System of Turbulence

[4I Falcon]

Well well. Looks like I'm working on TWO JJ2 stories now.

waitasec... das w00t!

Amazingly, this story has only one foreseeable reference to the Elite Task Force. Go me, not being self-centred...

Buh. Anyway, the story.

Here goes...

Jazz Jackrabbit in:
System of Turbulence

Prologue: Beleaguered Heroes

The planet Carrotus has one particular family of true heroes: the Jackrabbits. Carrotus also has one devout enemy, known as Devan Shell. For a longer time than anyone can remember, Jazz Jackrabbit, his brother Spaz, and his sister Lori have been fighting against Devan and his hordes of turtles. They have won once, and Jazz had rescued his beloved Princess Eva Earlong from the nefarious turtle’s clutches. However, Devan has returned, and has not only plagued the planet again with his army, but has also gone to the past to finally try to completely erase his arch-enemy, Jazz Jackrabbit, from existance…

After defeating the Ovary, and cleaning the remainder of the beach of Devan’s goonies, the Jackrabbits decided to head back to Carrotus Castle to rest up for their next episode of victory over Devan. They had been successful thus far, apart from Spaz occasionally exploding, and they planned to keep hitting Devan first, fast, and hard. Already, the infamous turtle had lost a laboratory deep under the surface of Carrotus. But the threat was not over until Devan himself was destroyed, and Jazz longed to see his greatest enemy fall.
But he was completely whacked from fighting against the Ovary, as were Spaz and Lori. All they wanted to do now was sleep, and heal. They had been doing the latter very well, carving a path of destruction across the fields of super-carrots. Jazz and Lori would take a quick bite of a super-carrot as they passed, giving them more energy to bolster their own limited supply. After they had passed, Spaz would fly in and mow down the rest of the carrot. Almost a straight line of carrot stumps could be seen for a mile and a half.
However, as soon as they entered the castle, the Queen appeared right in front of them, and turned them right back around again, particularly roughly on Jazz. “I won’t have slacking warriors in my castle! No resting here until Devan is dead!”
Luckily for them, Eva wasn’t far behind her mother. “Mum! What are you doing?!”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
Eva was quick with her answer. “Being stubborn?”
The Queen faltered. Her daughter was becoming increasingly rebellious… But rebellious wasn’t the term she was looking for. It was more of a cross between rebellious and noble.
Nobellious?
The Queen was still pondering as Eva ushered the beleaguered Jackrabbits inside.
“Thanks, Eva…” Jazz started.
“No problem. My mum’s usually like that. It’s physically impossible to de-rail her train of thought… That’s how I just whisked you in while she was just standing there.”
Jazz chuckled, then yawned. Lori took over where he left off. “We’re going to need to get some sleep right about now, Eva. Thanks again for your hospitality.”
“Anything for my dear future husband and his wonderful siblings,” Eva said, with a welcoming smile. She watched them recede into the hallways of the castle, then walked away.

That night, Jazz had a dream that set them off on their ensuing quest…

----------

It gets better, I swear! That's just the prologue!

DON'T HURT ME! *runs away*

Edit: Just forcing some plotholes closed, before someone falls in and dies... :D

[Batty Buddy]

Que Passa!!!!

It's off to a good start. Very nobellious of you.

/\:D/\

[acid]

Is this just a story of the actual game, or are we allowed to participate? :D

If so, I would love to be in it!

[4I Falcon]

Well, yes and no. This is supposed to be a "lost episode" of JJ2, or something. I'm not going to be taking as many joiners as I am with E:JF.

Maybe one or two. Three if I'm in a good mood.

[Ducky]

Heh. Hehehh. Good plot. ^_^

[4I Falcon]

Yep, here's Chapter 1 (finally) for your reading pleasure.

no plotholes yet! yay!

oh wait... >.<

Chapter 1: One Warning

Jazz, Spaz, and Lori climbed into their separate beds in a special chamber for them. Jazz clambered up onto the top bunk of a double bunk bed, and Spaz and Lori hopped into their own beds. Spaz fell asleep relatively quickly, and his loud, irregular snores kept Lori and Jazz awake for quite a while. Finally, they became used to it, and before long after that, Lori’s quieter breaths were barely noticable without the loud noise coming from Spaz, let alone with it. Jazz lay awake for a little while longer, then finally, mercifully, fell into sleep.

Jazz strode through a thick grey mist. He felt as if he was walking towards something, but he didn’t know what. All around him was darkness and a grey fog. Nevertheless, Jazz kept going. Oddly, the fog didn’t seem to affect him.
There was a glint in the far distance. Jazz began to walk faster, and the shining thing seemed to get bigger. Then, Jazz slowed to a halt just in front of the mysterious thing.
The yellow glint was at eye level. It took Jazz a few seconds that it actually was a pair of eyes. Jazz had to get a fix on the eyes, then noticed the figure of the rabbit around them.
“Who are you…?” Jazz hadn’t moved his mouth, but the words seemed to echo around the dark space where he was, and the echoes bounced around his brain.
“You don’t need to know. You will meet me in the near future. But listen to what I say now, Jazz Jackrabbit, for it is very important.” As with Jazz’s own words, the almost invisible, mysterious black rabbit’s mouth never moved, but his voice echoed about everywhere.
“What is it?”
“Your enemy, Devan Shell, is planning a surprise attack on Carrotus City. He’s going to use a new type of technology, called the Turbulence Machine. But that’s all we know.”
“We?”
“Never mind. Once again, you don’t need to know. What you do need to know is where to find Shell before he does whatever he’s going to do with his Turbulence Machine.”
“And where’s that?”
“Just east of your castle, there is a small set of large mountains. Do you remember them?”
“Yeah, the Rockius Mountains. What about them?”
“In the tallest of those mountains is a secret entrance to Devan’s lair. You must have a strong heart and a good eye to enter it, though; it’s both heavily guarded and heavily disguised.”
“Don’t worry about the goons. I’m still alive after what Devan hit me with.”
Then the yellow glint of the black rabbit’s eyes turned a dangerous red. “I’d advise not to become over-confident about this, Jazz. What he hits you with here will change you…”
Jazz’s hand instinctively went to his blaster. But his trusted gun was no longer there. Then a very rare thing happened.
Jazz felt cold, raw fear course through him. It was like someone had just locked him in a freezer. And yet, even with the coldness around him, a drop of sweat fell down his forehead.
The now red-eyed rabbit pointed, almost accusingly, at the highly apprehensive Jackrabbit. He finally finished his sentence.
“…forever…”
Suddenly, three gigantic, red missiles flew out from behind the black figure. They seemed to follow the path of his finger, flying directly towards Jazz. As the enormous missiles closed in, the black rabbit began to laugh…

“Yawoop!” THUD!
Lori and Spaz were up almost immediately, hands on blasters, only to find the sozzled form of Jazz lying on the floor. He had fallen out of the top bunk of his bed. Fortunately, since no one slept in the bottom bunk, he didn’t land on anyone.
Something that sounded like “Mmrf.” could be heard from the floor directly under Jazz’s face. He pulled his nose out from between two floorstones, looking dazedly at his brother and sister. He smiled sheepishly at his siblings, asked what time it was, then passed out again. Lori stared oddly at the prone figure of Jazz on the floor, until Spaz asked, “What do you think that was about?”
“Beats me. C’mon, let’s get him back into bed.”
They dug their hands under Jazz’s belly, and heaved hard. Despite his only moderate stature, Jazz was remarkably heavy. Lori could only lift him to about chest level (which was about eye level for Spaz), then had to lower him to the floor again.
“OK,” Lori said, through deep breaths, “on three, we bring him straight up.”
Spaz nodded his head in agreement.
“One,” she began, turning her attention back to the amazingly still sleeping Jazz.
“Two.” She bent her knees, ready to use all her power to straighten them very quickly.
“Three!” They both sprang upwards, lifting their unconscious brother as fast as they could.
Unfortunately, in all of the twelve seconds used to plan how to get him back into bed, they had loosened their grip on his body. Jazz rolled off their arms before he was propelled into his bunk. Luckily, for him and his siblings, he rolled off right into the lower bunk.
Spaz stared dumbfounded as Jazz continued sleeping, now in the bottom bunk. Lori was also speechless at their incredible luck, then she chuckled. “Heh. Well, that’s that. He’s still sleeping, and—” she stopped for a second as she smacked Spaz across the back of the head, jolting him out of his state of awe, “we should be too. I’m even more tired than when we got back today. I’m going to sleep, and nothing is going to wake me up, or there will be serious consequences.” She couldn’t help a smile as she got back into bed, and, as Spaz fell into his own bed, consequently falling off the other side and springing back up, grinning like an idiot, Lori said, “G’night.” She almost immediately fell asleep again.

Early the next morning, Jazz awoke with a start. Bits and pieces of his dream had come back to him in his sleep, and the red-missile culmination was what woke him. The first thing he noticed was that he was in the lower bunk of his bed, instead of in the top bunk, like he usually was. He slowly crept out of his bed, hand on blaster, and snuck to the door. He seemed to change his mind, however, and began to examine his and his siblings’ bedroom.
Lori was amusedly watching Jazz wasting his time exploring the room, and Jazz almost jumped out of his skin as Lori said, “What are you doing?”
Jazz looked at Lori, still lying on her bed, chin on her hand. He scratched the back of his head, then replied, “Getting an answer.”
“Ooo, mysterious. What’s the question?”
“What happened last night that caused me to end up in the bottom bunk?”
“Um. OK.” Lori sat up in her bed, swinging her feet over the side. She yawned once, then continued.
“You were apparently having a very bad dream last night. You managed to fall out of your bed and crash into the floor. We tried to get you back up into your top bunk, but you were too heavy, so instead of accidentally letting you fall off again, we put you into the bottom bunk.” She didn’t want to say that she and Spaz accidentally dropped him into the bottom bunk. The less he knew, the better.
Spaz had woken up to their talking, and he was occasionally nodding enthusiastically while Lori was speaking. It was a slight distraction, seeing something bobbing up and down in the corner of her eye, so she eventually turned, smacked Spaz across the back of the head, and laid him out on his bed again, snoring like a baby.
Jazz winced as Lori’s hand made contact with the back of Spaz’s head, then rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go find out what’s happening with Devan and the Turbulence Machine.”
“The what?” Lori asked, puzzled.
“Oi, didn’t I tell you?” Jazz asked impatiently. “The black rabbit, and the fog, and…”
Lori stared, blankly, at Jazz. He could tell that she had no idea what he was talking about. Then it hit him.
“Oh yeah, that was my dream. But it seemed so real.”
“Meh?”
“Remember that very bad dream you said I was having?” Jazz continued. “That was it. I was talking with this black rabbit in a black fog. Neither of us were ‘talking’, so to speak, but our words just bounced around, like echoes.”
“Creepy.”
“Very. He told me that the next place to find Devan was the Rockius Mountains. He said that he’s going to be using some kind of new machine…”
“The Turbulence Machine.”
“Right.”
“Did this mysterious rabbit tell you what kind of machine this was?”
“Well, no, but he said it could… well, change me. And the way he said it didn’t sound too promising.”
“In other words, a turn for the worse.”
“Indeed.”
By now, Spaz was up again, rubbing the back of his head, but appearing none the worse for wear. He glared at Lori. “What was that for?”
“Um. Overenthusiasm?”
“But I’m always like that!”
“Yeah, well, I need my carrot coffee. My head’s still spinning.” With that, she hopped out of bed, and wandered out the door to the main dining area of the castle.
“She’s right, Spaz. I’d be grumpy too if I hadn’t had my morning coffee.”
He paused. “Wait a minute. I haven’t yet. That would probably explain my frequent yawning, wouldn’t it.”
He left, chunnering away to himself as he followed Lori down the hall. Spaz was left in the bedroom, simply blinking confusedly. Then his stomach growled at him, reminding him to go eat something. He skidded out of the bedroom, promptly running into the wall opposite the door. Blinking indignantly at the wall, he made a slight snarf noise, then scampered down the hallway behind Jazz and Lori.

Meh. I didn't particularly like the way I portrayed Lori here. Oh well, better luck next time.

Heehee, snarf...

[acid]

They then heard a faint explosian, followed by a yell.
The group paused.
"...That'll be Acid, with his coffee maker," said Jazz, and they continued.


:D

edit: ow yea, and great story so far. Interesting dream...

[4I Falcon]

Originally posted by acid
They then heard a faint explosion, followed by a yell.
The group paused.
"...That'll be Acid, with his coffee maker," said Jazz, and they continued.

Y'never know, I might actually add that... :D

[Batty Buddy]

Que Passa!!!!

Meh. I didn't particularly like the way I portrayed Lori here. Oh well, better luck next time.

Eh... It's not all THAT bad...

...what else was I gonna say- OH YEAH: Cool story, I can't wait for chapter 2.

... snarf...
Chought!!!...

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 2 is on the way. And, acid, I've added that little bit about the coffee maker. Heh.

Now go read my other story (http://http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4335), all you people! That's my better work of writing, not this!

BLAH! :D

heehee, snarf...
chought...
SPOY!

[cpt.firefox]

spoony i've been in both of jack flashes storys and that is spoony to be in a spoony story. it's a real good story i try to tell flash to go into writing. he doesn't listen though i think he should send theses storys to the people of megagames and see if they would publish one or both of his storys (when the second one is finished). so that's great and i type alot and talk alot and shoot alot so i should stop doing at least two of those three things so this is cpt. firefox signing off... wait a sec i never signed on... spoony
JJ2 rules from cff

[4I Falcon]

uh, firefox... you're not in this story...

come to think of it... neither am i. *yarrgble*

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 2: Tactical Advance

Spaz caught up with Jazz and Lori a few feet from the dining hall. As Jazz was about to say something about his brother’s delay, they heard a faint explosion, followed by a yell. The group paused.
“...That'll be Acid, with his coffee maker,” said Jazz, and they continued into the dining hall.
There was the same amount of chaos in the room as there was on any other day. Parent rabbits were struggling to keep their young leverets in hand, while the adolescents simply sat and ate, amused by their siblings’ antics.
Spaz and Lori headed to a table on the other side of the room, while Jazz helped parents regain control of their hyperactive children. By the time the hall reached a reasonable level of order, Jazz was completely exhausted. He slumped down at the table at the same time that Eva arrived.
“Another rough day, and you’ve been up for all of what, half an hour?”
“Forty minutes.”
“Ah.”
“Well, if the castle didn’t have a dining hall instead of a dining room…” Eva couldn’t distinguish the rest of what Jazz said, but it sounded like “nmpf.” The princess was nonplussed.
After breakfast was generally over, the Queen came over to their table. She seemed like she was in a relatively good mood. Which, compared to how Jazz was used to seeing the Queen, was a miracle.
“Jazz, I need you to do another mission for me.”
Jazz turned in the Queen’s direction. “Yes?”
“I need you to do some recon.”
“Recon? As in no shooting things?”
At this point, Spaz interrupted. “Hey! I say that!”
“Right. I was asking on your behalf.”
“Um… is that good?”
“Yes, it's good. Now sit down. And Lori,” he added as he saw his sister move out of the corner of his eye, “thwack him and I’ll let him shoot you.”
As Lori slumped back into her seat, Jazz turned back to the Queen. “So. Recon?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Take a group, as many as you need, to the tallest of the Rockius Mountains. There’s something suspicious going on there.”
Immediately, Jazz’s dream flooded back into his mind. “The…”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Forget the group idea; all I need are my brother and sister. All I’ve needed before, and all I need now.”
Lori was cynical. “Well thank you, dear brother. I’ll tell someone that next time I’m going out to risk my arse to kill something what I don’t even know what it is yet.”
The Queen’s eyes darkened. “I never said kill anything. I said—”
Jazz stood up, completely oblivious to the Queen. He slowly reached over his shoulder, and drew his blaster from his pack. Checking its ammunition, he cocked the weapon, and brushed past the Queen and out of the hall. Lori and Spaz followed suit, the former shrugging in the fuming Queen’s direction as she left.
“I don’t like this,” Queen Earlong said to her daughter as she stood up. “That... that Jazz knows something we don’t, and it bugs me.”
Eva looked to her mother. “I’m sure Jazz knows what he’s doing, mum. I mean, he’s never let us down before, has he?”
The Queen shot her daughter a look that could split a rock. Eva quickly went silent.

Jazz was found in the bedroom, adjusting his bandana in the reflection from the metal leg of his bunk bed. Lori could tell, even from the back of his head, that he wasn’t putting it on very well. When Jazz turned around, Lori quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Jazz could easily tell, from the rest of her face, that she was fighting to keep from laughing.
“OK, now what?!”
His headband was so badly lopsided, it was almost covering one eye. Lori adjusted his bandana for him, and just in time: Spaz inquisitively poked his head into the room. “So what was that about?”
Lori breathed a sigh of relief, as Jazz asked again, “Didn’t I tell you already?”
Spaz sighed exasperatedly. “Did I miss something again?”
“Well, yes and no. If I remember correctly, I believe Lori whacked you across the head before I told you.” Here, he shot a glance at Lori, who backed off. Jazz continued.
“Last night, I dreamed of a black, ghostly rabbit. He told me that Devan’s working on a new technology, called the Turbulence Machine, in a secret lab in the Rockius Mountains. When Queen Earlong told me we had to go there to find Devan, I knew where to go immediately.”
Spaz rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. To quote my friend Trowbaggs, it’s heigh-ho for the… um, east?… on the strength of a bally dream. Freakin’ great.”
“Lori? Would you like the honours?”
“Gladly.”
If someone had been listening outside the door at that moment, they would have heard a loud THWACK and a thud. Which is what Eva heard, considering she was listening outside the door at that moment. She went inside just after Spaz hit the floor. “What dream?”
“AUGH!” Jazz was beside himself. “How many times must I explain the same thing to everyone?” He immediately left in a huff, grumbling to himself.
Eva scratched her ear, puzzled. “Was it something I said?”
Lori smiled warmly. “Never mind, Eva. That brother of mine - not you, Spaz,” she quickly interjected, as Spaz got up from the floor. “Jazz has had to explain the dream that he had last night twice today already.”
“So would you mind telling me what’s so special about this dream?”
“Well, he said that a ghost rabbit told him that the Rockius Mountains were the next place to find Devan. When the Queen said we had to go to the Mountains, it clicked.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway, we must be gone. We need to get going to make sure Jazz doesn’t go die.”
“OK. Good luck.”
“Spaz. Spaz!” Lori snapped her fingers in front of the small red rabbit’s face, which had just been completely engrossed in staring at the wall.
Now snapped out of his trance, Spaz babbled, “Huh? What? Yeah. Whatever she said.”
“Ack.” Lori checked her gun, then, satisfied with its contents, looked back up to Eva. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“Bye. Good luck, again.”
Spaz attempted to follow his sister out the door, but missed the doorway by about an inch. As he wobbled around unsteadily, he pasted a weak grin on his face. He made a small yerk sound as Lori yanked him out the door.

