(September 10th,1978) "Look what you made me do, now we've got to get another remote because of you!" Chip blamed Dale while pointing to the now shattered remote on the floor just in front of the TV. "It's not my fault you can't hold on to the thing!" Dale defended himself while pointing to himself with his thumb. "Is too!" "Is not!" "Is too-" "Hey, stop it boys! Your father is having issues." Heather yelled from across the room by the coffee table. Chip and Dale looked at eachother with confusion then decided to listen in on what was going on. "Look, I can't give this thing away. It's an ancient family item. You don't get rid of those things Heather." Mark explained while rubbing his temples and blew stress out of his mouth. "Well, what else are you going to do with it. You can't change the fact it's been shrunk from the washer and dryer." Heather pointed out. Mark threw out his arms and let them audible slap his sides. "Well, what's your idea." Mark asked. "Well, you could give it to Chip. He does need some new clothes. It would fit him quite well actually." Heather suggested with the I-don't-know gesture. Mark sighed and shrugged. "I guess that isn't a bad idea. *Pivots his head to Chip* Hey Chipper, buddy. Come over here, I've got something you'll like." Mark gestured to Chip to come over to him. Chip climbed over the couch and stood in front of his father with his hands behind his back. Mark then picked up the bomber jacket he used to wear on his left and brought it over the table and held it out in front of Chip. "It's yours now, I can't use it anymore since the fool at the laundromat put my jacket in the washing machines instead of air dry. Just be careful with it, it's and old family possession that came from your great grandfather." Chip slowly grabbed the jacket and brought it in front of his face to observe it. Without much thought Chip put on the jacket and then grew one of the biggest smile ever."Well, I guess you're right Heather. It does look nice on him, and he's still got a little room for growing. Kind of makes you seem like an adult almost buddy. Well, you almost are an adult" Mark commented while picking up a coffee mug and taking a sip of the freshly made coffee contained in it. "Well why don't you look at that, somebody is admitting they're wrong for once." Heather said with a smirk. "Ah shut-up, you caught me off-guard." Mark said jokingly. Heather shook her head with a smile before returning back to the book she was reading from earlier. "What was great grandpa like, and what happened with the jacket?" Chip asked. Mark set down his coffee mug and pulled out a chair next to him. Chip got the idea and sat at the chair just right of his father.
"Well for starters, he was a brave man. Not the brightest, but funny and hell of a good storyteller. Your great grandpa got that jacket from a human who made it for him, after that he vowed to help other animals that were in Europe during WW2. Flying all over the place to get people out of harm's way, he didn't always succeed but that's what happens during war. Then he got a couple of his friends and people trying to do the same thing like the- uh-, oh the Hackwrench family. With their success as a team, they became well known and so good at their job, that the U.S government provided support and funding but kept them secret. And during the later years of the war, he along with a couple hundred other pilots gather information for the U.S to make sure the tyranny of our enemies ended quicker. After the war, he retired and married your great grandmother. They had a kid which was my grandfather. But sadly, when your great grandfather tried getting a job at a local factory. He was shot dead by people who conspired with our enemies of the war. That left your grandfather to deal with a dead dad and a mother going through harsh times. Whatever police us animals had to offer, we managed to track the guys down and send them to jail. In the process they managed to recover that bomber jacket and your grandfather was the proud wearer of it until I was born. Then he stow it away to keep the past from the future, eventually my nosy self found it. And I asked him if I could take it, he didn't mind and so I did. And now it's here. That jacket's got a lot history to it buddy, it's best you keep it safe." Mark said occasionally pointing to the old jacket Chip was wearing. "Wait, so who are the Hackwrenches?" Chip asked while raising an eyebrow. "Well, I don't know. It's a mouse family and the only correlation they have with our family is that your great grandfather served with a couple of their family members. Something like that. But that was one of the hundreds he served with. They were just a family I could think of the top of my head." Mark shrugged while picking his coffee mug back up.
