Quentin had slung the white van back through Funny Farms against his better judgement. The black cat was unsure why he was still going along with all of this. Something inside of him was pulling away, but something else fought back. Was this what empathy felt like? If it was, he didn't like it and he would surely avoid it in the future. Fortunately for the pair, the streets remained empty after the pair had fled the scene. It was a small respite from danger, but he knew that once they reached the church and initiated Chip's plan that they would be right back into the thick of things. The idea was for Chip to try and pull something similar to what Mike had done. Go in and offer their surrender. Quentin didn't believe it had any chance of succeeding, but there was a caveat. Chip would negotiate the return of the illustrator in return for the freedom of all Toons. Would it work? He certainly didn't think so, but he didn't have to go inside and had the van for a quick getaway. As the duo pulled up to the side of the mega church, they looked at each other and nodded. Quentin would leave it in idle outside and if Chip didn't come back, Quentin would drive back to Toontown and try and get help. "You sure you don't want to go back now? What if he just uses a spell on you or something? I mean, the guy created an entire replica town, while freezing the original in an endless loop. I don't think a pencil is capable of doing that. Hell, what if he doesn't even need it?"
"Yeah, I thought about that. It's mostly just a bluff. I want to see how he reacts. He already seemed to start cracking. I'm sure it has to matter a little bit at least. He was carrying it with him everywhere and it seems like this is how he is making all of the duplicate dummies. Worst case scenario I snap it in half and I got myself a nice little weapon." The brown monkey jabbed the sharp edge of the giant pencil around, nearly stabbing his friend.
"Geez, watch where you're drawing your weapon." Quentin snickered at his terrible pun. "Get it, because its a pencil?"
Chip shook his head and sighed. "I still can't get used to those puns. Anyways, I guess I should start heading in. If there's any trouble out here, honk twice. If anything happens to me... well I guess you'll find out when I don't come back out." Pushing open the door, Chip jumped out, dragging the pink eraser along the pavement. Running a million scenarios through his mind, he envisioned every possible failure. He didn't really think this was going to work, and much like Quentin part of him wanted to flee back to Toontown. But his worries would be overwhelmed by thoughts of what Mike said. What stopped Jack from riling up an army of dummies and converted cult members to invade Toontown and take over? This would be a fight he would have to partake in one way or the other, why put his family through it? As he approached the front steps, he used the large illustrator like a walking stick. He wanted to have it in a ready position just in case. Reaching the front door, he peered through the stain glass windows. Inside everybody has resumed their seated positions as Jack continued to preach something. The green duck was quite animated, and was walking with a noticeable limp. Stepping back, he sighed one last time and yanked open the door.
Immediately hundreds of heads turned to face Chip and the room silenced. "Ah, look who decided to return. I guess you have come to realize the foolishness of your actions. Unfortunate about Mike, but I guess he got what he deserved. Now, if you will kindly return my staff, I will think about going easy on you." Jack stepped down from his pedestal, holding out his arms and drawing the eyes of all in attendance.
"Wait a minute, Jack. Before I give this back to you, I want to ask you something." Chip stepped back half a step and waited for Jack to pause in place. The green duck chuckled and stroked his chin, motioning with his hand for Chip to continue. "Why don't you let the rest of these Toons go? The hundreds of them that you have locked up? Why are you doing this to them? You clearly are able to create Toons yourself. Why do you need them?"
"Ah, to be young and naive. You're quite foolish for someone who acts so headstrong. Monkey, you must have never heard of the concept of conversion. As you can tell, many have already joined me in giving their eternal soul to Him. However many refuse. These replicas you see, well they are lacking what He needs. They have a physical presence, but without a soul they cannot be saved. Until they can learn the true nature of their lowly existence, they will never understand what they are missing out. In the meantime, these replicas can help me to save others! You are making that a lot more difficult by retaining my staff, so I will kindly ask that you return it." Jack continued to approach Chip, who was nearly backed against the door.
Holding out the staff, Chip sneered at his enemy. "You're not giving them a chance! You're brainwashing them! Then those who don't fall for your stupid story get locked up and punished! You're not saving lives, you're taking them! You think that Mike deserved to die? Even cogs would think you are scum! Everybody should be given a chance to make their own decisions! Honestly, do you believe what you are saying? Eternal life? Salvation! It smells fishy to me! If you had a true message, and truly offered salvation, you wouldn't need to rely on tricks!"
