81. "Rich Kids on LSD (F*** the School Up North), Pt. 5"

Ever since the odd encounter with the two business partners and their respective sons, Officer Helen Coward had been spending the intervening time engaged in uninterrupted swooning. She sat there at her post, a copy of the Lemon Brook High School 2004-05 yearbook cracked open to the Teachers & Faculty section, eyes fixed upon the visage of one Stefan Bulley. God, that man knew how to have his photo taken. You'd wonder how they allowed that picture to be printed with that PG-13 look on his face. Oh, how she wanted to slip a hooved finger into that nose-ring and pull him in close. And it wasn't just his looks, he was such a gentleman, coming in to work on his day off to be an ambassador of the school to some new neighbors of his. A travesty he wasn't married yet, but she had to hope that meant the door was still open for her. And maybe today would be her chance to make a move when he finally came in to meet the foxes and bears.

…Hey, speaking of which, it had been a while, hadn't it? While the guests hadn't said specifically when Mr. Bulley was expected to arrive, it was implied that they were anticipating him sooner than later.

The security guard stood and dug around the office for a bit until she found the staff contact sheet, having the addresses and numbers of every faculty member. She went over to the phone and started dialing, but as she did, something caught her eye.

2727 North New Jersey Avenue, Unit 3. That was in the city. The strangers said they were his neighbors, but that was nowhere near the school district boundaries. Furthermore, it was an apartment, in a gentrifying part of town. Hadn't the visitors implied they all lived in single-family homes? A neighborhood that was just beginning to make its way up was the last place she'd expected two well-to-do businessmen like them to live - nor Stefan. But she had to reflect that maybe her infatuation with him was flatteringly filling in the blanks, assuming Mr. Bulley was financially well-off enough to own a house in a ritzy suburb like this and not needing to rent a place in a transitional neighborhood. And hey, maybe the address was just out of date.

The phone rang and rang, and then finally cut to an answering machine. A recording of a voice greeted her gaily, but it wasn't a familiar one.

"Hi! You've reached…"

The strange androgynous voice said the phone number, which Officer Coward cross-referenced with what was on the sheet of paper. No, she hadn't misdialed. But the voice never stated any proper nouns denoting whose number it was, so the cow did not feel confident that the number was still the bull's and she did not leave a message. He must have moved since that sheet was printed and gotten a new landline phone. And you know what, even if she had called the right number, it would be better that she didn't get an answer, that meant he'd left the house and was on his way over. Of course, now that cell phones were becoming more affordable, it would be nice if this school started listing those in their directory as well, but what were you gonna do-

The phone rang. It was the number she'd just dialed. She hesitated for a split second before hastily grabbing it and answering.

"...Hello?"

"Hi!" A woman this time, though one with a particularly husky voice. "Um… I see there was a call from this number? The caller ID said this is Lemon Brook High School?"

"Um… y-yes, but I think I might have an outdated contact number, I was looking for a Stefan Bulley-"

"Oh yes! This is Stefan's number! That's why I called back, I know Stefan works there, I, uh…" A nervous chuckle. "...I'm their downstairs neighbor. I'm petsitting for them, so when I heard the phone ringing, I… well, they gave me a key, heh heh…"

They? Them? "Uh… petsitting."

"...Y-yes, they have a parrot."

None of this was adding up. "So… he always has you… check on his parrot whenever he leaves the house for a few hours?"

The line was silent with skepticism. "...May I ask who's calling, please?"

"Officer Helen Coward, I'm the, uh… security guard at the school. I… I was calling to see if Stefan was making his way over, I was, uh… told he was expected here… today… soonish…"

"...He and his partner left for the airport this morning, they're going to Sidney World…"

The cow could feel the blood draining from her body. "...I'm sorry, did you say partner?"

"...Is this an emergency?"

"What's her name?"

"...Ummm-"

"What's her name?"

"...I'm… not sure I should be answering that question, if you didn't even know he had a partner, I don't think he'd want me telling you hi- uh, telling you their name."

"Why do you keep saying their?"

"...I'm not sure it's safe to tell you-"

"I'm an officer."

"...Yeah."

Okay, Hail Mary. "HEY, POLLY! WHAT'S STEFAN'S WIFE'S NAME!?"

It worked. "AWK!" the parrot squawked in the background. "Remember, it's legal in Massachusetts now, Jake, AWK!"

"What did that bird just say!?"

"...JANE. Her name is Jane, there."

"I think I heard something else."

And it was at this point that the person on the other end realized they could just hang up the phone.

Helen wanted to call back and demand more information, but that desire was outweighed by a need to stare at the wall and process that. Her world was crashing down around her. Everything she'd thought she'd known about him, wrong. All that time spent fantasizing about him, wasted. Dear God, no wonder she'd always seemed invisible to him when she was right there. What was her goal in life supposed to be now? There went her dreams of starting a nice Christian family with him-

-Wait, fuck, that also meant those businessmen lied to her!

-IllI-

Ed really wanted to be the ladder, so Ed was the ladder, with Robin sitting on his shoulders to bridge the rest of the gap to the high ceiling while Johnny stood by to catch Eddy and Elliott if they fell. Fortunately, that was not a problem, and the raccoon and the fox kit got into the paneling with ease, closing the hole behind them.