"I wonder if they can fix a remote." Dale remarked accompanied with a sigh. Mark nearly spat out the coffee he just drank and put the mug on the table. Chip froze, knowing that Dale just got them in trouble. Mark quickly turned and stared at Dale with both anger and confusion. "I'm sure they could. But why would they need to?" Dale realized his blunder and became nervous. "I-I didn't do it, it was Chip!" Mark brought his cold hearted stare to Chip. Heather set her book on the table and gave Chip a disappointed look. "I was just walking and he tripped me, thinking it would be funny." Chip explained trying to defend himself. Dale vaulted over the couch and walked over to Chip. "You started it cause ya didn't let me watch my show!" Dale said while pointing at Chip. "I didn't start it!" Chip said while standing up. "Did too!" "Did not!" "Did too!" "Enough you two!" Mark ordered and slammed his fist on the table. The two Chipmunks flinched and looked to see their parents looking right at them with disappointment. "So the remote is broken. Isn't it." Mark asked in a semi-calm voice. Both of the Chipmunks answered with a quiet: "Yes." Mark pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Standing up and walking over to the remains of the remote, he took a good look at it and shook his head. He looked back over to the two trouble makers with a stern look. "It's bad enough that the remote is destroyed by the two of you, you don't need to destroy your friendship aswell." Chip and Dale looked to eachother with shame. "W-What are ya gonna do to us?" Dale asked with fear. Mark shrugged and shook his head. "Well, I was going to paddle the both of you. But I've made my mind up. You two don't get to watch Tv for the next month, and that's final. Chipper, come clean this up since you were the one holding it." Mark pointed to the remote before walking back to the table. Chip did as he was told and began picking up the destroyed electronic rectangle.
Once Chip had the broken pieces in his hand he looked back to Dale, who only stuck his tongue out. Chip didn't dare say a word for the fear of getting in more trouble, but instead stood there enveloped in his own anger. "Dale, you can take out the trash once Chip is done throwing it away." Heather said while continuing to look at the daily newspaper. Dale crossed his arms and pouted, Chip on the other-hand had a smirk of victory as he dropped the broken remote pieces into the garbage can, then looking to Dale waiting for him to start doing his part. But the chipmunk continued to stand where he was in attempts to keep his dignity. Chip cleared his throat before asking Dale: "Dale, could you throw this away. It is your job after all." Dale looked to Heather, who gave him a sweeping motion with her hand saying to go do what Chip said. Out of anger Dale sighed, rolled his eyes, unfolded his arms and walked over to the trash can while trying to ignore Chip. Dale grabbed one corner of the plastic bag and then the opposite, tied the two together and threw it over and onto his shoulder.
"Oh hey, guys. We forgot to grab some milk on our way back. So can you go get it for us?" Mark said holding out a 5 dollar bill folded to his size. Chip saw this as an opportunity to one-upsman Dale in good deeds and rushed to grab it. Mark pulled the bill back with a smile and held out a hand. "Wo-hoah. Not so fast buster, you know the drill right?" Chip nodded before rehearsing what his parents told him every time he went out to get groceries. "Don't talk to strangers, go to isle 10 where that lady works there around this time. Say I'm the son of Heather Maplewood, ask for milk, and come back within an hour or two." Mark swapped the held out hand with the one that had the 5 dollar bill. "Good. Don't give us a heart attack buddy. So just do as we said, you should be fine. And don't forget Dale, you guys are a team and going alone is dangerous. Especially now that there are criminals out there we haven't caught and are out to get us." Chip nodded once more and took the dollar bill from his father's hands. Mark looked back to the newspaper on the table and picked up his coffee mug.
