-FIVE-

Harbinger

Verne's dreams had returned.

They were all in the forest again, and Verne was leading them on the same path his dreams always took them. It was the same as his other dreams, only RJ wasn't there.

The hedgies walked until they reached a clearing that Verne recognized as the same spot that RJ would urge them to hide in all his previous dreams. Verne halted.

"Why are we stopping?" Lou asked.

Before Verne could answer, a huge mass of fur crashed through the shrubs with a deafening roar. Verne tried to scream, but no sound came out; he tried to run, but his legs weren't taking him anywhere. All he could do was size up the huge bear before him.

"Vincent!" he gasped.

Vincent smirked, his eyes and teeth gleaming. "Why, hello there. It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

Verne's mouth went dry. "Wha... what is it you want?

"Revenge." The one-word reply spoke volumes.

"But I thought your dispute was with RJ..."

"Sure, but you're his 'family'," the bear replied, placing emphasis on the last word. "He wouldn't have turned against me if it weren't for you." The turtle tensed as the bear reach out and snatched one of his family members.

"Heather!" Verne heard Ozzie gasp as Vincent smirked at the frightened young possum in his grasp.

"Put her down! RJ's not with us anymore!" Verne heard himself blurt out. Vincent paused, considering what Verne had said.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Verne had to do something, anything, to protect them, to protect Heather. "RJ is not a part of our family anymore. We have nothing to do with him or any of his problems!"

Verne could feel the eyes upon him as he watched Vincent release Heather.

"Is that so?" The corners of Vincent's mouth curled upwards viciously as he shifted his gazed to the shadows behind him. "Did you hear that RJ? They won't associate themselves with you anymore. You were right about them giving up on you."

Verne's eyes followed the faint sound of a low moan from the dark. The turtle could barely make out the figure of a small, mangled heap of fur, which he realized was RJ. He fought to stay composed, not to show any sign of caring.

"We didn't leave him, he left us!"

RJ opened his eyes weakly.

"So you still care about him?" All eyes were upon him now.

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean, I... I..." Verne stumbled on his words as Vincent laughed, his laughter everywhere, ringing through his head. His family or RJ?

"I..."

His family glared at him angrily. RJ shut his eyes slowly, Vincent laughing madly.

"I..."

Everyone was closing in on him, his dream fading away.

"I..."

"..."

The last fog of his dreams disappeared and Verne found himself back in the hollowed-out log with a beam of sunshine on his face. He blinked slowly, realizing by the ray of light and the absence of his family that he must have slept much later than usual. Verne groaned; dreams of these sort haunted him night after night once RJ had left, stealing his sleep. Originally, they had portrayed RJ as the one at fault, but eventually the dreams evolved to the point that Verne began to feel guilty.

Even my dreams are turned agianst me now. Verne tried to shake off his negative feelings as he braced himself to face the day. The cold stares weren't just a figment of his unrestrained imagination; they had become hard reality. None of the others had done it while they thought he would notice, but Verne was very much aware of the constant glances behind his back. Some were angry, some sad, some expectant, but they all meant the same thing. They wanted RJ back, and they wanted Verne to make it happen.

But Verne was not ready. This had all been at least partially RJ's fault, and yet everyone was treating him like it was his fault RJ was gone. Well, it wasn't his fault. What he had said to RJ was for his own good, as well as the good of the family. Sure, he hadn't meant for it to go the way it did, but he couldn't change that now. If RJ had taken it the wrong way, then too bad. If he couldn't change for the benefit of others, then he deserved to be on his own.

Verne forced his thoughts and conscious into submission and stepped out of the log.

His eyes adjusted to the noonday sun as he took inventory of his family. There was a gloomy undertone in all of their activity despite the beautiful day and well-stocked log. Stella was watching TV pensively with Penny, who looked like she was desperately trying not to succumb to her motherly instincts to talk to her. Ozzie, Lou, and Tiger were having a conversation (Verne couldn't hear what it was about), and Heather was watching the clouds idly. Even the kids were playing their video games with less enthusiasm. The only one Verne couldn't see was Hammy, but he already had a good idea of where the squirrel was; probably in a tree crying silently or searching the forest for RJ.

There was a sudden hush in all conversation as the others noticed the box turtle.

"You know, we were fine before without RJ," Verne said, voicing his thoughts aloud. No one even looked at him. "We've got plenty of food, we're all safe here...we don't have a thing to worry about."

