Whistling a hearty tune, Boxer made his way down the brightly lit Minnie's Melodyland streets. A rejuvenating and relaxing weekend for the first time in as long as he could remember had the purple dog excited to get back for work. It was such a strange feeling to actually WANT to go to work, yet here he found himself just minutes away. He had even woke up early to rehearse his lines a few more times in the mirror. He had considered calling up Caramel but knowing the brown cat he was well prepared already. As he approached the studio, Boxer was stopped in his tracks by a small Ranger presence. What were the Toontown Rangers doing in a place like this? Were they here to get some autographs? He had never given an autograph before. Excited by the opportunity, he continued his upbeat tone until a stocky green crocodile in a Ranger's uniform stepped in front of the doorway and held her hand out. "Excuse me sir, nobody is allowed in at the moment until they have been authorized."
"Authorized? What do you mean? I work here? I'm playing the lead role!" Boxer pleaded as the crocodile shifted her eyes over to her partner who nodded.
"Ah, Mr. Garfunkel, I presume? You're actually wanted inside. Please don't go far, somebody will come to get you." stepping aside, she left her hand out to her left, motioning for Boxer to enter. Smiling with the false knowledge that he now had the clout of a movie star, he stepped inside where he was quickly overwhelmed by the sight of more Rangers, and the hecticness of various Toons being questioned.
In the corner was Caramel, who was sipping out of a mug and speaking with a different cast member. Immediately noticing Boxer, the brown cat dismissed himself and sped-walked to his friend with a look of concern on his face. "Boxer! Boxer!" he waved his free arm. "Boy am I glad to see you!"
"Where else would I be? We have a shoot today, don't we?" Boxer inquired, blinded to everything but his own ambition. "What's with all the Rangers?"
"You didn't hear?" Caramel looked around and whispered quietly. "Apparently Hog went missing last night. Rangers are thinking it might have been a crazy fan or something, but they're not taking any chances that someone here isn't involved. One of those Rangers asked me about you and I told them that you just recently took over his spot. I wouldn't worry right now, but they'll probably want to talk to you. Don't tell anyone I told you, alright?"
Boxer smirked, unconcerned by the fate of the missing Toon. "I'm sure he'll turn up. Probably just didn't want to show his face after getting embarrassed on Friday. Anyways, why would they need to talk to me? I have nothing against the guy. Besides, I was hanging out in the hotel most of the weekend."
"Hey, just listen man. Just cooperate with them, tell them the truth and keep your head down. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the truth is, these guys are going to need answers. Big celebrity goes missing? This will have a lot of attention. Just be careful, alright. I'm going to go find Quentin and try and get a rundown on today's scene. Just hang out here. Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea." Caramel patted his friend's shoulder before turning around and meandering off in the other direction.
Standing around, Boxer watched as more and more of his co-workers streamed in and were quickly whisked away by a Ranger to be questioned. Yet he stood alone. Finally after several minutes passed, an older lime green dog wearing a high-ranking official's uniform walked over and smiled at him. "Good morning, you must be Boxer?"
Losing his composure for a brief minute, the purple dog was slapped back into reality and sputtered over his words. "Ah, um. Yes, yes sir."
"Fantastic. My name is Deputy Skids. Or Skids. Or Deputy. You can call me whatever you want, it doesn't really matter. Sorry to take you away from what seems like a busy day, but I just had a few questions for you. Do you have a moment?"
"Um, sure. What's it about?" responding cautiously, Boxer followed behind the green dog who led him over to a small table that had been set up using some leftover props from a previous scene.
Deputy stayed quiet until they were sufficiently away from the rest of the rift-raft. "So, I've heard you took over as the lead actor in this movie. Congratulations!" Deputy pulled out a notepad and a pen and held his hand out, indicating for Boxer to remain calm. "There's no need to worry, you're not in trouble. I'm sure you've already heard but we're missing ourselves an actor. Late last night, Hog McBuffson's agent gave us a call to report he didn't show up for a regularly scheduled appointment. Rangers were dispatched to his estate and found signs of a break-in. Now, I personally don't feel you would have anything to do wit this, or likely know anything. After all, you're still pretty new here. But I believe in turning over every possible leaf, and leaving no stone unturned. You might have a fresh set of eyes that a lot of these others wouldn't when it comes to Hog. Have you seen anything strange about him? Any possible strained relationships? Anything he might have said?"
