Chapter 15

Outside the house, Rufus parked the aerotruck in the same forested spot, getting out with Reggie right behind him.

"Don't forget," Rufus reminded Reggie, "We'll check out the place first, and we can always come back for the truck."

"How do you wanna go in?" Reggie asked his partner, since Rufus was the man with a plan.

Rufus deliberated for a second. "We'll go in from the side door," he pointed to his right, to the part of the house with the waterwheel. "Maybe she'll let us in, you never know."

Reggie grinned. "Yeah, okay. She's a kid. Kids are stupid."

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Sitting at a table in the kitchen, Adorabat prepared to have her dinner. Before she began, she placed her wings together and closed her eyes in reverence.

"Dear Ruby Pure Heart, please bless this highly nutritious microwaveable dinner and the grownups who sold it on sale." Once that was finished, Adorabat opened her eyes and took her little fork and spoon.

She was just about to dig in when the clock chimed to announce it was now nine o'clock. She knew that in a short moment, there would be no turning back, so she put down her spoon and fork. Grabbing the plate in both wings, she tipped it over to pour the dinner down her mouth, chewing for a bit with inflated cheeks before swallowing it all up in one gulp.

She then grabbed the BB-gun arm she took from Badgerclops's stash in the garage and gave it a pump, hiding behind the kitchen's outer side door as she did so. "This is it," she told herself for one last boost of self-confidence, "Don't get scared now." She stayed where she was and listened for the sound of footsteps in snow, more adamantly holding her position once the steps got louder and turned to thumps on wood. She tensed when she heard that first knock on the door.

"Happy Snowfest, little girl," Rufus greeted through the door with a smile. He said it in a slightly exaggerated singsong version of the gentlemanly tone he once used the last time he was in Pure Heart Valley on Takesgiving Day. "We know that you're in there, and that you're all alone."

Reggie got in on the fun. "Yeah, kiddo. Open up." He tried to sound just as jovial as Rufus. "It's the Gift-Saint…" he paused for a moment to improvise, "…and his little helper."

Adorabat slowly held the BB-gun arm against the door's doggy hatch, careful not to poke it out the door right away since Reggie was short and could spot it easily.

Rufus couldn't help but let out a half-hearted chuckle at his little partner's attempt to fool Adorabat, not entirely impressed but willing to go with whatever worked. He turned back to the door. "We're not going to hurt you."

"No, we got some nice presents for you," Reggie backed up Rufus.

Adorabat poked the tip of the BB-gun arm's barrel through the doggy hatch in time for Rufus to step closer to the door and speak. "Be a good little girl and open the door." Adorabat pulled the trigger.

*K-THWACK*

Rufus squealed, doubling over in a restrained show of pain before stumbling away from the door and to the waterwheel. He practically hopped before falling to his knees, letting out a stream of contained noises of agony while bending over and clutching between his legs. His eyes squeezed shut and ears flattened against his head sealed the deal.

Reggie was quick to be by his friend's side. "Rufus! What happened?" Rufus could only answer him with more pained noises. "What?" Reggie asked for clarification. Rufus kept making noises. Reggie finally had to ask Rufus loudly for any results. "What is it!?"

Rufus managed to recover enough of his sanity to muster up a few words. "Get that little –" was all he could say to Reggie, pointing back at the door. Once Reggie did what he said, he went right back to distressingly holding both his hands between his legs, muttering more incoherent whispers.

Reggie tried to see if he could examine the top of the door, but given that he was too short, he immediately gave up. He opted to take a peek inside from the doggy hatch, so he slowly and carefully poked his head through the flap. Once his head was completely through the door and now seeing the other side, he looked ahead to come face-to-face with the barrel of an arm-shaped BB-gun. Even more, he was also face-to-face with the kids holding and pointing the weapon at him. He felt uncomfortable with the way the little bat child's eyes were half-drooped and half-narrowed in a manner that made her look ready for the kill. The raccoon thought he'd give a big toothy smile anyway.

Adorabat smiled back at Reggie. "Hello," she greeted flatly before pulling the trigger and firing a BB pellet at his forehead. The impact right between Reggie's eyes briefly turned him cross-eyed before he then yanked his head back out the doggy hatch, clutching his forehead and letting out his own yells of pain as he rolled around on his back. "Yes!" Adorabat quietly cheered and gave herself a fist pump before hurriedly leaving the kitchen. "Yes, yes, yes!"

Outside, both Reggie and Rufus were just recovering from their bouts of pain.

"The little brat is armed!" Reggie grunted, a hand still on his forehead.

"That's it!" Rufus blurted, having fully recovered from his pain but still feeling the aftereffects of having been dealt it in the first place. "I'm going to the front! You go to the back!" Without stopping to wait for Reggie to get up, the fox scrambled back onto his feet and went back onto the snow-covered yard, stomping through the deep powdery white to head for the front porch where the main doors were. Reggie got back on his feet to go the other way, making his way around the waterwheel.