This wasn't a Hollywood movie; there was no light source up there. While both of the adventurers were from peoples whose ancestors had been nocturnal, night vision many generations removed from the days of old could only do so much against pitch black. But thankfully, they were in the company of two experienced bandits who always carried lighters for moments like this. They still didn't illuminate very far, but combined with what night vision the two of them did have, it was enough to slowly but surely navigate their way towards the storage room.

"Alright, so the gym has a really high ceiling because… it's a gym," Mr. Russell explained as they crawled along, "so we're gonna have to go around. It'll probably be a guessing game, but we'll get there eventually."

"Why doesn't this gym have a sign saying 'hey, this is the fucking gym'?" Eddy grumbled. "The other one had one!"

"Uh, good question. I think… at first it was an oversight, but then they tried to spin it as a good thing. So when freshmen have to go to Adventure Ed for the first time, they have to ask upperclassmen where the Adventure gym is at. It's supposed to be a community-building experience, but you know how it goes, the older kids just screw with the freshmen and say you have to enter through the bathroom or the boiler room or that it's on the roof or across the street or something. Every year the school thinks they've taught the older kids to be nicer than older kids were to them, and every year they bitch at us teachers because they're not, as though it's our job to make them not be assholes."

The fox rolled his eyes even though the raccoon couldn't see it. "They really call it the Adventure gym?"

"Yeeup. Where they teach Adventure Education. Rock climbing and… archery and stuff."

Eddy scoffed. "Glad I don't go to school here."

And yet… as blasphemously corny as the word sounded, this thing that they were doing there, sneakily infiltrating enemy territory, honestly felt rather adventurous. Sure, he'd gotten into some wacky situations with the boys over the years, but… this one had purpose. This one didn't feel like juvenile screwing around, this one felt like big-boy shit. This was more than a selfish endeavor, this was sending a message to some rich bitches to remind them that they weren't invulnerable. And above all, someone was going to respect him for this. Material possessions and confectionery the size of his head were nice, but respect… whoa mama, that was a forbidden fruit he'd been chasing for his entire life and never been able to taste. Whatever it tasted like, he was sure it tasted better than anything he could buy at The Candy Store.

And not to mention the aspect of him and Elliott going off to do something special; not only did that admittedly make him feel uniquely skilled, corny as it was to say, but hanging out with someone who wasn't multiple feet taller than him for once really assuaged the small fox's body dysmorphia.

It was indeed a matter of trial and error in zeroing in on the Adventure Gym storage room, and Elliott, who rarely entered such a space, was beginning to worry that perhaps the panel ceiling did not extend into that space. But perseverance thankfully proved such worries foolish.

"...Holy shit, here it is."

Granted, they had to contain their excitement for a brief moment, closing that panel that opened over a giant drop to instead find one that opened over a tall locker they could slide onto. But once they found an easy path of platforms down which they could shimmy to the ground, they were in like Flynn (please don't look up where that phrase comes from though, one of the theorized etymologies will break Robin's heart).

More size discrimination was at play as Eddy had to get on Elliott's shoulders to flip the lights on. This space had also been pitch-black, having no windows that it desperately could have used for ventilation; the air was thick and reeked of a cocktail of all sorts of noxious odors, and it smelled like some gym teachers used this as a place for clandestine smoke breaks. But once they could see, they could see it.

Evidently archery was a spring activity, because the bows and arrows lay atop piles of other things, a mess to be organized in August and not a second sooner. But the two robbers were not going to turn their nose at the clutter; the staff's lack of organization was their good fortune. And just as the legends had promised, the equipment came in all shapes and sizes, with pieces suitable for mice as well as elephants.

"It's the motherlode…" the kit murmured as he made his way over and began picking up bows that seemed like they would be the right size for him. But what was the right size for him? Robin used one that was roughly as tall as the lanky son of a bitch himself, was that proper or was that just his preference? It didn't matter, whatever the right size for him was, it was in here somewhere. Did Eddy think archery was cool? Absolutely not. But did other people, for reasons he didn't understand, think archery was cool? Absolutely. And that's what mattered.

"Alright, let's get the others," said the teacher as he went to the door. "...Shit, how do you unlock this from the inside?"

"I can unlock it for ya."

Eddy and Elliott both shot each other a worried look. That ominous voice hadn't sounded like either of them, nor had it seemed to come from the other's direction. That's when he emerged from behind a large bin of basketballs.

"By the way," he continued ominously, "I'm gonna need to borrow that lighter."

Out in the hallway, Ed was growing anxious as he waited with Robin and Johnny. He was happy for Eddy that his friend got to go on an adventure, and he was grateful that he got to be the ladder, but he wanted to be more than just the ladder. What he didn't know, however, is that if adventure could be defined as being in a dangerous situation, he would be having an adventure very soon.

But not immediately. "...Can I go to the bathroom again, Mister Johnny?"

"Ah, those three Sierra Mists are gettin' to ya, aren't they!?" the older bear chuckled. "Sure, bud. You know where to find us."

The boys' room was literally across the hall, so it was no journey to get there. Off the cub went to go do something besides just stand around.

"You'll notice that he asked you specifically," the fox said with a smirk.

"Aw, don't worry about it, he's not meanin' to disrespect you," Johnny insisted. "You know how it is, we all wanna have role models that look like we could be them."

"No, no, I'm not jealous!" said Robin cheerfully. "I'm glad you finally have someone looking up to you like that! I remember how you felt bad about Skippy and his friends gushing over me."

