It was probably just a matter of time that they found each other. Father Stewart did nothing but shoot those pistols, and Ol' Billy was attracted by loud noises.

It happened in Pérez Avenue. The wrath that had made Father Stewart lose his mind had not faded one bit. In fact, when he saw all the people screaming and hiding after seeing him, a sadistic pleasure in asserting his dominance made him shoot bullet after bullet and feel it was far better to bring fear through a couple of six-gun pistols than all stories about Hell and the Devil.

Billy felt attracted by the sound of many victims screaming in fear—it could have been said that their fear itself which exuded from them was what attracted him. And he appeared, growling like an animal, feeling the urgent desire of feeding with everything that was or at least seemed alive.

Father Stewart, who once used to give alms and coats to Ol' Billy and felt nothing but Christian compassion towards him, now wrinkled his nose in disgust at his sight. Billy, who only had words of gratitude and praise towards the Father and followed him around like a pup, licked his drooling mouth in anticipation.

"Slither back to Hell, ya varmint!" Father Stewart shouted, and directed his guns at him.

He was faster than he thought. He missed the shot and, when Billy started spinning around himself like a killer hurricane, he almost missed a few limbs. He fell on the ground and Billy leapt on top of him with his jaws open wide, letting a cascade of drool fall over his face.

"Disgusting dirty galoot!" He exclaimed, and shot.

The bullet didn't kill Ol' Billy—unfortunately. It just hurt him very bad, when it marked his face, leaving a bleeding scar he touched with surprise. It seemed he didn't expect the little servant of God to put up a fight and having considerable chances of winning. It seemed, after all, he was still able to think and so, considering his choices, he decided to retreat for the moment, in order to wait for a better occasion to get this prey.

"Come back here and fight like a man, you gorilla project!" Father Stewart faced him, running after him.

It was difficult to catch up with someone so fast, and he lost him soon...

Mrs. Hart closed the book and looked around her. In that silence, only the clock tickling on the wall could be heard.

It was late, and Izzy wasn't home yet. It was almost dinner time, where could he be? If he had plans with someone, he should have told her...

She took her phone and called.

Isadore's ringtone was heard not very far from where she was. She searched around the house and found it on his pillow.

He left without taking his phone? He knew she didn't like that he was disconnected.

She frowned. This boy was starting to worry her! With all the tragedies and macabre events she heard on the news, she just wasn't calm, couldn't be calm until her Izzy was back.

He couldn't have gone far. All of his friends were from that town, and Warner Falls wasn't that big.

She put a cardigan on and grabbed an umbrella, for the thunders were becoming so frequent it was possible this could be the day when it finally rained, and got out of the house in his search...

Treg came running into the repair shop.

"Hey! Have you seen Martin?" He asked Martin's coworkers.

Vásquez turned his head slowly, so, so slowly toward him, his hands stained with the oil from an engine he was supervising. He was so desperately slow Treg turned to his partners instead.

"Have you seen him?"

"Well, no, he hasn't come today." Hal replied, a cigar hanging from his lips.

"He's not here." Vásquez finally replied.

"Why? Did something happen?" Hal asked.

Treg had no time to lose with explanations. He left the men without listening to their demands and kept looking for his friend. He had to be around, somewhere!

He peeped into the bookshop, Martin's favorite spot, but he wasn't there. He wasn't at the park, or the church. He passed by the car lot, where a short, hairy man was slapping another man who was almost twice his height.

"What did I tell you, Junior?! I told you never to say that to a potential client!"

"Aww, sorry, Pops!"

Martin had to be around, somewhere! He couldn't have just disappeared!

He saw a boy jumping a fence to raid someone's chicken coops, but completely ignored it, too.

But there was one thing he couldn't ignore. A couple of...he didn't know what. He could have bet his legs those were Beans and Buddy, his favorite cartoons, but that couldn't be...could it? They looked like they were flat, deprived from any real deepness and color—like straight out of the TV. He stopped to watch them. They didn't notice. They were involved in some heated conversation. They seemed nervous, both of them. He saw them lifting the fence which kept the water tower protected from trespassers.

