Wicked Ways 3: The Fine Lines Part 2 By Kieron Wells ( Dark Helmet ). Email: star_tropics@hotmail.com Vicky's eyes opened slowly. The drugs that had been used to knock her out were finally starting to wear off, and she could now fully see her surroundings. The last thing the daughter of King remembered was King once again making what sounded like empty threats, and then she was met by two large men in white coats. After a net and a spray hit her everything went black and the next thing she knew, Vicky was in here. Her head was pounding. She was incredibly disoriented. Her balance had yet to return. " What happened... where am I..." Vicky said to herself. She rubbed her eyes for a moment and took a good look at where she was. White walls that appeared to be padded. No window on the door. It was a very small room. There was absolutely nothing in there. There was no furniture. No TV. No tables. Nothing. The shock hit her after a second: King had actually followed through with a threat. She knew exactly what this appeared to be: Acme Acres mental hospital. She became filled with anger, but when she tried to move her arm to hit the wall, she realized that she couldn't move her arms. Vicky looked down at her torso and noticed she was wearing a straight jacket. She tried to push out of it for a moment, but that proved futile, so she sat back against a wall, exhaled and stared at the ceiling, wondering what exactly she had done to deserve this, and how sick King must really be. Meanwhile, back at Acme Looniversity, the angry group of students was beginning to disperse. Once the group realized that nobody remained to listen to their protests against the Perfectos, they quickly left. Buster and Babs were among the most disappointed as they walked back home, failing to make any sort of progress. The faces were mostly long among the Acme students as they walked away from their own school as the snow of mid - December once again began to fall all around them. The teachers appeared more angry than sad. Bugs' face had never displayed a deeper frown before. He was sitting in his car in the Acme Looniversity parking lot, just staring, not even blinking, thinking about how angry he was at King. He had known King for going on ten years now, and in all that time the rich Mr. Blake had kept his distance from everything. Now King had come in and practically stolen the school from Bugs, Buster and Warner Bros. in general. Bugs could not stop thinking about it. He just sat for hours, his anger growing. Back at the mansion, Vicky's tall, dark - clothed father stood on the balcony of the top floor once again, peering out into the falling white flakes. It was dark incredibly early now and freezing cold, especially considering the location of the country Acme Acres is located in. King took a small sip of earl gray tea from a gold - plated cup in his hands. " Your wife wishes a word with you, sir," a butler said behind him. " If you could, please inform her that if she wishes to communicate with me, then she can journey up to this floor and communicate with me on my terms." King suddenly felt a great desire to retreat back into his private chambers. Behind the locked door, nobody could disturb him, no charities would attempt to solicit fund from him, and his daughter would not be causing chaos in his life. Instead, in order to maintain some sort of order, he felt a weekly conversation with his wife had to be held. As King continued looking out into the dark Acme Acres sky, he could hear the sounds of footsteps approaching behind him. " Do you have to keep the door to the balcony open? It's freezing in here!" Mrs. Blake shouted. " You could at least turn on a heater or something." " My dear, that defeats the entire purpose of the season. I shall not waste the temperature while it is at such a low level. Now, what exactly is it you wished to converse with me in regards to?" His wife stopped for a moment, shaking from the severe wind chill that was drifting in through the door. A small layer of snow was building upon the red carpet inside. " Where exactly is our daughter? She should have been home from school hours ago?" King didn't answer. He turned back around, and motioned his hand towards the exit to the room. His wife, however, did not leave. " My dear Queen, vacate the room. I a attempting to be civilized but it should be apparent that I am in no mood to speak at this moment." " First of all," she began," if I hadn't have been in the marriage contract you made me sign ahead of time, my name would still be Paige Kelly and not Queen. Second of all, I have the right to know where my daughter is. You may not have any concern for her other than making sure the government doesn't get your money after you die, but I actually want to make our relationship work." King didn't answer. Queen stormed out and screamed when she reached the hall. King didn't particularly care. He continued to look outside at nothing, seeing his breath between drinks of tea. Eddie had walked the entire way back from Acme Looniversity, declining several rides, hoping to see Vicky storming home on her motorcycle, but to his great disappointment that never happened. Instead, he walked home in the cold to his own house, not the Lockskunk mansion and he down, sweeping snow out of his thick blue fur. Just after sitting down inside, he heard some kind of commotion coming from just outside his front door. " Just... drop in the mail box..." a man's voice said in a British accent. " Are... are you sure this is what King does?" a woman's British voice asked. Both accents were clearly fake. Eddie got up and walked over to the window only to see both his parents clamoring to get out of sight. They were taking this try to be like King bit a little too far. Eddie opened the door, picked up the piece of paper that never did make it to the mail box, and began reading. " Dear Eddie... er, Edward... I wish the backspace key still worked... we want you to stay away from that Vicky... Victoria girl... she is a bad influence on you and... uh... makes you act more like those poor people... bye!" The note read. Eddie chuckled at his parent's pathetic attempt to sound stuck up, and crumpled up the note. The only purpose that paper served was reminding him of how he hadn't seen Vicky for a few hours now, and how she mysteriously left the outside of the school. Vicky had been glaring at the door to her cell for hours now, for the most part not even blinking. It proved almost impossible to tell how much time had actually passed, with no clocks or windows, but it seemed like forever. In the middle of her long, cold stare the door opened, and a tall cougar, with sports that vaguely resembled Derek's, walked in wearing the expected white coat and carrying a clipboard. " How are we feeling today, Miss Blake?" he asked. Vicky didn't answer. " Ah, I see you are still a little hostile. Your father warned us about that kind of reaction from you. He is a very concerned man, you know. He cares deeply about what happens to you." Vicky normally would have laughed at such a comment, but instead she said nothing. As the doctor went on and on about treatments for her excessive aggression, or about skills, goals, medication, and a fair amount of meaningless psychological buzz words, Vicky tuned him out and just thought about how she had lost her freedom, and at the worst possible time. She thought about all she needed to do on the outside, and how her dislike for King had turned to complete and total loathing. " So do we understand, Miss Blake?" the doctor asked. " Would it be better for you if I called you Victoria?" " Eve will be just fine," she said. " Since we are on a first name basis, my name is Sheldon." The doctor then stood up and walked out. For the second the door was open, all Vicky could see was an overwhelming darkness. There didn't seem to be any light, any noise, anything coming from out in the rest of the hospital. Maybe King had ordered some kind of special room where no other patient could have any contact with her. Field was back home at his own mansion now. A limo had met him on the sidewalk and driven him home, and he was sitting back with a cigar in one hand and a cellular phone in the other. " I'm telling ya' Roddy, this is better than anything that jerk Derek could think up," Field said into the phone. After he finished saying that, the line became filled with static. " Hold on a minute." Field took the phone and threw it out the second story window. It landed on the driveway and smashed into thousands of pieces. " Butler, get me another phone!" A man in a tux brought Field yet another cellular phone, and the conversation began again. The night passed in a state of unrest around Acme Acres. Buster didn't sleep at all; neither did Babs. Plucky was dreaming of the millions Vicky could bestow upon him, Eddie was beginning to worry about where she may have gone, and Bugs was too angry to sleep. Tomorrow morning, the events of yesterday afternoon would begin all over again. The yelling. The protests. The rivalry. The pain of watching others take the school they all knew and loved away from them. Everything began very early the next morning. The rabbits were the first to show up outside of Acme Looniversity at six thirty that morning. They had a plethora of signs sitting on the ground next to them, waiting for other students to arrive. A slow trickle of Acme students arrived, and by eight o'clock the outside of the school was practically full. Angry teachers, students and now fans were standing outside. There were still no Perfectos on the scene as of yet. Vicky woke up in the same sitting position she had spent the entire night in. With no bed to sleep in, leaning against the wall was the best she could do. With no coffee, she was suffering from a massive caffeine withdrawal headache. There was a plate of revolting food left next to the door, which she right away refused to eat. She just sat, her thoughts turning to what was probably going on at Acme Looniversity right now, assuming that it was morning. Limo after Limo drove up to the Looniversity, and each one was met by a group of shouting students. Buster and Babs had tried to make this process a little more organized, but after three or four of the masters of high snobbery arrived, they couldn't control themselves, either. Derek was just arriving, and with bodyguards flanking him, he dashed inside, narrowly escaping the mallet swipes and dynamite flying in from every direction. One of the last cars to arrive carrying a Perfecto student had the bald - headed green rabbit inside. Field ordered the driver to stop a few hundred feet away from Acme Looniversity after the radar in the limo showed the mass of angry students outside. " I'll get out and walk from here. Call Roddy and tell him I'll meet up with him inside during our pushing around the poor class," Field informed the driver. He nodded his head and sped off in a cloud of dust. Field walked up and tried to insert himself in the crowd, but was quickly noticed. " Shouldn't you be inside with your Perfecto pals?" Babs asked him. " I'm just the slightest bit sick of them. I am tired of those rich jerks trying to push all you guys around," Field told her. Babs looked pleasantly surprised, and handed Field a sign. The green rabbit pretended to be on the side of the Looniversity students, shouting with them, holding the signs and hassling any Perfectos that happened to show up. Eddie, who came wearing a bathrobe and holding a cup of coffee, was looking around now in an attempt to locate Vicky. He asked everybody there as he moved between toons in the crowd. One of the last people he asked was Field. " You seen Vicky?" Eddie asked him. " I wish," Field said. " I need to talk with her." Eddie still didn't trust Field. He now vividly remembered the fights between Field and Derek, and despite how Field hated Vicky's ex, Eddie still didn't trust the guy. At Perfecto Field was a snob from head to toe, and there was no real reason to think he was any different now. Eddie walked off to continue questioning people, but he continually glanced back at Field. It was nearing ten o'clock and everybody who was coming had already arrived. Buster, Babs, Bugs, and Daffy stood on the steps of Acme Looniversity in front of about two thousand toons. Fans. Students. Alumni. Teachers. And, all at once, all those who had gathered turned around as they heard the sound of an engine pulling up behind them. They looked back and saw the longest limousine anybody had ever seen, with the licensee plate " KING BLK" on it. The car didn't stop; instead it headed straight for the gathered group of students blocking the entrance to the school. They all jumped out of the way as the car came through, and luckily enough everybody avoided colliding with the expensive vehicle's bumper. Bugs got down off the stairs and approached the car. Before he reached the tinted windows to yell something inside, the door opened and surely enough the seven - foot tall King stepped out with a less - than pleasant expression upon his face. " I would suggest that your mindless drones stand aside," King suggested. " Drones?" Bugs asked, confused about that description of the student body. " Do not bother denying anything in my presence. You know as well as I do these children simply do whatever you tell them to, with no thought or insight. You can call them off as easily as you forced them to gather in front of *my* property." Bugs didn't say a thing. A sudden silence fell over the crowd. King smirked wickedly for a second as he drew a piece of paper from his right pocket. Bugs never thought King would mention anything about that to anyone. " What are you talking about?" Babs asked. " *Your* property? I don't think so. Warner Bros. owns this place!" King laughed. Without saying a word of what the paper said, he waved it front of Bugs' face. Bugs was clearly becoming angry. " Now then, order them to step aside and let me into this vortex of insanity." Buster, Babs, and all the Acme Students all stood, confused, looking at Bugs, awaiting him to answer. They all hoped he would tell King to get lost, but he didn't. The entire crowd was silent for what seemed like an eternity, but was in fact only a few minutes, as Bugs stood motionless. " Let 'im in, kids." King's evil smirk returned momentarily, and then faded as he walked through the doors. The inside of Acme Looniversity didn't look the same anymore. All indications that this school was ever Warner property had been removed. The floors had been carpeted over. The students' records, work, and any evidence that Buster and Babs had ever been there, had been pushed into the sub - basement, where King used to keep his eye on the school. The medical station had been replaced by a Starbucks. King paced down the hall, occasionally glancing over to see the Perfecto Prep trophies that had been relocated to Acme Looniversity. After riding the new escalator to the second floor, King stepped through the door into his new ( Bugs' old ) office and sat down. The place had been re-modeled. There was now a throne as the only chair inside. There was an office worker who was forced to stand as she typed and did everything else administrative for the school. The walls were painted black. There were five air conditioners all up to full power. Bugs could hardly even stay outside the school anymore. He simply walked off, with Buster and Babs running after him to find out exactly what was going on. Meanwhile, the anti-Perfecto congregating was left disoriented. King had just walked all over the leader of the group once again, and they did not have any idea as to why. There was a significant amount of quiet chatter going on amongst all the students. After ten minutes of this, most of them got up and left. Bugs was making sure to stay a few steps in front of the two younger rabbits. " Bugs! What happened back there?" Buster asked. Bugs didn't answer. " You're going to have to tell us sooner or later." Bugs stopped for a second. He turned around and looked at the disconcerted expressions on the faces of the two. Bugs took a deep breath, and began speaking to them. " Look, kids... I want to tell you, but I'm not all dat sure you want to know what's going on..." Bugs said. Bugs then kept walking while Buster and Babs exchanged glances. " This is nothing like Bugs at all. We've both known him a long time, and not once have we seen him like this," Buster said. Both looked distinctively worried. They knew nothing about what was happening around them, other than King was coming in and making what seemed like ludicrous claims. Eddie was one of the few Acme Students who was still outside of the school. He was still holding out hope that Vicky was somewhere in this group of people. He knew now that she was nowhere to be found. He had called her that morning, and been given no answer. The answer on the other end informed him not to call again, and he knew King had something to do with it. She couldn't be inside, could she? Buster and Babs returned to the scene of the crime only to see their skunk friend standing alone, thinking. " Why are you still here?" Buster asked. " I was hoping Vicky was here somewhere. I haven't seen her since the walkout, and when I call, I am told never call for her again. Now I have no idea where my best friend is and what exactly King is talking about." Babs was about to try to say something comforting to him, but Eddie walked off without so much as making eye contact. He needed some time to think, so he was walking the long way home. His mind was filled with thoughts of panic. This was the first time in over two years he had been without Victoria Blake. She had almost become like a crutch for an otherwise weak - willed individual. Now she was missing, and even if it had only been two days, he somehow knew that she was missing and not just temporarily absent. Back at the Blake mansion, Mrs. Blake was sitting in her cold, empty bedroom, trying as hard as Eddie to figure out where her daughter had gone. Has she run away? That wasn't Vicky's style. She also knew King knew something, and he wasn't talking. Over seventeen years of marriage, she had put up with a great deal from her callous husband, but never something like this. She had practically forgotten her first name was Sheridan and not just " my Queen." Babs stepped into her home around ten - thirty and was immediately greeted by her mother, who did not look all that happy. " Why are you so angry? I already told you, I'm not skipping school; we're on strike," Babs explained once again to her mother. " Babs, I can't just have you sitting around the house and occasionally going out and trying to get some snob to leave your school. You need something to fill these hours during the day," her mother said. Babs jumped over to the couch and turned on the television. " I have something to fill these hours: soap operas. Did you know on this show, Roberto and Julia are about to elope while terrorists are after Roberto, and Julia's long lost love Francisco is off in Europe fighting aliens?" Babs' mother turned the TV off and stared directly down at her teenage daughter. " No. You aren't just going to sit here and watch TV. You need a job, and ever since the health department shut down Weenie Burger you haven't had one," Mrs. Bunny said to her. Babs' face was engulfed by a stunned expression. She dropper to her knees and cried," No! Not a job!!!" " Yes, a job. And a real one, not like what you did at Weenie Burger where you and Buster just wasted time and got paid for it. Don't lie and say you didn't'; they showed me the security tape of you and him covering some rat with ketchup and mustard." Babs dramatically argued against this for twenty minutes, using everything from a widow's outfit to attempting a bribe with Monopoly money. Her mother wouldn't budge, and Babs knew she would have to search for employment. " I'll start looking tomorrow... uh, on second thought, maybe next