Stella spoke up without taking her eyes off the TV screen. "Not all of us."

'Not all of us?' Who...oh, right, RJ. They still considered him family.

"Look guys, I know you all are going to miss him; I'm sad to see him go too. But he just wasn't meant to be a part of this family! He hasn't had any experience in a family... he's the lone wolf type. All he brought to the family was his own problems that were endangering all of our lives. I...I don't want to see you guys hurt because of him, so I guess we're better off without him," he ended somewhat awkwardly.

There, he had said it. Now he watched to see their reactions.

Stella looked like she was trying not to explode. Her whole body shook with anger. With her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth clenched, she gripped the TV remote tightly in one hand. Penny was watching her efforts at self-control with concern. Unable to conquer her own anger, the temper erupted.

"YOU JUST DON'T GET IT, DO YOU?" Verne flinched. This was not going to end well. "HOW COULD YOU...RRRRAAAAUGH!" Stella grumbled in frustration and threw down the remote controller in her hand. She jumped out of her seat and marched right up to Verne.

"Look, I don't know what yo problem is with him, but you need to get over yourself. So he brought a coupl'a problems with him? Fine! You seem to have forgotten that you weren't exactly top-notch yo' self when we all started. That's why we became a family in the first place: so we could solve our individual problems as a team! RJ's got issues like any of us, but that's never stopped you from accepting any of us as family members before! So why are all of the sudden discriminating against him?"

Verne was stunned from the onslaught of words; he had no idea how to refute her arguments. "I...don't know."

Stell raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Well you'd better figure it out soon, cuz yo gonna be the one to bring him back."

Verne rubbed the back of his neck, watching Stella walk away. "Look, I didn't mean it that way. Like I said before, I'm sorry. I just... I hope it's not too late." It had been a week now and RJ had not come back on his own. "I'm going to need time to think about this."

Stella turned and Verne swore he saw a little smile. "Well hurry up."

RJ woke in a daze. His mind felt foggy and his body ached. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and the circles under his eyes weighed down on his face. It took a minute for him to remember where he was. As it all started coming back to him, he let out a long, wavering sigh. The bitterness in all his features disappeared as he put on a mask of apathy. It was time to move on.

The raccoon folded up the newspapers and tucked them under his seat. He grabbed his bag from the passenger's seat and hung it over his back.

RJ climbed out of the rusted car and surveyed the junkyard. The morning sun glinted off the mounds of trash, which RJ promptly began to pick through.

Foraging for food in a dump yard was usually a long tedious process in which some days produced more findings than others. RJ had reasoned that, since it had been almost a month since he last visited, there would plenty of food. However, after hours of careful searching, all RJ had come up with was a half-eaten can of Spam, which he had finished off reluctantly. Either someone else had been foraging in his stead, or the humans had stopped using the waste site. RJ didn't have long to think about it, because all of the sudden he spotted something that made his jaw drop.

Lying in a heap of garbage was an unopened box of Twinkies. RJ couldn't believe his luck. Eagerly he ran towards it and peered inside. Eight perfectly good Twinkies sat neatly wrapped in the box. Well, almost perfectly good. They were well past the expiration date, but that didn't matter to RJ. As far as he was concerned, the little golden snack cakes were imperishable.

Grinning with excitement, RJ unwrapped the first one and brought it to his mouth, when he noticed from the corner of his eye a large shadow flying straight for him. Instinctively, the raccoon covered his head and ducked. The winged creature snatched the Twinkie from RJ's paws, and landed several yards away.

"Give that back!" RJ shouted, flinging a stone a the black bird. The raven easily avoided the missile and proceeded to eat the Twinkie as it watched RJ with bright, yellow eyes. Rj watched with horror as it scarfed the cake.

"Thanks for that," the raven smirked, licking the cream filling off his beak. He preened his shimmery black feathers.

"Ray?" RJ said in recognition.

"Hello, Skinny," Ray replied, eyes twinkling. "It's been awhile."

"The name's RJ, and I don't appreciate you taking my food."

The raven cackled. "Whatchya gonna do about it?"

Before RJ could reply, he felt the box of Twinkies by his side being pulled away. Infuriated, RJ turned to face a raccoon that was twice his size in height and girth dumping the contents of the box onto the ground.

