Chapter 8: Resilience Can Be Remembered

"You know I can carry that for you," Jesse said.

He watched her wordlessly shake her head, wrestling with the giant sack of dogfood that was twice her size.

"No... worries..." she grunted through gritted teeth. "I'mma…. strong…. independent," she huffed, "...bunny!"

He chose not to comment. Before buying pet supplies for Jacques, Rhoda had insisted on disguising herself as an anthropomorphic dog. By folding her ears like one.

Her feet and tail were still a dead giveaway. But he didn't chose to comment on those either.

It was a given fact that Rhoda would act strange. But ever since she had told him about Jared, he now understood why Rhoda was acting stranger.

Music caught his ear and he turned.

"When you wish upon a star..."

Rhoda yelped, plugging her ears. The sack of dogfood crashed on the ground, forgotten. The phonograph on the nearby antique shop continued to play.

"Makes no difference who you are…"

Jesse could practically see her quake as she squeezed her eyes shut. The other toons were beginning to stop and stare. He reached for the phongraph's stylus and lifted it away from the playing record.

The song halted into a stop. Rhoda cracked one eye open, her chest heaving.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Rhoda looked around. Painfully, she glanced at him, almost as if she didn't want to. When their eyes met, Jesse could see why.

Her whole face was still breaking into a cry. She grabbed the sack of dogfood and through sheer will alone, dragged it into a quiet, abandoned alley.

Jesse strode after her. He saw her slump against the building's wall as soon as he neared her.

"Rhoda?"

"I'm so sorry," she muttered, her hands over her eyes. Jesse crouched down in concern when he could still hear her breathing, deep and rapid. "Just..." she swallowed with difficulty, trying to curb her own hyperventilation. "... a moment," she gasped.

He took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Emptying the pet supplies out of its bag, he gave it to Rhoda.

She immediately breathed in and out inside the paper bag. Jesse rubbed her back, patiently waiting for her own respiration to even.

He had a gut feeling it had something to do again with her breakup.

After a while, she pulled back the paper bag, her chest rising quietly this time. Still not meeting his eyes, she silently stood up and dusted herself.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Jesse said as Rhoda handed him back his jacket, her eyes on the ground.

Her rabbit ears feebly tried to fold itself back to its dog-eared disguise. "I'm sorry you have to see that. I... I shouldn't have reacted that way."

He frowned in confusion. It was something else that he had noticed about her when they met again after a long time. She was always apologizing.

Jesse began to place their bought pet supplies back to its paper bag. Rhoda knelt down to help him.

"It's just that… it used to be our song," she sighed, rubbing her face.

Jesse only nodded. It made sense. At least for him. Looking it in a rabbit-humanoid toon relationship, the song could mean that anyone can find love no matter who they were.

Yet people have different compatibilities. Which would explain why Rhoda had told him before that she couldn't give Jared the love that he needed. It simply didn't work out.

Jesse wasn't surprised. Jared and Rhoda were complete opposites. She was simple and direct. While Jared… Jesse always had the feeling Jared had something to do with the rumors surrounding him. Every time Jared would work in a gig where Jesse was working in, people would start treating him with suspicion.

He stood up and raised an amused brow when Rhoda dusted the knees of his pants. "What're you doing?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "I'm sorry you got dirty because of me."

"Like I said, I don't mind getting dirty if it's with you," he wryly replied .

Rhoda laugh-groaned, shoving him away. He let his smile widen a little bit more, remembering how she was always the one who would make him laugh.

Someone hurriedly passed by their alley, not seeing them.

"Wait, is that Edna?"

He immediately scowled upon seeing the detective's silhouette. No good could come from that woman.

Rhoda quickly walked out of the alley to take a better look. Jesse followed.

Humans rarely visit ToonTown. Despite Ms. Valiant hunched in her popped up collar, her form stuck out among the ink and paint.

He could see Rhoda about to call her. Then she froze, her ears swivelling behind them.

