Anthropomorphic

Brown Bear 

Character Portrait

Axel Kettlebell

Despite having pulled off a number of increasingly bold and daring heists over the years, such as that folie à deux fiasco in which he cleared out his drinking buddy and famed burglar, Orville Stonker, of all his ill-gotten gains (before Orville burgled them back); or the hootenanny in which he called Charles Moneyshot’s bluff that the rest of his security detail would be wondering why he was on the john for so long, and that every head-flush made it less likely he would ever share the access codes to his secret vault; the anthropomorphic brown bear, Axel Kettlebell, still failed in his ambitions of gaining Mia Culpa’s attention. “What’s a heister got to do to get so much as a look-in these days?” he would often wonder aloud, whenever his winks and waves were not reciprocated. Word was that heisting had gone mainstream; everybody was getting in on the action and so it just didn’t carry the same glamour or grandeur as once before. More of an extracurricular hobby one dabbled in at the weekends than a full-time vocation.

In bygone days, after giving the cops the slip, you could expect to be received with a hero’s welcome; with enough street-cred in the bank to not have to worry about buying a drink at Erm Wotsischops’ Knotted Knacker pub; not have to worry about securing the best table at Edison Upskirt’s Upskirt Nosher; not even having to worry about Jackson Jiffy trying to rip you off with a bag of dodgy skunk. You were effectively street royalty – for a week or so at least, before your cred would start to run low, and off you’d go heisting again to top it back up.

The world of Anthroxville was changing, and the only other skill in Axel's wheelhouse was brawling. He'd brawl with anyone at any time over pretty much anything. Following his release from prison one time, he violated the terms of his his parole by brawling with his parole officer. There was a problem though: brawling didn't pay the bills. Nor did it seem to be of much interest to Mia. Was he brawling all wrong? On more than one occasion, he thought that maybe the solution was to simply just go over and start brawling with her. "Hey, how's it going," he would say, "I was just wondering if you think you're hard or something?" And away they would brawl, off into the sunset. It would be difficult to top that as far as ice-breakers go. But no, for after catching sight of that little minx flirting with the cultivated con-artist, Gregory Fromage, Axel knew if he wanted to stand a chance, he'd have to do something with a certain level of sophistication and panache.

With heisting and brawling out the window, the anthro brown bear spent weeks trying to think up some showstopping scheme in which he would prove to all (especially Mia) that he had something to offer again. Something more in line with the changing tastes. Something more upmarket. Something more cosmopolitan. Then one evening, whilst grunting up at the sky and scratching his armpit, it suddenly came to him: why not hijack the richest nutsack in Anthroxville, Dinero Cashmoney's tax-evading hot air balloon? It didn't get more swashbuckling than that. Axel Kettlebell: Scoundrel of the Skies. He already liked the sound of it.

However, it seemed all too obvious, and Axel had to check to see that it hadn't already been done before, or at least attempted. After all, he didn't want to pin his hopes and dreams on this daring shindig, only to find out some young dandy hotshot had somehow commandeered that puppy a week prior, and he to be henceforth known as Axel Kettlebell: Copycuck of the Clouds. Reputations like that are the stuff of nightmares to shake off. To his relief however, it turned out that nobody had the plums to even think of even trying it before, not even Frødrik Frødrikson, and he rushed to start drawing up plans on exactly how to go about such a feat. He was as well-versed as they come in heists, holdups, and hootenannies, but hijacks? Now that was a whole different kind of dingdong altogether, and would require a little more...