Together, the six of us got into the car, pulled it into the room where the meteorite was being kept, and just as Marmalade and Snake opened the door, Shark already had the butt-rock in his arms. Marmalade gasped in shock.
"Don't mind us, just robbing this place," Wolf said as Shark tossed the meteorite into the truck and Wolf drove past them and out of the mansion. Right before leaving the property, however, he stopped by the palm tree and called for the gato. It jumped eagerly and Wolf gave it a pair of sunglasses and crashed through the gate and into the street.
"Now to get this thing to the chief and clear your names," Diane said as the others got rid of their catsuits and back into their regular clothes.
"Weird," said Shark. "Usually, we drive away from the police."
"Hey, chico, are you sure we stopped the heist?" Piranha asked Wolf.
"Yeah," Wolf answered.
"Relax!" Diane said. "Marmalade can't control them if he doesn't have the meteorite."
"So... who's driving those trucks?" Piranha asked, pointing at the trucks on the bridge ahead. We all noticed at least a dozen guinea pigs in each truck.
"The meteorite!" Diane shouted.
"It's still transmitting!" Wolf said. "The charity money! Change of plan, guys. Webs, is there some way to override the trucks' navigation system?"
"Uh, we'd need some kind of magnetized cross-circuit interceptor."
"You mean this?" Diane asked, taking one out from her briefcase.
"Ooh! She just keeps getting cooler!" Shark exclaimed.
"Oh, yeah!" Wolf shouted, sharply turning the car around and heading for the trucks. Once we were close enough, Diane tried to stick an interceptor to a truck, but another one crashed into us, making her drop it, and the trucks began to go in different directions!
"We gotta split up!" Diane said. "Gabi, Webs, you feel like a girl's trip?"
"Um, yes!" Webs replied as I nodded. "Later, boys!"
With that, we jumped out of the car, Diane opened up her briefcase that turned out to be a motorbike, and we followed one group of trucks while the guys followed the other. Webs set up her laptop and monitored the interceptors while Diane and I tossed them onto the trucks. I looked at the laptop and saw the guys were doing a good job, too.
At one point, the guinea pigs tried to crush us, but Diane got the motorbike to go underneath the truck, where she stuck an interceptor near a tire. After all of the trucks got tagged, Webs began to work on hacking the system. All of the trucks then stopped and began driving back to the schools, hospitals and libraries.
"It's working!" I cheered.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Diane asked Webs.
"Well, you know, I'm kind of a natural," Webs bragged. "Mostly YouTube."
Once we regrouped, Webs jumped back into the car with the rest of the Bad Guys.
"Nice work," Wolf said to Diane.
"Meet me at the police station," said Diane. "Don't be late!"
With that, Diane drove the motorbike off the street and towards the police station, where the chief and the Channel 6 Action News team were seemingly waiting. Diane managed to change into her regular clothes before anyone noticed her catsuit (kinda made me wish I had something better to wear than my ruined gala gown). We jumped off the bike and she folded it back up into a briefcase.
"Chief!" Diane called out, catching the chief's attention.
"This better be good," she said bitterly.
"Trust me," said Diane, "you don't want to miss this."
"Look!" Tiffany Fluffit gasped, pointing at the Bad Guys' car driving towards us.
"Well, butter my crumpets," the Chief said in disbelief.
"Can it be?" Tiffany asked, facing the camera. "The Bad Guys are returning the meteorite?! Perhaps this is the feel-good story we all need!"
"You better believe it, Tiffany!" I said.
Suddenly, we noticed the car came to a complete stop. What was all this about, I wondered? Then, I remembered. After everything I did, they still forgave me. Maybe... Just maybe...
Then, Wolf pushed the pedal and the incomplete gang zoomed past us! Diane rolled her eyes and raised her arms up in frustration.
"Wolf!" the Chief yelled.
🐺🐍🕷️🦈🐟🐹🦊🐠💍🪡☄️💋
Feeling as though I had to do something, I gave a kid fifty bucks in exchange for his rollerblades and skated as quickly as I could in the direction the car drove off. Despite wearing such a heavy dress, I was surprisingly agile.
Fortunately, it was easy to tell where they were going because I could see the Professor's helicopter. Unfortunately, another swarm of guinea pigs appeared out of nowhere, seemingly attacking the Bad Guys. What was worse, I noticed Snake being pushed of the helicopter and Marmalade taking the meteorite!
Suddenly, the rest of the Bad Guys drove towards the broken bridge where Snake was falling and seemingly attempted to make a jump to catch him and get to the other side... only to begin falling into the chasm below.
"No!" I shouted, skating faster through all of the guinea pigs. I heard an explosion and saw Marmalade's helmet get blasted off by the shock and it flew up into the helicopter blades, getting destroyed and freeing all of the guinea pigs from his control. The damaged helicopter began going down.
"Cuddles, we're losing altitude! Going down!" Marmalade shouted. I just skated past the fleeing guinea pigs to the end of the bridge half, not noticing the grappling hook, and looked down with worry.
"Piranha?!" I called out. "Please, don't be gone..."
"What happened?" I heard him ask from below. "Did we blow up? Is this heaven?"
I sighed in relief knowing he was okay. Wolf began climbing back up and I offered to help him, but then he noticed the chief staring at him with a smug grin and attempted to climb back down.
"Oh, that is it!" she laughed, grabbing the line and pulling them all back up. "There is absolutely no way you're getting away this time!"
"Wait, Chief!" Diane called out.
"Governor Foxington?"
"Don't do this!" she pleaded. "They didn't steal the meteorite, they were bringing it back!"
