Jeff had been thinking that his situation couldn't get any worse when suddenly, his sensitive new ears swiveled on top of his head. He could hear, much better than he would have before, footsteps thudding against the carpet in the hallway outside his bedroom. That had to be his younger sister, Sylvia, leaving the kitchen and returning back to her own room. And she was definitely going to pass right in front of his door.
A chill ran down the whole length of Jeff's spine, all the way down to the tip of his nervously flicking tail. He had to do something to warn her, to get her to run far away from here before this Vandal picked on her as his next target!
When she casually walked past the doorway, Jeff ran after her. He had never imagined that his little sis would ever be taller than him, but this was ridiculous. As he raced to catch up with her, he realized he could easily pass through the space between her legs with plenty of room to spare, and he shuddered at the thought. "Sylvia!" He called out from behind her, just before she could open the door to her own room, getting her to turn around in surprise. "It's me! Listen, you need to get-"
But he stopped when he saw the soft, cooing expression that appeared on Sylvie's face way up above when she saw him. He knew right away that she must not be able to hear anything other than "meow". Her eyes were wide. "Hi, kitty!" She reached down to pet him, and he recoiled from her giant grubby hands. "Where did you come from? And who put all that purple hair dye in your fur?"
Before Jeff could start to think of an alternative way to communicate, he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. Vandal must have been experimenting a little more, because he was now crawling inside the surface of the wall, trying to sneak right past the two of them as a bit of his own magic paint. He crept onto the front of Sylvia's bedroom door, the girl not noticing a thing as she focused her attention on the cute kitty. Jeff watched uneasily as the fox stroked his chin with a paw, then curled his snout into a mischievous grin as a yellow-painted cartoon lightbulb appeared above his flattened head.
Then the door slammed open with a startling thud, and both Vandal and Sylvie disappeared from view behind it. Jeff stood there on his four tiny legs, staring up at the door, not knowing what had just happened. Then Vandal popped out of the other side of the door and stepped onto the carpet. He gingerly pulled the door away from the position against the wall he'd just flung it into. And now, on the wall, there was a life-size painting of a young girl in the exact spot where Sylvia had been standing.
Jeff stared in disbelief. Even if he'd been human, he still wouldn't know what to do. The cartoon image of the girl that looked just like Sylvia remained there, unmoving, her surprised face fixed into place. It seemed awfully unfair that Vandal knew how to move himself as a painting when all his victims would just be stuck wherever he left them. And it was heartbreaking to see his little sister in the same helpless position he himself had been in just a moment ago. He knew how confusing and terrifying it was to be suddenly rendered two-dimensional. And he could only assume that she was feeling the same way right now, since she certainly couldn't show it.
Vandal approached the wall that he'd just trapped her in, a cruel glint in his eyes. "So, what's your name, missy?" The painting remained perfectly still. If Jeff hadn't been on the receiving end of the same treatment already, he would never have imagined that there was a living soul in there. Vandal tapped one of his lower paws impatiently on the carpet. He glanced at his wrist, which was entirely bare of anything except his fur. Grabbing his spray can, he painted a watch into place, which started to tick audibly as soon as he was done. Then he looked up expectantly at the girl.
"Ah, I don't have time for this," Vandal said. "It was the same thing with your brother Jeff here, and I don't feel like asking again." He took his spray can to the girl's collarbone, writing the word "MISSY" in small letters against her neck, one of the S's showing up backwards in the fox's crude handwriting. Then he drew a circle around the word. The drawing was messy, but its meaning was clear. He'd just created a name tag that was supposed to hang from a collar around her neck.
Not satisfied to leave it at that, Vandal rubbed at his fuzzy chin again. "Hmmm," he mumbled, looking back at Jeff's small feline form, then turning to his handiwork on the wall. Then back to the cat, then back to the girl. "A-ha! I've got it!", he shouted. "'Cats and dogs living together! Mass hysteria!'" The fox chuckled to himself. "Sounds like a lot of fun to me!"
Then Vandal really got to work, feverishly slapping down new layers of paint all over the flattened girl on the wall, until there was nothing left of her original appearance. There was only the image of a dog, its legs still splayed in a human-like position as though it were lying flat on its back. It - she - was covered in bright lime green fur now, dotted with black spots like those of a Dalmatian. And the collar that labeled her as "Missy" was still there, although it had gotten a little smaller to fit her altered neck.
Vandal spritzed a few more droplets of green here and there, then finally nodded with satisfaction. "Alright, missy. Or should I say Missy?", Vandal teased. Jeff didn't know how he knew that the fox meant for his words to be capitalized that way. It was as if he had a speech bubble hanging over his head to read. Vandal reached into the wall and pulled her out by the collar. Suddenly, he had a real dog squirming in his grasp, which spoke in Sylvie's frightened voice as she instinctively tried to nip at her captor's arms. "What's happening!? Please, stop! Let me go!"
"Okay!", Vandal replied. He tossed her against the floor, where she landed hard on her belly. Jeff thought to himself that a cat in the same situation would have landed on its feet easily. Wait, why was he thinking about how cats were way better than dogs at a time like this, even though they obviously were? He shook his head. "Sylvia! Are you okay?!"
"Sylvia?", the dog asked quizzically, tilting her head to the side as she did so. "Oh, you mean me. I thought my name was... Missy... wait a second... Jeff, what's going on? I'm scared!"
"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, pup," the much taller fox interrupted. "I was just thanking your brother here for giving me a chance to take over the whole world and rule it with an iron paw." He glanced again at the crudely drawn watch on his wrist, and as he did, a tiny cuckoo bird popped out of it and crowed loudly. "Which reminds me," Vandal continued, "I gotta get going now. Much as I'd love to stay and chat about 'oh my god, help me, I don't want to be an animal!' ... I've got a whole planet to touch up. I'll never forget you two, though! I'll make sure to send you lots of postcards from my travels. Just don't try and attack the mailman when he brings them, Missy! But really, I can't thank you enough. Especially you, Jeff! I couldn't have done any of this without you!"
Then Vandal zipped through the hallway and down the stairs with the speed of an Olympic sprinter, leaving a cat and a dog standing there in bewilderment. What were they supposed to do now?