Boxer's mind was racing with the last several days. The near-fight with Hog, the threat? How would that look? He couldn't lie though, especially not to a Ranger. What if this guy already knew? It would be best to just tell the truth. "Well since I've gotten here things have seemed fine. I mean, Hog was pretty upset with me after I was given his role. He confronted me after work on Friday, threatened me if I didn't give it back to him. I told him that I worked for it, and he would have to earn it. Caramel was there fortunately to keep things from getting worse. After that, me and Caramel left with a few other crew members and went out for some drinks. After that I hadn't seen or heard from him. Nobody really talks about him much, he tends to just do his own thing." the pit of his stomach churned with anxiety as he watched the Ranger scribble down notes silently. What was he writing? Was he going to get Caramel in trouble? "Caramel didn't do anything if that's what you're thinking." he quickly added.
"Ah, the brown cat. Yes, no worries we have already spoken with him. Seems like a good kid. Now, Hog lost his lead role but I imagine he still would come back to work. From what it sounds like he is quite dedicated to himself and can't imagine he would happily forego such a position. Would you agree?" Deputy had hardly averted his eyes from his small notepad, now on his fourth small piece of paper.
"I guess not. He seemed pretty heated about it. Hopefully he didn't do anything rash." Boxer was beginning to worry. Was he responsible for this? What if Boxer had hurt himself? Or hurt somebody else? All because he took a position. No, this wasn't his fault. How could it be? "Do you think he's gonna be okay? He's gonna turn up right?"
Skids stood up and slid his notebook into his shirt pocket and nodded. "Don't worry kid, I'm sure he'll turn up. Thanks for your time." as the green dog began to step away, he turned around and raised a brow. "So, what movie is this anyways? Isn't Hog supposed to be some hot shot model or something?"
"It's The Werewolf's Kiss. It's based on that book for teenage girls." Boxer shrugged.
"Oh, interesting. My daughter loves those books. Gonna have to let her know I met the star. Thanks for your time, Boxer. Best of luck to you." before Boxer could respond, the Ranger was out of sight, along with most of the other Rangers that had been there. Standing up, he walked over where he saw Quentin and Caramel talking.
When Quentin noticed Boxer was coming over, he quickly shuffled his feet to face his new lead. "Boxer, there you are. Glad you're not airheaded enough to get kidnapped. What a damned fool. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if this entire thing was faked as some sort of show. Well I hope Hog knows that if he''s just going to pull a stunt like this I'm not waiting for him. That fool is holding us down even when he's not here. Alright everybody, we have a film to make. Chop-chop!" the black cat clapped his hands and adjusted his thick rimmed glasses. "Boxer, you better not screw this up." picking up his megaphone, the black cat continued to shout orders. Even though the purple dog should have been relishing in his opportunity, something was nagging at him. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Hog going missing seemed more than coincidental. However, it would have to be a worry for later, as he had a film to star in.
The Toon council was always a bit hectic when the mayor was not around. Usually leadership would fall to the mayor's assistant, however they were currently out sick, leaving the council to self-govern until Wacky returned. When they had received the message that the two day trip was going to be extended indefinitely, it conjured worries for the older Toons who had lived through the Flippy scare over twenty years ago. Fortunately for them, things were going quite smoothly otherwise. Volunteers had come together under several different organizations to build more estates in areas that were being cleared out in Acorn Acres and Daisy Gardens. "Alright everybody, I think it's time we take a vote. All in favor of re-naming Silly Street to Cupcake Corridor say aye." Bessie called out. A near unanimous aye rung through the room, with the exception of Devin who was always against anything that broke tradition.
