Animaniacs is owned by Warner Bros. I don't claim any of them as mine, same as with any other franchise I use in here, they're not mine either.
The next morning, 6:30 AM
Bradley was woken up extra early by knocking on the water tower door, sitting up and shaking his head and rubbing his bedhead. He groans a little as the knocking continued constantly, getting out of bed and opening the door. "What, what is it?" He said a bit grumpily.
His mother was at the door this time, hands on her hips. "Now is that any way to talk to me?"
Bradley recognized her and rubs his eyes, shaking his head. "Sorry, just not used to being up this early." He said in a sleepy tone.
"But you're used to staying up til 2 in the morning by now." Mom said in response.
Bradley thought a little about it, but nods. "Got me there... Anyways, what're ya doing here?" He asked after looking back at the still sleeping Warners. Rick and Stan were likely still asleep at the admin building.
"Well I wanted to come check on you first, but I heard that CEO bring me over to tell you to go to him. Sounds pretty important and he wouldn't tell me what." Mom explained.
"Right, sorry. I'll head there right now." Bradley said with a nod and little smile, heading to the ladder and starting to slide down, but was stopped by Mom's voice again.
"Hold on. You're not hiding anything from me, are you? Remember the last time you tried hiding something big from me?" Mom said with crossed arms.
"You're never gonna let that bit go, huh?" Bradley said with a shake of his head and a snicker.
"Well I didn't say it was totally bad. But please promise you'll tell me what you're working on soon, okay?" Mom said, almost pleadingly. She looked genuinely concerned, knowing Bradley's habit of secret-keeping.
"Well how about you come with me then? I'm sure Plotz'll understand." Bradley offered with a little smile.
Mom thought about it a moment, then nods. "Sure, sounds good to me."
"And we can come too!" The Warners said suddenly, popping out behind Mom before hopping down to the ground, landing effortlessly.
"Come on, the ground's fine!" Wakko said as he waved the two humans down. None of them looked tired in the slightest, like they've been awake the whole time.
Bradley and Mom looked at each other, the teen raising his eyebrow. "Toon logic?" Mom said.
"I know not to question that by now." Bradley said with another laugh, sliding down the ladder with Mom following closely, heading over to the admin building together.
At the admin building
When the five of them walked in, they saw Rick and Stan asleep in makeshift beds and blankets, which was for the best despite them having to go back to the human world soon before their own parents got worried. The Warners were about to scare them awake cause they thought everyone should be by now, but Bradley stopped them so that they wouldn't make a scene, at least for now.
"Ah, there you are!" Plotz said, then noticed Bradley's mom. He was about to say something, but the human teen spoke up before that happened.
"I thought she deserved to know what was going on too. So do my friends back there." Bradley said in regards to the sleeping humans, the Warners about to don scary masks and scare them like what "Courage the Cowardly Dog" do, but put them away and smiled immediately after, having halos on their heads.
Plotz scowled a little, but understood. "Fine, fine. Regardless, that clothing you brought in had some interesting stuff to show. Come on over." the CEO said, waving the humans over before turning to see the Warners laying on his desk with smiles, making Plotz jump in surprise. "Get down from there!"
"You'd think someone would come up with 'get up from there' by now too." Yakko said to his siblings before Bradley called them back over. The Warners got off of the desk and hopped over to him.
"Well they haven't lost their charm, haven't they?" Bradley's mom said.
"Nope, got mine here!" Wakko said as he got a horseshoe out from his sweater.
"Guuuh... After so long, they haven't tired of doing that..." Plotz mumbled to himself. "Must I keep enduring this forever?"
"What? Speak up, we need a quote for our podcast!" Dot said as she held up a megaphone, shoving it into Plotz's mouth.
"I SAID STOP IT!" Plotz shouted into the megaphone, making Rick and Stan jolt awake as well. Stan ended up falling onto the floor, shaking his head and groaning.
Bradley groaned and winced from the noise as well, having covered his ears. "Jeez... Alright, let the man talk before we wake up half the lot." The human said to the Warners, bringing them back to his side. "What did you want to talk about?"