Meanwhile Chip walked back over to Dale who watched and heard the whole thing. "Ya heard what he said right? So no treatin' me like dirt." Dale remarked as he followed Chip out the front door. "Atleast dirt doesn't talk." Chip said while closing the front door. Dale stood next to Chip, debating hitting him with the trash bag full of probably heavy stuff since it was getting hard to carry. "You can go put the trash over in the dumpster, while I plan our route." Chip said reaching under his jacket and into a front pocket of the button up shirt he still had on, then he pulled out a map of the state they were in along with a pencil. Chip got on the ground and laid on his stomach while drawing a few lines, using his hand as a straight edge to mark his path on the map. Then he noticed that Dale was still standing there. "Are you going to throw out the trash anytime soon?" Chip asked looking up to Dale who stood with his arms behind his back, Dale smirked before showing his empty hands. "Wait, what?! How did you-" "I guess I'ma lot faster than ya think." Dale said in a egotistical manner. Chip was a bit inquisitive, but knew Dale could've done it. "You better not have just thrown everything off the tree, because if you did, you're going to be the one to clean it up." Chip admonished. Dale only rolled his eyes, but then he noticed how Chip looked weird wearing a long sleeve button up shirt and a leather jacket at the same time. "Uhh Chip, are ya sure you should be wearing your jacket on top of a button up shirt?" Chip took a look at himself and felt a bit embarrassed. "Maybe you're right. I'll go back inside real quick and put it on my bed, you stay here." Chip ordered Dale before going back inside. Nearly a minute later Chip came back out without the jacket, he quickly gestured to Dale to follow him and the two left for the store.
(20 minutes later) Chip and Dale stood in front of a walmart, amazed by the size and scale of what human engineers could do, and to their surprise it was pretty calm and quiet. They had always thought the city was busy and a noisy life, which couldn't be farther than the truth in their case as they lived in a smaller town in Illinois and it was after the first rush hour. Once he was done in his wandering mind, Chip reminded Dale of why they were here. "Alright before we go in there. NO horseplay, that's the last thing I need when we're in a place like this, we're here only to get milk and that's it." Chip said sternly to Dale. Dale halfway ignored his friend and continued looking at the grouped up birds on a streetlight, the birds looked back at him in curiosity. Suddenly out of nowhere Chip bonked Dale on the head and grabbed the back of Dale's collar before turning him around to face him. "Pay attention stupid! now no messing a-" "Yeah yeah, I heard ya, no playin' around." Dale said rubbed his now aching head. Chip froze but then rolled his eyes and walked to the north side of the building to the cart tunnel with Dale following him. Once they were inside Dale was busy taking the sight of everything that was there, from all of the toys and food to the clothes, it all dragged his attention from reality. He felt like a child once again as he thought of everything he could get or do in this place. Chip while going to the checking isles had to constantly check over his shoulder to see if Dale was still following, along with the occasional 'Encouraging' words. Once at isle 10 which happened to be empty Chip looked around for the lady that was on shift, only to find her coming from the bathrooms after a bathroom brake. She was a larger set lady in her walmart uniform with brown hair and brown eyes along with a pearl necklace. Chip smiled and walked up to her.
"Hey, you work at Isle 10 right?" Chip asked. The lady stopped and looked around but couldn't find who was talking. "I'm down here." Chip said once more, the lady looked in front of her on the floor to find Chip patiently standing there. "Oh hi there, and yes isle 10 is my current shift do you need anything?" The lady kindly asked. Chip pulled the 5 dollar bill from his pocket, unfolded it and, held it out in front of him. "I'm the son of Heather Maplewood, she sent me to get some milk and ask from you in particular." The lady seemed to brighten up for a second and have a ah-ha moment. Then she took the bill and walked over to her stand, grabbing a few smaller sized milk jugs from the drawer there. "So your the boy she keeps on telling me about. Say, don't you have a brother?" The lady asked putting the money in the cash register and summing up the change she owed him. "I wouldn't say he's my brother, just a friend who got stuck in my family… Wait, when did you learn to understand chipmunkese?" Chip inquired. The lady chuckled a little and smiled as she shuffled the coins in her hand. "Well it all started 2 years ago when your mother saved my child's life, specifically in a house fire, but we met eachother again a-couple of months ago while I was here in walmart and I thought I could return the favor by helping with groceries. So ever since then your mother and I hung out from time to time, and with the whole language thing It's just something you get overtime. I mean it's the same for you to understand me speaking english, sure you can't speak it, nor can I speak chipmunk, but we can understand eachother in a way." Chip reflected on what the lady had said, he'd never thought that a human being around a so called 'animal' would result in learning something that was so alien to them.
