsworth's office door that interrupted him from some paperwork he'd been busily indulged in. With an annoyed sigh, he allowed the knocker entry. The somewhat larger then normal Big Cheese, 8-29-5, second-in-command walked quietly into the office.

"Sir…I've been getting complaints again…"

"What is it this time?" he growled.

"Same as it has been for a while now, the mysterious wails that come from cellblock 616."

The President muttered to himself something 8-29-5 couldn't understand before he responded, "Find some worthless little no name Toon and throw them in there. That should quiet him down…" 8-29-5 nodded and walked back, leaving the large Bossbot to finish his paperwork.

President Mc'Cogsworth sighed again, wondering why he even bothered to keep the annoyance around any longer. He was nothing but an unwanted thorn in his side, and a waste of space that could be used for something else. Maybe because he's the only thing even remotely close to family other then the other Bosses? Said a voice in the back of his mind, but then again he wondered to himself why that even mattered. The phone on his desk rang after a few moments, bringing him out of his musing. Scowling at the second interruption in less then fifteen minutes, he picked up the phone, held it up and spoke calmly into the receiver.

"Mc'Cogsworth speaking…"

"Sir, Mr. Trevor is here to see you and the other problem has been taken care of," said 8-29-5 from the other line.

"Ah good, and send him in."

A minute or so later, there was another knock at his office door, and the President allowed Trevor entrance. He strode over to the desk, looking smug. Mc'Cogsworth noticed, with some surprise, that he was not in his usual attire of distressed jeans, black leather jacket, or torn purple t-shirt with the elongated heart-like symbol. He was in a finely pressed gray suit, much like his own. The only difference was that he had a solid black tie instead of a red and black stripped one. His hair that was usually hanging loosely in his eyes was combed back. The only thing that he wore that was the same, were his usual black shades. He'd even bought new gloves that didn't have the fingers ripped out.

Mc'Cogsworth chuckled slightly, "Any particular reason you're dressed in such a manor?"

"Well, I know the election's still a while off, but keeping up appearances can't hurt, right?"

"True, true; though tell me, what are you here for? I haven't scheduled a meeting with you," he frowned crossing his arms.

"Well…to tell you the truth, I really have no idea what to do for my campaign…"

Mc'Cogsworth was silent for a moment be fore he responded, "Surly you jest, Trevor?"

He shook his head, "No, you 'taught' me how to win a girl over. Not run in an election, Victor…"

The Bossbot stood up sharply, "What did you just call me?"

Trevor gulped and took a step back, "I-I called you by your first name, Vic-GACK," Trevor was cut off as his Boss's fingers wrapped tightly around his throat and pulled him to eye level.

"No one, not even you Trevor, has permission to call me by my first name."

"I'm…sorry, I'm sorry!" he choked out through a constricted airway, "It…won't happen again…I swear!"

"It had better not," he growled before releasing Trevor's throat, and letting him drop to the ground.

Trevor had to struggle to listen to his Boss continue as he caught his breath, "Now then, come back later and I'll have one planned out for you. Until then go do something useful, like make sure our newest prisoner isn't going anywhere."

He nodded, a little shaken, before getting up, and heading down to the lowest level of cellblocks to check on Sarah.

"Oh Jim, do your voice from the Mask again…huh what? Hey, where'd Jim Carey go?" said a disappointed Sarah as she awoke from her doze, "Wait a second, where am I? This isn't my cozy beach side home!" she squeaked, beginning to panic as she took in her surroundings. The room was cement, and square, the door made of some sort of steel bars. There was a cot near a small window that looked into the cellblock next to hers.

"Oh no, I'm in jail!" She shouted jumping on the bars of the door, shaking them and shouting to no one in particular, "Let me out, I'm innocent I tells ya! Innocent! I didn't know that those chocolates were stolen, honest!"

A harsh, somewhat scratchy voice from the cellblock to her left sounded, "Shut your damn mouth! Do you have any idea how grating on my nerves your voice is?!"

Sarah stopped shaking on the bars but still held onto them and looked over at the window above the cot where the voice had come from, "Oh…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to grate your nerves." She hopped off the cell door and went over to the cot. She stood on it and peered in through the small window, it was very dark on the other side, and the cells occupant was hard to see; though she could faintly make out his image in the far corner of the tiny room, and that of something else, but not much more then that.

