“Come out and play!” (The Warriors)

“Think fast!”

The fastball came right at her the second she walked out in front of the alley. He had to have been waiting, knowing she’d come – it was the only explanation. The skunk span in place, swatting the baseball back at the armadillo with her tail as if it were a bat. He caught it effortlessly in his gloved hand, looking in his baseball jersey as if he’d been playing baseball all his life. She span the other way around to swing her tail at his second throw, sending it back to him to bounce up on his baseball bat in a high, narrow arc. The armadillo swung his baseball bat up, left, and down as the skunk arched her back, bent down, and deflected his bat between her crossed forearms on its way down. As he swung to his right, she caught his wrist and elbow with her hands, and shifted her stance to break his bat on her right knee. As she extended her right leg into a side kick, he ducked under it to grab her left ankle with her left hand. While the skunk escaped with a cartwheel to her left, the armadillo calmly removed his baseball cap, and used it to catch the baseball which was finally coming back down from above.

Throwing the baseball at her again, he arched his back as she ducked to swing her striped tail forward over her head, watching his baseball fly through the air right over his face. He finished his movement into a full back walkover as she went for his legs with her arms, grabbing a nearby trash bag to try to swing it at her like a big club. Not wanting to kick or punch a trash bag to have it blow up in her face full of trash, the skunk grabbed a nearby trash can lid, using it as a shield until the armadillo’s trash bag exploded against it. He backed away from her further into the alley to kick a flaming barrel in her direction, and she swung toward him over it from an overhanging fire exit like a chandelier. She leapt at him sideways to catch his right arm in an arm bar, sending him on his back with her right leg on his chest and her left leg over his face, which she promptly kicked. Having knocked him out, the skunk opened a nearby dumpster, grabbed the armadillo’s limp form to hoist it on her shoulder, and threw him in there for someone else to find and deal with. She opened the door of the building to her left, and walked inside.

“Pay to play!”

Good thing she’d brought change – she’d just walked into an arcade. The coyote businessman was already reaching into his pocket as he looked up at her from his arcade machine when the skunk walked in from outside. She arched her back under a volley of thrown coins, dodged a scalding coffee spill with a butterfly twist, and a jet of ink from a pen with a sideways dive roll under it. Reaching for his briefcase, he started swinging it at her like a weapon, all edges and sharp corners, forcing her to dodge more and more creatively until she finally had to stop it with both of her arms before it swung open. The coyote’s paperwork flew out of it in a whirlwind spiral, surrounding them to occasionally fly across the eye of the paper storm toward the other side, forcing the skunk to pay attention to it to dodge its dastardly paper cuts. He came at her with a series of descending claw strikes as someone struggled with the claw machine. He tried to get her in a back-breaker, but she tail swatted him in the face just as someone won at a nearby slot machine. The coyote pounced at the skunk and she grabbed his wrists, going down on her back to launch him into a ball pit behind her with her foot.

“Bon appétit!”

The next door led her into a bar where a crow chef was expecting her. Tilting her head curious at his words was all it took to take her head out of the way and, looking over her shoulder, she saw a thrown fork stuck in the wall behind her. Turning back around with her finger raised to say something, the skunk caught a spinning beer bottle he’d thrown at her from across the room in midair on its way to her. Taking a swig from it before setting it back down next to her, she was just raising her other finger at the crow to give him a piece of her mind when her beer bottle got pinned to the wall behind her by a throwing dart. “Hey, I was drinking that!” She grabbed a spatula off the counter as he vaulted over it throwing an egg at her, swatting it out of its way. He grabbed a cue ball from one of the pool tables to throw at the skunk, and she swung it aside with a frying pan. They jumped on two pool tables, she knocked a broom out of his hands with a pool cue, and hopped on his table as the crow back-flipped back on the ground over her cue sweep. She flipped over his cleaver swipe and over him, going down on her hands behind him to throw him out the window with her legs around his head.

The skunk smashed the glass case around the bar’s fire extinguisher with her pool cue, grabbing it to dive through the window with it before anyone could stop her.