"What? No I didn't! Kids that young ain't fun to be around."

"Ah, I remember you thought there was something wrong with you that they looked up to me and not to you!"

The bear waited a moment to find the best way to organize his thoughts before replying. "...You're half right: that was more me not caring for how those kids all saw you as the main character and me as the sidekick. Kids don't get ideas like that from nowhere."

Robin nodded after thinking about that for a moment. "...Alright, that makes sense. My apologies."

"Which is why I'm apologizing that Ed's treating you like his second choice, I know how that feels so I don't wish it upon anybody."

Okay, yeah, Robin was a little jealous. "And that judiciousness is precisely why I know you'll make an excellent role model for the lad."

That flattery worked and Johnny had to crack a smile. "Hey, I'm just trying my best."

The compliment train could have kept on a-chugging, but the outlaws were interrupted by the sounds of clicks and clanks coming from the gymnasium door. A moment later, the door opened, Eddy and Elliott standing there to welcome them in.

"We found it," said Elliott, strangely unenthusiastic for their accomplishment.

"Come on in," said Eddy with the same uncanny boredness.

"Oh, splendid!" said Robin as he and Johnny walked in. "I'm just about ready to call this mission a success!"

"By the way," asked the bear, "how're you keeping the door propped open-?"

"Hands up."

Their necks just about snapped as they turned to see the teenage pig behind the door, now letting it go as it slowly and dramatically shut itself while the duo processed the fact that he was pointing a pistol at them - and the fact that he was donning a very familiar sense of eccentric fashion.

"Who are you!?" asked the adult fox as he and the others put their hands up.

The pig just glanced at Mr. Russell. "You tell 'em, I'm not repeating myself."

Elliott rolled his eyes and huffed out his nose, but he did as he was told. "M'kay, so… remember that gym teacher I said hates me?"

"...Yeah?" asked Johnny.

"This is his kid. Mister Bacon doesn't trust him to be home alone during summer break so he drags him here and gives him the keys to the gym to get some exercise but he just reads books and smokes cigarettes in the storage locker because - his words, not mine - his idiot father is none the wiser."

"That's right," the pig said with a firm nod.

"Aaand, he has a gun," Eddy added, "because his dad says any man over the age of thirteen should have something to defend themselves with."

"One of the few things he's right about," the strange boy sneered.

Alright, not the best situation to be in, but the Merry Men had been in worse, many of which they'd gotten out of unscathed on the strength of Robin's silver tongue. Therefore the first avenue he tried was diplomacy. "What's your name, lad?"

The pig seethed. "...Jamie."

The raccoon did a double-take at that. "Wait… you're Jim's son and you're… Jamie, does that make you a Junior-?"

"Yes, shut up."

But that name was actually perfect, an easy connection for relatability for the charismatic Englishman to make. "Oh, but that's an excellent name, lad! Nothing to be ashamed of! You know, I grew up with a lad named Jamie, and I remembered he liked to paint his face not unlike you have with yours-"

"I'm sure you do know a Jamie! Because my dad gave me his same generic FUCKING name!" Jamie's gun-holding arm was shaking as he barked. "I'm sure you know a hundred guys with a boring-ass, common-ass name like James just like you probably know a hundred guys named Michael. Or Andrew. Or Steven, or Alexander! Or… or Robert or John!"

The fox and bear each wondered for a moment if this kid knew who they were, but ultimately agreed that their names really were just so common that anybody familiar with anglophone culture could guess them pretty quickly.

"Or… fuck, what was the other generic name I was just thinking of!? …Or William!"

…Oh, he just had to drop that name on a day like today. No more diplomacy. "I have to express my curiosity about why you're so hung up on names like these, lad," Robin said, unable to keep his eyes from narrowing just a little.

"What, you mean names so unimaginative that people who have them hardly even bother hiding them on the internet because they know that their ubiquity makes them hard to track!? Because I wanted to be an individual, not an extension of my father! Not a living legacy of a tradition of authoritarianism and austerity and just… fucking conformity like my name represents!"

"Well, hey, hey…" Now Elliott was trying to talk his way out of this, or to at least atone for stepping on the boy's toes earlier. "You're clearly a smart kid if you know words like… ubiquity and austerity, I know your dad, I don't think he knows those words. You're not your father."

"Yeah, kid," added Johnny, "you ain't the only one here with a bone to pick with your dad."

"Nor the only one burdened with sharing a name with a man you detest," noted the fox who was once meant to be Robert Edward Scarlett the Second. "Let me tell you, one of my brother's favorite lines from his favorite movie? 'You are who you choose to be.'"

Alas, like most people, he had not seen that movie when it was in theaters, and by the time it started airing regularly on Cartoon Network during holidays, Jamie thought he was too old for animation; he was unmoved.

"I wanted to be a… Zebedee…" he hissed with venom in his voice. "Or an Octavian. Or… something that inspires fear and respect! Not some milquetoast moniker akin to a Dave or a Dan or a Tim or a Tom!"

"Y-y'know you can just… change your name, right?" noted Eddy, trying to show he was a big boy who did not fear a guy with a gun who he'd have been very justified in fearing.

