"What do you mean she was taken to the vet?!"
Yeah, Tiger was upset.
The Hedgies managed to make it back home without any more major issues, but the trek there has a long, glooming shadow over them. There was pretty much no way to not address the elephant in the room, especially since apparently Tiger had been outside during the heist, which was why he reacted so extremely to the news.
That, and again, he and Stella were an item.
They just couldn't believe it. Stella was captured and taken to the vet, all because the heist went so, so wrong. Sure all the heists involved some level of risk, but it usually came in the form of traps or security systems set up by the homeowners, and even then the Hedgies bypassed them without much of an issue.
Here all it took was one turtle closing a cabinet a little too hard for things to go wrong.
RJ would never admit this, but maybe this was a blessing in disguise. He saw just how Stella was hurt, what with all the limping. From what he knew, any form of limping could've very well meant something was broken, and based on how Stella fell, that was a real possibility.
"Tiger, I'm sorry, I should've kept a better eye out!" Quillo spoke up, breaking RJ's thoughts. Immediately, he felt guilt as Quillo was pretty much blaming herself for what happened. It wasn't even her fault, she was doing a good job, but no, RJ had to get bored on watch and talk about cabinets of all things.
This would be the part where he'd think the worst part is that he still was questioning why the cabinet was like that, but this was a time to be worried about Stella.
"I…" Tiger stammered as Quillo spoke up, almost on the verge of breaking. Not sure if it was a good idea for Tiger to do that, considering his history of getting jabbed with quills, but rage will do crazy things. There was no doubt that Tiger could probably punt at one of the kids across the field. Of course RJ wouldn't want to see that, since that was, once again, a kid.
"I just…" Tiger spoke again, before letting out a sigh and flopping on his back, pretty much not having the energy to yell. Good thing too, since RJ wasn't sure how Lou and Penny would react to Tiger yelling at one of their own.
Then again, they'd probably tell him to just stop and nothing else, even though again, Tiger's luck with the porcupines was less than amazing.
"We need to get her back, right now, nothing else matters." Tiger spoke, suddenly shooting up. "No heists, no shenanigans, we need to find her!"
"That's the plan Tiger." RJ quickly replied. "Thankfully, I have an idea of where she's heading."
"Where?!" Tiger exclaimed, leaping forward to knock RJ down, placing his paws on RJ's chest. "Where was she taken?!"
"Tiger…" RJ wheezed. "I can't tell you in this position."
"Why not?!"
"You're standing on his chest." Verne spoke. "Tiger, I know you're worried about her, but we need to stay calm if we're going to have any chance at saving her."
Taking a deep breath, Tiger would slowly get off of RJ, allowing him to catch his breath. It was easy to forget that Tiger, as much as he was pompous and could rival both Verne and Stella in the snark department, he was still a cat. A cat that pretty much made up about sixty-five percent of the Hedgie's defense against anyone.
As soon as RJ got to his feet and caught his breath, he managed to get out what he was trying to say.
"She's being taken to the vet." RJ replied.
"How could you tell?" Tiger asked.
"A couple of very strong factors, my feline friend." RJ replies. "For one, her reaction to seeing Stella showed that the human was clearly sympathetic to Stella, and thus, wanted to help her."
"Any other reasons?" Verne asked.
"Well, there was the fact she literally said so."
"Alright, we know where she is, let's go!" Tiger exclaimed, making a break for the hedge.
"Hold your horses, Tiger!" RJ exclaimed.
"He's not holding any horses." Hammy spoke up.
"Figure of speech Hamster." RJ quickly replied. "But anyways, Tiger, we need to know exactly where Stella is first. Who knows what vet she's at specifically."
"I know exactly!" Tiger said. "Back when I lived with that nasty human-"
"You still do." Heather blurted out, to which Tiger elected to ignore.
"-one thing she always did I'll always appreciate is that she took me to this high-end clinic of some sorts." He continued. "They apparently had a lot of great veterinarians working there, and not only that, they also worked with these things called 'exotic animals'."
"Exotic animals?" Verne asked. "I'm assuming we count as exotic?"
"I actually like the sound of that." Penny spoke up. "Just the word sounds…great."
"Exotic…" Lou replied, before breaking out into a massive, toothy grin. "Yeah, you're right hun, it does sound good."
"Exotic…" Penny spoke again, and this is where RJ decided to just tune them out before he started saying exotic.
"Did you happen to see what these 'exotic animals' look like?" RJ asked.
"Of course, they were much like you." Tiger replied. "Stella must've been brought there!"
Well, the logic was there. If Tiger had previously been there before, then there was at the very least a pretty strong likelihood that was where Stella was taken based on how close it seemed to be. Plus, from the reaction of the woman, it seemed she wasn't one to skimp out on trying to save any animal, despite the fact said animal was trying to rob her.
It was almost admirable in a way.
"Alright, then let's go-"
"Uncle RJ, can we go too?" Quillo suddenly spoke up. RJ stopped what he was saying, and turned to the kids, actually a bit surprised at how forward they were being when that usually wasn't the case. Of course, he knew why they wanted to come along.
"Quillo, kids, it's not your fault what happened to Stella." RJ spoke.
"But we should've paid attention." Quillo responded. "I should've paid attention."
Now this would usually be the part where RJ would lie, or at the very least try and downplay his mistakes. It was a bad habit he knew, and it was a habit he was trying to break. This was especially the case as no one would let him live down the last time he lied…or the time before that…or the time before that-
Okay you know what, RJ came to the realization that maybe lying is bad, and for coming to that realization, he decided to give himself a gold star. Of course, not a literal one since they didn't have stickers, so a figurative one would do better.
