“You may have!”, I shot back, getting nearly face to face with the repairman, “but that don’t mean we can’t be trusted. We got a job to do! Believe me, we’d love to rough him up a bit to teach him a lesson, but we gotta obey the law! We finally have our shit together, and we don’t wanna mess it up.”

“Toons like you are part of the problem,” snarled Greasy. “You don’t know what it really means to be a weasel. It’s not all stealing eggs and laughing at misfortune and roughing toons up. It’s a brotherhood. And we bust our asses keeping you guys safe when we could easily be part of the criminal underworld. Why? Because somebody’s gotta!”

Wheezy chimed in, “And you were only a fake weasel for about five minutes. Try walking a mile in our shoes! But we have to rise up and prove that we’re more than just the stereotype. But you just judge us at face value instead of how we are. Why should we even bother to arrest this guy? We should just let him screw up your work because /plainly/ you- and all the other toons in this miserable town- don’t appreciate the hard work that goes into making this town the painted, cheerful hellhole it is!”

-Smartass

"Y-yeah, well–” the Repairman stammered, having trouble keeping up with all this. “You think I meant–? You mentioned Di—!”

He sighed. He knew, on some level, it was true. Even sculpted, he was a pale imitation at best.

He wondered how much had to do with the past and how much had to do with the fact they were weasels. In either case, he realized, their actions didn’t reflect what he had been expecting. Harsh, sure, but so were a lot of non-weasel Toon cops. Didn’t mean the Patrol was the same one from decades ago.

“…” he finally said.

He cleared his throat, and tried again.

“…I’m sorry,” he said, bowing his head. “Y-you’re right. You could’ve resolved this job a lot faster if what I thought was true, but… I wouldn’t be here then.”

He sighed.

“…Thank you.”

The Breaker rolled his eye-holes.

“Yeah, yeah, enough of this sap, can you just can me and get it over with?”