When Worlds Collide

Chapter 4

"The Not-So-Great Escape"

Dang! I am so sorry about the upload time. Time just got away from me. Anyway, chapter four.

It had been about a week since the whole fiasco with Brent, and Taily had settled down in Happy Tree Town fairly well. She had gotten a job as a postal worker, and had made decent friends with a few people. But things were about to get significantly weirder for her. You see, Brent was killed right outside of Sniffles' house, and Sniffles ended up finding the fire stone. Being highly intelligent, he quickly made a connection with Taily, and thought that the fire emblem on the rock could have had something to do with her abilities. Wanting to see whether his theory was correct, he immediately left, trying to catch up with Taily making her daily rounds.

"Hi, Pop!"

"Oh, hi, Taily!" She had just gotten up to Pop's house, and had a small handful of envelopes. "What do you have for me today?"

"Not much, I'd guess. I'm not supposed to look at the things, you know."

"Oh, of course, of course."

"Say, where's Cub?"

"Oh, he's taking a bath. Wait, crap!" With that, Pop rushed into the house and slammed the door behind him.

"Okay, uh, bye?" That was when Sniffles walked up.

"Taily!"

"Oh, Sniffles! I didn't see you there."

"Listen, Taily, I have something important I'd like to ask you about."

"What?"

"Come over to my house and I'll show you."

"Oh, but, I, uh, have all these letters…"

"Oh, fine." Then he walked away.

Whilstwhile, (I love neologisms, don't you?) Brent had finally worked out the kinks in his "master" escape "plan". "You see, Riley," He said, pointing at a wall with various diagrams scratched on it in a way that only they could understand, "By using one of my bills to click the Glock, we can make a rake for it, head for the bun room, and take over!" Now, obviously, this sounds like pure nonsense, but they had devised an ingenious manner of speaking in code, similar to Cockney rhyming slang. Anyway, he explained the rest of the plan to get Taily and get out, and went into action. He pulled a quill from his back (With a slight yelp) and headed over to the lock. He stuck it in the keyhole, and began twisting it. After a few minutes of fiddling around with it, he successfully opened the lock, and both he and Riley ran out.

So, it naturally followed that they went to the armory, but encountered some problems. Several times the guard almost caught them. But the guard was Lumpy, so they sneaked by him by throwing rocks. Eventually, after about an hour of looking for it, they found the armory. But the thing was, there were two generic tree friends inside, so Brent had to think quickly. He got an idea, and rushed inside, pulling out two of his quills. He threw them, and before the two guards could react, both of them were dead, stabbed in the heart. Brent and Riley immediately headed for the weapons.

Sniffles, not wanting to waste a good specimen, decided to begin analyzing the strange rock, with the fire emblem on the front of it. What he found was very interesting, very interesting indeed.

"Fascinating. It's giving off a very warm type of radiation that doesn't seem to cause harm to organic beings." He determined this fact by capturing one of the ants and putting it next to the stone, after finding the rock's radiation.

"Who ya talking to, Sniffles?"

He jumped. Turning around, he saw it was none other than Taily standing in his doorway.

"I thought you had a bunch of letters left."

"Well, I had some letters for you, so…here I am. What was that thing you wanted to show me?"

"Well, Brent was killed right near my house, and I found this strange rock." He picked it up, and showed it to Taily. Suddenly, she began glowing. "Taily? TAILY? WHAT'S GOING ON?" The light was almost blinding now, and then there came forth a light so bright Sniffles had to look away. When he looked back, he didn't know what to say. Taily had changed her appearance completely. Her brown fur was now a soft creamy color, and she had nine long tails instead of six short, curly ones. Taily had evolved into a Ninetales.

"Wha- buh- huh- guh- what? What? The rock…and the…radiation…what the Hell?"

Taily was thinking generally the same thing. None of the scientists in the lab had ever said anything about evolution stones until Brent got the idea. Since they never talked about it, she never heard about it, and both of them were confused as Hell. Then, a great explosion came from somewhere in the town.

"What the hell was that?" Sniffles yelled. Both of them ran outside, only to see a plume of smoke coming from… "The police station." Sniffles whispered. Both of them started running towards it.

Here's what happened. Brent had gotten a pack of matches, and lit a fire. They immediately left the building, and a good thing, too, since the fire hit a gas main and the entire station blew up in a massive fireball.