The lady then grouped all of the change in her hand and gave it to Chip who then managed to find room in his clothes to carry it. Then the lady handed over 3 milk cartons his size, Chip took the cartons in one hand and turned around to Dale. "Here Dale you can carry these-." Dale wasn't there, Chip started frantically swiveling his head to find him, but he was still nowhere to be found. "Are you ok?" The lady asked with a sliver of concern in her voice. Chip looked back to the lady and asked. "You're taller so can you see if you can see Dale from here? He's a chipmunk my height and wearing a hawaiian t-shirt." Chip began to stray a little from the Isle, the lady started looking around from where she was. Chip still couldn't find Dale, he turned to the lady with a look of question to see if she had found him, but the lady shook her head. The only thing Chip could think of is that Dale was either in deep trouble or fooling around, hoping it was the latter of the two. Chip couldn't waste anymore time and started running around the place to find Dale. He checked the clothes section, the refrigerated area, and even the utilities and toy sections. Each place had one thing in common, no Dale. It was at this point Chip knew something was very wrong and had become desperate to save his friend. So knowing the Walmart was out of the picture Chip ran as fast as he could outside.
Upon exiting the massive indoor box, Chip was momentarily blinded by the light from outside causing him to squint a little. He quickly scanned the horizon in front of him but no sign of Dale. He became lost and was losing hope he'd find his friend, but then, "HEEEEELP!" A voice called out to his right. Chip immediately looked to the origin of the callout to see Dale fighting for his life, a guinea pig wearing common day clothes had a knife in hand and was struggling to subdue his victim. Chip immediately dropped the milk carents and bolted over to go help Dale, the hundred meters or so separating Chip from Dale was shortened to a couple feet in a few seconds. Dale tried desperately to get the upper hand, but then the guy pinned him to the floor. And just as he rose his knife in the air, Chip took his arm and wrapped it around the assailants neck while pulling him off of his friend. The attempted murder began to thrash around trying to get loose, but in vain as Chip had firm hold of him while Dale slowly stumbled onto his feet. After Thinking for a second, the attacker reversed the knife in his hand then drove it backwards into Chip's intestinal area and twisted the knife while it was still inside of Chip. It's as if the world suddenly stopped, and was filled with nothing but panic and terror Chip could feel his guts being twisted and cut like it was in some meat grinder. He could only let out a cry and unintentionally loosened his grip on the guinea pig. Then the attacker turned around and gave Chip a powerful shove. Being stunned, Chip lost his balance and fell onto the concrete in agony. Chip began to roll around slowly on the floor to try and help with the pain. He then placed a hand on the wound and around the knife that was still in him. As he looked back up from the knife to the sky, he could see out of the bottom of his eye Dale ferociously punching the attacker followed by a few kicks. To Chip's luck it looked like Dale was going to win as Dale managed to get the guy on the ground and was still beating him up. Chip looked from the fight, back to his wound, and it daunted him. The area around the knife was drenched in blood, along with the terrible feeling of the warm blood oozing out and running from his chest to the ground. He was somewhat glad to be wearing a button up shirt as the wound itself was hidden from view and wouldn't have to see how much the metal stick had done to him. As time carried on and seconds went by, he started to feel himself slip away into a slumber. the warm, tingling, pulsating feeling started to run from his head to his toes. His heart beated ever so slower, and his worries disappeared along with some of his senses. Chip had never felt so peaceful in his life until now, he closed his eyes and became limp as he lost consciousness. (He's fine, dont worry.)
