Chapter 12: Battle of the Toons Part 3
A loud shriek rang through the arena and Francesca jumped to her feet, finally waking up, but fell because she landed on her broken foot.
Bubba thought it was a good idea to pull on Cassie's leg, making Ivy think it was a good idea too, Cassie fell and hit her nose on the concrete, squishing it, she got up, grabbed the 2 dogs and juggled them with laughter.
Francesca had crutches that Wakko had given her, and stabbed a crutch into Cassie's leg, causing her to drop the puppies onto poor Dot, who the dogs landed on. "Ouch!" cried Dot. Ivy yelped and Bubba whimpered. They all seemed to be ok, though. But when Dot got up, we all saw her jaw had gotten a nasty bruise, an ugly black-purple-and-blue color. It was swollen, too.
Yakko hurried over to his little sister, tilted her chin back to see it better, then quickly gave her an ice pack. She smiled gratefully at him.
I gasped suddenly, pointing at Cassie. She was now only about 7 feet high. "It's rude to point, you know," she snarled, reaching for me.
But just before she reached me, Buttons leapt onto her, barking, growling, and snarling. Rita and Runt quickly joined him, and Bubba and Ivy, not wanting to miss out on the fun, followed suit. When they were finished with her, she was only 4 feet.
We continued fighting for a few minutes. Once again, I tried to convince Cassie to join the team. Once again, she refused. By now, she was only 2 feet tall.
Ivy ran up to Cassie sweeping Francesca on her back and charged at Cassie, making her disappear in a cloud of smoke and blinding flash of light. We heard the cries of toons. Then all of the lights went out, leaving the room dark. I lost my balance and fell, but Yakko caught me before I hit the floor. It was lucky the room was so dark, because I could feel myself blushing furiously. The lights flickered back on, courtesy of Wakko holding a giant light switch with one hand while supporting Francesca with the other. Then we all saw what Cassie really looked like.
The Warners stared. I stared. Francesca stared. Bubba stared. Everyone stared. The legend said that Cassie was a toon, but never specified which. Now we all knew.
Her white-furred face was outlined by black fur, which covered her whole body. She wore a plain purple t-shirt and turquoise shorts. On her hands were white gloves, while her feet were white paws. Lying there on the floor was a Cartoonus Characterus in the flesh, the same species as the Warners. The only difference was that instead of a red nose and black eyes, she had a sea-green nose flecked with gold and silver, and bright purple eyes, also flecked with gold and silver. She looked up at us sadly. "I was an idiot," she sighed, her eyes brimming with tears. "I should have listened to you, Leela, and joined you guys…" I tried not to show my surprise.
"Well, you still can, can't you?" I said.
Francesca gave her the evil eye. Slappy scoffed. "Seriously?!" ranted Pesto. I silenced them with a specialty death stare.
"No," sighed Cassie. "I don't deserve to be on your side after… after what I did." She told us her story, about after she ran away and began to develop her powers. And about how she punished her enemies. When she finished, I could sense a glow of sympathy from all of the toons, even Slappy and Pesto. "Everyone can redeem themselves, Cassie," I said. "Even evil toons." she cracked a small smile, and we all walked out of the tunnel together, Wakko supporting Francesca.
Whew... Francesca's ok! And Cassie's on our side now! Yay!