Well Stella was certainly regretting her decision to go along with Verne.

The two were currently engaged with a conversation with Eddie, Diana, and Jasper. Well, not exactly, as Verne was the one doing most of the talking on the Hedgie's end while Eddie and Diana eagerly conversed, and Jasper just sat there looking miserable. If only he didn't seem like a massive jerk, then maybe Stella could talk to him without feeling the need to rip her tail off.

Unfortunately for her, that seemed to be the only option she had currently aside from joining in on Verne's conversation. Lou and Penny had their hands full with the kids, she had no idea where Heather and Ozzie were, RJ was talking with that Luby girl, and Hammy was still in a riveting conversation with Norbert. As for Norbert, well…Stella would rather stab a needle in her ears than deal with him.

Reluctant to deal with Jasper one-on-one solely based on his less than impressed attitude, she elected to try and worm her way into the conversation involving Verne and the rabbits.

"So that's how we usually operate." Verne spoke. From what Stella could infer from the few times she paid attention to the conversation, Verne was talking about the family's skill at stealing from the humans, something that Eddie and Diana found very interesting. Stella couldn't blame them, she was very much the same way back when the idea of taking food from humans was new to her, even though it took her a while to be a hundred percent on board.

"So, this RJ guy, he's the brains behind all this?" Eddie asked.

"Well, sort of, I like to consider myself a bit of the brains of the operation." Verne replied. Of course, this prompted Stella to roll her eyes a bit at Verne as he once more gave himself way too much credit. She got that he was smart, and yes, he contributed, but calling himself the brains of the operation when RJ mostly called the shots was an exaggeration of the highest degree.

"Nah, RJ's mainly the brains." Stella spoke up. "He's the one who gets us our roles, knows what to do, that sort of thing."

"Oh, so like he's not only the brains, but the leader?" Diana asked.

"Yup." Stella replied, before looking over at the two raccoons who were still talking animatedly with each other. While it was a bit of a bummer that Heather had to deal with losing her crush like this, to Stella, it was worth it. Verne was right on that point, she had to admit.

"Luby and RJ…you know Luby's always been curious about finding others of her own kind." Diana spoke up. "Are there any other raccoons back home?"

Verne paused for a moment, and while Stella was about to ask what was wrong, one look at Verne's face stopped her. It was clear that Verne did remember at least one raccoon that wasn't RJ…and one she never got to meet. That raccoon in the road.

"It's a long story…" Verne spoke in a tone that clearly gave an indication on what really happened.

"Oh…I'm sorry." Eddie spoke. "That sort of stuff…it's not…it's not good."

No duh.

"So, RJ's the leader, but why was he in the back?" Diana spoke up, clearly wanting to move on from this. Not the best way to change the subject unfortunately.

"Well…let's just say he's…been through a lot." Verne spoke. "One of the reasons we came out here was to help RJ out of this rut he's been in."

"Did it have to do with the other raccoon?" Eddie asked.

"Kind of." Verne replied. "It turns out there was another thing that happened…he encountered some human called a Taxidermist and they moved into the neighborhood."

"Taxidermist?" Diana asked. "What's that?"

"It's a human that stuffs animal corpses you clown." Jasper spoke up. "Clearly he saw something that scared him so much that he's a shell of his former self."

The others would turn to give Jasper a glare, although Jasper seemed unfazed by this. "What's with the looks, I'm only speaking the truth."

"Could've said it in a nicer way." Eddie replied.

"Yeah, I could've, or I could've been like you and sugarcoated like you would to your imaginary kids."

"Jasper, we made a choice."

"Yeah, like how it's clearly the stink's and turtle's responsibility to hand feed their precious 'ringleader's' emotional baggage to us."

Oh boy, Stella was about to snap now. She could take the stink insult, mostly because she was used to herself. Anything about RJ or her family however, and all gloves were off. She didn't even want to use her skunk powers on him, she just wanted to make him hurt.

"Uh…am I interrupting something?"

Stella let out a small sigh of discontent as Ozzie spoiled her opportunity to really lay into the insensitive frog. Why couldn't have just been with Heather or somewhere else for about five more minutes?

"Uh, no Ozzie." Verne replied, tapping Stella's arm to motion her to calm down. Clearly, he didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with this group, even if one of them was making it really difficult. Regardless, Stella would try, and stepped back a bit in order to prevent herself from pretty much decking Jasper.

"I'm surprised you're not checking on Heather." Stella spoke.

"Well, she's growing, and of course she needs her space." Ozzie replied. Well, that was new, Stella thought. She never thought that Ozzie would say something like that, especially considering how overprotective he was of her.

"Really Ozzie?" Verne asked. "What caused this?"

"Well, she is getting older for one…"
"That you mentioned." Eddie spoke up, prompting Diana to shush him. Ozzie didn't seem to mind this however, and just continued.

"The other reason is because I know how she feels about RJ."

Okay, well, scratch the idea of keeping Heather's crush secret out, because her father is more than aware of it. Aside from that, out of all the reactions Ozzie could have to Heather having a crush on the cocky raccoon, Stella had to admit that this…was probably the best outcome. At least it didn't result in any awkwardness, at least, not any that she knew of.

"How long did you know?" Verne asked.

"I've known for a while now." Ozzie replied. "I'm her father, and I've noticed the looks she's been giving him…on top of everything else."

"Like what?" Verne asked.

"The opinions, the eagerness, the fact she's so willing to stick by his side, it's all there." Ozzie replied.

Was the crush really that obvious?

"Frankly, it's impressive that for all of RJ's general intelligence, this is the one thing he doesn't seem to realize." Ozzie spoke, before glancing over at RJ, who was now in the middle of telling a story to a hysterically laughing Luby. Stella had to admit, even though she couldn't hear the conversation, RJ was really good at pantomiming.