"No!" RJ shouted, reaching for his precious food. The larger raccoon simply held RJ back with one arm as he tasted a cake. "Mmm, good find," the overweight coon mumbled as he chewed. The raven flew over and began to devour a second Twinkie.

"Nonononono! That's mine! Get your own food!"

The husky, gray-furred raccoon gave RJ a puzzled look. "What's the matter, Skinny?" He asked, his mouth crammed full of cake and cream filling as he held RJ at arms length.

"What's the matter? I've finally found something decent to eat, and a couple of fat-faced hair-brained idiots think they can just take what little I've got and stuff their stupid faces!"

"Fat-faced hair-brained idiots, hmm?" A third voice purred nonchalantly. "That's a bit of a harsh name to call your benefactors." The voice belonged to a long, slender-bodied weasel with ginger-brown fur and yellowish white belly fur that he stroked as he met RJ's gaze.

RJ glared right back into the weasel's shining black eyes. "Benefactors? Yeah right. More like bullies." The raccoon held his gaze as the raven cawed boisterously.

"Haw haw haw! Bullies, eh? I bet he fancies these delectable little treats his!"

RJ didn't break the weasel's gaze as he retorted. "They are mine, and I'm not going to let a bunch of jerks take them." At this, the raven guffawed all the louder as the weasel drew an eyebrow up.

"It appears that you have forgotten how greatly indebted to us you are. You owe us three winters worth of food in return for the three years we took you under wing out of the goodness of our hearts." The reminder caused RJ's head to spin. Three winter's worth of food? That was impossible!

"Out of the goodness of your hearts? Please. If that were true, you wouldn't be nagging me to repay you. And besides that, the amount of food it takes to feed a young kit for three years is nowhere near the amount of food it'll take me to feed three adult animals for three winters. It took almost nothing for you guys to keep me from starving as a kit, and yet you expect me to make the impossible feat of collecting such a huge amount of food for you without starving myself to death in the process? I don't think so. Now give me back my box of Twinkies before I make you."

At this the raven hooted and hawed uncontrollably as he flapped his wings and flitted about. "Haw! Haw! Haw! Skinny recons he can take us on! Haw! Such drollery, eh, Shane? Why, Larry here's twice his size! Go on, Skinny! Make me return the Twinkies!"

The bird snatched a packet in his beak and flew to the top of the trash mound, where he began to open the wrapper as he crooned triumphantly and strutted about tauntingly. RJ whipped out his boomerang and flung it at the raven, who avoided it easily. It missed again as it returned, but as Ray opened his beak to jeer, a pebble from RJ's slingshot struck him squarely on the chin, sending him and the Twinkie tumbling down the mound unconscious.

As RJ returned his tools to his bag, Larry charged the smaller raccoon. RJ sidestepped the attack, causing the heavier raccoon to trip and fall from his own momentum.

RJ swiftly collected the remaining Twinkies and shoved them in his bag, Shane doing nothing to stop him as he watched with slight amusement. "You do know that if you will not listen to us, we have other means of enforcement."

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" RJ inquired, narrowing his eyes.

"Oh, nothing. Just a very large and powerful bear you have dealt with on occasion." The weasel looked very smug, but his smile quickly faded when the raccoon began to laugh.

"Oh, you mean Vincent? For your information, Vincent is currently several hundred miles away caged up in the Rocky Mountains. That's not exactly a code red threat. Sorry to steal your thunder, but I have more serious business to deal with today than empty threats." With that, RJ strolled off as Shane watched him leave, his face devoid of expression.

"Di... did he just say Vincent was...?" Larry stuttered, his voice trailing off. Ray was slowly regaining consciousness.

"Yes, you clumsy addled-headed oaf," Shane snapped. He was not often on the receiving end of sarcastic comments, and the cocksure way that RJ had asserted that Vincent wasn't a threat made him irritable. How the blazes did Vincent end up in the Rocky Mountains? No matter. That only delayed things. Slowly, his features twisted into a sly smile.

"But we'll see about that."

AWRIGHT, more reviews! :3 Since I can't reply to non-member reviews by PM, I'll do it here.

Orca: I'm glad you found my story and are enjoying it! I'm glad there are still OTH fans around. Thanks for taking the time to review my story!

On a side note, Shane, Ray, and Larry are my idea, but you're more than welcome to use them in your own fic if you ask first and credit me.