What I Wouldn't Do For A Smoke
Cuphead and Elder Kettle tried their best to convince Forkington of Mugman's innocence. The high-class fork lived on the city side of the island where the buildings were either tall or expensive (or even both). Rumor's hive was located in the tallest building on the island. Forkington's house was due east from there in the middle of all the bustle. And that was just how he liked it: to be in the center of it all.
"For the last time Forkington, Mugman didn't do anything!" An agitated Cuphead yelled at the adult utensil.
"Watch your mouth, child! Where are your manners?" He snapped back, adjusting the monocle in front his left eye. "Is that really any way to treat your elders?" His red suit was perfectly ironed and fit snugly to his slim body. Black pants and brown shoes finished his proper dress. Gloved fingers incessantly checked and pulled at his clothing to make sure there were no imperfections. He certainly couldn't have anything out of place, now could he?
"You're no elder of mine!" The young cup spat. It was clear that the cup child and arrogant fork were very angry at one another. They were staring into one another's eyes with pure hatred, hoping that the other would finally give in.
"Let's take things down a notch, Cuphead." Kettle chimed in. A gloved hand was placed down on the red cup's shoulder, forcing him to break their stare competition. He let out a big sigh and backed down, knowing that his grandpa was right. The fork let a small smirk form on his face as the boy was told to settle down. "Certainly there must be a way to prove that Mugman didn't do anything to your boy, Forkington."
"You have no proof!" It snapped back and folded its arms across its chest. His well-ironed suit turned toward Rumor's husband who had been monitoring their conversation to make sure it didn't get out of hand. Her husband also happened to be the chief of police, also known as the sheriff by everyone else on the island. He leaned against one of the expensive houses with a cup of steaming coffee with him.
"You should be arresting these two for harassing me!" The fork tried to get the sheriff in on the conversation.
"Cool your jets, Forkington. There's no need for anything of the sort." The bee replied calmly and took a sip of his beverage. His wings buzzed irritably as his orange mustache frowned in the utensil's direction. Nothing illegal was technically being done so he couldn't very well drag anyone away to diffuse the situation. All he could do was supervise at the moment.
Their conversation still roared loudly. So loud in fact, that it was driving the other residents out of the area. Werner Werman in particular was having a tough time coping with the noise. His sensitive rat ears picked up on sounds easier than some of the other residents in the area. The brown-furred rodent rounded a corner in hopes of getting out of earshot. No good. The sounds still resonated loudly in his eardrums. Gloved fingers tried to shove themselves as deep as they could go into the ears. Sharp rodent teeth gnawed on the cigar in his mouth. Werner accidentally bit down so hard that his beloved cigar split in half. A smoking end fell on the ground while the other half stayed in his mouth. The rat sighed in disappointment as he went to spit out what remained of his smoking utensil.
"Need a new one, pal?" Came a deep voice from a dark alley.
"Huh?" Werner wondered as he started to wander down the narrow space to see who it was. The first thing he noticed was two yellow eyes that seemed to glow between thick clouds of smoke. He heard a long and low breath emit from this person. A large cloud of smoke danced its way toward the rat. For it was so much smoke that Werner was certain that he had to have been smoking as many cigars that he could have fit into his mouth. The smoke sat so heavily around this person that it was difficult for Werner to make out who or what he was. Gloved hands waved some smoke away as the rat approached even closer. He stopped dead when he realized this person was a living cigar that sat in a pile of gray ash. A small black mustache rested above the wide and grinning mouth. In contrast to the brown color that covered most of his body, there was a black tip on the end of his nose that almost looked like a cork. The top of his head was burned off like someone had actually been smoking him.
"Who are you?" Werner asked, a bit suspicious of this character.
"The name's Mr. Wheezy." His deep voice bellowed out. The cigar then inhaled deeply, causing his head to glow red. It was smoking its own self. A large cloud of smoke followed its exhale, causing Werner himself to choke a bit. Smoke just seemed to constantly fume from Mr. Wheezy's mouth and head.
"And I've got some hot off the press just for you."
Werner looked closer and realized that the living cigar was surrounded by tons of his non-living counterparts. The rat licked his lips as he looked at the freshly smoked cigars, clearly very tempted.
"How much you sellin' them for?" The rodent asked with his mouth watering.
"Just for you, I'll hand them over free of charge." Mr. Wheezy replied with a chuckle.
"Free? Wait a minute, what's the catch?" His German accent interrogated this unusual person.
"You just have to come over and get them." The cigar explained nonchalantly. "I'd hand them to ya if I actually had hands." It chuckled.
Werner nervously looked around to make sure no one was watching. He didn't exactly want one of his friends to see him taking free cigars from a stranger. His greedy little rat fingers reached out for a handful when the living one chimed in with another comment.
"Oh, and one more thing."