He hesitated, and in the end decided that, since those were not what he was looking for, he could think about what he had just seen later and focus on his friend.

The group was not at Joey's house anymore. Apparently, Joey had an unavoidable meeting and had to leave. José was also supposed to be working; although the things happening that night had made him question everything, he still wanted to keep his job, and wanted to be with Joey in case he needed him. He brought Pip and Isadore to his box. He told Sheldon on the phone when he called him that he didn't trust the cat to be left unsupervised, in case he wanted to get his hands on the little guy again. Sheldon told him that him and Kath were on the way.

There was something weird about the way he announced their coming. He sounded excited. It seemed something happened. Them finally showing up at the town hall, Sheldon talking very loud and very fast confirmed it.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down, compadre, I can't understand a word you say, what's the matter?"

"Where's the mayor?" Sheldon asked, catching up his breath.

"He's in a meeting with the sheriff and the Emergency Committee. They've been talking for a long while."

"Is something wrong?" Pip was afraid to ask.

"Everything! Everything is wrong!" Sheldon shook him like they shake olive trees. "Now I know everything they've stolen from me! My name! My friends! My beautiful feathers! My career! Of course I am Sheldon! I am a work of art!"

"What got into you, señor Sheldon?"

"Sheldon's all fiction!" Sheldon turned around and looked at José with eyes that almost popped out of their sockets. "He never existed! Of course! I see it clear now! They trapped me in the body of a loser! I am supposed to be an adored public figure with a great career! And you, sir, I'm telling you you are a mouse with a little hat and little pants called Gonzales, not whatever lie they told you! I don't know who did it but they are going to undo this!"

"Glad to see you're back, Daffy!" Isadore smiled.

"We are back! Lola is back too!" Sheldon said, pointing at Kath.

"Well, I still don't remember a lot of stuff—just enough to know my real name is Lola and not Kath." She replied.

"That's still something." Isadore said. "What made you remember?"

"That's what we wanted to tell..." Kath was starting to say, when José left for a moment and quickly returned.

"They are out." He announced, pointing at some people who were leaving the meeting room, Warren included.

The sheriff seemed really, really tired. He stretched out his limbs, his mouth wide open to let a yawn out. Just that he didn't count with a big crow coming out as well. He shut his mouth and looked around him, embarrassed and just as surprised as everyone else.

"Are-Are you alright, Sheriff?" Joey kindly said to him.

"Ahem, excuse me. The sleep deprivation, the stress..." Warren apologized. That was a stupid thing he didn't want to do, really, but he just couldn't help it.

"G-Go get some rest, you deserve it. I'll get you help, I promise. Thank you for your s-s-sacrifices."

"Anything for my town."

Warren looked sideways at the curious group waiting to pounce on the mayor.

"Porky!" Sheldon practically jumped into his arms.

"T-T-T-That wasn't nice..." Joey complained about this greeting.

"No, I'm not-! Don't be like that, you silly!"

"He's right, he's not insulting you, that's your real name! You're Porky! You were a pig! I remember!" Kath came in his defense.

"Of course I knew you, and I can't believe I forgot about you after all the things we did together!" Sheldon continued. "Catching bad guys, exploring planets, going hunting...!"

"All of that?" Joey surely didn't remember.

"That and more! You forgot about it but can still remember what it felt like, right?"

"I've come to remember something. I don't know if the same happens to you guys as well." Kath said, looking at Isadore and Pip. "I remember Porky being the guy who taught me everything I should know about our job, our place, because he was the guy who had been around for the most time."

"Yeah, that's right, you were the first to shake my hand and introduce me to the staff." Isadore remembered.

"You were the veteran." Pip nodded.

"W-W-Was I?..." Joey muttered.

"You know what I think? I think you know more than you say." Sheldon interrupted Joey when he was about to protest. "You're the oldest here, you sure have seen things we haven't, and probably you know what Beans and Buddy have to do with all of this, why we saw them walking around and why they did what they did."