"You think I haven't looked into that!?" the young pig snapped. "You have to be eighteen, number one, number two, that shit costs money! Why's it so expensive to legally make your own decision of what your name is!? And all the drudgery of contacting every place that has your name on file and telling them to change it, the post office, the doctor, your employer…" So much was the boy brimming with hostility for the world that his gun-toting arm was shaking. He never resumed his thought, simply grunting through clenched teeth as he pursed his eyes shut.

"Hey, big guy, how's about we put the gun away?" asked the bear. "We can chit-chat easier that way-"

"Oh, fuuuck that, I like having power over you!" Jamie sneered. "Besides… what's there to talk about?"

"Your… feelings?" proposed the raccoon.

"I just told you my feelings, the book is closed on that."

"Then what do you want us to do?" asked Robin defiantly, not really taking this moody teenager seriously. "Stand here forever?"

That was a good question and the gunman knew it. Therefore he decided to cook up an idea for what to do with this unique opportunity.

"...I wanna see one of you kill each other."

"WHAT!?" they each hollered, or some variant thereof.

"I wanna watch somebody die today."

"Young man, we aren't going to be bullied into murdering each other for your sick amusement!" Robin stated clearly.

Jamie's response was equally clear: he turned the gun on Elliott and pointed his free hand at the Englishman.

"Set him on fire or I'll kill you."

"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT!?"

"I know you have a lighter on you, set him on fire or I'm shooting you and doing it myself!"

You can imagine, Dear Reader, the fear in Mr. Russell's eyes. If this was truly Mr. Bacon's son, and he fully believed this was, then Elliott didn't think for a second that this boy was bluffing. And naturally, Robin and Johnny were giving the teacher a terrified look, not knowing what he was going to do in this situation; he'd only known them for a few minutes, so they really couldn't blame him if he followed orders to preserve his own life.

But right next to Elliott was Eddy, and the Merry Men were giving him looks of horror that were similar, but not quite the same. It was the horror of realization that they'd put their cadet in a far more grave situation than they would ever have allowed themselves to put him in. Sure, privately, Rob and Johnny both suspected that there was a decent chance that Mister Tough Guy With Stupid Makeup's gun wasn't even loaded. But that was still clearly a real gun, and whether it was loaded or not, having such a thing waved in your face is going to leave a mark on your soul. Goddammit, they hadn't learned their lesson from Skippy; once again, they'd betrayed their own trust of their own ability to be responsible, and dragged a kid into this.

A kid. Singular.

Where's Ed? the terrified kit mouthed to them.

Their eyes popped open when it clicked with them.

"I'm gonna count down from ten, because that's as high as a public school teacher can count anyway!" the pig barked. "TEN…!"

In just a moment, however, all of their eyes were going to pop all over again.

CRUNCH. "Did we get the door open!?" Ed beamed as he burst through the gym door, which bent and was partially ripped from its hinges as it swung open.

"E-Ed, get out of here!" Eddy urged him.

"It's not safe here!" added Elliott.

Robin and Johnny knew they should have likewise given the cub a word of warning, but they were too dumbfounded to get their brains working correctly,

"...Was having one of you brick shithouses simply plow the door down always an option this whole time?" the fox whispered to the bear.

"I… actually don't think I coulda done that…" the bear whispered back.

Ed didn't immediately see what the major threat was. "What's wrong?" he asked as he looked around. "...Pig clown!"

And the reason Ed didn't see the gun was because Jamie's arm went limp at the sight of him. "...A FELLOW JUGGALO!"

"A… a what?" asked Mr. Russell.

"Don't ask," Eddy said with an eyeroll.

"Nobody knows and neither do we," muttered Johnny.

The pig put the gun away and walked slowly towards the one whose face was painted just like his, staring up at the bear in awe. "I… I never thought that I'd meet another one of us! What's your name!?"

The cub was flattered. "I am Ed!"

Jamie was intrigued. "Monosyllabic, only two letters… minimalistic to the point of defiance! I love it! Now that is a unique name commanding of respect!"

Robin was just about done with beguiling his way through this. "Unique name - for God's sake, there's two Edwards in this room! Christ, three and a half if you count middle names!"

"Shhh!" went the younger fox to the older, not wanting his name out there. Eddy didn't know what was going on here, but he was ready to see it as an opportunity; hands still up, he began backing away slowly. "Alright! Well, uh, while you two bond over sharing names with Thomas the Train characters, the rest of us are just gonna leave you guys alone-"

"Run if you must, you coward!" the pig snapped. "But you're in the presence of two people who really understand the world! You could be learning from us and joining us, but instead, you run."

"Understand what about the world?" asked Elliott uselessly.

"As if I have time to summarize eight albums' worth of gospel and philosophy to you," Jamie scoffed. "You wouldn't ask me to tell you what the Bible was all about in one sentence, would you!?"

"You don't even know anything about this guy and you just think he thinks all the same things as you!" Johnny criticized, the older bear gesturing to the cub with a tilt of his head; by this point, he and Robin still had their arms up, but much lower, elbows down at their sides.

"I know from his face that we hold the same values, that's all I need to know," the pig said confidently. "I know that he understands all about why the world is fucked up… I know he respects the power of chaos and wishes to harness it just like I do… and I know he detests having been born in this Eastern Seaboard shithole far away from our Midwestern Jerusalem where we can commune over the nectar of heaven…"

Amid all the funny looks he got for that line, the only one who could say a word - and even then, only one syllable - was Eddy.

"...What!?"

"Faygo. Our prophets' favorite drink."