"Tricks? Ha, surely you jest. I am offering them an opportunity! I will not let them ruin such a chance! I am doing His work as He instructs me! All they need to do is listen and do what I say and they would not only be free, but so would their souls! Look at how many have joined me already! Many more will join me as well! If I wasn't meant to do His bidding, He wouldn't have given me such incredible powers!" Throwing his arms in the air, jack looked to the ceiling and closed his eyes. "My brother failed, but I will not!"
"Your brother didn't fail, he's just not some insane wacko! You don't have powers because of some divine being! You got lucky and were born with some kind of weird power. That doesn't mean you get to dictate others' lives! Now, I'll tell you again. I'll return your illustrator here if you promise to let everybody else go! Take your cult and shove off! While you're at it, stay away from Toontown!" Chip held the staff in both hands, horizontally. Ready to use it as a weapon at a moments notice. "I'm not afraid to break this! Don't make me do it!"
Jack snorted sarcastically, seemingly unconcerned by Chip's threats. "You do know that I can control time right? You break it, I'll just go back in time and stop you."
"Yeah, if you can then why haven't you done that yet? You could have stopped us already. But you haven't. I'm not falling for your bluff, duckwad!" Narrowing his eyes, Chip stepped forward a bit, now just a few paces away from Jack. "I'm starting to think that maybe you're not as powerful as you say..."
"I have not done so because I want to give you an opportunity to repent! I am about forgiveness. However if you do not, I will be given no other choice. However if that comes to pass, I assure you that I will not allow you to get this close." Jack clenched his fists and frothed towards Chip. "Do you not remember when you were traveling here, out in the desert? How those two days passed in the blink of an eye? That was me. I could do it again. I can bend time to my will!"
Suspicious of what Jack was saying, Chip continued to watch Jack. How would Jack have known about that without some sort of power? It was just one of a hundred strange things that the monkey couldn't wrap his mind around. Maybe he didn't need to understand everything though. There was a million things about the world he didn't understand. This would just have to be another one. "Well if that is true. Then it doesn't matter what I do. I might as well do this then, right?" Before anyone could act, a loud snapping sound reverberated through the large chambers of the church. Splinters of wood went flying through the air. Now in each hand, Chip was armed with sharpened wood. The illustrator was broken. "Oops."
"You absolute fool! Do you know what you have just done!" Jack began to scream, throwing his ire in every direction, lashing out for someone to be on the receiving end of his wraith. "I will tolerate you no more! Get him!" Jack limped backwards and pointed to Chip as hundreds of Toons and dummies arose to their feet and turned to face the sole monkey. "You have made an enemy of the wrong Toon, you fool!"
Quentin rapped his hands on the steering wheel, doing his best to keep himself entertained. How long was he supposed to wait out here before he was to assume Chip was dead? It seemed like anything more than five minutes would be pretty much it for him. It had already been four and the cat was getting impatient. As he began to ready himself to leave, something caught his eye. Down the road, a baby blue roadster could be seen speeding towards him. It was unmistakably from Toontown. Nobody around here could possible get their hands on something like that. Actually, come to think of it. Roadsters were usually reserved for the most elite of Toons. Whoever this was... they were important. But it could just as easily be a trap, could it not? Unsure of what to do, Quentin undid the keys in the ignition, and slunk down in his seat. About thirty seconds after, the Roadster pulled up just a short distance away. Angling his head upwards, he slowly peeked out, looking into the corner of the mirror to try and get a view of the Toon inside. "Who the heck is that?" He whispered. Out of the vehicle stepped a bright blue dog. Whoever it was, Quentin had never seen them. Dressed in a dark orange, striped t-shirt and purple shorts, the dog also donned a pair of fancy looking shades. Immediately the young dog walked over to the van. Quentin in a moment of panic ducked down, to no avail as the Toon knocked on the window.
"Excuse me? Hello. I can see you in there. Sorry to bother you, but I could use some help?" The dog spoke in a kindly tone. Whoever they were, they probably weren't dangerous. Rolling down the window, Quentin popped back up and leaned away from the window, preemptively defending himself in case this was an elaborate trap. "Hello there, I'm really sorry to bother you. Are you from around here?"
"Uhhh." Quentin was unsure how to answer the question. What if this guy was stalking out Toons for nefarious purposes? What if he was part of the cult and was tracking down Toons from outside Funny Farms? But what if this was someone from Toontown? Maybe a tourist? Reaching for the keys, Quentin placed his hands ready to turn them and decided to tell the truth. "No. No I'm from Toontown. Why do you ask?"
The blue dog reached down and grabbed his whisper device from his pocket. Ignoring the black cat, he began to scroll through for a few silent moments before finally darkening the screen and pocketing it again. "Fantastic. My name is Flippy. I am from the Toontown Council. I'm very sorry to bother you but I am here to look for somebody and I'm having a difficult time finding... well anyone! You're the first Toon I've seen since I've gotten here!"