"Sweet!" Brent yelled. "Did you see that? Riley?" Riley was more preoccupied with looking at something else on the horizon. "Riley, what is…it…" Brent followed his line of sight, and saw Taily. "Oh. That." He leaned over whispered, "Who's that guy with her?" into Riley's ear. "I don't know, sir."

"And I don't care." He pulled out a handgun and shot at Sniffles, who ran away. He put his fingers in his mouth, and let out a long, slow whistle. Obviously, Taily began the transformation, but it went quicker this time. Also different was that she didn't attack anybody.

"What happened?" Asked Brent.

"Pavlovian reinforcement. I specifically trained her not to harm you or any of the scientists. When she sees you, she'll wait for your orders."

"Oh, I see." He really didn't. "Well, if she takes my orders, come with us immediately!" She ran over to the two men. "Now she'll follow us, right?"

"Yes, sir. I think I should tell you that before you died, I caught a glimpse of something in that metal tree. It looked suspiciously like what we have."

"Well, then, let's use it!"

"Do you have it yet?" Asked Brent. They had gone to Sniffles' house, and Riley was working on the dimension jumper thing.

"Almost." Taily was simply standing there, waiting for her masters to tell her that they were going. That's when Brent heard a strange noise, which almost sounded like a screaming crowd.

"What was that?" he asked. He walked over to the window, and nearly jumped in horror when he saw it. It was a massive crowd of people, chanting "Give her back!" One of them, Cuddles, yelled "Mess with one of us, and you mess with all of us!" He threw a brick at the window, shattering it. Brent ducked, just barely in time. "What the hell? Riley!"

"I've got it, sir!"

"Good! A-5, come on!" Out of the corner of his eye, Brent caught a glimpse of the most horrifying thing he had seen all day: Cuddles putting his fingers in his mouth.

Time seemed to go slower for Brent, as he rushed towards Cuddles, yelling "NO!" But it was too late. Cuddles whistled, and Taily snapped out of her trance. She looked around, and glared at Riley. He laughed awkwardly and waved. "H-hi there…ohgodpleasedon'thurtme!"

"What? No! NO!" Brent screamed. He ran towards the portal and jumped in. Riley followed soon after. Taily walked over to it, and turned the machine off. "There." She said.

Rufus ran in the doorway. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"We made it, Riley! Hey, where are the rest of the scientists?"

"I don't know. Let's get out of here." They walked to the elevator, and went up.

When they got out, they rushed to the door…and saw several policemen holding guns at them.

"Hello, Mr. Pinser." Said one of them, the chief. "Or should I say, Chris Brady?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yes you do. You killed the real Brent Pinser and took his identity." Riley stared at Brent, or rather, Chris, in disbelief.

"But that's not all. Grand theft auto, grand larceny, petty larceny, murder, animal abuse, several accounts of assault…I could go on forever on your laundry list of felonies. Come with us, please. You're getting at least life in prison."

"And me?" Riley asked.

"I'd say about ten to twenty, along with all the other scientists."

"How? How did you find us? HOW DID YOU FIND US?"

"We found the real Brent Pinser's body in a lake. It floated to the top, or what was left of it, anyway. DNA analysis showed who it was, and we connected the dots from there. You bought several very suspicious items with his credit card, so we traced you. That's when we found out who you really were. We got to this building, found our way to the secret lab, and then arrested all of your scientists. Rather poor planning, in hindsight."

"No. NO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!"

"Well, it is. Deal with it."

In the other universe, a man sitting in a chair was looking very intently at a television screen. It was showing the security tape from the hospital with Taily killing Dr. Bill. "Interesting." He said, with a thick German accent. "I am quite interested in this girl. With someone like her in my army, I can easily take over the country that is so rightfully mine. Hand me my tea."

"Yes, sir." A butler said. He grabbed a cub of tea and handed it out.

The chair spun around, revealing a blue tiger about as tall as Lumpy, dressed in military regalia, and an eyepatch. The Tiger General. "Thank you. Earl Grey?"

"Yes, sir."

"She will be mine by the end of the month. Just wait and see."

Well, that was an interesting plot twist, huh? And just what is the Tiger General planning? Find out next time, same bat-story, same bat-website!