Although, there were his eyes, that were glowing a faint red in the darkness. There was also a wet, tearing sound that she couldn't quite identify, that put her on edge. Swallowing nervously she asked, "So what are you in for?"

He glanced up at her, "I was deemed a failure…he had no further use for me, so I was thrown in here," he stated rather bluntly, and then there was another tearing sound.

"Oh, well you don't seem like one to me."

"Shows what you know," he growled menacingly.

Sarah frowned, this guy sounds real depressed; maybe I should try to cheer him up? She thought before she asked him, "By the way, my name's Sarah, who are you?"

His eyes narrowed, "None of your business you annoying, pink, hairball. Who I was no longer exists, and that's all you need to know."

"Aww come on Grumpy Guss, isn't there anything you'll tell me? I'd like to know you better if I'm gonna be stuck next you for who knows how long."

A cold, raspy chuckle echoed back to her ears, "Believe me, if you knew the real me, you'd probably wet yourself, then run away screaming in the other direction." Then another, louder ripping sound was heard, before something came trickling into the light where Sarah could see it. The substance was liquid; red in color. Sarah felt her head getting dizzy, and her stomach became woozy.

"I-is that blood? Oh…my tummy…" she groaned before she fainted and fell to the ground, unconscious.

A moment or so later, Trevor came walking up to check on her, only to find her still unconscious on the floor of cellblock 615 where he'd left her at before. He stayed for a moment to make sure she wasn't going to wake up. When he was sure she was still out cold, he turned and left the cold depressing room. All the while, he felt like someone was watching him.

The occupant of cell 616 looked out from the small window that looked into Sarah's cell, and watched the figure walking away. His eyes narrowed at Trevor before he skulked back into the darkest corner of his cement little room, to finish his meal.

"Oh, I can't wait to tell Pearl. I hope she takes the news okay," Little Taffy smiled as she walked the short distance to her friend's house. She was egger to tell the younger Toon about the news report about Trevor running for Mayor. She decided to wait until morning though, because it had been getting late when she'd seen it. She lightly knocked on Pearl's front door, only to receive no answer. She waited a moment more before knocking again, thinking maybe Pearl had been up late herself and was just sleeping. Again, there was no answer.

Frowning, she knocked once more; but still Pearl did not open the door, or even at least say come in. Now a bit frustrated, she quietly opened the door and walked inside. She checked every room thoroughly, but Pearl was nowhere to be found. Now a little distraught, she began panicking; dreadful thoughts came to mind as to what might have happened. When she was just about ready to tear Pearl's home apart in a last ditch effort to find her, she noticed a note on the desk. She picked it up; it was from Pearl, addressed to her.

She unfolded the piece of paper, sighing slightly and read it, Little Taffy if you find this note I've gone to get help. My Cousin was kidnapped last night by your lousy boy toy, Trevor; and sense you won't listen to reason by me, it looks like I'm gonna have to force you to see the truth. He needs to be exposed for who he really is before it's too late. Seriously, if he becomes Mayor, we're looking at a hostile takeover probably worse then the last one the Cogs attempted. Be angry with me all you want, but this is for your own good.

Pearl

Little Taffy's grip on the note tightened on the note before she ripped it to pieces in fury. Could Pearl not go a day with out saying or doing something that had to do with proving a truth about Trevor that didn't exist? It was ridiculous; there was nothing out of the ordinary about Trevor! He was just a normal Toon like everyone else. Little Taffy couldn't understand what Pearl saw in him that was so wrong.

And how does she know her cousin went missing because of Trevor? It could have been anyone! But no, he's the first one she plants the blame on. Darnit Pearl, why'd you have to go and do this?

Little Taffy groaned and rubbed her head, knowing there were likely only two options she had; and they were: one, try to find Pearl and talk her out of this craziness. Or two, find Trevor and warn him before Pearl could do any real damage. Knowing that Pearl was a stubborn as a loose tooth and would probably not listen to her reasoning, two seemed like the only logical option.