Lori passed Jazz on the way to the mountains, and she didn’t realize she did until two seconds, and a half mile, later. She swung out in a wide curve, and circled back, to join up with Jazz again. They continued for a few miles, competing to see who of the two was faster.
After a while, Lori skidded to a halt. Jazz followed suit, and strided the short distance between them. Lori was scanning the horizon behind them, and jumped slightly as Jazz appeared behind her. “What’s up? Did you see something?”
“It’s not what I saw, it’s what I haven’t seen yet. Where’s Spaz?”
At that exact moment, Spaz flew by, as a small red blur. On his way by, he accidentally clipped both his siblings as he ran between them, causing them both to fall sideways. As they tripped, they distinctly heard, “Whoops! Sorry!” PWACK!
Jazz looked up again, and saw the source of the loud noise. Spaz had run head-on into a large supercarrot, and had actually become embedded into the large vegetable. Jazz had to wonder why there had been a PWACK! instead of a SQUISH! as Spaz hit the carrot.
Jazz got up, and offered a hand to help his sister up. Lori accepted the proffered hand, and sprung up on her feet. She stared in amazement at Spaz, six inches deep into the carrot. “Whoa. That’s gotta suck.”
A muffled voice emitted from the carrot. “Yrf mp dzz, nh wb mm PLNZ gp mf NT mf fz MRRT?!”
Lori scratched her head. “What’d he say?”
“I think he said something about yiffy mice not about to plan to get nut-fuzz merits, or something. Although how that has to do with anything is beyond me.”
“MMMMMMMMFF!”
Lori looked at Spaz, then to Jazz, with a bemused look on her face. “I doubt even Spaz would say something that ridiculous at a time like this. Maybe we should get him out of the carrot first, then he can tell us about his nut-fuzz mice things.”
“Yrf! Frrt! Mrr! Rt! Nrm! Pnnf!”
Lori rolled her eyes, apparently seeking patience from above. None was forthcoming, so she simply resorted to prying Spaz out by his waist.
After Spaz popped out, Jazz couldn’t help but chuckle at the Spaz-shaped crater his brother had left in the carrot. “Jeez, Spaz, you might as well have gone right through the carrot. Didn’t that hurt?”
Spaz was in the process of sucking carrot juice out of his fur. Stopping momentarily, he replied, “I’m covered in carrot juice. This is the best day of my life. Don’t bug me.”
Jazz lightly hit himself in the head with his blaster. “Right. Look who I’m talking to.”
Jazz spent the short respite taking bites out of the cratered carrot, while Lori waited nearby. Watching her brothers fill their faces with carrot stuff, Lori couldn’t help but feel slightly hungry herself. She pulled off a small piece of carrot, and chewed on it idly. The slight pain in her ribs from falling on them vanished as she swallowed the bit of carrot. After she had finished a second handful of carrot, she turned her attention to Jazz and Spaz. “Are we going to get moving sometime within the next year?”
Jazz sat down on the ground, pulling off another piece of carrot as he did so. “C’mon, Lori. The carrot’s not even half finished yet.”
Lori stared wide-eyed at her brother. “You two are going to finish that whole carrot?!”
Jazz stared back at her, as if the answer was obvious. “Well, yeah, what did you expect?”
Lori quickly regained her composure, and narrowed her eyes at Jazz. “Fine then. I’m going, and I will leave you two behind if you aren’t coming. I’m going to find out what this Turbulence Machine is, and I’ll be the one who neutralizes it.”
Here, Lori prodded Jazz in the ribs with her foot. “And I doubt Queen Earlong will be pleased to hear that you guys sat back and ate a carrot, instead of defeating Devan.”
With that, she was off. Jazz and Spaz exchanged glances once; then, without a word being said, they were up and after their sister.


See next post for details. :D

[4I Falcon]

Well, Chapter 2's done. Go me.

When I decided that Chapter 3 was finished (on my Palm during math class, of course) I noticed that Chapter 1 was as long as Chapters 2 and 3 combined.

So, what did I do?

Combined Chapters 2 and 3.

I'm smart.

Anyway. The third chapter is everything after Lori yanking Spaz out the door, and was originally titled "Kinda Sorta Making Progress." As is the plot. Woopy.

I'm not sure what else to put here. The story is coming along nicely. I still remember what I was going to do in the first place, which is a good sign...

There seems to be a lot of rolling of eyes in my stories.

And a lot of words ending in ly.

And Firefox is an idiot. But that's another story. Which he's writing.

Yeef.

*huggles palm* n_n

Oh yeah: The post with the actual Chapter 2 is exactly 10000 characters long. I seem to have a knack for doing that. :D

[4I Falcon]

Ignore Nick. Nick is an idiot.

Yay, got Chapter 3 done today. *huggles Palm again* n_n

Chapter 3: Distortion

In the tallest of the Rockius Mountains, Mount Whitespire, there was a long, hollowed-out tunnel. This tunnel led to an underground cavern so large, it may have housed a medium-sized city.
This was Devan Shell’s secret mountain laboratory.
Two sinister eyes examined the enormous machine in front of them. The machine itself looked like a gigantic, white turret, its single cannon barrel almost a foot and a half wide, and at least nine to ten feet long, and the base of the turret was a wide control panel, with a digital viewfinder and a big red button occupying the better part of the center of the control panel. The eyes belonged to the notorious Devan Shell himself. He nodded approvingly to the reptilian operator, standing nearby. “Good job, Tokivi. If this Turbulence Machine of yours works, it will make for a healthy addition to our armada. We will be unstoppable, and that fool Jazz Jackrabbit, and his equally foolish siblings, will finally fall to my forces!”
“You underestimate me, sir. Of course the machine works. I have even set up a test run, to prove to you its true power.”
“Oh?” Devan was immediately intrigued. “Show me.”
Tokivi picked up a handheld radio from the surface of the control panel, and spoke into it. “Bring in the captive for testing.”
Almost immediately, two Tuf Turtles entered, carrying a young, dark-cyan-furred rabbit with them. The rabbit didn’t look too pleased with his escorts, but didn’t struggle, apparently having lost the strength to hope a long time before. He wasn’t emaciated, but he was noticeably less well-built than someone of Jazz’s stature. As they approached, the young rabbit spat at Devan. The projectile fell miserably short of Devan’s feet, but one of the two Tuf Turtle soldiers kicked him in the leg anyway, for good measure. The rabbit winced in pain as the kick landed just above his ankle.
Two rectangular holes opened up in the rock floor about twenty feet in front of the machine. A stone-crafted, semicircular object rose out of each hole, and they joined to become a full circle about ten feet above the ground. The Tuf Turtles tied the rabbit’s wrists and ankles to the stone ring with belt-like straps, so that he was upright, but spread-eagled, inside the ring. He sneered at Devan and the assorted cronies once he was tied in.
“Hah. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you do to me… I will never serve one as cruel as you!”
Devan snickered at the helpless rabbit. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you. Don’t you fret yourself, this will be quick and painless.”
He grinned maliciously. “I think.”
The strapped-down rabbit glared with fierce, bright green eyes at the bespectacled turtle, as Devan indicated to Tokivi to start the machine. The lizard pulled a lever on the side of the machine, opening a hatch atop the turret, then saying something to the two Tuf Turtle guards, which the rabbit didn’t catch from the stone circle. The guards left for a moment, then returned, toting an oversized, blood-red missile with the letters “(Dby:Fbr)” along the side of it. They hefted the giant missile into the hatch in the turret, then scattered far out of the way as Tokivi closed the hatch, thereby cocking the enormous weapon. He took aim through the viewfinder, and locked the turret into position directly facing the venomously scowling, imprisoned rabbit. He then stepped away from the control panel, bowing to Devan’s superiority. “The honour is yours, sir.”
Devan giggled like a naughty little child as he stepped up to the controls. He held his closed fist above the big red button marked “Fire”, and looked through the viewfinder, even though the cannon had already been aimed perfectly.
Devan’s fist dropped upon the button.
The red missile ignited with a roar, then flew out of the machine’s barrel. The only thing keeping the turret from flipping over backwards were the claw-like metal spikes, attached to the base of the turret, that dug deeply into the rock floor. The missile easily cut short the distance to the tied-down rabbit, and the prisoner shut his eyes tight, awaiting the inevitable.
However, instead of a massive explosion, the outer shell of the missile disintegrated a few feet from the rabbit. A black essence, previously entombed inside the missile, was revealed as the metal exterior deteriorated, and the dark thing hit the rabbit in the midriff.
Then it went into his body.
The dark essence appeared to fade on contact, but the Tuf Turtles at the side of the stone ring clearly saw it go in through the base of his ribcage. A dark sphere began to come to sight, and since the sphere was mostly transparent, they could all see, but somehow not hear, the rabbit screaming in agony. There was a huge amount of strain on the belt-like straps holding the rabbit to the stone ring, and they eventually snapped in two, allowing him to curl up into a fetal position inside the dark sphere. He only stayed in this position for a few seconds, however, as he quickly snapped backwards in the air. He was now bent backwards, floating in the dark sphere, as if a massive amount of energy was being infused in him. Which was true.
The sphere suddenly shattered like glass, causing the rabbit to fall to the ground. However, instead of landing hard on his back, he flipped over impossibly quickly, and landed easily on one knee. The first thing the turtles and lizard noticed was the immediate colour of the rabbit’s fur: it had turned from a bluish shade to a steel-grey tone. As the last pieces of what used to be the dark sphere landed on the ground, the rabbit stood upright. He still had the same fierce eyes as before; but, instead of being a brilliant green, they had turned a dangerous shade of red. His face was expressionless, but they could all tell that there was a lot of fire in those eyes as they roved around the room, searching for nothing in particular. Then, his fiery eyes went straight to Devan.
Without warning, the rabbit began to advance toward the bespectacled turtle. One of the Tuf Turtles moved forward to try to stop him, but the steely rabbit pushed him backwards again with one hand, and seemingly no effort, as if he was weightless. The Tuf Turtle sailed through the air like a dead leaf, and skidded across the floor on his shell. After sliding across the floor like a puck on an ice rink, he collided with the other wall, which, while knocking him unconscious, flipped him over, so he was not on the back of his shell anymore. Devan was apparently apprehensive as the rabbit approached, as he shrank backwards slightly. He reached for his blaster pistol, hidden in his shell.
However, as he gripped the blaster’s hilt inside his shell, the rabbit stopped advancing. He simply stood there, stock still, not two feet from the increasingly anxious turtle. There were a few seconds of tense silence; then, as Tokivi had done only a few minutes before, he bowed to Devan, with three terse words.
“I stand ready.”
Devan’s apprehension turned to pure malicious joy, and the turtle giggled and rubbed his hands together evilly. Talking to no one in particular, he said quietly, “I am going to have so much fun with you...”
He quickly cleared his throat, and turned his attention back to the silvery-gray rabbit. “Now then... what shall I call you?”
“Vaper.” His expression never changed as he said the word. It was like he was a robot rabbit.
“Vaper.” Devan repeated the name, almost reverently. “Well, Vaper, you are the first of a new breed of soldier in my ranks. You are, as you have just shown us, one of the strongest strains of warriors to ever walk this planet, let alone the strongest to be given a place in my army. You are...”
Here, Devan stopped abruptly, and frantically tried to come up with an intimidating name for this new breed of soldier that he had created. As he pondered a name for Vaper’s rank, he happened to glance at the turret of the gigantic Turbulence Machine. A name immediately popped into his head.
“You are a Turbulent, the first of my ultimate legions. Welcome, Vaper, to my army.”
There was a glint in the new Turbulent’s red eye, his ears flattened back on his head, and his mouth curled into a vicious sneer. “I am pleased to join your forces... Lord Shell.”
Devan turned to Tokivi. “Lord Shell,” he whispered. “Write that down somewhere.” The reptile skittered away to do his master’s bidding.
Devan turned back to Vaper. “So, what shall you do first?”
“Let me destroy something for you, Lord.”
“Hmm, but what to destroy?” Devan inquired knowingly. He snapped his fingers, as if he had just remembered something. Vaper’s long ears snapped to attention, waiting for his first orders.
“Your first mission is to find that family of warrior Jackrabbits. You do know of the Jackrabbits, I presume...?”
“Of course.”
“You forgot the Lord part.”
“Of course... Lord.”
Devan smiled slightly at the sound of his new title. “You will bring the three Jackrabbits here, dead or alive, under your custody. I will see them fall, by my hand or not, or I will die waiting!”
“You will not need to die waiting, Lord. I will carry out your orders.”
“So you will bring them to me?”
“Gladly, milord.” With that, Vaper was gone before Devan could even blink. The other Tuf Turtle, who hadn’t tried to stop Vaper earlier, suddenly fell over as the rabbit flew by.
Devan stood there, expressionless, for a few seconds, then burst out laughing wild laughter, maniacal laughter that echoed and spread through the passageways and tunnels of his secret laboratory deep in the rock bowels of Mount Whitespire.

Have I mentioned that FORESHADOWING RULZ YO!

Chapter 4 will be done between now and when the sun explodes.

"They all know that I won't get started until 3 days before the deadline."
"But you don't even have a deadline!"
"Shows how late it'll be."
:lol:

[4I Falcon]

Well, the sun hasn't exploded yet, and here's my latest instalment of System.

Enjoy.

Chapter 4: Snare

Lori, true to her word, had taken off in the direction of the Rockius Mountains, leaving her brothers to ponder their fate when having to face Queen Earlong on their return to Carrotus Castle. She could just imagine the Queen going hysterical at Jazz – again – and her poor brother cowering before Her Rotundity as she rants at him for hours on end. She laughed at the thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spaz, still behind her, but slowly gaining ground. So they did decide to get up off their butts, eh? she thought to herself. I suppose I should somehow be proud of them...
Nah.
At that moment, Spaz launched himself at Lori’s back, emitting a cross between a playful growl and a small roar as he flew through the air. Without any warning, Lori dropped to the ground, stopping almost instantaneously, and watched as Spaz sailed over her head and did an ungainly faceplant into the ground. He actually skidded across the ground on his face for a short distance, then slowed to a halt.
Jazz was not far behind Spaz, and he stopped next to Lori. His jaw dropped so greatly in stunned amazement at the valley-like trail Spaz left with his nose that he almost fell over it.
Spaz got up, and wiped his nose calmly. He hardly appeared to be fazed, let alone injured, by his ungraceful nosedive into the ground. Spaz looked at his speechless brother, and blinked once. “What? What is it?”
Jazz shook his head quickly, as if pulling himself out of a trance, and said, “Nothing. C’mon, let’s go.”
Lori glanced at Jazz incredulously, then smirked. “You for real? Don’t you have a carrot to finish a while back?”
Jazz glared at her. “You’re not helping, y’know that?”
But Lori’s attention had shifted, from Jazz to something far away, over Spaz’s shoulder. She appeared to be trying to focus on something, and considering she had the best eyesight of the three siblings, Jazz trusted her to identify whatever it was she was looking at. Jazz squinted in the general direction, trying to be able to distinguish anything of interest. All he could see was a large dust cloud, which itself was not a profound sight.
“It’s a rabbit,” Lori said, after a few seconds of silence. “Dark grey. Male, I think. Looks like he’s being followed... by something huge. Or a lot of small things. I can’t tell from here.”
“Should we go help him?”
Lori shot a withering glance at Jazz, as if the answer was obvious, then bolted towards the rabbit. Jazz and Spaz quickly followed.
Spaz caught up to Lori and ran alongside her, while Jazz sped ahead a few metres. The green rabbit could now easily discern the figure of the approaching gray rabbit as they pounded their ways toward each other. However, what Jazz saw the other rabbit do next took him completely by surprise.
With a vicious snarl, the approaching rabbit lifted his right arm, the lower part of which somehow didn’t resemble a normal forearm, but instead a bulky, angular machine. He grabbed a handle on the side of the machine with his other, biological hand, and looked down the length of the machine. The end of the machine on his arm flashed thrice, and Jazz just barely had enough time to quickly spin around and begin a hasty retreat as three missiles slammed into the ground where he had been a split second earlier, exploding on contact and putting three large craters in the ground where they had hit.
Lori and Spaz were a few metres behind Jazz, and had stopped when they saw the weapon on the gray rabbit’s arm firing on Jazz. Even before the missiles hit the ground, both immediately readied their blasters, aimed, and fired on the attacking rabbit, to either damage the weapon or its holder, or simply to provide a distraction in order to allow Jazz to make good his escape.
They didn’t manage to injure the attacker, but Jazz did escape, and Lori and Spaz continued firing on the rabbit as Jazz ran for the cover of gunfire. The gray rabbit continued advancing intimidatingly rapidly, apparently oblivious to the hail of gunfire, and three more missiles ripped the ground to pieces as the three rabbits dashed away in the opposite direction.
By now, whatever had been creating the dust cloud behind the rabbit came to view. An assortment of
vehicles, everything from armed and armoured dirt buggies to large ‘Mechs bristling with gun-power, each and all of the machines piloted by turtle soldiers, was right on his heels, and were ready to open fire at any signal.
Lori looked back to the advancing rabbit, and immediately regretted it. He now had at least fifty vehicles behind him, all with guns aimed at the three retreating Jackrabbits. Lori, now running on autopilot, raised her blaster over her shoulder, and without slowing down, sprayed bullets randomly into the horde. She was rewarded with the sight of several of the machines exploding in flames, and the turtle pilots flying through the air a short distance before crashing back down to the ground, and invariably getting run over or trampled by those still intact vehicles behind them.
Jazz and Spaz followed their sister’s example, and fired shots in every direction at the enormous numbers of enemy forces, quickly beginning to pick away at those numbers. Machine parts flew everywhere, accompanied by their former pilots. Explosions threw more than their own vehicles up and away, as more and more tumbled over sideways from the innumerable blasts around them. Chaos began to spread through the ranks, as several pilots made an attempt to turn around and escape, only to crash head-on into the more courageous pilots behind them. The horde’s strength in numbers was quickly fading.
As the vehicles began to fire back at them in retaliation, the three Jackrabbits were too busy dodging various projectiles and shooting back with everything they had to notice that the rabbit who had originally attacked Jazz had disappeared from the front of the ranks.
Jazz didn’t even have enough time to react as he reappeared, in midair, and laid a crushing smash to the green-furred rabbit’s skull with the missile machine.
He was instantly knocked out cold.
Lori caught Jazz in mid-fall, hoisted him onto her back, and ran full bore forwards, leaving Spaz slightly behind her to kill the rabbit who had rendered Jazz unconscious. Spaz aimed and fired several times, but the rabbit simply deflected the shots off of the missile machine’s heavy armoured plating. Before Spaz could aim to compensate for the rabbit’s impromptu shielding, he landed a second knockout smash upon the red rabbit’s head, flattening him.
Lori slowed to a stop as Spaz fell to the ground, and lowered Jazz off of her back. Neglecting to wipe the beads of sweat from her furry forehead, she began blasting madly at the killer rabbit, still standing over Spaz’s limp body, in an almost blind rage. But a split-second before any of her shots struck the gray rabbit, he looked up, then simply disappeared into thin air.
Lori lowered her blaster. She felt so useless; after she had allowed that rabbit to defeat her brothers so rapidly, she had allowed him to get away unscathed. If only she had been faster in helping Spaz, or even Jazz, before they had been knocked flat out...
Lori had almost completely forgotten about the approaching remnants of the vehicle horde, but the growling sounds of their advancing engines quickly reminded her of their presence. She turned on a pivot toward the source of the engine noise, but all she saw was the heavily muscled arm of one turtle pilot, outstretched, in front of her face, and coming in fast.
There was a fraction of a second of immense pain.
And then everything went black.

“...Did you get ‘er?”
“Yep. Clotheslined ‘er right across the eyes, and at top speed, too. Laid ‘er out flat.”
“Good job. Load ‘em into the back of Drachoon’s carrier; Devan’ll be pleased with us when we get back.”
“Yeppers.”
“Oh, one other thing. Make sure you... disarm them first, before you put ‘em in.”
“I was going to do that.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Hey, where’d Vaper go?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Pers’nally, I couldn’t care less about ‘im. The little creep’s been around for two, three hours, and ‘e already acts like ‘e’s so much better than the rest of us.”
“That’s prolly ‘cause ‘e is, last I checked.”
“How d’you figure that?”
“Well, did you see how fast ‘e was movin’ around? I bet you couldn’t move that fast.”
“Durr. He’s a rabbit, we’re turtles, you moron! Of course ‘e moves faster’n we do!”
“Well, he sure moves a lot faster’n any rabbit I’ve ever seen. A whole lot faster’n that Jazz, too, by the way ‘e just up’n’crushed ‘im. Just like that.”
“Yeh, well, I still say he’s gettin’ too high’n’mighty for his own good. Next thing ya know, ‘e’ll be plottin’ to kick Devan out from his high seat, an’ he’ll take over. I can’t even picture myself bein’ led onwards by that... that... rabbit. I might as well leave now, while I still have the chance.”
“Shut up, before someone hears you!”
“What’s it matter, anyway?”
“Don’t you remember what happened to the last guy who said somethin’ like that? Remember what Devan did to ‘im?”
“Ooh, right... ‘e got... punished. Yeah, I remember.”
“Right. An’ I’m pretty sure you don’t want that happenin’ to you as well, now do ya?”
“Not really, no.”
“‘Xactly. C’mon, let’s go. The rabbits are all loaded into Drachoon’s carrier, an’ I don’t want to end up stickin’ around here waitin’ for who knows what, an’ then have to deal with reinforcements.”
“When was the last time you ever had to deal with reinforcements?”
“Well... never, but, y’know, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Y’know what?”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
“‘Kay.”


I seems to be doing much on my Palm. Which is why it's such a great investment.