Note to self, get a gold star sticker.
"Quillo, I distracted you, if anything, it's my fault that Stella got taken." RJ replied.
"You did what?" Tiger asked.
"Stella first, me later!" RJ quickly blurted out, before turning his attention back to Penny and Lou, who had thankfully stopped saying exotic.
"Penny, Lou, you're okay with the kids going?"
"I don't see much of a problem with it, 'would give us a bit of alone time." Penny replied, before looking at Lou with a grin.
"Spare me the details, and by that, don't share them." RJ spoke. "Kids, to the car."
The kids let out a cheer, and while Tiger looked apprehensive at the idea, he ultimately decided not to say anything. RJ would go over why this was a good idea, but he already mentioned that a few paragraphs ago.
As RJ was about to join the kids and Tiger, he was stopped by a familiar green turtle.
"Hey, RJ." Verne spoke.
"Verne, my amphibious friend, what's up?"
"RJ I…I messed up."
RJ could tell Verne was serious, especially since he didn't even bother correcting RJ calling him an amphibian.
"RJ, I messed up, and now Stella is in trouble." Verne spoke.
"Verne, Verne…it's okay." RJ spoke, giving a pat on the back…or shell. Whatever.
"RJ, I need to make things right, I tempted fate, I need to go with you."
"First of all, Verne, this is the third sentence in this story where it started with you saying my name." RJ spoke. "Second of all, you know I was joking about the idea of tempting fate, right?"
"Well guess what happened?" Verne replied. "I tempted fate, and now she's trapped."
"Verne, if you want to help, just come along." RJ replied, before turning back to the others.
"Rest of you, stay back and guard, we'll be getting Stella back."
The very first thing Stella felt upon waking up was the dull pain around her abdominal area.
"Oh…wow…what happened?" Stella mumbled to herself.
Taking a moment to gain her bearings, she quickly took note of where she was. She was staring at a dark blue wall of sorts, and looking up appeared to be a gray ceiling that looked really close to her. Wherever she was, it was in a pretty small area.
Biting back a word that she could never say around the kids, she slowly got up, the dulling pain returning and prompting the skunk to let out a muffled groan of pain. She remembered what happened that caused this, in fact the human woke up, and that she ended up falling out of the cabinet she was in and injuring herself in the process. Admittedly, she was a bit surprised that the human's very first reaction was to help her out, despite the fact they were literally robbing her. It was one of the reasons as to why she didn't even attempt to spray, even when she was in the car.
That, and if she did spray, she'd probably cause them to crash. Stella might be more than willing to cause chaos every now and then (emphasis on now), but she would only do it if it didn't come at a risk to herself.
Despite all the pain, she made her way over to some kind of gate or fence, squinting at the brightness emitting from beyond. Her vision started to clear as she got closer, and once it did, she noticed that in front of her were what appeared to be lockers of some kind. They kind of reminded her of those employee lockers that they had at that retail store in the break room. The only difference was that these ones were much longer, and didn't seem to be stacked on one another.
Wait, why was she focusing on the lockers, she thought. She needed to get out of here, and she had to start with the gate/fence/barrier thing in front of her. Placing her paws on the bars of the gate, she attempted to push it out of the way, only for a sharp pain to suddenly course through her body.
"Ooh!" Stella gasped, leaning over and placing her head against the bars. "That hurt."
"You do realize that isn't going to work."
Stella perked up a bit once she heard that voice. At the very least she wasn't alone here, which gave her at the very least a bit of hope. Looking closely at the gate, the openings were enough to stick her head through, which could give her a chance to get a look at this mystery companion. Doing so proved her right, as to her left, she noticed what appeared to be a beaver trapped in a cage like her own with an apathetic expression on their face.
"Don't you have those buck-teeth that'll chew right through these bars?" Stella asked.
"Not worth it." The beaver replied, prompting Stella to roll her eyes. "Arwen by the way."
"Stella." The skunk replied, before pulling her head back through. Clearly Arwen was going to be of no help in her rescue attempt, and even worse, she seemed like the type of company she would get annoyed at pretty easily. If anything, it only wanted to make her get out more and never look back.
In fact, that was exactly what Stella was going to do.
Sticking her head out through the bars again, she took note of what appeared to be a latch of some kind, which was most certainly keeping the cage from unlocking. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't reach it, prompting her to let out a grumble of annoyance.
"Stella, we're always going to be getting caught even if we escape." Arwen spoke up again.
"Have you even tried escapin'?" Stella asked.
"No, but I just know from logic alone that unless you have some big, wonderful plan, which I know for a fact you don't, then we have a better chance of escaping as you not keeling over right now."
Stella would usually say something in response, primarily containing some words that you can't really say in front of kids, but elected not to as she had suddenly gotten a bit of a "lightning bug moment".
"What if they were forced to let us out?"
"That's not going to work."
"Nah, it'll work, watch this." Stella spoke, raising her tail up. "It's time to cause a ruckus."
We're back with another chapter...to whoever is watching.
Yeah, sorry if it didn't seem there was another chapter at all, for some reason Fanfiction wouldn't display the story at all, which is really strange.
Anyways, RJ and the gang have a plan to save Stella by breaking into the vet, while Stella has a new pessimistic friend and is about to do her own break out. How will that fare? Let's find out.