"...Oh my fucking God…" Johnny groaned, putting a paw over his face. "I swear our stupid little misadventures didn't used to be this stupid…"

"What's Faygo?" asked Ed.

Jamie's jaw dropped. "You call yourself a juggalo and you don't know what FAYGO is!?"

"...No?" the cub whimpered.

"Hey, I don't know, either," said the raccoon.

"You don't have a reason to! He should!" the pig said as he pointed furiously at the false follower of his personal saviors. "It's our favorite band's favorite soda, they spray it on crowds at their shows even as a form of baptism! But they're from Detroit and apparently it's a Michigan thing, so you can't find it anywhere near here!"

"What, is it a… cola?" asked Elliott. "Is it a fruit soda, is it a… a root beer, or a-?"

"Aw, they got, like, two dozen different flavors," Johnny grumbled, still in disbelief that what had seemed like a life or death situation a few minutes ago was now a banter about soft drinks.

But Jamie was left speechless. He hadn't expected someone else to field that question, let alone before he did. "You… you know about Faygo. Have you… been to the Midwest?"

"Naw, dude, they sell it here." The bear finally relaxed his arms so he could point with both paws to the ground beneath their feet. "Yeah, not a lotta places, but I know for a fact I've seen it and bought it once in a while. Rob, you've seen it too."

The fox pondered that for a second. "I'm… not quite the fizzy-drink aficionado you are, but… erm, yeah, the name rings a bell."

The pig simply wore the distraught look of someone realizing they'd long suffered for no reason; his posture faltered as every bone in his body seemed like it was about to collapse. "You're fucking with me."

"My hand to God, kid," said Johnny. "You prob'ly ain't ever seen 'em because they're only in little gas stations and convenience stores in the brokest parts of town, somewhere you probably never had a reason to go."

"Oh yeah, I remember now!" said Robin. "In some of those little corner-shops in neighborhoods where real grocery stores refuse to open so the only sustenance options are cheap junk food!"

"Exactly. Same places that sell Mr. Pure fruit juice, and Rap Snacks, and types of Little Debbie snack cakes you didn't even know they made. If there's bulletproof glass over the checkout counter and a sign sayin' what you can and cannot buy with an EBT card, you're in the right neck a' the woods."

Jamie was standing upright again, and his heart was racing with hope, hope he prayed wasn't misguided. "...Was it… good? Did it taste good?"

The big bear gave him a look like that was the stupidest question an intelligent creature could ever come up with, gesturing with both hands to his gargantuan gut. "Kiddo, do I look like I've ever met a sodapop I didn't like?"

The pig was on the verge of hyperventilating. "...You must help me find it."

"And we can do that!" Robin said gleefully. "But… your end of the deal, lad, is we'll have to ask you to keep the gun away from us."

"And… maybe help us out with a little sumpthin'-sumpthin'," Johnny added slyly.

There were no qualms; Jamie would not hurt people who could gift him invaluable information. "Whatever you want," he salivated.

Turns out having six people working to loot all the archery equipment from the storage room was better than only having five. While the bears collected and stuffed target boards into sacks meant for balls, the others arranged the bows roughly by size and tied them together with jump ropes to make them easier to carry, just as they did with the arrows themselves.

"...Are the tips supposed to be this… round?" asked Eddy skeptically.

"In this context, yes, since these are clearly practice bows," Robin answered with a smile. "This school would be mad to let teenagers run around with weapons that could actually hurt people!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Robin, then at Jamie, then back at Robin to make sure he got it.

"Oh, I don't go to school here," the pig clarified, "this is just where my dad works, we live in Apple River."

"But he's still part of the school, ain't he?" asked Johnny.

"Ah, I stand corrected!" the older fox chuckled before turning back to the kit. "But don't worry, lad, when you're ready for them, real arrows aren't hard to come by. In fact, we might even be able to make our own!"

Homemade arrows, cool, so hanging out with these guys was going to include a Home Ec class. But Eddy swallowed his displeasure and reminded himself to trust the process. Respect, praise, fame… trust the process, Eddy. Being regaled as a hero would make this all worth it. And… actually, come to think of it…

"Hey, uh… you think maybe… Double-D can get one of these arrows?"

Robin stopped what he was doing to give his younger counterpart a look of pleasant surprise. "Er… if you think he'd want one, absolutely!"

The kit played it cool. "I mean, I dunno if he would, but… might be nice to keep the option open, y'know?" he shrugged.

These words warmed the valorous vulpine's heart. "That's very generous of you to still be giving toward someone who you're not as close to anymore… I'm proud of you, lad."

I'm proud of you- FUCK, Eddy's tail wagged a little when he heard that. Hopefully nobody saw. But can you blame him? Hearing those words from someone he respected… is this what doing crack feels like?

Not to mention, this was a twofer. Fear not, Dear Reader, Eddy did not just magically become uncharacteristically charitable. He really did want to offer Double-D a pilfered bow, purely because the thought of the wolf freaking out in the presence of a stolen item, before realizing that Eddy had not only succeeded in participating in a heist but that said heist was more of an accomplishment than anything that egghead had done sitting in his room and sulking, ultimately leading to Double-D feeling like an enormous asshole for his obnoxious holier-than-thou attitude towards such shenanigans, was a thought that the young fox found really, really fucking funny.