"This mental fog...It is like playing Marco Polo. You're blind, and you need someone to step out of the dark. That must be why Tweety and Sylvester here remembered so quick after their paths crossed. Or the reason why you guys have been getting all of these little pieces back. When you have shared a lot with someone...When someone has left an impact on you...You may forget that person, but there is still a trace in our souls..." Kath said.

"Mine is Bugs...I wish I remembered more of him..." She thought.

"You told me you had seen that cat in your dreams." José intervened. "And now I doubt you were just dreaming of cartoons you have watched. What is it? Think?"

Joey frowned. He took a seat in the closest bench and closed his eyes in thought.

Where had he seen those cartoon characters?

Yes, the studios were like an endless party. They had so much fun coming up with these ideas, shaping them...The guys had really funny ideas. Sometimes, the toons themselves improvised and the result made them cry of laughter. Selzer didn't understand this. "What in the Hell does all of this laughter have to do with the making of animated cartoons?", he once nagged. He was shy at first. His stuttering made people and himself nervous. Leon didn't like all the film wasted on him. They hired Mr. Blanc to help him control it enough for keeping the comical aspect of it and let the cartoon progress. He was a good acting teacher. Almost all of them ended up receiving his lessons. The other guys—the directors, the writers, even the errands people—were so kind to him. It was like a family. They were so, so nice and welcoming. They helped him feel sure of himself, not to dwell in his mistakes. "We are making comedy," Bob used to say, "you can't take yourself too seriously." There were only smiles around him...

...Except...

"...There was a boy..." Joey finally muttered after spending some time in complete silence.

"A boy?" Kath asked.

"Yes...All o-o-of us were anim-animals...He was the only hu-human toon around...But he w-w-w-w-wasn't with us...I saw him just once or twice..." Joey paused. "He ne-never once smiled at me..."

In fact...Every time he said hello...He glared at him and turned his back on him...

"What about the cat?" Isadore asked.

"I don't remember him." Sheldon said.

"...The c-c-cat?..." Joey whispered.

Paul Revere's Ride had never sounded worse than in his lips. The people behind the camera snickered. The kids in class snickered. One was particularly nasty about it...A black cat...Wait, there was a female one and a male one, almost identical, except for the clothes. Yes, the male...We made some other films together...In that one, we were students. In another, he was the father of his love interest...A competitor in a race in the snow...Soldiers, both of them...Pioneers...But there was one thing in common to all those cartoons: when the director shouted 'cut!', he would always shake his hand and praise his good work...

"...Beans...He...We filmed some movies together...B-Before you were drawn...We were ve-very young back then..."

Beans...Always laughing...Always joking...He used to admire his confidence...They were a duo, and he played the most prominent role—just like in the movies they made together...

"He...He was my friend..."

"And then?" Pip asked.

Joey slowly opened his eyes and looked at his partners.

"...Then...He wasn't—I-I guess...One day, I just s-s-stopped seeing him...I never s-s-saw him again..."

The group exchanged a look.

"Until now." José said aloud what everyone was thinking.

Sheldon burst the door of the town hall open.

"We gotta find those two." He stated firmly.

"Well, y-y-yes, we should find them, but how are you going to fa-face them?" Joey asked them.

"I remind you we are flesh and bones now." Isadore told him, pointing at his own broken nose. "If they throw a safe to your head, you won't get up flat, it'll be game over."

"You got to shoo them away! Paint thinner! The Dip, don't you remember?" Sheldon said. "If there's one good thing about this situation, it's that we're now immune to it!"

"But Daffy, the Dip's a very horrible thing! Will you use it against a fellow toon?" Pip asked, cringing.

"They started, doing this to me!" Sheldon replied.

"Use your head, Sheldon, we need a plan or all of us will get killed! Remember what they did to Marvin!" Kath insisted, wanting to slap Sheldon to calm him down.

José was about to say something when his gaze met a young man, arunner, who was running around, inspecting every single corner, peeping into other people's property. A name crossed his mind and ended up on his lips before he could repress it.

"Road Runner?"

Treg stopped and turned his head to the Mexican. After a short hesitation, he approached.

