Hello everybody! Starting a new section or "arc" in the story today that will last for 7 chapters. I know the last four chapters were unrelentingly grim, so maybe you'll find this next section to be a little (just a little) less so.

If you been sticking with the story so far thank you, but I would really love to get some feedback. Yeah776, my one and only reviewer so far, has theorized that maybe people haven't been reviewing because there have been so few official HTF in the story so far. If so, that changes now. In this part several official HTF will be making their debuts in the story so I hope that will satisfy. I call this section the "Petunia Arc" after everyone's favorite skunk.

And the standard disclaimer: I do not own the Happy Tree Friends; they are the property of Mondo Media. I own only my own characters and this story. Now here's chapter 18:

18 – PETUNIA MAKES A STINK

Petunia gazed at the burnt field. Words utterly failed her. For a while she just stared into the deepening gloom as her mind went back several hours and she recalled what had happened.

Although she had an address in Metramegopolis Petunia was rarely in the city. She tolerated urban living when she had too, but she was one of those animals who still preferred the outside when they could get it, especially when rules of civilized living conflicted with their basic natures.

Not that Petunia was an aggressive animal. Far from it. She was actually very even tempered, intelligent, and patient. But she was also a skunk, with all of the traditional skunk attributes. Although her own scent didn't bother her she had found it prudent, when in the city, to wear a very powerful air freshener around her neck just in case something happened. So for some time she had maintained a separate residence outside the city that she often retreated to. Not many people knew about her second home, which was fine with her. It was just an unobtrusive hole in the ground – when seen from outside. Inside it was a fully furnished apartment, perhaps a little more Spartan in the number of amenities it contained as compared to an apartment in the city, but it suited all of her purposes very well.

Petunia had been away from the city for several days and had missed the Mayor's announcements. The first inkling she had had that something unusual was happening was when the sound of the city preparing to take off had reached her in her den, waking her up from a mid-day nap. Not knowing what was happening she rushed up to the surface and looked out of the entrance of her hole just in time to see Metramegopolis starting to rise into the air. She was so startled that she stayed where she was and watched the city rise up, up, up into the sky before leveling off and speeding away to the east. Then, still shocked by what she had seen, Petunia slowly drifted down on to the field with the crowd of other people who had missed the ride.

She was about half-way down the slope at the edge of the city's former site when an instinct warned her to stop. Her mind worked quickly and she realized almost at once that great danger must be threatening. Immediately she turned around and began making her way back to her hole as fast she could. She was still about ten meters from the hole's entrance when the Marauders appeared and XL-Jack-3 gave the order to kill.

As the Marauders ran down on to the field Petunia rushed as quickly as she could towards the entrance to her den. But she had only covered half of the remaining distance when she found her way blocked by two extremely large Marauders who both leered evilly down at her.

"Mmm," growled one of the Marauders, "fresh meat." The other one laughed. They began to advance towards their quarry, quite sure that she would be easy pickings. It only showed how little they knew, because inside the soul of every gentle looking skunk is a savage beast just waiting for the right moment to emerge. Skunks may not have the fangs, claws, muscles, speed, or weight of bigger animals, but that doesn't matter because they have other weapons at their disposal.

"Back off!" Petunia snarled at the two Marauders, "I have bad scent, and I know how to use it!"

The Marauders looked at her for a moment, startled, then they laughed, raised their weapons and pointed them at her. That was a big mistake. It is never wise to defy an angry skunk; Petunia didn't hesitate for an instant. She ducked down lengthwise to the ground, raised her tail, pointed it at her enemies, and released a full dose of her skunk odor in their direction. The results were everything she could have wished for. As soon as the Marauders got the smallest whiff of Petunia's distinctive stench they began choking on it so hard that they dropped their guns and doubled over in olfactory agony, gasping hard for breath.

Petunia seized her chance and quickly slipped past her foes. Then, pausing only to make sure that she was unobserved by anyone else on the field, she dived down the entrance to her hole, stopping a meter inside to throw a switch that sealed the tunnel behind her with stones. To an outside observer it would have looked as if the hole had caved in, however to someone who did not know that there was a hole there in the first place all they would have noticed would have been a small pile of rocks.

(To Be Continued)