"Alright, what's the best way outta here?" Johnny asked Elliott and Jamie as the others made their way out of the storage room with all their booty; the pig couldn't leave anyway until his dad was out of work and the teacher wasn't sure he could just abandon his job quite yet, so it looked like they'd have to be going their separate ways soon enough..

The raccoon looked around. "Well, it'd probably be suspicious to walk through the school with all this, but I think the alarm'll go off if we use the emergency exit-"

"HEY!"

They stopped and turned to see the entity walking in through the damaged door, dropping the equipment when they saw her.

"...Oh, shit," Mr. Russell murmured; the others silently thought much the same thing.

Officer Coward was carrying a basketball. "...British guy," she said as she bounced the ball in Robin's direction. "You used to be a pro, right? Make a basket for me." She pointed to the closest overhanging hoop.

The tall tod caught the ball with his good hand. "Er… I can't say I can right now-"

"Because you're not actually a basketball player."

Mostly keeping calm but definitely feeling his heart beating faster, the fox held up his dominant arm to remind the cow that he was presently on the mend. "No, er… it's because my arm is broken-"

"Or because you're not actually a basketball player."

"No, seriously, his arm is broken," Johnny said, giving the upheld cast a backhand smack with moderate force, nothing too painful but enough to get the Englishman visibly cringing in discomfort.

"...Or maybe he's not actually a basketball player," Helen repeated, eyes narrowing. And that's when the pink handgun came out again.

"Oh, goddammit…" the bear growled while the entire gang put their hands up.

Except for one. "Oh, fuck this, I'm not with them!" Jamie yelped as he ran back into the storage room and shut the door behind him.

Officer Coward didn't care. All of her ire was directed towards the ones who were lying to them. "What're you doing with those bows and arrows?"

As the de facto leader, Robin spoke for the team. "We're-"

"SHUT UP!" she hollered. "Stefan isn't here today… he's not even in Delaware, he's in Florida! With some guy! Named Jake!" She seethed through her nose for a few beats before she turned her attention to her coworker. "Did you know!?"

Elliott winced. "...Kn-know what?"

"That Stefan's gay!"

His wincing intensified. "I… yeah, a lot of the teachers here know."

"NOBODY TOLD ME!"

"YEAH, you and several other people who work here because we knew you wouldn't take his secret well, you fucking Republican!"

Still fuming, she looked back at the foxes and bears just to nod her head towards the raccoon. "Well… looks like you were planning on meeting one teacher here-"

"Aw, leave him outta this!" Eddy snapped at her, surprising himself with all the adrenaline he was finding within. "We didn't know him, we forced him into it!"

"Y-yeah, we did!" added Johnny.

"We found him and forced him into it!" tossed in Robin; the duo were pleasantly surprised by Eddy's resolve to protect a bystander, but damn if they weren't nervous that he was putting the target on himself.

"Color me skeptical," Helen said quietly and threateningly as she slowly moved closer. "A striper like that just looks sneaky…"

"The hell did that coward do!?" asked the gym teacher currently stumbling into his home turf, vision clouded with both his eyes still swollen. "...Not you, Officer…"

"Oh, what the FUCK, YOU'RE here too!?" Mr. Russell shouted.

"The building's empty, dumbass. I could hear commotion in here from a mile away."

"Looks like Elliott was helping some swipers and maulers loot our gym equipment," Officer Coward explained to Mr. Bacon.

"HEY, what you just call me!?" Eddy demanded.

"A derogatory slur for foxes, do something about it," Helen answered. "Alright, boys… we doing this the easy way, or the hard way?"

At this point, Dear Reader, you may be thinking, how have these master thieves not escaped yet? But that's the thing; if they were by themselves, Robin and Johnny would probably have already done something to get out of this predicament. Maybe some mind games, maybe a surprise attack, maybe some combination of the two, like the quick fox making a break for it to take the cow's eyes off the bear and opening the door for the big bruin to rush and disarm her. They weren't by themselves, though, they were with two kids and a good samaritan who had simply tried to help them; in that event, the Merry Men didn't care if they themselves got hurt, but they'd be damned if they did anything that might get the others hurt as well. The only reason they hadn't pulled something yet was because they didn't know how the others would react, whether they'd do something that might endanger themselves worse than inaction ever would, nor did they know whether this crazy cow cop would just let Robin and Johnny go in exchange for going after easier targets. You see the dilemma, Dear Reader, and believe you me, they felt stupid not having done anything yet, and were both pondering running the diversionary tactic anyway just because it had a better chance of success than surrender. It wasn't the gun pointed at them that made them feel helpless; it was their own moral code complicating things.

But this stalemate would not go on forever. No, Dear Reader, there was one amongst them who was not yet satisfied with his daily dose of Adventure.

"STAND DOWN, OFFICER MOO-COW!" Ed hollered as he jumped into action, grabbing a giant wad of bows tied at their arrow rests, sliding a bow out of a bundle, and sloppily sticking it into the web of strings and pulling back, whereupon it flailed about ten feet to the far right before lamely hitting the floor.

For a moment, all was still. Then the security guard power-walked right up to the cub's face and stuck her gun at the end of his snout. "You just attempted to assault a police officer."

Ed's first thought was that this adventure wasn't going according to plan. "...Uh…"

"You think you can do that and just get away with it?"

The young bear was about to cry. "...Am I going to die?"

"Yes."