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When Rufus got closer to the front porch, having gone around the corner, he felt a little more irritated that a pile of big heavy junk stood in his way, forcing him to go down to the snow and approach the door from the main steps. Once he finally did so, he marched to the steps to get right to business. He was too preoccupied with his distaste for what Adorabat did to his nether region to notice anything particular about the steps. The moment he placed his foot onto the first ice-covered porch step was when he went flying. His feet arced up and his head and shoulders arced down, swinging his entire body horizontal in the air and forcing him to let out a startled yell before falling flat on his back onto the snow. Rufus silently stared up at the night sky, his eyes widened in shock from the landing.

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At the back of the house, Reggie had just arrived and began looking for any accessible entryways into the house. He noticed one window on the house's rear wall that was near the waterwheel (the bedroom) and another larger window further along (the one behind Mao Mao's office desk) that hung just above a frozen stream, the ice tracing back to the waterwheel at the side. Reggie thought it was convenient that the stream froze over, giving him a free and easy platform of ice to walk on. He leisurely stepped onto the icy surface without further thought…and then slipped, falling backwards and landing on his back on the ice. To make matters worse for him, he was sliding straight for the edge of the frozen ice-covered waterfall. At the speed he went, Reggie could do nothing but yelp and flail all four limbs as he went right over the edge and went straight down, falling down the cliff to another rocky landing below. All that occurred after that was him muttering at the bottom. "Ow."

Reggie was lucky he didn't fall far down the frozen waterfall. It took him a whole lot of his energy just to climb back up the cliff. He would have kept going until he was back at the top, but he noticed a tunnel right behind the waterfall, which was directly below the house. Reggie decided to take that shortcut, scrambling into the tunnel and following it until he made out a closed shutter door at the end. The raccoon thought such an entryway was an ample enough opportunity, and it was better than nothing, so he waltzed right for it. He just didn't expect another layer of ice beneath his feet, which he also slipped on and slid until he collided with the shutter door.

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Rufus scrambled back onto his feet after heaving himself off his back. "Smart aleck," he growled under his breath. He was aware enough to realize that using the steps would not work again, so he went for the edge of the porch itself, intent on climbing it with both hands and feet. He placed both of his hands onto the surface of the porch and immediately, they both slipped on the ice. His hands slid away from each other, leaving Rufus falling forward right down onto the porch flooring, landing chin first with a smack. Rufus fell back onto the snow in a daze.

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Reggie pulled at the shutter door in the underground tunnel. It was a little harder than it looked due to having to pull it up to open it without slipping on the layer of ice he unavoidably stood on. Once he finally got it open enough to get in, he let the door drop shut behind him as he stepped inside the garage basement itself. He looked left and right to see if there was anything worth taking, but remembered that he still needed a way out after, so he held off the urge to burglarize for now. Ahead of him, he saw two ways up to the main floor – a multi-level staircase and a trio of sliding poles. Rufus deeply deliberated on which one to take. He could take the stairs, but those were quite the number of steps and it was back and forth on the way up. "Poles, it is," he concluded to himself.

Reggie marched to the base of the sliding poles and prepped himself, bending and tensing his legs and giving his rump a little wiggle before he jumped. When he was in the air, the raccoon grabbed at the poles with both hands and feet…only to slide right down so rapidly that he had no time to protect his rump from the hard landing back on the garage floor. Reggie shouted painfully as he felt his behind slam down on the floor. He stayed still to avoid hurting his poor rump even more, but remained tensed as he craned his head up to see the poles coated in a slimy grease. Reggie staggered back on his feet to get a look at why he couldn't go that way. He happened upon a string that dangled from the hole at the top of the poles. The raccoon thought it was better than nothing, so he pulled at it. He didn't expect to find a laundry iron tied on the other end of the string, pulled down over the edge of the hole and sent hurtling down on his forehead. The sheer impact was enough to knock Reggie to the floor on his back.

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Rufus sat back up on the snow, feeling even more aware of the two easy blunders he just underwent. "Oh, that's it," he muttered quietly and angrily. In each of his hands, he took a wad of snow and crawled on all fours on the porch steps, climbing them with the intent of the snow acting as his grip on the ice. To his credit, the plan worked, and Rufus was right on the porch within reach of the front doors themselves. Rufus snickered at having outsmarted the icy obstacle. Getting back on his feet, he examined the front doors and tried to have a look through the framed screens. "Where did you go now, gremlin?" he whispered to no one as he got a picture of the interior. He noticed the handles on both sliding doors and gave them a tug, finding them unlocked. He let out another chuckle at how dumb and easy Adorabat made that for him and pulled to open it some more.

Right on the other side, Rufus was greeted with a stack of spray cans. As he pulled both sliding doors open, the strings tied to them pulled the triggers of every spray can tied on the other ends. As a result, Rufus was instantly sprayed in the face and from head to toe with gardening solution. Rufus let out a loud yell as he closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, staggering so erratically from the shock of being sprayed with chemicals that he slipped backwards on the icy porch yet again. Rufus scrambled back onto the snowy yard to shove his face into the snow. He kept his head buried in it, waiting for the snow to melt around his face and wash off the chemicals that stung his skin.

