'This is the end. Whatever his plan is, there's no way for me to get out of this without any injury…' Woody thought while terror overtook him.
Just like he did in his dreams, he prepared his hands, his eyes and started to beg:
"M-m-mr. Rottwe-we-weiler, p-p-p-please…" his voice was shaky as if he was stuck on the North Pole and each word was spoken out very slowly.
The young man hold his tears back so he wouldn't embarrass himself too much. He already felt ashamed of even asking the fat pig for something. He had nothing else left… He was completely left alone…
"Now you are begging for mercy? Hahahah!" laughed Roger as he picked up and loaded his gun that was hanging on the wall.
He wasn't playing around! Only a psychopath or sociopath would do such move. But then Woody noticed one thing - the gun was still plugged up with the cork that he used for it way before!
'Wait! The gun is still plugged! If I provoke him just enough to make him shoot, maybe I can escape!' the idea came into his mind.
Just when the fatso had devilish smile on his face and wanted to mess around with the scared neighbour.
"Maybe I can make an exception… but only if you work for me as a house keeper."
The thought of him cleaning the whole dirty house was hard to imagine. Serve Rottweiler as a personal cleaner? No way! What would other neighbours think of that? Woody had to say at least one insult to make the fat neighbour shoot with his now useless gun. Normally he would watch his mouth, but this time it was his only way to escape. He swallowed all the kind words he had prepared on his tongue and said:
"I-I would ra-ra-rather eat d-dirt in my g-grave th-than clean your d-d-dirty house! Y-you're th-the main r-re-reason it-it stinks here!"
This was enough to make Rottweiler burn with red in his face. The gun was immediately aimed at that rascal.
"What did you say?!"
He had the finger on the trigger prepared to either scare or finish off that little brat.
"I-I s-said yo-yo-you are the-the source of that pu-pungent sk-skunk odor!"
Woody's voice sounded like he was afraid, which he was. He had small doubts about his new plan, but as his only choice he was aware of his speech and showed no fear in his face. Even though he was still shivering and had wavy mouth, his eyes were looking at the stinker very seriously. Mad Roger had enough.
"You'll eat those words!" and he pulled the trigger.
Of course it didn't shoot as he expected. Instead the gun exploded and completely covered his face in black like a half of charcoal. The old oaf was left too thunderstruck to react at all.
Before he could realize what just happened, Woody quickly got up and ran out of the basement as fast as he could. Now that he knew the main door wasn't going to be his exit, he decided to leave by the window in the kitchen. That was already the third rule he broke, but in an emergency like this he found this as his only possible choice. He safely landed on his feet and jumped over the hedge dividing the two houses. He ducked behind the hedge only to catch a deep breath. Finally he was out of that nightmare! Nobody saw this extreme stunt, no one at all. Not even the angry monstrous Rottweiler.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Trickster!" was what came from his house.
All those threats about ripping out his hair, smashing his teeth and beating him didn't scare Woody anymore. In exterior where anyone could notice anything, he was perfectly safe.
'Phew! I hope I learnt some lesson… This was scary…' he stood up and walked to the front door of his house acting as if nothing happened at all.
Inside there the whole crew was already anticipating him.
"You okay there, buddy?" asked worried Joe.
"I think so." answered Woody while he was closing door behind him.
The director immediately approached him saying:
"That was a really close one."
"Don't even mention it. He was one step away from beating me up."
"But you were quite brave back there." Joe patted on Woody's shoulder with a smile on his face.
"Was I? But I was trembling with fear!"
"Yet you still stood up for yourself and told that stinker right in the face what he really is."
"I guess you're right. Even though I did this for escaping..."
Kelsie stood up from the sofa to let Woody sit on it, but he insisted on not to. Joe then calmly asked:
"Do you think you can still manage to move on with the show after what happened?"
Woody only looked at him with confused and worried face. The director did not react to that, he already assumed he knows what was going on. He only added:
"This was all your idea, remember? The choice is yours."
Woody suddenly remembered how the whole show first started - it was him who called Joe and presented the idea of pranking on the neighbour. The director was only leading him to the right path. All this time, Trickster himself was coming up with all these pranks and nobody else. The show was only his, nobody else's. It would be safer to quit and move on as an ordinary man... however... what was the original intention of this whole thing? That was when Woody spoke up:
"I got scared there, you all already saw it. The whole point of the show was to teach Rottweiler a lesson. And after 14 episodes, the neighbour still hasn't changed. Not even in this one have I seen a small change in him for the better. He is too proud of himself to accept criticism. Somebody has to show him that he is not what he thinks."
He then faced Joe and replied:
"Call me crazy, but I would still continue with the show."
Joe only answered:
"I'm not sure if I could call this crazy, but the show itself surely is! It's a weird mix that no one has seen before. Only someone as short and smart as you are can make the humour in it stay alive. I doubt it would survive without you."
With that said, both the host and director gave each other friendly smiles, while Nick instantly asked:
"Shall we call this episode 'The battle between the host and the neighbour from Hell'?"