Jesse was too shocked to cry out when Rhoda suddenly seized him back into the alley. His back slammed against the brick wall and Rhoda leaned back beside him. She held her arm out in front of him, preventing him from taking a step forward. Oblivious to his surprise, her eyes furtively peeked behind the wall.

"Rhoda," he gasped, his heart drumming. "What-"

"Shhh!" she hushed, a finger on her lips.

A heartbeat. Then shadows loomed outside the alley. A large human woman in a pantsuit stalked past them, accompanied by a menacing bunch of toons.

"-bury her. Lock her up. I don't care. As long as she won't sing no more," the woman said.

"Got it boss."

Rhoda put a hand on her mouth, muffling her dismay. A bottle dropped out of one of the henchtoon's pockets as he took out a gun.

They waited for a few moments after they were out of sight. Jesse frowned. He may not like the nosy detective, but they needed to call the cops.

"I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?" Rhoda asked as soon as they were gone.

He shook his head, his own shock forgotten.

She scurried out of the alley and inspected the dropped bottle. "No," she muttered in disbelief. "It's even larger!"

Her eyes followed the path that Edna and the gang had headed to. "I thought we had that shut down!" she whispered worriedly.

"What?"

She kneaded her forehead worriedly. "Back in those times, Edna and I-" She shook her head fiercely. "Never mind. You need to call the police!"

"Me?" Jesse asked, getting more puzzled by the second. "What about you?"

Rhoda jerked out her thumb. A yellow cab zoomed into view, screeching into a halt beside them.

"Hiya, Rhoda! You rang?" the cab asked.

Rhoda pushed Jesse into the driver's seat. "Find the cops. Tell them there's bootlegging in the old warehouse on 21st Lump street."

"Ms. Cab here can do that," he said, getting an inkling of what Rhoda was planning to do.

She slapped the bottle on his hands before dumping the sack of dogfood in the passenger seat. "Brenda doesn't have hands. You do."

"But-"

Rhoda gave him a grin that was more like her old self. She held her head high as she pumped her fist.

"Don't worry, Jesse. Edna and I have done this a-plenty!"

Jesse could do nothing as Brenda sped off. He turned back, watching Rhoda ran to the direction where Edna and her pursuers went.

He opened his palm and looked at the label of the bottle. It was actual glass, not the toony kind. A large letter "T" decorate its paper with crossbones behind it. Below the image was an inscribed name.

"Toon tonic?" he read aloud in wonder.

XOXOXOXOXO

She was a goner.

Rhoda tugged the bowtie around her collar. She must've had a death wish to follow dangerous toons when her own tooning was out of whack.

She shook her head. Edna needs me, she thought.

The last time she had tried sneaking with Edna, they ended up being chased by five hundred and fifty-one goons. She couldn't tell who would strangle her first: Edna or them.

She thought for a moment before her eyes brightened with Rhoda logic. With my tooning gone haywire, maybe I got the upperhand.

She pasted herself against the wall, craning her neck a little as they walk a little further.

They had stopped before the warehouse. Grinning to themselves, they quietly entered inside.

Her teeth worriedly bit her lip. Having stopped a heist in the old warehouse before, she knew another entry.

She made a left turn around the warehouse until she saw the air vent. Hopping from one stack of crates to another, she leapt for the vent and scrambled inside.

Edna is going to be proud of my stealth, she happily thought as crates tumbled and crashed.

She half-crawled and half-pulled herself inside. Being toony meant she could squeeze inside tight spaces. But with her tooning being erratic…

I don't need elbow room, she thought as she wriggled and squirmed. I need tushie room.

Her ears cocked at the voices outside the vent and she crept towards its grills.

"-and when I figured out who was the prime suspect, he disappeared," Edna said, surrounded by the henchtoons. "What did you do to him, DeGreasy?" she glared at the other human.

"Mah sister's a great businesswoman. If he got the short end of the stick, that's his problem."

