Chapter 4: Cats & Dogs Part 1

Lisa was walking through downtown Springfield on this Tuesday afternoon. School had let out and she had declined her brother's invitation to hang out with him and his friend at the latter's house, promising to meet him at home. She was wearing a long orange skirt, a red blouse, and a brown jacket. As she walked, her white sneakers squished against the sidewalk, still wet from that morning's light shower, and her backpack shuffled up and down. It was a simple brown backpack covered with various stickers supporting different causes and charities. A bi-flag sticker sat right in the middle.

"He should be here." Lisa thought as she turned the corner into a shady neighborhood. Lisa hated coming to these parts of town. She could practically smell the corruption and lack of human decency from the sidewalk and at times, she could swear she was being watched by someone with bad intentions. Of course, she was more than prepared to fend off any would-be attacker. Her experience as the Animal Avenger left her with slightly heightened senses. Her eyes were peeled for any sign of movement and her ears were already listening for anything that even remotely sounded like footsteps from behind. Thanks to this, she was able to hear the sound of a young man's voice speaking to someone from behind an almost completely corroded building. Turning yet one more corner, her eyes fell squarely on their target.

"Yeah! Yeah! I got it! Let me just take care of this and then I'll come over." The man casually spoke with a purple phone against his ear. He was blonde with a grey and white hoodie and jeans with a huge gash over the left knee. From what Lisa could guess, he was still in his early 20's, not much older than she was. "There he is." She thought as she made her way over to him. The man didn't notice her until she was right in front of him and flinched when he finally did notice her, nearly dropping his phone in the process. Lisa fought the urge to laugh and continued showing him the smiling facade of an innocent and vulnerable schoolgirl.

"Y-Yeah! Listen, my customer's here. Yeah, the broad from the Internet." He whispered in a voice he didn't realize Lisa could still hear. "Gotta go! Talk to you later!" The man placed the phone in his pocket and held out his hand. "Hello! You must be LSimpsonJazzGirl."

"I am." Lisa took his hand. "I'm guessing you're MightyOne-EyedSnake12?"

"The one and only." He smiled.

"So, do you have them?" She asked.

"Just around back." The man gestured for Lisa to follow him across the street into another decrypt building. In a past life, it had been a family home but now it was a shell of a house with a huge gaping hole in its roof. As they neared the doorway, Lisa could hear the familiar sound of mewling from inside.

"This is the right place all right." She thought as the man opened the door and let her inside. The house was almost completely empty aside from a cage sitting in the middle of what was once a living room. Writing in the cage, crying out for a mother most likely far away from here, was a little of four kittens. All of them were white with blue eyes that had barely opened They were covered in crust and muck and as Lisa came closer to the cage, she noticed they had defecated in their food and water dishes, more waste sitting in the bowls than either of the intended necessities. It was enough to make Lisa's blood boil but she forced herself to swallow her anger. She needed to focus on the task at hand. "Dawww!" She cooed. "They're so cute!"

"And purebred!" The man boasted. "My boss breeds Turkish Angoras and Persians back at his place. Says it's good business." He put his hands in his pockets and studied Lisa carefully. It was clear that he was interested in her, despite the age gap and was planning on working up a way to ask her out. "So, you say this is for your kid sister?"

"Yep!" Lisa beamed. "Little Molly's gonna be 9 this year and I think she's responsible enough for a pet. She's been begging for a kitten forever!"

"Well I'm sure she'll love one of these!" The man promised. "Want me to get one out for you?"

"Aww! Would you? That'd be swell!" Lisa replied in as sickeningly sweet a voice as she could muster. As the man bent down to unlock the cage, Lisa quickly removed her backpack and pulled out a syringe from it. A syringe filled with her special concoction.

"So..." The man trailed as he opened the cage and wrapped his fingers around one of the malnourished kittens, "Do you by chance have a boyfri-

The man stopped as he felt something sharp slide into his throat. He tried to get up but a hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down. With his free hand, he grabbed the arm holding the object stabbing into his neck and squeezed, hoping to force them to let go. No such luck. He was already losing consciousness and his grip was weak. The kitten squirmed in his hand as he went under, mewling to be released from the hand that was holding it down. As the man succumb to the concoction, the grip on both hands relaxed, allowing the feline to slip out from his fingers.