week," Babs told her mother, hoping by then she's forget. " Start now," her mother ordered her, throwing a newspaper classified section over Babs' head. " Here's one," Babs said, pointing to an ad. " Motivated, bright, cheerful and intelligent toon needed for entertaining, rewarding work. There is room for advancement." " What is it?" Babs' mother asked. Babs scanned the page with her eyes. She had yet to look at what the position was for. Once she saw the ad for somebody to clean King's gutters, she put it down and went into the bathroom to become re-aquatinted with her breakfast. Eddie's walk finally concluded two hours after he started, and he walked in the door of his medium - size abode just as he heard the phone ring. " What's up?" he asked as he answered/ " Son, we've called a hundred and forty - time times," the voice of Cloud Lockskunk said. " Where have you been?" Eddie explained that he had been out with some friends, knowing full well King was a supposed friend of Cloud and Enid. " These.. friends of yours, they weren't... they weren't... Y'know, Acme kids, were they?" " Of course not," Eddie lied. " Say, have you guys heard from Vicky lately?" Cloud exchanged glances with Enid, who was standing only a few feet from him. " I thought you talked to her everyday." Eddie told them he hadn't seen her in a little while, and asked them to let him know if they happened to see her. Now Cloud and Enid were worried. Their once real connection to the business end of high society, King, was now in jeopardy. Vicky was how they met the cold, calm and collected King Blake in the first place. Sheldon stepped through the doors and into Vicky's hospital room. The halls were still far too dark to see anything, far too dark for eleven in the morning if there was even a single window anywhere in the building. " How did you sleep last night?" the doctor asked. He was dressed in the usual white coat and was once again carrying a clipboard. Vicky didn't answer the question. Her long brown hair was now a complete mess. She didn't seem to blink at all. Her eyes had bags under them. Although she didn't say this to Sheldon, she hadn't slept at all last night. Not one minute. Her thoughts were too consumed with anger to do anything but fixate on them. She hadn't thought of anything else since she arrived there. " Still not talking, eh? Y'know, there is no way you are going to get better if you don't speak to me." Vicky still didn't say anything. Sheldon was beginning to wonder if she could do anything besides sit and stare with a hateful look on her face. Eventually, Sheldon gave up. He appeared to write something on his clipboard, and he then walked out. Buster spent a great deal of the remainder of the day thinking of some way to get whatever that piece of paper was away from King. His peace of mind, as well as most of the students' and teachers', depended on it. Bugs clearly wasn't going to tell him what it said. After failing to come up with any better ideas, Buster decided to fall back upon the old costume cliché that he and Babs had used to gain entry somewhere innumerable times. Babs used Buster's call to ask for her help as an excuse to get out of her house and avoid the ongoing job lecture. The two rabbits met up in front of their old school, both having donned expensive clothing. These people had all seen, and for the most part actually liked, the Vanderbunnies, so if it worked once... Acme Looniversity now had a doorman, who let them in promptly. The two in disguise were practically horrified at what they saw on the inside. The outside appearance of the same old place was more than a little deceptive. They saw Perfecto statues, trophies and banners all over. The halls were much darker now, with almost no light at all. Only the few windows that were not covered over provided light. The place was also unusually cold, in both temperature and appearance. Everything had been painted a different, darker color. " Refresh my memory," Buster said as the two were about to reach the old office. " Did we even actually talk to King at the party? I mean, would he even remember us?" Babs nodded no. Although he may have in fact heard of them from some of the other party - goers that night, he had yet to encounter them personally. The door to the office was opened by ( what else? ) another one of King's employees dressed in a tuxedo. The two rabbits were practically afraid to look inside the office, but did anyway. They saw King sitting, staring at a small monitor on his desk. There was a tiny window at the back of the room, providing what little illumination there was in there. The darkness of the school gave everything a navy blue tint. " Greetings, Mr. Blake," Buster said in his usual rich voice. King turn his chair and saw the two. His face grew even angrier. " What are you two children of the gutter doing in my office?" King asked. " Butler, Blab, I suggest you get out of here before my staff removes you in a less - than - pleasant manner." " I don't know who you're talking about, but I am Mr. Vanderbunny," Buster told him. King didn't buy that for a second. He pushed a red button on his desk, and within seconds a team of security officers had rushing into the room, grabbed the two bunnies by the back of their necks, and dragged them out. " One advantage to being me, among the thousands that there are, is I can see through any pitiful disguise a couple of hot - headed twits can devise," King spoke to himself. Buster and Babs were literally tossed out the door and landed about twenty feet from the doors of the school. The school locked behind them, and they both headed home with wounded pride. School was still in session for another two hours, so King would be staying for the duration of the day. The phone on his desk went off and he quickly dismissed his administrative assistant from the room. After the door to his personal ice chamber was closed and locked, he placed the speakerphone on. " I assume this is regarding the fund which are owed to me," King said into the speaker. " Absolutely. You see, we have been trying to determine whether or not we should hand over twenty million, and there is the matter of the persistent rumor claiming your daughter had something to do with the destruction of Perfecto Prep. I feel it will be necessary to speak with some of those who may know something about her possible involvement. King hung up the phone, took a sip of tea, and decided it was time to call down some of he students who may have some knowledge of he events around the night Perfecto went down, especially those who could have some form of malice against her. Derek was the first to enter King's office. He was given a fur coat at the door to block out the cold in King's office. " Greetings, Mr. Cougarmoore. I am not going to make any small talk; we need to discuss the matter of my daughter." Derek bit his tongue so hard he half - expected to draw blood. Any disparaging remarks about Vicky, even if King hated her more than anyone else, would get Derek in serious trouble with the hero to the elitists. " What about her?" Derek asked. " I am well aware of the history between you two, and you are very fortunate I do not lay the blame for many of the incidents of the past year directly on you. To make up for the fact that I have not punished you for many of your actions, you must do a favor for me. If anybody is to ask you in the next few days what you know about Victoria and her actions regarding the damage to Perfecto Prep, you are to fabricate a story about her having nothing to do with it, and claim she just happened to be in the area to have a... discussion with her. Derek thought about for it a moment. He then stuck his hand across the table with his palm flat. " How much is it worth to you?" " Five thousand," King told him, knowing that five grand is considered a discounted price. " Seven." King looked directly into Derek's eyes as he leaned across the table. " You were right to ask me for a bribe, but I am the last person it would be advisable to play the extortion game with. I am the master of the extortion game, better than you could ever know. Do we have a deal?" Derek agreed immediately to this, knowing enough not to push his luck. King handed a check over to the young cougar, thinking only about how the benefits of having the Cougarmoore family on his side at this time more than any other far outweighed having to hand money over to Derek. The service they provided was more valuable, never mind how certain members of the family know how to keep a secret. King had Roddy, Rubella, and about two hundred other Perfecto Preppies outside. Also included in this group was Field, who was inside Perfecto Prep. Back at the mansion, Mrs. Blake had left to ease her troubled mind. The house was cold an empty, with each of the family members having their own type of problems. " Why are you so angry?" Sheldon asked Vicky. This was the third time the doctor had come in to speak with Vicky. She still would not say anything to him. " Come on, now. We can't get anywhere unless you speak to me. Why do you hate your father so much? He is a good and hard - working man. He would do anything for you, and he only wants what is best." Vicky would once again normally have laughed, but she didn't. She just looked passed the insincere doctor and around the pitch white room. There wasn't a single thing to focus on in there, but she didn't want to look at this man because she would feel compelled to tell him the truth, and that would just get her in even more trouble. " Tell me Victoria. I truly want to help you. Did some guy break your heart? Something like that? C'mon, tell me anything," the cougar psychiatrist said. She still wouldn't talk to him. " I am going to leave now. Please, talk to me in our next session. I want to get to know the real Victoria Blake so we can figure out what's wrong with her." Sheldon stood up and walked out. Vicky hadn't stood up since she was crammed in this cold little cell. He hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept. She had thought of nothing else but what King had done to her. And, she was about to reach her boiling point. It would only take one more push to completely set her off. Just then, the door opened for a second, and a plate of cold, moldy food was tossed in. It collided directly with her face and small pieces of food slid down. That was truly it. It was three o'clock now. The final bribe was given out and King was by himself in his office for a few seconds. Not a single student had declined his bribery, and each of them had signed a form consenting not to tell the companies anything. King packed these rather incriminating forms into his large, dark briefcase, and was about to leave when Sheridan walked in, with ten or twelve shopping bags spread across between her two hands. " To what do I owe your presence?" King asked her. " I still haven't seen Vicky. I came to see if she was here, and I just happened to decide to come and see you," Sheridan said. " I have no knowledge as to the whereabouts of our daughter," King told her in an emotionless tone. " Quite frankly, I have much more important issues on my mind at this moment." Sheridan could hardly believe him. There he sat, complete uncaring about the child they had raised together. There had always been something missing from King, the attachment to the child you raised, and she knew exactly why that was missing. King turned away from her and back down to the desk, but she reached over and pulled his head back up to focus on her. " I can always tell when you are lying. Our whole marriage has been a lie, so I have had plenty of practice picking out your deception. Now, tell me the truth, or somebody is going to find out something you don't want them to know." King had never seen this side of his wife before. Normally, she would just sit back and take everything King did without interfering. This was a side of Sheridan King ad hoped was not there. " You are not going to tell anybody a thing," King replied. " You have just as much to lose from that as I do. Perhaps more. I can always make any lost finances back. But you, how do you plan to get another incomprehensibly rich man to marry you? You have always been such a good gold digger to this point. Why alter your actions when you have become an expert at what you know? Thanks to the pre-nuptial agreement that was signed prior to our sham marriage, if I were to divorce you, you would lose absolutely everything." Sheridan knew King was right. She couldn't do a thing but sit back and watch. Since King wouldn't tell her, she was becoming very nervous. She knew several of her husband's secrets, and anything that was kept from her had to be especially terrible. It was becoming very dark now early. By five thirty, the sun was no longer visible in Acme Acres. There was another light snowfall spreading across the city, and on one side of this now very cold town was Eddie and Shirley. He had come to visit her in hoping she could help with his current problem. " And you think this crystal ball stuff really works?" Eddie asked his loon friend. " Like, totally relax Eddie. I can for sure find Vicky in like no time at all," Shirley assured him. The two sat down on opposite sides of a table in Shirley's home with a crystal ball between them. Shirley closed her eyes, placed her hands on the temples of her head, and began humming. Eddie just focused right on the crystal. After a minute or two, the ball became cloudy, and the lights dimmed in the room. Eddie couldn't make out any images in the room, but Shirley could clearly see or hear something that Eddie couldn't. " Like... I can't see exactly where she is... it's like totally dark in there... she is like totally angry... wow... uh... uh..." Shirley now seemed like she was hyperventilating. " Shirley! What's going on?!?" Eddie cried. Shirley didn't reply. He threw himself across the table and threw the ball aside. The lights turned back on, and Shirley stopped hyperventilating. " You okay?" " Like, that was totally bizarre. She is so totally like, scared and angry, and trapped, or some junk. But, I totally have no idea where she is." Eddie trusted Shirley's perception in this case. Now Eddie was more worried than ever. His best friend, who had been with him through thick and thin, was missing and definitely in severe trouble. Eddie took off running from Shirley's house and darted down the street, knocking any pedestrians out of the way. He was running without thinking, without looking. Eventually, he ran into the side of a building and was flattened against it for a second. After returning to full width, he punched the side of the building a few times. " Where is she?!?" he yelled to nobody as he hit it. As he stood there, hurting his own fist with repeated shots to the wall, somebody walked up behind him. " What's wrong Eddie?" Field's voice Eddie turned around, wiped his eyes for a second and looked at the bundled - up green rabbit standing behind him. You couldn't even tell Field had no hair on the top of his head he was wearing so much on his head. " Why do you care where Vicky went?" Eddie asked, once again not trusting this former Perfecto schoolmate of his. " Can't I show concern for somebody? Just tell me what happened," Field told him. " I don't know what happened to her, okay? Does that amuse you? She's been gone for a few days, and her psycho parents have been acting even stranger than usual," Eddie told Field, who judging by his facial expression, actually showed concern for Eddie. Field walked away without saying anything else about it. Eddie stayed for a while longer, privately being more upset than he had ever been. Vicky saw the doctor once more before the day was over, and the encounter was practically the same as all of the others. She didn't say a word to him. Vicky finally noticed the one thing that she still owned in the world: a ring that was still on her finger. As the doctor left the room, she managed to jar the ring loose from her finger. The ring drifted perfectly into the door just as it was closing. It barely got in, but it managed to keep the door a crack open, and the doctor did not even notice. King and Sheridan had agreed to go out to dinner together, if for no other reason but for one reason or another King and Sheridan both felt like going somewhere other than home. The two didn't even need a reservation in Acme Acres anymore; they were just let in, and anybody taking up a table that they might want to use was removed immediately. " How are you enjoying the fillet mignon?" the waiter asked King. " Acceptable." Sheridan turned to King and once again brought up the subject of the girl they had taken care of for the better part of her life. " Can we discuss Vicky again?" Sheridan asked. " Why must you persist in asking me about a subject I had already yielded all information about?" King asked. " Because I know you're lying, that's why. Where exactly is she?" King paused for a moment before deciding how much to expose to his wife from across the large table in the expensive restaurant. " She is currently being kept out of harm's way until the Perfecto Prep situation has been adequately dealt with." Before King said anything more, a waiter came to the table. " Sir, there is a phone call for you. A doctor Cougarmoore," he said. King was not very happy to hear that waiter expose the identity of the caller. King stood up and took the phone away from the table. Meanwhile, Sheridan stood up and looked at him with a horrified look. She knew full well Dr. Cougarmoore was a psychiatrist, and all of the sudden things were becoming very clear. Sheridan hid under a table near King and listened in. " How is the matter of Victoria's restraint going? She hasn't caused any mishaps has she?" is what Sheridan could hear King say. " And what about the small matter of her re-education?" " She won't talk, but whenever possible I insert some message about you as you requested," Dr. Sheldon Cougarmoore informed King. " She does not seem to be making any progress, but it is early yet. If you actually want her to be a changed person, it may take a while. She is also so far away from the public that nobody will find her until long after you have the twenty million dollars in your pocket." King hung the phone up and returned to his table. Sheridan walked back over and made up a phony excuse about going to the bathroom. Victoria Blake pulled herself up and tried to pull her arms free. The jacket seemed to be incredibly strong, and she couldn't work her way out of it. She continued pulling and, after great effort, split the straight jacket off of her body. She then broke the restraints off her legs. Surely enough, the door opened when she pushed it. The ring had kept it open just enough to give her access to the outside. " This is a hospital... I'll have to think of some way to avoid the staff..." Vicky thought to herself. It was way too dark to see anything in this medical facility, so she slowly walked along the wall, which for some reason felt like it was made out of stone. It was cold and rocky. Actually, the entire place felt freezing cold. Vicky felt along the wall for a light switch. After a few seconds, she found one. After the switch was thrown, the entire place lit up. " Oh my..." Vicky said as she took a look around. The ground and walls were made of a dark gray stone. There were no windows. It was incredibly cold. The only thing that was clear was this was in no way, shape or form, a hospital. She took a look around and saw how a stone staircase winded around on both sides of a large, main room. The room she had just come out of was on the lower part of the room, along the right - hand wall. Her eyes turned to the middle of the room, and between the two winding stone staircases was a statue. A statue made of the same stones as the rest of the room was in the middle. A statue of a man. The statue was at least twelve feet tall. The man was wearing a suit and a long