"No, for one - it's too long. The second, this can be a surprise for fans who watch the show." replied Joe while Woody got slightly irritated with this answer.
"Don't worry, buddy - the fans are on your side." that statement from the director seemed to calm down our prankster.
A half an hour passed after the crew left. Woody was inside his house doing chores to distract himself. Suddenly he heard loud talking from outside. Not just any talking, it was a familiar voice. The young man carefully peeked through his window. Rottweiler could be seen in front of his house with two police officers.
"I swear it's true! That small rotten rascal visited my house every now and then! He always prepared some nasty pranks on me! Even today I saw what he was doing! When I was about to catch him, he fired a small black ball with a slingshot! That's how I got my dirty face!"
Woody listened to the whole complaint hidden behind the curtain of his window. Well, well, well, it looked like Roger wanted to keep a secret about his precious gun which was most likely destroyed by now and instead give the police an alternative story. Either way, the two officers only shook their heads, called the old man crazy for not dealing with this on their own and moved on into their car. It was just like in the very beginning when Woody was talking to them about Rottweiler. First it was a small guy complaining about a fat man, and now it was the fat man complaining about the small guy. Who could take this seriously? Apparently not this police system. The police car drove off and Roger was only staring with a confused look on his face. Then it quickly changed to furious and red like an angry tomato.
"I am not crazy! Trickster was in my house! I saw him! I heard him! I EVEN GRABBED HIS SWEATER!" he was stomping like a mad elephant with hands waving in the air.
Woody only grinned, still hidden and said without the chance of the neighbour listening:
"Of course you're crazy, Rottweiler. Haven't you realized it yet? What you saw was a kind gentleman. What you heard was only a truth about yourself. And what you grabbed was only a lesson I meant to teach you."
The trickster later even visited Shelly. It was a good time. After being friends for quite some time, they started developing a potential love relationship. It was a slow start. They only expressed love to each other by holding hands, hugging and saying nice words. At least you could say, they were building a trust towards each other.
In the serene empty place, there was no other than Woody with crystal-clear wings on his back and halo shining over his head. The angelic practical jokester was setting some kind of trap that had a rope as a trigger and it seemed like it would be a huge surprise for the devilish neighbour.
"Surprise! I'm behind you!"
But Roger suddenly appeared behind, startling Woody. Then right after that, he grabbed him and lifted him up. The prankster tried to flap his angelic wings as best as he could to escape from the devilish neighbour's grasp.
"Just flap those little chicken wings. You know I'll tear them up now." he mocked him "And how funny is that. I outsmarted them! I told you you're nothing compared to me. All those things that you can do are useless."
"Oh... maybe I am useless..." suddenly said the angel with disappointed face, which seemed rather fake.
"Go on." was neighbour's answer.
"It looks like you've won over me - a prankster that wanted to make everyone else feel happy. And I had this prank prepared just for you."
Roger coiled his tail around angelic Woody before putting him down, and put his foot over the rope to be prepared to trigger the trap.
"Since you put a very big effort into it, let's try it out." the devilish old oaf added "I want to see your wings shatter by your own creation."
After those words, he did indeed activated the trap, but not the way he expected it. Because all of a sudden, a pie was launched at his Roger's face from what seemed to be a small catapult. That followed by eggs launched from slingshots, and big oranges from a basket which cause the old oaf to cover himself from the flying things.
"I am utterly sorry. This perhaps wasn't part of your plan." said the prankster sarcastically with a satisfied smile.
Thereafter he even easily freed himself from the devilish tail. The final thing that fell onto devil's head was a set of pans, but he was the only one to receive such a gift. Woody was further away from him sitting on a chair with his typical angelic smile.
"What's the matter? Can't keep up?" he asked patronizingly while sitting.
"Urgh! Curse you! You escaped just when I got you!" Roger growled as he punched the floor beneath him.
"You know what they say: 'The punishment for bad deeds won't miss anyone.'"
After those words, the angelic prankster took a pair of scissors and cut out a part of the devilish neighbour's tail that was trying to sneak behind him.
"Hey! That's my tail!" yelled the angry old buffoon.
"I only do what you did to my wings. Eye for eye, wings for a tail." Woody wittily remarked.
Devilish Roger attempted to craw towards him and to reach out to grab him, only for the young man standing up and giving his big speech:
"Sorry, neighbour. But I don't have in plan to be caught again. I celebrated with my friend Joe at his office. And I sure fell asleep faster than anyone else, I was that tired. Knowing myself, I'm in a very deep sleep. I have to wake myself so I can get home sooner before Shelly finds out."
And finally he flew up while proclaiming:
"But don't worry! I'll visit you again!"
Author's note: That concludes the Neighbours from Hell fanfiction "Revenge is a Sweet Game" which was written by both me and my friend SailorRaybloomDZ.
Well... you have no idea what we've been through to get this far. Because of that, I will say that there are no promises for a fanfic on the sequel since it is most likely that I'll work on it alone.
However, I thank everyone who had taken their time and patience to read, follow and support our work. I say this from both on my behalf and on the behalf of my friend.
If you have any feedback, then please leave a review if you want. We would both appreciate it.