"Men." Lisa shook her head as she pulled her hand away from the man's neck and placed the now empty syringe back in the backpack. In its place, she took out her fox mask. "Always gotta be thinking with their one-eyed snakes."

"There's an enemy sniper to your right!" Bart shouted. "I repeat! There's an enemy sniper to your right!"

"Which right!? Which right!? Oh dammit!" In his panic, Milhouse had ended up moving his character right in the path of the enemy sniper. As his half of the screen displayed a GAME OVER, Bart continued to move around toward the sniper.

"I said your right!" Bart scolded as he landed a clean hit on the sniper that took out his friend, winning the round.

"Sorry." Milhouse moped. "I get scared under pressure."

"It's alright." Bart patted his friend on the back. "Better luck next round." The two were hanging out at the Van Houten residence. Milhouse's mother as well as his step-father Pyro were out for the evening, leaving the two teens alone to play video games uninterrupted. Bart had called and invited Nelson but the former bully had to decline as he had football practice. Bart pondered on how Lisa had declined his offer after school as well and as if he could read his friend's mind when it came to his sister, Milhouse spoke up.

"So how come Lisa didn't show up?" He asked.

Bart shrugged as unlike Nelson, Lisa didn't give a reason for why she didn't come. "Beats me. Knowing her, she's probably at the library getting geek-faced."

"Geek-faced?" Milhouse asked in confusion, his left eyebrow cocked.

"You know, reading and studying instead of having normal fun. We get shit-faced. She gets geek-faced."

"Oh. I see." Milhouse sighed. "Just once, I wish Lisa would get geek-faced with me."

Bart rolled his eyes as he reentered Milhouse and himself into the game lobby to await the next match. Some things just never changed and one of those things was Milhouse's infatuation with his sister. Lisa had made it clear that she simply had no interest in him but that didn't stop Milhouse from trying countless times, occasionally roping Bart into his antics. But nothing worked. Bart did sometimes try to talk Milhouse out of seeking Lisa but every attempt ended in failure. It hurt Bart that his best friend was pining for a girl out of his league. Nevertheless, he decided to try again.

"Look Milhouse, I know you dig Lisa for some unfathomable reason but I think it's time to move on. There's plenty of fish in the sea, man! All you have to do is stop waiting in line for the vegan fish sticks and jump in!"

"Come on Bart!" Milhouse sighed. "We both know you don't mean that. I mean...look at me!" He jumped up and gestured to his lanky body and acne-riddled face. "What girl would want this!?"

"Chill man!" Bart got up and pulled his friend back to the couch. "Okay, so maybe you got fucked over by the Puberty Fairy. It happens. But it's not the end of the world! They have creams for acne!"

"I'm allergic to 50% of all face creams," Milhouse argued glumly.

"Then we'll work on your bod!" Bart suddenly came up with an idea. "Yeah! That's it! We'll ask Nelson to train you! Put some muscle on those chicken bones of yours! In no time at all, the ladies will be swarming all over you!"

"Really?" Milhouse grew excited. "Even Lisa?"

Bart's smile faltered at the mention of his sister's name. He opened his mouth to argue against it, only to find he had nothing to say and close it again. "Aww what the hell?" He thought. "If this works, he's sure to attract someone other than Lisa." He smiled once more. "Sure, why not?"

"Alright!" Milhouse shouted. "Now come on! Let's kill some Nazis!"

"Always a plan, my man! Always a plan!" Bart agreed as they entered the battle zone. As Bart assumed the position in-game, he found himself thinking back to his sister. "Where did Lisa ditch us for anyway?" He shrugged again and decided to focus on the game. "Doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it's bound to be something totally lame."