"Sorry Pearl, but this is for your own good…" she sighed before leaving her friends house to go look for Trevor.

"This looks like the place…" Pearl said as she knocked hesitantly on the front door of the house. A moment later she heard footsteps getting closer to the door, and she seriously considered running before it was too late. But then the door opened, revealing a Toon Rabbit, the same height as her, (wearing the same outfit too) standing in the doorway and Pearl knew it was too late to turn back.

"Pearl! Y-you came to visit me!" she squealed with delight before she glomped Pearl tightly around the waist.

She coughed as the air left her for a moment before she regained her composure, "Hello Valerie…" she said sounding annoyed.

"Oh I've always dreamed you'd come to visit me, and now it's really happened! Oh no, my house is a complete mess! It hasn't been cleaned in who knows how long!"

"Val, it's alright. I don't care about the state of your estate. I've come here because there's something important I need to talk to you about." She paused before continuing, "Now please let me go, this is really important, and I don't know how much time we have before something bad happens to both Toontown and my cousin, Sarah."

"Okay" she smiled; blushing at making such a fool of herself in front of her idol, before letting go of Pearl and opening the door wider for her.

Pearl cautiously walked inside, expecting for some cage to fall on the ceiling and capture her. But however obsessive the rabbit Toon was, Pearl didn't think Valerie was that much of an obsessed fangirl. She walked over to Valerie's couch, and sat down, the rabbit joining her a moment later. Pearl took a deep breath, looked at Valerie with a serious face and began speaking.

"Val, like I said, this is really important so you need to pay attention. You got that?"

Valerie nodded and Pearl continued, "You remember the seemingly 'nice' Toon that told you where to find plushies of us?"

"Yeah I do," then her face fell, "They were all sold out, I couldn't buy any."

Pearl cleared her throat, "Yes, well he's the problem I need help with. He's not really all that nice; you see he's really some kind of agent for the Cogs. He's threatened my life once, and now he's kidnapped my cousin. Most recently, he's decided to run for Mayor of Toontown, and I think it's so the Cogs have a mole on the inside. Then taking over Toontown would be as simple as flipping a switch."

"A-and you want me to help you stop him?!" she squealed sounding overjoyed at the chance to work along side one of her heroes.

"Yes, however we need to approach this carefully. I don't know what else Trevor is capable of, and I don't want to know. The best possible way we can go about this is to expose him when the winner of the election is announced. He'll be surrounded and wouldn't dare call the Cogs in with nearly half of Toontown there to stop him.

"Now, I'm going to need both your help, and that of your fan club to do this. It's not going to be easy; Trevor's a crafty one. So, are you in or out?"

Valerie thought for a moment about all of what Pearl had said, before beaming a smile that was a mile wide, "Of course, and I'm sure the rest of the fan club would love to help!"

Pearl breathed a sigh of relief at the news. At least now she wouldn't be going into this alone. She'd have a team to help her knock Trevor off his high horse; and all of Toontown was going to witness it.

Sketch leafed through the files of one drawer from his file cabinet. When he found the one he was looking for, he removed the manila folder and opened it. He scanned the words looking for something he couldn't seem to find. Then out of nowhere, the words he'd been looking for. In Kevin's death report along with the rest of his gang, information he'd excluded from Pearl, about Kevin's brother.

Kevin's brother had not been found at the crime scene, and because of the eyewitness reports, hadn't been connected to either death. He'd been labeled missing in action shortly after the case had started, and Sketch had thought him dead; his body never found. That was, until yesterday. He sighed, Kevin's file held no photos of his brother, and Sketch hadn't seen his record in quite some time.

"I'll bet it got shoved behind one of the drawers…" he sighed, pulling them out to check. Sure enough, there were a few files that had gotten stuck back there. Frowning he pulled them out, making a mental note later to buy a larger file cabinet. The last one he looked through was the one he'd been looking for.

His eyes narrowed when he saw the image; something was amiss here. With Sarah's disappearance last night, and now this? Why after all this time, would Kevin's brother suddenly reappear? Sketch was missing a piece to the puzzle here, and he didn't like not having all the pieces. But as determined as he was, Sketch knew it wouldn't be long before he found it; like he had the missing file.