Return To Toontown Part 4

Chapter Four: Maroon Cartoon Studios

At night, Maroon Cartoon Studios was dark and empty, all its employees having gone home. The building was lit only by the street lamps that bordered the surrounding street. This, naturally, made breaking in far easier for the Toon Patrol.
The glass window shattered quickly from the force of Stupid's club, and the four weasels slipped into the building, finding themselves in a tiny hallway. Wheezy brandished a lantern ahead of them to light the darkened corridors. "Does anyone remember which way we're supposed to go?" Greasy and the rest of the Toon Patrol had once done background character work for Maroon Cartoons, before being laid off as a part of the depression, so they had vague recollections of where the old store-rooms were.
As they continued down the hallway, Psycho pointed towards a sign on the wall. Wheezy, shone the lantern over, so he could read it. "Maroon…Store Rooms 1-3! We're near them!"
Turning a corner at the end of the hall, the weasels emerged in another hall, this one full of doorways.
Greasy looked around. "So…which door should we take?"
While Wheezy shone his lantern at the various doors, Stupid leaned against the wall nearest to him, which proceeded to collapse beneath him. He fell down with a yell, alerting his fellow weasels. Greasy and the others ran over to him, and found, once the area was illuminated, that Stupid's fall had been caused by his leaned on an unlocked door, which, upon closer examination, led to a store-room.
Heartened by their initial success, Greasy beckoned and led the others into the room. "Right then, let's find the page and get out of here," he said, reaching for the light switch in the dark. "It shouldn't be too har…"
The lights came on to reveal a vast warehouse containing towers of filing cabinets. Greasy gulped. This was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. The other weasels looked around the room as they entered, the same thoughts undoubtedly going through their heads. But they had a job to do. Greasy cleared his throat, and indicated the first cabinet on the left wall. "Alright then, let's start with the cabinet over the.."
He was abruptly interrupted by Psycho, who proceeded to wrench the entire top drawer out of the nearest cabinet, and drop the entire contents on the floor, laughing as he did. Greasy cursed under his breath. "Let's start here then, shall we?"
He and the other weasels got to work searching through the multitudes of paper for anything that resembled their leader. They had gotten halfway through searching the various sheets, when Psycho abruptly dumped another drawer from the same cabinet on top of the existing papers. Wheezy groaned, but continued searching with the others. Before long, it became evident that none of them had come close to finding their target. "Doesn't look like there's anything in this pile." Wheezy said "Let's focus on the…"
But before he had finished, Psycho had leapt up, and was heading towards the next cabinet. "Psycho! Stop!" Greasy called, but it was too late, and already the drawers from the next cabinet were being scattered to the winds. Stupid was now trying to help Greasy stop Psycho, but their insane relative had successfully emptied the cabinet, and was jumping over to the next one, cackling all the while.
As Psycho sent the next file of animation cels flying across the room, Wheezy's eye was drawn by a yellowed note that stood out from the papers. He went over and picked it up. It wasn't an animation cel, this was a note from one of the animators! "Hey guys, over here." Wheezy called. Intrigued, Greasy and Stupid moved over to him, while Psycho continued to attack the filing cabinets, emptying their contents all over the floor. The others ignored him, and read the note Wheezy had found.

Dave,
I need you to re-colour animation sheet #07892. That Judge on the Acme case got a little over-excited and liquidated a Toon shoe part of a set meant for delivery to R.K.O. Pictures. The filmmakers are kicking up a stink, and we need to replace it pronto. Use the rostrum camera in Room 32 to reanimate it; it's not being used by any filming crews at the minute. Drop it off at reception when you're done, and I'll take care of things from there.
-Frank