"That piece of suit your friends brought back?" Plotz started. "Turns out, it's not made of your human cloth."
Rick and Stan got up and walked over, rubbing their heads from that loud noise before. "I really don't want that as my alarm clock..." Stan groaned while the others talked.
Bradley was too focused on what Plotz was talking about. "Really? What's it made of then?" The human teen asked.
"Well, look at the piece." The CEO said. Bradley looked down at it and saw... almost nothing. Nothing but an ink blot, which had the same dark-blue color as the suit.
"Wait, you mean this stuff's made of ink? Just like every other toon here?" Bradley said with a bit of surprise.
Plotz nodded in response. "Convincing, isn't it? At least until a bit of paint thinner gets splashed on it."
The Warners got a closer look as well. "Hmm, a little, but it ain't no Comic-Con quality." Yakko said upon examining it too.
"So basically every suit guy is a toon or something?" Bradley guessed, with shrugs from the others in response. "Toons kidnapping other toons, something's off about that." He added as he crossed his arms.
"That's not to say the leader is either a toon too or a human." Plotz explained. "But the town's getting panicked and are thinking the humans are doing it.
"Well they ARE pretty convincing, probably wearing masks too." Rick assumed.
"Panicked? How bad is it?" Bradley wondered.
"TV time!" Wakko said happily, swiping the remote from Plotz who was about to turn the television on too. It tuned to a news channel that was showing some "breaking news".
"As more and more toon-nappings are happening, less and less humans having been visiting due to other toons not being able to trust the humans anymore, and as such aren't letting many in anymore." Said a dog toon holding a microphone. "As the town continues getting emptier with nothing getting closer to the ringleader of the whole thing, panic continues to grow despite the toon-nappings having slowed down."
Soon the TV changed to static. "I don't like that channel." Wakko admitted.
"Turn it back!" Plotz said urgently and loudly, with Bradley swiping the remote away and doing changing the channel back. There was nothing else new after that.
"Little bleak, don't you think?" Rick said. "We did get something new."
"Yeah, but nothing closer to who's behind this." Bradley said.
The Warners all donned trenchcoats, looking through some notepads. "Ahh, the mystery deepens, my friends." Yakko said in a French accent. "The clues, they lead everywhere, but not to who we really want."
"Well hopefully we can at least find where they are." Bradley said with a soft sigh.
At an unknown place
"That'll be all." Said a slightly low male voice after getting an explanation from one of the suits, soon leaving. The creature was thinking something over, leaving the room he was in and walking down a hall. As he walked, he dripped ink on the floor, leaving a trail of droplets as he looked into some of the rooms. some had other suits on break, some had the caged toons from before.
"Hm..." He hummed to himself, thinking some more as he entered another room, looking out a window towards Toontown. Soon a suit came in, knocking on the door which made the creature jump a little, then sigh. "Don't do that."
"Sorry sir." The suit said, almost about to leave.
"Listen..." He mumbled, loud enough for the suit to listen and not move.
"Yes?" The suit said curiously.
"All these toons we're taking... Do you think they'll remember them as time goes by?" He asked softly. "Do you think that they'll still be engrained in their memories? Their looks, names, jokes? Shows even?"
"I don't know, sir." The suit said.
"No one does, don't be ashamed." The creature said, placing a hand on the window. "It's times like these where I... Question whether or not this is the right way to prove that point." He said, pulling his hand away from the window, leaving an inky handprint. "It's been a very long time, I'm honestly glad you all are here to keep me company. It gets very lonely after all." He added, slowly turning around and walking over to the suit.
"Tell me..." The creature said, looking at the suit with his face half-revealed in the light, the hair on his head resembling horns a little too. "Would you remember this face?"
The suit nodded. "I would, sir."
The inky toon cracks a light, toothy smile. "Thank you. That's all I need to hear." He said, straightening his bow-tie before passing by the suit and leaving the room, but stopping a second later. "I wish I could've heard those words years ago." He added. "Regardless, hold off on capturing more toons, the more they panic, the harder for us to do our job and to play our little games with who we have."
