SHOWDOWN AT HAPPY TOM'S
Fat Cat, too, knew his enemy well, and so he was correct when he predicted that they would come to free the bat. So, even before the actual kidnapping, he had already begun setting up this trap. Knocking out the bat was easy; one swift rap on the head had been enough. He also knew that the Rangers would be expecting him to stash her in a cage of some sort, but he decided to have some fun and let them sweat at the thought that he had hanged her, while he had been grabbing her all this time instead. There were just a couple of electrical lights here, and Wart, the good climber that he was, reached them and smashed them with a small mallet. To Fat Cat's thinking, they served no real purpose anyway, and their light at this time was an obstruction to his plans. If the humans thought they were important, they would come to replace them later. And with all his cronies waiting for the right moment to pull on the net, it almost amazed him that this time his plan had been accomplished without any flaws whatsoever. Besides, those "Rescue Rodents" would not leave without making every attempt to free their friend. It was a weakness to be counted upon among the good guys! All the same, Gadget's whisper at having caught their odour caused him much concern, but with everyone holding their positions and not making a sound, the trap was sprung successfully. It was at this point that Fat Cat issued his cry of victory and the hearts of the Rangers fell.
It seemed that they were doomed after all, the five of them, at least.
"Now, we need everyone to be fully aware of what is coming up next," stated the obese feline. He padded up to a fishbowl and dunked poor Foxy in it. Pulling her out one second later, he shook off the excess water while Foxglove coughed and gasped her way back to consciousness.
The others cringed with fear and rage at that sight. Dale was more than lucky to not be here to see this.
Moments later, Foxglove took deep breaths and slowly assessed her situation.
"Foxy, are you all right? Has he hurt you?" asked Chip.
"No, Chip—[cough!]—I'm fine, except for a headache—[wheeze!]—"
Chip was sorely glad that Dale was not seeing this.
Looking at her captor, Foxglove deduced who he was. "Fat Cat! How dare you do this to me! Just you wait, the Rescue Rangers are gonna come and give you what you—" It was here when Foxglove saw where the other Rangers were at this point.
Gadget said, "Sorry, Foxy, we appear to have a small problem. But don't you worry! We've been in predicaments like these before and we've always gotten out! We'll rescue you yet!"
"Too roight!" Monterey Jack joined in, "That tubby tabby 'asn't seen the day 'e can outsmart the Rescue Rangers!"
"Oh, I don't think so," Fat Cat responded confidently, "though I'll give you an 'A' for effort in trying to cheer up the young bride. You see," he continued, "I have always made one mistake when dealing with you vermin: I have always put you aside for later while attending to more urgent matters. But this time, you are the urgent matter. And much as I'd like to exercise my creativity in designing appropriately slow and painful deaths for you all, I have built my empire on one single, simple principle: never let emotions interfere with purely business decisions. So," he said, holding the helpless Rangers even with his malicious gaze, "I have decided that the only way to get rid of you once and for all is to kill you all myself, RIGHT NOW!"
"WAIT!" Chip had been silent, but now his voice rang out loud and clear. "Fat Cat, I have a deal to offer you."
"A deal?" Fat Cat scoffed with disbelief, "You, my friend, are in no position to offer a deal to anyone!"
"Just hear me out!" Chip said, "I think you will find it quite satisfactory!"
The feline chuckled, "Now you have me interested, rodent! What is this 'deal'?"
Chip drew a deep breath. "I'm the one you really want," he said. "I'm the leader of the Rescue Rangers. The whole thing was my idea. I'm the one who's always had to be the hot shot crime fighter. So, my deal is this: Let the others go. All of them. They'll disband the Rescue Rangers and never bother you again. And in return…" here he swallowed audibly, "…you get me. My life in exchange for theirs. Or at least let Foxglove go. She never did anything to you. Deal?"
Naturally, when Chip said that, there was a collective gasp from the other Rangers, followed by protests from each of them.
"No, pally!" Monty exclaimed.