"You just complicated things," she growled, backing away when the henchtoons inched closer, "Instead of letting the law handle him."

"Ain't that you?" the DeGreasy woman said back. "Y'shoudn't've stuck yer nose to nobody's biz."

The henchtoon with the gun raised his weapon.

In an impulse, Rhoda thumped the grills open. It fell, and so did she.

"Aaaugh!" she screamed, conveniently remembering she wasn't going to bounce off a fall.

Luckily, she landed on a stack of cardboard boxes. Everyone turned as dust exploded from the impact.

"Stop right there!" she cried, making a quick check for any injuries.

"Rhoda?" Edna asked in disbelief.

"The other DeGreasy sister was killed because of a bad deal on Toon Tonics," Rhoda said, all eyes on her. "Now that you've inherited the company, you want to have all the Toon Tonics to yourself!" she declared, pointing at the DeGreasy woman. "Because it's cheaper to turn your anthropomorph actors into humanoid toons instead of hiring actual ones."

She jabbed her finger at DeGreasy. "But Toon Tonics are illegal profiting from unused Disney magic so you're trying to cover your own tracks!"

"Someone else knows!" the shortest henchtoon snarled.

Rhoda paused. "Wait, I'm actually right?" she asked in awe.

Their boss pointed at her. "Get her! She knows too much!"

Rhoda stepped back when three of the henchtoons stalked towards her. "Actually, I didn't even go to college," she laughed sheepishly.

With a yell, the three henchtoons lunged forward.

She screamed, fur fluffing like an overgrown cat. Rhoda ran.

DeGreasy and her other henchtoon turned back to Edna. Only to find her gone.

"Gawdamnit, where did she go?" she growled before a pair of feet acrobatically swung towards her back.

XOXOXOXOXO

DeGreasy and her gang misdirected, Rhoda now faced the trouble of shaking off her tail.

Jeepers, I do NOT have the upperhand!

She glanced behind her. One was a toony humanoid with a gun. The other was a burly anthropomorphic bull. The last one was the shortest one.

"Eat slugs, rabbit!" the henchtoon said, pointing the gun at her.

BANG!

Rhoda ducked. Then she jolted, still running. Something wet, cold and slimy slid down her back. She made a grab at it.

"Eew," she grimaced at the slug on her hand. "No offense," she hurriedly said at the slug's despondent look.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The toon with the gun laughed in frenzy. Rhoda cringed, feeling slugs and slime all over herself.

Her ears perked against the goo at seeing a door ahead with an open mail slot. Until she remembered she couldn't toon enough to fit through it.

She sharply made a U-turn. The henchtoons stopped in surprise. Using the slug slime running down her legs, she slid between the gunman's legs and past them.

There was a thud when the toon bent over and accidentally slipped head over heels. His landed on his head and the other two henchtoons continued the chase.

"Come back here!" the shortest henchtoon said, skidding and sliding after her.

In an effort to lose them, she went into the maze of crates and shelves, letting her feet take her to where they may.

Left. Right. Another right. Center. Go into the restroom. Free the slugs into the sink. Get out of the restroom. Left. Ri- center. Under the table. Over the shelf.

Was she still leaving a trail of slime?

She didn't know where she was running. All she wanted was a way to get away.

"Check out these guns, baby!" the burly bull grinned, abruptly appearing right in front of her.

She screamed in surprise as he raised a fist.

"Gotcha!" the short henchtoon said, hugging her tight from behind with her arms locked on her sides.

Still slimey from the slugs, she slipped out from under the small henchtoon's grasp.

Wooden crate shards flew everywhere as the bull's fist rammed right into the other henchtoon.

Cornered, she stepped back when the bull rounded on her, smirking. Flexing his arms, he kissed the air with a wink.

Rhoda wrinkled her nose, caught the flying kiss and threw it on the ground. She stamped on it before putting her hands on her hips.

"Does your mother know you act that way?" she sternly asked.

The bull swung his fist again. "Nope!"