Go get a Palm. *puts on spiral-y glasses* Goooooo geeeet Paaaaaaalm noooooow... @_@

[acid]

Oooooo scary!:O

I have the feeling we're going to have some slight problems facing Vaper... :D

Great story! Like it!^^ It would be nice if Acid might have a slightly larger cameo, but, hey, it's mostly about the real Jazz chars, so no problemo if you don't use Acid.:)

[4I Falcon]

Unfortunately, I can't think of anywhere to put Acid at the moment... maybe somewhere near the end of the story...

The way this looks, it's going to be a considerably short story. Only 70000-90000 characters. :( Ah well. It ish goot.

I've included a whole bunch of small thingy cameos already... such as the following:
That bulky, angular weapon on Vaper's arm is a spinoff of the Bullgut, from Shogo.
The 'Mechs... c'mon, please don't tell me you don't know where the 'Mechs are from.
The idea for the high-speed retreating battle was an idea I got from TankPilot, a game I have on my Palm. (So many uses, and it still fits into my pocket. :3)
I paraphrased that part about Jazz tripping over his fallen jaw from a story in the Ultimate Spider-Man anthology.
The Queen's nickname "Her Rotundity" comes from U.S. President Taft, who was referred to as "His Rotundity." No relation.
The phrase "I stand ready" was inspired by StarCraft: Brood War's Corsair. I play that way too often. *drool drool*
Just in case anyone was wondering, it stands for Direct Adrenal, Musculoskeletal, and Neural Energies Disruptor. Took me a long time to come up with that one, but I did it. ^_^


Well, now to go work on E:JF and finish Chapter God-knows-what. I've completely lost track by now.

Derby: Content clearance.

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 5: The Belly of the Beast

Jazz slowly came to with a pounding, excruciating pain banging away all over and around his head. It was as if someone had put his head in a vice. His whole body felt like it was being stretched in all directions. He went to put a hand over his forehead, as if to mollify the throbbing pain beating away at his skull.
Then he realized he couldn’t move his arm.
Jazz’s eyes snapped open, and he looked to his arms, then to his legs. He was tied, spread-eagled and upright by his wrists and ankles, to a large, stone circle. A quick look to his left proved that both his brother and sister were in a similar predicament, excepting that they were both still unconscious. No one else was in the large stone cavern in which he was tied.
Jazz struggled against the ropes that held him to the ring of stone. He even tried gnawing at the ropes with his long teeth, to no avail. The ropes were too strong, and tied too tightly, to make any progress in freeing himself; even his razor-sharp incisors did practically nothing against the taut ropes.
At this point, Lori came to. She made a similar move to Jazz, attempting to rub her aching nose, then realizing she couldn’t move her arms. She looked at the state of her arms, then looked to Jazz despairingly, not saying a word. She gave one last tug from her right arm, then gave up, hanging her head. Spaz was still mercifully unconscious as Devan walked into the cavern.
He looked up at the three helpless Jackrabbits, as if just noticing them there. Then he started laughing. “Bwahahahaha! I finally have you right where I want you! Tied, weaponless, and completely helpless, at my mercy!”
“Is that because you can’t handle us when we’re not tied down and helpless, captain stupidface?”
The impudent remark had come from Jazz. Devan glared up at the flippantly grinning rabbit, then pulled something out of his shell. It resembled a long, dark silver pistol, with a square body and an over-large barrel. As he aimed it at Jazz, the rabbit looked away, certain that he’d just sealed his own fate with his effrontery. He heard the electrical sound of a rapid discharge of energy, and squeezed his eyes closed, bracing for impact…
Surprisingly, the blue blast didn’t kill him. It did, however, smash into his midriff, and if he had not been so tightly tied to the stone ring Jazz would have fallen backwards about three feet. As it was, he did feel like a truck had just hit him in the stomach, and he coughed painfully as the blast hit him. However, always confident, Jazz looked back at his captor, with a thin trickle of blood issuing from his mouth, and sneered insolently once more. “Is that the best you can do? You didn’t even kill me!”
“Is that what you want?” Devan asked harshly. He aimed the elongated pistol at Jazz once more, and pulled the trigger. However, this time, instead of instantly emitting a blue energy blast, the pistol began to vibrate increasingly. Devan had to use both hands now to keep the energy pistol pointed at Jazz, and he looked down the body of the gun, keeping it accurately pointed at the green rabbit.
However, just as Devan appeared to be ready to fire the now intensely vibrating weapon, a single shot pinged off of its metal exterior. The recoil from the bullet, amplified by the wild vibrations, sent the supercharged blast soaring away, far above and to the right of Jazz, and put a crater in the stone wall that intercepted its path. Both Devan and Jazz looked for the source of the bullet.
Just in front of the stone ring that had held her in place before, Lori stood, holding Jazz’s blue blaster poised to fire again. Wrapped around her right wrist and both of her ankles were short sections of rope, burnt off at the edges. The fourth rope, which had held her left wrist, was still dangling, fully intact, from the stone circle. She had a menacing look on her face, and her eyes glinted as she gestured with Jazz’s blaster for Devan to put his gun down. Devan slowly did as Lori was indicating, gradually laying the pistol on the ground. Lori kept herself alert, in case Devan decided to quickly pick it up again and fire on her, or worse. However, Devan was atypically obedient, and he left the weapon on the ground, stepping away once, to show that he wasn’t going to grab it again. Next, Lori indicated, with short, sharp gestures towards the door, that Devan was to leave. At first, Devan didn’t understand, so he remained still. After attempting to convey her message at least a dozen times to the befuddled turtle, Lori gave up, rolled her eyes, and shot the ground next to Devan, who immediately jumped away, startled, and scrambled for the door in a mad rush. Lori smiled, satisfied with the turtle’s quick dispatch.
After Devan had made a hasty exit, Jazz stared down at his sister, who lowered the blaster when she was assured Devan was long gone. “Okay. First off, how did you get out of those ropes, and how in the name of Carrotus did you get my blaster?”
Lori looked back up to her still imprisoned brother. “Your first question can be answered with the simple statement that turtles can’t tie knots worth anything. As for your blaster, I took it off you when you got knocked out by that gray rabbit. Spaz’s and my own blasters are still AWOL, though; I bet they disarmed us before they brought us here. Huh, great job they did.” She spun Jazz’s blaster about her finger nonchalantly.
At this point, Spaz, although still unconscious, yelled out the words “GIANT DONUT!” at the top of his lungs. This sudden outburst of nonsense caused him to wake himself up, and his eyes popped open. He, unlike Jazz and Lori, immediately realized there was something wrong, as he was not usually bound and imprisoned inside a large rock cavern every day. He looked around puzzledly, until his eyes fell upon his sister, now standing on the cold stone floor, and his brother, who was still tied to the stone ring in which he had originally been placed.
Lori looked back up to Spaz, with a smile hovering about her lips. “Well, glad to see you’re awake. If you don’t mind, please never do that again.”
Spaz replied with a nod and his traditional overly-excited grin. “‘Kay.”
“Yes. Now would someone please get us out of here?!” Jazz yelled out. He glared down at Lori, who had now shifted her amused glance from Spaz to Jazz.
“Hold your durned carrots, bro, I’ll have you down from there in less than half a jiffy.” Lori flipped Jazz’s blaster around her finger, as if she were an expert at handling it. Catching it deftly in her hand, she took aim. Jazz underestimated Lori’s precision with weaponry, and he tilted his head slightly to avoid being incapacitated by his own gun.
Four shots severed the ropes like a hot knife through butter, and Jazz fell heavily to the ground. Quickly jumping back up and brushing himself off, Jazz scoffed at his sister. “Hah. Lucky shots. I could have done that with my eyes closed.”
“If you say so.”
“I could!”
“I’m sure.”
“I’m terribly sorry to break up your fascinating dialogue, but would you both please shut up and get me down from here?!” Spaz’s voice rang out angrily through the large stone cavern.
Lori shot at one of the ropes holding Spaz to the stone circle without even bothering to glance at him. Which proved to be a mistake, as the bullet singed off the whiskers on the left side of Spaz’s face without even touching any of the ropes.
Spaz was infuriated by Lori’s apparent lack of consideration. “Hey! Are you trying to free me or kill me? You might want to freakin’ well aim first! Jeez!”
Lori looked back up to Spaz’s form, now glaring, extremely irritated, back at her. He said something under his breath, but Lori didn’t catch at as she delivered four lightning fast shots, one to each of the ropes that held Spaz in place. Spaz, like Jazz, came tumbling down from the roughly ten-foot drop, and made a strange splat sound as he hit the stone floor. Lori hurried over to him to ensure that he had not been injured; after all, most rabbits do not make that kind of sound when they hit a solid surface. Most rabbits, anyway.
Spaz turned out to be completely fine, and he popped back up like a jackrabbit-in-the-box. He looked at Lori oddly, with an indignant glance and a “What?”
Lori simply shook her head, smiling. “You’re too much, Spaz. Just too much.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Jazz stood in the large exit of the cavern. “So are we going to go do something? I mean, we have to find both of your blasters, and since Devan’s presumably gone for a while, what better time to do it than now?”
“He’s got a point,” Spaz said to no one in particular.
“Alright then, Jazz,” Lori declared, “let’s go find those blasters. I feel naked without a weapon.”
“You have a weapon,” Jazz replied, pointing at his blaster, which was still in Lori’s hand.
Lori looked down at her hand, as if she had just noticed it there. “Ah, so I do. Well, let’s go find your… uh, my… um…”
“The other two blasters,” Jazz quickly interrupted.
“Yeah, that too.”
As they all reached the large portal leading out of the cavern, they slowly came to notice a gradually increasing rumbling sound. It sounded like an earthquake… but the floor wasn’t moving…
“Yes it is…” Jazz said quietly to himself.
“Yes is what?” Spaz asked anxiously.
Suddenly, the large white turret, now mounted on a set of tank treads instead of its original clawed stand, burst through the rock wall opposite the doorway. The wall crumbled as it broke through, then disintegrated as it became trapped under the rolling treads. The turret-tank rolled forwards, as the Jackrabbits stepped backwards a few paces, back into the cavern.
The tank rolled forward to block the doorway. The Jackrabbits quickly readied themselves to cut and run for another exit.
Then they realized that there was no other exit. The doorway that the turret-tank was blocking was the only way in or out of the cavern.
They were trapped.

Stuff in the next post.

[4I Falcon]

Well, I haven't updated in god knows how long, but I finished Chapter 5 today.

There's not really much to say here. Well, I've caught up to myself in writing E:JF and SoT, as I have recently finished a chapter in both of them.

Oh yeah, and the square-bodied pistol is based off of the Dispersion Pistol from Unreal.

That's it.










APPLE TAXI SPONGE

[Coppertop]

That's hilarious, 4I Falcon! RuxOr.

PS, can I join? No one else seems to be asking. Besides, I don't care if I'm a bad guy:D

[acid]

In reply to CopperTop:

The reason <s>nobody's</s> no one's asking to join is because this is mainly a story about the main Jazz Jackrabbit characters, not about ours.

Hope this clears up a few things, but I'm not saying 4I falcon won't let you be in the story!

[4I Falcon]

Regarding joiners:

Originally posted by 4I Falcon
Well, yes and no. This is supposed to be a "lost episode" of JJ2, or something. I'm not going to be taking as many joiners as I am with E:JF.

Maybe one or two. Three if I'm in a good mood.

I'm very flattered that you wanted to join my story, CT. I may be able to find a spot for you. Same with acid, except I already got a small cameo in for him.

Do you have a profile in the "Everyone's characters" thread that I can take a look at?

[Coppertop]

Yes, tho I think I may have an update for it.

[Coppertop]

*Growlz* CONTINUE!!!:eek:

[4I Falcon]

*jumps and falls off a cliff*

When I get chapter whatever-chapter-i'm-on-now finished, I'll post it here! I promise!

I don't know, SoT seems to have slowed down a whole bunch lately. I've been working on my character profiles and E:JF way too much. Tell you what, CT, I'll work on it right now, just to make you feel better.

:D I'm so generous.

[Coppertop]

*Feels better*

[Iam Canadian]

Wow. Excellent story so far. For some reason, the image of Spaz lying unconcious screaming "GIANT DONUT!" cracks me up. Um...include me. :p

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 6: Switching Sides

Devan’s head popped up from behind the turret, greeting the Jackrabbits with an evil grin. “Well hello! I see you’ve all managed to get yourselves out of my trap! Of course, those idiot henchmen I assigned to put you there could have done a better job, but what the hey, this might actually be something of a challenge!”
Jazz was becoming frantic. Here he was, facing off against his arch-enemy, and he didn’t have a single gun – or any weapon, for that matter – on him. Lori held the only gun between the three of them, and she slowly raised it to eye level, pointing it at Devan. The turtle scoffed.
“Bah! You think, at this point, I’d allow myself to be defeated by a little pipsqueak rabbit with a stupid little gun?” Devan sneered at Lori, then forgot himself. “Er, again?”
Devan pointed accusingly at Jazz. “You! You may have defeated me many times before, Jazz Jackrabbit, but this time the victory will be mine. I will never have to face you again, because, simply put, I will have you. In fact, not only you, but your brother and sister, as well.”
Lori, trying to retain her composure from Devan’s tirade, fired a single shot to the left of Devan’s head, so that it bounced off of the turret’s white metal exterior with a loud ping. However, instead of intimidating him, as it had before, it simply caused him to laugh again. “Oh, you silly little girl, you think you can even hope to dent my beautiful machine with that blaster of yours?”
“I’m willing to bet I could put a better dent in your skull, you stupid, sadistic shellfish…” Lori said, through grinding teeth, reaiming the blaster so it was lined up with Devan’s forehead. However, Devan didn’t look anxious in the least, which simply added to Lori’s frustration. She pulled the trigger, sending a white-hot blast of energy directly at the impertinent turtle’s skull.
Devan grinned evilly. The bullet glanced off of him like it was a piece of dust. Infuriated, Lori sent a dozen more blasts at Devan’s head, and each one bounced off of him like he was made of steel.
Lori blinked. Was it Devan that so easily deflected the bullets? Surely not, as this blaster had taken him down more than once before. She fired one last shot in desperation, and it too, rebounded off of him.
Something white flashed in front of Devan’s face as the bullet approached, ricocheting it away. Devan had some sort of invisible shield around the open part of the turret, deflecting any projectiles so they would do no harm to the driver.
Devan laughed again. “Unbelievable. You rabbits still think you can beat me. I admire your persistence, but, unfortunately for you, nothing can defeat me this time. I have the most ultimate way to destroy you, once and for all… and it’s right under my fist.”
Lori lowered the gun. Her eyes darted from one part of the turret to another, searching for anything that could constitute a weak point. No exposed joints, flimsy plates of armour, or any other weak spots betrayed themselves to her, and she felt a single bead of sweat roll down the back of her head.
Devan grinned widely, baring his teeth in a devilish leer. “Now, I have one last thing to say before I vanquish you…”
He raised his fist, about to bring it crashing down on the red ignition button. “Run, rabbits, run!”
All three of the Jackrabbits backpedaled as the massive turret launched a single, bright red missile. The projectile cut through the air, and the Jackrabbits scattered to avoid being its first target. Spaz was the unlucky one to be traced by the missile, and it seemed to put on an extra boost of power to catch up with the small red rabbit.
A second missile blasted out of the turret, and gyrated in the air before coming back downward again. This time, Jazz was its intended target, and it chased after him like an angry, blood-red wasp. Jazz immediately scarpered as fast as possible, but the missile just kept gaining on him.
The third and last missile was shot out of the massive turret. It seemed to stall in midair, then came plummeting back down again. As if it knew that the other two target rabbits had been taken care of, the missile directed itself at Lori, and charged full-bore at her retreating back.
Without warning, Lori turned around, with Jazz’s blaster raised, and sent a cavalcade of quick shots at the approaching missile. Each one rebounded off of the red metal, but with considerably more effect than they had had on the turret. As the shots hit the projectile, they knocked it temporarily out of control, spinning it wildly from one side to the other. Lori slowly strafed to her left, keeping the hail of gunfire strong, and hoping that she could confuse the onboard computer enough to drive it crazy.
Suddenly, one of the bullets evidently hit a weak spot on the missile, as the blast drove right into its side and plunged out the other, drilling a hole right through it. The missile flipped backwards, like a dead animal, and then erupted into a black fireball as it flew towards Lori. Thinking quickly, the rabbit jumped as high as she could, to avoid the dark fireball as it rushed by.
The edge of the cloud managed to catch the tip of her right foot as she was at the peak of her jump, and when she landed on the stone floor again, her right foot felt abnormally cold. She looked down, and gasped in horror. The fur on the lower half of her right foot had turned to a dark, silver-blue colour, and it was slowly spreading upwards toward her ankle. Lori, suddenly stricken with a wave of panic, looked back and forth, as if to try to find something to stop the silvery tone from spreading across her foot.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the dark tone began to shrink into a smaller and smaller circle upon her foot, with her normal yellow fur replacing it as it shrank. As she watched, the blue part disappeared within a few seconds. She sighed in relief as the wave of panic that had passed over her faded. She had not yet seen that her brothers did not fare as well as she did.
Spaz, being the first to be traced by the missiles, was the first to be put to action. At first, he ran as hard as he could, straight away from the incoming projectile. However, one look behind him proved that, while he was fast, the missile was faster.
Suddenly, Spaz jumped forward a short distance, to set himself up for a jump. Less than a half second after he landed, he sprung again, and performed an unusually graceful backflip up and over the missile. Spinning halfway around in midair, he landed on the ground again, facing away from the missile, and ready to get up and run again. But the half-second Spaz needed to start running was all the missile needed to turn itself around, explode, and send its dark cargo flying at him. Spaz didn’t get a full step forward before the dark essence hit him.
Jazz, on the other hand, trusted his breakneck swiftness to keep him away from the missile that was tailing him. He didn’t look backwards at the red rocket, but instead practically flew along the outside wall. However, the missile almost seemed to realize that there was nowhere for Jazz to escape, and it spun on an axis to face the other way, and rocketed along the outer wall in the opposite direction. Jazz, never having looked behind him, did not realize that the missile had doubled back, and that the two were racing toward each other on a collision course along the curved cavern walls. Not twenty meters along the wall, Jazz saw the rocket speeding towards him. Running on autopilot by this point, he spun around, trying to get away from it again. It caught up to him before he had started in the other direction.
Both Jazz and Spaz were almost immediately trapped in black spheres after the darknesses entered them. Jazz began to rise slowly, as the sphere carried him a few feet above the ground, and it looked like his arms and legs were being pulled to their limits, keeping him spread eagled inside the sphere. Spaz, although not hovering as high up as Jazz, was flipped upside down, and was arched backwards in a certainly painful position. They both appeared to be screaming silently in pain as their bodies were stretched to their limits. Lori was still panting from the close call she had just had with her own missile, and she had her back to her brothers.
A loud crack was made from behind her, and she turned around. Jazz and Spaz were floating in midair, five feet from each other, both imprisoned in dark spheres. Another crack sounded, and a thick, black bolt of electricity, if that was indeed what it was, connected the two spheres for a split second. Lori could only watch in horror as Jazz and Spaz were tormented inside the black orbs, and for the third time that day, she felt powerless to do anything. Her jaw dropped in dread as she realized that this was what Devan, having waited years, had finally achieved: the defeat of Jazz Jackrabbit, even without having caused his gruesome death.
Lori looked on as the two spheres exploded into glass-like shards, and Jazz and Spaz fell to the ground. They both landed on their feet, and they knelt there, in silence. As Lori looked back, she noticed, as Devan had noticed with Vaper, that their fur had radically changed. Jazz’s fur was now jet-black, and scarcely a glint shone off of its pitch-like hue. Spaz’s fur had changed from its normal red to a silver-gray, and he had what appeared to be a light silver stripe running down his back.
Then, as if by some cue, their eyes snapped open. Jazz’s eyes, like Vaper’s, had changed to a deep red. Spaz’s had changed from their normal green to a pale white. They stood up in sync, and waited for a signal.
“Hahahahahaha! Well, two’s better than zero, but I won’t have to worry about that for long! I may not have been able to get you, but I’m sure your brothers will be more than pleased to do the job for me!”
The Turbulents charged.

[4I Falcon]

In honour of CT's as of yet unnamed story, I have updated System of Turbulence. Enjoy.

Oh, and I also have Acid, Coppertop, and Canadian booked for some rather large appearances. Now if I can just remember how I'm going to do this, it'll be all good.