"Yes sir." The suit said with another nod.
The creature nodded, heading back down the hall, glancing at the toons in the cages.
"Who even are you?" One of them said, making him stop in his tracks, turning his head to meet the captured toon's gaze.
He cracks another toothy grin, face half-hidden once more in the light. "That's what they all ask. You all lost your chance to know me years ago." He said before walking away with a little laugh.
Back at the admin building
"So is there nothing else to go by?" Bradley asked. "Nothing else found or something like that?"
Stan shook his head. "Nope. Dang spray, why'd he have to take that out..." He grumbled.
Rick shook his head as well. "Yeah, that's all we found. I know it ain't much, but it's still something, right?"
"Agreed, it could've gone far worse. What would your parents think if they saw you like this?" Bradley's mom said to the other two humans with concern, even sounding a little upset. "Do they even know you're here?"
"They're friends with each other so my mom got his a ticket to see some concert with a band they missed seeing play." Stan said, pointing to Rick as he explained. "So they got a hotel and they'd be back around noon or so."
"Mm-hmm..." Bradley mumbled to himself. "So we can get you back home before they get back so they don't end up worrying."
"Unless it's like 'Home Alone' and they left ya by accident." Yakko said with a shrug.
"I really doubt they'd do that." Bradley said with crossed arms. "Anyways, if that's all, we really need to crack down on this..." He added with a soft mumbling tone to himself. They were getting pieces and bits, but this puzzle was still almost impossible to guess as to who is behind all of it.
"We'll handle that now that you brought us these new clues. I think the best thing to do is go back to your normal lives." Plotz said.
The Warners leaned in close to the CEO with smirks. "Nooooooormal you say?" Yakko said with a smug expression, the CEO grumbling and taking a step back. The Warners countered with a step towards him as well to cover the same distance.
Bradley was about to say something in response, but thought it seemed fair. He couldn't do everything on his own, he had to let the toons do their part too cause it involved them. So he nods with a soft smile. "Right, gotchya."
Rick and Stan sighed softly and nod too. "Yeah, I need a break, my head's still foggy from that." Stan mumbled.
"And we got a test to study for too." Rick added.
The toony siblings nearby groaned. "Do we gotta?" They said in unison.
"We can use our 'Get Out of Test Free' cards for this, right?" Wakko said as he brought out a deck of cards that say exactly that.
Bradley rolled his eyes and shook his head. "No, I don't think they'd take that."
"Oh you'd be surprised, you should've been here when Ms. Flamiel was still teaching us." Yakko said, leaning with an elbow on Bradley's side like he was a wall.
"She even gave them back so we can use them again, that's so nice of her." Wakko said with his goofy smile.
"You sure it's cause she didn't wanna see you three again?" Bradley wondered out loud.
"Hmm..." The three Warners hummed in unison. "Nah!"
One week later, 3 PM
While the toons were doing their work in their world, the humans went on with their own lives at school and such. Bradley had just left school with the Warners bouncing around him as Rick and Stan left after a little talk, walking down and realizing Mom wasn't there yet. A little odd to say the least, but he did remember her saying she had something to do in Toontown before so she'd be a little while, trusting him to walk back. He did see a familiar girl on the way down though, recognizing that it was Shannon, walking over to her. "Hey there!" He said with a bright tone.
"Oh, Bradley! Hey, how's things?" Shannon asked.
"Oh, umm... They're doing fine, just been watching over these three here." Bradley said as he points out the three Warners now standing on his head.
"Now who's over who?" Yakko said as they formed their tower on top of the human teen.
Shannon giggled lightly. "Good point. Did you wanna walk a little before we head home?" She offered.
Bradley thought a little, the Warners having hopped off his head and Yakko giving him a little nudge. "Oof! Well, sure!" He said a bit nervously.
"And we'll watch and see if this doesn't crash and burn!" Dot said eagerly.