"Chip, what do you think you're doing?" screeched Foxglove.
Zipper buzzed with disbelief.
Meanwhile Gadget turned to him with eyes full of tears and cried, "CHIP! You can't mean that! We won't be able to go on without you! We…I won't be able to go on without you! Don't do this! Please!"
"Sorry, gang, but I'm the leader and I make the decisions!" he told them, still looking at Fat Cat, "Including this final one! Well, Fat Cat? What do you say?"
"Now that is an interesting proposition!" Fat Cat said, obviously taunting him, "Let me think about it. Now let's see! Hmmmmmmm…NO! And now that we are all happily reunited, we shall all go down at once: the bride, the groom, the bride's mate, the best man—"
Fat Cat suddenly stopped and inspected the net more closely.
It wasn't as heavy as he thought it would be.
Running some figures through his head, and then shaking the net and twirling it around to make sure he was counting correctly, he came to realise something.
Holding up the net to his face with his right paw, he growled at the now somewhat groggy and slightly bruised Rangers, "All right, where is he?"
"Where's who?" asked a very dizzy Zipper.
Foxglove, meanwhile, had also scanned the net and didn't know whether she should be happy or scared at the piece of information she gathered.
"Where's Dale?" she asked.
"HIM!" roared Fat Cat. "That vermin red-nosed groom! Mepps, Wart, Mole, Snout, search the compound! He must have escaped, somehow!"
"All, right, Dale!" cried Foxglove. She echosounded the room as best she could, also looking for her mate. But when the familiar and sensual profile did not reach her ears, she turned to the Rangers. "He's not—"
The others clumsily held their fingers to their mouths, and Foxglove immediately held her peace, knowing she had to remain silent. But the look on her face clearly communicated that she wanted to know where he was, why he wasn't here, and what the others were planning.
After intense searching and sniffing, Mepps whined, "Boss, I don't think he's here!"
"Oh, he's here, all right. After all," he raised Foxglove to his eye level, "I am sure your fiancé would more than want to take part in your little rescue operation, right, bat?"
Foxglove turned to her captor and looked at him with the most dangerous gaze she could conjure, "You'll never find him. And you'd better let us go before something awful happens to you."
"My dear, the only 'awful' thing that will be happening will be to you if he doesn't show his face!" He then stood straight and called out, "All right, you miserable rodent, we all know you are in here! And while you're hiding very well, I can say that it will not do your friends any good! After all, you're but one and I have the rest in my claws! So, you have exactly ten seconds to show yourself! And if you don't, I am going to eat your bride right here in front of you!"
This was too much now.
"He's not here, Fat Cat!" screamed Chip, finally. "He collapsed when he saw what happened, and we left him behind! He'll probably be out cold for the rest of the night!"
"He DID?" asked Foxglove, completely surprised.
Dale, her knight in shining armour, the bravest chipmunk she had ever met…
…fainted in the face of danger?
Fat Cat looked at Chip with mock pity, "And do you really expect me to believe that, rodent? TEN—!"
Foxglove realised that she had to buy time somehow…perhaps she could bluff her way out!
"Mr. Fat Cat, you'd better not eat me," she warned.
"And why is that, Madam?" he asked with an amused tone, interrupting his countdown.
"If you eat me you'll go crazy and die!" she said, all the time thinking, I can't believe I'm doing this!
"Really now? You look perfectly healthy to me!" Fat Cat responded, still amused.
"But it's true! It's been in all the papers," she added.
"'Papers'? My dear, the only thing in the papers germane to your situation is the background they all gave of you. That's how I knew how to appeal to your…daughterly instincts," he explained with satisfaction, not seeming to care a whit about the cruelty of his trick.
The Rangers looked at Foxglove with confusion, so she explained, "He sent me a letter, supposedly from an old male bat who thought I was his daughter. I…I…fell for it." She sniffed back a tear of shame at her weakness.
The Inventor then cringed when she heard that.