coat. Vicky stood in front of it and looked up. The face had a goatee. The head had short hair. The face was angry. The statue was of King. " What's going on?" she asked herself. Up the stairs were five doors, matching the five separate doors at the lower level. It was one of the creepiest, coldest, and darkest places she had ever been in her life. She looked around at all the rooms, the statue, and felt the cold on her back. It all suddenly became clear: this was what King had been hiding. His secret door. The place he retreated to every single night. It fit the man perfectly: cold, dark and self - indulgent. Vicky noticed small sings over the doors, and she walked over the one on the far left of the lower - level. The sign above read " files." She assumed the door would be locked, but to her pleasant surprise, the door opened with great ease. The light inside was very weak, so Vicky relied on the illumination of the outer room to light it up. Inside, the rock floor continued, and there were boxes of files neatly placed on metal shelves. All of the boxes were left open, and all had small one - word descriptions written in black marker on the side. There seemed to be everything in there from legal documents to dental records. There were five shelves full in total. It was a very small room, especially when compared to the rest of the glorious - looking Blake household. Vicky knocked down each box which did not relate to her in any way, spilling thousands of carefully organized sheets of paper onto the floor. She continued knocking everything over until she came across two different boxes that caught her eye: one said Victoria on it, and another said Perfecto on it. She took the two boxes and, suddenly realizing that King could be home any minute, darted out of the file room. She was now back inside the main room, standing before the large King statue. She noticed a small, shining object at the feet of the stone object. It was a key, and she kept it. She then spit on the statue and then turned towards the door across from the stone King replica. The lock was inside, and she actually had to unlock this gate. The lock was incredibly large and weight thirty pounds, making turning it a little harder. Still, she managed and exited. As soon as Vicky was out, her suspicions were confirmed: she saw the door that had always remained locked throughout her existence. So King wouldn't suspect anything, she closed it again. She then tried the key, which surely enough fit. This would not be the last time she saw the inside of King's concealed room. Vicky looked around the mansion she used to live in. Finally there was a clock for her to look at. Eight thirty. King would normally be long - since hiding back there, doing whatever it is he does, but obviously he wasn't. Vicky looked out the window into the dark Acme Looniversity night, and saw that two cars were missing. Both King and Sheridan must have been gone. Vicky knew this was her only chance for a while to do anything in the mansion, so she took the boxes and ran into her room. Once inside, she rifled through her old clothes from her early Acme days and prepared for what she had to do next. King and Sheridan returned home around nine, with both looking angry and no progress made. " I shall be in my personal section of the mansion. Do not, under any circumstances, disturb me," King ordered his wife. He then walked down a few halls, placed the key in the heavily - secured door, and walked inside. In, he took in a breath of cold air and smirked. He also admired the statue of himself for a second before heading up to the second level and hiding himself behind the door. The night passed uneventfully. Vicky had left the mansion long before King ever arrived back at home. The next day started off like the last one. The group of Acme Looniversity students once again piled outside of the school. Buster and Babs had decided not to say anything to Bugs about King again. They knew that he would tell them in time, but they couldn't wait to hear it anyway. The place went silent as the three rabbits stood up on the steps once again. Babs spin - changed into a very short version of King Blake. " Greetings, I'm King Blake," Babs said in what was a really inaccurate impression of the high snob. She then pulled out a handful of fake money and began counting it in an impression of King. The entire group laughed as Babs went on for half an hour, imitating the way King spoke, including the incredible vocabulary, callous attitude and attachment to money. King had fully expected the Acme students to cause another disturbance, and today, was a little more prepared. Around eight that morning, the sound of Buster addressing the crowd was suddenly overpowered by the sound of an approaching helicopter. Everybody looked up and saw a stretch copter flying overhead. It was black in color and about as long as a football field. With the press up a button, a large cement landing pad rose from the roof of the school and they landed. One door opened on the side, the noise stopped, and hundreds of Perfectos stepped out and walked into an elevator on the heli - pad. " They had one of those at Perfecto Prep, too," Eddie informed those nearby to him. Plucky was one of those within earshot of Eddie, but he was not paying any attention at all to him. This duck was preoccupied with watching the rich and powerful transported to school by helicopter as opposed to an old, sundering bus. He was still thinking about some way to get Vicky to see him as a nice guy she might want to bestow some cash upon, and he also seemed completely oblivious to the fact that Vicky had not been seen in a few days now. King was the last one to step off of the flying vehicle. " Tip," the pilot prompted him. " Get a better job," King replied as he stepped onto the heliport. As soon as he stepped off, he was met by a chorus of boos coming from the ground. He glanced over for a second to see those who were expressing disgust at his presence, but he did not show any sort of response to this and he too stepped in the elevator on the heli - pad and entered the school from the top. " All right, that's it. Tomorrow, we bring something to throw!" Eddie declared. " Good thought, but do you really think we can toss Plucky that high?" Babs joked. Eddie chuckled for a moment, but it quickly faded. Since the morning began, anybody who so much as glanced at the teenage Lockskunk's face knew that something was bothering him. Vicky still was not here, and the anxiety about her sudden absence was beginning to give him an ulcer. The next idea to disrupt everyday operations at what was now commonly called " Perfecto Looniversity " was making enough noise to obstruct normal goings - on within the school. Buster, as it was his idea, began the prompt for the students to begin. Each toon held a megaphone up, inserted ear plugs, and prepared themselves. " Buster, you do realize if we get back in there ever, we are going to have to replace everything we destroy with all this noise," Babs pointed out. Buster shrugged and began the countdown. " One... two... three!" he shouted. Right then each student began screaming louder than any of them had before. The noise shattered not just every window in the school, but every window in Acme Acres. Just about every building shook like it was an earthquake, including the school. Inside, wine glasses were breaking in the hands of the Perfecto students, the water was shaken from the hot tubs, and money fell out of students' wallets, causing a series of mad scrambles on the floor to recover lost funds before anybody else picked them up. Yet, somehow the Perfecto students had not suffered any permanent ear damage from this overwhelming noise. They had earplugs in, as if ready for the plan that Buster had devised the day before. The duration of the noise assault was three minutes, and the toons quickly discovered that the earplugs were simply not enough. As each one of them turned off the megaphones and removed the plugs, they all realized that there would be an intense ringing sound in her ears for days. The ringing seemed worse than the noise itself did, but it definitely was not. All of Acme Acres could hear it, including one angered soul far away from Acme Looniversity, one who was planning a little something of her own. As of this moment, the daughter of the object of everybody's despise was sitting in an old, run - down car across the junkyard from Fifi's. She hadn't announced her presence here yet. She was currently applying makeup through the image in the rear - view mirror. She still had not slept in days, but for some reason she felt absolutely no effect from it. It was nearing ten o'clock that morning, and the crowd was thinning out a little. Some had gone to see an ear doctor. To Buster's surprise, Babs was one of the first people to leave. " I have to go try and find a job," Babs explained to him. " My parents seem to think spending the entire day messing up the operations of a school is not a productive use of time." As the Acmes thinned out and the Perfectos regrouped, Roderick entered the sub - zero office of King Blake to have a word about what had just gone on. " Are you ever planning to do anything about those penniless losers?" Roddy asked King. King stopped and pondered for a moment. " Roderick Rat, you have always been an exceptional student. You know your role in society. You know enough to ravage those of the lower - class whenever the opportunity presents itself. You are resourceful enough to devise a plan of your own. However, I shall do something myself, I can guarantee that. Multiple retaliations always place you higher than a single, collective effort. Now, if you would excuse me, I must once again speak with my insurance broker. It seems we will need a hoard of new glassware." Roddy walked just as Dr. Cougarmoore walked in. King stood up immediately, knowing that if Sheldon was coming to see him in person, this could not be good. " King, did you happen to check your 'hospital' room last night when you retreated to the arctic room?" Dr. Cougarmoore asked. " Why would I have wasted my precious time observing the mental instability of the adolescent that is legally my daughter?" King inquired. " Although I realize you couldn't care less what happens to her as long as it doesn't interfere with you, you should have. I went to see her for one of those supposed sessions where I don't even write anything down this morning, only to discover she was gone!" Even unresponsive King's jaw opened wide when he heard this. " I shall have her located immediately. No vehicles are missing, so she could not be greatly outlying. She must be found soon; the insurance agent is coming here to interview those students who may have had contact with Victoria on the night of the incident. If she is to cause any form of disruption..." " There goes your money," Sheldon finished. " For a man of such considerable wealth and influence, you certainly are not the most refined speaker. However, that is beside the point. If you are to see her, you know the number. Do not mention your alleged treatment of my daughter to a single living soul." Sheldon left without any sort of goodbye, and King got on the phone and called all contacts in Acme Acres that would have any chance of finding her. Being well aware that the insurance adjuster was going to be coming any moment now, King disregarded that knowledge and left his post at the school. He needed to go investigate the damage that had been done to his private area of the mansion. There was an elevator at the back of his office now which led to the heli - pad, and naturally he took it. Within a minute, the black chopper was taking off with King inside, and landed forty - five seconds later on the almost invisible heli - pad at the Blake mansion. King was practically running madly when he reached the door to his locked chambers. He unlocked it and ran inside, and the first, most important room he checked was the records room. His eyes filled with horror as he looked upon the wreckage that had been made of his files. Papers that had once sat perfectly organized were now thrown around the floor. He immediately noticed his two most important boxes missing: the Perfecto records and the Victoria Blake records. " This is not possible! How could that adolescent ignoramus have done this?" King asked himself as he surveyed the damage. " It may in fact be too late. She may have already read information she was never meant to know." " How do you know Vicky did this?" Sheridan asked from behind him. " You don't think it could be whoever cleans this creepy place?" King turned around and saw a smirking Mrs. Blake. Sheridan had also been kept out of King's personal area, and now that privacy was also lost. " I can see you are far too much of a simpleton to have figured out any of this. I shall explain no more to you, as you have not earned the privilege of that information." Sheridan could hardly believe what she was hearing. She knew King had secrets. She knew he was callous. But, this was too far. Keeping something about her daughter away from her was too much. Sheridan walked over and grabbed King by his collar, the highest point on the rather tall man that she could reach. " Now you listen to me! We are Vicky's legal guardians. BOTH of us! Therefore, I have the right to know anything about her that could possible affect that. I may have never been in this place in my own house before, but what you do in this place is the least of my concerns. Where is my daughter? And, if you don't tell me I'll kick you senseless," Sheridan threatened King. " My dear, I know you would never follow through on that threat. I am not a violent man, and enough of my influence has translocated onto you so that you would not commit such an act. As for the current location of the minor we are the guardians of, I haven't a clue where she is." Outside of the now - Perfecto Loo, Plucky had been waiting in the bushes near the steps all morning, unbeknownst to anybody. It seems he had attempted to gain entrance to the school earlier in the day, only to be removed. Plucky now waited for anybody to go in or out through an entrance other than the roof. Plucky saw his first opportunity at around noon when a skinny rat with thick glasses walked up the stairs of the Looniversity, with a briefcase in hand and donned in a business suit. He walked right in, not noticing the short green duck trailing a few inches behind him walking in. The doorman did not notice Plucky, either, and he dashed off down the hall before he was seen. The rat walked into King's office to see the awesome figure sitting across the table. King had managed to return to the school in time, and he appeared to be cool, calm and collected despite the fact that within him, King's rage was building to a boiling point, and well underneath all of that, there was even a little fear. For the first time ever King had a legitimate reason to be afraid. Victoria may already be well aware of some secrets that he never wanted her to know, for his own protection, not hers. " Good afternoon, Mr. Blake," the insurance agent began, without extending a hand to shake. King would not have returned the gesture had the arm been extended, anyway. " Are we ready to begin the interview process? You do know that these interviews will be conducted in private, so you must vacate the room." King stared back coldly. " I am well aware of the process. I shall leave now, and not because you claim I must. I currently have other matters to attend to. Use the public address system to call down any students you may need to speak with. I shall be going now." Babs walked in the door to see her mother standing right by the door. " It's about time you walked in the door, Barbara Anne Bunny!" She said to Babs. " I think I have found the perfecto job for you. You make ten dollars an hour, you just sit back and sleep, and occasionally type something, and you get to work for the rich and famous." ` Babs' face lit up at the sound of this employment opportunity. " Where?!? Ah, who cares! I want this job!" " Great, because I already told the representatives from Mr. Blake's office that you would be taking the job. It seems the last secretary he had went off the deep end. Ah, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the job." All of the sudden, the excitement slipped from the short pink rabbit's face. Her ears turned down. She looked directly at her mother. " Blake? Like *King* Blake?" Her mother nodded yes. Babs' screamed topped out around the same number of decibels that the megaphones generated. Just as the repairmen were placing new window in Perfecto Looniversity, the new sound sent the glass to the ground, shattering it once again. " I don't know if you're aware of this," Babs began," but that guy is the reason we are all sitting at home during normal school hours. That jerk came into our school with the snob army, made life miserable for the Acme students, and forced us all to leave. His daughter hates him most of all, and she has suddenly gone missing. I am not going to work for that guy!" " If you don't, he'll sue for violation of a verbal contract. His associate explained that on the phone," Mrs. Bunny pointed out. Babs said nothing else. She just stormed into her room, with her ears still turned down, and slammed the door hard enough to knock down everything that was hanging from the walls in the entire dwelling. Plucky continued his trek around the halls he knew like the back of his hand. Even with the new dark overtones, you could still tell it was Acme Looniversity. No specific voices could be heard; just the faint sounds of unintelligible conversations, glasses clinking and some laughter. Plucky got a chill down his spine as he looked around and saw how the place had changed. Even with the stranglehold money had on him, even he was a little frightened by what it had done to this place in the matter of a few days. Still, despite the uncomfortable feeling that "good ol' Acme Looniversity" was giving him, he continued to walk the halls making himself as scarce as possible. After a few minutes of walking, climbing and gazing at the place, Plucky reached the conspicuous office of King Blake. The door was shut, the window was tinted, and there was only a small sign with white text indicating what the office even was. Plucky somehow saw this office as an opportunity, and approached the door. Just as Plucky reached for the knob, he heard some approaching footsteps. Unlike during the Acme days, this Perfecto regime included dead silent halls seemingly all day long. Plucky had yet to see a sign of life since entering. With the sounds of the first approaching person since his entrance, Plucky jumped behind a nearly faux plant and looked on from his hiding spot. What Plucky saw surprised him. Heading towards King's office was a green rabbit with a completely bald top of his head. It was Field. The same rabbit who had been outside rallying against Perfecto Prep as if he were some everyday Acme Looniversity student. The same toon who had expressed at least some detest for some Perfecto students. Why was he in here? Plucky continued observing from his hidden vantage point. " Do come in," a rat with thick eyewear instructed. Field stepped into King's office and shut the door. As soon as Field had disappeared, Plucky stood up and glanced around for a second before getting up and dashing out of there. He ran clear out of the school, down the stairs, and down the street, and his legs did not stop until he ended up at Buster's burrow. Actually, he did not quite stop in time and fell directly into the open burrow and right next to Buster's feet. " Plucky, what are you doing here?" Buster asked. " Field... Perfecto... King's office..." Plucky said, out of breath. Buster raised an eyebrow. " Let's start from the beginning. What is this about Field, Perfecto and King's office?" Buster asked. Plucky took a moment to regain his breath