"Don't worry, we'll give ya lots of tips to help not make this as awkward as 'the Wonder Years'!" Yakko said in an encouraging voice. Bradley knew they meant well, but he just hoped they wouldn't be too in the way. Especially after their chanting before about the whole "girlfriend" thing.
"Mm-hmm, sure..." Bradley said with a little snicker. "Anyways, let's go." He said as they started walking.
"So what's your story with these three?" Shannon asked as they walked down the sidewalk. "I don't think I heard you explain them before."
Yakko immediately inserted himself between them, arms around their sides and tugging them in extra close. "Well it's a very interesting story, with lots of twists, turns and exciting moments of discovery! Do you want that version or the Cliffnotes one instead?" The older toon asked, with Wakko hopping on Yakko's shoulders and holding up a folder with lots of papers in it.
"I..." Shannon started, thinking. "Maybe the short version first." She answered some seconds later.
Bradley smiled in understanding. "Alright then. It was about 3 years ago. Rick and Stan, my friends you see me with?" He started. Shannon nodded in response. "They used to be my bullies in elementary school."
"A poor, lost boy! Oh the humiliation!" Yakko feigned sadness at that part, posing and sniffling as he put on his show.
"The terrible torments he went through, t'was a shame to witness!" Dot added in a British accent, hand on her face in a fainting pose, adding to the spectacle while Wakko played a slow, sad tune on a violin he brought out.
Shannon snickered a little. "That bad huh?"
Bradley shook his head. "Well, not THAT bad, but it was a little, you know..." He trailed off a little, but soon resumed after shaking his head. "So they came up to me one day and told me they were daring me to find Toontown or else they'd prank me on the first day of school, cause I kept talking about it to them and they ended up spreading all those rumors that I was like some weirdo." He said as the five of them continued to walk down the sidewalk, not really sure where her house was if was to be honest.
"From the looks of things you did a good job in finding it then." Shannon said with a smirk.
"Ohhhhh, you have no idea." Yakko said. "You should've seen his face!"
Bradley nods in agreement. "Yeah, what followed was one of the best weeks I've ever had with these three, from visiting all over the town to even saving their lives. Yeah they were annoying, still are..." The human said, looking back at the Warners, smiling innocently.
"What can we say, we got paid for it." Dot said with a shrug.
"I know I'd enjoy myself at other peoples expense for a big stack of cash like any ol' toon." Yakko added. "Wakko spent all of his on Hershey bars and jawbreakers." Wakko responded with a little chuckle, popping a jawbreaker in his mouth. He chomped on it and ended up cracking the candy in half instead with a big crunching sound.
"Pfft, of course." Bradley said as he smiled and shook his head, resuming his talk with Shannon. "But they were my first friends, and I'm not sure I could ever let them go, you know?" He added, frowning a bit.
"So they're like part of your family, huh?" Shannon asked.
Yakko looked extra close to Bradley's face, humming. "Hmmmm... Nah, I can't see the resemblence." He concluded as he pulled away.
"Well, in an adopted way, you can say that." Bradley joked. "I don't see myself looking like them anytime soon. Except maybe for next Halloween." He added with a shrug, with the Warners snickering, then getting out notepads to make plans for that.
"Hm. Either way, you must be like some hotshot Toontown hero there from what you did there, huh?" Shannon asked.
"Heh, I still got the headlines taped on my side of the Water Tower." Bradley said with a little smile. "But you know, it didn't happen right away. It took a long time to make this a normal thing, having toons and humans in each others' worlds and stuff. They're still a little uneasy, especially with the sort of stuff that's been going on lately." He added with a frown again, that toonnapping business still in the back of his head.
"Yeah? I hope that gets all fixed soon." Shannon said with a little worry at hearing that.
"No kidding." Bradley said with a soft sigh.
"Don't worry, whenever toons like us are in need, you can always count on our ol' pal here to fix them back up!" Yakko said, hopping on Bradley's shoulders and making the human grunt a bit.
