The news went viral on live television, a psychotic restaurant owner had come injured the heir of the Hawthorne Corporation, this alerted the news channel to broadcast the footage worldwide. Axel waited patiently for the elevator to reach the top floor, his scar wasn't visible underneath his fur, but the scar was deep enough to elicit pain whenever it made contact. When the doors opened his father looked distressed on his desk. Noticing his son, his dad, Avery Hawthorne immediately came stomping towards him. "Here we go" he whispered to himself. .
"Alex Christopher Hawthorne! What did you do this time!?" snarled Avery, his face merely inches from his son. "Nothing, just did something you couldn't" Axel said simply, glaring at him face to face. "Have you gone mad!? Is it worth getting killed just to spite me?" said his father, out of concern for Axel's arrogance and stupidity. "Of course not, but unlike you, I know how to get things done." Said Axel, shoving the form to Avery's much bigger hand. Avery looked at the form in disbelief, someone had signed an agreement for a piece of land of the town? His disbelief quickly turned to scepticism, his eyes hardening on Axel's once again. "What did you do?" questioned Avery. "Whatever do you mean?" said Axel, enjoying how angry his own father was getting. "I know you Axel, you were never one for gaining what you want with honest means. I'm asking you again, what did you do?" said Avery, running out of patience for the foolish pup. "I simply got him to sign the contract. Simple as that" said Axel, feigning ignorance. "Like hell you did! What dirty move did you pull of this time? You may be my son but there's a limit to how much I can protect you! If I see any sign of a committed offense, I will see to it that I will punish you myself. Leave. Now." Said Avery. Axel just shrugged, there's no way a backwater town like that even has the technology to gather any evidence.
Everyone had come to Russel's house, consoling Mime and Russel on the events that occurred. "If I see that city hick, I'll personally break into his home and crush his throat" said Splendid, his chivalrous nature breaking form the intense hatred he had for what the wolf had done. "Calm down Splendid, hurting that asshole would just make it worse for Mime and Russel, given the chance, Axel would just use any kind of leverage against them." reasoned Handy. "So what now? We just let him get away with it?" asked Cuddles. "How about we steal all of his shit?" asked Shifty and Lifty, the kleptomaniacs imagined the kind of wealth that Axel probably had. "Ugh, obviously not, do you guys think of anything else besides stealing?" fumed Lammy. "No" said the twins.
"It's over lads and lasses, Axel won. We can't be doing anything about it." Said Russel, his arms still comforting Mime who had not stopped bawling his eyes out on Russel's shoulder. Nutty laughed and giggled while eating the cake that was supposed to be for Mime, getting chocolate over himself. "Well, like I said before, can't we report him to the police?" suggested Petunia. "We can, but we have no evidence. We're just a bunch of backcountry strangers that's not known for anything significant. We might as well have been non-existenent to them until now. Why would they care?" grumbled Pop, holding Cub with one hand and his pipe with the other.
"Yes, what Pop said. The world doesn't groove our way kid." Said Disco Bear, finding sympathy for Mime. He may have liked flirting with beautiful people, but rapists were not something he tolerated. "But we still have to do something" said Flippy, slamming his hands on the table, causing the cake that Nutty was eating to fly out of the window which Nutty soon followed, Flaky got startled by his sudden outburst. "C-cro-marmot says you should calm down Flippy. I-its not good for you." Said Flaky, who was standing beside Cro-marmot.
Nutty tried to find the remaining piece of cake that he dropped, and saw the Mole trying to find his way to Russel's house. He was taking random pictures for whatever article (with the camera lens still covered), and emitting a flash from his camera. Nutty immediately had a useful idea for once, and snatched the camera from him. Nutty raced back inside, pointing towards the camera and saying "W-w-w-we can record the bad dog doing bad things next time" told Nutty excitedly. "Giggles facepalmed at what Nutty was saying "Nutty, he's not coming back here again. He got what he wanted from Mime and Russel. Another thing, that's a camera for taking photos, not videos." Said Giggles, discouraging Nutty from his seemingly brilliant idea, fidgeting the camera's trigger, emitting a flash from time to time.