and then spoke again. " I was at Acme... Perfecto... whatever you want to call that place. Anyway, I saw Field walking into King's office, and I have no idea for what." " What are you suggesting? That Field is having some secret meeting with King, plotting against us? King has meetings with everybody. He could be making some more idle threats," Buster suggested. Plucky looked entirely unconvinced. The day went by with the Insurance Adjuster interviewing countless spoiled brats. The progress was not reported to King, and it was expected that it would be several days before the final result was revealed. The night now fell upon Acme Acres, and the atmosphere was undeniably tense within the Blake mansion. " Why you must persist in this pathetic interrogation?" King inquired of Sheridan, who had been asking him about Victoria Blake for the better part of the evening. Sheridan would not dignify such an obvious question with an answer. Her scornful look was perpetual, but King remain entirely impervious to this cold stare. King assumed he was in control of what happened at this point, and as long as he could keep others such as Sheridan from finding out certain pieces of information, he would be fine. He was wrong. In the back of an old AMC Pacer that was appropriately enough in a junkyard, Victoria Blake sat, adjusting her makeup in the rear view mirror. She left the contents of the boxes unread, knowing she had something else to take care of. Knowing that she was sufficiently intimidating, she stepped out of the car door, her precious boxes of information hidden in the back seat. Vicky had now entirely regressed to the Eve Ill look: her clothes were all deep black. Her hair was short and very dark. Her face was once again painted white with black around her eyes. There were many pieces of jewelry hanging from her nose, her eyebrow, and her lip. Her nails were painted a very dark shade, and were also several inches longer than usual. She wore a very long from as she walked away from the inoperable vehicle. never before had Vicky missed her motorcycle so much. Fifi LeFume looked out the window of her Cadillac home just in time to see a shadowy figure walk by. She looked twice, but could not identify the figure. Vicky walked around the cold and snow - covered Acme Acres streets. It was once again snowing lightly, and partially because of the wind chill, it was colder than a King Blake dream outside. Vicky didn't really care about the precipitation or the temperature as she walked along, looking more determined than ever. Fifteen minutes later, it was time to complete part one of her new plan. She arrived at the car impound lot. Beyond the gates she could see hundreds of cars that for one reason or another had been seized. Instead of even trying to open the gates or sneak over them, Eve took a few steps back, charged forward and knocked the gates down with her shoulder. The gates fell down immediately, the snow softening the sound of the falling gates. Vicky stepped right over the brass guards and walked right in. Once inside, Vicky started looking around for her old bike. Motorcycles were pushed to the back of the lot, and even with the lack of illumination and how they tended to blend together, Vicky recognized her cycle in a second. She walked over to it and was about to sit down when she heard a voice. " Hey!" a Schwartzenegger - type man's voice yelled. " Who's in here?" Vicky did not even try to hide. She stood up from her bike and walked over towards the front of the lot. " I'm here, you jerk. And, if you're not as stupid as you sound, you'll get outta here!" The guard didn't' leave; he approached the sound. A small beam from a flashlight was shone over the lot, and it only took seconds for him to find Vicky. The guard was Arnold. The pit - bull walked over and tried to stare down Eve. " Listen you little wimpy girl, I'll pretend I didn't hear that if you get out right now." Eve didn't say anything more. She grabbed Arnold by the arm, lifted him above her head, and tossed him several hundred feet past the lot. Arnold landed in an open sewer, while Eve continued with the business of repossessing her bike. She stepped on and drove off, pleasantly surprised to find that there was gas in the tank. She sped off on the slippery roads with the time approaching midnight. It was time to work on part two of the plan. Within a house in Acme Acres, decorated with blue and white paint, a feline couple with two young children lay asleep, undisturbed just like they had been in all the days since they had moved in. With no knowledge of the previous owners, they rested easy. When a brick came smashing through the adults' bedroom window, it marked the first disturbance in the history of their ownership. " Honey, what was that?" the wife asked. " I don't know. I'll check it out," he replied. The man got up, donned a robe and walked downstairs. Once there, he could hear a noise coming from outside. " Get out now," a harsh teenage girl's voice instructed. " Who's there?!?" the man asked nervously. " An old owner." The man clearly had no idea how to handle this situation. He picked up the phone only to discover the line wasn't working. Before the man of the couple could try another option, the door was kicked in and Eve stood before him. " This isn't your house!" Vicky shouted at him. " I don't know who you are, but if you get out now, I won't call the police," he said. Eve didn't pay any attention to this. She picked up a vase and smashed it on the floor. She laughed maniacally and she broke everything she could find in the halls. Everything that wasn't there before, she broke. The remainder of the family came downstairs and saw the father of the family now confronted by a young female who appeared to be psychotic. " What do you want?!?" the mother cried. Eve turned around and stared right at her now, with a frightening look that seemed to petrify her. " I want my home back!" " This is our house," the male adult cat explained. " King Real Estate sold it to us." Eve picked him up for a second, and subsequently tossed him down on the wooden floor. " He had no right to sell it to you. This house didn't belong to King. It was mine, and that megalomaniac stole it just as fast as he gave it to me. If you people don't leave right now, I am going to remove you, and it won't be fun!" Both parents were now incredibly terrified. They shook from more than just the cold breeze coming in from the space where the door used to be. There was no doubt in the minds of either of them that this girl meant exactly what she said. " Where are we going to go?" a parent asked. Eve tossed a key over to them. " You now own a beach front house." The key had the address inscribed on it, and within seconds the family had run out the door with everything they owned in hand. The property belonged to King, but thanks to Eve also handing over the deed, it now belonged to this family. She had stolen this from her father once for just such an occasion. On the way out, the current residents left the deed and key behind for Eve to take back for her own. Seconds after the old residents vacated the house, Eve was on her motorcycle heading back towards the junkyard. It took a few minutes to return to the old Pacer she spent last night in, but when she did she rushed right in and retrieved her two new possessions, the information boxes. Minutes later she had them at home as she sat down in her living room. " Let's see what you've been hiding from me, ol' King," Eve said out loud to herself as she pulled out the box with information regarding her first. The first piece of paper she drew was the single most important. Her eyes started looking at the paper from the bottom, as she was almost a little too nervous to read the rest of it. She saw King's signature, complete with very heavy italics. She also saw the date directly to the left. It was three weeks after the day she was born. Her eyes now moved to the very top of the page. She would never forget her reaction when she saw the title at the top of the page: Notice of Adoption. Her eyes were wide as she read over the rest of the paper, and surely enough, if gave the information the title suggested. Victoria Edmonds, adopted through the Acme Acres Adoption Agency ( quadruple A ). It indicated how she was adopted into the Blake family, who was approved so quickly because of the extreme wealth and luxurious lifestyle they could provide. Eve placed the paper down for a moment. Whether as Vicky or Eve, who had almost become her alter ego, she had always had the idea that somehow a monster like King had actually had something to do with her creation. Now she knew otherwise. There wasn't a mix of emotions. There wasn't a sense of shock or confusion. There was only one emotion going through her right now: pure bliss. She hesitated a moment, which was quickly followed by a jumping up and down, and a large amount of joyful yelling. Eve ran outside in the snow and continued screaming in absolute rapture. Her smile enveloped her entirely decorated face. Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, fireworks began shooting off from around her. She didn't even question them; she just sat back and enjoyed the moment. It was about time something finally went right. Nothing had gone her way since that fateful day King called her to his office and started the whole miserable experience. Now something finally turned around. After all she had been through. After losing her house. After losing her school. After King tried to keep her away from the rest of the world. After all of that, she finally had something to make her happy again. She knew now she was not related to, in her opinion, the most horrible man to ever set foot in Acme Acres. She knew that the feeling this knowledge gave her would keep her up for a fifth consecutive night. It took a while, but she realized there was another box of information, this one about Perfecto Prep. The rest of her box was simply legal documentation about her adoption, so nothing particularly interesting came from it. The Perfecto box, however, was something else entirely. Eve didn't even understand why King had a box with information about Perfecto Prep. That is, until she read it. The very first piece of information in the box was a deed. A deed indicating King Blake's ownership of Perfecto Prep. His signature was on it, and this indicated that he owned everything in the school, and also that he had complete control over its operations. Apparently, the principal that had been there was simply a figurehead to hide King's possession of the school. All of the sudden, it was becoming clearer why King was concerned about the matter of the school. He must be getting paid for the damages. It didn't take Eve long to figure out then why King would have wanted to keep an eye on her, and then to keep her out of the public eye. She could screw up his attaining the funds from the damage she caused. The next piece of information she found in the box was also just as interesting. It was a set up blueprints, with the title " King Academy Plans " on the top. She saw a construction schedule attached to it, along with the plans. They read that with the money from the insurance company, King would build the King Academy for the Elite Students. The plans included the types of snob instruction the students would receive. From everything she read, this place sounded ten times worse than Perfecto Prep The only major difference besides the degree of snobbery was the fact that King would be running the place from within the school, not by proxy as before. Eve knew right away that this place was the last thing Acme Acres needed. It may get the Perfectos out of Acme Looniversity, but the King Academy was planned for right next to the school, even though Eve wondered how King planned to get that property. This was also not just about the school anymore. The benefits of having them out would probably outweigh those of letting them stay. That didn't matter. This was about King. And, despite how it could possibly cause the Perfectos to stick around at Acme, she didn't care. Getting back at King was first and foremost on her mind. Everything else took a back seat. Knowing there could be more information in King's private chamber, Eve ran out the door and hopped on her motorcycle. It was now one - thirty in the morning. King was lying asleep with the heat turned off in the mansion, and because of that, it was absolutely freezing within. King slept in a different room from Sheridan most nights these days. Across the house from King, Sheridan was still awake She was thinking about where her adopted daughter was. Over the years, that had been so many things she had to keep from her daughter, for King's sake. Now the tables had turned, and she was being kept in the dark, and it was eating away at her. She just lay awake, staring at the mid - December snow falling once again. It was nearing the holidays, and as usual, the mansion remained completely undecorated. Sheridan almost drifted into sleep when the sounds of shattering glass came from the lowest floor of the house. She shot up and looked out the window. At ground level, there was a dark figure standing on the lawn, and apparently she had just hurled an object through one of the windows. " How'd a thief get in through the gate?" Sheridan asked herself. She pressed the little red button next to her bed, which was for security. The silent alarm in the basement went off, and within seconds the live - in guards were outside. " Freeze!" one shouted as he arrived on the lawn. Eve had a brick in her hand and was once again preparing to throw it. This little bit of vandalism was for disturbing King some before she infiltrated the room again. The plan was to come back a few hours after destroying a few things. " Shut up Robinson," she instructed a familiar guard. " Miss Blake?" the guard asked. Eve didn't answer. She ran over and kicked the guard across the mouth. Robinson knew it was her, and he quickly went away, taking the rest of the staff with him. Vicky threw the brick, knowing the guards would not come back. After doing that, and tearing a few plants out of the ground, and piling several feet on snow in front of the main door, she walked in with her key. This was the time for the staff's weekly break, and Vicky took full advantage of the fact that the staff would be gone for the next fifteen minutes. She walked in and saw every light was turned off. There was not a soul within on the ground floor. This was the first time she remembered ever seeing the place unstaffed. Eve had a decision to make quickly right then and there: did she want to go into chambers or go upstairs and begin yet another phase of the plan. She was going to end up doing both, but she did decide to go with the latter plan initially. " Don't you dare wake up you cold psycho," Eve thought to herself as she headed into the master bedroom of the Blake mansion. She saw King, lying down, looking almost like somebody with a heart. With a soul. With some kind of feelings for those around him. She, of course, knew otherwise. Eve pulled out a small spray paint can she brought with her, and began redecorating the windows. The disgruntled teenager also used a can of regular paint and threw it all over the walls. She committed a few more acts of vandalism before leaving the room, wishing she could be there when King Blake woke up. Minutes later, she found herself at the sealed door once again. She had been intelligent enough to swipe a key last time, and entrance was very easy. Once inside, the creepy effect was not lost even though she had seen it before. It was still dark, still freezing, and the daunting site of King's statue continued to haunt her presence in that room. Eve first stopped into the records room again. The boxes had been placed back in their original order, and it looked as if nothing had been touched. The two missing vital pieces of information were not even missed upon inspection. Eve looked through items such as," financial statements" " marriage reports" and " legal transactions" until she found something a little more interesting. A plain white box containing the word " Deeds " on the side. Figuring if he owned Perfecto, King must own something else interesting, too, Eve began rifling through the papers. She wondered why this stuff was not kept on a computer, but now was not the time to question the logic of King's ability to keep a secret. " What the..." Eve started as she saw the longest deed she had ever seen. Attached to it were a variety of contracts and other agreements. What she read was startling. She could hardly catcher her breath, and pocketed the papers, knowing everybody at Acme Looniversity would need to see what exactly they said. Eve surveyed the rest of the place form the statue room. There was a lab, a throne room, the "hospital", and a variety of other doors. She was about to choose another to enter when suddenly she could hear footsteps. Without thinking, she jumped behind the twelve - foot statue of King and watched to see who was coming in. She hoped it was King and she could do some more damage to him right now, but unfortunately for her, it was a cleaning lady. This person wore a blindfold at King's demand so she would not read anything in there. She headed into the records room and closed the door. Throughout her sitting behind the statue, Eve noticed that something was sticking into her back. Once the cleaner was gone, she stood up and looked at was it as. A blue - colored diamond. She picked it up, examined it for a moment, and decided to keep it with her as she walked out in front of the statue. She was going to pocket the diamond, but she noticed that King's hand in the statue was raised upwards. There seemed to be a space cut in the palm that the crystal would fit into, so out of curiosity, Eve climbed up and inserted the precious stone into the hand of the stone King. Within seconds, a light flaking of snow came from the ceiling. Vicky was puzzled as to the purpose of this, and disregarded it as King's creepy way of making it snow in his personal space. Hours passed, and King awoke at six in the morning as usual. The lights flipped on, and within seconds he noticed that his room was different than it had been the night before. The walls had red and black paint thrown all over them. Parts of the windows were shattered. Three legs of his bed had been broken. The chandelier on the ceiling was now barely hanging by one cord. On the rather large window to the left of King's bed was a sign spray painted in black, reading " Your time is coming King, and nobody said you have a choice about it!" King was infuriated. His room had been defaced, now somebody ( he could easily decipher who ) had the gall to threaten him. He shot up out of bed and walked downstairs very quickly. Without even ordering a servant to place the call ahead of time, King picked up the phone and literally punched a speed dial button. " This is King. I want her gone and I want her gone NOW!" King yelled angrily into the phone. Although there were not witnesses, it was almost as if King was showing an emotion for once. " You heard me. Victoria must be eliminated if the plans have any hope of succeeding." King then slammed down the phone and prepared to suppress the anger in front of his wife. Eddie woke up the morning, having only slept three hours, and started to drink his morning coffee, which was another element of everyday life that had been reminding him of Vicky since the last time he saw her. His anxiety grew hourly, it seemed, and there was not a thing he could do about it. After taking his daily cup of caffeine, Eddie headed for his front door, preparing for another day of seemingly futile protest against the Perfecto occupation. To his surprise, when Eddie opened the door, he saw Cloud and Enid standing before him. " Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?" Eddie asked them. " Well, you uh... never