"...Do I know you?" He asked.

"...Yeah...I think so...We had a race...A long time ago..." José said. Yes, he remembered a race, in Baja California. The sun was burning, there were a lot of technical difficulties, but he had the feeling it had been lots of fun.

Treg tilted his head in thought. As the two of them spoke, the rest of the group struggled remembering who this individual was. It was the blue hair which gave them the crucial clue. A blue lightning. Most of the time, he used to be nothing else. A very difficult bird to catch, indeed. It wasn't usual to see him staying still and know he was even a bird and not an illusion. Road Runner...Road Runner! He was fast! They didn't know much about him, being always too busy running to socialize, but if José was acquainted with him, perhaps he could convince him to help them. He could find those cartoons in the blink of an eye.

"Ah! Yeah! I remember!" Treg finally replied. "Uh, hey, have you seen a guy with hair this long, bags under his eyes, unshaven..."

"Uh, no, we've seen no one." Pip replied.

Treg allowed himself to stop for a second to lament. "He couldn't have gone that far...He must be around, somewhere..."

"Who?"

"My pal."

It wasn't just the Road Runner. The Road Runner was just part one of a duo. Road Runner and...

Oh. It seemed Pip and José were not the only ones being chased by something with claws.

Running in the desert, side to side with a blue lightning...A gringo pussygato and coyote chasing them...The race was fun but it was hilarious to see all their attempts to eat them fail miserably...José turned his eyes towards Isadore and thought he knew how close he had been to those whiskers...

He also remembered with a clarity he hadn't felt before a duck who was daffy and thought he could get rid of him like the pest he thought he was...

"Gracias, señor Speedy, ¡gracias!"

"¡Viva Speedy González!"

José shook his head and looked at Treg again.

"Listen, we are also looking for someone...Maybe you could come with us? We could come across the person you are looking for." He told him. For some reason, he knew he could trust this person.

"Yeah, okay." Treg replied. "Who are you trying to find?"

"You won't believe it." Isadore said.

"Let's start from the premise that you haven't always been human. Say you once had feathers." Sheldon intervened.

Treg raised an eyebrow.

"I-I don't think this is a good idea. He's going to believe we-we are mocking him." Joey turned to Kath as the others were trying to explain the situation to him.

"No, I think talking about it is what weakens it. I...I can't say it's true one hundred percent, but I feel I remember more as minutes pass." Kath replied. "Maybe we can help him find out what he is. Also, have you noticed?"

"What?"

"Ever since we visited Marvin's hut, the sky has been thundering..."

Joey raised his head to the sky and was surprised to find she was right. At that precise moment, a loud thunder echoed. Warner Falls had always been cloudy but never rainy, at least that was the way he remembered it to be...Could it mean that...?

"Ah. I know what you're talking about. Beans and Buddy, right. I saw them."

Joey lowered his head to look at Treg with surprise. "R-Really?"

"Yeah, just a while ago. I thought that was very weird." Still, Treg didn't seem surprised at all about the existence of talking cartoons and Joey wished he had been listening to know what they had said to convince him. "I saw them sneaking into the water tower."

"The water tower!" They exclaimed.

They wasted no time.

The water tower. The highest place in Warner Falls. From there, Buddy and Beans could see it all: the fuss in the streets, the change of behavior, even the different look in the sky.

"They're all returning to their primitive self!" Buddy exclaimed, hands on his head.

Impossible! But how? They got rid of Marvin the Martian! They destroyed all of his findings! How then...?!

"Shut up, Buddy! You know that talking about it doesn't help!" Beans replied, arms crossed and teeth clenched.

"We need to talk about this! Soon everything will be back to normal and then what? What, Beans?! They will be very, very mad at us! And for a good reason! We hurt people! We erased fellow toons! What will they do to us!" Buddy grabbed Beans by the shoulders and shook him with desperation.

"That's not going to happen!" Beans replied. "We just have to make sure..."

"It's over, Beans! Don't you realize? I-I can't keep doing this...! We've gone too far!"