"So…you don't have a problem with her liking RJ?" Stella asked.

"Absolutely not, as long as she's careful." Ozzie replied. "I just don't want her to be hurt…because if she is…"

"She'll cry?" Jasper mumbled.

"And you will too, believe me." Ozzie quickly retorted in a surprisingly deep tone. It was a rare sight for Ozzie to get serious as he did. Usually, a lot of his attempts at being serious mostly came off as comical to Stella, and the message he was trying to convey (of the playing dead variety), often fell flat. When Ozzie got really serious however, he meant it.

Stella would probably never admit this, but if she were forced to face one member of the family in a fight to the death, the one member she would never want to fight was Ozzie. Yeah, she would rather fight a close friend like Heather or a skilled fighter like RJ than Ozzie. Not just because she and Ozzie were close friends like she and Heather, but because she knew from all those movies the family watched that there was nothing scarier and more powerful than a man's love for his daughter.

Case in point, the fact that Jasper shut up.

"Ozzie, you need to bring this side of you out more often." Stella spoke up, before looking behind the opossum and realizing that there was something missing. Or rather…someone…

"Hey, where's Heather by the way?" Stella asked. "At this point, it seems almost out of character for you to be away from her that long."

"Oh, she let me know she was going to help Zachary out with something." Ozzie replied. Well, at least he knew where Heather was, and Heather told him, Stella thought. However, when she looked over at the rabbits, she realized they looked confused. She wasn't sure why, but this caused a chill to run through her.

"Who's Zachary?" Eddie asked.

"He's a tree mouse or something." Ozzie replied. Eddie, Diana, and even Jasper all looked at each other with pretty concerned looks. The long pause only added to Ozzie's realization that something was wrong. All of that was confirmed with a single sentence from Diana.

"We don't know a Zachary."

"Hey, thanks again for the help, Luby will really like it, I know it, and you'll get your chance with that other raccoon."

"Again, I'm only doing this to help you confess, this isn't supposed to benefit me in any way." Heather replied.

Truth be told, she had very little faith that even if this plan were to go off without a hitch, Zachary would even be considered by Luby. Aside from the fact that Luby and Zachary were two very different species that couldn't even work due to the height difference, Zachary didn't seem to have that much faith in himself to tell her face-to-face. Yes, it may look a bit hypocritical considering that Heather herself was in the same boat, but at the very least she was around the same height as RJ, and she could at least call herself his friend. Zachary, from what she could tell, didn't even seem like her friend at all.

So why was she even helping him then? Well, it was mostly because it would be a good way to make friends with the group. Again, having at least someone to talk to wouldn't be a bad thing, even if Zachary wouldn't be her first voice.

At least, that's what she thought.

"Well, good, more benefits for me then." Zachary replied, before climbing up into a tree. "You see that line over there, next to the red thing?"

Heather squinted a bit and noticed what Zachary was talking about. It appeared to be a line of sorts floating in mid-air, and to the right of it was what appeared to be a thin red cylinder with a slighter larger one on top of it. Looking a bit closer, she could see a bit of writing on it, but she wasn't able to make out what it said.

"Just pull it and the thing will be ready." Zachary spoke.

She didn't know why, but she was starting to get a bad feeling about this. She already was having reservations about doing this, but now this just seemed really suspicious. Why couldn't Zachary pull it? Why was he telling Heather to do it?

Everything was telling her to just stop and turn around. Zachary could confess some other way, but whatever it was, he could leave her out of it. This was not worth her time.

Unfortunately for her, just as she turned to leave, she made the mistake of turning too fast. She had forgotten there had been rain not long ago, and considering how deep they were in the forest, the ground hadn't dried yet. Trying to avoid falling on her face, Heather's tail reached out to grab anything to keep her upright.

Unfortunately, that one thing she grabbed was the line.

Immediately she was met with a blinding red light that erupted from the red cylinder. The light burned her vision, blinded her and caused her to stumble as she tried to get back to an upright position. It was only then that she realized what she had pulled.

That was a tripwire, and from one of the movies she watched, they were often used as traps.

She didn't get time to soak in the horror or even recover before she found herself being pulled up into the air, hanging upside down. At the very least, it was further away from the flares, so she could get a good look at what happened.

Tied around her leg was what appeared to be a rope or string of some kind. She tried to reach up to see if she could untie herself, but she just couldn't reach. Mentally she was cursing herself because this should be easy. It was like hanging from her tail like she usually did.

"Zachary!" She shouted.

No response.

"Zachary, I need help!"

Again, no response. Now this was a time to worry. Looking at the tree that she last saw him, she realized that, much to her horror, Zachary wasn't there.

Zachary left her.

Heather didn't have time to panic, or curse out Zachary wherever he was, or even call for help. It wasn't because she was unable to however…

No, it was because she saw a shadow appear from beyond the red smoke of the flares.

Wispy thin hair, a well-built body, dark clothes…

A crossbow in one hand….

Heather felt her heart leapt into her throat as she realized that she just activated a trap set by the Taxidermist.

So, a lot to take in this chapter. On one hand, we know that Jasper's not that pleasant and Stella was about to throw hands with him. Not only that, Ozzie is actually aware of Heather's crush on RJ and is okay with it as long as she's careful.

On the other hand...Zachary is not a member of Luby's group, and the others found that out in the worst way possible...with Heather being tricked into setting off a trap that was set by the Taxidermist. Just when things were getting better for RJ...

I also will note that after this story, I might take a short hiatus from writing just to fully plan out every little episode I plan to do, just so things aren't as haphazard and it doesn't feel like I'm writing the story as I'm going along.