Standing on the rafters above the front doors, Adorabat scored a victory for another successful booby trap. "Yes!" she cheered, dancing on the beam she stood on before prancing away with her wings waving in freestyle. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

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Reggie's attempted trip out of the basement wasn't any easier than taking the sliding poles. When he concluded that the poles were no good in more ways than one, he went right for the stairs. But now, he was yanking his feet up step by step as every step of the stairs was covered in super sticky tar. He even pulled himself forward along the handrail for a better chance at progression. Reggie could see that he was about to reach the landing that connected the first set of stairs he was on with the second one further up. But what he didn't see was that one of his feet took the next step above right onto a nail that protruded out of the tar. Reggie froze in his tracks, his eyes wide open, and slowly looked down to his foot where he felt the sudden stinging sensation.

"AAAAAAAAAAAUUUGGHHHHH!!!" Reggie hollered, grabbing his foot in both hands and falling backwards, ending up back at the bottom of the stairs.

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Rufus was furiously stomping back to the kitchen side door, muttering even more intensely and angrily. He was letting out a long string of angry gibberish before topping it off with a coherent sentence said through gritted teeth that went along the lines of "I'm going to pop her head off". When he got to the door, he hurriedly exercised a little more caution this time around, momentarily kicking his foot through the doggy hatch. He carefully clasped the doorknob and slowly pushed it open until there was a crack. He peeked through the crack to have a look inside the kitchen and found there was no attachment of gardening spray cans waiting for him. Rufus smirked. "You're finished, little girl," he sneered lowly. He pushed the door open some more…which tightened a string attached to it that was also tied to the trigger of another gadget that hung just above the door. The pushing of the door pulled the string and subsequently the trigger of the gadget, activating it. Flames flared out of the gadget, as it turned out to be a blowtorch.

The flames also happened to make their mark on the top of Rufus's head, inflicting upon him a literal slow burn. Judging by his reaction, it did not go unnoticed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Rufus threw himself away from the door for a second time, staggering and flailing in circles as his head was billowing with tongues of fire. They danced so brightly against the surrounding darkness of night. Rufus made a nosedive into the snow to put out the flames, the snow extinguishing them with a steamy hiss. He kept his head buried in the snow for several seconds like before, and then pulled it out to see that the very top of his scalp was completely bare, devoid of fur and showing only skin. The same could be said for his ears, which were now just bare skin and none of the red and black tips remaining. Hissing water vapor continued to billow gently from the top of his noggin.

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Reggie, meanwhile, had enough of the garage basement. There was no way up to the main floor there except for the poles and stairs, and both had dealt him an egregious amount of pain and torture. He hurriedly hobbled back to the shutter door since he had just undergone the agony of stepping on a nail. Not caring how much noise he made, he threw the shutter door open and stomped as hard as he could back out into the tunnel. A second later, he slipped and fell on the ice, sliding to the opening behind the waterfall and falling out and down the cliff face again.

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Rufus wasn't sure how badly burned his head was. He had raised a trembling hand to touch his burned bare noggin a couple times, but for both attempts, he recoiled his hand at first contact. His fingertips felt the instant high-temperature that surprisingly remained so even after several minutes of exposure to the cold winter night air, with each touch eliciting an audible steaming hiss.

Oh, that was it for Rufus. He thought he was patient, but the tiny mirthless snickers that escaped him were a gentle signal that he reached his limit. Turning back to the kitchen door, he moved at a gradually faster speed until he was practically sprinting. When he got close enough to the door, he jumped and raised a foot forward to kick the door wide open, pulling the blowtorch down onto the floor. Once he was fully inside, Rufus slammed the door shut behind him as he scanned the kitchen for the target of his ire, screeching, "WHERE ARE YOU, YOU LITTLE CREEP!!?"

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Reggie was almost out of breath again when he climbed back to the top of the frozen waterfall. Considering he had his fill of slipping on ice, he was fine with crawling on all fours the rest of the way. He took another glance at the house's two rear windows. He carefully crawled on the ice, inching past the office window and closer to the bedroom window until he was directly under it. "Hey Rufus, I'm coming in!" he called, hoping his voice would be heard through the window by Rufus if he was already inside. He just hoped it wasn't Adorabat listening on the other side.

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Rufus angrily stomped to the other end of the kitchen as he scanned for Adorabat. He was close to the door that led into the main living room when he stopped at the sound of Adorabat's voice.

"Oh no! I'm really scared!" Adorabat taunted to Rufus from the rafters.

Rufus pushed himself to refuse to play the bat's game. "It's too late for you, girl! We're already in the house! We're going to get you!"

"Alright! Come and get me then!" Adorabat fired back with another taunt before scampering away on the rafters in the opposite direction of Rufus.

Rufus could feel the pressurized steam building up in him. "Why you," he let out a feral growl escape his throat as he moved after Adorabat. He didn't get far though when he suddenly tripped over a string that was stretched tightly at ankle height. He fell flat on his face at terminal velocity with a loud wooden smack. Rufus angrily threw himself back onto his feet. "NOW YOU'RE DEAD!" he hollered just in time to witness a rain of toy soldiers parachuting from the rafters down to where he stood. For half a second, he questioned what sort of devious trap these little plastic paratroopers entailed. He soon got his answer when they drifted down close enough to him to explode in his face, covering him in white bubbly clouds that looked like a cross between baking soda and seltzers.