First she just saw his silhouette outlined in the mist as his unicycle approached on the handrail of the bridge. He was juggling as he rode and, while the mist concealed him, she could guess his species when his juggling balls got caught in his antlers as he juggled, stuck in the trees over his head like Christmas ornaments. The deer hopped down from it onto the bridge into the light and, if the skunk hadn’t already been able to tell, his white make-up and rainbow scarf would’ve confirmed she was dealing with a clown. She was just thinking of how she’d have to be careful around high attacks so her hands or feet wouldn’t get caught on his antlers too when he breathed fire at her. Hopping back into a defensive crouch, she unleashed her fire extinguisher, he threw a throwing knife through it, and she tossed it over the side of the bridge. The deer’s head popped off with a spring like a jack in the box, just missing the skunk on its way down upside-down as she dive rolled at him under it. In a clinch, his chest flower water spray went off unprompted, and his bear hug squeezed her like a wet sponge. Finally, she broke his hold just enough to knee him in the crotch, and pushed him over the side of the bridge.

The skunk reached the bus stop on the other side of the bridge and sat down on the bench to wait for it just in time for the bus to show up. She was just sitting in her chair minding her business when she saw a screwdriver thrown through the window whiz by her ear to stick in the wall right in front of her. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw a duck in overalls flying by the side of the bus, getting ready to throw something else at her. The skunk ran to the back of the bus as fast as possible as a drill, a hammer, and a wrench thrown through the windows all missed her by a hair’s width. She stepped back from the back of the bus when the duck on the roof shovelled his way down in the bus from it. As he ran after her, she got her neck stuck on the drill cord running across the bus, accidentally pulling on the drill through the window so the back of the drill him in the head. As the skunk turned around to press her temporary advantage, he rolled back to fly back up through the opening he’d created in the roof at the back. The duck dug another hole in the roof near the front with a pick-axe, and jumped back down in the bus as she turned around to face him again.

He flew at her hard hat first like Superman but in a corkscrew pattern, and she grabbed a pole to walk on the wall over the bus seats to get around his charge. When he reached the back of the bus, he kept flying up to get back on the roof again. Finally, the duck used a jackhammer to dig a third hole in the center of the bus roof, coming down through it to pull the skunk up on the bus roof with him. He came at her with the pick-axe in a downward arc, but she dove down between his legs as it got stuck in the bus roof behind her. She pulled the drill cord through the window as he picked up the shovel. As the skunk dodged a shovel swing, she swung the drill from its cord at the duck like a rope dart, wrapping it around his shovel to yank it out of his grip and throw them both overboard. When he tried to bring a saw down on her head, she stepped back aside to grab his wrist with one hand, his crotch with her other hand and, lifting him up as she flipped him forward like a pancake, she threw him over the side of the bus. He was forced to drop his saw as he barely got the chance to flap his wings a couple of times on his way down, breaking his fall but unable to keep flying after her.

The skunk swung back down in the bus, pulled the cord, and hopped off through the door just as it stopped in front of a building.

In through the front door, she pressed the button, waited, and stepped onto the elevator. Standing by her, a fox with leather boots, a cowboy hat, jeans, and a sheriff star on his chest put his harmonica away to eye her up and down slyly, like his unwitting prize had just walked through the door. “Gotcha right where I want you, sweetheart.” He yanked his lasso up from the ground just as the skunk noticed she’d just stepped into it, doing a front walkover back on her feet out of his grasp. She span away out of range of the rising horseshoe on the other end of his rope which wrapped around his extended leg. She grabbed his leg in a heel hold, ducked under the fox’s chicken kick, did a dive roll away from his descending lasso, and a butterfly twist through his lasso from the side. He yanked on the rope as he pulled his leg back, unleashing the horseshoe at the skunk’s face. She ducked forward under the horseshoe, grabbing his support leg as she rolled sideways behind him to pull on it as she pushed down on his back, forcing him to end up face-down. She sat on the fox’s back pulling his ankles up and back before tying them to his wrists behind his back to leave him there trussed up like a present.

“Your books are late!”