did answer our letters... and we're uh... mad..." Cloud began. Eddie chuckled. He remembered the pathetic attempt at intimidating they tried, most likely at the influence of King Blake. " Listen, I would love to sit here and listen to you two try and sound like the new school dictator, but I have somewhere to be." " It's not with those... those.. Y'know, not rich kids... is it?" Enid asked. Eddie just laughed and tried to walk out the door. Enid and Cloud both blocked his way. " Sorry.. uh.. Eddie.. Edward... we need to make sure you don't get... Y'know, influenced by the not - rich kids... so, we'll spend the day with... uh... you..." Cloud said. Eddie laughed and asked if they were joking. Both glanced at each other, and then turned back and nodded no. Babs was just barely waking up around eight that morning. Normally she would join Buster and Bugs in front of the school right in the morning, but last night she had been up much later than usual, thinking about the job. After preparing herself, she also attempted to leave her home when a parent stopped her. " Babs Bunny, do you not remember you start your secretary job today? Change out of that blouse and skirt, and into this suit," her mother instructed, throwing Babs a blue business suit. Babs reluctantly changed and was driven to King's office. The new daily Perfecto - copter arrived at Acme Looniversity around eight thirty. The gathered Acme Students watched on as it landed. As they had done the day before, all of the Acme Looniversity students booed like crazy at the site of the Perfectos walking off. All of them tried to ignore the sound just long enough to get in the elevator, but when Roderick attempted to get inside the lifting device, the door would not open. He looked down the center and saw that the door had been welded shut. " This is no problem," Derek said. " We always have the emergency entrance." The teenage Cougarmoore opened the door on the pad which was labeled "emergency entrance " . He was the first to enter, and just about everybody followed. There was only one problem with this: they all just fell down a shaft that passed by every real floor in the school. Derek noticed a sign on the way down indicating the emergency entrance was to be completed in fall 2012. The entire school landed in the basement, and they all landed on top of each other with lots of crashing and groaning sounds. As Bugs took to the microphone outside of Acme Looniversity, Buster stepped down from the steps that were being used as a podium and walked over to Field, who was sitting in the first row of the crowd. " I think we need to talk," Buster said to him. Field raised an eyebrow. " Now, for some reason Plucky was in the school yesterday, and he claims to have seen you in there. Is that true, and if so, what were you doing in Acme Loo?" Field thought about his answer for a moment. " King called me in. He was telling me how I shall not help the Acme students, or I shall regret it. I can't remember too much about the conversation; that man says shall too much. Anyway, that was the only reason I was in that place, so don't worry about it." Buster thought for a second before deciding to believe Field. After all, the only reason Buster had to mistrust Field was the stereotype about Perfecto Preppies, and Buster was more than willing to give Field the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Babs finished the incredibly long elevator journey and arrived at the top floor of the Blake office tower, the same place where the whole fateful mess had begun. It still looked like the same huge tower of snobbery it had back when Vicky first brought Buster and Babs here. Back when they had their first encounter with King. When everything started to go awry. " Gee, what a welcoming party this is," Babs said as she sat down at the chair right outside King's office. She had seen the last secretary sit there, and imitated. Apparently nobody was going to show her what to do or how to do it, so Babs just sat back with her feet up and stared at the ceiling, even it was so high up she could barely see it. " I trust you are present, my new administrative assistant," King's voice said through the intercom. " No, I'm psychically sending you replies," Babs told him. King was not amused. " In case a simpleton such as yourself has failed to notice, I am not currently in the office. I am off attending some business of another matter. Today, you shall organize my files, get my security system improved, place a call to the national guard for the outside of the school, get a mechanic to open the entrance at the top of my school... ( an hour later )... and go to Columbia to get me some better coffee. Is that understood?" " Everything after the part where you said you weren't in the office got kinda tuned out," Babs told him. King groaned a little and hung up. Babs sat back the entire morning, not doing a second of work. What did she care if she was fired from a job she didn't want anything to do with in the first place? Babs was just about to fall asleep around noon when suddenly King walked in through the door and startled her awake. " And what exactly do you think you are doing? I shall not put up with a gold - bricking employee. I get enough of that behavior from my spouse. If you do not do some work at this very moment, you shall be fired," King said to her. " I didn't know you actually spoke to your employees," Babs replied. King suddenly looked at her a little closer. The familiar sense he was getting was quickly deciphered: he remembered Babs Bunny. " Correct me if I am incorrect, but are you or are you not a friend of one Victoria Blake?" "Of course I am! Don't you remember all the fun we had when I was here the last time? The laughs? The tears? the joy? The good times? Where have those gone? Those were the days!" King did not look amused at the young rabbit's dramatization. " Young, penniless lady, I recall scorning you and your other financial deprived cohort for even attempting to associate yourselves with any member of my family. Your are simply here to work, not to attempt to be humorous, not to sleep, and if you do not comply with the demands of the job, legal action will be taken. Now then, make yourself useful and acquire some coffee for me." King sat down in his office, desperately hoping for some kind of call from the insurance company for a status report on his money. He also hoped that the school situation could remain quiet for a while so he could deal with the Vicky situation without any more distraction than was absolutely necessary. Even if he was able to get the money, King was not going to abandon his attempt to keep his daughter from further interference in any aspect of his life. Like her, he was now taking this personally. It was a personal vendetta he had now called in others to fight for him. " Here's your coffee," Babs said as she walked into his office carrying a small, gold cup. King stood up and peered into the cup. " How did you know I prefer my coffee black?" " Lucky guess." There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of steam rising up out of the caffeine - laden beverage. Babs leaned forward to hand King the cup, but she leaned a little too much, and the coffee jolted out of the cup and directly onto King's outstretched left hand. Babs expected that, like any toon, hot coffee would simply make Mr. Blake's hand become red and enlarged with the pain. That wasn't what happened at all. The coffee made a hissing sound as it made contact with King's hand. The hand turned a bright red in all the spots the liquid hit. King just stared at her, not crying out in pain, and having no toon like reactions. Babs took a frightened step back. " What just happened?" Babs asked, wondering why King did not have any normal toon reactions. " Were you anticipating my hand to inflate several times in pain and turn red, only to be perfectly normal again within a few seconds? You see, I do not operate that way. Although I have been surrounded by you cartoon characters that are impervious to damage it seems for years now, I myself am not. Much like Mr. Spielberg, the one responsible for you all being here, I am not a toon, as you can plainly see. I do not have the toon - like reactions to pain. I do not have the imbecilic sense of humor. I do not possess some ill - placed admiration for Bugs Bunny. I do not speak to the audience. I have no desire to be an actor. As any moron, including yourself, can observe with the utmost clarity, I am not like a single one of you. You must, however, appreciate the irony of a ' normal ' human being coming in to a toon place and having the ability to take over operations effortlessly." Babs took a moment to translate some of what he said with the help of a dictionary, and then replied. " The fact that you aren't a toon puts my mind at ease. For a while there, I thought the Warner Bros. script writers had gone insane and created a jerk like you. I don't know why you decided to make all of our lives miserable, but you aren't going to get away with it for long. Especially if anybody finds your daughter." King laughed momentarily, and then became deadly serious again. " I am absolutely sure you would love to believe that, but quite simply, even you must realize that nobody can stop me from doing what I please when I please to do it." Babs refused to listen to any more of this. She walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her. " I really don't want to watch soap operas with you," Eddie informed Enid around one that afternoon. " I have some important business to take care of." " N... no you don't," Cloud replied. " Remember... we're rich... we have people to do our business for us." " You guys don't have people. You just like saying you do so you can fit in with losers like King or Dr. Cougarmoore." Eddie's parents had chained the door shut and placed several locks on it to prevent Eddie's escape. For the moment, he was a prisoner like Vicky had been. The only different was that, unlike Vicky's imprisonment, Eddie's was orchestrated by the incompetent. The phone rang at Eddie's around one - thirty. " What's up?" Eddie asked as he answered. " It's Buster. Listen, we need you over at my place ASAP. we're all getting together and organizing a little plan of our own. Say, you haven't seen Vicky around here anywhere?" " No. To tell ya the truth, it's really starting to worry me. I haven't seen her since the day we all walked out of Acme Loo, and I know King has something to do with her going missing." " We could really use her, and if you haven't seen Vicky, I'm guessing nobody else has, either. Anyway, if possible, get over here right away." Eddie, after hanging up the phone, glanced over at his parents. They seemed so wrapped up in some soap opera that they didn't notice what he was doing. Eddie walked to the back door and quickly noticed Enid and Cloud had neglected to lock it off. He walked out undetected and headed for Buster's. A minute later, Babs received a call form Buster. " Sure, It's not like I'm doing anything important," Babs told him. " Yes, I do realize I'm at work. That is exactly why I'm not doing anything important." After the call, Babs got up and walked away from her job. By the time King noticed his administrative staff member was missing, it was far too late. Babs was already at Buster's. In Buster's burrow sat Buster, Babs, Plucky, Shirley, Fifi, Shirley, Hamton, and Field. Eddie looked incredibly anxious. Field's expression was non - descript at best. Buster and Babs both looked determined. Shirley looked somewhat worried. Plucky was a little angry that he had to leave Perfecto before he could acquire some capital. Buster started off this meeting of the toons by placing a map down on his coffee table. It was a map of the inside and outside of Acme Looniversity. " Tomorrow afternoon at thirteen hundred hours..." Buster began. Plucky raised his hand. " What is it, Plucky?" Buster asked. " My watch doesn't have a thirteen hundred on it," Plucky said, pointing to the silver time piece on his left wrist. " All right, fine. I won't use military talk. Tomorrow at one in the afternoon, we are all going to go to Acme Looniversity. Once there, we all head in the front door and then split up." Buster started point everybody where they were supposed to go, and what to do. The plan was basically to, one way or another, drive the Perfectos out the same way the Acmes had been driven out. Everybody there listened attentively as the plan was decided. Field was taking notes. After an hour, the meeting came to a close and everybody but Babs and Eddie got up and left. " Buster, I don't want to sound, like, incredibly rude," Eddie started," but if I go back home right now, I get to hear more of my parents' speeches that have been influenced by how King has brainwashed them. You think it'd be okay if I just hung out here for a while?" " No problem." Around three that afternoon, King's office phone began to ring, and after seventeen rings, he noticed he had no secretary there to answer. King partook of the humiliating task of answering the telephone himself. " What do you want?" he asked. " I would assume you would be more polite to the man controlling the destiny of your twenty million. Listen, the interviews were completed, and except for Edward Lockskunk, we were able to ask all those who may have been involved. We have come to the decision that your money will be granted to you. It will require a three day processing period, and as long as nothing goes wrong within this time frame, you should receive your check in three days. If something is to go wrong, however, you can kiss the cash goodbye." " Why is it I am the only living organism in Acme Acres with a reasonable control of the English language?" King asked himself out loud. " Very well. I look forward to your money." He then hung up the phone and sat back, feeling satisfied that he was finally getting some sort of reward for his efforts. Forcing teenagers out of their school was amusing, but had yet to provide any sort of financial gain. Now King was getting somewhere. The plan was now when he got home to take out the King Academy plans and put them into action as soon as possible. He tried ordering his secretary to get some champagne, only to realize once again his was absent. " Three days with nothing going wrong. As long as Victoria can stay out of trouble for that long, I shall be able to fulfill my desire to build a new school with no out of pocket expense. Clearly the last one was a mild success. Those Perfecto students became more like me than I anticipated, but not entirely. The next batch should succumb to every aspect of my personality, and eventually push the poor out of this cursed town. Yes, only three days with nothing going wrong. How difficult can that possibly be?" It was dark at five o'clock that night. Eddie was still at Buster's, and King was still at the office. They both happened to turn on the news simultaneously. They saw two reporters sitting behind a desk about to report on the news. "... and boy, was James Cameron embarrassed after that one. Back to you Sally," one reporter said. " Thanks Pat. You know when you just get that sinking feeling?" she started. Seconds later, several lights from above the studio came crashing down onto the floor. " I think our light fixtures have that feeling right now." More lights fell, as did two people working in the studio. An anvil was dropped onto the news desk. The reports looked up. " Apparently we are under attack by some... teenage girl dressed in black with her face painted white and a lot of facial jewelry..." the female reported said, still looking up. Vicky threw some dynamite onto the news desk, and it quickly exploded, covering the anchors in soot. Right after that, Eve jumped down from the ceiling and flashed a smile at the camera. " Hello King. Heard you owned this channel!" Eve shouted into the camera with her face only a few inches from the lens. This shout was followed by some sinister laughter as Eve ran out of there. " That was her!!!" Eddie shouted. Eddie then took off like a shot out of Buster's home in the direction of the television station. Buster and Babs even had to envy the speed that Eddie suddenly had as he rushed out of there. For that matter, Little Beeper would have to be jealous of that kind of speed. " Get a security team down to the channel five television studios this instant!" King shouted to an associate on the phone. His stomach turned at the thought that the insurance company may have seen that. It was not very realistic to think that the insurance agents had not heard about the Eve phase in the midst of interviewing students on the subject of Vicky. Now it was King's turn to feel some anxiety. Eddie arrived at the station almost immediately and surveyed the damage. He could see cameras smashed everywhere, the sure signs of anvil damage and dynamite exploding. There were station officials and camera men running around, confused, attempting to control the damage. Eddie smirked as he walked through the mass of confusion, recognizing his old friend's handy work. His main purpose was there to, of course, find Vicky, or Eve, or whatever you would like to call her, but while he was there he could find a source of entertainment. Coming in from the back door was King Blake, accompanies by three masked toons in what appeared to be military suits. Mr. Blake had an angry expression upon his face, which he quickly hid once he realized that somebody was looking at him. " Mr. Blake, I sweat this psycho girl came out of nowhere and just started breaking stuff! She claimed her name was Eve Ill, and she dropped this," the station manager, a green rabbit in his early twenties told King. It was Field's older brother. " Do not doubt for a second that I am perfectly familiar with the female adolescent in question," King told him. " Who is she?" " If I informed you of that, the irony would be immense. The irony is never lost upon me." The manager didn't pretend to know what King was talking about, and once he noticed one of his younger camera men about to pick up a now - exposed wire, he had to leave King and stop impending electrocution. " Victoria, reveal yourself immediately. Sustaining this concealment shall only increase your already severe punishment," King announced in a booming voice to the entire studio. " I hope she's long since gone if you're here," Eddie replied to the call as he walked over near King. " Edward. May I ask why you have decided to grace this studio with your presence?" " No you may not." King snapped his fingers, and the three goons of his stepped away and started searching for her. " What is the cause of this impudent behavior?" Eddie considered not answering, but decided he may not get another opportunity to tell King off. " I was here looking for your lovely daughter, hoping to console her on the fact that she is related to you, and also to help her tear your lovely studio here to shreds." King's face did not change, although he was suddenly filled with extreme rage. " Are you mad? Do you have any idea who you are speaking to? You shall not talk to me in such a impertinent tone of voice, or you shall suffer the consequences!" " What, will you brainwash me like you did my parents? Have me running around trying to imitate you for a living, just like they do? Or, maybe you'll actually have me be completely like you for a punishment. I could spend my days basking in the glow of a school I pushed a bunch of innocent teenagers out of, and then at night I could bring a team of goons to hunt down my own daughter for sport!" King had never had such an urge to hit Edward Lockskunk in his life, but once again he showed his almost superhuman abilities of restraint. " Edward, all I can say is that you are very fortunate I am not a barbarous individual." " Why, because you might do something like this?" Eddie asked seconds before kicking King in the right leg. King leaned over a