The next day was sure to be a good one, at least for Heather, because it was her turn with shooting.

Once again, Verne had his misgivings about this whole idea, but this time it was for a relatively solid reason. It wasn't just because Ozzie's whole movie day resulted in him gaining a sudden ego or that the film ended with him, Verne, and Tiger "crash landing" on the "planet", although Heather could tell that played at least a small role. The real problem was just the fact that with all the filming being done, there was pretty much no weekly scheduled heist.

That worry was thankfully assuaged when Lou and Penny mentioned that on their day, all they needed was themselves and Heather to record, and everyone else could easily go on ahead with a quick heist to get them through the week. The only thing is that that meant that depending on how things went, the three of them wouldn't appear, and considering that Heather was particularly useful when it came to her brains and without the porcupine parents, the kids couldn't come along, they would be going into this heist as a skeleton crew unless RJ somehow managed to convince Luby's group to join in.

Not the greatest, but hey, it at least made everyone happy, and hey, isn't happiness better than safety?

Anyways, enough about the future and more about the present, because Heather just wanted to shoot a classic horror movie. She's done enough people watching to hear what horror movies were popular right now, and it seemed the basic formula involved a simple slasher villain. Admittedly, Heather really didn't want to go down the route of generic slasher, especially since the whole Taxidermist situation (who, let's face it, is pretty much their own slasher villain), was still relatively recent. However, she was already stretching her limit with having to edit everything, and there was no way she was going to double up with teaching anyone else how to edit.

In the end, she decided that in order to at least make things a bit easy for herself, she'd just go with a monster movie. Not ideal when it came to post-production, especially since she had to somehow make Ozzie's stuff work, but it was her vision.

And that vision was certainly going to require a lot of coffee.

"Okay Tiger, so you know what to do, right?" Heather asked. She was very relieved that Tiger hadn't gotten hurt when Ozzie rolled the wagon off the log, and that bone-headed decision hadn't impacted Tiger's desire to act. He may be snarky, but he was a good sport about it.

Actually, there was a great irony that the Hedgie who was big on acting wasn't the MVP, Heather just realized.

"Absolutely!" Tiger replied. "I will stalk through the bushes, waiting for my prey, and once the time is right…I pounce!"

He was certainly enthusiastic.

"Glad to hear you studied the lines." Heather replied, before taking a sip of coffee. Yeah, she was already in her coffee phase. Why not start early?

"I was built for this!" Tiger exclaimed. "There is a reason they call me Tiger."

"Whatever you say Tigerus." Heather replied, clearly remembering what Tiger's old name stood for. Good thing he ditched it and was humble enough to be referred to by a nickname. Otherwise, Heather would've been petty and started referring to him by other names, like Cat, or Feline…

…or Stanley.

"Okay, so you know what noise to make when Stella-"

"Wait, Stella's the one I have to scare?" Tiger asked. Heather mentally facepalmed (or face-pawed if you want to be smart) as she remembered that Tiger and Stella were dating. In her defense however, Tiger and Stella were surprisingly not as in-your-face with their relationship, so it was easy to forget. The two mostly just kept to themselves whenever they really could, and heck, whenever Heather and Stella talked, Tiger was almost never a topic.

From what she could tell though, the two were happy together, but they didn't rub it in the other's faces. She kinda preferred it that way, especially since the only other couple she was exposed to was Lou and Penny, and they were relatively happy together, much like Tiger and Stella. Plus, it did for a while give her enough justification for liking RJ back then.

"Tiger, she'll be fine, you know this." Heather replied.

"I know, but I don't want to hurt my little flower."

Heather had to hold back a gag at that nickname.

"If it makes you too uncomfortable, then I can put on some green-screen to make it so you don't have to make contact." Heather replied, which seemed to calm Tiger, and got right into the pouncing position. Okay, she wasn't entirely sure that would work, but hey, anything to get the film going. She'd worry about OSHA complaints later.

She's tempting fate, isn't she.

The moment Heather approached him to help out with her movie, RJ was all for it.

One thing that he had mentioned once to the Hedgies was that believe it or not, he's actually seen a horror movie. He didn't explain how he saw it, because the truth would just open a whole new can of worms that RJ wasn't really prepared to deal with. He just saw a horror movie, knew what it involved, and considering he was the most experienced with the humans, he was obviously the best choice to help out.

Plus, it helped that he did still consider Heather a friend, and he had to admit that, again, she was very creative. She could probably whip up something really cool looking, and he'd be super excited for that. He was already imagining what she had in store…some hellhound with giant, razor sharp teeth, a cthulu-like being with long, ghastly tentacles used to ensnare its prey, a massive green ogre that just wanted people to stay away?