The skunk just walked out of the elevator into the library when she saw an alligator in a hockey mask jump down at her from a bookcase with a descending hockey stick arc. She barely cartwheeled out of its way to turn around behind the bookcase as he skated after her on his rollerblades. She thought he’d follow her across the aisle between the bookcases, but he skated right past it and, as she reached the end of the aisle to turn right, he swung his hockey stick at a puck at the end of the second aisle, narrowly missing her again. The gator started skating at the skunk down the third aisle so she ran back left through the second aisle, pulling down books behind her for him to stumble and trip over on his way. As she turned right back through the first aisle, she climbed the bookcase like a ladder while he skated past her underneath. Turning left at the end of the first aisle, he tail swiped the bookcase she was on, forcing it to fall knocking over the others behind her. Doing an aerial cartwheel off the bookcase with a midair half-turn, the skunk landed sitting on the gator’s shoulders with her legs on his chest, going back on her hands to throw him behind her with her legs into another bookcase.

She pulled on one of the books that was on a bookcase against a wall and it opened up like a door, closing behind her as she walked into the secret passage it concealed.

Walking into a movie theatre, the pigeon who was fighting pigs onscreen seemed to notice her coming in, and flew out of the screen to land with his feet on the backs of two different movie seats facing her. The pigs, dismayed, didn’t follow, not seeming to share his ability to do so. Taking off his sunglasses, he kicked a popcorn container at the skunk, which she knocked out of the way sending popcorn flying everywhere. The pigeon grabbed a soda can to shake it and throw it at her, sending her in a dive roll between movie seats, a last resort if there ever was one with theatre floors being what they are. Extending his wings halfway through a back-flip, he swooped down at her right over the seats, forcing her to duck down under them as he did. He finished his turn in midair and came down from a front flip between the seats, pulling out his nunchaku. The skunk ducked under his side strike, dove between the pigeon’s legs away from his strike down, and grabbed his legs which forced him into a forward roll out of the seat aisle. Turning around with her hands on two seat backs, she swung her legs through the air in flying leg scissors that caught his head to force him into 3/4 of a back-flip on his face.

As the pigs caught up with him to swarm the room through the doors, she leapt up into the screen, where she knew they couldn’t follow, and disappeared into the park off the side of the screen where they couldn’t see her.

The skunk found what looked like a possum’s corpse on the ground in the park. Before she could check his pulse thunder roared overhead and, when he was struck by lightning, he slowly rose from the ground groaning with his lab coat and a bolt in his neck. He threw a beaker at her, and she jumped on a bench dodging its glass shards, but she had to hop back off the bench when the acid ate through its legs. The skunk landed on a picnic table, but the possum torched it with his flamethrower behind her as she hopped off it to grab a tree branch. She just had time to swing around it once before he froze it off behind her with a liquid nitrogen spray as a leaping back-flip from it brought her back down. Her double spin kick swinging around a lamp post forced him back and, when she taunted him in front of it after her swing, he activated his jet pack to try to fly right into her headfirst. When the skunk got out of the way at the last second, the possum didn’t have nearly enough time to adjust his trajectory and flew right into the lamp post behind her headfirst. She grabbed his body, back to being just as limp as when she found it again, and dunked him into one of the park’s trash cans upside-down.

“Now! For my next trick...”

The park path led her to a parking lot where she saw a raccoon magician in a hat covered in chains standing on a car facing her. Dropping down into the car through its open sunroof, he came out of the back door to roll back across the hood at the skunk without a single chain left on him. She barely moved her head right and left to dodge two cards he threw by a hair’s width, and it was a good thing too, since they’d been thrown hard enough to lodge themselves in the car door behind her. She quickly went into the car to use the door as a shield against the third card but, with a gesture, the raccoon made the car windows lower themselves, and his fourth card flew through them. The skunk jumped out of the sunroof, flipping down over his fifth card to kick his deck down out of his hands with a flying axe kick. “Let me cut your deck!” She rolled back across the hood and he threw a blanket over the car, making it vanish from between them entirely. The raccoon swung his wand at her, and she swung one of his discarded chains she found around it to wrench it from his grip. He pulled a wall-sized mirror up off the ground and vanished through it, which the skunk also walked through to follow him, but he was gone.