Jeremy White was not a decent guy. He wasn't outright evil or anything. He was just the kind of guy to steal jewelry from his mom and whatever girl had decided to sleep with him that night. Said jewelry would then be pawned for beer money. Of course, every so often, Jeremy would find himself on the receiving end of a beating when he made the mistake of stealing from the wrong people. This was how he found himself working for Mr. Wolfe's kitten mill and by the universal rules of cause and effect, found himself on the floor of a different rotten building than from the one he was in before.

"Ughh...what the fuck...?" He smacked his lips as he forced himself to sit up. The building he was in looked even worse than the one he was selling the kittens in. Its walls were almost completely caved in and the stench was unbearable. As he looked around, he noticed a figure lurking in the shadows, one wearing a very familiar brown jacket.

"Hey...Hey you! Did you do this? Why'd you bring me here? You bitch!"

Jeremy intended to scream more at the girl but was stopped in his tracks when she turned to face him. Even in the dingy darkness of this house, Jeremy could tell he was looking at a mask. A white fox mask with red markings.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!" Jeremy scrambled to get to his feet and run but the masked girl was faster, she rushed over to him with a bat in her hand and with a single mighty swing, smashed his right knee. Jeremey screamed in agony as he returned to his back, tears flowing from his eyes. He barely had time to recover from the blow when a second one smashed into his other kneecap. His screaming was reduced to a quiet choking noise and he writhed on the floor as his assailant loomed over him. After a minute or so, Jeremy glared at the masked girl while gnashing his teeth in agony. "Y..You're that Animal Avenger psycho aren't you?"

"That's right asshole!" Lisa growled. "And I think we both know what happens next." The girl swung her bat at Jeremy's face, causing him to flinch. However, she stopped it just a few inches from his nose and slowly brought it up while he shot her a bewildered look. "But before that, you're gonna tell me everything you know about the kitten mill you work for."

"K-Kitten Mill?" Jeremy asked. "What the f-fuck are talking about? I don't work for no kitten mill. My cat just had babi-GAH!"

Lisa slammed her at into Jeremy's right side, making sure to hit him in the kidney. He screamed as the pain spread throughout his entire body. "Don't fucking lie to me!" Lisa hissed. "You already told me that your boss breeds these cats back at his place. But breeders don't allow their kittens to end up that malnourished and filthy." Underneath her mask, Lisa's eyes narrowed. "Not if they're legit anyway."

"What are...errr...What are you trying to *cough*..say!?" Jeremy struggled to breathe through his agony, let alone speak.

"I'm saying your boss is a disgusting man who runs a kitten mill and I have reason to believe he's not the only one!" Lisa walked to her backpack and pulled out a small messy stack of papers, some of which had their tops torn off. She marched back to the wounded Jeremy and dumped them all over him. One of the papers landed right on his face and with great difficulty, he picked it up and studied the grainy printed image on it. It displayed a skinny-looking puppy, most likely a Beagle. "PUPPIES FOR SALE." marked the header of the page with an additional caption on the bottom reading' "REAL CHEAP!"

"I've been seeing these flyers for both puppies and kittens all over Springfield." Lisa continued. "I even know a girl who bought a puppy that way." Lisa bent her knees while holding the bat behind her bat, causing Jeremy to squirm. "Poor thing didn't last a week. Couldn't. It was too riddled with parasites and diseases, most likely caused by piss-poor living conditions. The kind you find in a puppy mill."

"What does that have to do with me!?" Jeremy suddenly screamed. "Are you blind you crazy bitch? I was trying to sell you kittens, not puppies!"

"My point is there's a kitten mill and a puppy mill operating here in Springfield and I have reason to believe they're connected somehow!" She stood back up and pointed the bat at Jeremy's face. "You clearly work for the kitten mill and I know you know more than your letting on, so talk!"

"Ok! Ok!" Jeremy finally relented. "M-My boss's name is Mr. Wolfe. H-He's partners with the owner of the puppy mill, Mr. Gato! Business partners! They used to sell counterfeit shit in Captial City until they got busted by the cops and fled here. After a few months, they both bought different houses and started peddling puppies and kittens. They started by taking in and breeding strays and once they had made enough money, started adopting healthier animals from the shelter."