little in pain, but his face would not change. Eddie then pulled his tail forward and fired a barrage of skunk scent directly at the seven footer. Not being a toon, King did not pass out. He simply coughed and had a terrible smell envelope his body. Eddie then walked out of the studio, figuring that if Vicky was there anywhere, she would have made an appearance by now. King, meanwhile, was infuriated. His eyes were colder than usual, and in his mind he was going over a way to get back at his adopted daughter's skunk compatriot. Eddie was walking faster than he ever had in his life on the way back. He was now scared about what King might do for revenge, but that was second on his mind to finding Vicky, and soon. At least he knew she wasn't hurt, but the need to locate her was still there. Eddie wouldn't have to wait that much longer. Coming from down the pitch black street, Eddie heard the sounds of a motorcycle approaching. There were not too many in Acme Acres, so he quickly turned around to see if it was her. When it passed under a street light, Eddie noticed the face of the driver. He could see the ring under the lip; it was in the same space Vicky had always worn it when she was Eve. Knowing he had to act fast, Eddie threw himself onto the street directly into the path of the cycle. Eve was approaching at nearly a hundred miles an hour, and she could not stop in time to avoid hitting him. She slammed on the brake and swerved the cycle to the side, skidding into a mail box, leaving herself a little injured, but the bike was fine. " You moron! Why'd you jump in the street?" Eve shouted, not yet knowing the identity of her near victim. Eddie stood up right after she said that. " I had to get you to stop somehow," Eddie explained. Eve stopped walking when she saw who it was, and the psychotically angry expression on her face melted away in favor of a look of surprise. " I haven't seen you in several days, I've been worried sick about you, and you don't have anything to say?" " What do you want me to say? Say I'm happy to see you? Say that my life is suddenly back to the way it was just because I see you here before me? Say that my problems are over just because I find you walking the streets in sub - zero temperatures? I can't say any of those things! They aren't true! My life is still chaos, and there isn't a thing you can do about it!" " There is, though. It isn't like you're the only one who wishes King would take a long walk of a short cliff, and you certainly aren't the only one who is doing something about the little problem we're having with him. And, besides the fact that we need the help to bring him down, I am happy to see you. I have known you for only a couple of years, but I think of you of the best friend I've ever had." Eve stopped for a moment. She was trying her best not to be affected by Eddie's sentimental speaking, and she was able to control all emotions but her anger. " Let me explain something to you, and you can pass this message on to your little rabbit friends and everybody else: none of you can do a thing to bring King down. Not at thing. Anybody with that much money and that much power can't be stopped entirely. And, if he could, you guys certainly wouldn't be the ones who would do it. I am the only one who knows even half of what you would need to in order to hurt King." " King aside, what about your friends? What about what you mean to them? Not showing up in forever can upset them. Does that matter at all?" " Friends? Ha! What can they do at this point. They can't point everything back together again. And you. Let's talk about you. You used to be such a useful drone for me. Doing whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted. You lost that. Now you can throw yourself in front of a speeding motorcycle just so you can say you miss me and you're happy to see me? Why? Why are you so happy to see me, anyway? Does it make you happy I'm this messed up?" Eddie didn't know how to answer. He knew this was not the time to speak to her, but he didn't want to let her go again, either. He stood, frozen, watching as Eve climbed back on her bike and sped off into the darkness. Eddie was left disconcerted by what she said for hours, and did not sleep at all that night thinking about the encounter. Vicky, once again, did not sleep a wink that night. King returned to his less - than humble dwelling at ten that night. To his surprise, Sheridan awaited his return at the door. " And where have you been?" she asked. " Is that truly of any concern to you? For, you have always seemed more preoccupied with my bank account as opposed to my whereabouts." Sheridan did not seem to amused after that comment. " Even those millions aren't enough to make up for all this you're putting me through these days. You stay out until all hours of the night, you spend more time than ever in that stupid room of yours, our daughter is missing and you won't give me any king of explanation, and the anxiety of it all is ripping a hole in my stomach!" King did not seem concerned at all with his wife's emotional state. He stood calmly and prepared a rebuttal. " Should I divulge the location of Victoria, how would you react? Look at how you're reacting now, and you do not have the faintest idea of where she is? I have not told you what is going on because I do not believe you can handle it." Sheridan was on the verge of both tears and slapping him. " I have put up with your coldness for years now. No wonder we never had a child of our own. Who would want one that came from you?!? I am sick and tired of your holier - than - thou attitude, I am sick and tired of you keeping everything from me, and I am sick of living with you just so I can have the money that comes with being Mrs. King Blake!!!" Sheridan then slapped King across the face and then stormed off. King had never been hit this many times in a day, but he thought nothing of it. The morning came with no more apparent damage around the mansion. King awoke at six, as usual. As he sipped his tea, the butler that brought him this beverage began to speak with him. " Sir, I have some unfortunate news for you. Sheridan has left, sir. She says she is never coming back." " Very good. Contact my lawyer, and begin divorce proceedings. The pre - nuptial agreement should take care of the rest." The phone at Babs Bunny's house rang at six - thirty that morning. " Whoever this is, I already hate you," Babs said to the person who woke her up that early. " This is an automatic message from the offices of King Blake. You are to be at work at seven this morning until eleven tonight. Have a profitable day." Babs groaned before she got up, but eventually forced herself out of bed. Her mother handed her a cup of coffee, which Babs through in her own face to wake herself up. Babs left around six - forty, about the same time King reached his massive garage. " Which care to take..." King thought to himself. He decided to finally drive himself for a change, just so he could take out some of his aggression on fellow motorists. King placed the key in one of his many luxury cars, and heard an odd beeping sound, followed by a robotic - sounding voice. " Five... four... three... two..." King opened the door, jumped out of the car, and huddled against a wall. " One.. zero.." BOOM! With a massive explosion, the entire garage full of cars exploded. All three hundred and forty seven vehicles exploded simultaneously, and King avoided major injury by about an inch. Once the exploding and flying metal and glass was finished, King ran inside. He didn't have a single doubt in his mind who the culprit was. At the office, Babs could hear King coming from the tirade he was unleashing on the receptionist in by the elevator, even if it was so far away it was barely in ear shot. " I can see you're as pleasant as ever," Babs said to King as he passed by her. " It would not be wise to speak with me at this moment, Barbara Anne Bunny," King replied as he stepped into his office and locked the door. Babs' face turned red and steam shot out of her ears. " Now it's personal! He used my FULL NAME!!!!!" Babs then stormed away from her desk and talked to the receptionist that King had just chewed out. " Why do you take that from him?" Babs asked her. " Because he's my boss. And, he's King Blake. You have to listen to what he says." " Is this like a cult? All of his employees will take anything form him and not think twice about it. Hang on a minute," Babs said. She then walked back to her desk and made a few calls to the rest of the staff, and King's personal home staff. Within half an hour, Babs was standing on her desk, wearing an exact replica of the very uncomfortable suit she had worn the day before, looking at hundreds and hundreds of gathered people who work for King. " I have called you all here because I have only been working for Mr. Blake for two days now and I already hate it. I have seen this guy push around his employees more than Sylvester Stallone, and I can't stand it. How about you guys? How does he treat all of you?" " He made me clean his shoes once with my tongue!" one person shouted. " He made me take a physical for him!" cried another. Hundreds more shouted examples of terrible experiences they had working with King, and Babs could picture King doing all of the mentioned things. " Why do we keep working for this jerk? He is never going to treat us any better! You know what we need?" " To go back, shut up and do our jobs?" one asked. " Whoever that was, never speak again. For the rest of you, I'll answer the question: we need to strike!" " Yeah!!" " Then we'll become a union, get greedy and go too far!!!" " Yeah!!" Babs laughed and could hardly believe what she was doing. This wasn't like her at all. She wasn't a union leader or something like that, but for the moment she was sure enjoying the acting experience. It was now nearing eight thirty, and it was time for the daily chorus of jeers for the arrival of the Perfectos from the Acme protesters. As usual, the copter landed and the crowd started as all of the Perfectos stepped out. " All right, that's it! I am sick of these Acme losers yelling at us every single day! Hey Acmes! Shut up!!" Derek yelled over the roof. He then gathered a pile of snow in his hand and threw it down, making contact with the back of Buster's head. " You do, of course, know this means war," Buster said. He then gathered some snow and whipped up to the roof, hitting Roderick in the face. Within ten seconds the two sides were propelling snow back and forth at each other like they had food during the days when they were educated side by side. Many of the white spheres of snow simply fell to the ground, missing all targets, but when they hit, they tended to impact with enough force to knock down the toon it was aimed at. " Hey Field! Let's see if you can remember all those good plans of yours after this!" Derek shouted. He then took a ball of ice and threw it directly at Field. It hit the green rabbit directly on the bald spot on the top of his head, knocking him out cold. The battle lasted another twenty minutes before the Perfectos realized they were being defeated and they went inside, once again through the emergency entrance. Just like the day before, they all endured a painful landing and everybody ended up in a pile on top of each other. " I think he's waking up," Buster said as Field opened his eyes. Field sat up for a second and looked around. He recognized the place as Buster's burrow. Field could still feel the bump on his head, and he was still a little disoriented. " Time... ow... what time... is it?" Field asked with the obvious effects of the ice still showing. " Ten thirty. You've been out for a few hours," Buster told him. " N... no, that can't be right... gotta be in the... the... school..." " Field, what are you talking about? We don't go to school at the moment, remember?" Field didn't answer. He went back to sleep with the head injury continuing to cause Field some discomfort. Back at the Blake offices, Babs was still talking to the gathered group. She had seen a movie about labor unions once, and was using every possible cliché she could remember. She was interrupted in the middle of a speech by King leaving his sound - proof office and seeing the hundreds of employees standing at the top floor of the office. They all went dead silent at the sight of their boss. " What are you all doing here in my office? Remove yourselves this instance." They all began to leave when Babs stopped them. " You don't have to listen to this jerk! Remember? Have I just been wasting my breath up here?" Some were about to leave, but eventually everybody decided to stay. " Quite simply, we are all sick and tired of dealing with you. You push your employees around, and nobody is going to take it anymore! We strike!" Babs shouted. They all then walked out, leaving King completely unstaffed. " Why must the poor always use such pathetic methods to attempt to reach the level of those above them?" King asked himself. " As for Barbara Anne, she shall pay for this little demonstration, which, considering the rather thin skin of my employees, should not last for a great duration of time." Field came around again, this time at about eleven. As soon as he was up, before Buster could ask him any more questions about what he was talking about, Field was out the door like a bolt of lightning without saying a word. The traditional rabbit speed certainly did not skip this individual. " Sorry I'm late," Field said as he walked into Perfecto Loo. " It's about time you showed up. What's the latest?" Roddy asked. The rat had been awaiting the arrival of Field since ten, just standing in the hall and not in class. " The latest, Roddy, is that those losers are going to be bringing a barrage of morons in through the front door and trying to take their school back with less than ten people, and they think I am actually going to help." The two laughed. " Be ready at one this afternoon to push them back out the door and into the streets where they belong." Twelve - thirty now rolled around with all toons supposedly involved in Buster's attack plan ready, including Field, who crept out of Perfecto Loo just for this occasion. " Everybody remember the plan?" Buster asked. They all nodded yes, including Plucky who was lying, and the group was off. " Eddie, I thought your parents would be trying to keep you at home again," Buster pointed out. " Yeah, but they seemed to give that up when I said the TV was busted," Eddie replied. " Babs, how'd you get out of work?" Buster inquired. " Massive walkout. King has no staff left." The team of toons marched in a line, each of them dressed in military uniforms. They marched up the icy stairs of the old school, kicked the main door down, and just when they prepared to split up, they were met by a huge group of Perfecto Preppies. They were clearly outnumbered. " Hey losers," Roddy began. " Looks like your little plan failed like your lives." Buster was now confused. He wondered how they knew he was coming, and his attention turned to Field. " What?" Field asked. " Did you have anything to do with this?" Buster asked. " What can I say? I love to win," Field replied. Clearly it was time for the farce to end. He removed his military clothing and joined the plain clothed Perfectos. " You know, in time maybe I could have learned to like all of you, but not unless you all got some serious windfalls." Buster was about to retreat, but he noticed that there was a group of Perfectos now standing behind them. This did not look promising. " Buster, how would you feel about an unconditional surrender?" Plucky asked. " It sounds good right now, but I don't think they'd take it." Buster didn't really want to fight anyway. It wasn't his style, and it sure wasn't anybody else's there. They had two friends who's style this fit Perfectly, and neither one was there. Nobody knew where Dizzy was, and Vicky hadn't been around in a while. Clearly, they were in trouble. The Perfectos closed in around them. The Acmes were surrounded, and were about to be pounded upon when the sound of an approaching engine caught the attention of every single toon in the halls of the former Acme Looniversity. " What's that?" Roddy asked. His question was answered soon enough. Within seconds, breaking through the walls of Acme Looniversity was a motorcycle with Eve ill perched on the seat. " Were you little wimps planning a fight?" Eve asked the Perfectos. Derek became completely stunned with fear at the sight of his ex. Field did likewise. Rubella walked right up to her, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke in Eve's face. " That was bright," Eve said sarcastically. She lifted up Rubella over her head, spun her around for a minute, and tossed her through several walls. She eventually landed in a dumpster outside. " Anybody else wanna be a hero?" "Hey wait!" Roddy said. " There's only one of you. There's hundreds of us. We can take you!" " Just me, maybe. But, I was a little smarter than to just come in here without backup." Eve pulled a small remote control out of her pocket, and after pressing a button, a tank pushed through the walls and was sitting before them. " Now who's gonna win?" The Perfectos scrambled to get out of the way, but Eve would not let them simply run. She pressed another button on the control, and the large, green tank drove automatically after some of the more hated students. Derek, Roddy, and Field were all among those who were plowed. Most of the rest managed to escape the tank, but Eve was not going to let anybody get away without some pain. Those who avoided the tank tended to get an anvil to the head or a kick to the jaw by Eve. As this was going on, the Acmes slipped out the door. Fifteen minutes later and it was over. Eve drove back outside on her motorcycle, and stopped right by the Acmes. " I thought you didn't care about any of us anymore," Eddie said. " Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Who cares? The point is, I did what I had to in there. King will finally have to feel at least a little threatened. Babs, I heard about the strike. That's good work. With nobody left to hide behind, maybe there's a chance to take him out. Expect a little delivery from me tonight that should fill in some of the holes in the situation for you." Eve then sped off without waiting for a reply. Everybody looked on as the Harley disappeared for the moment. Eve continued her trip around Acme Acres on her motorcycle, and as she drove by, she couldn't help but notice one of the cars from her old mansion was parked along the side of the street. Eve peered in a little closer and thought she spotted Sheridan inside. She dropped down a note on the windshield, and then sped off once again. With her was a box of information and notes for the Acme students, knowing it was something they may all find interesting. That, too, was dropped off without any formal notice, and she returned home for the night. Sheridan noticed the note lying on the floor by the opening to the burrow, and she promptly read it out loud. " Dear mom, I am hoping that if you are finally driving by yourself when King has always insisted somebody take you everywhere, this means you finally ditched him. If this is true, you know I always have another room if you need a place to stay. I also know about the pre - nup you signed, so don't use some foolish pride and claim you have money to go somewhere else. Come here if you feel the need. - Vicky" Sheridan suddenly felt joyful. This was the nicest gesture her daughter had ever extended. After years of claiming not to care and referring to Sheridan as a gold - digging moron, Vicky was finally proving that she wasn't cold like King anymore. Sheridan got out of park and headed for Vicky's place, not questioning how Vicky got her old house back, and not knowing that Vicky knows everything. Buster looked up form his burrow around six - thirty that night and saw a neatly taped