"He's like the 'Bob the Builder' of our place!" Dot added, adding to the tower.
"And he's just a good sport too!" Wakko added, getting on the tower's top.
Bradley struggled a little, but managed to keep the tower up, chuckling a little. "Most of the time." He reminded them, remembering the occasional outbursts he has with them every so often. "Hmm... Have you ever visited Toontown yourself?" He asked Shannon.
"Not really, I was thinking about it for a while though." The girl said.
"Hm... Then how about a little trip before bringing you back to your home?" Bradley offered.
"Yeah, we'll even give you the grand tour!" Yakko said happily, boinging in front of them and walking backwards, the other sibs joining him. "First time we gave this kid the tour, he was screaming all cause we ended up going into space!"
Bradley laughed a little and rubbed the back of his head. "I know, I know."
3:30 PM
After some more talking, they ended up reaching the original Toontown tunnel. "Welp, here we are!" Bradley said proudly.
Shannon looked over the tunnel, now looking fully cleaned up and refreshed as opposed to crumbling before. "Ooh, now that looks pretty. Is that Felix the Cat?" She asked, pointing up at the cats on the top of the archway. "I remember seeing his face around in a couple of places."
"Yup! You ready to head in to see it?" Bradley asked, sounding more happy.
Shanno nodded softly, fixing her hair. "Mm-hmm, as ready as I'll ever be."
The Warners went back in front of them, holding trumpets. "Don't worry, we'll keep the path clear." Wakko promised them, soon matching and playing along with Dot, with Yakko as the composer walking and waving his baton. "Watch out, hero and his girl comin' through!" The older toon shouted into the tunnel. Bradley looked to Shannon and shrugged, both of them following the toons in.
In the Warner Movie Lot
As the marching group plus two walked through the tunnel, they ended exactly where they expected to, a fresh breeze welcoming them into the toon world. Shannon looked around the movie lot, with things definitely looking different and more inky than in real life. Some toony actors were walking around, some had equipment that they were stuffing in a tiny bag and carrying like it was nothing, and others were just having fun with pranking each other with pies and other such foods and tools.
"Oooooh, now this is pretty cool..." Shannon said to herself all wide-eyed.
"Taking it a lot better than you did." Yakko whispered to Bradley. The boy rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Anyways, looks cool, doesn't it?" Bradley said to Shannon with a happy tone.
The girl nods eagerly, taking in the sights of the lot as well as looking at the town in the distance. "For sure! I bet the town has even more!" She added as she started running across the lot.
Bradley chuckles a bit at her excitement. "Hey come on, wait up!" He called out, following her, the Warners close behind.
"Yeah, we're the ones that are the tour guides here!" Wakko said, waving his hand.
The two humans kept running off while the Warners managed to catch up, showing Shannon some of the actors, like a toon Morgan Freeman narrating for a commercial for SPAM, and Dot pestering them to follow her to Chris Pratt for an autograph in one of the soundstages. But before they could really get into the tour, they saw Bradley's mother talking to Plotz outside the admin building about something.
The Warners immediately noticed and so did Bradley, ending up pulling the siblings back before they charged. "No no no no no, they're busy." The human said a bit urgently. The two of the looked done talking anyway, with Mom turning to see the kids and waving at them as Plotz left in a run He must've gotten a really important call. "Oh hey Bradley!" Mom said with a happier tone. "So how was school?"
"Oh it went good, thought I'd bring my friend over to see Toontown, it's her first time here." Bradley said.
Shannon nodded. "Yeah, it's looks so cool that everything's all drawn like this!"
Bradley looked happy to hear that, looking back to Mom. "So what were you and Plotz talking about?" He asked curiously.
The Warners immediately took turns guessing. "Is it a surprise party for us?" Yakko said excitedly.
"Sure we already had 23, but one more doesn't hurt!" Wakko added.
"Are there lots of presents for me?" Dot said with a bright smile. "I specifically wanted in the cuteness clause that Dot Warner gets the most presents of anyone here!" She added as she whipped out a contract and an electron microscope, the extra fine print clarifying that. "See? Right by the mustard stain!"