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Under the rear bedroom window outside, Reggie carefully positioned himself, giving another little rump wiggle before leaping right up and grabbing the windowsill. It took him much more effort after that, as he had to simultaneously pull himself up while pushing with his feet against the wall. It didn't help that his foot still hurt. In astoundingly little time, Reggie was able to get himself onto the windowsill while pushing the actual window open at the same time, making him feel like giving himself a pat on the back for this tremendous effort. He hoisted himself over the windowsill to set foot into the house proper. He sat on it for a moment and then let himself slip down to stand on the floor inside the house, next to the bunk bed on his left. Too bad he didn't notice the glass ornaments underneath his feet…

*SMASH* "AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHH!!!!!!" Reggie cried as he stumbled to the floor, his back against the wall and sliding down a bit until Reggie was sitting completely. His face was contorted into a squeezed expression of absolute agony, his paws clutching both of his distressed feet. He knew what he wanted to happen next, what he wanted to do. "I'M GONNA BEAT THAT KID!!!" He staggeringly pulled himself back upright and tried to go to the bedroom's exit door, leading to him stepping on at least one more ornament which triggered another squeal out of him.

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Right as Reggie left the bedroom and entered the main atrium, Rufus was busy trying to wipe himself clean of the white foam that blew up all over him earlier. By the time he finished wiping himself off, he turned to his right to see Reggie hobbling out the nearby door. Even when Reggie stopped to notice him, Rufus remained speechless at the state of his friend. "Reggie?"

Reggie was equally befuddled. "Rufus?"

"Why do your feet look so filthy?" Rufus asked.

"Why are you dressed like a snowman?" Reggie asked back. Rufus had no words for him.

Both the fox and raccoon were interrupted by the sound of Adorabat's loud voice calling them from the side door on the other side of the atrium. "I'm over here, you morons!"

Both of them sprang into action as they chased after her in a brief sprint, only to immediately step on a number of toy cars on the floor ahead of them. They swung into the air feet first with startled yells and landed on their backs in a splat.

Adorabat smirked. "You guys give up, or are you hungry for more?" She turned away to go through the door without waiting for answer.

Rufus was the first to scramble back to his feet, too much in a hurry to notice he was stepping over Reggie as he tried to follow after Adorabat. Reggie soon followed suit only after flailing around on his back for a second or so. They went right out onto the side porch and made another flying shout-laden slip on its surface and steps, sliding right into the middle of the open-air training dojo.

"Now where are we?" Rufus grunted.

He and Rufus got back on their feet to look around the wide open and seemingly empty space which was covered by a tent-like ceiling, showing a panoramic view of the valley. His ear twitched when he heard the clicking of machinery. He swiveled around in time to witness a column rise out of the floor and unfold bumpy metallic branches before starting up to spin at an obscene speed. "Reggie, look out!" he was quick enough to warn his friend in time for the raccoon to get slammed across the dojo by the spinning device. "Don't worry, Reg! I'll get her for you!" Rufus called to him, turning around to try and do something.

"Rufus!" Reggie fearfully yelled to him in response as the fox turned in time to see a swinging mallet streaking right for him. There was no time to move, as Rufus felt himself get pounded by the swinging block of metal, slammed hard enough to be sent sliding to another side of the dojo.

Both of them struggled to even sit upright when they spotted Adorabat standing at the dojo's entrance. They could see that she held a particular remote with a single red button in one of her wings. "Hey guys, check this out!" she yelled at them again, pressing the big red button. Adorabat flew back into the house with the sounds of training machinery running – bludgeoning devices, flamethrowers, laser cannons, and the like – and a fox and raccoon screaming in the background.

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Adorabat quickly went onto Mao Mao's desk phone and dialed it, hoping to get one last phone call in before the dojo's traps were done. Judging by the sound of a foppish voice coming out the receiver, Adorabat was talking to King Snugglemagne once again, having called him to check up on something she mentioned in her last talk with him over an hour earlier. Considering that Snugglemagne sounded a little dismissive which resulted in Adorabat almost yelling at him through the phone, it was important that she talked to him again. When she was done, she hung up in time for the dojo's traps to shut down.

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Back in the dojo, Rufus and Reggie were splayed on the wooden floor, completely covered in patches of soot, their fur ruffled up in tufts, and even sprinkled with tiny candle-like flames on the tip of those tufts. Reggie was lying on his back while Rufus laid on his front, both of their faces showing expressions of thorough exhaustion.

At the very least, Reggie still had it in him to remain optimistic. "She's only a kid, Rufus. We can take her."

"Oh shut up," Rufus growled. He did not have time for his slower-witted partner's pep talk after everything he just went through. He tried to rush back inside the house, but remembered that the porch that connected it and the dojo was still covered in ice, so he and Reggie had to crawl their way forward. Once they were back in the relative safety of the house, they got back on their feet again. But neither got very far when Rufus spotted another suspicious object tied to a string swinging directly towards him. "Heads up!" Rufus yelled before ducking.