This whole situation was Gadget's fault!
But then, Foxglove suddenly snapped out of her self-pity and continued her ploy, though she now realised thoroughly the danger of the game she was playing. "You'd better take my advice," she said with the greatest sincerity, "if you eat me, you'll die within forty-eight hours! You know how much faster bat rabies works than any other kind."
"Really?" Mepps asked, slowly becoming concerned and stepping away slightly from Fat Cat's left paw, "W-why is that, Boss?"
"'Cause it's magic!" Foxglove answered before the feline could respond.
"Gee, Fat Cat," said Mole, also stepping back, "maybe we'd better do what she says!"
"I've done research on that, Fat Cat," added Gadget, playing along with Foxglove, hoping she could make up for her mistake somehow. "And it's 100 percent true. In fact, we had to give Dale an immune shot just so he could kiss her on the cheek. It took us a whole year to make just one millilitre, that's why they didn't get married sooner—"
"Oh, shut up, rodent!" Fat Cat hissed at the mousemaid.
Then he turned to Foxglove again. "I know what you're doing," he told her with a voice that made his displeasure quite clear, "and it won't work. I am going to eat you. Please don't bring something even more unpleasant upon yourself."
That frightened Foxy even more and made her resort to even more desperate measures. "Then after you die you'll come back and be my slave and have to do everything I say," she said. "Don't you ever watch the late show?" Meanwhile, within herself she was giving the great-granddaddy of all winces.
"After I've eaten you? Now you are getting pathetic! I would not have expected such illogical thinking, even from a female with the poor judgment to want to marry one of those rodents," he said patronizingly.
She put on her best Christmas-orphan expression. "I'll make you be good," she warned.
"Oh, please!"
"I'll make you be sweet."
"ENOUGH!" he roared, "My patience with you is over! You will neither save your own life nor distract me from attending to your boyfriend! Now since your job as the bait in this trap has already been completed, I advise you to be quiet! After all, I don't really need you anymore! Now, where were we? NINE!"
"Uh, Boss—"
"QUIET, MEPPS! EIGHT!"
Did Foxglove hear something at this point?
"SEVEN!"
"B-Boss—"
Fat Cat growled at the lanky cat, "Mepps, don't interrupt me again! SIX!"
Snout and Wart turned pale at this point, too.
"FIVE!"
"You're as good as dead—uuuuuggghhhhhh!" said Foxglove, with sudden confidence in her voice. The Rangers could only look with awe and surprise at the batmaid's sudden change of attitude—
But then they all cringed as Fat Cat eyed her and tightened his grip, squeezing nine-tenths of the wind out of her.
"No, my dear, YOU are. FOUR!"
"Uh, Boss, I think that—"
"SHUT UP, WART. THREE!"
"Fat Cat—"
"I DON'T NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU, EITHER, SNOUT. TWO!"
Foxglove now eyed him with contempt, though her eyes and cheeks were bulging due to the cat's grip.
"I MEAN IT, RODENT! SEE, I AM OPENING MY MOUTH REALLY WIDE! ONE!"
Instinctively, Foxglove was about to bite his paw when they all heard,
"You're as good as dead, fatso."
Slowly, everyone turned and saw Dale standing behind the group, clad in his Hawaiian shirt, near the neck of the cat statue.
Never had they seen his face so stone-like, not even when he was RamDale.
In fact, Dale looked at Fat Cat in such a way that it even made him quite uncomfortable.
"Oooh, you're quite a brave one, rodent," he said coolly, in a quick recovery. "And I see that you've finally decided to show yourself. That was smart of you, after all, you really would not have wanted your lovely bride to have ended up as cat food, not after all you've been through."
Dale began padding toward the feline, paws fisted and ears flat against his head, with a very definitely defiant stride. "Fat Cat, you have exactly five seconds to release my friends, before a slow death comes on you and your thugs." His voice was unbelievably dangerous.