[Coppertop]

Love it:D

[Iam Canadian]

Wow. You're actually including me. ;) I honestly didn't expect that. Not that being included is a bad thing, of course. :p You can use Canadian Bot and American too if you want. Their profiles are in your character topic, 4I Falcon. ;)

[Coppertop]

Don't call him 41, he'll yell. I have had the benifit of that experience.:eek:

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 7: Into the Fray

Eva paced back and forth inside her room. She was mumbling to herself, and looking frantically around the room, looking for something that wasn’t there. The princess was obviously in a state of disorder over worrying about her absent husband-to-be, and had been for the past fifteen minutes. She had not yet noticed her mother, standing in the doorway, and observing her bemusedly.
“How long have you been doing that?”
Eva jumped, startled. She glared at her mother, with an expression of righteous indignation stamped upon her face. “Mum! How long have you been standing there?!”
The Queen smiled. “About ten minutes, why?”
“You were watching me for ten minutes?”
“You really weren’t doing anything interesting. What’s all the pacing for?”
Eva’s indignance died down. She looked off to one side, as if she was avoiding looking into her mother’s eyes; then she looked out the window forlornly. “I’m worried about Jazz.”
The Queen chuckled. “That rabbit reprobate? I’m sure he’s fine, Eva. He’s gotten out of tougher scrapes than this, and he’s always managed to come back and pester me to no end. Don’t worry about him; he’ll be back in no time.”
Eva continued to look out the window, waiting for an uplifting sight. “I don’t know. I feel like something really... bad has just happened. Something really bad. But I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like a premonition that I can’t explain.”
She sat down heavily on her bed. “I can’t shake it, mum. I can’t help but fear the worst.”
Queen Earlong sat down gently on the bed, next to her daughter, and laid a tender arm about her shoulders. She tried to pick her words carefully, so that she didn’t accidentally prod Eva’s distress further. “Eva, I know you love Jazz. I know why you love Jazz, and I’m not downplaying that at all. But at the moment, we can’t do anything. We have to trust him to get back himself.”
As Eva took a deep breath, her mother mentally smacked herself in the forehead. She obviously realized she had said something completely wrong, as she felt Eva’s shoulders shudder in silent, broken sobs. Her mind raced as she frantically searched for something to say to make up for her accidental ignorance.
The Queen decided to try a different path. “Remember the first time Jazz had to... uh, get rid of Devan? When he rescued you from that cage on Acidius?”
Eva looked to her mother. Her sobs had lessened in magnitude, and she waited for the Queen to continue. After hesitating momentarily, she did.
“Jazz had to fight his way through twenty-five – twenty-five! – planets, full of Devan’s little goonies, to find you. I’d say if he can get through that, he can get through pretty much anything.”
The Queen embraced her daughter gently. “Don’t worry about Jazz, Eva. He’s come back before, and he’ll come back again, I’m sure of it. Jazz will be back before you know it, safe and–”
At this moment, Acid, the castle’s resident technobrat, and the only rabbit in the castle with an exploding coffee maker, burst into the room. He was panting slightly, but he did not forget to bow in the presence of the Queen. “Your Majesty, thank goodness I found you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. We have a problem.”
Queen Earlong stood up quickly. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Acid hesitated. He looked to Eva, then back to the Queen. He took a deep breath, and relayed the bad news. “We’ve lost the Jackrabbits.”
“What?!” Queen Earlong was suddenly hysterical. “What do you mean, we’ve lost the Jackrabbits?”
“They were... incapacitated at the field of engagement. All of them.” He stuttered, trying to find words that could convey his point, without worrying the already anxious Princess further. No words came from his mouth as he scratched the back of his head, trying to think of something to say. He quickly gave up, and turned around. He simply said, “Follow me.” before leaving the room.
The Queen stood, glanced at her daughter apologetically, then went after Acid outside, leaving Eva sitting on her bed, staring blankly at the open door, sobbing and alone.

Queen Earlong caught up to Acid a short way down the hall. The latter could easily tell that the former was not impressed with him.
“You know, you could not have picked a worse time to say that. I was right in the middle of telling Eva that that idiot rabbit would come back.”
“I apologize, your Majesty, but I had to find you ASAP, wherever you were. That’s how it works in matters of global emergency.”
“Jazz? Cause for global emergency?” The Queen scoffed, but Acid remained dead serious.
“Jazz and his brother and sister are everything we have to defend against Devan Shell. No one can even compare to them in speed, accuracy, and whatnot. With all due respect, if I were you, I’d be pretty worried if the only viable defense Carrotus has suddenly went MIA.”
Queen Earlong took Acid’s words into consideration as they continued down the hallway towards the younger’s area of expertise: the castle’s technology wing. Her brow was furrowed, and her expression had changed from a look of sarcasm to one of worry. “I don’t want to admit it, but I think you’re right. They’ve been working around the clock to stop that tyrannical turtle in his tracks. I’d hate to lose them now.”
“Agreed. They’re the best of the best, and the only shot we’ve got.”
Out of nowhere, the Queen smiled. “That was pretty good. Be sure to write that down somewhere.”
“Um... okay...”
A few minutes later, they entered the technology wing, a single, enormous room, filled with technological paraphernalia from wall to wall. Several rabbits occupied stations and computers in various places around the room, and there were a few active terminals with no one sitting at them. As Acid progressed to one, he called out, “No one’s touched my compy, right?”
There was a resounding chorus of “Right”s, and Acid fell carelessly into a chair in front of one of the active terminals. The Queen stood behind him, waiting to see what he had to show her.
“I sent a little bug out after them, to make sure they didn’t get themselves killed or something. It stored a vid of the battle, and it managed to get itself back to us to deliver the vid. This is how it turned out...”
A video popped up on-screen, starting with the Jackrabbits tearing across the flat plains, unaware that they were being viewed from a distance by Acid’s “bug.” Jazz was a few metres ahead of his brother and sister, and as the point of view shifted, they could see what the three were running towards: a grey rabbit, being followed by a huge dust cloud. The two rabbits seemed to be on a collision course as they veritably flew toward each other. As the Jackrabbits sprinted along the flatlands, the bug, and therefore the viewpoint, changed, moving forward with the three heroes.
Suddenly, the grey rabbit lifted his arm, and grabbed a hold of the machine that seemed to be attached to the lower half of his arm. He looked down the length of the machine, poising himself to fire on Jazz.
Just before he fired, however, the vid stopped. Acid pointed to the weapon displayed on the screen. “Do you recognize this weapon?”
The Queen looked at him puzzledly. “Should I?”
“Well, you probably should, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, that answers my question. That appears to be a new version of the Hercules, a portable multi-missile launcher I helped engineer a few years back, after getting the go-ahead from your good self. Devan must have gotten hold of the prototype and retrofitted it for use by his own forces. In any case...”
The vid resumed playing, and the scene was, to put it mildly, not uplifting. The dust cloud behind the grey rabbit appeared to clear away, and now dozens of armed vehicles showed themselves. The Jackrabbits were forced to bolt as three missiles plowed into the ground where they had been not even a full second ago. Lori had turned around, and fired several bullets randomly into the mechanical masses. Jazz and Spaz quickly followed their sister’s example, firing blast after blast into the horde, picking away at their numbers.
Then, from out of nowhere, the grey rabbit appeared above Jazz. He hadn’t jumped, or ran, but simply appeared. Before Jazz could react, he clubbed the green rabbit down with a single smash of the Hercules. Lori caught her brother in mid-fall, but didn’t get far, as Spaz was decimated not fifteen seconds after Jazz.
Lori set Jazz back on the ground again after Spaz was smacked down, and turned to fire at least a dozen more bullets at the grey rabbit; but before any of them made contact, he disappeared.
Lori looked at the ground, devastated by her loss. She only looked up in time to be clotheslined across the face by an approaching pilot.
There was nothing more to the video worth watching, as Acid closed the vidwindow. He turned to the Queen. “Now you know.”
Queen Earlong was stupefied. “But… so… where are they now?”
“We’ve traced them to the Rockius Mountains, and Mount Whitespire to be even more precise. My first priority, after seeing the vid, was to come find you; my second was to get going and find them.”
The Queen stared at him, but Acid knew that she was really looking off into space, once again, deep in thought. Her eyes snapped back to his, and she nodded. “Go then.”
Suddenly, a dark grey-furred rabbit stood from her chair. She glanced at Acid, shouldering his pack and readying himself to be gone, then said to the Queen, “I’m going too.”
“So am I.” A red-furred rabbit had also risen from his seat. “We’re not about to sit back here and be tortured by the knowledge that the Jackrabbits have been captured by Devan Shell. We’re going to help.”
Acid looked from the grey rabbit Coppertop, to the red-furred Iam Canadian, then back to Coppertop. “But…”
“No buts, Acid. We’re coming with you whether you want us to or not.”
Acid grinned. “So be it. Get yourselves moving; we’re heading out in ten minutes.”

[4I Falcon]

Like I said, it's about freaking time, too.

Nothing interesting to put in here. Canadian and Coppertop are in, as promised. I have no clue what to do for Chapter 8. Hopefully something interesting.

Anyway.

[Iam Canadian]

Ooh. I can't wait to see where this is going.

[Coppertop]

YEESSSSS!!!!!!
*dances around in circles, screaming*
Okay, I'm done now.
Thanks, 4I. Perfect ...

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 8: Killer Instinct

“So do we have any idea what happened to the Jackrabbits after that uplifting vid of yours?” Coppertop asked Acid, as they bolted out of Carrotus Castle.
“None whatsoever. The only clue we have is that they were taken to the Rockius Mountains, and Mount Whitespire in particular. After that, we draw a blank.”
“The Rockius Mountains? Isn’t that where they were trying to go in the first place?”
“Well, yes and no. While they did indeed get there, they were taken there by force. Devan’s going to try to resolve his past mistakes. He’s not going to risk anything.”
“And this means...?”
“Devan will do anything and everything to give himself the advantage over the Jackrabbits, even if it’s completely arbitrary. I’ll bet my coffee maker that he made sure they had been disarmed first.”
Coppertop made no response, but instead concentrated on where she was running. None of the three said anything as they sped along the Carrotan flatlands.
Before long, the looming, jagged monstrosity of the Rockius Mountains cast its enormous shadow upon the three runners. Canadian looked upwards, in an attempt to find the pinnacles of the towering stone spires, but they were lost in the clouds above, the greyish-white clouds themselves making the already tall mountains look even more enormous than they actually were. The three rabbits were headed directly at the tallest mountain, and closing fast. At the rate at which they were moving, they could make it from the base of the mountain to its peak in less than fifteen minutes, if they had started at the base of the mountain.
Without warning, an explosion erupted from the side of the mountain facing them, propelling rock and debris outwards from the cliff face above. Acid signaled to the other two rabbits to stop as the flames licked outwards, like a small volcano venting its molten innards out through the mountain’s surface.
From out of the fire came Lori, flying out of the farthest reaches of the heated tongues of flame. She flew outwards, for a split second seeming to defy gravity, and then came plummeting downward again. She hit the ground running, and raced toward the foot of the mountain at an incredible speed.
The fiery explosion had finally died off, and from the cloud of smoke and dust came a brilliant blue beam of energy. It tore down the mountainside, leaving a rut a foot wide and two feet deep streaking down the rock face. Lori immediately dodged away from the blue energy beam as it sliced by her, and it disappeared not long past her.
As if the blue beam wasn’t enough, the unique and unmistakeable sound of a multi-shot gauss gun reported repeatedly from the dust cloud. Explosions left craters in the stone surface, and Lori started to zigzag down the slope, in an attempt to throw off the user’s aim. It seemed to work; Lori had already made it halfway down the mountain without an injury, other than some slightly charred fur from the original explosion.
The dust cloud began to clear. It was then that Acid, Coppertop, and Canadian could see the two gunners, armed with their weapons. Acid gasped in surprise as he realized that he recognized the two almost immediately.
It was Jazz and Spaz Jackrabbit, Lori’s own siblings – or was it? Outwardly, they looked like the two famous Jackrabbit brothers, excepting one major detail; their fur colours had all gone to greyscale. Jazz’s normally green-hued fur had become as black as pitch, and Spaz’s crimson fur, interrupted on his chest by a tone of brilliant gold, had turned to deep grey and lighter silver, respectively. Jazz was armed with a shoulder-mounted beam cannon, and Spaz attacked with, as previously assumed, a four-barreled, gauss-gatling weapon. They seemed uninterested in the three rabbits at the base of the mountain, but instead concentrated their hail of weapon fire on the rapidly descending Lori.
Then it happened. As Lori dodged around another blue beam razing down the mountain at her, one of the multitude of gauss shells exploded too close to her. It sent her flying off the face of the mountain in a crazed headfirst dive, topping 75 kilometers per hour. Iam Canadian immediately put himself into action, running headlong towards the falling rabbit.
Fortunately, Canadian made it to Lori before the ground did, catching her with outstretched arms. He nearly toppled over backward as Lori’s body slammed into his own, but managed to keep his balance,
backstepping once or twice.
Lori looked at him. “Nice catch.”
Canadian chuckled. “Thanks.”
“You can put me down now.”
“Okay.”
As soon as Lori’s feet touched the rock surface of the mountain, another blue beam sliced into the thick stone, and began to advance towards them at an alarmingly rapid rate. Both of them dodged out of the way as the beam razed past them, and Lori raised Jazz’s blaster up towards her two brothers, sending a quick volley of bullets upwards. Spaz quickly responded with a hail of gauss blasts ripping into the mountain’s surface, but Lori and Canadian were already long gone.
Coppertop provided cover fire for them as they continued their hasty descent down the mountainside, and Acid had stood his crimson missile launcher on its end to drop one of its infamous RaCO rockets into the barrel. Quickly checking the depth of the rocket into the barrel, he swung the massive red missile launcher up onto his shoulder, and aimed at the two gunners.
There was a roar as the missile was blasted out of the barrel of Acid’s rocket launcher. It began to pick up speed as soon as it left the barrel, and left a trail of smoke along the sky as it sped toward Jazz and Spaz. Acid immediately realized what he had just done: by sending such a powerful missile at them, he had essentially killed the two Jackrabbit brothers even before the missile exploded. He could only watch in slackjawed horror as the missile continued to accelerate toward the two gray-furred gun-rabbits.
But just before the missile made contact with the stone surface of the mountain, causing it to explode in a giant shockwave, the two Jackrabbits simply disappeared from view. They hadn’t run, but merely disappeared.
The missile, however, continued onward, and it crashed into the side of the mountain, setting off its massive payload. The resulting explosion blew an enormous hole into the side of the mountain, sending large chunks of stone both back into the hole from which Lori had made her leap of faith, and outwards into space, only to be pulled back down again by the force of gravity.
Acid had to dodge out of the way as one particularly large rock crashed into the ground where he had stood. Rocks came flying from the sky like giant hailstones, and the four rabbits at the base of the mountain scurried out of the way of falling rocks as jagged-edged pieces of precipitation embedded themselves into the ground like giant, irregular gravestones. Canadian and Coppertop ran headfirst into each other as they dodged showers of pebbles from the air. Lori quickly made for the limit of the range of the torrential storm of stone, and successfully dodged projectiles as she dashed away from the mountain.
By the time the rocks had ceased falling, no one was injured, save for a few bumps to the three who, as Lori had done unthinkingly, had not made haste for the outer boundary of the rockfall. Lori made long, ardent strides back to the group, who were still dusting themselves off from the various debris that had fallen on them.
Acid sneezed, and a cloud of dust floated outward from his fur. For a few seconds, the dust lingered like an aura around the amused rabbit; then, as it settled on the ground, Acid chuckled. “Wow. I must have had a beach in my fur.”
Coppertop flicked her small tail idly. A similar cloud of dust arose, then slowly floated back to the ground. “Mount Whitespire is made of igneous rock, not sedimentary... Where the heck is all this dust coming from?”
“Beats me,” Canadian replied, with a shrug. He happened to glance upwards at the enormous hole that Acid’s missile left in the mountain. “Well, would you look at that.”
“What?” Lori asked, looking up to match Canadian’s gaze.
“Not only did Acid manage to take a good quarter of the mountain out, but he also got us a pretty wide way in to Devan’s base.”
Acid squinted up at the large hole he had put into the mountain. “Well, so I did. That was convenient.”
“So… are we going to go in, or not?” Lori asked, with a hint of impatience in her voice. “I mean, what better time than the present to go whip Devan’s slimy butt and get Jazz and Spaz back?”
“You mean those two were your brothers?”
Lori hung her head. “Unfortunately, yes. I even had to watch them become… like that.” She paused. “It was horrible. They looked like they were in so much pain… like their bodies were being pulled apart…”
Suddenly, she vented on no one in particular. “Dammit! If only I had been just a little bit faster! Then none of this would have happened!”
“Lori, it’s okay!” Coppertop tried frenetically to calm the suddenly enraged Jackrabbit down, but she didn’t appear to be making progress. “You did the best you could. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because that’s the truth. But now… Lori, your brothers are counting on us to get them back. So let’s not keep them waiting, huh?”
With an awkward smile, Lori turned to Coppertop. “You’re right, Copper. I’m sorry, guys, I shouldn’t have over-reacted like that. It’s just that… well, you know how close me and my brothers are.”
“It’s alright, Lori. I’m sure Jazz or Spaz would do the same for you any day.”
Acid grinned. “Well, now that we have that all cleared up, what say we head for Devan’s base?”
“I’m ready.”
“Good idea.”
“I’m all for it.”
“Well then, let’s make haste, shall we?”
Without another word, the four departed, with Lori at the forefront. She knew that if anyone was going to save her brothers from whatever Devan had done to them… she was the one to do it.

[4I Falcon]

I just narrowly saved it from the edge of the forum. I just want you all to know that I worked extra hard on this to get it done before April 30th.

Now, I only have one thing to say...




ACID! GO UPDATE ANIMALS!

NOW!

[Iam Canadian]

Good work, keep it going.

[Coppertop]

/me is insanely delighted. Excellent job. Better'n me:p

*stops beating head*
I claim this in prior post in name of the wonderful EDIT FUNCTION! So nya, 4I:D ...

[4I Falcon]

Thanks, Canadian and Coppertop. Chapter 9 has not yet been started, but it hasn't been stopped, either.

I claim this page in the name of SuperDuperman. (My theme song. Written by yours truly.)

[Coppertop]

NO! *screams madly and beats head against wall*

[4I Falcon]

Okay, I'll let you have it, CT. Just because I'm so generous.

[Coppertop]

You rock. Thanks.
*wanders off*

[acid]

Who cares about pages? I for one am eagerly anticipating the next chapter! :o

[Coppertop]

The feeling is mutual, I assure you.
*taps fingers impatiently*

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 9: Clash

Jazz and Spaz appeared behind Devan, standing at attention, deep inside the turtle’s mountain lair. The two had not been hurt by the massive explosion, but they were obviously smart enough not to get caught in the blast. Now, they stood ready, behind Devan, awaiting his commands patiently. Devan was standing near a lizard at a control panel, and the lizard was tapping away madly at the various buttons and keys, displaying Lori’s havoc-wreaking escape from the mountain, and her rendezvous with Acid, Coppertop, and Canadian. He had already seen the gaping hole that Acid’s rocket had left in his mountain, and he knew that they were rapidly approaching to desolate his base beyond repair.
“One got away.” Devan spoke slowly and quietly. “But one is enough. I cannot be safe until all three are under my power, and the threat facing me has been extinguished.”
He turned around, to face the Jackrabbit brothers. “And how, pray tell, did one rabbit escape three Turbulents and a mountainful of armed lizards and turtles?”
Jazz and Spaz remained silent, unsure of whether to answer Devan’s question or not. They stood stock still, watching Devan’s face.
“And now, she’s coming back, with three friends. If you can’t stop one, your own sister, how do you expect to stop four?!”
They knew it was true; if Lori was able to evade both Jazz and Spaz, their new partner Vaper, and a slew of reptiles under their command, they wouldn’t have the slightest hope of defeating their sister, her mercenary friend Coppertop, and whoever the other two rabbits were.
At that moment, Vaper entered. “Milord, the rabbits have breached the surface, and they’re fighting their way in alarmingly fast. What shall we do?”
Devan sighed in dismay. “Release the Attacknids. Vaper, you may use whatever you prefer; same goes for you two. Do not let them escape you again.”
As the three rabbits left, Devan turned again, and stared into space, thinking deeply. If he were to lose Whitespire, he would lose his greatest advantage against the rabbits since he had the advantage of surprise during his first campaign, when he had kidnapped the princess and thrown Carrotus into chaos. He would not lose against his enemies again.