Reggie wasn't so lucky as to register Rufus's warning in time, still too dazed from the dojo traps. Once Rufus ducked, Reggie was open to being smack-dabbed in the face with a weighted mop-like sponge drenched in soapy bubbling liquid. He was punched into the air and landed back down on the floor with both hands clutching his soap-covered face, trying to scrub his eyes clean.

"Is that all you got?" Rufus yelled in the hopes that Adorabat would hear him, but the moment he turned around was when another swinging sponge of soap impacted him with a splat, knocking him down too.

Adorabat took a moment to taunt Rufus from the ground. "How about a bit of mouthwash?" She scampered off to the stairs leading to the attic.

Rufus wasn't having it. "You get back here!" he yelled trying to jump for her, but he ended up tripping over the same tripwire that triggered the toy paratroopers earlier. Him still being partially covered in soap only served to keep him from getting up fast enough, even making his hands slip.

Reggie, however, was lucky enough to take advantage of Rufus being down to reach Adorabat on his own. Briefly going past Rufus like using a springboard, he launched himself at Adorabat as she was about to fly up the stairs to the attic and grabbed her by her peg leg.

"Yes! Hahah! I got'er, Rufus!" Reggie yelled victoriously, however much tiredness there was in his voice at the time.

Adorabat struggled. She didn't expect either one of them to reach her, and she knew this wasn't good. She felt like panicking as she racked her brain in numerous split-seconds for ideas on how to escape Reggie's hold. But as luck would have it, she spotted a particular thing crawling along one of the steps of the attic stairs before coming to a stop: Lucky's pet spider, which had been loose in the house the whole time. For her, it was perfect.

Adorabat stretched her wings as close as she could to the spider while flapping as hard as she could against Reggie's pulling. It was even harder since Reggie was sporadically yanking her back. Adorabat grunted and gritted her teeth. She was so close. With one wing outstretched, she reached closer and closer to the spider, first grazing the hairy little thing with the tip of her wing before finally grasping it entirely in more of her wing. Without wasting any more time, she turned around to put the spider down on a more convenient spot.

Reggie was so sure that he finally got Adorabat right where he wanted her. He was so sure Rufus would be so happy with him right now. However, his happy thoughts were interrupted by Adorabat turning around with something in one of her wings. "Wha –?" was all he could gasp before Adorabat firmly plopped the horrid thing right on his face. The shock of such a thing made him let go of Adorabat, allowing her to fly away, and his eyes widened as he realized there was now a big hairy spider crawling on his face. He was rendered silent for a moment, but his restrained voice soon released itself in full force:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

Reggie flailed wildly, ricocheting every part of his body in every conceivable direction before converging his hands on his face to throw the spider off himself. Reggie still couldn't help letting out a few more screeches and dying shrieks even after removing the bug. The spider conveniently landed on Rufus's belly, as Rufus was lying on his back in a daze after having fallen to the floor once again just a moment before.

At the roof of the house, which Adorabat stood on thanks to an opening at the top of the attic, she kept the dojo ahead of her in her line of sight. It was the top of the dojo's ceiling that she aimed for, but she wasn't quite ready to go yet. She was examining the lines she had set up between the house roof and the dojo's, making sure they would work exactly as she intended.

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Back in the house, Reggie inched closer to where Rufus lay, keeping his eyes on the spider that stood on Rufus's belly. Rufus had recovered his mind enough to glance over to Reggie looking down at him. "Reg," he groaned, "What's going on?"

Reggie remained fixated on the spider. "Rufus," he whispered, "Don't move."

"Reg, what are you doing?" Rufus quietly asked a little more fearfully.

"Don't move," Reggie said again, his eyes zeroing in on the spider and raising two balled fists high.

"Reggie?" Rufus whimpered.

Reggie threw his fists down upon the spider as hard as he could. But he ended up slamming his fists on Rufus's poor belly as the spider moved away at the last moment. The impact was hard enough to elicit a loud cry of pain from Rufus, making the fox curl up into a ball and lie on his side, letting out pained yells every two seconds as he rolled around. Rufus was trying to regain control of his voice, letting out incoherent words that were seemingly restrained curses as he held his battered belly.

Reggie was furiously looking left and right on the floor, trying to find the spider he missed in his attempted squashing. "Did I get it?" he exclaimed. "Where is it?" Out of his sight, the spider crawled away to another part of the house, never to be seen again. Reggie still kept looking. "Did I get it?"

Rufus found the adrenaline he needed to get back on his feet. After all, it was one thing to be driven furious by the insolent antics of a child, but to get an extra from his own partner was too much already. "What do you mean 'get it', huh!?" he crowed at Reggie. "How about 'this'!?" he threw a punch on the top of Reggie's head, "and 'that'!? How do you like it!?" came another punch, finishing with a kick that was hard enough to push Reggie off the floor into the air a little, "you jerk!" Rufus threw a pointing finger in the direction of the attic. "Get that little bat brat!" he barked at Reggie to move to the attic stairs ahead of him, even giving him another shoulder punch to drive the point one last time.