Mom shook her head and pushed away from them. "No, not a party. Just something really important that was brought up. That's why I asked if you could walk home this time."
"Where is your home anyway?" Shannon asked Bradley, looking around.
Bradley turned around and answered with a smile and a finger pointing up to where the water tower was. "Up there with my three friends." He said as he turned back to talk to Mom.
"Up there in that small thing?" Shannon wondered out loud, not really believing that.
"Trust us kid, it's a LOT bigger on the inside." Yakko assured the girl.
"We got a roller coaster and a TV and everything in there!" Dot added. "It's what all the critics are calling 'too crazy to stay at'!" She said as she brought out a magazine with the tower on the front cover, titled "most annoying places to be".
"We brought our A game to get that front cover, our prize was a restraining order!" Wakko said as he acted happy about that.
Bradley smirked a bit as the four of them talked, resuming his conversation with his mother. "Did you wanna tell us what that important thing is?" He asked curiously.
Mom suddenly looked a touch nervous. "The CEO said it was supposed to be a secret. But he had something to say to your friends too." She tried to explain, meaning Rick and Stan.
"Uh-huh? And that's it?" Bradley said with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, I can keep my own secrets too, you know." Mom said with crossed arms. "Lord knows you've had plenty of your own."
Braldey let out a little "mm-hmm", almost smug-like. "I'll let Stan and Rick know ASAP." He assured Mom with a nod. It still sounded a little suspicious that it was Mom this time not telling him anything. Oh well, fair was fair.
"A sap you say?" Yakko said as he heard the word. "We can definitely find us a poor sap to have fun with." He added, ruffling Bradley's hair before hopping away.
Bradley shook his head. "Nah, not this time. I was thinking we'd drive Shanno around so she can see Toontown." He offered, looking over to their guest.
"You'd really do that?" Shannon said with a brighter expression. "That'd be awesome!"
"Sure! With a normal tour this time." Bradley said, then turning to the Warners. "No UFO space tricks, okay?"
"Our saucer got trashed anyway. Marvin wasn't really happy." Yakko said with a shrug. "It was run seeing Ralph ending up rolling away though!" He added with a smirk, the other two agreeing with nods of their own as they pumped up thought bubbles from their heads with tire pumps so the others can see it.
"Then ol' Wakko wanted to drive, and ended up seeing a clown." Dot said as the thought bubble played exactly that, with thought Wakko's scream ending up being a trumpet blare. He panicked and bounced the UFO across every soundstage, hitting the clown each time with bonks and bashes with stars coming out, soon knocking him out with a dazed "froinlaven".
"Good thing Plotzy called us over when he saw us though!" Wakko said with a bright smile as the thought played out Plotz yelling, drawing over the Warners and crashing the saucer into the admin building, leaving both damaged extensively. "And that we had air bags too."
Shannon looked a bit concerned now as the thought bubble was popped by Dot bringing out a pin. "Hopefully someone else knows how to drive then?" She said worriedly.
"Don't worry, Mom knows how." Bradley said with an assuring smile.
"I should, had my license for about 20 years." Mom said with a laugh.
With the tour planned out, all of them got into the minivan, with Bradley in the front seat, Shannon and Yakko in the middle, and Wakko and Dot in the back. "We all ready?" Bradley said to the rest of them, who nodded eagerly. Shannon even got out her phone for pictures.
However, Yakko wasn't in his seat, and the van's sunroof was open. Bradley looked out the window as the van started, seeing the older sibling in a chair, sitting down on top of the vehicle with sunglasses with a banner hung up that said "TOUR" on it. "Let's get this box of bolts rollin'!" Yakko shouted excitedly.
Bradley shook his head with a smirk. "You heard the brother, let's go!" He said to Mom, soon rolling out to start their tour for his friend.
Author's Note: More writer's blocks are so much fun. I think I should be picking up the pace soon for the next one.