The Attacknids were giant robot spiders, each armed with a chaingun on the front of its head, framed by burning orange eyes, and a single rocket perched on a holder on its back. One alone was an adept fighting force; Lori, Canadian, Coppertop, and Acid were forced to face off against one each, as well as the seemingly endless scores of lizards and turtles that threw themselves at the advancing rabbits, only to be ultimately destroyed. Acid’s rocket launcher was suddenly useless against the masses, as he couldn’t use the weapon in the close quarters of the cavernous corridor in which the battle raged. As a result, Coppertop lent him her navy blaster, then went about the skirmish like a nightmare, slicing into and through foes with the murderous blade of her sword Shale. While not as comfortable with a blaster as he was with his devastating rocket launcher, he quickly caught on to the idea of point and shoot rather than fire and forget.
The Attacknids were a far more difficult foe than any of the sentient cold-blooded minions, as they were surprisingly agile despite their cumbersome weaponry. The lizards and turtles frequently tripped over each other, and didn’t seem to follow any sort of plan, whereas the Attacknids were perfectly coordinated in their strikes against the rabbits, appearing to be controlled by a single intelligence.
However, the blunt stupidity of the lizards and turtles turned out to be in the rabbits’ advantage. Their guns were not exactly fitted for accuracy, and as the rabbits flew in front of them, they could only pull the trigger and hope they hit something. This was often a big mistake, as the Attacknids that they hit would immediately turn on them, and riddle them full of holes. This, in turn, allowed the attackers time to get behind the Attacknids, and deal them some serious damage while not dealing with their business end.
Finally, the balance of the battle tilted in their favour as Acid hit an Attacknid right between the eyes, causing its whole head to explode in a shower of sparks and debris. Acid, taken aback by the sudden defeat of the robotic spider, jumped back, colliding with a group of lizards. They went down in a pile of scales and fur, and Acid lashed out with Coppertop’s blaster, laying a few lizards low with mighty smashes with the blunt butt of the gun.
Weaving among the bedazzled lizards, throwing a punch once and catching a turtle in the face, he made his way over to Coppertop, who was skilfully dancing in front of her Attacknid’s gun, pouncing in close enough to lay a ringing blow off of its armour, then dashing back again. There were several long dents in its armour, and it looked like it had taken quite a beating from Shale; however, it seemed unfazed by the numerous hits it had taken.
Coppertop hardly even saw Acid before he was straddled on the Attacknid’s back, and the single missile on its launcher was flung across the room, exploding into the massed ranks of scaly soldiers. Acid immediately began to hammer down on the Attacknid’s small, round head, and the blows raining down upon the weak appendage eventually took their toll as the head broke off of the main body. Acid leaped away as it collapsed and exploded.
Acid wiped a hand across his brow, mock wiping sweat off of his forehead, as Coppertop approached him. “Not bad, Acid, not bad.”
Acid nodded. “Thanks. What say we go help Lori and Canadian dismantle those other two electronic eyesores?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The remaining two Attacknids were quickly dispatched as the odds were doubled against them. Coppertop impaled one with her sword as Lori knocked its head off with her fearsome spinkick, and Canadian and Acid both drilled the other one, from opposite sides, with blaster bullets, which quickly drove through its armour and into its inner workings. After that, the remaining reptiles were no hard task to clean up.
Acid handed Coppertop’s gun back to her, handle-first, with an impressive flip in the palm. “Thanks for the weaponry. I think I owe you one.”
“Nah, forget it. It was enough to see you on that thing’s back, bashing away on its head and screaming at the top of your lungs. I’m going to remember that for a long time.” She grinned.
“Yeah, so am I. Good times,” he chuckled.
As they looked around the suddenly empty main cavern, they realized that either Devan had run out of cronies to throw at them, or he was waiting for them to spring a trap. Knowing the infamous turtle mastermind, it was more than likely the latter.
They moved slowly and cautiously through the chamber, their eyes scanning for any signs of an imminent ambush, a hidden trap, or anything of the sort. Nothing obvious sprang out at them from the dark stone walls; then again, Devan was not one for laying obvious traps, so they had to keep their eyes open for anything that looked out of the ordinary. They edged down the cavernous hallway as a group, and their eyes scrutinized every detail of their surroundings.
There was a foreboding presence around them, and Acid didn’t like it. “Is it just me, or do you guys feel something… wrong here?”
They stopped, and Lori looked around anxiously. After a short while, she lowered her head, and shuddered slightly, as if a cold breeze had just struck her. “You’re right. I don’t know what it is, but there’s definitely something here that’s not kosher.”
Canadian caught a glimpse of what looked like a silver flash, in one of the shadowy corners of the cavern, but he couldn’t make out what it was. He kept it in mind for the moment, and where he had seen it, so that he could tell the others. However, for the moment, the coldness of the cavern seemed to begin to perturb them, slowing them down. Eventually, they came to a halt, shivering like they were in a freezer.
Canadian complained vehemently. “Jeez, can’t that slimy-beaked fanatical freak keep the thermostat a bit higher? It’s like we’re walking through an icebox here!”
Coppertop shivered again. “Well, he is cold-blooded, so I doubt it really matters to him what the temperature is. But you’re right, it’s definitely not comfortable in here. I feel like my fur’s going to freeze up.”
Lori was less quiet about her sneezing, but she was polite enough to turn her head away before doing so. “What are we looking for, anyway?”
“Us?”
They looked upwards as three figures dropped from the ceiling above them. All three were rabbits, and easily recognizable.
One was the super-strong assailant who had assaulted the Jackrabbits on their first journey to Mount Whitespire. He still had markings in the fur on his right arm from the immense weight of the Hercules weapon that he had used against the trio.
The other two were none other than Jazz and Spaz Jackrabbit.
Jazz grinned insolently at Lori. “Oh, don’t look so stunned, dear sister. You saw this coming.”
Lori closed and opened her mouth again in astonishment. Jazz had suddenly acquired the bulk of grown muscles; not huge sets, but enough to demonstrate that he was much stronger than he had been before his capture. Spaz, on the other hand, was still wiry, but he was definitely taller than he was when Lori knew him.
Spaz chuckled, and looked to Jazz. “I don’t think our sister knows who we are anymore. Then again, she never did catch on quickly to anything…”
Coppertop snarled at them, defending her friend’s dignity, but said nothing. She wasn’t sure what to say to the two rabbits who she thought would have been able to escape Devan’s experiments without a scratch.
Vaper snarled back. “Nothing to say? Then prepare to die in the name of Lord Devan Shell!”
Before any of the four could react, the Turbulents already had their blasters out, and they had to scramble in a mad retreat as the guns blazed…

[4I Falcon]

10000 characters exactly.

Sorry for the massive delay. I meant to have this finished a long time ago, like early June, but then there was finals. Thankfully that's over now, so I might be getting a bit more work done on both SoT and E:JF within the next two months, if my new job doesn't take up all of my time.

Anyway, enjoy.

[acid]

yAy

mrmflsh. You forgot 2 things in that chapter:

1: Acid has a silver blaster similar to Jazz's, along with his rocket launcher.
2: Turtles are cold blooded, yes, but heat DOES effect cold blooded animals. If Devan wanted a different tempeture in there, he would heat it UP, rather than tone it DOWN, since cold blooded animals are more active in heat than in cold. That's why you'll see things like snakes and turtles basking in the sun, they're warming up their blood to gain energy.

[4I Falcon]

Originally posted by acid
yAy

mrmflsh. You forgot 2 things in that chapter:

1: Acid has a silver blaster similar to Jazz's, along with his rocket launcher.
2: Turtles are cold blooded, yes, but heat DOES effect cold blooded animals. If Devan wanted a different tempeture in there, he would heat it UP, rather than tone it DOWN, since cold blooded animals are more active in heat than in cold. That's why you'll see things like snakes and turtles basking in the sun, they're warming up their blood to gain energy.

1. Acid forgot it. Well, not as much forgot as he figured he was only going to need his rocket launcher for the mission. And who would blame him? Blowing up a mountain with nuclear missiles is great fun!

2. It's not the mountain that's cold; it's something that has to do with the Turbulents. I'll explain it later, but I can tell you that this means that while the advancing four rabbits are cold, they're about the only ones who are.

[Coppertop]

Oooh. *shiverz*

Frostfire would be good in cold climates ... yer using Shale though, right?

Darth Vaper!:lol:

[4I Falcon]

Chapter 10: Desperate Measures

Lori was the first to react, and she was already moving even as the first shots were fired. She quickly ducked under the gunfire, and swung low with her leg, aiming for Jazz’s ankles. However, her brother was one step ahead of her, and he leapt into the air high enough to clear Lori’s whole body, let alone her foot. He came down with such force that if he had landed on Lori’s leg, she would have been crippled for the rest of her life.
Coppertop went after Spaz. Instead of going under the hail of white-hot bullets, like Lori, she went over, and grabbed Spaz’s shoulders to flip herself over his head, in a difficult but effective maneuver she had used once before. It put her behind Spaz, perched on his back, with her hands gripping his shoulders and her feet on the backs of his calves.
However, Spaz was much quicker than he looked. By clinging to his back the way she did, Coppertop put her head directly behind Spaz’s, which proved to be a costly mistake. Without warning, he suddenly lunged upward, butting her in the face with his head. There was a sharp crack as the mercenary’s nose was jammed backwards; thankfully, her nose bone was not broken in two by the vicious headbutt, nor did it reach her suddenly vulnerable brain. However, she was forced to let go of his shoulders as the blood began to flow from her nostrils. She fell heavily on her back, one hand clamped over her nose to stifle the bleeding, as Spaz turned to face her. She had to dodge out of the way as he sent a rain of bullets at her.
Canadian and Acid, the latter of whom had discreetly borrowed Coppertop’s blaster again on the arrival of the Turbulents, both leveled their weapons at the third rabbit, Vaper, and pulled their respective triggers. The grey rabbit smirked as the bullets flew from the barrels of their guns at a speed that no normal rabbit would have been able to dodge.
However, it had been repeatedly established that Vaper was no longer normal, in any respect.
Vaper suddenly disappeared from view as the bullets approached, and re-appeared at point blank behind the duo. He swung an overly forceful right hook at Acid’s head, and knocked him askance even from the only glancing blow that landed; if the attack had been accurate he would have been dead before he hit the ground. As it was, Acid staggered a few feet, reeling from the blow, and Canadian was left to deal with him.
The steadfast rabbit dropped to a crouch as the blow was thrown, and lashed out quickly with one of his long legs. It caught Vaper off-guard, but he didn’t recoil far from the strike; the strong kick only moved the unyielding Turbulent an inch backward. Instead, Canadian was the one who was stopped short, and he shivered as a shockwave of painful, freezing cold rolled up his leg. Before he could react, Vaper smashed an elbow to the small of his back, flattening him completely, and nearly paralyzing him on the spot.
Lori was fighting with all she had against Jazz, but she simply could not match his brutal fighting style; he fought to kill, and Lori simply could not find the want inside her to kill her brother. Coppertop was almost incapacitated by a completely unexpected headbutt, and her blood marked the stone floor as she frantically evaded the blasts from Spaz’s gun. Canadian had been temporarily immobilized by the fierce blow to his back, and his legs tingled with a painful numbness as he tried to move them. Acid was the only one who was not occupied with one of the three Turbulents, nor seriously injured by them, and he had both his rocket launcher and Coppertop’s blaster at hand.
Vaper turned his attention to Acid as he called out to Coppertop, standing up slowly. She caught the blaster he threw to her, with a slight stumbling uncertainty that was unusual for the mercenary’s imperturbable nature; however, she used it with the matchless, flawless proficiency that only she could muster, and rapidly switched from defense to offense against Spaz.
Acid stood to his full height, with an almost maniacal look in his eyes as he glared angrily at Vaper. He lifted his red rocket launcher onto his shoulder, pointing it unwaveringly at the gray rabbit, and the Turbulent saw the silvery glint of the powerful rocket loaded deep inside its barrel.
Lori gasped as Acid propped his rocket launcher onto his shoulder. If he set off one of his warheads in the tight confines of this cavern, he wouldn’t only kill himself, but everyone else as well. She had to do something to stop him… but what?
Thinking quickly, she launched a powerful flipkick at Jazz. It came when he wasn’t expecting it, and her foot connected with his chin. The sheer force of the kick sent him flying straight up, and his neck made a sickening crack as he slammed headfirst into the solid rock ceiling of the cavern, before he collapsed, with a dull thud, to the ground.
Canadian had also glimpsed Acid preparing his unduly destructive weapon, and forced his legs to work as he stood up. The effects of Vaper’s strike were beginning to wear off, and the tingling feeling, while still present, was not as painful. He only just made it to a standing position before Acid’s rage took over.
Acid roared as the rocket ignited within the barrel of the rocket launcher, and the combined, deafening sound stopped Coppertop and Spaz dead in their tracks. The distraction gave Lori time to dash headlong at Coppertop, and she half-tackled the mercenary around the waist, carrying her as far as she could in the fraction of a second she had before the rocket detonated.
The explosion hit like lightning. Lori, Coppertop, and Canadian were literally thrown along the cavernous tunnel as the massive shockwave blasted the rocky walls to dust, and the normally dark, gloomy cave lit up like daylight as the explosion erupted. Canadian landed lightly, dropping into a quick roll as he touched down, and Lori hit the ground running, allowing Coppertop from her grip so that they could both run as fast as their legs could possibly carry them.
At long last, the roaring faded to silence. The explosion had run its course… but at what cost? Acid had taken his own life in order to save them, and now, if they weren’t able to defeat Devan, his valiant sacrifice would be for naught. Coppertop took two steps back in the direction they had just come from, searching for any sign of life.
There was a weak, painful cough from a short distance away, and Coppertop strained her eyes to see through the smoke that clogged the passageway. The choking cloud was almost opaque, and it burned and stung her eyes as she squinted into it, but she refused to give up on Acid. She was soon rewarded as the screen of smoke lifted, and she was able to see the charred form of the green-furred rabbit lying on the rocky floor, with his red rocket launcher on top of his broken body.
Acid’s normally emerald-toned fur was blemished with patches of black and gray, and there were cuts and bruises all over his body from his fall against the rough stone floor. His nose and mouth were both bleeding copiously, and his arduous coughing sounded like it was slowly ripping his throat apart. Coppertop carefully made her way to him, and knelt beside the injured rabbit, holding his head in her hands.
“Acid…” She hesitated, unsure of what to say. “I… can’t believe you did that…”
Acid coughed, and grinned. “Well, I had to save the rest of you, I guess.”
Coppertop smiled back at him, as Lori and Canadian approached. She wasn’t often lost for words, but this was one of the rare times when she was. “Thank you... You’ll be okay, we’ll get you back to Carrotus City, and the doctors will…”
“I’m fine, Copper. I don’t need to go back.” Acid’s voice was surprisingly clear, despite the guttural coughs taking their toll on his throat. He wiped his jaw with his hand, and stared at the red smear tingeing the fur on the back of his hand.
Coppertop was taken aback. Here was Acid, brutally wounded, almost dead from the injuries he had, and yet still willing to press onward. There was a valour inside him that she had no idea he had, and she smiled as she pulled his heavy rocket launcher off of him, then offered a hand to help him up.
As Acid slowly rose, Lori posed a question. “Where are Jazz and Spaz? What happened to them?”
Acid twitched, half in pain, half in reaction to Lori’s inquiry. “Well, y’see… they kinda didn’t escape the blast, per se…”
Suddenly, she had him by the neck, and he found himself kicking helplessly as she held him off the ground by the throat. “What do you mean, they didn’t escape the blast? Where are they?!”
Acid struggled against Lori’s grip, gasping as she tightened her hold on his neck. “Urk… the other… side of… the rocket… knocked clear… out cold…”
His eyes rolled back in his head as he began to run out of air, and it took both Canadian’s and Coppertop’s combined strength to pry open Lori’s grip on Acid’s throat. He dropped to the ground, holding his neck and gulping down air thankfully.
Lori was over to where Acid had indicated in a flash, and, to her relief, her brothers lay on the stone ground, side by side and mercifully unconscious. She couldn’t help but notice, to her credit, that their fur colours had, at last, returned to normal; her brothers had finally been restored, in both body and mind, to who they had used to be.
Before long, both of the Jackrabbit brothers were awake again, seemingly unaffected by their Turbulence save for being very cold. They were already armed with the weapons they had taken from Devan’s armoury, and were more than willing to take Devan apart for what he had put them through.
With the Jackrabbits reunited, and three more adept warriors on their side, they formed a fighting force that no reptilian legion could match. All that was left was to find Devan, bring his reign of terror to a dead halt, and put an end to the Turbulence Machine once and for all…

[4I Falcon]

I know what you're thinking... "Took you long enough, you lazy (-)(-)..."

Anyway. I have nothing really interesting to say here.

Enjoy the chapter and stuffs.

[acid]

eee

so, my rockets are suddenly anti-turbulent? Wheeeeee *blows up Vaper*

[4I Falcon]

Not quite. Vaper, being the most skilled with his Turbulence, telephased out before the blast hit him. Jazz and Spaz, however, did not get out fast enough, and they were hit by the RaCO blast, which somehow neutralized their respective Turbulences.

There's a big long scientific theory on this stuff. I don't know anything about it. ><

[Coppertop]

*winces*
That's GOTTA hurt ...
Another awesome chappie and stuff, 4I *worships*

[4I Falcon]

Just fixed a plothole. Apparently, no one noticed it.

*boots the topic back up to the top*

[Coppertop]

We were too busy with our characters' injuries :)

[4I Falcon]

I have my newest chapter ready, but I'm not going to post it until vBulletin gets its act together. 9500 characters is not more than 10000, and I've spent the last half hour trimming bits and pieces out of the chapter to try to get it within vB's imaginary limit.

There. I've said my piece.

[Radium]

9500 characters is not more than 10000, and I've spent the last half hour trimming bits and pieces out of the chapter to try to get it within vB's imaginary limit
Trimming? Why not just cut it in two and post twice?

[4I Falcon]

Because I'm a Jew. I like to get the most out of everything. If vB says the limit is 10000 characters, I bloody well better be able to fit 10000 characters in.

EDIT: It doesn't look like I have much of a choice, so I'll do it your way.

Chapter 11: The Dark Side of Proteus

“Milord.”
Devan turned around, with a scowl on his face, as the gray-furred Vaper appeared behind him. “Do you have anything to tell me?”
“The Jackrabbit girl and her friends managed to evade us again, and the Attacknids have been destroyed. Not only that, but the Jackrabbit brothers have—”
“Do you have anything to tell me that I actually want to hear?!” Devan’s sudden outburst caused Vaper to fall silent, and after a few seconds of awkward silence Devan turned around, sighing loudly and throwing his hands into the air. “Why is it that I’m consistently surrounded by incompetent lackeys? Why can’t I trust any of my minions to do something properly, just for once?!”
Vaper said nothing, for fear of having Devan’s rant directed solely at him. Unfortunately, his silence did nothing better for him, as Devan turned around to focus his wrath on the now lone Turbulent.
“You! You’re supposed to be my ultimate soldier! I made you what you are! At least live up to your strength! I need you to be able to stand up to anything those blasted Jackrabbits throw at you! If you fail, I fail, don’t you understand?!”
Vaper faltered. “Yes, milord, but—”
“But nothing! I gave you your power to destroy the Jackrabbits, now do it!”
Vaper sighed, and bowed to his master. “As you wish, milord.”
Then he was gone.

Vaper was almost indistinguishable from the shadows around him as he stood to one side of the cavern. His already Turbulent mind was in a turmoil, trying to figure out what needed to be done to regain the trust and respect of his Lord.
It was obvious that the Jackrabbits, along with their friends, would have to die to please Devan… but would that be enough to prove to the mad mastermind that he was indeed the ultimate soldier that he was expected to be?
No. He had to do something different. Something completely unexpected. Something that would strike a blow so utterly vicious into the heart of rabbit-kind that it would be fully impossible for their species to recover, and then it would be no hard task for Devan to crush them with one fell swoop and lay ruin to this accursed planet.
He snickered, as he recalled the posse of six rabbits fighting their way into the mountain. Who did they think they were, believing that they could defeat him? They didn’t stand a chance against him… how could he possibly lose? He was at least as strong as all six of them put together, and swifter than the best of them. They couldn’t even compare.
He fell silent again when he heard voices from further down the cavernous passageway. He grinned, his red eyes glinting evilly, and then sank into the shadows.

