Carreract: Sorry that it took forever, MadnessJones and I took an unofficial FTL break for a bit but now it's back. Also, I may or may not start writing on my own page soon so be sure to keep an eye on my profile XD

Chapter 6

Curveball

"Um...it's Wendy Jinxsprinkles..." Wendy corrected, hoping the Legal Eagle wouldn't get upset at her catching his mistake.

The Legal Eagle, however, didn't seem like he had any patience left so she wisely dropped it and changed the subject.

"So...what are we doing today? I'm here on time at least."

His silence was getting a bit worrying for her. Last time he was rather talkative. At least she thought he was rather talkative, but now it was just silence with his eyes staring down at her. She wondered if that was an attack they used to depress Toons, but she really couldn't tell and simply waited nervously. Luckily, instead of attacking he finally spoke up.

"You were not on time. It's 4 minutes past 11:00 AM. That's late," he spoke without any sympathy.

"Uh...I'm sorry. I thought I was here sooner than that. It's so hard to tell time where I live," she was beginning to play with her little tan dress she chose for today. This was getting rather awkward and she didn't like that one bit.

Sadly, for her, he was maintaining the tension very well as he slowly walked back to his desk, facing away from her before finally speaking again.

"We have much work to do so let's get going, shall we?" He inquired, but really there was only one answer he was expecting.

She nodded vigorously and spoke quickly trying to calm his frustration. "Yes, of course what do you need?"

In reality, she was curious about what happened earlier, but she knew better than to risk upsetting him. Hopefully playing up to him would calm him to some degree.

To her surprise, he actually did give her a task without trying to cause harm to her. Instead of attacking, the metallic bird simply rubbed his eyes and spoke with a low voice.

"Just file these new papers for me. The third shelf from the top, 2 over from the left. Got it?" The Legal Eagle asked abruptly.

"Oh...yes sir," Wendy quietly muttered; quite nervous by his seeming lack of personality beyond robotic efficiency.

Careful to not make any noise, she dragged the chair towards the desk, but he stopped her by grabbing the chair by the back and yanking it back into its original position.

"I'll give you the papers," He explained.

A large stack of files and documents was then dropped into the little mouse's awaiting arms. Poor Wendy was far too small to catch a large stack of papers falling on her and ended up getting smothered in the files, disorganizing everything into a massive pile.

"For the love of Chairman, can't you do one thing right, Miss Wendy?" He spat at her, watching her head pop up from the middle of the pile.

Now at first Wendy sank inward, wanting to disappear in embarrassment as she just sat there paralyzed in self-pity and defeat. However, as she dipped her head down, she felt something in her. A little spark of energy. She lifted her head back up at him, his eyes staring back at her, unaverting.

She pulled herself out of the papers and stood as straight as she could and muttered "Right away sir," before she began to organize them back up into a stack.

Kevin meanwhile resumed his own paperwork; still keeping a careful eye on her just in case, but so far, she was doing as she was told.

After nearly an hour, she had finally finished organizing back into a stack. As boring as this task was, she pressed on even with a dull sickening feeling starting to spread in her body. She was blissfully unaware what was happening to her as she made another set of makeshift stairs with file cabinet drawers and climbed up them.

After a while, at least 3 hours she thought, Wendy had completed her mundane task and sat down on top of the filing cabinet.

"Sir, I'm finished," Wendy said timidly; unsure of his mood.

However, she was lucky. Nothing else had interrupted him all day, allowing a lot of work to be made up. So, hearing that her task was completed was just another check mark to his effort at recovering lost time. He turned around and looked up at her.

"Perfect. Let me check them first though," Kevin ordered.

He then got out of his chair and began fishing through the files, making sure everything was probably named.

Several minutes of checking had passed and Wendy couldn't help but yawn quietly, still waiting for his approval. Her head throbbed slightly, but she didn't let on lest she disappoint her new boss. He was taking a long time today, but then again, there were a lot more papers than last time. At last however, he nodded approvingly at the filing cabinet.

"Very good. I'd say you did a standard job with the papers, so please do it again more efficiently," The Legal Eagle stated as he placed another large stack of papers beside the poor mouse.

