Water fell from the clouds above onto the small group of animals. They stood over a mound of dirt with a piece of wood protruding from one end. Here lies Mepps. A great henchman and friend. Wart and Mole sat on their knees in front of the grave, tears streaming down their faces.
"Please, Rescue Rangers." Wart looked at Monterey and Chip. "Stop Fat Cat's boss."
Foxglove fluttered through the sky, seeming desperate to find something. She soared into the clouds and looked around. The bat saw a tree in the park and began to dive. She landed on the branch and came to their front door, knocking rapidly. The popsicles opened and she came face to face with Dale.
"Foxglove. What are you doing here?"
"Dale, you have to help. Something's happening in the city."
"You'd better come inside and tell us what you saw." He led the scared bat in and through the building to Gadget's workshop.
Gadget took the Ranger Wing in for a landing. Everyone got out and immediately found what the bat had been talking about. "Golly. You were right Foxglove. Those clawmarks are absolutely gigantic. They look the same as the ones on Mepps."
"Can you tell what made these?" Chip asked. The mouse knelt down to take a closer look.
"They look like they were made by a bear, but not even a grizzly could leave marks like this in solid concrete. I don't know of any animal in the world with claws strong enough to make these."
"Come over here!" The two looked at Dale and saw he was pointing at something around the corner. They rushed over and what they saw nearly gave Chip a heart attack. The alley was full of cats and dogs, but they were all dead. Slashed open with claws bigger then any of them could've handled. There was not a single spot of pavement that was not soaked in blood. Claw marks covered the walls and the ground, all the way up to the third and forth floors.
"What could do something like this?" Monty said from behind them. The group turned around as someone screamed. The woman pulled a Nokia from her purse and dialed something. She put the phone up to her ear and began talking.
"Hello, I need the police department." She waited several seconds before they heard her phone beep. "Hello. Hello police? I found a pile of dead animals in an alley." She gave them the address and hung up. In a matter of minutes, the streets in the surrounding area were crawling with cops.
The Rescue Rangers and Foxglove sat on the ceiling fan in Sergeant Spinelli's office. He was going through all sorts of papers and case files that lay all across his desk. The phone began to ring and he answered. "Sergeant Spinelli speaking." A few seconds passed. "What? A break-in?" He took down the address and got on another phone with the patrol guys. He told them the situation and they got on it.
"We'd better check that out," Chip said.
"I agree," Gadget replied. "It could be the same animal as the other night." They got to the roof and loaded into the Ranger-Wing.
Smoke rose high into the sky above the city. A bright red flame enveloped the Clutchcoin estate, turning everything it touched to ash. The small aircraft landed on the driveway leading up to the building and they piled out. The group raced over to the police cruiser that the two officers took. It was empty, but the radio was on and someone was speaking through it.
"We need help out here. The burglar set a fire and trapped us inside. We couldn't see who it was, but he was huge." Officer Kirby coughed, hard. "We can't last much longer. Send Backup!" The radio cut out and they heard nothing but static.
"We've got to go in there and get them out," Chip almost screamed. "They won't survive long enough for backup."
"I'll make some masks to repel the smoke," Gadget stated and got to work.
"Okay. Dale, Monty. You come with me to look for a way in. Zipper, I want you to take go with Foxglove and see if you can find them. Gadget has been working on communicators for us so we can talk to each other." He passed them out after she handed them to him. "Does everyone know what to do?"
The group of animals nodded. "I'm finished with the masks, Chip."
"Holy Moly, that was fast." He put his on and everyone else followed suit. "Rescue Rangers away!" Foxglove and Zipper flew up to the chimney and went down inside. The rest of the Rangers separated and squeezed in through different cracks in the walls. Monty carried one mask for the officers and Chip carried the other. They crept through several cracks and piles of rubble before they made it to a hallway.
Foxglove and Zipper came out of the fireplace into what would be the living room for a smaller house. They landed and crept along the ground to avoid the smoke as much as possible. They, too, separated and searched through different corridors and rooms.
They searched for about a minute before Foxglove came over the radio. "I found them. They're in the upstairs library. A bookshelf has fallen on them."
"We're on our way," Monty replied. In less then a minute, the group came into the library from all directions. Monty and Chip ran underneath the fallen shelf and handed the masks to the officers. They gestured to the ones on their faces and back to the bigger ones. Kirby and Muldoon got the message and applied the face shields.
"Gadget, what do you need us to do?" Dale questioned frantically. The mouse took a quick look around the room, measuring everything and calculating an unknown amount of things all at once.
"We need to get Officer Kirby to lift the bookshelf so we can wedge books under it. Chip, Dale, you need to show him what to do. Foxglove, Monty, start bringing me books. Zipper, I need the pencils from the desk up their." The rangers got to work on their separate tasks and in less then a minute had the books piled on the pencils to get them to roll and Kirby was lifting the shelf with all his strength. On both sides, the rangers shoved the stacks of paper and leather as hard as they could.
They pushed until the books no longer moved and they stopped. They rushed under it and started pulling on the front of the officers' shirts. Muldoon was able to crawl out, but Kirby was still stuck. The scrawnier of the two cops grabbed the top of the shelf and lifted with all his might. Kirby did the same again and the rangers pushed the books further into the gap. Kirby slid his way out and crept along the floor for a few feet.
"We need to get out of here." Muldoon picked up the larger man under his arm and heaved him off the floor. The shelf hitting him and nearly taken him out, but he had enough strength left to grab the animals that had saved their lives. They scampered up his arm and onto his shoulders. Gadget was on the smaller man's hat and directed him by tapping the sides of his face with her tale. They all stayed in there for longer then they should have, but they made it out before the building collapsed.
The skinny cop had to bust out a window in order to get out, and that's when the backup and fire department were arriving, sirens blaring and humans running all over the place. An ambulance pulled up and doctors jumped out to help the officers. Both were pulled inside and taken to the hospital. Kirby and Muldoon wouldn't let the animals that had saved their lives be left behind. Somewhere along the ride, most of the rangers collapsed.