“Proteus.”
A mean-looking, well-built turtle stepped forward, and gazed unblinkingly at a spot just above the back of Devan’s head. “Yes, sir?”
“How would you like to be my first Turbulent Tuf Turtle?”
Proteus, trained not to be surprised by anything, was taken aback. “Wh… me?”
Devan turned around slowly, his eyes creased into an irritated glare. “No. I meant the Proteus behind you, you dolt.”
The bespectacled turtle covered his face with his palm, sighing loudly in exasperation, as Proteus looked about behind him for the other Proteus, who Devan was apparently talking to. “I meant you, you f— Never mind. I’ll find someone less dense to fill the position. Maybe Brax will do.”
Proteus turned around, his eyes wide. “N-No, sir, I’m un-dense enough! I promise!”
Devan looked Proteus over. “Well, you definitely don’t have the brains for it, but you’re the strongest turtle I have to work with… save for that mutinous fool Buster, of course…”
“Yeah! I’m better than that Buster, or any rabbit could be, sir, take my word for it! I’ll get rid of them, make you proud! Please, sir, make me a Turbulent!”
Devan ignored Proteus’ begging, as he pondered the possibilities of a Tuf Turbulent. Unbelievable strength… maybe not the speed of a rabbit, but definitely the strength. And his Tuf Turtles were already very strong… what if the power they held to start with was amplified to the standards of Turbulence? Besides, if worse came to worst, there was always his loyal Vaper to come to Proteus’ aid, to make up for the turtle’s obvious lack of swiftness. He noticed that, in the midst of his thoughts, Proteus had fallen silent, awaiting the decision of his superior.
Finally, after a few moments, Devan looked back up to Proteus again, giving him a second look-over. The stolid Tuf Turtle couldn’t help the smile crossing his lips as Devan nodded in satisfaction. “You’ll do. Follow me.”
Proteus grinned happily as Devan led him off to the secretive cavern that housed the insidious Turbulence Machine.

[4I Falcon]

The bespectacled mastermind led his surordinate through the massive hole that the Machine had left in the cavern wall, just before he had trapped the Jackrabbits inside. Proteus’ eyes were immediately drawn to the hulking white turret, on its tank-treaded base, alone in the middle of the enormous chamber. He stared at it, wide-eyed in silent awe, as Tokivi, the reptilian operator of the Machine, skittered past the two turtles, and took his place at the controls of the turret.
Devan threw an arm about Proteus’ shoulders, in a gesture the latter almost mistook as friendship. “Well, my good, loyal Proteus, are you ready to have power and strength beyond your wildest dreams bestowed upon your body and mind?”
Proteus sneered. “I’m ready, sir.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Tokivi nodded to Devan, then glanced at Proteus. “Move in front of the turret, about ten meters out. I don’t have any more guided missiles to spare, so I want to make this as, pardon the pun, straightforward as possible.”
Proteus blinked a few times, then followed orders, moving to the spot Tokivi had indicated. There were a few noises, mainly assorted beeps from the lizard’s direction, and then a loud whir, followed by a click, as the barrel of the turret leveled itself out, pointing directly at Proteus’ midsection.
The solid turtle felt a shudder of apprehension course through his body. What if it didn’t work? What if, instead of making him super strong, it turned him into a vegetable?
No. Nothing was going to go wrong. He was going to be the next elite soldier of the Turbulent sect of Devan’s army. If it worked on Vaper, what reason was there for it to fail on him? Still, another shiver of anxiety rolled down his body, and he almost began to have second thoughts.
Devan, who had moved beside Tokivi on the turret platform, noticed Proteus quivering. He snickered. “Is my Turbulent-to-be getting cold feet? What’s wrong out there, Proteus?”
Proteus shook his head, and glanced up at Devan and Tokivi. “Nothing, sir. I’m as ready as ever.”
“Good.”
With that, the red trigger button was pressed deep into the turret’s console, with Devan’s hand upon it.
The red rocket, lodged inside the long barrel of the Turbulence Machine, let out a monstrous roar as it ignited, and the entire turret bucked as the crimson torpedo propelled itself along the barrel’s length. It charged, like a mad bull, out of the mouth of the turret, and the outer shell quickly disintegrated, revealing the dark, amorphous mass within. Proteus tightly closed his eyes in fear as the malicious cloud approached.
The last thing Proteus felt was a blast of freezing cold, and then he blacked out.

Devan wondered why he hadn’t thought of this earlier. A Turbulent Tuf Turtle would be an excellent – no, beyond excellent… more like perfect – addition to his forces, even more so than the rabbit Vaper. While his first Turbulent was sleek, fast, and dangerous, he was still a rabbit. Devan simply did not trust rabbits, whether they were Turbulent or not.
Now, with Proteus joining the ranks, albeit limited, of the Turbulents, Devan’s anxiety could finally be allayed. Proteus was already loyal to him, and if the process of Turbulence could make even the most hateful of rabbits a trustworthy servant…
Meanwhile, Proteus had been infused with the dark energy, released from its prison within the blood-red missile to embed itself into the turtle’s body. The sound of his scream of painful shock could only be heard for a split second, before he was silenced by the dark, glass-like bubble that formed around his body. Dark waves rolled down the surface of the invisible sphere as it lifted into the air, taking Proteus with it.
The turtle within the sphere silently screamed in fear and agony as the effects of Turbulence transformed him. Bolts of dark electricity arced across, around, and through the bubble, and Proteus spasmed violently every time one of the black bolts cut through him. A thick arc surged out from Proteus’ body, and struck the lizard Tokivi square in the chest, sending the reptilian operator sprawling over the back of the turret, and to the ground behind it with a thud.
A few seconds later, the sphere shattered, dropping Proteus to the ground. As all of the Turbulents had done before him, he landed neatly on the ground on one knee as the shards of the sphere fell around him. His head was bowed, his eyes were closed, and his breathing was low and regular. He seemed to be completely at ease.
Devan gasped out loud. Never before had he seen such a radical change in one of his minions, from any of his other experimental projects. Proteus’ shell and scales, which had been respectively purple and bright green in colour, had turned a glinting silver, and he was noticably larger than he had been before. To top it all off, there was a single, curved blade attached to him, up the length of his shell.
Proteus stood up slowly, and Devan couldn’t help but admire his intimidating outward appearance as he brought himself to his feet. His eyes, glowing red embers floating in his otherwise dark eye sockets, opened to observe his master’s expression.
Devan opened his mouth to say something, but Proteus beat him to it, and the silver turtle’s voice was deep, harsh, and menacing. “It is done. I am ready to kill.”
Devan sneered, and pointed to the hole where they had entered only a few minutes ago. “You can start with the Jackrabbits, then. Now get to it!”
Proteus needed no further encouragement, and he quickly left the cavern, on the hunt for the unsuspecting rabbits…

Derby: Filter bypass removal.

[4I Falcon]

Derby doesn't appear to have been paying attention.


Just in case anyone was wondering, it stands for Direct Adrenal, Musculoskeletal, and Neural Energies Disruptor. Took me a long time to come up with that one, but I did it. ^_^

That's supposed to be there. I don't put "bypass filters" around, especially in my stories, just to bug you, Derby. I have purposes for them.

So, if you don't mind, stop messing around with my posts.

Derby: Previous quotation edit.

[Coppertop]

Ooh, nice chappie ... a new Turbulent? Nasty.

[Hardtana]

Read everything...at last!

It's amazing, I had fun with this, especially with "giant donut". LOL. I like the plot, it's very creative and smart and the additional rabbits are also funny ^_^

Only one tiny correction: 25 planets? I thought 3 times 6 minus two is 16, not 25....(since Megairbase and Battleships aren't planets).

Consider me your faithful reader from now on.


BTW, what's a filter bypass?

[Coppertop]

It means he used an acronym that the filter didn't catch, so Derby got it instead.

[Ducky]

...now that I'm back yet again, I can finally say w00t. O.o;;

Very awesome, Falc.

[Coppertop]

You left!?

[Radium]

You left!?
I can tell she was missed.

Yeah, anyway, this story... I still plan on reading it someday. I just seem to have lost my glasses, and without them reading large blocks of text gives me a headache. And I just bought $350 worth of software over the internet and I want to try it out.

[4I Falcon]

Glad to see people remembered that this thread exists.

[4I Falcon]

I know what you're thinking. Once again, it's about fergin' time, Falcon, where have you been?!

Once again, vB's word count is being a (insert various censored words here), so I'm going to have to go into explode-o-vision.

Enjoy.

Chapter 12: Encounter

The next time Vaper showed up to confront the rabbits, they were more readied for a sudden ambush than he had expected. He had vastly underestimated the combined strength of six battle-ready rabbits, let alone six battle-ready rabbits in a group, and as a result he had only narrowly escaped them with his life.
His first target was Iam Canadian, tagging along at the back of the group and not paying attention to anything in particular. His mind was elsewhere from time to time, which kept it from being on the matter at hand. Then Vaper got him.
All the other rabbits heard was a strangled noise, and then a loud snap, as Vaper caught Canadian in a tight headlock and jammed his head to one side, cracking his neck and immediately rendering the crimson rabbit unconscious. Lori, having been closest to Canadian at that point, had already pulled a quick about-face as he fell to the ground. Jazz’s blaster was pointing at the Turbulent’s head, and from less than three feet away it was highly unlikely, if not impossible, to miss.
But she didn’t even get a chance to pull the trigger. With his signature supernatural speed, he darted forward, dropping to his back, and his foot drove into her ankle, pushing her leg backwards and knocking her off balance. Faster than she could steady herself, his other foot came up, and planted itself squarely in her midriff, just underneath her ribcage.
Lori gasped in surprise, coughing once to try to catch her breath, when the Turbulent rabbit dealt the finishing blow. He kicked up again with his other foot, and caught Lori under the chin, forcing her head to snap backwards with an audible crack, not dissimilar to the sound Canadian’s neck made. The kick lifted her a few feet off the ground, and her body arced backwards through the air before she fell back to the ground, unconscious long before she hit the floor.
Meanwhile, the force from Vaper’s upward kick flipped him completely over. He rolled backwards over one shoulder, and landed on his feet, straightening up almost instantly. The smirk on his face was one of triumphant superiority.
However, the other rabbits were not just standing by, watching. As soon as Vaper got to his feet, Coppertop and Acid were both on him, tackling him to the floor again. Jazz and Spaz had their guns ready, and they opened fire wherever they saw an opportunity.
Coppertop sat on Vaper’s chest, pinning him to the ground with her weight, and smashed him solidly across the face with her blaster, fueled by the anger she felt after watching him incapacitate two of her comrades-in-arms. She smiled grimly at the sight of the blood spraying out of his nose onto the floor, and was about to lay another hit to his face with her blaster, but his hand was suddenly around her wrist, halting its progress. Within the next split second, he punched her in the face with his free hand, damaging the mercenary’s already injured nose further.
Coppertop’s firm seat on Vaper’s chest was lost as she recoiled in shock and pain, giving the Turbulent the time to pull his legs out from underneath her, and thrust them squarely into her chest, sending her backwards into Acid. However, the green-furred rabbit was quicker than Vaper had expected; as he caught Coppertop, stopping her fall with his body, his hand wrapped around her fist, pulling her trigger finger with his own. The bullet missed Vaper’s head by less than an inch.
Jazz and Spaz took over as Acid hauled Coppertop’s body off of Vaper. The mercenary’s hand was once again clamped over her nose to try to stifle the bleeding, and she fired a few erratic shots at Vaper. She was obviously groggy from the blow to the face, and with the strength that the Turbulent put into the punch, Acid could only hope that her brain was unscathed. Signs of that were few at best; Coppertop’s legs didn’t appear to be working properly, and Acid had to hold her upright, or else she’d simply collapse. She finally gave up trying to hit Vaper with the unsteady aim she had left, and clung to Acid as he carried her away.
The sounds of the Jackrabbit brothers’ respective weaponry rang out from behind him as Acid rested Coppertop’s half-limp form against the wall, and he wasted no time in checking her over. Pressing two fingers to the side of her neck, he was relieved to find that her pulse, while weak, was steady; judging by her inability to use her legs, and the weakness in her arms, he guessed that her head had been jolted pretty hard, but the precious contents within was not damaged save for being bumped about something fearful.
Now that his anxiety had been partially sated, Acid moved back a few inches, as if to allow the injured mercenary before him some room to breathe, and looked her over once more. The blood had stopped flowing, and there was a ring of crimsoned fur around her nose. She appeared to be slowly recovering from the kick to her chest, which had stolen the breath from her earlier.
Coppertop looked up at him, and it seemed like she was putting all her energy into not succumbing to unconsciousness. “Acid… am I dead?”
“Far from it, Copper,” Acid said quietly.
“I feel so tired…”
“Rest, then. We’ll take care of…”
Here, Acid realized that he didn’t know what to call the enemy that had just nearly killed her. A quick glance in her direction proved that it didn’t matter anyway; all semblance of consciousness had left her, and she slumped limply against the stone wall. Acid’s mind immediately went into overdrive, and he checked her pulse again, worry stamped on his face. Relief washed over him like a wave as he felt her heart still beating silently.

(continued...)

[4I Falcon]

Jazz’s voice snapped him back to reality. “Acid! Help!”
Acid spun around, once again borrowing the unconscious Coppertop’s blaster for his own use. Vaper had sent Spaz reeling with a well-placed knee, and the red rabbit was a few feet away, doubled over and clutching his midriff as he coughed in pain. Now, the Turbulent was advancing on Jazz, whose weapon battery had finally run out, and the green-furred hero was backing away from Vaper.
“‘Ey! Greyscale!” Acid called out. It wasn’t enough to get Vaper’s attention, or to get him to turn his attention away from Jazz, so Acid had to resort to plan B. Firing two shots at the Turbulent’s head, he took a few running strides forward, and leapt into the air, preparing to bring the blaster in his hands crashing down on Vaper’s skull.
As he had expected, Vaper turned around, and his hand came up to wrap around Acid’s wrist, stopping the descent of the blaster. However, the split-second that he had to take to stop Acid’s attack was enough time for Jazz to ready one of his own, and the butt of his laser blaster cracked soundly against the back of Vaper’s head.
The grey-furred rabbit yowled in pain, and turned around again to hurl Acid at Jazz. Acid managed to lay an awkward kick to Vaper’s ribcage before he was thrown, and the two green-furred rabbits went down in a heap as the Turbulent took the opportunity to make his getaway.
However, Iam Canadian had regained his consciousness less than a minute before, and was standing nearby, watching the battle from a short distance away. He quickly sidestepped as Vaper came at him, and threw an arm around his neck in a killer headlock as he rushed by.
Suddenly finding himself immobilized by this rabbit that he had incapacitated himself, Vaper instinctively threw a fist at Canadian’s torso, hoping to knock the wind out of him. The punch was too low, and he only succeeded in hitting Canadian’s waist. He was about to try again when the red rabbit suddenly jerked sideways, and there was a sharp snap, followed by another pained yelp from Vaper, as Canadian violently cracked the Turbulent’s neck, exacting his vengeance against the grey rabbit by viciously turning the tables against him.
Shaking off the intense feeling of dizziness that suddenly came over him, Vaper wrapped his arms around Canadian’s midsection, and strained every muscle in his body as he lifted the red rabbit off his feet. Struggling against the headlock Canadian still kept on him, he planted one foot forward, and sprung up and back, flipping Canadian over his head as he fell backward.
The stolid Canadian slammed into the ground on his back, and his scream of agony lodged in his throat as his mouth flew open in pain and shock. Vaper wrenched open the headlock, sprung to his feet, and made himself scarce, dashing away down the corridor.
Acid quickly made his way over to Canadian as Jazz went to check on his sister, and extended a hand to help him up. “You okay? That was a nice flip you took.”
Canadian groaned as Acid pulled him to his feet. “Yeah, I’m – ow – fine.”
Acid grinned. “Glad to hear you’re ow-fine.”
Jazz was able to bring Lori round, and despite a sore neck from the brutal kick Vaper had delivered, she appeared to be fine. Coppertop was still out like a light, and Acid was compelled to sate his anxiety by checking her pulse again. To his credit, she was still alive, and safely so.
Acid stood up, and made his way back to the others. Lori glanced over at the unconscious mercenary as he approached, and she was obviously uneasy. “Is she… okay?”
Acid nodded. “Vaper gave her a few bad hits, but she’ll pull through. If she was anyone less than who she is, she’d be dead.”
Lori smiled. “She’s lucky she is who she is, then. Obviously, Coppertop’s a lot better off alive than dead. So… what now?”
Acid was about to say something, when a deep, harsh voice interrupted him. “Dun’ think you little pests are going anywhere. Not while I’m still standing.”
All five of them turned toward the source of the voice. They had all been generally sure that they were alone in the darkened corridor since Vaper had made his inglorious exit.
There, standing a short way the corridor and wearing a smug grin on his face, was the only creature that was as devastating, if not more so, than the ruinous Vaper.
Proteus had found them.

I would have had this chapter done a lot earlier than I did, but I'm currently failing two classes for you guys, so if you don't like this chapter I will be forced to kill you.

[acid]

What do you mean, not like this chapter? This is great stuff! And you also know how to use suspense, I see... >_<

I guess I'd better write another chapter of T4W, even though I just did. Possibly, together we can overthrow Radium's reign over the WT.

[VashTheStampede]

4I, i finally go around to reading this, and i must say,

WELL DONE, CHUM.

yup, that is all i have to/am going to say in this thread

now on with more reading.

btw, you are failing 2 classes just for us?

i feel special now.

[Ducky]

Oh I am SO loved.
You have a silent fan of this story though.
Didn't they ban you, Vash? *I'm so clueless it's not even funny*

[Radium]

Possibly, together we can overthrow Radium's reign over the WT.
You'll never defeat me!

[Hardtana]

Wow! Know what? I am not staying up until 4 AM for just anything, so this is special. This chapter has been really tough, but it's still my favorite story here:)

And it encourages me a lot, maybe I'll start writing a story of my own soon.

[Coppertop]

OMG OW *reels*

Heh, awesome stuff, 4I, I don't think I've ever written a battle that takes two posts to put up.

@Hardtana: write!

[scatman]

w00t story
i think this is the story i like most in this forum
i keep on thinking about it, "what could happen next"

-Scatman XsD a.k.a Alex

[4I Falcon]

Page claim.

Well, after three and a half months, I've finally finished another chapter of System of Turbulence. It was a harrowing experience, due to the massive writer's block I've been suffering for the last long while, but I think this one's a lot more satisfactory than some of the other crapajoe I've been writing recently.

Enjoy.