It was dark and blank in Chip's mind, but very muffled voices from the outside world could be heard. As minutes went by he regained more scenes. One of the first was the aching of the wound, then came the feeling of his parched mouth, and then the smell came. But it was not of outside, nor anyplace unfamiliar, but his room. As he slowly opened his eyes he was greeted by Heather who looked distraught. "Mark he's waking up, come, quick!" Heather called out. Chip could hear footsteps getting nearer and the face of his father came into the room. "Sorry honey I was helping Dale out." Mark spewed out with no pause. Then Chip's father saw his beloved son awake once again. He calmly walked to the left side of the bed before kneeling down to talk to him. "Hey buddy, we were starting to get really worried for a moment. Even Though you only passed out because you fainted. But since you're awake we know you'll recover just fine… But hey, we're proud of you taking a blow like that for Dale, who by the way is just fine. He just has a few bruises and 3 broken knuckles." Chip took a second to relax himself, but then he asked: "Why did that guy attack Dale? And did he get away?" Mark looked to Heather for a second before looking back to Chip. "He was more than likely one of the criminals that we detained and escape from prison. And he more than likely wanted to get revenge on us. As for the escaping part, Dale beat the life out of him... Quite literally." Mark said looking a bit on edge. Chip on the other hand was in disbelief, He never knew Dale would end up killing somebody to save his life. That is unless he did it unintentionally. "Can I talk to him?" I asked politely. Mark looked confused for a second. "Wait, who. Oh, yeah I'll set what I can do buddy. He's kinda traumatized by the whole thing so we'll see how it goes." Mark stated while he got up and headed out of the room to get Dale.
"To elaborate on what your father said about your injury. He got you pretty bad, but the blood loss was more visually terrifying than it actually was. But that doesn't mean it's the prettiest either. It looked like he had made mince meat out of you so we had to give you over a hundred stitches for your intestines. It sure scared the heck out of your brother, in fact you passing out back there scared him enough." Heather casually filled in. Chip mentally flinched at the word 'brother' once again, but he knew it was technically correct and would have to accept it. Then the room door opened with Dale and Mark entering, Dale immediately noticed Chip was fine and awake so he walked over with a smile to where Mark stood moments ago. But before Dale spoke, Mark needed to tell his wife something: "Dale said he wanted to talk to Chipper alone dear." Mark told his wife with a tap on the shoulder. Heather nodded and stood up before walking out of the room with Mark and quietly closed the door. Now that the room was almost empty, Dale spoke up. "Thanks for savin' me back there. But, this is my fault… I shoulda never left your side over some stupid chocolate…" He said guitfully. Chip was puzzled, but yet again he didn't know exactly what happened, but then something clicked in his head. "Wait, that's what this is all about? You left me because of chocolate? I told you not to screw around and look where that got us! Now I have to sit here in this stupid bed for atleast a week and you outright killed somebody!" Dale rubbed his right shoulder and looked to the floor in shame. "I didn't mean to kill him, I was scared, and I thought he had killed you so I-" "You wouldn't have to kill him if you stayed as a team! Your actions have consequences Dale. You're just lucky that we didn't pay the ultimate price for your mistake." Chip explained. Dale took it a bit too harshly and began to tear up a little. "I think I'll go downstairs so I don't bother you…" Dale whimpered with his head down. As Dale opened the door Chip realised he probably should've been so harsh. Dale was just doing the wrong thing and the wrong time and place, not only that but he did just kill somebody to save his life and had to bear the guilt of taking a life. Once the door was closed and Dale was nowhere in sight, Chip went back to thinking about the past events and sought out to do better if this happened again via mental preparation. And with this came a more developed and adult like mentality.
In the months following Chip recovered and began to wear his hand-me-down jacket in honor of his family heritage and a symbol of who he was. Dale had gotten over the event and was becoming only more in-mature and dumber over the course of the year. However that didn't stop him from learning practical skills like Chip, and had instead focused on unorthodox methods of dealing with problems. Chip and Chip's parents viewed this as only something that made Dale worse and needed to be fixed, but with no avail. With the stress of Dale and their jobs becoming more dangerous ever since, Chip's parents decided to take the family on a little vacation on the rocky mountains in Colorado.