"Uh, Boss—"
"Not now, Wart! Well, if it isn't the bravest rodent in the world, walking toward his own death, in a futile attempt to save his friends and his never-to-be wife!"
"Dale, get outta here!" yelled Chip.
Dale ignored him.
"I mean it, Fat Cat," he continued padding toward him. "If you don't let them go, you are goin' to die the slowest and most painful death possible."
If Fat Cat had known Dale more personally, he would have immediately released the Rangers and Foxglove at this point. The others who did, however, knew that by the look on Dale's face, one they had never seen before, he was very much intent on killing Fat Cat, somehow.
At this point, though, the cronies began encroaching the kingpin, as if looking for protection.
"You morons!" he growled at their behaviour and shoved them away. "Can't you see he's bluffing? He can't do anything to us!"
"B-Boss—?" Mepps whined as if he was about to be run over by a semi.
Fat Cat was about to yell at him, but when he saw the look on Mepps' face, he wondered just what had him so pale-scared and all. It couldn't be the chipmunk, for there was only one, with no weapons whatsoever. Then he noticed Mepps was looking at the ceiling. Turning to the others, they were also staring at the ceiling, pale, speechless, and horrified like never before.
So, Fat Cat looked up—
Covering every single square millimetre of the ceiling, were BATS, all looking at him with dark eyes, smiling evilly.
The Rangers also looked up, and smiled.
Eerie laughs began resonating throughout the compound, echoing in cowardly heads down to cowardly hearts.
Fat Cat was now robbed of all speech, and all his blood pooled in his foot-paws.
"You're right, Fat Cat, I can't do anythin' to you. I can however, ask my soon-to-be extended family to start hittin' you and your cronies with every drop of SPIT they have. Would you like me to do that?"
Fat Cat, not taking his eyes off the sea of bats above him, very slowly, crouched to the floor and put down Foxglove and the net containing the Rangers.
Immediately, Otis and Midge flew over and helped the Rangers out of the net. Once freed, Monterey and Chip ran over to Foxglove, who fell down the moment she was free of Fat Cat's constrictor-like grip, since she had little blood in her extremities now. The males hoisted her on their shoulders and carried her over to Dale. Embracing her, he held her steady as she tried to catch her breath again.
Her fur was damp, for some reason.
Momentarily infuriated at the fact that Foxy might actually be injured, Dale chattered, "Fat Cat, you didn't do somethin' as stupid as hurt my future wife, did you now?"
"Well, Dale," replied Foxy, wincing as she tried to get blood circulating in her wings again. "Someone hit me on the head—I can't say it was him—but he did dunk me in a fishbowl and nearly squeezed the guts right out of me."
Dale's eyes narrowed when he heard that. "Oh, did he, now? Guys, could you help me, here?"
The Rangers stepped up to him and he handed Foxglove over to them.
He then approached the petrified feline and chanted, "Oh, Faaaatsoooo…"
Fat Cat looked down and saw Dale motioning him with an index digit to come closer. Trembling, the feline knelt and brought his face down to match the chipmunk's height. Even though the Ranger was totally unarmed, the fierceness in his eyes made the villain think that he was going to kill him right there and then.
Dale inhaled deeply, making a growling sound as he did so. He reared his head momentarily, and then he—
PTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEYYY…
TOOOOOEEEYYY…
TOOEEEYY…
TOOEEY…
tooeeyy…
ooeey…
ooee…
(Yes, it echoed throughout the statue for a minute or so.)
Fat Cat suddenly recoiled and fell back on the floor, covering his left eye with both paws.
"Be thankful that right now I am feelin' forgivin'," growled the chipmunk. He then padded back to the others, took Foxglove in his arms, turned to face the kidnappers again, and added, "And if you or your thugs come anywhere near Foxglove again, I—WILL—KILL—YOU."
And by the tone of his voice, all those present knew he more than meant that.
Dale turned and headed for the exit, with the others following. The bats on the ceiling remained where they were, however.