"Do we really need to pass such silly shenanigans while the Mayor is away? Don't you think we should be focused on other important matters? Just ridiculous if you ask me." the yellow rabbit frowned and crossed his arms. "Besides, why Cupcake Doggenbottom? I feel there are much more meaningful Toons that it could be named after."
"Well, she did save Toontown from its' most dangerous threat. Plus she basically financed the entire re-construction of the street to allow more room for shops and estates... I mean it'd seem like a slap to the face if we didn't honor her somehow." Sid interjected.
Grumbling, Devin stood up and walked around the room. "Fine. But when Wacky comes back I'm not getting roped into this."
"If he gets back." Teacup shivered a bit at the thought. "I mean, he said he'd be gone a few days, and then suddenly writes he's just going to stay indefinitely? It sounds suspicious. Maybe we should send somebody to go check in?"
"No, we need to believe in him. After all, what if us going just ends up causing a bigger rift than what we have now? Let's just focus on here. Besides, we need to plan for the expedition crew to be returning soon. They should be returning in the next week or two if things have gone well."
Devin chuckled. "If things have gone well? Do you guys listen to yourself? We likely have a kidnapped mayor, and we're here re-naming streets and entertaining these ludicrous ideas. If I had to guess, I'd say all of them are already goners.
Wacky and Kuma stood, flanked by a group of cogs with various tools and notepads. The yellow monkey rubbed his chin as he rummaged through charred metal, carefully abstaining from burning his hands on the still cooling steel. "This is just a disaster. Do we have any casualty numbers?"
"We believe twenty-seven cogs were injured, another fourteen have been destroyed." a Double Talker solemnly stated as he lowered his head.
"Goodness. What a tragedy. Have we been able to pin-point the cause of the explosion?" Wacky inquired, as he stepped over a dismembered arm, likely from a Telemarketer.
Kuma nodded and pointed over to a corner. "Looks like there were a few piles of explosives set up through the factory. Definitely TNT from Toontown, not something you're likely to see in Cog Nation. Whoever did this was likely high leveled, as they would have needed at least forty-fifty of these bad boys. Unfortunately I think we may be looking at a group here." the white bear growled in frustration.
"I was kind of dreading that. Although maybe that will make it easier to track them down if there is more than one. I guess either way we're looking at trouble." Wacky stopped when he noticed a small footprint in a pile of ash. "Hey, Kuma. Did anybody walk over here since we got here?" the yellow monkey carefully stepped over the pile and pointed down to the ground. "This definitely isn't a cog foot print. This is a Toon for sure. Looks like a cat?"
"Definitely a cat, sir. Although that doesn't really narrow things down very much. Cats are the second most common species in Toontown. According to our data log, there are two-hundred and eighteen cats that work in Cog Nation. Assuming that this isn't an outsider, we're looking at a long list of potential suspects. I guess that we should start there?" Kuma whipped out his notepad and took down some notes.
Narrowing his eyes, Wacky knelt and looked into the black dust. "This seems too convenient though. I mean, if the explosion happened, the Toon would have had to come back here AFTERWARDS and then leave this. With how careful they have been, is it possible they did something so stupid? Maybe they're setting us up?"
"Very possible. Whoever is doing this is seems quite sneaky. Anyways, I think I have everything I need from here. Did you want to keep looking around?" Kuma folded his tan jacket around his arm and waited for his superior to finish examining around.
"Yeah, I think I'm done here. Looks like we're going to have to take more extreme measures to figure this out. I'm going to go back and talk with Edward. Do you have a place to stay yet?"
Shrugging, Kuma pointed to a hotel across the street. "Probably just gonna get myself a room around here. Not sure how many places are gonna be welcoming a Toon after everything, but I'll figure something out. Might go hit the sack, I'm getting a bit tired actually." the pair of Toons shook hands and began walking their own respective ways. Wacky wouldn't allow himself to become dejected just yet. There was still time for him to figure this out. First he was going to need that list of all Toons in Cog Nation. It wasn't going to be fun, but he'd get to the bottom of this. But first, a meeting with the Big Wig.