Wendy wanted to complain, to groan, to resist and even play, but she quickly remembered that he had already told her that this line of work was not fun at all. He had warned her about the lack of entertainment in working, but she had still insisted she do it. This was on her, and she realized if she started to whine to him about this, he would surely remove her from the office...or depress her maybe. He was certainly capable of that still.

"Oh...of course, sir. I'll be as good as I can for you," She said as positively as she could muster.

"Mhmm, right, get going please," The Legal Eagle replied in a disinterested monotone. He was really not making this easy, was he?

She grabbed the next set of papers at the end but then that dull feeling had suddenly manifested into a much more noticeable pain. It had given her an instant headache and that was not enjoyable at all. She let out a quiet groan, but quickly shut her lips before the Cog noticed. She needed to tough it out. She could sleep it off later, but for now she needed to keep moving forward.

So, she pressed on as the hours ticked by. One by one, each paper got sorted into its respected spot. Unfortunately for her, as the time kept on moving, so did the pain. Her head was throbbing at this point. Her arms ached, her back hurt, and her feet hurt. She felt a strong need to lean over and let her head droop towards the floor.

What was worse was that she was getting slower. She was only halfway done at this point and it was roughly the same amount of time it took for the first stack. She may have had a lot of willpower, but she simply had to throw in the towel at this point. She collapsed onto her bottom and leaned against the wall, breathing loudly, exhausted by the work.

Kevin noticed the change in noises, and the fact it was well past the time he was expecting her to take with the file sorting, so he turned around to face her yet again. To his surprise, she was sitting down with a very disturbing look on her face.

"Good Chairman! What did you do, Miss Wendy?" Kevin asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

Wendy just looked at him and shook her head, clearly losing her willpower. This was bad news for Kevin. Not only was his efficiency gone, but now his unofficial employee looked like she was about to pass out. He recognized what this was. Despite his lack of a combat record, he did still know the basics of Toons and Cogs. If a Toon was hit with too many business attacks, they would go sad. She must have gone sad thanks to hours of this kind of work.

Kevin had to think fast. A depressed Toon was a useless Toon in his mind, and he needed to regain his advantage again. What did Toons do to perk up?

He did not have the slightest clue to what Toons needed. Well, they needed gags, but did that make them happy or was it just used to destroy fellow Cogs? Either way, he didn't have gags. Then a thought occurred to him to try and solve this problem.

He grabbed the phone from his desk and dialed a number. He really wished they would put some research into something more advanced than rotary phones and email accounts. Those thoughts would have to wait as the receiver answered.

"Hello, you've reached an official medical officer of Building 11D's medical department, what repairs do you or a colleague require?" The voice greeted unenthusiastically.

"Yes, hello sir, I need to ask that you come to my office at once. It's an unusual repair request," Kevin insisted.

"Oh. Of course, not like I have anything else to do like handle anyone else's calls in case they need me," The voice complained at Kevin, but the Legal Eagle wasn't having it.

"Yes, well I do need you now. Tell me, how knowledgeable are you about Toons?" Kevin snapped; rather annoyed by the laziness.

"Toons? Very knowledgeable of course. What gag were you or someone else hit-" The Cog began to ask, but Kevin cut in.

"Yes, yes, great. How do they heal?" Kevin asked quickly; rechecking on Wendy, who was still sitting there leaning to her left about to fall on her side on top of the cabinets.

"How do they...heal? Why do you need to know something like that?" The Cog asked; suddenly more engaged in the conversation due to the very unusual question.

"Just answer it, or I'll see you in court for failure to do your job leading into the...uh..." Kevin stuttered, looking over at Wendy's limping body, unsure of how to describe her situation, "Permanent...loss of function of the victim."

The medical officer seemed unconvinced by his threat, but he yielded to Kevin.

"Right...okay. Well, let me see here then," The Cog on the other end of the line said awkwardly.

Soon pages could be heard turning on the other end of the line, and Kevin hoped that finally they would get somewhere with this. Many things about Cog life were efficient, but hold times on the phone wasn't one of them.