Rhoda yelled, ducking from the force of broken shelves. Something slippery and squishy crawled down her palm. She glanced down to see a slug in her grasp.

"Time to say goodnight, baby!" the bull said, throwing another hit.

Without thinking, Rhoda threw the slug to his face.

Without thinking either, the bull punched where the slug had landed.

She flinched at the colliding "POW!" of his knuckles.

A beat after the aftershock, she furtively glanced at him.

He groaned, twirling in ballet. Stars and swirls orbited his head.

"'Kay, goodnight," he mumbled before crashing on the ground.

"No!" Rhoda cried, rushing to his side. She knelt down on the unconscious bull, scooping the slug off his face. "Are you alright?" she asked the slug.

The slug's stalks merrily waved. She recognized it as the first slug that was shot at her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, hugging the slug close to her. "I thought I got every slug into the sink."

She stood up and walked away from the rubble. The slug shook its head.

"You stayed back to help me?"

The slug nodded on her palm.

"Thank you!" she gratefully smiled. For a moment, she wondered if the Disney Princes were rubbing off on her. Nevertheless, she went back to the restroom to finally get the slug its hard-earned water.

XOXOXOXOXO

Meanwhile, Edna finished tying up Ms. DeGreasy and her henchtoon with a toon-proof rope.

"The police are gonna pick up the garbage soon," she promised.

She ran to where Rhoda and the others went off too. It's been a while since we've done this again.

Fifteen years ago, she had sworn off from helping toons ever again. Even after she found closure on who was the killer of her sister and detective partner, Thelma.

After all, it didn't change the fact that toons were dangerous and couldn't be trusted.

Till a rabbit came bursting into her office, begging for her help for Maroon Studios. The silly hare was under the illusion that Edna was back in business with helping toons.

Rhoda stuck on her like a stray cat that sneakily became part of the household. Before she knew it, Edna was back again to helping them.

"Everyone knows that when a toon's in trouble, there's only one place to go -Valiant!" Rhoda would proudly say. Then she would perk into that earnest grin that unwittingly spoke of endearing side characters that die in the movies. "Besides, I want to make people smile."

Edna shook her head, turning her head away even if no one could see the upturn of her mouth.

Habits are hard to break. Because even when Rhoda stopped coming with her, Edna still found herself solving cases involving toons.

Rhoda said her boyfriend wanted her safe and sound, which was why she had to stop.

Edna's lips pressed into a hard line. That would've been more believable if Rhoda didn't sound like a dried, hollow bone. Yet it was all for the best. Thelma would always be her partner and Rhoda was a tag-along. In a helpfully disastrous way.

She skidded and almost fell from a trail of slime. An unconscious henchtoon was draped in the most uncomfortable position.

Edna kicked away his slippery gun.

"Toons," she muttered.

XOXOXOXOXO

Police sirens could be heard as Rhoda went out of the ladies' restroom. She breathed a sigh of relief, her head thumping against a shelf.

Above her, a bottle toppled. She looked up wondering what it was.

The bottle fell, it's opening plunging straight into Rhoda's slack mouth. Her eyes widened at the invasion of its contents. The oily taste of sweat of slaving artists ran down her throat like salt and nails.

Yet in her shock, her throat gulped reflexively.

XOXOXOXOXO

Brenda screeched into a halt before the warehouse, the police cars behind them. Jesse climbed out, worrying where Rhoda might be.

Everyone shielded their eyes when a brilliant light flashed through every crevice of the warehouse.

There was silence as they all blinked back into their senses.

"Someone drank Toon Tonic!" one of the police toons yelled.

He didn't know what the police was talking about. He didn't care.

Not when he could hear a long, horrified scream that frightened him worse than he could ever imagine.

"Rhoda!"

Author's Notes: Sorry guys, but this will be the only chapter for this week. Good news though, I got into a great job :D

I remember some people asking for a "Going Human" version for Rhoda Rabbit. Welp, this is as close as it could get.