"Too far? We did what we had to do! We're the only toons in the studio! We finally have the attention we deserve! Are you telling me you want to lose that?"

But Buddy was terrified, he could not think coldly anymore. "All we can do is try to fix things and hope they have mercy on us..."

Beans grunted flashing his teeth.

"I didn't risk everything to let you or anyone ruin it!"

Before Buddy could do anything, he found himself falling. He hit the ground and lied there, deep into a hole with his body's shape. Birds flew over his dizzy head. Beans slid down the stairs and walked to the boy, his hand swollen, four times its normal size, hard as a wall, ready to slam him again.

He would have done so if it wasn't for a noise approaching. He escaped in time before the group of seven people approached.

"There! There's one!" Sheldon stopped to exclaim, pointing at Buddy.

Buddy was still too disoriented to be able to run away, his body didn't respond his orders to escape. He could only get out of that hole, take a few wobbling steps then fall on his behind. The humans surrounded him. He had no escape. Defeated, he closed his eyes, waiting for whatever had to come...

"He g-g-got a good beating..." Joey muttered.

"Better for us! He's gonna sing like a bluebird..." Sheldon, backed by his partners, walked to Buddy, his fist clenched.

One could never trust a cartoon character. One only needed to watch a cartoon to know they always got a backup plan, a trick under the sleeve, wait until their bullies get overconfident to get back at them. But Joey felt such immense pity for that boy in black and white that, contradicting all common sense, he got ahead, before the others could lay their hands on him.

Sanity had proved to be useless in those circumstances, anyway...

"Don't!" José tried to stop him.

"Don't touch him! Are you crazy?!" Isadore exclaimed.

Joey didn't listen. He knelt in front of the dizzy cartoon and took him in his hands. He was so light...Buddy cringing at his touch made him believe this was not an act. He looked really terrified.

"A-Are you okay?"

Buddy started sobbing, trying to protect himself with his arms.

"No...You are going to end me...You will make me swim in the Dip, lock me up in the water tower forever..."

"We w-won't. I promise I won't le-le-let anybody do that to you." Joey looked back at his partners with a serious look, and not even Sheldon dared to contradict him.

"You will...Because I was mean to all of you..."

"You did this, didn't you, Buddy?" Kath knelt down in front of him. "Why? You look like such a good boy..."

Buddy sighed pitifully.

"Yeah...That's right...I'm a good boy...And do you know what else I am? You know what people thought of me? I'll tell you...Schlesinger told me to the face...Boring. Flat. Uninteresting. A creature of limitless blandness! I can't help it, I was drawn that way...The audience didn't like me...I got no letters...Not got ones, at least..., so the bosses fired me, replaced me...I wasn't lunatic enough...I...I had the most beautiful reason to exist: to make people laugh...to make them happy...help them forget their woes just for seven minutes...Seeing no one notices you, laughs at your jokes...Everyone forgetting you...Do you have any idea of how it hurts?"

Sheldon looked away, because he knew. Or at least he thought he did.

"I was supposed to be the next star of the studios after Bosko, the first of us, left." Buddy continued, standing up. He didn't dare to raise his head from his feet. "I failed, then the bosses created a series of characters to...try and see...which could get the audience's attention. Beans was one of them. They thought he was the toon they were looking for. They put a lot of faith on him and made him the star of some short movies. But it turned out the one people remembered was...the stuttering pig in the background..."

Joey knew.

He knew because that pig was him...

"The guys and I have been thinking about your success...Because you know you're famous, don't you?" Frank, Frank Tashlin, told him one day at the corridor. How could he forget his face? He was even a movie actor at some point of his life. "Well, that's the way it is, and you'll have to get used to it. Each of us has an idea for your cartoons, and you know what that implies. Changes of design, yes, but not only that. Anyway, we'll tell you about it in a moment. The thing is, we've been thinking...Since you're going to be very present in the Looney Tunes, we've thought you could be in charge of the closing."

He felt like he had just dived into freezing water.