Immediately thoughts of Chip raced through Quentin's mind. The monkey had mentioned he was here on a job for the Toon Council. Surely they knew he was here. Would they come looking for him? He needed to know. "Chip? Are you here looking for Chip?"
"Ah, you know him? Chip Chocolate? Brown monkey, about ye high?" Flippy held up his hand off the ground, indicating Chip's near exact height.
"Um, yeah. Who are you though and what are you doing here? It's not safe here, you shouldn't be here. I mean, I shouldn't be here either, but that's beside the point!" The black cat began to breathe a sigh of relief at the same time he panicked. It was a twist of emotions he didn't quite understand.
Flippy pulled out his whisper device and began to stroll through again, silently ignoring Quentin's words before he finally seemed content on landing on what he was looking for. Pulling up a message, he showed it to Quentin and sighed. "Chip came here to look for some missing Toons a few days ago. I haven't heard back from him in three days and I decided to just come here myself." Putting his device away again, Flippy crossed his arms. "Now what is all this about not being safe here? Where is Chip? I need you to be a bit more specific, please." The blue dog managed to stay just as calm and cool as the peaceful atmosphere of the small desert town, in stark contrast to Quentin who was trembling, struggling to come up with an explanation that anybody would believe.
"Listen man. You're probably not going to believe this but there's this dude inside. A duck. He has like this entire army of hypnotized zombie, dummies that are at his command. He froze time and created this whole replica town. He killed Mike! Well I mean it wasn't him, but anyways he's inside there with a whole bunch of those zombies! Chip is in there too trying to talk him out of destroying the world! I'm here as a getaway! You need to call the Rangers! You're a counciltoon! Call Mickey! Call the Rangers! Something!" Hyperventilating, Quentin's wide-eyes stayed in contrast to Flippy who casually leaned against the door of the van and closed his eyes, soaking in all of what he had heard.
After a few seconds, Flippy opened his eyes and exhaled. "You know, you sound like an absolute loon. That's asking a lot to just drop all of that on somebody and expecting them to believe you." Quentin placed his face in his hands and slid them through his fur, grasping and clenching as the stress began to build. "This duck, his name wouldn't happen to be Jack would it?"
"Wait, yes! It is! How did you know?" Quentin spoke through gritted teeth, nearly falling out of the van as he leaned out the window and grabbing Flippy's shirt.
"Well that explains a lot. I should have known he was behind all of this." Flippy pinched his forehead and grunted. "Listen, um. What was your name?"
"Quentin." The black cat replied somberly.
Flippy nodded. "Ah, Quentin Tarintoono? Sad to have to meet you under such terrible circumstances. Real big fan here. Anyways, Jack O'Kazam is a known problem in Toontown. I have tussled with him before. Don't worry, I can handle him. You just stay out here."
"No. His name isn't Jack O'Kazam. I think it was Jack O'Lantern. Although I think he did mention something about his brother? Listen, you don't understand. This guy created this whole town. Everything around us? All a replica. The real Funny Farms is... well I'm not sure. But it is stuck in an endless time loop. You have to take some underground tunnel to get there. This guy has powers beyond anything you could even imagine. Plus... like hundreds of minions too. So that's not great either!"
"Tarintoono. I really appreciate your storytelling but you're gonna have to scale it back. You're really lucky that I am not some stranger. Jack O' Lantern, O'Kazam, they're all the same. Actually, their dad is the real powerful one. Most of their powers come because he lends them his magic toys or whatever. You just have to be stern with them and they crack under the pressure. I'll handle this." Flippy chuckled and started walking to the stairs of the church.
Jumping out of the van, Quentin jogged over to Flippy, grabbing him by the back of the shirt. "Wait a damn second. You're just going to walk in there? Did you not hear me. This guy is insane. He has my entire crew locked up in a dungeon. He killed someone! He has hundreds of killers ready to kill for him again! You don't even have a weapon!"
Considering what Quentin said briefly, the young counciltoon scoffed at the warning. "You don't need to worry about me. Besides, if things are that bad, it sounds like Chip is in trouble. Well I can't just leave him in there by himself, no? Listen, if you're scared you can stay out here. Keep the van ready or whatever you needed to do. But I have a responsibility and I'm not going to let that be disrupted by that booger." Pushing off from Quentin, Flippy ascended the remaining steps and reached out for the door. Pulling it open, he dropped his arms to his side. Mouth agape. Eyes fixated on the chaos in front of him, he could only mutter a few short words. "Oh... my... lord..."