Chapter 13: Playing the Odds

Proteus snickered at the five rabbits as they stared at him in disbelief. “Dun’ tell me you weren’t expecting this. Did you honestly think Lord Devan would jus’ let you waltz right in and try to screw him over again?”
Jazz grinned. “Try, nothing,” he whispered to Spaz and Lori. “Lord Idiot-brain does a pretty good job of screwing himself over without our help.”
They snickered.
Canadian acted as voice for the group, in a fair imitation of the Turbulent Tuf Turtle’s mild, albeit unplaceable, accent. “An’ I s’pose you’ll be the one to try to stop us, right?”
Proteus sneered, as he mimicked Jazz’s speech. “Try, nothin’. You twerps are as good as dead, right here, right now.”
Jazz curled his lip in irritation, and lifted his weapon, apparently having forgotten that it was home to a dead weapon battery. Undauntedly, Spaz and Lori did similarly, and Acid simply smirked at Proteus as his fingers traced along the length of Coppertop’s blaster. “You have to catch us first before you can kill us, you do know that, right?”
“Watch me.”
With that, Proteus disappeared from view, and all five of the rabbits instinctively took a step back. Unfortunately for Acid, the Turbulent appeared directly before the green-furred rabbit, capturing him in a crushing bodylock as he backed up. Acid quickly threw a punch backwards at Proteus, but as soon as it hit, he felt like had just tried to put a dent into a brick wall. He stifled a groan of pain as his knuckles cracked simultaneously, and his fist bounced harmlessly off of Proteus’ steely shell.
By now, more than a few bullets had bounced similarly off of Proteus’ back, but it wasn’t for lack of trying; Jazz’s pulse gun’s battery was long dead, and Spaz’s shotcannon had decided to take that moment to jam, but Lori and Canadian valiantly let fly from their respective blasters, and countless pings rang out through the stone corridor as their bullets ricocheted in every direction off of the metallic shell. Proteus laughed uproariously as they repeatedly failed to even dent his tempered shell, and roughly grabbed Acid’s neck. The struggling rabbit emitted a strangled squeak as Proteus’ fingers closed around his throat, and then a gurgle of pain as the silver turtle lifted him up by the neck and flipped him over an armoured shoulder. Acid’s eyes widened in horror as the tip of the blade fused to Proteus’ shell narrowly missed his crotch, and he quickly stopped struggling, hanging pendulously over Proteus’ murderous blade and clinging for dear life to the hand around his neck.
The rabbits were immediately faced with a stalemate. Judging by the glint off of Proteus’ shell blade from even the limited light within the stone corridor, if any one of them made a wrong move, the Turbulent would not hesitate to split Acid in half. But there was no way to free Acid from his perilous position that they could see.
Proteus smirked darkly at the other four rabbits, backing away slowly from him. “Heh, all outta ideas?” He grinned even more widely as he received no answer from the group.
After a brief, harrowing interval, Lori moved subtly to Jazz, and she spoke so quietly he was forced to tilt one ear toward her to hear what she was saying. “Give me your gun.”
“What? But—”
Lori shot her brother a no-nonsense look, and he went silent. “Give me your gun. Now.”
Jazz, subconsciously trying to convince himself that Lori knew what she was doing, silently handed the pulse gun to her. She took it by the handle atop its length, looked it over, then flipped it into her hand, swinging her arm back and forth once to test its weight as she looked up at Proteus.
The turtle watched Lori carefully, trying to decide whether or not what she was doing was a threat. There was a pained gasp from behind his head as Acid wrenched Proteus’ grip open far enough to take in as much of a breath as he could; then the fingers snapped closed again, like a steel trap, around the green rabbit’s throat.
Then Lori went into action. Pulling her arm back and sighting at Proteus with her other hand, she winged the gun at the large turtle as if it were a boomerang. As she had predicted, Proteus ducked, letting go of Acid to drop him onto his shell blade. However, the flying pulse gun turned out to have a different target; just before Acid was undone right up the middle, the gun hit him in the shoulder, with enough force to knock him askance and cause him to fall over sideways, away from the blade.
Acid landed heavily on his back, rolled, and got to his feet closer to the others as Proteus roared in frustration. The green rabbit was no sooner on his feet than Coppertop’s gun was aimed directly at Proteus’ head. He was breathing heavily, still in the throes of a flood of adrenaline, and his eye twitched as he glared at Proteus.
Proteus crushed the dead pulse gun underfoot with a loud snarl. “Lucky y’got yer friends around t’save yer sorry behind, rabbit, but your luck’s run out this time.”
The reptile clenched his powerful fists, and sneered. “Lord Devan will be mighty pleased with me when I tell him I snapped all of yer necks, one by one.”
Acid pulled the trigger first, out of tension, and the bullet burst out of the barrel with a dull blast. Proteus showed a split second of surprise as the gun flared, and then one steely arm swung up, batting the bullet aside with such force that a small cloud of dust exploded outward from the wall a short distance away as the bullet buried itself in it.
Proteus smirked, as Acid tried furiously to mask the sudden feeling of anxious fear that fell onto him. “Looks like you missed.”
Acid’s fist tightened so greatly around the handle of Coppertop’s blaster that the tendons on his hand showed easily through his fur. His eyes flicked about as he frantically searched for a weak point of any sort, but his attention was drawn away as the Turbulent stepped forward, the superior, victorious grin still on his face.
With each step forth that the giant turtle took, the rabbits moved back just as far. All of their respective minds raced, but nothing came to their desperate minds to destroy Proteus.
Then fortune finally decided to turn to the rabbits, and it bestowed upon them a miracle, in the form of a very familiar voice.
“Hoi! Buckethead!” The taunt rang out from behind the Turbulent, and he stopped in mid-stride. He still had his smug sneer on his face as he pivoted overconfidently on one foot, but the sneer was quickly lost as he found himself faced with Coppertop, holding Acid’s rocket launcher, poised to fire upon Proteus.
The mercenary smirked as Proteus’ expression changed, and his powerful front quickly dissolved upon sight of the weapon. Acid, Canadian, and the Jackrabbits quickly backpedalled to the wall, and Coppertop glanced at them, nodding once before turning her attention back to the turtle.
“Get this.”

[4I Falcon]

The roar echoed through the cavern as the rocket barreled out of the mouth of its launcher, and Proteus was only able to get a few strides before it struck him in the back. The ensuing blast blew all of the rabbits backward, and their eyes and ears were assaulted with the effects of the explosion.
After what seemed like twenty minutes crammed into twenty seconds, the explosion slowly died off, and there was a deathly silence as the rabbits slowly picked themselves up off the stone floor of the cavernous passage. Jazz and Canadian were both slightly dizzy from cracking skulls on the way down, and Spaz was pinned under a slab of rock that had fallen from the wall he had just collided with. It took both Acid and Lori to haul the large stone chunk off of Spaz’s thin body, at which point he realized that he could still move his legs, albeit not without pain.
Coppertop let the rocket launcher slowly drop to the floor, and fell back herself, landing heavily on her tail end and rubbing her forehead ruefully. She found herself fighting off a sudden wave of nausea, which was unusual for her at a time like this. “Urgh… that went well…”
Canadian, who was closest to Coppertop at the moment, nodded to the mercenary, with a dizzy, but comically sage grin on his face. “Indeed. Thermonuclear missiles tend to do a good job on generally anything.”
With a little help from Lori and Acid, Spaz came to his feet, and leaned slightly on his sister for balance as the pain in his legs flared, then faded again. Jazz relied on the wall he had almost slid into as he gradually brought hmself to a standing position, and gingerly rubbed a finger across a patch of missing fur on his shoulder.
A moan of pain was heard from a short distance along the corridor, and Jazz immediately turned his head to look for the source. Cautiously taking one pace in the direction of the sound, he blinked as his hand failed to find his blaster in its usual place. His fingers grabbed helplessly at the air where his gun handle should have been, and he felt himself becoming very edgy, feeling powerless without blaster in hand.
It turned out, soon enough, that it didn’t matter whether he had his blaster ready or not. He found Proteus, on his back and weakly struggling to flip himself over, with his razor-edged shell blade broken off a few feet away. The incapacitated turtle saw Jazz at about the same time, and his expression was one of defeated agony.
Jazz felt his anxiety easily slip away, being replaced with his normal collected coolness as he advanced toward the doomed turtle. The pitiful reptile made one last effort to flip himself over, then looked at Jazz pleadingly. “Please… have mercy… spare me…”
The green-furred hero frowned disdainfully at Proteus. “Show you mercy, just after you were going to try to kill us? What do you think the chances are that I’m just going to let you go?”
Proteus’ eyes filled with fear, and his voice became little more then a terrified squeak. “…Slim to nil?”
Jazz sneered a sneer more evil than he actually wanted, but he was satisfied with the state of the helpless ex-Turbulent. “Bingo.”
Proteus whimpered as Jazz lifted his foot, and made one last sob as the rabbit brought it down onto his neck, crushing his throat and ending his battle-hardened life for good.
Lori slowly made her way over as Jazz removed his foot from the remains of Proteus’ ruined neck, and blinked. “What the eff happened here?”
Jazz shrugged nonchalantly. “Just another routine reptile dispatch. Is everyone ready to go?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Good. Considering that I don’t have a weapon, feel free to lead the way.”
“Righty.”
Before long, the group was on the move once more, two steps closer to ultimately finding and stopping Devan Shell and his Turbulent army before he became too powerful to challenge.
It meant that they were almost out of time.

[Hardtana]

Wow, at last:) It's been ages since the last part, but 4I, this time you really wrote a great one. I loved it. Action is always cool.

*can't wait for more*

[acid]

Yaychappie!

[Coppertop]

I was gonna ask where I was =D Poor Acid. *shakes head*

[scatman]

stupid power company!!!!11

just at the moment when i read this story the power shut off for 3 hours (not as much as in america for days...) but it suxed. well now ive read it and i can comment it: No Comment! wowyay what a roxing chapter, i kept dreaming about it. This fight taking place in the basement of our school ?!? most of the time dreams are kind ow whacked anyway. <-- this is not to be taken all to serious.
Whatever

-Scatman

[4I Falcon]

If the basement of your school resembles a dark, rocky cavern, then it would probably work just fine, I s'pose.

[scatman]

ive never seen the basement of this school, but i did see the basement of my prevois school. well it was all just a whacked dream.

[4I Falcon]

SoT has finally been revived, again, after another three-month-long delay. I sincerely apologize for the monstrous delay, but there's been so much stuff going on lately that I could hardly keep up without doing any writing, let alone with. That, and there's my writer's block to contend with. But you'll all be happy to know that I finally finished another chapter. So here it is. Enjoy, or I will hurt someone.

Chapter 14: System Failure

Devan swore long, loud, and descriptively as he watched his first and only turtle Turbulent fall, and whirled around to face Vaper, standing stoically behind him, as always. The bespectacled turtle sputtered as he struggled to find something to scream at the rabbit, and after a few failed attempts he simply pointed at the door, his eyes glinting madly. Vaper couldn’t help but notice Devan’s eye twitching, but his inquiry was cut off by another bout of infuriated non-language from Devan. Before the maddened mastermind had a chance to recompose himself, Vaper was gone, out the door and into the twisting corridors of Whitespire.

Coppertop, even despite her renowned endurance, was not faring well. Her stride had been reduced to a stagger at best, and Lori had to support her on a number of occasions. On top of that, her face had taken on a pale tone, visible even through her fur, and her expression in general looked like she had gone several days without sleep.
Finally, Lori stopped, just as the mercenary missed a step and fell forward. Quickly catching her friend before she hit the ground, the gold-furred Jackrabbit sister held Coppertop steady for a few seconds, then lowered her into a sitting position, and crouched before her. “What’s up, CT?”
“I’m sorry, Lori… I can’t keep going like this…”
Lori frowned. To say that Coppertop looked unwell would be an understatement. She was visibly pale and shuddering, and a few beads of sweat were noticeable even through her fur. The mercenary looked absolutely drained, exhausted to the point of pain, and she looked up at Lori with a listless expression.
Jazz appeared beside them. “What’s going on?”
“We need to get Copper out of here, and to a hospital as soon as possible. I don’t know what’s hit her, but… well, look at her.”
Jazz winced, and nodded. “You’re right. It’s probably in her best interests to get some medical attention.”
Lori nodded in response. “I’ll take her back to Carrotus City. It’s the closest place with a decent hospital.”
Jazz raised an eyebrow. “Wait, what? We need your help here!”
“And how else do you propose that Copper gets to Carrotus City? Someone needs to take her there.”
Another voice, somewhat quieter, came from behind Lori. “I’ll take her to Carrotus City.”
Lori quickly pivoted on one heel, and the barrel of Jazz’s blaster was almost pressed against Vaper’s nose. The grey-furred rabbit showed no sign of surprise or shock at the sudden movement, nor was there any indication of fear induced from having the business end of a gun less than an inch away from his face; nevertheless, he did not move, in order to keep from giving her a reason to shoot. There were a few moments of silent tension, as Vaper watched Lori’s finger practically itching to pull the trigger of her brother’s blaster and put a bullet through the Turbulent’s head, before he slowly raised his hands, showing his empty palms.
“I mean you no harm. I have detached myself from Shell, and wish to join your alliance. Your friend needs help; I will take her to a hospital and ensure that she is treated.”
“Oh, is that it?” Lori snarled, tightening her trigger finger as she readied for the kill. “What makes you think we’re going to trust you, after all the crap you’ve made us go through? As far as I see it, you’re only fit to have a hole put through your head. And I’d be more than happy to do the job.”
“Do you really have the time to doubt my intentions?” Vaper asked calmly, not showing the slightest emotion. “Your friend here could be dying. I can get her to the nearest city faster than any of you can. And, if I remember correctly, time is currently against you.”
Jazz took another look at the now unconscious Coppertop, then at Lori. “He’s right… let him take her.”
Lori glared at Jazz for a few moments, then finally pulled the gun away from Vaper’s face. “Fine. I don’t know why I’m saying this, but get going.”
Vaper nodded, and picked Coppertop up, hoisting her limp body over his shoulder. With one more glance at Jazz and Lori, he sped off down the rocky corridor, back in the direction that the rabbits had come.
Lori turned around again, and looked at the floor. “I hope CT’s going to be alright…”
Jazz gently laid a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lori. Copper will be just fine.”
Lori looked at her brother incriminatingly. “Tell me again why you wanted Vaper to take her back? He’s been trying to kill us since before we even got into this godforsaken mountain, and now you’re trusting him with her life?”
“Listen, Lori, it was either that or lose two of our own group instead of one. I had to trust him. Besides, he said he isn’t working for Shell anymore…”
“Jazz, I have only one thing to say to you,” Lori muttered. “You are a flaming idiot.”
With that, she strode past him, back to the rest of the group, leaving the temporarily speechless Jazz behind her. It took him a few seconds to follow suit, and he quickly made his way over to Lori.
“What the heck was that all about?” Jazz asked incredulously.
“I’m sorry, I’m just in a state of complete disbelief that you actually trusted him just because he said he’s not working for Shell anymore. If I said I no longer pledged my allegiance to Carrotus, would you believe me?”
“Well, no, but that’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you’re my sister.”
“And therefore, you can read my mind?”
“Okay, fine, I admit it! It was a bad choice!” Jazz whispered harshly to Lori. “Look, failing everything else, we don’t have to worry about having to fight him anymore.”
“I can’t believe this. CT’s life is in jeopardy, and the best point you can make is that we don’t have to fight him anymore.”
She turned around. “I’m going to go after them.”
Before Jazz could stop her, she was gone, leaving only dust in her wake. He could only awkwardly start running as well, as fast as he could, in a desperate bid to catch up to his sister.
“Lori, wait up!”

Blinking a few times in puzzlement, Canadian looked to Acid and Spaz, the only two others remaining. “So… what do we do now?”
“Um… I think pressing onward would be a good plan right about now, I guess,” Acid replied. “No point in just standing around here and waiting for something interesting to happen.”
“This is true,” Canadian agreed. “I just hope there aren’t any more surprises waiting for us…”
Acid frowned. “Well, we’ll deal with those if’n’when they come up. Right now, Devan’s still on the loose. Who’s up for helping to stop him?”
“Count me in,” Canadian replied. Spaz just nodded, and grinned widely.
“Then let’s pick up where we left off,” Acid said, sounding more leader-like than he had thought he could, as he turned to go. Canadian and Spaz were not far behind him when he did.

“No! This can’t be happening!” Devan bellowed as he watched, from deep within the caverns of his mountain lair, his once-loyal Turbulent Vaper tearing out of Whitespire at an impossible speed, with Coppertop lying on his back, unconscious. He forcefully kicked a nearby console, and subsequently roared in a mix of frustration and pain as he only succeeded in injuring his foot against the immovable console.
Pivoting on his uninjured foot, he glared at Tokivi, the only lizard stoically brave enough to stay around Devan when he was mentally capable of ripping any lizard’s head off of his shoulders.
“Tokivi!” Devan screamed, his entire body shaking in frustration. “Get every living lizard and turtle in this mountain, and send them all after those rabbits! All of them! I want those blasted furry intruders killed, right effing now!”
Tokivi made his exit amidst Devan’s frenzied cursing, knowing that this time, there was no room for error. The rabbits must die.

As Tokivi left, Devan made his way into a small side cavern, snarling as if imitating a rabid dog. Waiting for him in this smaller chamber was nothing but a single, heavily-armed ‘Mech, standing almost twice as tall as the turtle, as well as a similarly heavily-armed, spider-like Nakmachine, whose eyes sparked to life as Devan entered.
Wasting no time in climbing into the cockpit of the waiting ‘Mech, Devan cracked his neck loudly. “It never fails. If I want something done properly, I have to do it myself. And it’s about time something got done properly around here.”
With a whir, the deadly ‘Mech came to life, and Devan laughed as he piloted it out into the cavernous corridors of Mount Whitespire, with the Nakmachine close behind.
Three rabbits, against a horde of lizards and turtles, the ferociously predatory Nakmachine, and Devan himself, riding in a customized ‘Mech…
There was no way he could lose this time.

[Coppertop]

Excuse me while I retrieve my jaw from the floor.

...

Okay, got it ... OMG.
This is one person you won't be hurting. That is phenomenal. Incredible. Pure talent. *falls over*

[4I Falcon]

Thankee kindly, CT. And don't worry, this isn't your last appearance in SoT... you get a good bunch of action later on. >D

[Hardtana]

Amazing!
This has been my favourite part so far....I wish I was in the story too...
(I know that I said that the previous part was my favourite, but this one is even better!)

That reminds me that I promised to write something err....in September or October last year?

[Coppertop]

A while ago anyway. You're never on?

[Hardtana]

(I suppose that was directed to me)

Well...I had some troubles with an important exam which I had to take err...many times before it finally worked three days ago, and in the meantime my internet connection kept on getting slower and slower and I was kinda away...just working on my own websites and checking mail.

I'll try to catch-up:) Anyway, I'm on one of my messengers at least every second day.

[acid]

Awesome chappie as always. I suppose the Nakmachine is from Gunbound, yes?

[4I Falcon]

Ha. You are correct.

I was intending to call it something else, but Nakmachine just sounds so cool.

[Coppertop]

That it does.

[4I Falcon]

However, to sate Softnyx's rampaging copyrights, I'm probably going to change the designs a bit. (read: overkill in the guns department)

[scatman]

Nice! ;)

[4I Falcon]

I have no real introduction for this chapter, other than that I finished it on my vacation. Rejoice.

Chapter 15: Misplaced Mistrust

After some amount of time, Coppertop slowly came to, instantly being welcomed back to consciousness by a sharp twang of pain in the back of her head. She moaned as a few similar twangs took their toll on her senses, and attempted to reach up to rub her aching head. After a few tries, she realized she couldn’t move her arms from their position, and her eyes snapped open, now very alert.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a familiar voice spoke. “Good, good.”
Coppertop was nearly speechless as she painstakingly made the mental connection between the voice and its owner. “What the…? Not you!”
“No need to be alarmed. I’m taking you to Carrotus City, to get you to a hospital. You have not been faring well, and your friends found it in your best interest that you get medical attention for whatever it is that is ailing you.”
“What…? How… No! You’re lying! Let me go!” Coppertop snarled, jerking backward in an attempt to break Vaper’s grip on her arms. She was rewarded with a burning stab of pain as both of her shoulders snapped out of place with a loud crack.
“I would advise against struggling. Even if I weren’t telling you the truth, you would not be able to escape; then, even if you did, you would not get far, judging by your lacklustre state of performance within the mountain. You have one option, and that is to trust me.”
A feeling of nausea shot through the mercenary, partially from the realization that Vaper was right, and partially from the sensation of speed that her taking an express ride on the back of the Turbulent caused.
“And… if I don’t?” Coppertop asked quietly.
“I don’t recall making any indication that you had a choice,” Vaper replied. “In any case, I have been entrusted to this task, and—”
“Wait, what?” Coppertop blurted out, surprised. “You were told to take me to a hospital?”
“Indirectly, yes.”
“By wh—”
“Your friends, back in the mountain.”
Coppertop’s mind raced. Why would her own comrades enlist someone else to escort her, especially this rabbit in particular? Had he not just been trying to kill them less than an hour before? She knew there was a piece of the puzzle still yet to be found, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
She glanced at the back of Vaper’s head. What was it that encouraged him to change sides, anyway, especially right when the group was most vulnerable to attack? He could easily have simply swept by and killed her, as well as one or two of the others, and then escape again. Heck, he could just drop her right here, twenty miles from the middle of nowhere, and leave her to die. But instead, he chose to help her.
There was a lot more to Coppertop’s impromptu escort than she had previously believed. It would take her a long time to even begin to figure him out.