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Adorabat could hear Rufus and Reggie getting ready to go up into the attic after her, so she decided it was the moment to take off. With a spread of her wings, she flapped them and sailed through the air right for the dojo, aiming right for the top of it and then gently descending through the middle until she touched the floor below.

Just in time, Rufus and Reggie were at the top of the attic, having followed the light that was allowed entry through the opening in the roof Adorabat had exited through. They both looked through the hole to scan the outside.

"Where did she go?" Rufus wondered out loud.

"Maybe she jumped," Reggie hypothesized. That earned him a look from Rufus.

They were interrupted by Adorabat shouting from the dojo below. "I'm down here, you big monster's behind! Come and get me before call the king on you!"

Reggie was quick to act before Rufus for once. "Come on! Let's get down after her!" But at the first step, he felt himself being stopped by Rufus, courtesy of him firmly placing his hand over the raccoon's head. "What?" Reggie protested.

"Not so fast," came Rufus's response. "That's exactly what she wants us to do: go back downstairs into her little funhouse and get torn up all over again." Rufus kept his eyes outside, then followed the two lines connecting the house roof to the dojo's top, seeing that they converged at the dojo itself.

Reggie soon picked up what his friend was looking at. "Wait, you wanna go out there?"

"Yes," said Rufus bluntly. He got moving to try and climb one of the two extended lines despite Reggie's protests and repeating of his question of going out, which Rufus kept answering with 'yes'.

Reggie tried to dissuade Rufus as a last-ditch attempt. "But that looks dangerous. Does it even look safe?"

Rufus wasn't having it. "What's the matter, Reggie? You scared?" he turned back to the raccoon with a look of frustration and condescension. "Are you scared, Reggie?" His patronizing tone sounded bossy enough to keep Reggie quiet, so Rufus resumed his climbing and beckoned Reggie along. "Come on!"

Rufus carefully climbed along the line he held on to while Reggie climbed the other one across from the fox. Both of them seemingly struggled with staying balanced on the lines, even though they were holding on and inching themselves along with all four limbs.

It didn't keep Reggie from verbally expressing his panic at hanging from a line over a considerably high height anyway. A number of 'whoa's' and 'aah's' kept coming out of the raccoon's mouth as he bobbed on the line he hung on to, each bounce happening more intensely.

They were loud enough to irritate Rufus once again for the umpteenth time. "Will you be quiet!?" he shouted at Reggie when the raccoon let out another cry of fright. When the raccoon ignored his words to do it again, Rufus got even more irate. "Shut it!"

However, when they were more than halfway across the line to the dojo, both the fox and raccoon had their heads turned to the sound of Adorabat calling from the dojo below. "Hey guys!" They looked down to see her standing in the center while holding a long pole. She was holding said pole upright and pointing it at the top of the dojo, specifically at one of the converging ceiling beams in which the elastic line was looped around. From what Rufus and Reggie were seeing, Adorabat was about to push the line up from the beam it was secured around. Adorabat grinned, "Happy Snowfest!"

Now it was Rufus's turn to panic. "Go back!" he gasped, scrambling to turn around while holding on to the line. Like Reggie, he now was oh so aware of how high above the ground he was at this very moment. He was too much in a hurry to actually figure out how to turn around and go back effectively, bumbling it so much along with Reggie that neither was fast enough to avoid Adorabat pushing the line with her pole loose from the dojo ceiling beam completely.

The sudden release of the line caused it to zoom back to the house roof from where it originated, catching Rufus and Reggie along the way. The speed of the line launched them into the air like the slingshot it was and over into the forest next to the house. Rufus and Reggie screamed the whole way as they were shot into the air together, their voices only ceasing when they crash-landed onto the forest floor with a rustling crunch. Both fox and raccoon slowly lifted their faces out of the snow, dirt, and leaves, and then looked at each other.

Adorabat flew up out of the dojo to have a look at where they landed, cheering to herself before turning in the opposite direction to head towards town once again. Before she went, however, she shouted one last time to the forest where Rufus and Reggie landed. "See ya', buckos! I'm off to get the king!" She then flew away.

Back in the forest, Rufus and Reggie scraped themselves out of the foliage and raced back to their aerotruck, determined to chase down Adorabat. When they were both in arm's reach of the truck doors, Reggie could not hold back his open contempt any longer. "Let's get 'er, Rufus!" he loudly encouraged his fox partner to start the engine, but when Rufus started up the aerotruck and made it hover into the air, he stopped short of driving it in Adorabat's direction.

"Wait," the fox verbally contemplated, "She wants us to follow her. I have an idea." He drove the aerotruck into town, but in a different direction.

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Adorabat flew as quickly as she could as she wove around the packed spaces between the town area's many multiplexes. She hoped that Rufus and Reggie were following her through the narrow alleys as she needed to lead them close enough to the palace where the royal guards were. If anything, she counted on them being commanded by the king to not allow anyone to disturb his holiday time, especially giving them permission to deal with anyone who tried. She just had to keep moving. At a certain point, Adorabat thought of taking a detour through one of the residential multiplexes near the Ruby Pure Heart mountain. Without any more time to consider where to choose her next flight trajectory, she zipped into the window of a random home.