"Huh?" The rodent said as he looked up. A large and thick puff of black smoke emitted from Mr. Wheezy's head and wafted over Werner. The poor rat began to choke and hack as it engulfed him. It was like the smoke had a mind of its own and tried to enter the mammal's mouth, nose, and ears. Werner fell to his knees as it started to infiltrate his body.
"You'll get them after you've done me a favor." Mr. Wheezy's voice responded but sounded like it was right in his eardrums. The rat squeaked wildly as the obviously dangerous chemical got sucked into his body. His eyes turned jet black, blocking out his vision.
"What's happening? Everything's going dark!" Werner thought as he panicked. Squeaks of desperation resonated throughout the alleyway as he felt his claws poke right through his gloves. The teeth inside his mouth even seemed to grow a bit sharper. The rat started to feel his body moving involuntarily, as if it had a mind of its own. Werner tossed himself to the ground, hoping to bring himself back to reality. The poor rodent didn't feel any better and proceeded to smack and slide his head along the ground. His feverish squeaks continued as he wiped the back of his gloves across his eyes. Perhaps it would wipe away whatever was covering them. But that didn't work either…
Werner suddenly lost control of his body completely and it started to move towards the arguing voices. The German rat tried his best to fight back. His efforts were visibly tossing his brown furry body in a zig-zag pattern. Forkington and the others heard the chattering and turned in its direction only to find poor Werner squeaking and seizing all over the place.
"Honestly, don't you have anything better to do?" The utensil questioned the rodent that squeaked and snarled but didn't respond. Its clawed gloved hands grappled its head. Werner's pupil-less black eyes homed in on the voice. The furry body got down on all fours and stalked toward the utensil. It began its zig-zag pattern again as Werner still fought against the invisible force that controlled him.
"Just use your words!" Forkington demanded. Not a second later, he was getting a full body slam from the rodent. Cuphead and Kettle gasped as the sterling silver body got thrown to the ground. Rumor's husband spit out his mouthful of coffee in utter shock at what just happened.
"What the devil?" He bellowed.
"Werner, what's wrong?" Cup questioned the rat. Once again, it did not answer to anything it was asked. Werner was well aware that he had just hit someone and fought even harder to control his possessed self.
"Something's wrong with him." Kettle observed.
"Cuphead? Kettle? Where are you? I can't see!" He tried to squeak to tell his friends that he was still there. But all they heard was furious chatters coming from him.
"Stop struggling!" Came Mr. Wheezy's voice inside his own body. The cigar had somehow put a part of his soul inside Werner and was controlling him like a string-less puppet. His presence forced the rat to stand still for a moment so he could get his bearings. The chief came running over to restrain the rogue rodent. Mr. Wheezy's presence sensed he was coming and proceeded to bowl into the officer as well.
"Umph!" The bee grunted as he was taken off his feet. Upon recovering from the impact, he yanked out his walkie-talkie and called for his comrades.
"I need backup!"
Forkington had scrambled himself to a hiding spot from where he watched as he trembled in fear of his neighbor. Werner did an about-face and made a beeline for Cuphead and Elder Kettle. The young cup unleashed a stream of his small blue pellets at the rodent. He didn't really want to hurt Werner, but he hoped to slow him down or even scare it away. The rat ducked and weaved between the magic shots. Its narrow snout barreled into the child, tossing him to the ground. The sharp rodent teeth found their way to Cuphead's arm. Cup cried out in pain as the teeth went right through his sleeve and began to crack his arm. Werner realized that he was biting something. The cup child's screaming made it clear on what that something was. A small gloved hand grabbed onto his muzzle and tried to pry off the fangs that were still tightly latched to the boy.
"Oh no! I'm hurting Cuphead! Why can't I see anything?" Werner squeaked indistinguishably.
"Cuphead!" The boy's grandpa cried in alarm. Without a second thought, the elderly person lashed out with his cane, landing a solid blow on the rat's small blue helmet. The impact caused the whole creature's head to rattle. Once he got a grip of himself, Werner's body snarled and let go of his current target. The jet-black eyes homed onto a new target. It then started to advance upon the kettle. The rodent didn't get very far when the chief stepped up once more. He immediately tried to get the arms behind its back. But Werner didn't need his arms to attack back. A long and skinny rat tail lashed across the bee's face, making Mr. Honeybottoms' eyes sting. The bee officer rubbed his eyes to try to lessen the unpleasant sensation. Its opponent whipped around and lashed out with its claws. Four black needles swiped the chief's shoulder, leaving an awful bloody gash and tears in his favorite uniform.
"Ugh!" Rumor's husband cried out in pain. He stumbled over to stand between the rogue rat and his citizens that he was supposed to protect. Cuphead staggered to his feet, clutching his injured arm. His cup tried to peak around the officer to see what was happening. Werner's possessed body sized up the three people that stood in front of him. It began to stalk toward them on all fours with his tail lashing back and forth menacingly.