Lisa gritted her teeth at those words. She knew all too well how these mills worked. No doubt the female animals were bred as constantly as possible without any regard for their health and wellbeing. The very idea that cats and dogs were having the opportunity of a good life stolen from them by some greedy fuckwads looking for easy money made Lisa's blood boil.

"They each have a few guys with them, including me." Jeremy continued. "It's not much but the pay is good. Honestly, I don't understand why you're after us. We aren't doing anything wron-

"The hell you aren't!" Lisa slammed the bat against Jeremy's already bruised side again. He cried out before blubbering, his entire body trapped in a state of sheer agony. "These cats and dogs you're breeding. Those kittens and puppies you're forcing them to pump out. They're fucking living beings! Not products for you to shell out for a few bucks!" Lisa hit him again, this time in the back. She went in for a third strike and forced herself to stop. She couldn't kill him just yet. She still needed more information. "Now..." She growled. "I want you to tell me where both the kitten mill and puppy mill are. I need to pay your boss and his little partner a visit."

Jeremy began to make a strange sound that Lisa figured was crying. He had to be in immense pain from all the blows he took after all and she figured that he already knew he wasn't going to leave this place alive. As the sound grew louder, however, Lisa realized that it was the sound of laughter. Deranged I-don't-give-a-shit-anymore laughter.

"Wha-What the fuck are you laughing at?" Lisa demanded.

"Y..You stupid bitch." He wheezed. "Don't you think Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Gato already know about you? The all-so-terrifying Animal Avenger of Springfield? They already have a contingency plan for you."

"A contingency plan?" Lisa asked.

"They made a deal see? If either one of the mills is attacked, they'll alert the other one so they can get the fuck out of Dodge." Jeremy stopped to cough up blood before continuing. "You might be a psycho but you're still just one person. You can't be in two places at once. You'll have to start with one of them and whoever you attack first, the other one will get away!" Jeremy howled in laughter again.

"Y-You're kidding." Lisa couldn't believe it. "Those bastards actually conceived an escape plan and a decent one at that?" Lisa felt her anger boil over and with a final roar of rage, she slammed the bat directly onto Jeremy's head, knocking him out. For the next 120 seconds, she continued to bludgeon the boy to death, painting the entire room as well as herself in his blood. By the time, she had finally managed to stop herself, Jeremy's head was nothing more than a gory stain on the floor. Lisa needed another minute to cool down, panting underneath her mask as she fell to her knees. Once she was able to calm down enough to think, she removed her mask and wiped the sweat from her brow.

"This is bullshit!" She groaned. "I can't let either of those bastards escape with their lives! I'll have to come up with a plan of my own somehow." Lisa's thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of mewling from the other room. Sighing, she got to her feet and entered the next room of the crumbling building. Sitting on the floor was the cage, the kittens squirming and crying out for a mother that wasn't there. Lisa bent down in front of the cage and gently placed a hand on the steel bars. "I can't promise I'll save you little ones." She uttered as she thought back to her classmate's doomed puppy. "It might be too late for you. That's how it usually goes for these horrible mills." With her free hand, Lisa made a fist. "But I promise, one way or another, I'll make those bastards pay for what they've done! Both of them! They will not escape me!"

As Lisa shouted, she noticed the sound of dripping coming from her arm. Looking down, she realized that her clothes were still covered in Jeremy's blood. "Shit! I guess I got a little carried away." Lisa marched right back to her backpack and pulled out a blue spray bottle. It had no label nor did it need one. Like the tranquilizer, this was an original concoction born of a female Simpson. More specifically, it was a creation of one Marge Simpson. Lisa spray the liquid onto her clothes and watched as the blood stains began to fade. It wouldn't take them out completely but it would be enough for Lisa to pass them off as something else and that was enough.

"Oh Mom." Lisa thought as she kissed the bottle. "What would I do without you?"