The mirror led her into a public restroom, standing between the faucets and sinks before climbing down from them to the floor. When the ceiling air vent grid came down, a ninja rat climbed down out of it, discarding his cat claws and grappling hook as he landed. She opened a stall door to stop his kunai, and chased him to the other end of the restroom as he disappeared into a stall and she could swear she heard him flushing. When the skunk reached the stall, he was gone, and popped back out of another stall at the other end of the restroom. The rat wielded a pipe two-handed like a kendo sword, and she wielded a mop like a staff. She blocked his arc down, he parried her swing, and she blocked his swing up at her, locking in a stalemate. The skunk stepped on their weapons and reached behind her for a plunger, thrusting it around his face before pushing him away from her with her foot. Humiliated, the rat threw down a smoke bomb and, when she’d used the air dryers to dissipate the smoke, there wasn’t a trace of him left anywhere, as though he’d disappeared through the cracks in the floor.

She stepped out of the restroom through the window onto a skyscraper’s rooftop.

A seagull with a tricorn and eyepatch on a higher roof used a hook and clothesline to zip-line his way down to the skunk, who slid under his flying peg leg kick as he did. Hearing him light a cannon behind her, she grabbed a clothesline to swing herself up into a back-flip over it as the cannonball sailed under her, and stood on it like a tightrope for a moment before hopping back down from it. He brought an oar in an arc down on her head, but she moved out of its way to grab and break it on her knee. The skunk crossed both halves of the broken oar to block the seagull’s spyglass swing, brought the right half-oar down on his rising spyglass block, and he jumped over her left half-oar reverse swing. He grabbed her to go back into a bridge, trying to bring her head down on the ground behind him, but she went into a front walkover and side-split behind him. As he stood back up behind her, she snapped her legs shut like a vise around his ankles, her leg scissors sending him tumbling down over the side of the building’s rooftop. The seagull was just barely able to slow his fall enough by flapping his wings to break it on his way down.

The skunk walked past a roof fan, weather-vane, chimney, and antenna into a pigeon coop to find a set of corkscrew stairs that went down inside it leading her all the way under the skyscraper into the underground.

She looked up when a thrown acorn bounced off head on the subway wagon. With the wagon pole behind him in one hand, a squirrel with a spiked collar, mohawk, piercings, and tattoos sat on the ceiling watching her upside-down. Dropping a dying joint on the ground in front of him, he dropped back down to the ground with his upside-down front kick landing on it. “Let me put that out.” How could someone hold a pole, smoke a joint, and throw an acorn with two arms? That would have to remain an open question for now. He swung around the bottom of the pole into a double sweep, the skunk jumped over it, he swung around the top of the pole into a double spinning kick, and she crouched under it too. The squirrel grabbed his skateboard to swing it at her legs, she jumped over it, he swung it at her head, and she crouched under it as well. He brought it down in an arc at her head and she rolled back away from him on her feet out of the skateboard’s trajectory, which landed on the ground between them facing up. Grabbing the same lighter that he used for joints and the same aerosol can that he used for graffiti, he sprayed a cloud of fire at the skunk, forcing her to crouch under it again.

She kicked his skateboard forward toward the squirrel’s legs, forcing him to jump onto it like when he’d ride it around. She barely crouched fast enough to get under the gum he spat at her, sticking to the pole behind her as she counted her blessings that she wasn’t going to have to get gum out of her fur, which was a pain in the ass if there ever was one. From the ground, the skunk yanked his skateboard out from under him, forcing him to stumble back so that the back of his head collided with the pole behind him as he fell to the ground on his back. Grabbing the prone squirrel’s legs just as the subway doors opened at their next stop, she picked him up by them to swing his whole body right out of the doors onto the waiting platform. The subway doors closed between them before he could come back in as the wagon slowly continued its journey away from him. So she sat down in one of the empty wagon seats to spread out lounging and, singing to herself as she took out a book to read, she let the gentle rocking of the wagon around her as it advanced on the tracks cradle her to a light, dreamless sleep...