Fat Cat clumsily sat up, wiping his face, and trembled, "W-wait…I've…I've l-l-let your f-f-friends go-go-go-go…c-call…offfff…the b-b-b-b-b-bats—"
Dale turned to his friends and asked, "Should I call them off?"
Foxglove then whispered something lengthy in his ear, which made him smile.
"Well, you heard her, guys!" he called to the bats on the ceiling. "But wait 'till we're outta range. C'mon guys, you don't want to get rabies, either."
As they padded to the entrance, Fat Cat stuttered with desperation, "W-w-wait…we…had a…d-d-deal! C-c-come back! C-c-c-c-call them o-o-off!"
The Rangers looked at the couple with slight confusion.
"Dale, what's going on?" asked Gadget, but Dale only beamed at her.
When they were right at the entrance of the statue, Dale stopped and turned around again. The rest did too, wondering what he had in mind—
Spit.
Spit spit.
Spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spit spitter spitter spitter spitter spitter spitter—
The five kidnappers gasped with horror as a rain of saliva began pouring around them, though not on them directly. They huddled as close as they could, and even tried to climb on top of Fat Cat, but he punched and swiped his claws at them, making sure they remained around him, as living shields.
Chip, seeing that, didn't know whether to feel happy and relieved or absolutely grossed out. Finally, he turned to his best friend and declared, "I knew I could count on you, buddy. You saved the day."
Dale did not reply at that, but instead, a distant look came upon his face.
"Uh, Dale?" asked Chip with concern.
Fat Cat was wondering how long they would have to wait before the saliva dried out in order to move from that spot, when suddenly he heard Dale yell, "LET THEM HAVE IT!"
And the pouring saliva now came on them.
Screaming with unimaginable horror, the five of them tried to dash to the nearest exit, but with the floor being so slippery, they fell in a heap, struggling to keep themselves covered, and screaming all the more.
The Rangers then ran out to the roof and waited until the bad guys tumbled out.
Fat Cat cried, "Quick! We have to get to that seedy vet with the revoked license that I keep on the payroll before WE GO CRAZY! AND HURRY, YOU IDIOTS! YOU KNOW HOW MUCH FASTER BAT SPIT WORKS THAN ANY OTHER KIND! IT'S BEEN IN ALL THE PAPERS!"
And they dashed off, screaming for the rest of their journey.
The Rangers, Midge, and Otis looked on as the cronies stumbled into the darkness. All breathed deeply with immense relief.
They were safe now.
Dale turned to Otis and said, "Thanks, Otis, I'm glad I could count on your friends."
"You mean 'brothers', 'brother'! And I must say, you're one lucky 'munk to have a bride as great looking as her!" he replied.
Foxy blushed, but Dale then got that distant look again, and without a word, carried her to the Ranger Plane. The others wondered what was eating Dale; after all, no one was seriously hurt, they had rescued Foxglove, and everything would soon be back to normal…
…wouldn't it?
With their mission accomplished, the bats began flying out of the statue and started circling the Rangers, obviously sharing their joy in the successful rescue.
Chip stepped up to his best friend and asked, "Dale, what's wrong?"
The groom turned and looked at him in the eye.
Chip was now the one to see pain, for some unknown reason.
"Later," was all he said. "You take Foxy in the plane, and I'll hang-glide back home."
"Dale, what—" Foxglove was cut off as she, too, saw immense pain in his eyes.
Dale handed Foxglove over to Chip, who reluctantly carried her into the plane. The groom turned to Otis and said, "It's still a few hours 'till daylight, and there are plenty of insects in the park. I guess that's all I can give you guys for what you did."
"Hey, you're practically family now. So just think of this as a family favour—" Otis could not for the life explain why even more pain came to Dale's eyes, who then shook his wing, and headed for his glider.
Dale took off, followed moments later by the Ranger Plane, and as they flew back home, they could only look with awe as they saw themselves escorted on all sides by countless bats. When they reached the park, all the bats dipped their wings toward them in salute, and dispersed.