brown package lying before the entrance. He quickly figured out this was the information that Eve had alluded to earlier, and brought it inside out of the snow. Buster immediately ripped it open, glanced at the info for a second, and then called up a few friends, telling them they may not believe this. With just about every main cast member from Tiny Toon Adventures, except Montana Max who had joined the Perfectos, Buster began to go over the information that was sent to him. The info went as follows: The first file explained one new piece of information. Not only did King hold the deed to the old Perfecto Prep, but he also technically still owned the land to Acme Acres. It seems he has been renting it out to Warner Bros. at an absolutely insane price since the show began. The agreement stipulated by the rental was that WB could come in and produce their show, but King still held all rights on the land. Essentially, he could do whatever he wanted and Warner Bros. couldn't stop him. This was the contract Bugs was talking about before. Technically, King owned Acme Looniversity and everybody's home, so this is why Bugs could not simply remove the Perfecto students from what was supposed to be his school. The rest of the information involved the adoption, and an explanation of how King stood to obtain twenty million dollars from the insurance company which would fund a new school for the Perfectos and get them out of Acme. They all took a second to absorb the information. " So let me get this straight," Babs said. " By this explanation, if Eve does anything to King, he might not get his twenty million because the insurance company could blame his daughter and call it a scam. And, if he doesn't get his money, the Perfectos stay." " That seems to be the gist of it," Buster replied. " You do all know what this means? As much as we don't want to have to do anything that could possibly benefit King, to get the Perfectos out of our school, we need to stop Eve from causing any more problems." Nobody liked this idea. The thought of supporting something that King was doing sickened them all. On the other hand, they needed Acme Looniversity back, and there seemed to be no way to get it. " If we want to stop whatever she might be doing next, we need to go now," Eddie told them. " I hate this idea more than anybody, but it needs to go through. She does most of her work at night. She'll pull off more big stunts that would get the insurance company's attention. Everybody, split up and look for her." The group of toons once again broke up in the search for Eve. They all wandered in the freezing cold around the streets of Acme Acres in the hopes of locating her and making her stop whatever she might be planning so they can recapture Acme Looniversity. King stepped outside for a second to breathe in the freezing cold. The mansion was completely empty now, with now staff, no wife, and no daughter. All he saw besides more falling snow and a sea of darkness when he looked out was a note sitting on his doorstep that somehow had avoided blowing away in the wind. He picked it up and read it. He became angry once again when he read the message: " I know everything, and now, everybody knows everything. - Eve." King crumpled the message and threw it out into the snow. He then slammed the door and went back inside. King picked up the phone and began to speak with some of the guards he had with him before. " It is imperative that you find Victoria now and dispose of her by whatever means necessary. She knows too much, and the whole deal could be ruined." Word of the fight earlier that day had reached King. He still blamed the Acme students for negatively influencing Vicky to act out violently, and so in turn, he blamed them for him possibly losing out on his twenty million. There was already a revenge plan in motion for them. It was now not just a dislike for the poor, but a hatred for the Acme students. Those kids had caused him more trouble than anybody before them, and he knew how to deal with the likes of them. That night, King made a call to the Lockskunk mansion and began speaking with Cloud. " Greetings, Mr. Lockskunk," King began. "Oh... uh... hi," Cloud replied in the fake British accent he used every time he conversed with the rich. " I need to once again discuss with you the matter of Edward, your son. It seems to me he is becoming more and more influenced by the impulsive and destructive actions of those below us on the social scale. He is bordering on out of control, maybe more so than Victoria ever was, and I believe the matter should be dealt with." " H... how would you like us to do... that?" Cloud asked. " Simply put, a few weeks out of state may do him some good. Time away from the mediocre citizens." Cloud did not even stop to consider the consequences of saying yes, but in an instant he agreed. The search outside for Eve took several hours, and nearing midnight, Buster saw a motorcycle heading towards him down the street. " Eve! Stop!" he shouted. The cycle slammed on the breaks and Buster could see the gothic girl's face as she lifted off her helmet. " And you want what?" Buster noticed the variety of dynamite and anvils strapped to her back at this moment. " We read the info. As much as we would all love to see you do something spectacular to King to make him leave town, think about it for a second. If you do something drastic, King won't get his money and those snobs will never leave Acme Loo!" " What do I care? I am after only one thing right now, and it's taking out King. If King gets his money, what's to say he won't stay in Acme Loo anyway? He could just as easily stay in there." Buster tried for a few minutes longer to convince her to stop whatever she was planning, but she refused to. Eve sped off to carry out whatever her plan was, and ruin the chances of having the Perfectos leave Acme. Eddie returned home that night to see Cloud and Enid standing before him at the door. " Mom? Dad? Why are you here? It's nearly one in the morning!" Eddie pointed out. " Oh..., uh... we talked to... King earlier, and he... he had a great idea," Cloud said. " He suggested that instead of keeping you here where the poor people might influence you, we could... could send you somewhere nice... where only the rich are... and keep you away from Acme Acres..." Eddie knew right away this was King's new plan. Push him out of the way because of what he did earlier at the television station. " Tell you what, you two. I will actually speak to you again when you aren't being controlled by King," Eddie declared. He then stepped in his house, slammed the door, and locked it. Cloud and Enid left, determined to make the plan King suggested work later on. Buster waited, watching outside of King's mansion for a while that night, but never did see Vicky doing anything around there to make it seem as if another disaster was going to occur. Around two that morning, long after Eve had returned from what it was she was out doing, there was a visitor at the door. Not being asleep, Eve opened it promptly and saw Sheridan Blake standing there. " You got the note," Eve said. Sheridan nodded yes and stepped inside. The two both sat down, drinking hot coffee and reclining in chairs. " I assume you have figured out why I'm here already." Sheridan nodded, sat back a little more, and sipped form her coffee before continuing. " You of all people should be able to appreciate why I walked out on King. You've done the same more times than I can count. I'm not worried; you apparently have your house back, and if it was still property of King, he would have seized it once again, so somehow you got the deed for yourself. I'm sure if or when this whole mess with King finally blows over, Bugs could get me a job at Warner Bros. or something. Maybe I could improve some of those lousy cartoons they've been pumping out over the last few years. I can't even believe it... me, getting a job. I could always just call my parents or something. I'm sure they're still rich. " Sheridan, don't. Maybe it is about time you worked instead of having people you don't really like throw money at you. And, before you get mad that I just addressed you as Sheridan, I know everything. The whole adoption thing. What King owns. Everything. I can honestly say I have never been more relieved than I was the moment I read that sheet of paper that said I was not King Blake's daughter." Sheridan just finally smiled. She had always wanted to tell Vicky that she was adopted, but King had always ordered her not to. He said it would be a public humiliation to let everybody know that he and his wife hated each other so much that they had to go out and get somebody else's child. The two talked well into the night about everything. It was the first time ever that Sheridan and Eve had ever had a conversation that did not turn into a shouting match by the end. Early that morning, King received a phone call. Without even a greeting of any kind, King picked up and listened to the other party begin to speak. " Mr. Blake, we have witnessed just a few examples your daughter's impulsive behavior over the last few days, and it is, quite frankly, a little scary. Okay, it's more than a little scary. Anyway, after being witness to just a few of the events perpetrated by your daughter Victoria, I must say that we at this company believe that she was very likely responsible for the damage to Perfecto Prep, and that it may in fact have all been an elaborate scam to obtain money. Also, an anonymous source forwarded us plans you apparently made for the money months ago. So, in conclusion, we are declining to give you a cent of the twenty million dollars. Do not try playing us for fools again, Mr. Blake." He then hung up. King sat silently for a moment. He could hardly believe it: the testimony he had purchased, the considerable wealth and power. Neither of them had been enough to win them over. All thanks to a few freak actions by the child he had housed for sixteen years. It wasn't just Vicky who sprang to mind after this call was over; it was all the Acme students. Those who influenced her. Those who sat outside the school everyday and made a scene in front of the entire neighborhood. Something had to be done about all of them, and soon. King picked up the phone and called in a few associates. It was around eight in the morning, and, half an hour before the usual Perfecto transportation arrived, a different, smaller helicopter arrived on the roof of Acme Acres. It, too, was painted entire black, a great contrast to the piles of white snow around it. From the front, King Blake stepped out with a long coat on and he peered down at the Acmes. " Bugs Bunny," he shouted. Bugs glanced upwards. Bugs looked to the top of the roof and saw King standing there. " What's up doc?" Bugs asked. " Ah, that aggravating catch phrase. Step into the school. I believe we have a matter to discuss." Bugs was lead into King's office, where he was shivering violently from the low temperature in there. King offered him some tea and then got down to business. " Simply but, Mr. Bunny, your students are becoming a monumental disruption to the everyday operation of *my* school. I want them expelled from the front of my school post - haste or I shall be forced to take action." King then leaned over the top of the desk a little. " My. Bunny, I have been inconceivably lenient up to this point with both you and your students. Now, I grow tired of being so pleasant. I suggest you either remove them all or prepare to suffer the consequences." Bugs stood up. " Doc, you can't threaten me. Not with your stupid contract, not with all this talk about some kinda revenge. None of it is going to work." Bugs then got up and stormed out of the office. " That was quite the mistake, Bugs," King thought to himself. That night, the streets of Acme Acres were crawling with more of King's uniformed security, the only staff he had left. They were walking around searching for Eve. One of the first place they looked was at her old house. When somebody knocked on the door, Sheridan answered. " Is Victoria here?" the guard asked. " No. Why?" Sheridan asked. The guard didn't answer; he simply stepped through her and inside. He began breaking things and throwing around everything that Vicky owned, supposedly looking for where she was hiding. All of the guards had been ordered to break everything necessary to find her, and if they so chose, break some other irrelevant things as well. " Get out of my house!" Sheridan ordered as the guard was about to make his way upstairs. " Miss, when you left King's mansion, you lost the right to tell me what to do." Sheridan picked up the one vase that he had not broken from downstairs, and threw it right at his head. The guard passed out and fell down a few stairs. She threw the unconscious body outside and locked the door. " It's a good thing she isn't home," Sheridan thought. Throughout the night, King's security stopped at Eddie's, Babs', and just about everywhere else she might be. They did not have much luck. " It's almost time to give King a little headache," Eve thought to herself as she rode her motorcycle off away from Acme Acres. Buster may not have noticed her setting a little trap, but there was in fact something waiting. Something King would not be able to stop easily. She rode across a bridge that was completely empty. That was, until a truck pulled up right behind her and nudged her Harley's back side. " Hey! Watch it loser!" she shouted. " Man, this must be that road rage thing I've been hearing so much about." She tried accelerating, but she kept getting rammed in the back. She tried pulling over, but she was continually hit from behind by the truck. The other vehicle seemed to slow down for a moment, and Eve put some space between the two. All of the sudden, the truck sped up once again and violently rammed her from the back. The impact jolted the cycle violently, and sent it sliding over the edge of the bridge. The truck then stopped and watched as the black bike slipped over the edge and landed in the murky, freezing water. The fall was sixty feet, and the driver made sure she splashed in the water before driving off. King had said by any means necessary, and he meant it. In the water, it was too dark for anybody looking form above to see a thing. The water was still for almost a minute, and the driver was long since gone. From the murkiness, without a single witness, one hand lifted up from the cold river, showing a sign of life down there that was presumed did not exist anymore. " Good news," the driver spoke into his cell phone, speaking to King. " Victoria has been taken care of. Want to know how?" " Absolutely not," King replied. " That is the last thing I need to know. The more I know, the more they can associate with me and try to lay the guilt for the... disposal of Victoria on me. No, just as long as she has been permanently been dealt with, I am fine with it." " That she is. You won't be seeing her again." King laughed a little and hung up. Part one of his revenge was over with, and part two was about to begin. The next morning, the snow was higher than it had been at any other point in the history of Acme Acres. Still, despite the incredibly harsh weather, the crowd outside of Perfecto Loo was full. They all stood, yelling and shouting while it was still dark at six thirty in the morning. To the surprise of all the students, King opened the doors to the school and began speaking to them all. " I am very tired of this constant conflict. Please, all of you, join me within the walls of this school and let us discuss it like rational human beings and toons," King said. The crowd was silent. They all exchanged glances. " What should we do?" Babs asked Buster. Buster shrugged and looked at Bugs. " I don't know if I trust him," Bugs said. " Maybe only come of us should go in." Buster, Babs, Bugs, Shirley, Plucky, Hamton, Fifi, and Eddie all went inside. The door closed quickly with a loud thud, and the crowd stood, anxious for their return. " Now then, you probably all wonder why I have called you in, and why I would do so quite this early," King said. " I was not entirely lying outside. I am very sick of this perpetual conflict. However, I have devised a way to contain the problem until I have a more permanent solution. Enjoy." King stepped into an elevator in the hall and suddenly disappeared. Bugs tried to push the door open, but it would not open. It seemed to have frozen shut. All the others ran around the school, trying to find some kind of open door, but they were all sealed. The windows were cemented over. The elevators had been disactivated. There was not a single way out. King appeared alone on the roof. The whole crowd looked up as he smirked and raised his hands. " It appears they are not coming back. They all seem to have fallen in love with the luxury of Perfecto Prep. You have all lost your leaders. You must now leave my premises before I have you physically removed. However, if you are after an explanation, return tonight at six - thirty and you shall receive one. Consider that time the last time you will set foot on this property." King then snapped his fingers, his personal chopper landed, and he was gone. The crowd was left stunned. They did not believe for a second that the best toons they had would just suddenly succumb to the lure of money. They all chatted among themselves as the crowd dispersed. Inside the school, all of the toons except for Buster, Bugs and Eddie were panic - stricken. " First we were locked out of this place," Eddie said. " Now we're trapped in here. Isn't this the part where Vicky should once again bust through the walls and break us out or something? " Just as he said that, a television set behind him flipped on. There had been sets set up all over the halls. On the screen was the face of King. " Greetings pathetic prisoners. Tell me, Edward, are you expecting Victoria to come in and rescue your sorry lives? It is time to think otherwise. She has thankfully been eliminated. I am not at liberty to divulge how, but trust me, she is gone permanently. Do not expect some last minute rescue." The set then flipped off. The inside of Acme Looniversity was a frightening experience. The classrooms were all frozen shut, too, as was the cafeteria. The halls were dark, the windows were covered, and the lights would not turn on. The heat was off, and they were all freezing cold inside. They couldn't break down the walls, they could find no exit, and they were all simply left to sit and freeze throughout the day. Back at Vicky's house, Sheridan was becoming worried sick. Eve had not come home last night, and she had no idea where she could be. Had the guards found her and done something to her? Did she run away permanently to get away from them? Sheridan was crying out of her distress. King returned home later that morning after canceling the next five school days for the Perfecto students. He walked in and clapped on the lights, only to have them go out a second later. She tried to activate them again, and every single bulb in his house exploded simultaneously. He heard the sound of a large bell ringing, but thought it was by some kind of coincidence. Later that day, King attempted to watch television when the power in the entire mansion suddenly went out. He attempted to call the power company, but the phone was dead. His cell phones were missing. There were no batteries or anything else in the house that could be activated. King could hear the same bell ringing he heard when the lights shot out. He once again passed it off as coincidence, but there was something more to it that he refused to acknowledge. The day passed without a single sighting of Eve, without the toons making it out of their school prison, and without King finding the source of the bell he kept hearing. Finally, six - thirty that night arrived, and a new, bigger crowd than ever arrived outside of Acme Looniversity. It was packed with