Black Friday. The commercial calamity. From the midnight after Thanksgiving onwards, storekeepers quiver in fear as crowds of shoppers storm through the doors, seeking deals on holiday gifts for their friends and family. Sylvester is among this throng, joined by Pepé and Ralph in their journey through the Northwest Shopping Plaza.
Pepé splits from the group to check out the small animals' clothing boutique, and Ralph follows Sylv into the game store. While browsing through the selection of games and gadgets, the wolf strikes up an idea. "That skunk girl from last night was pretty cute. You should go out with her."
Sylv nearly drops the game he is holding. "Seriously? I mean, you're not wrong, but we only just met. You can't rush this sort of thing!"
"I slept with George after our first date, and we turned out fine." He neglects to mention the rough aftermath of their relationship to better sell his argument. "You don't have to go to home base right off the bat, but there's no rules against taking her out for dinner."
"I suppose not, but…"
"But what? You're gonna turn down a fine woman like that? What are you, a pussy?"
Sylvester shoots Ralph a dirty look. "Alright, I'll call her up and… Shoot, I forgot she doesn't have a phone!"
On cue, his phone starts vibrating. He picks it up and checks the notifications. A string of texts have been sent to him, which read:
"Bonjour, Sylvester.
"It's me, Anne.
"I got myself a new phone. C'est bon, non?
"So what do you say about having dinner next Saturday? Your choice."
Peering over his shoulder, Ralph exclaims, "Well, would you look at that? The stars are aligned in your favor!"
Sylv's body is tense, his facial fur a shade paler. "But I never gave her my number…"
"Oh, I might've slipped your number during our chat last night. She seemed really eager to date you."
"And you didn't run this by me first?"
"Hey, I did you a favor. Now, are you gonna answer her or what?"
With a sigh, he starts typing. "Hey Anne. I know a few great restaurants in NQ. Do you like French, Italian, or Japanese?" And send.
A second later, another text drops in his inbox. "I LOVE French cuisine! I'll see you there~"
Sylv's shoulders slump. Looks like his fate is written for him.
Day turns to night, and the busy streets of Acme City are lit by the glow of street lamps. Amid the shadows of the buildings, a small figure lurks, slipping through the crowds without notice. Close behind, a taller figure follows. The small figure escapes the commercial district and heads towards the urban slums of North Quarter's outskirts. Their eyes catch sight of a lone corgi, teetering drunkenly down the sidewalk. They lift a slim, pipe-like object to their lips and blow.
A dart zips through the air and strikes the corgi's neck, causing him to fall over. The figure approaches the dog's body to inspect it. The pulse is weak, but still flowing. Satisfied, they drag the body into a dark alleyway.
The taller figure watches the event from a distance, gripping his gun tightly. The bear trap at the end of his weapon glints under the sliver of light from the nearby street lamp. Stealthily, he moves in closer, trying to keep his target within sight. With his night vision, he identifies them as a skunk in doctor's scrubs, and steps into action. "Stop right there, Anne," he demands gruffly, pointing his weapon at her.
The skunk drops the body and looks up, pink eyes glowing in the dark. Standing before her is a coyote in a ragged duster, wielding a strange bear trap launcher of some sort. In a faux-innocent voice, she says, "Have I seen you before? Ah, yes, from the Thanksgiving party. What was your name, Willy Coyote?"
"Quit fooling around. What are you doing with that body?"
"Oh, this? I'm just doing my job."
"Ripping out organs to sell in the black market?"
Anne's mask falls, revealing her true colors. "So you found me out." She sighs and puts her hands in her pockets. "How inconvenient. I really should get better at cleaning up my messes."
With quick reflexes, she throws a dart at the coyote, who barely dodges it by a hair's length. He fires a bear trap, which she sidesteps, the trap's teeth shaving off a slim scrap of fur from her long tail. She runs off into the alleyway and deeper into the darkness, with him following close behind.
The pursuit continues as they weave in and out of streets and alleys, then up emergency ladders and scaffolds onto the rooftops. As they run atop of an unstable structure, Anne trips up at the edge and nearly falls. Hanging by one hand on the crumbling rim, she looks up at the looming predator.
"Give it up, Anne." The coyote picks her up by the scruff of her neck. "Your hunting days are over."