"Alright sir, I found it," The other Cog finally told him, "So, Toons heal through things that cause joy and/or laughter. Too much of the same thing can dull a Toon's 'happiness', leading to sadness. What does this information matter to you anyw-"

'Perfect. Thanks. Oh, but next time, drop the laziness and the attitude. If I didn't have such a serious matter on my hands, I would have reported you to the HR," Kevin threatened again, but the Cog just shrugged it off after confirming that his job was done and hung up.

Once he put down the phone, Kevin moved back over to Wendy, who still had not moved, to analyze her. There had to be a way to get her back to normal. The lazy Cog had said Toons can go sad if they did too much of the same thing that wasn't entertaining, so perhaps she needed a new task. Or did she need something to laugh at or be entertained by first to get back up and then get a new task?

He thought hard, trying to figure out how to pull her back up from sadness. It felt incredibly weird for him to try to heal a Toon rather than sadden one, but this one was his worker now and he wasn't going down for a worker dispute claim. The amount of paperwork on that alone was ridiculous.

Wait, that was it! The idea had shot into Kevin's mind and he decided it was worth a try.

Carefully, Kevin picked up the tiny mouse and placed her on his precious table; rolling her head to face him. Then he found a blank piece of paper and placed it between them. He then grabbed 2 pens, placing one in her gloved hand.

"Okay. You win this one because of what happened, so pay attention," The Legal Eagle instructed as he placed his pen at the top of the paper, "This is your first crash course in cursive writing, okay?"

Wendy didn't move or respond, but Kevin continued anyway.

"The big thing with cursive is that every word's letters are connected. They never separate, but the words do. Like this," he instructed.

He then wrote out the words 'Hello there' in a beautiful and perfect style.

The Toon flinched and her hand reflexively closed around the pen. Was this actually working? Kevin certainly hoped so. With this encouraging sign from his employee he pressed on with his task.

"Alright, so now I'll show you how to write each letter with and without capitalization. Just copy me as best as you can, alright Miss Jinxsprinkles?" He asked while eyeing her to see if this was helping.

Sure enough, she dragged her hand over to the paper; looking down at it preparing to copy him. Encouraged that he could avoid the courts and the lawsuit, he set out to show her the basics of cursive, all the while she gained more color and motion back into her body; her smile growing.

At last, after several hours, the little mouse was all back to normal as far as the Cog could tell. At first, he was satisfied, but then the clock dinged and reminded him that he was going to have to head home in an hour due to Union regulations and he had already lost several hours helping Wendy recover.

At least she seemed to be a quick learner, as she was able to write each pair of letters without a prompt by the end and she was healed as well. A double win in his mind.

"Thank you for teaching me, sir. Maybe someday I can write as well as you," Wendy said eagerly as Kevin got up and helped her back onto the floor.

"Yes, maybe. For now, take a few days just to ensure you are fully healed. I will research some more about your Toony ways, so we do not repeat this little episode. I don't have the time to do this more than once," He explained without emotion as he headed for the door.

Wendy was about to follow, but then a major problem she meant to bring up shoved it's way into her thoughts.

"Wait! Wait! There is something important I need to talk to you about. It's a big deal, please can we have another minute?"

"Oh? Important you say? Go ahead then," He replied as he crossed his arms.

"I...sort of need a way to be paid. In jellybeans. Do you think you can do that?" She shyly inquired, not sure how he would react.

"I have to pay you...in jellybeans? Are you serious, Miss Jinxsprinkles?" He slowly asked, almost stunned by what she just requested.

"You see, my mother wouldn't let me come here unless I had a real reason, so I may have told her that it was a paid assistant job in one of the shop owner's stores," she continued explaining, really hoping he would understand.

She was in luck this go around, as Kevin knew she needed to be paid for her time. Cogbucks were actually valuable, so to pay her in that way was not ideal. Kevin would rather keep his money, thank you very much. However, how was he supposed to get jellybeans for her? Luckily an idea came to him.

"Well...I have to pay you somehow, and if you can't accept cogbucks I suppose I can cash in a favor or two, if you'll excuse the pun," Kevin hesitantly told her.

Kevin then rifled through his top drawer and pulled out a rectangular piece of paper. Wendy recognized it from her father's battle stories. It was a business card. Oh, great Goofy! Was he going to sadden her after all? Did she upset him by slacking off? Was her request too much? Wendy flinched, knowing she was powerless against the final blow.

