"Oh yeah, I just reached birthday cake again! I'm just working on squirt right now…" Roxy hummed into the phone as she pulled her legs up on the arm chair she was resting on. "Wha…no um…drop is still at anvil…" she muttered, ears dropping a bit as her mother sounded disappointed on the other end. "Oh sorry Mom, I have a meetup I was going to go to." She wasn't lying, but the meet up wasn't with other toons. "Yeah, love you too. Bye." She reached over and hung the phone back up before draping over the arm of the chair and groaning.

Her mother meant well, she knew that, but it still bothered her that she wasn't asking about the gags she had actually raised so far. It was so much harder to solo anything without a doodle, she couldn't get as much done as she remembered doing when she was younger. Even if Elijah had lived long enough to come back with her, she would have been too old to do much help in a battle. But it was lonely by herself in her house. Two others had moved into the estate after she did, but she didn't talk to them much unless they passed each other on the way out into town.

Letting out a sigh, the toon pushed herself up and headed to the door. She had tasks to finish.

Roxy was panting as she slapped the frog on Lil Ol Man's desk. The stupid thing had slipped through her hands more than five times on her way back from the pond and caused her to get into battles she wasn't counting on, then she'd have to run and catch it before it hopped into a drain. The rabbit looked pleased and picked the creature up, putting it on his head.

"Perfect. Now…oh? What was that?" an ear raised and he tried to look up at the frog. "You want icecream? Alright! You heard the frog, please go fetch us icecream."

Roxy felt her ear twitch. Was this guy for real? She held back a groan and dipped back out into the street, hands going over her face. She had been at her built up tasks for hours. The only thing keeping her going at the moment was the fact she was almost done with getting the tracks for her trap gag training. Just one more. Just one more. Just one mo-

"Ugh! You little-!" a loud shout startled her and she looked around, ears raised and eyes wide. She was the only toon on this street the last she checked, and she had been all over the place looking for the little pond to fish in. It wasn't her proudest moment. She looked to the side as she heard clanging and hesitated before heading towards it. She loved drama, and the tone of the voice made her feel like someone was getting a whooping.

She peered around the corner, expecting a headhunter or some other cog fighting with a toon, but instead it was a Spin Doctor and an Ambulance Chaser having a stare down. Something about the scene made Roxy stiffen a bit, feeling like it was familiar, but couldn't remember what it reminded her of.

"You're losing it. You know you are." The shorter cog hissed at the other, not breaking eye contact.

"You need to respect your superiors." The Spin Doctor spat back at him and turned to leave, only to have his arm grabbed.

"You've been around too long! Those toons…they've done something to you! I use to look up to you, but now…" the lower rank let him go and backed up before stomping the ground and making it shake, catching the other off guard. Along with Roxy. She stumbled backwards and caught herself on a wall, moving back more so she wouldn't be hurt again.

"Stop this right now before I call the foreman!" the spin doctor snapped as he moved away, gripping at the flashing yellow light on his chest. The smaller cog didn't look convinced he would and stomped on the ground again, causing more damage to the other than the last attack did. Roxy flinched as she saw a few gears pop out of place on the spin doctor and started shaking.

This was wrong.

Cogs weren't supposed to hurt each other.

Before she could stop herself, she ran out from the corner she was hiding behind.

"Hey!" she shouted, making both of the law bots jump and turn around. Roxy quickly raised her hand, a birthday cake balanced as carefully as possible as she shook, and aimed it at the ambulance chaser. "Get away from him!"

Eyes narrowed, the lower ranked law bot moved away from the spin doctor and stepped towards her. "Mind your own business, toon!" he threatened and raised his hands to trip her, but she closed one of her eyes to aim better and stuck her tongue out out of reflex before pitching the throw gag straight into the cog's face.

Her ears went down and she ducked as his gears became jammed, beginning to smoke and over heat before he exploded. Once the ringing left her ears she quickly straightened up, seeing the spin doctor was now slouched against the building with his chest red.

"Ohh...oh oh oh…" she whined under her breath and hurried over. Roxy stopped next to him and hesitated before crouching down. "Hey…hey are you alright?" Hearing her so close made him jolt and look up, leaning away from her.

"Just do it…" he hissed, looking back down.

"Why was he attacking you?" she asked, leaning closer. He refused to answer her and moved his head away.

The toon snorted and sat on her knees. "Look…are you alright? I can hear…something going wrong." She looked at the red light on his chest. It wasn't flashing, but by the loud whirring coming from the area on the inside didn't sound too good.

"Just finish what you started!" he snapped at her and moved his arm to try and push her away, but the whirring stopped and he fell over on his side. Roxy wheezed and jumped to her feet, ready to duck and cover, but he didn't explode.

After waiting a moment, she stepped closer and leaned down. His light was still red. The toon looked around quickly before pulling her teleportation hole out of her pocket and slapping it onto the street.

"Alright…let's hope you land on a bush or something." She mumbled to herself and got on her knees, shoving the cog into the hole to her estate. Once he fell out of sight, she jumped down after him. She was going to have to move fast to hide him from BonBon and Candy.