the media, people from surrounding towns to Acme Acres trying to find out what was happening, and every single citizen in Acme Acres. The Perfectos were standing on the roof of the school on either side around the center. The middle of the heliport had been kept clear for King's entrance a little later. Inside the school, the televisions turned on and the trapped toons were forced to watch the proceedings on every single monitor. Closer to seven that night, after the entire crowd settled in around the cold, dark school and braved the current snowfall, the solitary light on top of the school went out. It was quickly replaced by three light, gold - colored lights. Suddenly, an orchestra on top of the roof began to play a creepy tune, and three huge screens on top of the port displayed King as he walked slowly up the roof, wearing a gold crown and a very dark suit. The orchestra music was haunting, and sent chills down the spine of the entire group of observers. King had an angry expression upon his face as he slowly headed for a podium that had been placed on the edge of the roof - top port. The Acmes were too stunned to boo. The gold lights, the music, the cold and the appearance of the incredibly tall menace standing before them. The Perfectos were going to applaud, but had been specifically instructed not to. After a five minute walk over a port that was not that long, he stopped at the podium, raised his hands and quieted the entire crowd. Everybody waited on edge to hear what he was going to say, and just as he was about to open his mouth, the gold lights suddenly went out, and the place was dark again. Suddenly, the bell King had heard before sounded three times, with ten seconds between each ring. He tried to ignore it and spoke to the crowd. King went over the entire story about his ownership situation and new school. " Know that you know the story, you understand why I shall be keeping Acme Looniversity and renovating it in my own image. There will be no resistance to this action, I trust." Just then, one of King's security guards came running up the port and whispered something in King's ear. " I have just been informed just now that thanks to a private donation, I have received an extra twenty million dollars from an anonymous donor," King announced. " However, it is too little too late. Now I shall construct my new educational facility, but for my own purposes, and to show those who attempted to defy me, I shall be keeping Acme Looniversity for myself. I shall keep it as a reserve school for my own uses. I no longer care if Warner Bros. moves out of this land, as I have cleaned them out for all they are seemingly willing to pay to me anyway. Why do you think the cartoons they have put out lately have been so bad? They are running low on finances because they are paying it to yours truly. To sum this up, Acme Loo is mine forever, so I suggest that all of you less - than prosperous toons move out now." Just then, the bells intensified so loud that King could no longer be heard. King's orchestra suddenly stopped. " What's that?" somebody in the crowd asked. Everybody clamored for a second, but went deadly silent again when the bell rang once more and the lights that were once gold colored became purple and somewhat faint. The lights focused on a small plane several hundred feet above the school. Even King turned up and looked. The orchestra King brought with him started playing again, but this time a completely different, very frightening tune. Everybody watched the plane as they saw a small figure suddenly fly out of it. As it got closer, they could tell it was a person. When the person was close enough to the roof of the school after the jump, they could see the person did not have a parachute, but a long, black cape. To the surprise of all, the person landed perfectly right in front of King. She wasn't even hurt from a few hundred foot drop our of a plane. " What do you think you are doing?" King asked the figure. " Silence," the figure instructed in a deep voice. King took a good look at the person. This figure had long black hair that was covering over the face, dark clothes, which included a long, dark jacket, and a large, black hat on. There was no way of identifying the person who now stood before King. This figure appeared to be as tall as King, if not a little taller, and far more muscular. " Is suggest you get down from here now," King told this person. " What would you do if I did not?" the figure asked. " Clearly, you could not do anything. I am not frightened by anything, including pathetic talkers such as yourselves." Thunder sounded. The snowfall stopped. The figure removed the hat upon his or her head, and revealed that all of the hair on the figure's head was long and covered down the face and the back. The figure then removed the jacket, and revealed more black clothing. There was still no way to see the face of the figure. The scary music continued. " You have no choice left. Clearly you will not submit to reason, and now, your time of reckoning has finally arrived," the figure proclaimed. " Who are you?" King asked. " I'm sure you can figure that part out for yourself. Remember the bridge? The goons? No? How about the hospital? The school? The years of forcing your arrogant attitude on me? How about the years of lying to me? Not telling me I had a real set of parents somewhere? Claiming that of all people, I was related to you? How about not telling me that while the rest of us are toons, you're a human being? Any of that ring a bell, King? It better! I thought the days of you ruining my life were long since over, but apparently I was wrong. And ever since that day you called me into your office, my life has been miserable. I think it's time to make you miserable, King!" Vicky then took a step to him. She barely looked like the same person. Her intimidating new physique dwarfed that of even King. King's minions were about to take a step toward her and attempt to pull her away from King, but he quickly motioned them all back. He was going to deal with it himself. " Ah, Victoria. I see you have once again decided to reinvent yourself, this time with a brand new freak persona. This one is truly more grotesque than the last, and that is truly saying something. You have defied me time and time again. This has grown tiresome, and I refuse to deal with it anymore. Despite my repeated efforts to keep your mental instabililty under wraps, you clearly just are not willing co cooperate. The time has come to put an end to this. I am not violent, but in this case I shall make an exception," King declared. Vicky had been waiting for this her entire life. King had pushed her and everybody she cared about around for the longest time, and she had taken all she could. Vicky wished that she had brought a weapon or something like that, but she didn't. " Hey Darth!" she yelled. " You seem to be master of the dark side. Shouldn't you right me with a light sabre or something?" King did not mention this, but had never been in a fight in his life. Since the time he was very young, he had people to fight his battles for him. All of his enemies had been taken out by others. Now the only enemy that his goons could not take out was the girl that he had raised for sixteen years. Finally, the battle began. The conditions that night were more than fitting. It was cold, incredibly dark, and silent. The tension in the air was so thick you could cuta it with a knife. Gogo Dodo pulled out a table down at surface level, and prepared to call the fight. King was about to prepare to throw one of the first punches of his life when she kicked him in the ribs. King leaned over a little. The dark clad figure then hit him across the face, kicked him in the jaw and sent him sprawling to the ground. King could feel his teeth being dislodged. King struck back with three kicks of his own, and tried to thrust his elbow into her face when she blocked it. The two fought back and forth for the better part of ten minutes when Vicky landed a powerful shot to King's face. This is where being a human failed King most of all. She just kept pounding on him. " And she lands a right, and a left. How can one man take this much of a beating? How can the rest of us enjoy watching it happen so much?" Gogo said form his ringside announcer's table. After several minutes of being pounded upon, King had enough of it. " If you are to touch me again, I shall be forced to take legal action." " Then I better make the next hit a good one!" Vicky proclaimed. She then lifted King onto her right shoulder, got a small running start and drove King into the cement. He shouted in pain. King could hardly get up. King looked up while holding his ribs and saw the figure looming overhead. Vicky pushed the hair from out in from out in front of her face. " It's time to pay for what you've done," Vicky declared. She reached her hand back and prepared to thrust it into King's throat when a voice sounded " This is enough!" the voice declared. Everybody turned around and saw Steven Spielberg before them. The creator of the show walked out of his own copter and over to the two combatants with a less - than - pleased look upon his face. " King, this is it. I donated that money in the hopes that you would finally get out of Acme Acres and leave these kids alone. Clearly you don't want to take the sensible route. You know have a choice: have the old Perfecto rebuilt and put things back the way they were, except you no longer own the rest of Acme Acres. Warner Bros. will buy it for you for..." Steven then whispered something in King's ear. Even with all the pain he was experiencing, his eyes lit up. " The other choice, of course, is that we pick up and take this whole show elsewhere, and rename that place Acme Acres. WB has paid you for so log because this was the perfecto location. It had everything we needed when this whole thing got started, and bordering on Wackyland certainly didn't hurt. But, if these students, and everybody else in Acme Acres for that matter, has to keep putting up with you and your constant bad mood swings, we'll all just leave." King stopped and considered what Steven was saying for a moment. He loved the thrill of power, the ability to push all of these toons around. On the other hand, power could never replace his first love, money. The enjoyment of owning Acme Acres just so he could keep his daugther in check and brain wash some teenagers was not a good enough reason to turn down the excessive amount of money that had just been offered to him. Finally, after a few minutes of early silence, King spoke again. "I accept, but I shall continue living here in Acme Acres, to remind these children of the sewers just who they are to look up to," King declared. Steven did not look to impressed, but he had to accept. He was there to get Acme Acres back in the right hands, and it seemed as if that was about to happen. " Take your stuff out of Acme Looniversity right away, and we have a deal," Steven said. King did not say another word. He walked into his helicopter and took off, knowing that he was defeated in one way, but won in another. After the Perfectos had all cleared out, which was about another minute, a pencil form out of nowhere came down and redrew Vicky. She was drawn back to her normal size and height. " Thanks guys!" Vicky shouted to the animators. They had temporarily redrawn her in the form of a much larger, creepier figure so she could take on King. Now she was back to herself. She stood out in the cold and dark, finally feeling all the hate leave her after so long with King increasing it. " Vicky, you just helped get King to finally leave Acme Loo," Mr. Spielberg said. " What are you going to do now?" " Well, I haven't slept in a week or so," Vicky said. She then fell down on the cement helicopter pad and fell asleep. Within the school, the trapped toons had witnessed the entire encounter, and cheered and cheered and applauded the arrival of Steven, and the departure of King. They never expected to see somebody as powerful and rich as Mr. Blake show up to get him to leave, but he did, and they all wished they had thought of it earlier. A couple of minutes after everybody outside was clearing out, all those within could hear a few loud crashing sounds on the door, and suddenly the entrance to Acme Looniversity broke down, and they were all free to go. It seemed the entire incident with King was over, but they knew he would always be there in Acme Acres as a daunting presence. At least, they thought he would be. King returned home that night and opened the door, which seemed to activate something like an earthquake. The walls shook, and then crumbled. The ground was splitting in half. He could hear parts of his home exploding. King jumped out just in time to see half his house collapse on itself. He managed to avoid the huge crack that went on for miles, and had now swallowed the ground where the old Perfecto Prep was. King was stunned, and did not realize that this was the final plan that Vicky had for him. Now the mansion was gone, just like most of King's power and his family. Three days later, King was in the middle of packing all of Vicky's possessions that remained intact in the mansion into a U-Haul while Vicky stood just a few feet from him. King was preparing to move to San Jose, California, but keeping ownership of Perfecto Prep. Construction on rebuilding the old house of snobbery had begun, and those students would get the next month or so off while it was being constructed once again. King did not say anything as Vicky's possessions left, leaving only those two standing face to face. King was about to step into the limo to take him out of Acme Acres, but Vicky called his name before he stepped in. " Don't think you're getting away that easily," Vicky said. " You spend your entire life keeping secrets from me, lying to me about my family, and, maybe worst of all, not showing a single shred of emotion. You aren't getting away from here without showing some kind of feeling. Of reaction. Something!" " Throughout your life, I was gracious enough to provide you with anything and everything you could have possibly desired. As I stand here before you for the final time, I delcare this: I owe you nothing. Not an emotion. Not a reaciton. If anything, you owe me for keeping you in a luxurious lifestyle for as long as I did. Any of those other children that were being given away by the same agency as you would have been ecstatic to be brought into a family like the one you were taken in to. You are just an ingrate who cannot appreciate a good thing." King and Vicky stood in awkward silence once more, each hoping for their respective rides to take them away. King departed first, and a few seconds later Vicky's ride arrived and took her back to her house. King's divorce was official, and Sheridan was still living at Vicky's house. Bugs had in fact set her up with a job at Warner Bros. studios. The Perfecto garbage had been removed from Acme Looniversity. Vicky had disposed of her two alter - ego costumes. That night, there was scheduled to be a Welcome Back to Acme Loo dance at the school. One day after the school was officially back in Acme hands, there was an event held there that night. A sort of Welcome Back dance, which was nicknamed " the great thaw " in honour of the heat finally being turned back on in the school. At the door, Elmyra was supposed to serve as the ticket taker, which ended up being rather odd since all those who showed up were admitted and no tickets were ever printed. Once inside the school gym, anybody entering could notice the extreme change in atmosphere within the school. In twenty - four hours it had transformed from a dark, cold place to what it was now. There was a warm glow of carefully placed lights, a soft touch of music in the air, a table full of delicious looking food, and one more thing that had been absent for what seemed like forever: every single person in there had a smile on their face. There was talking, laughing, and everything else that had been missing since King made his presence felt. At the food table, between slow songs, Buster, Plucky, Hamton and Eddie stood around while Babs, Shirley and Fifi were off freshening up. This was the first time any of the four had been presented with the opportunity to speak with one another all night. " Who's your date?" Plucky asked Eddie. Buster elbowed Plucky to indicate that question was a mistake. They all knew who he wished was with him. " Buster, it's alright. I don't have one. I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could have found somebody else, but the only person I wanted to come with is not here. She's at home, hopefully sleeping. Besides, I don't know what kind of condition she's in. Vicky could be completely messed up after all that's happened in the last little while." While Eddie tried to rationalize not being disappointed by Vicky's absence, his face said more than his words ever could. It was obvious by the expression on his face that he wanted her there. The three guys walked off just as they all witnessed the return of their dates. Eddie was about to sit down during the music once again, wondering why he ever came in the first place, when he noticed the door opening at the front of the gym. He stood up and saw a girl with long, brown hair in a dark blue dress walking in. He knew the face in an instant, and the second Vicky saw him, she walked over. " You do realize I have no idea how to dance," Vicky said. " Ditto." " However we decide to dance, I lead. Got it?" Eddie nodded yes and the two embraced each other. Neither one spoke another word as they were both lost in the music and the moment. Underneath the hundreds of bright decorations stood those two, being a little more than just friends for the first time. Eddie had waited forever for this. Vicky had finally learned to think of him as more than just the guy she had pushed around occaisonally, and then always turned to for support. Vicky didn't notice at all that night, but Sheridan was among the adults supervising the dance. Sheridan had never experienced anything quite like tonight, either. She was happy to see her daughter having fun for once in her life, and Sheridan had never felt any sort of heart - warming moment in all her years with the King of cold. Things would return to normal the very next day, and everybody knew it. Never before in the history of the world had a group of kids been so eager to return to class, but for the moment, they were all just caught up in having back what they had lost. The school was already beginning to look like theirs again, and it certainly felt that way. The rest of the night passed peacefully, and enjoyed by all, and Vicky drove Eddie back on her motorcycle. She pulled up to his house and let him off, observing that the snow was melting, and the temperature had suddenly become warm again just as quickly as the cold front had moved in. " Well... goodnight," Eddie said. " Yeah..." There was an ackward pause with neither saying a word. They just stared into the eyes of one another for a while, and then exchanged a short but meaningful kiss. " Goodnight Eddie. I'll pick you up at seven tommorow, and you know you don't have a choice," Vicky said jokingly. " If I did, what do you think I would choose?" Vicky sped off in a cloud of dust, and she drove around for an hour just taking in the sites of the now - warming up Acme Acres. The holiday lights were up in the houses of just about everybody, and the feeling of darkness had given way to the feeling of the season. Vicky never believed in not appreciating what you had until it was gone, and she still didn't. She had always appreciated the differences between Perfecto and Acme Loo, and that feeling once again rturned. She could live with the old Perfecto Prep being back so long as King was nowhere near Acme Acres. She finally returned home, knowing that everything was finally over with the snobs. The End