"Here, it's a business card. Head over to the Cashbot HQ to meet this Cog. I'll ask him to meet you outside so you two can talk. Now get go-"

Before he could even finish, Wendy hugged his leg tightly in glee.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're so sweet!" Wendy exclaimed, overjoyed that he was willing to help her rather than attack her.

"Yes, yes, get going. You've got quite the walk ahead of you," Kevin flustered, a bit unsure of how to handle this expression she's posed to him.

"Okay, okay, okay. Just...thank you. This is my dream!" Wendy shouted joyfully before rushing out the door; leaving Kevin staring blankly at where she had been standing.

"Hmm. What an odd Toon, putting in so much effort just to work for a lawyer," Kevin snorted.

However, as he walked back to his desk, he wasn't too upset about the loss of time. Perhaps she was more useful than he thought. After that thought came through, he smiled ever so slightly as he sat down to make up what time he could before the clock struck 8:00 PM.

Once Wendy had gotten back into the courtyard she set off for the tunnel to the awaiting cold, snow, and wind powerful enough to blow her away. She was already incredibly tired, especially after she almost went completely sad, but she needed to return with some jellybeans back home or Mother would never let her go out again. So, she braved the cold, which was even worse now that the sun was almost completely gone.

The wind whipped her all around as she navigated back to the playground. She was actually beginning to feel frostbite thanks to the temperatures in her legs, arms, and feet which were throbbing in icy pain. Her hands were only slightly better as the gloves didn't do a terrific job keeping them warm.

She then passed the building she had fled for warmth that morning, but it seemed the street had no activity all day as the doors were still wide open with the interior filled with plenty of snow several inches thick now. It disappointed her slightly that no Cogs had taken the opportunity to take it over, but she assumed the weather was rather bad today, so both sides had avoided The Brrrgh today.

Sure enough, when she finally did get into the playground, it was entirely abandoned. This made her relax some as she really didn't want anyone to see her here by herself at this hour halfway to becoming a chunk of ice. That reminded her of Frank. Was he okay after last night? She did miss him some, but she also hoped that he hadn't come back to her home to see if she was there.

She shook her head as she headed down the street that connected into Melodyland. It was the shortest route to Dreamland which the Cashbot HQ was connected directly to. She had no time to further ponder Frank's situation. She needed to get home at a reasonable hour so she wouldn't be yelled at.

After yet another street of battling the cold, she arrived at the dividing tunnel and quickly ran through it. On the other side, she couldn't help but give a long sigh of relief as the weather was far better. The warmth was quickly working its magic, beginning to defrost her. Every minute she gained back more strength.

Despite how tired she was, she felt far better here than before, so her tiredness mostly faded out of her mind as she began sprinting. It had taken probably an hour to get here since the sun was totally gone now. She still had to get to the HQ and then head back all the way to Toontown Central just to go to bed.

Any plans for a quick trip were soon ripped away by some extremely irritating noise. She covered her ears as best as she could while looking for the source, until she found a fire hydrant banging its 'hands' together making an infernal racket. She went over to the offending hydrant and then smacked it on the back of its 'head'. It stopped and turned around to face her as she crossed her arms.

"Hey, some of us are sensitive to sound. Maybe don't be so rude next time," Wendy scolded.

Rather than listen to Wendy however, the fire hydrant merely shook its 'head' and continued as if it had never been interrupted. Irritated, Wendy ran off down the street to escape the noise, only to find that there were so many of those noise makers in the forms of mailboxes, hydrants, and record player shaped trash cans dancing, clanging, and smashing metal to metal in various ways, or playing very disorganized bits of music. Melodyland was apparently an ironic name, since there was no melody or organization of any kind to be found.

"Freezing or going deaf...which do I want more?" Wendy grumbled under her breath as she made a mad dash for the tunnel.

Once she was in sight of her destination, she ran through the tunnel as fast as she could into that musically themed playground and fell to her knees as soon as she stopped. She was completely spent on energy as she gasped for air.

Sadly, for her, this playground was not quite so empty, and several Toons came to aid her.

"Hey! What are you doing here all by yourself, little one? You need to go back to Toontown Central honey, it's too dangerous out here," A short female monkey spoke to her.