"Hey, leave him alone!" The older bear roared as he gently but firmly pushed Ed out of the way so the gun was pointed at his own head instead. "You wanna shoot somebody? Shoot ME!"

"Or ME!" Robin hollered as he came to stand right in front of his friend, under the bridge of the cow's arm. "Leave the children out of this, lest you live up to your surname!"

"We can do both," Jim said calmly as he walked up, extracting his own pistol and aiming it at the group from about a dozen feet behind Officer Coward.

"Of course he has a gun," Elliott grumbled, "of course he does."

Ed was trying to contain his sobs, Eddy was angry at their terrible misfortune, and Mr. Russell was telling himself that after a day like today, suicide by cop might not have been so bad. That left Johnny and Robin. As they reflected on their fates, it almost sounded like a clock began ticking, marking the countdown of the final seconds of their lives.

"...Did we fuck up, Rob?"

"We are fuck-ups, Johnny."

"Oh, boys, are you ever!" Officer Coward chuckled, and she kept chuckling as it devolved into a bitter giggle of despair, whereupon her voice broke: "...You guys… you guys are the reason I found out… my Stefan… is never going to be my Stefan!" She sniffled a nose that was beginning to get runny. "If you had just left me alone… I could have been blissfully ignorant to the fact that he was a degenerate…!"

"Okay, are you a feminist with that pink gun or an old-fashioned conservative type!?" Johnny shouted. "I can't tell and it's pissing me off!"

"Oh, those aren't mutually exclusive…" Helen sneered with a smirk. "Sometimes it takes the fairer sex to keep the unfair sex in line…"

You know, it's funny; when you have your eyes fixed on a gun pointed at yourself or someone you care about, you hyperfocus and your peripheral vision just… goes away. Nobody in that gym realized that the slow, rhythmic thumps weren't the ticks of a clock, but rather the footsteps of someone in pain, walking gingerly as a very sensitive part of his body had healed onto his underwear. For Jim, he first noticed when… something landed on his shoulder.

"...What's this?" the pig asked as he lowered the gun and grabbed the… foreign object, ahem, that had been thrown at him, rolling the moist and squishy thing over in his hooved fingers and inspecting what turned out to be… turned out to be, um… oh Jesus fucking Christ. Let's just say he thought it was a chewed-up Life Savers Gummy. If he had to guess, strawberry flavor. I'm sorry.

"...HEY, OFFICER!" the strained voice called out.

The buck had the cow's attention, though she did not take her eyes off the criminals before her.

"MISTER BACON IS TOUCHING MY FORESKIN!"

The pig's eyes burst open. "WAIT, WHA-!?"

PFFF!

Mr. Bacon barely had time to squeal as he clutched his recently-shot stomach and fell backwards to the same floor upon which he'd inflicted so much misery on so many unathletic kids.

"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Elliott screamed at the top of his lungs; three of the other four would have exclaimed much the same thing if they hadn't been rendered speechless.

The fourth wasn't much for swear words. "Did we just watch someone die?" asked the cub meekly.

"N-no!" the older bear said assuredly. "He's fat, like me! It takes more than one bullet to the gut ta' kill us-!"

PFFF, PFFF, PFFF, PFFF, PFFF! And then the cow reloaded.

The Merry Men, Merry Cadets, and their Merry Incidental Associate did not have the mental energy to close their hanging jaws.

But someone full of energy heard all the commotion and was inspired to leave their hiding place in the storage locker.

"...YES!" Jamie cheered when he saw what Officer Coward was making of his father. "KILL MY DAD, KILL MY DAD!"

PFFF, PFFF! "DIE, YOU CREEP, DIE!" Helen hollered at the increasingly lifeless body she was targeting. PFFF, PFFF!

"I wanna help!" said the young pig as he ran over and brandished his own pistol. PFFF, PFFF, PFFF!

"That thing was actually loaded!?" Johnny remarked in a harsh whisper.

"I don't think I wanna be an evil clown anymore," Ed whimpered.

"You don't have to be, lad," Robin assured him.

"Can we… leave?" asked Eddy timidly.

"I think we should," said Elliott. The others agreed.

They grabbed their takings and went out through the emergency exit, which did indeed trigger the alarm. But no harm, no foul; there was a genuine emergency going on. And as the cow and the teenage pig continued to take all their confused feelings out on the gym teacher, there with them, still as a statue, stood Jaxen, like a pyromaniac gazing upon the forest fire he'd kindled, watching with the satisfaction of a job well done.

We may never know why the young buck decided to do that. But perhaps the reason is that there simply is no reason. Maybe the lesson here is that adolescents, in their pious devotion to apathy and anarchy, do not discriminate when they seek to screw over others, and truly harbor no prejudice as they seek to fuck with everybody equally; it would stand to reason, then, that per the law of averages, it is a statistical certainty that sometimes they'll fuck with a bad person who deserves it.

-IllI-

"...You're sure we didn't just watch someone die," the kit repeated skeptically once they were all reunited.

The older fox just smirked. "All I know is that I know nothing!"