"So that's our next move then." Greasy remarked. "Once we find the boss's picture, we head for that camera."
A noise from the back of the room caused the three weasels reading the note to all leap around in fright. The source of the noise was Psycho, who stood atop a ridiculously large pile of animation cels, caused by his assault on the various Maroon Cartoon files. He abruptly leapt forwards and slid head-first down the paper mountain to stand before them.
"Found the boss!" Psycho giggled, proudly unfurling a plastic sheet with a Toon weasel on it. Although there was no colour, it was unmistakably the figure of Smart Ass.
The other weasels looked at him in awe. How he had managed to find the image so quickly was beyond any of them. Wheezy spoke first. "So, on to Room 32, then?"
Greasy and Stupid mumbled in agreement, and they headed towards the door, leaving the mess in the storeroom for some unfortunate janitor to deal with.
*
"No, his shirt's not that colour"
"What?"
Wheezy turned to look at Greasy.
"You're using the wrong colour." Greasy continued. "You should be using this," he said, holding up a paint tube with a similar colour on the side.
The weasels had successfully found their way to Room 32, where Stupid had found a box of art supplies, and they were presently hard at work re-animating Smart Ass; Wheezy specifically dealing with his boss's suit.
"No it's not; it's just a basic pink." Wheezy said, and turned back to the image.
"It's darker than that," Greasy insisted, pointing again at his team-mate's rendering of their boss's suit.
"What do you mean, it's darker? It's just basic pink!" Wheezy shouted, angrily defending his work.
"No, it's a darker colour!" Greasy retaliated.
The two began shouting at each other and fighting over who had the right colour, while Stupid painted Smart Ass' tie, and Psycho continued to draw faces on the edge of the animation sheet. Greasy moved to attack Wheezy and take the paintbrush for himself, but the smoking weasel was too quick, and soon he was on the floor himself, with Wheezy sitting on his back. Wheezy leaned down and blew smoke in Greasy's face. "It's pink." He said, getting up and returning to the picture. Greasy quickly picked himself off the floor, and, acting as though nothing had happened, grabbed a brush and started painting in his boss's watch chain.
Several minor scuffles, and a few tubes of paint later, they stood back to look at the result of their hard work; a finished and true-to-life image of Smart Ass. After a few minutes admiring their work, Wheezy broke the silence.
"So…now what?"
Greasy's smile left his face. "I'm…not…sure?" He hadn't thought this far. He'd just assumed that the second they finished the picture, Smart Ass would leap from the paper.
Beside him, Stupid scratched his head with his bat. "Didn't that paper say something about a camera?"
Greasy looked around. He had forgotten the camera! He signalled to the others. "Search the room."
Psycho took off in one direction, followed by Greasy, while Wheezy and Stupid headed in another; Stupid calling, "What are we searching for again?" as he and Wheezy disappeared into the shadows of the dark room.
Greasy and Psycho immediately began checking the desks that lined the walls of the room; Greasy checking the contents of the drawers, and Psycho running across the top of each table. Each drawer yielded nothing but junk left by various animators; pencils, a newspaper clipping, some string. Judging by the lack of noise from Psycho, he hadn't found anything either. Alternatively, his silence might indicate that he wasn't even searching. Greasy was beginning to lose patience.
Suddenly, a shout echoed across the room from Wheezy; he had found the camera. Greasy and Psycho followed the light of his lantern, as well as the trail of Wheezy's cigarette smoke to where he was waiting.
The two Toons quickly arrived next to their comrades, who were standing around a large and complicated-looking machine with an adjustable top. Greasy frowned. "This is the camera?"
"It's the only thing in the room that could be the camera," Wheezy said. "How do you think it works?"
Before any of them could try anything, Psycho had leaned forwards and flicked the switch on the front of the machine. All of a sudden, a huge flash briefly lit the room, and sent all the weasels leaping back in fear, save Psycho, who stared into the flash, before starting to giggle.
The other three weasels slowly approached the strange machine again. Wheezy looked at the part that had caused the flash, and noticed four tiny brackets on the corners of the machine. "Look!" he called to the others, pointing at his discovery. "That must be where the picture goes." Wheezy said, although there was a sense of uncertainty in his voice.
"That makes sense," said Greasy, although he was no more certain than Wheezy. "Somebody go get the picture."
Psycho abruptly disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing a second later with the picture of Smart Ass rolled up under his arm. Wheezy took it from him, and proceeded to hook it up to the machine. Greasy watched his actions cautiously, prepared to bolt in case they were misusing the machine dangerously. Stupid and Psycho seemed to have similar thoughts, and were both hiding behind an animator's chair.
Wheezy finished fixing the lens in place over the picture and turned around, to see his friends cowering in various places. He snorted with disdain, and returned his attention to the machine, in an attempt to hide his own cowardice. He gulped in fear, almost swallowing one of the cigarettes in his mouth, before slowly reaching forwards a finger, and activating the switch.
The machine's light erupted into existence again, and Wheezy fled across the room to join his fellows. This time, with the picture added, the machine was shaking viciously and giving off sparks, and Wheezy and Greasy leapt behind the animator's chair where Psycho and Stupid already were hiding. The sparks and flashes continued as the four weasels scuffled with each other, each frantically trying to shield himself from the possibly dangerous machine. Finally, the lights dimmed and went out, and the shaking ceased. The room was silent. Wheezy's hand shot out from behind the chair, waving Greasy's hat through the air, to test whether it was safe to come out of shelter. Greasy angrily snatched his hat back, and Stupid peered over the chair rim at the machine.
"What happened?"
Wheezy pointed the lantern towards the machine. "Did it work?"
Greasy frowned. "Only one way to find out."
The four weasels moved as one towards the machine. Cautiously leaning over the lens, Greasy saw that the picture was still there, unchanged. He groaned. The others immediately understood. "What did we do wrong?" Wheezy angrily said. Before Greasy could respond, three tiny laughing Toon faces peeled themselves off the corner of the picture, causing Greasy to leap back in shock. The faces, freed from whatever had bound them, leapt from the bench and rolled along the floor, encircling the weasels. Wheezy leapt to one side as one passed him, and Stupid attempted to club the faces, while Psycho happily cheered and laughed to himself. The faces soon stopped their mad revolutions and headed for the door, disappearing down the hallway. Wheezy slapped Psycho, ending his erratic laughter. "That was your fault, you idiot! Drawing on the cel?"
Greasy was also unnerved, but suddenly something occurred to him. "Hold on, guys. If they came out of the machine, then what about…"
A groan sounded from the top of the camera. Greasy turned and watched as a furry hand reached up from the lens and grabbed onto a hook, pulling its body up. "Ugh…what's going on?" A familiar brown weasel with a pink felt hat and coat rose from the lens of the machine, shaking his head.
Smart Ass was back.