"Ya, what made you wander all the way up here? Some Cogs can depress you in a simple hit here," A tall male dog chimed in.

"Let's help her get back home. Poor thing looks like she can barely walk," Added a female cat who was just as tall as the dog.

This was too embarrassing for her. She needed to get away from these interlopers and fast. She got onto her feet and looked up at the three, trying her best to keep her composure.

"No, thank you. I am fine. I'm just meeting my brother in Dreamland. That's all," Wendy lied as convincingly as she could.

"Now, now, why would he make you go all the way to Dreamland by yourself to meet him, honey? It's so dangerous to go alone at your age and skill," The monkey cooed, looking concerned for her.

"I can make it. Thank you though," Wendy said firmly and began to walk towards the tunnel towards Dreamland, but the dog held his hand in front of her.

"Well, you seem sure of yourself. But seriously, sweetie, you look exhausted. Perhaps we can help you get there instead?" The cat kindly prodded.

Wendy sighed and decided a rest would be great.

"Could you carry me?" She whimpered; putting on her sweet voice.

"Why of course, darling. Are we ready, gang?" The cat asked while looking at the other two Toons; who both nod eagerly.

So, without further adieu, the cat picked up Wendy and cradled the tiny worn out mouse in her arms.

Wendy let her body relax and her arms dangle freely as the four walked to Dreamland. Wendy seriously hoped they wouldn't get into any battles, or else she would be in serious trouble. However, the three seemed to be truthful in wanting to help her so she closed her eyes for just a moment to try to snag any sort of energy she could recover. It was just a minute or two, after all.

"Okay honey, wake up now. We are here," The monkey gently nudged the mouse with her arm.

Well, it felt like only a minute or two to Wendy. She slowly came to her senses and stretched out her stiff joints; yawning for a solid 5 seconds before being helped onto her feet.

"Thank you guys, I really appreciate it," Wendy said as she looked around Dreamland. Unfortunately, it was completely empty and the other three seemed to have noticed.

"So, where is your brother?" The dog asked curiously; growing a bit concerned.

"Oh, you know...must be late. Us Toons never know what time it is right?" Wendy nervously laughed.

She had to figure out a new story to keep these Toons from becoming suspicious of her. If anyone found out she worked for a Cog, she'd probably end up in jail or worse...school. After what felt like forever but was only a moment, Wendy came up with something.

"Maybe he's by the Pet Shop. He's been wanting a new pet for a while, so perhaps he's inside. Let's check!" She exclaimed, acting excited to see him.

The three Toons nodded and all walked across the playground over to the Pet Shop. Luckily, all three went through the door before her and as soon as they were inside, she made a run for it into the tunnel next to the shop that went into the Cashbot HQ. She ran as fast as she could to put as much distance as possible between herself and those older Toons.

She soon spotted a shortcut and dashed through it, but two deer were walking down the alleyway with their backs turned to her; one brown and one blue. She didn't want to be rude, but she really needed to run past them to get home before the sun came up at the estates. So, she scrambled between the blue one's legs; nearly making the deer lose balance.

"Hey, watch it! Trying to converse here!" The deer shouted at her.

Wendy didn't even bother to stop. After all, she would likely never see that deer again, but she did feel guilty about doing that to her and not even apologizing. Oh well, the last tunnel was up ahead.

It was a simple plan. Just find the Cog, get her beans, then go home and sleep for a year. Well maybe not that long, she still needed to work with that Legal Eagle and do any leftover household chores when she got home.

She raced through the tunnel, and immediately was bombarded with more noises. However, this was grinding gears, engines rumbling, and loud horns. She moved toward another flight of stairs and into an utterly massive room with a glass ceiling.

Huge trains taller than even the tallest Cog buildings flew by at speeds faster than any of the three race cars one could buy in Raceway Ridge. There were 4 rails of them, and every now and then they would stop randomly for what had to be no more than 5 or 6 seconds before taking off again. Very high level Cogs patrolled and roamed around the massive facility, and there were 2 huge doors at the end of the lobby. Several towers rose high above everything but could only be seen through the glass room.

So, this was it. This was the Cashbot HQ.