That evening, Marge made a dinner of lasagna, making a smaller vegan one for Lisa in the process. She even went through the trouble of making garlic breadsticks and salad. With such a spread, she was sure tonight would be a wonderful dinner for the family. So when she saw Lisa and Maggie both down in the dumps and barely touching their food, she became worried. "Lisa? Maggie?" She asked. "Are you both alright?"

"Huh?" Lisa suddenly became surprised, as if she had been caught looking up something naughty on her device. "I-I'm fine Mom!" She promised. "Just, you know, school work and all that! Heh Heh!" Of course, what weighed Lisa down in her own mind was far worse than just a simple case of schoolwork. "I have to find a way to take out both Wolfe and Gato at the same time." She thought as she looked down at the phone in her hands. It was not her phone but Jeremy's which she had stolen from his pocket after cleaning herself off. Once she had surrendered the kittens to the shelter, claiming that she found them in an abandoned lot, she spent the rest of her walk home searching through his phone, hoping for more useful information about the mills.

The good news was that there was quite a bit of information, including details of the plan and the locations of both mills. The bad news was that the kitten and puppy mills were far away from each other, laying on the outskirts of east and west Springfield respectively. There was simply no way for Lisa to take them both out at the same time and if what the plans laid out were true, attacking one would cause the other to flee. Lisa couldn't stand the idea of either man escaping her clutches. It was enough to fill her with rage. Of course, she couldn't tell anyone at the dinner table this and so simply denied having any problem as she slipped the phone back into her pocket and ate a spoonful of her food.

Marge could tell her daughter was lying but decided to keep her mouth shut for the time being. She knew there were just some things teenagers didn't wanna talk about and she trusted that her middle child would open up soon enough. With this, she decided to turn to Maggie. "What about you sweetie?" Marge asked. "Why are you so glum?"

"Mr. Peacock is letting us do a Show & Tell at school tomorrow and I was gonna show off my T-Rex statue made out of toothpicks." The eight-year-old suddenly flared up and slammed her fist on the table. "But then that jerkwad Gerald went and smashed it all to pieces with a kickball!"

"Wait, why'd you bring it today if the Show & Tell was tomorrow?" Bart asked.

"I wanted to show it off so badly so I was holding a pre-Show & Tell show," Maggie confessed. "But that doesn't matter anymore because it's gone and I have nothing left for tomorrow!" Maggie slammed her face into the table and started to cry, tugging on her family's heartstrings.

"There, there." Marge placed a hand on her child's shoulder. "It'll be ok. There's always next time."

"But tomorrow is next time!" Maggie's muffled voice argued.

"Don't worry sweetie," Homer spoke up. "After dinner, we'll rummage through the basement. I'm sure there's gotta be some interesting crap in there for you to show off."

Maggie was still weeping but lifted her head up. "You promise?"

"I promise," Homer said through a mouthful of meat, sauce, and pasta.

Maggie sniffled and wiped her eyes dry. "Thanks, Dad!"

"You're welcome, sweetie."

Marge smiled at her husband as she returned to her seat. Homer could be rather selfish, especially nowadays but every so often, he proved that deep down, he was a good man. Taking a bite out of her salad, Marge decided to turn to her only son. "What about you Bart? Anything to report?"

"Gonna try to get Milhouse ripped so he can get a girlfriend. That is all." Bart responded nonchalantly, not even bothering to look up from his plate as he spoke. Marge's smile faltered at the lack of conversation and she resigned herself to simply finishing what was on her plate.

The rest of the dinner more or less went quietly.

After his fifth helping, Homer took Maggie into the basement and the two began to rummage through the various objects and trinkets they had accumulated over the years. Maggie briefly considered taking out the giant Olmec head that her father's boss had given her brother when he had donated blood but Homer reminded her that it was too big to take out of the basement, let alone drag it to a school bus. And so they continued to search, only to find nothing of interest. Homer noticed Maggie becoming more distraught as they searched and he decided to instigate a conversation to take her mind off of it. "So...How's school?"

"I guess I can't complain," Maggie replied. "Aside from stupid Gerald being in my class. Why do stupid people have to exist?"