Okay that last one sounded familiar, better not go with that one.

He was with Stella at the moment, going over some last-minute plans for the scene. He had to admit that Stella was a questionable choice for the "victim", considering she was anything but. Again, she literally tried robbing a girl scout earlier, and from what Verne told him, she may or may have not had any cookies. If anything, Stella should be the killer.

But then again, Lou was holding the camera as usual, and Penny of course was left with managing the kids, so options were limited. It didn't help that since the Ozzie film, Verne was in no mood to join another film, Ozzie's ego was bruised, and Hammy was a wildcard that couldn't be controlled. So yeah, Stella really was the only choice.

"Alright Stella, my femme fatale, when the monster pops out, you'll be as scared as possible!" RJ exclaimed. "Show fear, terror, everything that you'd expect to feel in your last moments alive...and there's nothing to defend yourself with."

Yeah, after Stella's glock rampage, RJ had to make sure she didn't have any access to weapons. He was going to take all the precautions in the world to make sure that the skunk wasn't going to do something that would put anyone in danger.

"You do realize when I'm scared the first thing I'll do is gas." Stella spoke. Oh yeah, skunk. Forgot about that somehow. Actually, Stella hadn't threatened to gas anyone in a while, which, while usually welcome in any other condition, was nerve-wracking now considering that meant she had access to a weapon.

"Can you avoid it?" He asked.

"I'll try, but I can't make any promises."

Gassing wasn't that bad, at least compared to, once again, the gun. Yeah, RJ was going to hammer this in on how bad Stella with a gun was. However, he needed to fix the new obvious problem with Stella's gas…and he might've had an idea.

"Do we need the cork?" RJ asked.

"You put that cork anywhere near me and I'll be feedin' it to you." Stella quickly replied.

Well, that put an end to that suggestion in record time. Impressive, RJ thought. In fact, it was so impressive that RJ was going to back off and allow Lou to start rolling. Nothing could go wrong.

Right?

Stella would start walking along the dark forest path, looking from side to side. The expression on her face accurately depicted the feeling of wandering off into the woods alone at night, just waiting for the possible inevitability of something jumping out. Honestly, from the expression on Lou's face, he himself was probably getting scared.

What happened next was incredibly fast, so things could've been a bit foggy had RJ had not been there. There were many things he prided himself on, and one of those things was being able to remember a lot of things. He hadn't survived out there that long for a reason.

So, to start out, Tiger jumped out of the bushes, and just like Stella said, the first thing she did was spray. Now, RJ had no idea that Tiger was going to be the killer/monster, and it was clear that Stella didn't know either based on her reaction when she realized just who was jumping out of the bushes. Actually, she probably wouldn't have sprayed had she just been informed who was going to be jumping out of those bushes.

Speaking of Tiger, RJ had to make the assumption that Tiger assumed that Stella was in on this, otherwise he wouldn't have jumped out in the first place. Sure, he may have jumped if it was anyone else, but Tiger loved Stella, he wasn't about to scare her. Plus, it was just common sense, don't frighten Stella or else she's going to react, and that usually involves her spray, one of the porcupine quills, or whatever she can get her paws on.

While Tiger couldn't actually smell the spray (which RJ wasn't sure was a blessing or a curse, considering that meant that Tiger couldn't breathe very well), but he certainly wasn't immune to being blinded by it. RJ could only watch as he landed flat on his face, before getting up, trying his best to see through the cloud. If that wasn't bad enough, Lou had turned away, clearly bothered by the stench, all while Tiger was looking for something to regain his bearings.

Unfortunately, that just resulted in him going right into Lou's back.

"Hey, you two okay?" Verne spoke up. Oh yeah, Verne was still watching the others make their movies, mostly for safety related purposes. He wasn't about to let anyone get hurt, which was something RJ could respect him for.

"I'm okay Verne." Lou spoke, getting up, along with picking up the camera. "I just hope the film's alright."

"What about Tiger?" Verne asked. Immediately his worries were answered with a low groan of pain that was obviously coming from the cat. The three of them turned their heads to see Tiger slowly getting up, with quite a few quills stuck in his back. Yikes, not fun.

And then Heather showed up.

"Hey, what happened, I-" Heather started to speak, before noticing the scene before her. The spray cloud slowly dissipating, Lou awkwardly holding the camera as if something happened to it, Tiger hobbling along with quills in his back. It was obvious to her that something went wrong.

She only had one thing to say.

"We'll…edit that out."

Welp, it looks like even with Heather having all the brains in the world, even she's not prone to holding the idiot ball. Unfortunately, but hey, she'll edit it out.

See you next time!