Despite being eye-to-eye with a dangerous creature, Anne seems unfazed. In fact, she appears quite calm. "Oh, dear, looks like the jig's up. I could try to escape, but alas, I am but a weak skunk. Willy Coyote, j'avou la défaite."
The coyote tilts his head, nonplussed. "I didn't expect you to give up so easily."
"I know better than to fight a big, strong predator like you. Since you caught me, I might as well share a bit of information on the Underground. How about it?"
He thinks it over before responding, a smug smirk on his face. "Alright, I'll bite. Tell me everything you know."
"Okay, but first, I have to ask… Do you know what skunks are known for?"
Taken aback, he answers, "Their… stripes?"
Deadpan, she remarks, "Mon dieu, you really are stupid." She swiftly kicks her legs upward, spraying his face with her scent glands. Blind and suffocating from the noxious gas, the coyote loosens his grip on the skunk, allowing her to make her escape, laughing along the way.
"Wiley, what were you thinking, facing Anne unprepared?" Pepé asks as he mixes a bucket of skunk odor deodorant. The deodorant (a blend of baking soda, dishwashing soap, and hydrogen peroxide) is then applied to the coyote's fur as he sits in the tub, a defeated look on his face. "Mon dieu, you really are a fool."
"I almost had her," he mutters. "I shouldn't have let my guard down. Especially in such a stupid manner."
Done with the application, he sets an egg timer to five minutes. "If I knew what you were up to, I could have helped you out. She is my sister, after all."
Wile blinks. "Your sister?"
"As cliché as it sounds, she is my evil twin." Grimly, he unravels his tale. "My sister, Henriette, and I were born into the criminal underworld. Our family, the La Moufettes, were back alley doctors, practicing outside of the law. Under our parents' tutelage, Minette and I honed our skills–she with the knife and I with the flask. We worked together as a team until Bugs brought me into ACME Corp to assist with the Illudium experiments. She must think I betrayed her, having escaped the underworld to live a successful life. Which was why…" He trails off, the memory too painful to put into spoken words.
"When you said your son was left at the hands of a psychopath, you meant Anne. Is that right?"
He nods. "I doubt he would forgive me for abandoning him, but still, I want nothing more now than for his freedom." He smiles and adds softly, "If anyone can bring Henriette to justice, it's going to be you."
The timer rings, signaling time to rinse off the formula. Pepé walks out of the bathroom, leaving Wile alone with the company of the running water and his thoughts. Throughout the bathing process, Pepé's words echo inside Wile's head like a song in an empty theater. He has thought about being a hero since the Tweety Show incident, but he never considered what that entails. All he knows about justice, he learned from watching superhero shows and reading comics. He doesn't know if he's doing the "hero" thing right, but he still likes the sound of it. A vigilante of justice, like the hero on TV. He hums the classic Batman theme to himself as he lathers himself with shampoo.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Happy not-Fourth-of-July, everyone! I'm back with what's technically another "half-chapter" upload. This chapter was going to be longer and include the actual dinner date, but that part was running REALLY long and honestly deserved its own chapter by that point, so I cut the part you see here and made it a small transition/breather entry. The next part is WAY heavier on dialogue than action, so I'm going to give it some extra TLC to ensure that it's engaging in spite of it.
For a small bit of production trivia, while the series has no shortage of narrative prose filled with worldbuilding or character-based details, there are a handful of tidbits that I snipped out for the sake of easier reading flow. As an example, in the last chapter, there was a sentence in parenthesis stating that Acme City does not formally recognize Thanksgiving like the rest of the US, but many civilians still celebrate it regardless, if just for the social aspect. There's actually a reason behind this, but after some thought, I decided to nix the tidbit, thinking it's unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. Another cut tidbit is from this chapter: Due to Wile E.'s lack of exposure to skunks aside from Pepé–who, if you recall, cannot spray–he's unaware of the infamous odor; his assumption that skunks are no different from any other woodland creature bites him back hard in his confrontation with Anne. This was cut due to changes in the dialogue that made it even more awkward to slip in. In hindsight, I probably should have at least hinted at this earlier, but it didn't cross my mind until recently.
Anyways, I gotta get back to writing. Ciao~