"You guys, who came after me and Beans...people loved you...You didn't even need to try...Eighty years after your debut people still adore you, while no one even knows we were Looney Tunes...It wasn't fair. We were abandoned, forgotten, humiliated...I hated the newcomers, but Beans and I soon got together, because we had experienced the same, being given the star treatment then get thrown away like garbage, and thought...we thought..."

"We were friends and then..., suddenly..., I never saw Beans again..."

Joey closed his eyes when he clearly saw why.

"...All of these stars should know what it feels like..." Buddy's voice trembled as he finished the sentence.

"What did you do?" Pip asked.

"Remember Hazel the Witch?" Buddy replied.

Hazel...A name that brought a lady with green skin to their memory.

"Well, we sneaked into her house and stole one of her spell books...We found one that looked...interesting. It would turn the ink a pulse. We used it on you...We joined our hands and uttered the spell. Then...Toon Town changed into Warner Falls. We became legends of the animation—and you, our viewers. We trapped you into a flesh prison. We gave you a common life, with worries, responsibilities, insecurities, so your mind was busy and didn't remember...We...destroyed any lunacy inside of you, until there was not a trace of what you used to be, until you yielded to the sad reality we created for you...I'm sorry, but I was so pleased...I thought it was justice...Now I wouldn't be the creature of limitless blandness..."

"But there was a trace indeed..." Kath said.

"It seems so. But it was just one. Maybe two or three, but in the end, there was just one. The Martian. He started making himself questions. He made you think. And we couldn't let him contaminate you, we had to..."

Isadore gulped loudly.

"It was his fault. Had he stayed quiet about it, we wouldn't have minded, but he had to tell you. He had to tell you and we did what we needed to do...But I'm not proud of it...I'm honest, really, I'm telling you the truth."

"A little late for that, don't you think?" José gave him a severe look.

"Yes...Yes, I know." Buddy nodded slowly.

"What made you change your mind?"

Buddy sniffed and ran a finger through his nose. "...I used to have a girlfriend. Cookie...My Cookie...This spell didn't pardon anyone who didn't cast it...I didn't mind about her when I did it, I wanted to be a star again so bad, but then I saw her, I saw her deep into the lie, and I realized she doesn't remember where she is, what she is...or me... I didn't want to go that far as to hurt her...But I was born to be a star and I wanted to be so!"

"If you really feel remorse, then you will help us. Where is your partner, Buddy? Where's Beans?" Kath asked him.

"I don't know...He wants to keep the control whatever it takes...He...is capable of doing everything and anything at all..."

Buddy turned his eyes at Joey. He didn't need to speak for him to understand that Beans was particularly dangerous to him.

"Bu-Buddy." He spoke in low voice after a long pause. "Marvin...He's still ali-alive but very badly...What will ha-happen if he doesn't make it? Will he...?"

Buddy looked at the ground again with great remorse. "...He's a human being made of flesh and bone...With all that entails..."

"Then there's no t-t-time to lose!" Joey bit his under lip. "Not only for him: for all of u-u-us! Someone could get se-seriously hurt! Someone could di-die for good! We have to end this!"

Ben's face appeared on Kath's mind and she started to wonder. How would he be doing in a place so full of mad people? Had he snapped out of it and become who he really was? And who was the real Ben?

Why thinking about him now? Maybe she had always worried about him, even if the feeling was not reciprocal...

Gee, she hoped no one had ran him over, or crushed him with an anvil...

"How can we end this curse?" Pip asked.

"...I wish I knew..." Buddy replied.

"Liar!" Sheldon shouted.

"It's true, I don't know! The book mentioned no counter spell...I can't look it up. It's gone. It dissolved, along with the rest of the witch's brick-a-brac when reality shifted. And we won't remember..."

"Maybe she does. She's a witch, isn't she? I bet she's immune or something." Isadore said.

"Where will we find this witch?" José asked.

"Guess they're not in the Yellow Pages." Treg shrugged.

Joey suddenly opened his eyes wide.

"In-In-Indeed they are!" He exclaimed. "Come, every gone, I know wh-wh-whe-wh-h-hw-ewew-whe-whe-whe-Just follow me!"