"It's true, they really were!" I insisted. The chief just laughed.
"How could you know that?" she asked. "Unless... Unless you were conspiring with a bunch of known criminals."
I looked up at Diane, who took a deep breath.
"Well," she said, clearing her throat, "as a matter of fact... it's time I came clean about something. The truth is I'm really... really..."
"Really a big fan of redemption arcs. Yeah, we know," Wolf interrupted. He looked back at the others and they all nodded at him. Wolf handed the cat to Diane and the five of them held their paws, fins, and tails out. "We're done running away. Chief, do what you need to do."
"What?!" she gasped, holding up a pair of handcuffs. "You're turning yourself in?!"
"We might not have stolen the meteorite, but we did steal a lot of other things," he pointed out. "It's time we took some responsibility and start a clean slate. Take us in, Chief."
"Wait, really?" she asked, frozen in disbelief.
"You finally did it," Wolf said, putting the handcuffs on himself. "This is your moment, Chief. Drink it in."
While the chief made an overly detailed speech about her victory, the other officers put handcuffs on the rest of the Bad Guys and Diane approached Wolf.
"I'm proud of you, Wolf," she said.
"You know, a fox and a wolf are not that different," he said. "We got a good thing going here, Governor."
"You know... I feel like I just got you back," I said to Piranha as he jumped down from Shark's arm. "Now, I'm losing you for good."
"I like to think of it as long distance," he replied with a smirk. "Look, I really do hope you live your dream."
"Piranha, you are my dream," I insisted. "You saved my life... when I didn't think I needed saving."
"So did you," he said. I yelped in surprise as he picked me up bridal style and I grabbed his face and kissed him lovingly. All of the humans seemed either freaked out or simply confused, but we didn't care.
"Hate to break this up," a cop said, "but we gotta get going."
"Right. Sorry," Piranha apologized, gently putting me down.
"So," Tiffany reported, "it turns out the saga of the Bad Guys has come to a simple and totally satisfying conclusion. Though I wonder... what happened to the meteorite?"
"Cuddles! Faster, faster!"
Suddenly, we saw Marmalade's helicopter unsteadily pulling up and trying to make a getaway.
"It's Professor Marmalade!" Tiffany exclaimed. "He's bringing the meteorite back!"
"Huh? Uh, yes. Yes, bringing... bringing it back!" Marmalade said as we all stared in surprise. "That's precisely what I'm doing! Look no further, your hero has arrived!"
The meteorite was placed on the ground as the helicopter landed and Marmalade jumped out with a proud face.
"Professor! Care to comment?" Tiffany asked, running up to him with the camera man right behind her.
"I tried to help them, Tiffany," he claimed, "but in the end, it's the same old story. Bad Guys bad, good guys good."
"So true, so wise," Tiffany agreed.
"Yes, I only hope that with proper care from me, my precious Gabriela will remember that," Marmalade added as I angrily crossed my arms. "Furthermore, for the good of the city, I have generously decided to take the meteorite back to my compound for safe keeping."
"Is he seriously gonna get away with this?" Webs asked as we all glared at him while the cops cheered.
"Thank you! Gosh, you're kind!" Marmalade said, clapping his paws. We all then noticed the meteorite's glowing blue light flickering. "Give it up for me!"
"Wait a second... This isn't the meteorite!" the chief exclaimed, clapping to turn the lights off. "It's a lamp!"
"Huh?" we all said while Snake just chuckled. "WHAT?!"
Turns out, this was all part of Mr. Snake's plan. He didn't want to admit it, but after he gave Shark a push pop, he felt that good tingle and realized he could be more than a scary villain. So, he pretended he was still bad and teamed up with Marmalade to help stop him. Once the mind control helmet was on his head, he used it to make the guinea pigs paint the white lamp black and teal and swapped it for the meteorite. Once we stole the lamp, the guinea pigs put the real meteorite back on the machine and put the power on the highest setting so it would overheat and eventually destroy the meteorite.
Marmalade was confused. "If that's a lamp, where's the...?"
Snake laughed. "The old switcheroo," he said and with a snap of his tail, we heard a loud boom and saw a flash of blue light appear from all the way where the mansion was. We all felt the wind from the powerful blast. Wolf went to pat Marmalade on the head as he stared on in horror. All of his hard work was ruined... as well as his house.
"You'll come visit me, right?" Piranha asked me.
"Every day," I promised, and gave him one last hug before he stepped into the police car with the others. As the car drove off, the Bad Guys smiled at Marmalade.
"It's a butt!" Piranha whispered, making me laugh once more. Then, the Golden Dolphin fell from the sky and bounced off the lamp, making it tip over and crush the Professor. A tiny but beautiful gem then slipped from his grasp.
"Hold on, this is the Zumpango Diamond," the chief realized, picking it up. "But this was stolen by the..." She gasped. "By the Crimson Paw!"
"Me?!" Marmalade exclaimed. "Oh, no, no, no, no..."
"OMG!" Tiffany exclaimed as the chief tossed him into the van. "In a shocking twist, the notorious bandit known as the Crimson Paw has been revealed to be none other than Professor Marmalade!"
"I'm not the Crimson Paw!" Marmalade insisted as the van drove away. "She's the Crimson Paw! She's the Paw! I'm the flower of goodness!"
Whether or not he was really the Crimson Paw... I'll let you be the judge of that.
"You okay?" Diane asked me. I looked up at her with a smile.
"I've never been better," I admitted. "I've been trapped by the Professor for three years and now... I'm free. I'm actually free."
"So... What are you gonna do now?"