She would have given no other thought to the interior decorating of any house she's been to, but her eyes were ensnared by the shocking sight of the house being completely flooded. Water covered the floor of every room in the residence, with its level being high enough to reach up to the tips of Adorabat's ears if she were to stand at the bottom it. More than a fair number of smaller items were floating on the surface and the sound of flowing water bounced across the walls. Adorabat hurried to one of the closed windows on the other side of the house and flung the shutters open, only to be confronted by Rufus and Reggie waiting in their hovering aerotruck on the other side.

"Why hello again, little brat," Rufus grinned, with Reggie sitting beside him with a similarly gleeful expression. "Looks like we outsmarted you this time." In a simultaneously flash, Rufus struck a hand forward to grab Adorabat by her head before she could react, pulling her out the window and away from the flooded house. He now held Adorabat right above the street which was a great deal of meters below the aerotruck, looking as though he would threaten to drop her.

"What are we gonna do to her, Rufus?" Reggie giddily asked his friend, now that he sees that he and Rufus finally have her now.

Rufus was just as eager despite how calm he was in comparison to Reggie. "The exact same thing she did to us," he leered. "How about, say, fry her scalp with a blowtorch?"

Reggie got the fox's drift right away. "Oh! Then slam her face with an iron!" he energetically added.

Rufus kept going. "And put out her eyes with gardening spray."

Reggie got just as extra as Rufus. "And stick a nail through her foot!"

Rufus couldn't hold back his own snickers. "The first thing I'm going to do is pluck that stubby peg leg off her squishy body…" he reached his other free hand over to her yellow peg leg to try and grasp it, all while emphasizing, "…very, VERY slowly."

Adorabat flapped her wings rapidly while swinging herself to try and get free. The attempt made Rufus tighten his squeezing grip on her head even more, but Adorabat still kept fighting. Rufus managed to maneuver his free hand through Adorabat's flailing limbs to finally grab her peg leg, making her gasp in fear and himself letting out one more victory laugh.

Unknown to the bat, fox, and raccoon, a shadow loomed around the alley corner from the ground below the truck. It stepped a little closer to them before shouting:

"Hey jerks!"

All three of them looked down to see where the hissy shout came from. Adorabat gasped as she recognized who it was while Rufus and Reggie looked more confused as to who that stranger was below them. But none of them had a moment to react to the encounter when the shadow deployed a purple-glowing holographic axe and threw it right at the aerotruck like a spinning boomerang. The strike was strong enough to send the aerotruck spinning in the air out of control.

Even with the violent jostle, Rufus didn't lose his hold on Adorabat. But by that point, the shadow, with his axe retrieved, had jumped right off the rooftop of the nearest multiplex, raising his axe and bringing it down on the flying truck, sending the vehicle hurtling down a little closer to the ground. Adorabat seized the chaotic moment, along with Rufus letting go of her peg leg, to shed her skin and escape the fox's grasp, leaving behind a molt of her former self.

Rufus struggled to hold on to both Adorabat and the steering wheel. "Let's get out of here!" he exclaimed. But it was when he realized how tight and soft his grip was that he looked to see not Adorabat, but a hollow and crushed molt in the shape of her, prompting him to drop it in frightened shock and disgust. He would have focused himself on driving away, but before he could move the aerotruck another inch, he felt it get bombarded on all sides by multiple concussive bangs. He and Reggie glanced out their windows to see several kinds of projectiles getting launched and fired at them, ranging from giant eggs to a rat-themed boomerang to even a giraffe's head in a helmet launched from an extended bionic neck. Every one of these strikes was highlighted by loud battle cries coming from what sounded like four individuals at once.

In a short time, the torrent of attacks was too much for the aerotruck, sending it spiraling to the ground in an impromptu crash-landing. The forceful abruptness of the fall was enough for Rufus to accidentally release Adorabat from his grip as he was too focused on not getting creamed in the impending crash.

Adorabat fell through the air as she only had so much time to try and fly, but she was surprisingly snatched out of the air by the shadow who rescued her, holding her in just one of his hands as he temporarily sailed through the air from a jump he made. Adorabat observed from the moonlight that it was exactly who she thought she saw: Orangusnake.

"You!" she gasped at him. "You saved me?"

Orangusnake only huffed at her. "Oh, don't you say another word! This is hard enough for me as it is!"

Adorabat didn't say anything, but she did turn her head to observe the aerotruck going down hard, her curious eyes wide open in amazement at the spectacle and even breathing out a quiet 'whoa'.

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After several long minutes of apprehending Rufus and Reggie after watching them crawl out of the wreckage of their vehicle, Orangusnake and his Sky Pirates – Boss Hosstrich, Ramaraffe, and Ratarang – were holding the fox and raccoon in their hands very tightly. By that time, a number of King Snugglemagne's guards had arrived on the scene in preparation for taking the two off their hands.