"It's just a fact of life sweetie." Homer explained. "They'll always be stupid people in your life whether they be a stupid Gerald or a stupid Flanders."

Maggie sighed as she pulled a box to herself. "I guess you're right." Maggie tore open the top of the box and frowned as she saw that all that was in there was just a bunch of moldy socks. Homer immediately recognized them as the socks he was supposed to donate to the church three years ago. "I was wondering where I left those things."

"Gahhh!" She cried as she shoved the box to its side, spilling its contents. "It's hopeless! There's nothing but junk down here! We're never gonna find anything good enough in time!"

"Do you want to try the attic?" Homer suggested.

"Oh what difference does it make!? It's filled with the same kind of crap as the basement! I'm screwed!" Maggie started to sob again and Homer felt anger well up inside. Anger at himself for failing to appease his daughter and anger toward Gerald who had caused this whole mess in the first place.

"If I only had that little punk alone for five minutes." He growled as a memory suddenly came to him. A memory concerning something he had stashed away in the attic just the other day. "That's it!" He made a stopping motion toward his daughter. "Listen Maggie, don't cry! Daddy has something that will blow the socks off of your class!" With this, Homer rushed up the stairs, stopped halfway through when his hip threatened to give out again, and continued his journey to the attic.

Maggie did indeed stop crying if only because she was too confused as to what her father was trying to say. After lingering in the basement for a little while, she slowly ascended the stairs herself and made her way to the top story of the house. There, she found the attic door open, its ladder crumbling due to her father's great girth. She climbed up the splintered ladder herself without much trouble and poked her head out through the doorway just as her father put the finishing touches on whatever it was he was working on.

"And...there!" Homer shouted with a final swing of his hammer. "Not too bad if I do say so myself!" He heard footsteps approaching from behind and turned to face his youngest daughter with a smile.

"Dad? What's going on?" She asked. "What did you make?"

"Only the best Show & Tell thingy in the history of Show & Tell thingys!" Homer stepped aside and allowed Maggie to see his creation. It was a poorly constructed model of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant where Homer worked. A few Hot Wheels were superglued onto its lot and the symbols on the reactors were little more than scribbles. Inside these reactors, however, were two rods glowing a sickly green. Maggie quickly deduced that these were real nuclear rods her father had stuffed in there

"Dad..." She uttered. "Those rods..."

"Yeah. Old man Burns told me to toss these bad boys last week and it was Little Trouble in Big Japan night so I just dumped them here and forgot about them. Talk about a lucky break, am I right?"

"Dad..." Maggie trembled as she clenched her fist and held her head down. "That is...SO AWESOME!" She shouted in excitement.

"I know right!" Homer agreed with equal enthusiasm.

"Real nuclear rods!? Wait 'till Gerald sees this!" Maggie cried out. "I can't wait to rub this in his big stupid face!" Maggie ran up to her father and embraced him. "Oh Thank you Dad!"

"Anytime sweetie." Homer replied as he returned the hug. "Anytime."

Lisa was lying in bed, shifting through Jeremy's phone. The device was already halfway to an empty battery and Lisa had already confirmed that the charger to her own phone didn't work. It would only be a matter of time before the phone went out for good and so Lisa decided to copy the details of Wolfe and Gato's escape plan and even sent the image of their locations to her phone. Once she had copied the data, she plugged in her own phone and turned off Jeremy's, tucking it under her bed.

"There has to be some way I can take out both of those mills at once." Lisa thought. "I can't let either of those monsters flee Springfield alive to start something like this again. But what am I to do?"

Deciding it was against her best interest to let this dilemma cost her precious sleeping hours, Lisa turned off the lamp and laid her head on her pillow. Aristotle jumped up onto the bed and curled up against her chest. Without opening her eyes, Lisa smiled and gathered the purring feline in her arms.

Before long, both mammals were asleep.

(This chapter was hard to make for me, mostly because I almost didn't have an idea of how to do it. But I think I got it down now and should be good for the next chapter. In case this is the last fic, I release in 2022, have a good next year!)