Thanks to Tiger's guidance, the gang of him, RJ, Verne, and the triplets arrived at the vet where Stella was presumably being held. Admittedly now that RJ thought of it, going off of Tiger's hunch wasn't exactly the greatest idea in the world. For all they knew, there could've been another vet nearby that also treated exotic animals, and they were at the wrong spot. Of course, there wasn't any time to really check now, as for all they knew, Stella was scared, angry, both, and they needed to help her.
Plus, Tiger wanted to barge in to save her, and the moment the car they were in screeched to a halt, Tiger pretty much hopped out and made a beeline towards the front doors.
"Hold your horses Tiger!" RJ exclaimed, stopping Tiger dead in his tracks. Thankfully not literally of course.
"He's not holding a horse, Uncle RJ." Bucky spoke up.
"Figure of speech Bucky, but anyways, we need a lay of the land before we barge in there." RJ spoke. This of course resulted in Tiger just looking at RJ with a furious expression on his face.
"It's taken us two hours to get here, we can't waste any time!"
"RJ, we can't just wait." Verne spoke up. RJ would let out a sigh and take off his golf bag to start rummaging through it. He had expected that this would be a problem, but once again, he knew how to get through the gang.
"All that time will be for nothing if we all get caught." RJ replied. "Think of this like a normal heist, but instead of food we're stealing, we're stealing ourselves a skunk with a penchant for gassing anything."
"Great way of putting it." Verne mumbled. On the other hand, Tiger, realizing just what RJ was saying, elected to sit there and wait for him. He had the angry look on his face still, but now he was at least a bit calmer and more willing to listen. With Tiger now sitting and waiting for the plan, that prompted Verne and the triplets to shut their traps and listen up.
"Alright, so since this is the first time we're at a vet, I think now's a good time to talk about the layout." RJ spoke, finally managing to find the thing he was looking for in his golf bag of tools (he really should clean it out at some point). Pulling out the phone that he used for photo references of the place, he quickly looked up pictures of the Veterinarian Clinic on Velp.
"Alright gang, now that we're at the…" RJ paused, looking up at the surprisingly clean-looking clinic. Even he had to appreciate good architecture. Of course, one thing he would never appreciate was the name of the place.
"...Sunshine Rising Veterinary Clinic…" He spoke, grimacing at how sappy the name sounded, before showing off the screen on the phone displaying pictures of the clinic. "Study these pictures carefully everyone, take notes of the room numbers, the rooms themselves, see if you can find any vents…"
"Uh, Uncle RJ?" Spike spoke up. Was this the first time Spike actually spoke in this story?
"Spike, yes?" RJ asked.
"Why does that vet have 1 star?"
"Well, it's because..." RJ was about to speak, before really thinking about it. Looking at the page on the clinic and the clinic right in front of them, it seemed like there was no real reason for it to be hated. The clinic looked nice and clean from the outside, almost like it was out of a sci-fi movie, and if what Tiger was saying was true, then the clinic was employing talented veterinarians. That still didn't explain the discrepancy between the clean and promising clinic outside, and the reviews on the page that were clearly lambasting the place.
It was time for RJ to do the one thing that Fanfiction writers always want to do, and it's look at the reviews.
"Dirty place, insane prices, terrible customer service, is this a veterinarian clinic or a Walmart?" RJ asked.
"Are Walmart's prices really that unreasonable?" Verne asked.
"I have no idea actually, I just focused in on dirty without really thinking." RJ replied, ignoring the irony of his words when he just described the clinic.
"Uh, hello, Stella?" Tiger spoke.
"Right, right!" RJ replied, quickly shoving the phone back into his bag. He could ponder on the reviews later. He, and by he, he meant they, had a skunk to rescue.
A skunk that was hopefully going to be happy to see them.
"So, your plan didn't work."
That was the first thing that Arwen had said as soon as Stella was back in her cage. Well, actually that was wrong. That was the first thing that Arwen said that Stella could understand.
As soon as Stella sprayed, a ruckus commenced with Arwen furiously banging against the cages, trying to escape from the stench. As for Stella, her plan was for her to be let out of her cage so she could be taken somewhere else, and then, when the time was right, she would escape from the humans. She could probably slip into a vent, maybe if the doors were open at the right time, she could get out. Heck, she didn't feel that much pain, so she felt she could've made it.
She didn't even reach the floor before she was scooped up by one of the humans who went in to try and clean up the place. Even with all her struggling, she found herself being taken to another bright room, with the last thing she felt before falling asleep was something in her neck.
"Your face doesn't work!" Was Stella's reply to Arwen, before bursting out laughing. She wasn't entirely sure what happened, but whatever did, she was just feeling strangely giggly. Stella never felt like this before, heck, she hasn't even laughed this much.
"You didn't really think this through, like what did you expect would happen, your stink would open the door and you'd just waltz out?" Arwen asked with an exasperated tone. Clearly, she wasn't seeing any sort of humor in Stella's antics.
"Wait, wait, wait." Stella spoke up. "I have an idea; you know what else would open the door?"
She swore she could hear Arwen let out a groan of annoyance, which wasn't anything new. The beaver just seemed to have no care at all.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Your face." Stella replied, causing her to burst out laughing once more and Arwen to once more let out an annoyed groan.
"This is why you got caught, because you can't stop joking around." Arwen spoke. "You wouldn't even be here if you just learned to be serious and wait."
"Nah, I got caught because I fell out of a cabinet and got hurt." Stella quickly replied. "For some reason it had two doors, I mean, what cabinet has that?" If Arwen was going to insult her, she might as well get her facts right, and of course listen to Stella ramble about cabinet doors. Not like it mattered, she highly doubted cabinet doors were that much of a reason she got captured.
Arwen on the other hand didn't say anything for a bit, instead just seemingly taking in what Stella had just said.
"Well…hope that didn't damage anything then." Arwen spoke. Stella didn't know why, but hearing Arwen say that sobered her up quickly.
"Wut' do you mean?" She asked.
"Well, you fell, and if you're here that usually means you got hurt pretty bad." Arwen replied. Stella didn't know why, but just hearing that sent chills through her. No one ever got hurt on the heists. Emotionally yes, it's happened before, and the closest they ever got back then to hurt was when Heather got kicked down the stairs, but it was never to the extent that someone had to be taken to a vet.
"Yeah, I got hurt, so what?" Stella asked.
"You are aware of what they do to skunks, right?" Arwen spoke. "Especially angry ones…"
"What do they do?" Stella asked, panic rising in her voice. "Arwen, what do they do?!"
"You'll find out eventually, it's already been done." Arwen replied, before going quiet.
Stella's heart sank at Arwen's words. She knew she could have a temper and a penchant for violence, but she didn't think it was that bad. She just wanted to get out of here, back to the hedge, back to everyone and especially Tiger. Instead, she was just left alone with her thoughts, pondering the events of the last thirty or so minutes. There was one question that just stayed on her mind as she reminisced about those events however.
What exactly did those vets do?