"You sure did a good job in the neighborhood," Orangusnake came forward to gloat in the two's faces. "Thanks to your flooding, we know each and every house you hit."

There was even an extra quip from Boss Hosstrich, who looked more disappointed than smug. "You no good fellas gone and gave more work for our captain here! Now you gonna learn!"

As they were both being taken away by the royal guards, Reggie seized his moment to shine. "Yeah? Well, the next time you see a flooded house, you'll know our names! We're Rufus and Reggie, the Special Men! You hear me?"

His loud attempted boast got him a swift kick in the rear from Rufus, who was already vainly struggling to get free from the guards' grip as is. "WILL YOU SHUT UP!?" the fox angrily screeched at the raccoon.

Ratarang waved goodbye at them in his standard mischief. "See you in the dungeons, as in NEVER, heehee!��

Before they were taken away, Rufus turned his head to take one last look at Adorabat. Adorabat knew her work was done dealing with them, so she gave the fox a little wave and her best naughty smile as a parting farewell to a criminal could be. Rufus silently replied with a teeth-bared half-snarl of his own, showing a few teeth missing from his battered, ruffled, and soot-covered face. In a little while, Rufus and Reggie were taken away to be locked up.

Adorabat turned her attention back to Orangusnake, who was in the middle of a light conversation with the rest of his pirate crew. She flew to them close enough to get their attention, as she just wanted to talk. "All of you came," she innocently said to them. "I thought you were staying in your ship to keep warm."

"Well, we were," Ramaraffe confirmed to her, "but then captain told us he needed help with some work with a bunch of flooded houses and wanted us to stop being lazy." But she then paused as she realized who she was talking to. "Gah! It's the bat brat!" she cried, almost falling from taking a sudden step back. Ramaraffe's words appeared to have alerted Boss Hosstrich and Ratarang as well, making the former deploy his cannon from his torso to aim at Adorabat while the latter transformed into a boomerang uselessly.

"Hmph! Rude!" Adorabat puffed her cheeks with a slightly offended look in her eyes.

Orangusnake raised a hand to block his crew from doing anything else. "Hold your fire, all of you!" he commanded. "She isn't a threat, like I said."

Ignoring Adorabat's offended protests towards not being seen as threatening, Ratarang turned to face Orangusnake. "Is it true she's all alone, boss?"

"For the fiftieth time, yes! She is!" Orangusnake sighed, putting his axe away. "She's also not going to hurt us, because I…asked her not to."

"But you said you been fighting with her the last few days," Boss Hosstrich pointed out. "I'm not sure she's safe to touch."

"And I'm sure she beat us without the sheriff before too," Ramaraffe added.

Orangusnake groaned. "Please don't remind me." He directed himself to keep all three of them in his line of sight. "But we talked earlier and agreed to lay off each other until the sheriff comes back. It's cold and it's Snowfest, so we agreed to call 'timesies' until further notice."

The three pirates paused to think about what they just heard. "You think she'll keep that promise?" Ramaraffe asked on the others' behalf.

"Oh please," Orangusnake scoffed, "if anyone's going to break a promise here, it'd be us. One more evil thing for us to do for the holidays…"

Adorabat watched as the other pirates put themselves back at ease, going back to address Orangusnake again. "Well…thanks anyway," she told him in gratitude for rescuing her from Rufus and Reggie, though the Sky Pirate captain tried not to look too happy at this tiny show of affection. Adorabat continued, "So what are you gonna do now?"

Orangusnake shrugged his shoulders. "Well, considering our work solving the flooded house mystery is over now, I guess we'll just go back to our ship. We got enough to last another hunker-down or two, thanks to all my work around here." With a nonverbal beckon to his crew, the crew turned to walk back out of town. As they went, Orangusnake gave Adorabat last parting words. "See you when Mao Mao comes back."

Adorabat watched them leave, but then remembered something she wanted to say to them too. She let out her words directed to them in a loud voice before they got too far away to hear. "You have a good Snowfest Day tomorrow!"

Orangusnake lifted a hand in a halfhearted farewell wave despite not turning around to look at her or even stopping. "Yeah sure, we will," he answered sarcastically, "not like tomorrow will be any warmer than tonight."

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After the pirates left, Adorabat went back to HQ. The first thing she did after winding down was clean up all the traps she had set up before, making sure every part of the house looked exactly as it was before Rufus and Reggie came there.

She sat by the lit tree in the living room and looked out the window after having set down a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for the Gift-Saint. She looked out longingly to the snow-laden landscapes outside, even watching the mountains in the distance as snow gently began to fall. She thought about the request she made to the Gift-Saint's messenger earlier, and with earnestness in her heart, hoped that she would see Mao Mao, Badgerclops, her dad, and even the rest of her classmates again tomorrow. She was hopeful, but she still felt sad too.

Tonight was Snowfest Eve after all, and as of the countdown to Snowfest Day, she only had half of the warm holiday cheer. For all the presents she thought she would have, she would rather spend her time with the people she loved most, her family. At least Orangusnake still had his. For a while longer, she stayed next to the tree and kept looking out the window as more snow fell before she finally decided to go to bed.