Toothy looked at the camera's flashing and had an idea. "Lumpy, when you built this restaurant, did you install any security cameras around here?" asked Toothy. "Lumpy thought about it, and said "Yes, but their really hard to see, their embedded in the walls." Stated the tall moose. "Great, that's exactly what we need. We can upload it to the web and expose him! Where's the security room Russel?" said Toothy, anxious to get justice for Mime. "I don't have any kind of security room lad, sorry if I hadn't thought things through." said Russel, Toothy turned to Lumpy. "Then where is it connected" inquired Toothy, losing his hope of retaliating. "I don't know, there were no wires in it. Sniffles just told me to embed it with the concrete. Maybe Sniffles knows?" said Lumpy.
They all left the house, Mime was reluctant at first, but then he decided to go. This may just decide the fate of this town. They arrived at Sniffles' house, the anteater invited them, each being sucked into some sort of tube and into the underground, piling up on each other. Thankfully, Cro-Marmot had a tube separate from them, preventing them from being crushed. Unfortunately, that still did not save them from piling up on top of each other, the ones who travelled on the same tubes at least.
"What brings you guys here today?" asked Sniffles, not taking his eyes off the screen he was watching. 'Wait is that us?" asked Shifty and Lifty, they were being chased by Splendid. "Yes, you guys have such interesting lives, I find myself not needing to buy a tv for entertainment purposes." Continued Sniffles, munching on some popcorn. "Actually, we be needing that very thing you're watching. We need the footage from last night, in the storage." Said Russel. "Oh, why didn't you say so, let's see" said Sniffles, looking through a file cabinet. Dozens and dozens of tapes from each area of happy tree town. "Wait a minute, is that my bathroom?!" gasped Lammy, shocked to see one of her bathrooms on the monitor. "Uhh, no?" said Sniffles, slowing his searching. "You pervert!" shouted Lammy, Lammy started slapping and throwing Sniffles around. "Aaahhhhh! Please, I have needs too" but Lammy did not relent on her assault. The rest of the tree friends sighed and searched for the video tape, Disco Bear discreetly hid the tape inside his golden vest for his personal… purposes.
Mime found the tape, it was the exact date and time range they needed. "Great, now we have the evidence to get back at Axel and expose who he really is" said Cuddles. All the tree friends agreed, wanting to end the douchebag's inevitable hold on the town. Russel looked at Mime who wasn't all that thrilled about it. "Wait, we can't." said Russel, the other tree friends looked at him like he just ran over someone. "W-why not?" asked Flaky, concerned over the sudden change of mind. "If we be uploading that, the whole world will see what happened to Mime. We'd be getting justice, but it would also humiliate Mime to the whole world" said Russel, the tree friends all looked down, their faces forlorn from the realization, except for Lammy who gave one hard slap on Sniffles' face.
Mime thought it over, was it really worth it to risk his own reputation for the whole world? Does he really need justice? He looked at each tree friend, even Sniffles and Lammy who was glaring at Sniffles. These people had come all the way here to try to help him, if he allowed Axel to have his way, they might be ratted out of the town. Years of living in this town not only had him attached to the place but also the people in it. The colourful and varied personalities of the tree friends made it seem like they would never become united for one cause. Yet here they were, ready to defend him to the point they were willing to stain a corporation's son for him. If they upload that, they might back out of the deal and leave the town alone, but if he does nothing, the corporation will turn the town into a city, evicting the rest of the tree friends out of it. Mime made his decision and pulled at Russel's sleeve.
Russel looked at him and Mime looked back he smiled and nodded at him. "Are you sure Mime" asked Russel, worried about Miime's last fragments of dignity toward the whole world. Mime nodded again, pepping up the rest of the tree friends. "Okay Sniffles, where is your computer?" asked Cuddles, Sniffles was lying on the floor, a very red cheek on his face, he pointed a shaky hand in a direction and said "T-there" before losing the strength to even lift it.
Toothy inserted the tape onto a slot, and started uploading the video onto the web. Mime came to terms for what happened, he looked at Russel again and he stared back. They smiled at each other, it would be a long time before they open the restaurant again, and maybe hide themselves for a while, who knows what Axel would do if he found out. Not that being cooped up in the same room with nobody but each other was a problem to them.
Only one or two chapters, I can't decide yet. It's ending T_T. But that also means a possibility for a new story for me so, uh, yay? Anyway, I'll be sure to write a new story, all in a day's work for a Ugandan knuckles to faynd da wey XD. (Note, I am not Ugandan). There is one hint I'll give about the ending, it's the fact that the Hawthorne company is an news reporting company (If a news report company is supposed to be small-time, let me know)