The gang had split up after departing the school; they had thrown the archery equipment into the trunk of Elliott's car, whereupon he offered to give them a ride before realizing at least two of them wouldn't fit in his car and one was on the cusp. Therefore the bears walked back to the safehouse while the raccoon drove the foxes to Sherwood Forest Nature Preserve, Eddy sitting shotgun and Robin's big ass sitting sideways across the back row - uncomfortable, sure, but hey, it reminded him of his youth. Those three dropped off most of the goods at the camp in the woods, but kept the bows and arrows that were the right size for the boys, both for ease of access and in case the law located the camp again. With that, they reconvened at the rented room at Eddy's family's house, whereupon Mr. Russell said goodbye; he needed to go sit in a room and think for a few days and should probably lay low for a while as well. And now the others were crowded in the room's bathroom washing the paint off of Ed's face.

"...You're just saying that because you don't wanna admit you let us see that," Eddy snarked.

"Damn straight, we are!" chuckled Johnny.

"Oh, hush," Robin laughed right back. "But in all seriousness, we can never be sure. People survive the strangest things, and the strangest things can kill you, the world is a strange place!"

"That was scary," the sensitive cub murmured.

"Yeah, but it was either him or us," the older bear posited. "...Wait, shit, that might make it sound worse-"

"Naw, that's a good way of putting it," said the kit, "that was good luck, not bad luck." Honestly, Eddy just wanted the adults to stop babying them about it.

"Well it was bad luck to even be in that situation in the first-" Johnny stopped himself. "...You know what? I'm not even gonna say it."

"Perhaps that's for the best," said the Englishman. "Not dwelling on this is likely the best decision… though we must say, all things considered, you lads are… taking it better than expected."

"You really are, kinda surprises us."

The teenagers glanced at one another. Yeah, that whole situation with Cow Cop was utterly fucked (no pun intended), but… the boys had to wonder, were the Merry Men more out of touch than any of them realized? C'mon, Robin, c'mon, Johnny, it's not 1998 anymore, the world had had seven years' worth of technological advancements since then, and advancements in access to it for common people. What had been jarring about their ordeal was that they'd seen it firsthand and were involved in it, not that they'd seen it period. Do you catch my drift, Dear Reader? Sure, LiveLeak may not have existed yet, but if you thought that was the first shock-'n'-gore site, you might need to brush up on your Web 2.0 history.

"Uh… heh, maybe we're just mature for our age, heh heh…" said Eddy, giggling anxiously as he was overwhelmed by memories of watching videos of Brazilian gang members getting mowed down or Chinese factory workers becoming putty.

"Ah, perhaps you're just old souls like Johnny and I," Robin mused whimsically, before deciding it would be more appropriate to get serious for a moment. "But… genuinely, lads, we owe you an apology. We should not have let you boys end up in a situation like that, that was entirely a case of us misjudging risk in a way that was, frankly, irresponsible. And for that, we must apologize."

"And… guys, please, don't be too proud," Johnny urged them, "if that was too intense and you don't wanna do something like that again… say so, we'll get it, we won't think less a' you. We don't even wanna be in situations like that, we just bear and grin 'em because… fuck, it's a necessary obstacle to get what we want!"

The duo looked back and forth between the two boys, waiting for one of them to answer, but they seemed to be gravitating more towards Eddy, both understanding he was the more eloquent one of the two.

The kit accepted the challenge. "Oh, uh… naw, you're fine, we get it, that was a wacky situation that, uh… you guys had no way of knowing that was gonna happen, right!?"

His fellow fox quirked an eyebrow. "Well, thank you for absolving us, lad, but… our point is that there will surely be more improbable dangers we face somewhere down the line."

"We'll do our best to keep you guys away from it, but… hell, we're only mortal," added Johnny.

Eddy found his resolve. "Uh… well, there ya go! Wasn't your fault, you're only mortal! Besides, um… knowing how to improvise in weird situations, that's an important life skill, ain't it!? We wanna learn it from ya!"

Robin tilted his head. "You're sure you're okay with it."

"Sure as hell."

Johnny cocked his own head. "Aaand you're not just saying that to impress us?"

Oh, he absolutely was. But he was the son of a used-car dealer and he was his big bro's little brother. Eddy knew how to sell a lie. "...Yup!"

The Merry Men both shrugged, figuring that was the best answer they would get. Their attention then turned to the more enigmatic young man.

"How 'bout you, big guy?" his opposite number asked with a benevolent nudge of the elbow. "You still up for our wacky shenanigans after all… that?"

The truth was, yes, that had spooked the poor cub. That had been nothing like he'd imagined his first superhero journey to be like. And yet… and yet… that had been better than any fantasy simply because it was real. It made him feel like an adult, it made him feel alive. Sure, it wasn't an ideal first operation; but the word first, definitionally, means there must be a subsequent.

"I don't wanna not use the bows and arrows and other cool things after we just did all that to get them," Ed said, looking up at Johnny.

And Johnny had to crack an unexpectant smile at that.

Robin added a guffaw of his own. "Ah, you lads are mad, but we think we like it-!"

Knock knock knock.

It didn't come from the door to the main part of the house, it came from the door to the outside.

"Wait, shit, Eddy, are your parents home already!?" Johnny asked as he hurriedly cupped some water in his paw to rigorously scrub the paint off Ed's cheeks.

The kit was just as confused and worried as he was. "Um… they're not… supposed to be…" he said as he looked down at the stereotypically urban duds he was donning which he'd not yet had the chance to change out of, apparel that Toni and Terry most certainly would not approve of.

But then Robin remembered something. "Bloody hell, we got so caught up in an easy objective gone wrong that we've completely forgotten that we had another appointment today, didn't we, lads!?" he beamed.