“Lori!”
The gold-furred Jackrabbit sister shot a glance behind her. Jazz was gaining on her, but not rapidly.
“Come on, Lori, slow down!”
Lori just turned her attention back to the horizon in front of her, and strained her eyes to find any signs of Vaper. Despite her best efforts, she could not see any indication of the steel-grey rabbit anywhere, nor that she was even going the right way. She hoped, for her friend’s sake, that she was.
The spires of Carrotus Castle were just beginning to appear in the distance when Lori tripped, and fell heavily to the ground. Landing expertly on one shoulder, she rolled once, then planted her foot strongly against the ground, stopping her roll. Bringing herself back to a standing position, she looked up to see Jazz gradually slowing to a stop not far in front of her.
“That looked painful,” Jazz commented blithely. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lori replied, brushing off some dirt that had attached itself to the fur on her side. Without another word, she took up where she had left off, on a beeline toward the towering image of the Castle’s twin spires. Jazz made sure, this time, that he was not far behind.

[4I Falcon]

*continued from last post... dur*



Once inside Carrotus City, Lori wasted no time in asking passers-by if they had seen a grey rabbit, moving super-fast and carrying another grey rabbit with him. Though she was almost positive that Coppertop hadn’t made it this far, especially in the hands of the enemy, she couldn’t help but carry a glimmer of hope that even one rabbit would say he or she saw them. As she had regretfully expected, she was systematically disappointed by the number of apologetic citizens who had not seen the rabbits in question.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lori saw Jazz asking a similar question to others a short distance away. However, he was also being followed by a throng of rabbits who recognized him as the lone adventurer who fought his way through more than two dozen planets crawling with reptilian goons and singlehandedly rescued the Princess from the slimy grip of Devan Shell, not to mention the renowned hero who was originally to be her husband. Jazz did his best to stick to the task at hand, but Lori could see that the fame was going to his head.
While Lori was watching Jazz, she bumped into a white rabbit, who turned from his gaze into a store window only to glance at her.
“Um, sorry about that,” Lori mumbled.
“S’okay,” the rabbit replied, looking back into the window.
“By any chance, have you seen a greyish-furred rabbit go by here lately? On foot, going real fast, carrying another grey rabbit with him?”
“Can’t say I have, sorry,” he answered quietly.
At that moment, a smaller, blue-furred rabbit came bounding up, a wide smile on her face. “Ooo! I have, I have!”
With a new sense of hope, Lori looked at the excited little rabbit. “Really? You’ve seen them?”
“Yee-up, seen ‘em! They go-ed by fast!” the blue rabbit giggled, grinning from ear to ear.
“Which way did they go?” Lori asked, feeling rejuvenated from hearing this good news.
The little rabbit pointed down the road. “They went that-a-way!”
Lori was almost surprised to realize that the direction in which the overexcited rabbit was pointing was, indeed, the way to the Carrotus City Hospital.
“Thank you very much,” Lori said gratefully to the blue rabbit.
“Y’welcome,” she replied, and bounced away again.
Lori turned around. “Come on, Jazz! This isn’t an autograph session! Let’s go!”
Jazz quickly extricated himself from the crowd that had formed around him, and was close behind Lori as she sped off toward the Carrotus City Hospital.

The receptionist behind the front desk of the Carrotus City Hospital nearly fell out of her seat in surprise as the main doors burst open, and Jazz and Lori Jackrabbit practically flew through them, making their way to the front desk in a matter of split seconds. She looked from one to the other, an expression of mild confusion on her face.
“Um, can I help you?”
Jazz nodded quickly as Lori spoke. “Have you seen two grey-furred rabbits come through here? One was carrying the other on his back?”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Actually, yes… they came racing through here about two minutes ago, and just bolted up the stairs at full speed—”
At that moment, a grey blur dashed past the two Jackrabbits, almost knocking Jazz over as it passed. He fell slightly against the front desk as the rabbit in question slowed to a stop, and turned to face them.
Vaper smirked. “Well, I’m glad that you two were finally able to catch up with me. I’ve just delivered your friend Coppertop into the capable hands of a good doctor; hopefully I didn’t give her anything worse than a broken nose.” He snickered.
Lori’s expression was considerably less friendly, and her fingers traced along Jazz’s blaster. She was momentarily startled by the fact that it was not her own, but she quickly remembered that she had been carrying her brother’s weapon for the last while, and wondered why she had involuntarily chosen that moment to forget before turning her attention back to the situation at hand. “That’s not funny, you realize that. First off, I want to know just who in the Queen’s name you think you are, and secondly how you have the cajones to even think of allying with us after all the crap you put us through back at Whitespire.”
“To answer your first question, my name is Vaper. As for the second, it wasn’t a matter of having ‘cajones’ enough to join your side. It was simply due to the fact that I was more than sick and tired of my once-dear Lord Shell treating his greatest achievement ever like sh—”
Vaper glanced to one side to see a mother with her leveret calmly strolling by; other than a quick glance from the young one, the two paid the grey rabbit no heed. Nevertheless, Vaper cleared his throat, and corrected himself. “…ahem… like dirt. Besides, what kind of sensible soldier turns down an ally toward the cause?”
Lori muttered something under her breath, and forced herself to bring her hand away from the gun so close at hand. “I suppose you have a point,” she said through gritted teeth. “Unless this is all part of an intricate ploy, in which case I’ll be using your spine for a backscratcher, there’s really no reason not to trust you, is there?”
“Then it’s settled,” Vaper answered. “I’ll fight alongside you and your group against L… er, Devan Shell, until this whole threat is neutralized. Come, we’d best make haste back to the mountain.”
Vaper sped off, with Jazz and Lori not far behind him, and were out of Carrotus City in less than a few minutes.

About two kilometers away from the city, Jazz came up beside Lori. “You’ll use his spine as a backscratcher? Where the heck did that come from?”
Lori frowned. “I just don’t like him, Jazz. I really don’t.”
They continued in silence.

[acid]

Awesomely awesome chapter.



About how far from the end would you say you are?

[4I Falcon]

I'd say about six or seven more chapters. Give or take.

[Coppertop]

He dislocated both shoulders AND broke my nose?! AAAA!

Another top-notch chapter, 4I. *bows*

[4I Falcon]

Not quite dislocated, just a crack, like when you crack your knuckles. It probably still hurt, though.

And thank you.

[Coppertop]

Ah. Yes, that would hurt.

[4I Falcon]

Random, month-late bit of information, that nobody really cares about anyway:

It was Spaz that broke your nose, CT, with that headbutt from before. Vaper just aggravated the injury.

[4I Falcon]

I'm not in the best of moods at the moment, so I don't have much to say about this chapter. Enjoy or die.

Chapter 16: Worst Case Scenario

Canadian slammed into the hard rock wall as the Nakmachine prepared a second grenade, and the rabbit slid to the floor with a pained grunt. He hardly had time to awkwardly roll out of the way as the spiderlike machine let fly again, and the ensuing blast all but flipped him head over heels. While the Nakmachine reloaded a third time, he put his own weapon to use, sending a cavalcade of rapid blaster shots at his aggressor. The bullets didn’t seem to do much to the Nakmachine, save for angering it even further.
Acid ferociously swung his rocket launcher like a massive red club, and the three turtles he caught in the face were sent flying a short distance. He quickly checked the integrity of the powerful missile within, that he had intended to set loose upon Devan’s ‘Mech before he was attacked by a mob of reptiles. Satisfied with what he saw, he wasted no time in dispatching a few more in the same fashion as before.
Spaz ducked under Devan’s giant, swinging gun, and jumped straight up, right in front of the bespectacled turtle. One foot landed squarely on Devan’s face, and Spaz snickered as he heard a loud, aggravated yelp. The rabbit was about to leap off of Devan’s face when a scaly hand suddenly snared his ankle. The oversized sock on his foot slipped off easily, but Spaz still flipped ungracefully over the back of the ‘Mech, landing hard on his behind.
As Devan turned around, Spaz sprang again. Despite the turtle’s valiant attempt to smash him against one of the ‘Mech’s guns, he skilfully vaulted off of the rollcage in which Devan sat, and caught its “shoulder”, somersaulting over the top of the machine and grabbing hold of its back in a maneuver similar, if not identical, to that which Coppertop had used on him while he was under the effects of Turbulence. Kicking his other sock off, he immediately started wreaking havoc on the electronic component of the war machine, tearing away with his hands, feet, and teeth at any exposed wires he could see.
Devan’s frustrated screaming stopped the other turtles dead in their tracks, and Acid took the opportunity to send one more turtle careening into its partners with a powerful smash from the back end of the rocket launcher. Instantly making an exit out of the wake of the fallen reptile, his only words were “Bombs away!” as he set his devastating RaCO missile loose on the horde. Fortunately for him, he was able to escape the rapidly expanding blast from the rocket this time, as the turtles were all but vaporized.
The Nakmachine’s entire back end, where it had been storing its seemingly endless supply of grenades, erupted into a ball of flame as the shockwave from Acid’s rocket collided with it. It quickly turned around to try to find whatever had caused the explosion, arming the only functional weaponry it had left, which was a single laser based between its eyes. Needing only a moment to consider, Canadian leapt onto its back, and grabbed its head in both hands, holding on tightly as it started to buck like an angered bull. The laser flared once, carving a deep trench into the rock ceiling above, before the Nakmachine finally dislodged the rabbit, throwing him to the hard floor. It turned around quickly as Canadian fell to the floor with a loud thud, and its laser was rapidly charging to fire upon the interloping rabbit. Canadian’s life was only saved by the heavy slab of stone, dislodged by the laser, that fell from the ceiling to crush the Nakmachine under its weight just moments before it fired.
A similar sizable boulder crashed to the ground directly behind Devan, throwing his ‘Mech off balance. It toppled forward, almost in slow motion, taking Spaz with it as it fell. The young Jackrabbit put a generous distance between himself and the ‘Mech as fast as he could by way of a long double jump, and the deadly machine had hardly hit the ground before a third falling rock destroyed its legs, leaving it immobile.
Devan struggled with the non-functional legs of his disabled ‘Mech for a few moments, before looking up to see the barrels of Canadian’s and Spaz’s respective blasters pointed directly at his head, with Acid standing a short distance away, leaning nonchalantly on his rocket launcher. The turtle tried to get his arms and legs free, then smiled weakly at the rabbits. “D’you think, maybe, we could, y’know, talk this over, or something?”
“Oh, and only now he wants to talk it over,” Canadian muttered, to nobody in particular. He scowled at Devan. “How’s about you have a nice, in-depth conversation with the end of my gun?”
“Wait! Wait wait wait!” Devan shrieked, just before Canadian pulled the trigger. “Don’t kill me! There’s something I need to tell you!”
Canadian growled, and lifted the gun away from Devan’s face slowly, his eyes glinting dangerously. “Like what, dirtbag?”
Devan tried once more to pull an arm out of its impromptu trap; failing that, he could only gesture with his head. “Turn around!”
However, Canadian just burst out laughing. Devan was apparently surprised by his reaction, judging by the expression on his face; Spaz and Acid appeared equally nonplussed.
Canadian snickered. “Do you honestly believe we’re going to fall for that trick? Turn our backs on you so you can escape, or shoot us, or something? Ha!”
The façade of amusal quickly fell, revealing the dark leer brought on by throwing one’s victory in one’s enemy’s face. His voice was low, laden with venom, when he spoke. “We’re not simpletons, you scum. Some of us are a little weird, I’ll give you that, but we’re not stupid. It’s unfortunate for you that you didn’t get that beaten into your head before you started trying to destroy Carrotus. And now, at long last, you’re going to die for your mistakes.”
“Though,” Acid interjected, “it is sort of ironic that the great Devan Shell, turtle mastermind, conqueror of two dozen worlds, abductor of Princess Earlong, leader of the greatest army ever to attack Carrotus, et cetera, et cetera, couldn’t think of a better distraction than ‘turn around.’ I would have expected something better.”
Spaz giggled, and nodded enthusiastically.
Devan’s expression of abject fear suddenly disappeared, instantly being replaced by his trademark evil sneer. “Fine, then. Don’t turn around. It’s your funeral.”
Canadian raised an eyebrow skeptically, and turned around just as the deafening roar of the crimson D.A.E.M.O.N. missile igniting, deep inside the tank-like Turbulence Machine, less than a dozen steps away from the rabbit trio, filled the cavern.
Canadian found himself unable to move, as he watched the red missile tear out of the Turbulence Machine in what felt to him like slow motion. It was only Acid’s quick-thinking tackle that pulled him out of the deadly rocket’s trajectory. Time seemed to resume its normal pace as he hit the ground jarringly, but his eyes remained glued to the missile as it continued forward unabated, its outer shell disintegrating and loosing the dark essence within.
Devan hardly had time to gasp in surprise as the black cloud struck him in the face.
The three rabbits stared in something of a state of disbelief as the rollcage of the ‘Mech exploded outward from the glassy black bubble quickly taking hold of Devan, who was curled into a fetal position, teeth clenched tightly, just like all those before himself had when they had been infused with the powerful essence of Turbulence. In this, the turtle was no different than any of his predecessors.
Tokivi, who had been the one to set up the Turbulence Machine behind the rabbit trio in the first place, was similarly compelled to watch the transformation of his superior, and he couldn’t help his jaw hanging loosely in awe at the sight of Devan screaming inaudibly, muted by the bubble surrounding him, in what looked to be immense pain. His glasses slid off of his face, and were immediately ripped apart as soon as they fell away from his head. A few seconds later, he flung his limbs outward, floating helplessly within his spherical prison. Thick bolts of black lightning coursed around, into, and through him, causing him to spasm unpredictably. A spray of blood was ejected from his mouth as his head snapped backward, and evaporated on contact with the inner surface of the bubble.
Suddenly, without warning, the sphere shattered into black shards, and Devan hit the ground as the first of the shards crashed upon the stone floor. All four of the onlookers’ breath was lost as they saw just how much the maniacal turtle had been mutated.
Devan’s scales had turned bone-white, and there were silver and red skewer-like spikes growing at crazy angles out of his arms, which had doubled in quantity. His four hands were twice their original size, fitted with metallic knuckles and lethal claws. His shell had cracked open along the front of his waist, revealing the pale scales underneath, and the back of his shell looked more like a silver, black, and red sea urchin than a carapace of any kind, with dozens upon dozens of two-foot-long spikes jutting out of it. Beneath his soulless, empty eye sockets, his fiendish grin was now comprised of rows of long, sharp teeth, that looked more likely to befit a shark than a turtle. A pair of warped, demonic horns had grown out of his head, not matching each other in their curves and twists.
“Playtime’s over, rabbits,” Devan snarled, his voice a guttural growl, and his frightening sneer only moving a little to admit his words. “You’d best start praying to whatever gods you hold most dear, because you’re on your way to meet them.”

[acid]

Yaaychappie! Excellent writing as always.

[Coppertop]

Oooh. *faints*

[4I Falcon]

Yes, Devan has actually become *gasp* SCARY!

[Coppertop]

*revives* *faints again* Scary. Yes.

[4I Falcon]

This chapter used to be better, but my Palm connection backfired and killed about half of it, so I had to rewrite it. Which sucked more than a black hole.

Anyway.

Chapter 17: Full Circle

Acid was the first to snap out of the shocked trance imposed on the three rabbits by Devan’s radical transmogrification, and hoisted his red rocket launcher onto his shoulder. Without a moment’s hesitation, he aimed at the turtle, and pulled the trigger to let fly the cataclysmic projectile within.
It was only when he heard no roar of the rocket igniting, and felt no recoil of the already heavy rocket launcher, that he realized that he had forgotten to reload his weapon.
After a short procession of curses, Acid pulled his backpack off, and opened it hastily, as Canadian and Spaz did their best to keep Devan busy with their blasters. Thrusting his hand inside his pack, he withdrew a white sphere, roughly the size of a bowling ball, divided into halves by a black ring around its center. He examined it for a moment, then pressed two tiny buttons on opposite sides of the small globe, and shoved it into his rocket launcher as the black ring glowed a bright green, pushing it as far in as he could with his hand. Mounting the weapon on his shoulder again, he took aim at Devan, who was busy holding Spaz six feet above the ground, slowly crushing the life out of him with three of his four hands. Canadian lay on the cold stone floor ten feet away from them, winded and sent flying by a single punch to his midriff.
As Devan heard the deafening sound of Acid’s apocalyptic armament, he spun around, throwing Spaz across the cavern effortlessly. He bared his monstrous fangs as the missile hurtled toward him. For a moment, it looked like the turtle had finally met his end, as the projectile raced forward…
Acid’s expression changed to one of frustration as Devan casually sidestepped the path of the oncoming rocket, then to one of horror as the turtle nonchalantly caught the warhead in one hand, as if it were nothing more than a harmless toy. Easily turning the missile around, he lifted it over his head, and his voice was only barely heard over the howling of the rocket.
“That’s not going to work anymore!”
With that, he hurled the rocket back at Acid, accompanying it with his maniacal laughter. The green rabbit just had barely enough time to dodge out of the way of his own weapon before it slammed into the rock wall, loosing its enormous shockwave. He was flung a generous distance by the explosion, and could only land heavily on his shoulder, rolling along the hard stone surface.
Devan snickered as Acid slid to a halt. “Nice try. Perhaps you’d like to make another attempt at something equally imprudent?”
Acid looked up at the turtle, rubbing his shoulder, his expression cold as steel as he spat a response. “Stop acting so sure of yourself, you maniac. We’ve stopped you before, and we can stop you again.”
Devan only laughed. “Stupid creature. You should stop saying ‘we’ as if you were of any sort of assistance ‘before’. You had nothing to do with my previous defeat. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was all because of the doing of one particular warm-blooded interloper: that arrogant fool Jazz Jackrabbit.”
The turtle pointed to his right with one hand. Before Acid had the chance to follow the path of the pointed finger, three of the spikes on Devan’s outstretched arm were suddenly shot forward, and they embedded themselves deep in the body of none other than Jazz Jackrabbit, who had finally returned with Lori and Vaper, and was now standing in the entrance to the massive cavern. The rabbit hero looked down at himself, watching in shock as the three red blotches on his chest and belly grew with abnormal rapidity, staining his green fur. He slowly fell to his knees, his eyes clouding over, before lifelessly collapsing to the stone floor.
Devan chuckled darkly, his eyeless sockets fixed on the prone, injured Acid, as he lowered his arm. “And now, since there’s no more Jazz Jackrabbit to worry about, I guess there’s no one left who is capable of stopping me, is there?”
Lori could only stare in disbelief at the crumpled body of her brother, as a loud roaring noise began to fill her mind. Her legs felt like rubber, her head was swimming, and her stomach was tying itself into an enormous knot. She slowly looked up at the murderous turtle, her hands shaking uncontrollably and her eyes welling up with tears of hatred and loathing like she had never felt before.
Without warning, she suddenly charged at Devan, as if launched from a cannon. Her gun was raised and spewing forth ammunition as she screamed at the top of her lungs. “You murdereeeeeer—!”
Without even bothering to look in her direction, Devan snared Lori’s gun arm in one of his oversized hands, and her enraged battle cry was quickly changed into a howl of pain as he wrenched her arm backwards, pinning it behind her back. As if perfectly practiced, another ghost-white hand appeared, grabbing her by the top of her head. In one swift, final movement, he flicked his powerful wrist sideways, snapping the Jackrabbit’s neck instantly. Her scream of agony was brutally, unnaturally silenced, and all that was left was a weak gurgle as her limp body fell to the floor. Lori had been effectively dispatched in slightly less than three seconds.
Out of the corner of his eye, Acid saw Spaz stumble backward a few steps, in a state of trauma. It was understandable, of course; he had just watched his brother and sister effortlessly snuffed out by their archrival, and he didn’t even get a chance to help them. The single remaining Jackrabbit’s breathing became irregular as he struggled to keep his already fragile mind from shattering.
With only the slightest sound, Vaper appeared behind Acid, and the latter gave the former only a glance.
“Plan?” Acid whispered.
“Go with the red one – not Spaz – to find the Turbulence Machine, and destroy it. Spaz and I will hold Devan off for as long as possible.”
Acid nodded, and tried to attract as little attention to himself as he could as he subtly shifted over to Canadian, in order to pass on the plan of action.
Vaper moved to Spaz, and whispered something in his ear. The young Jackrabbit looked at the Turbulent in shock, as if something beyond belief had just been shared; then he glared at Devan like a rabid animal, with a venomous snarl to match. As soon as Acid and Canadian departed the cavern, on the hunt for the Turbulence Machine that Tokivi had escaped in while the rabbit trio was busy trying to hold Devan at bay, Spaz attacked.

(One word was edited to something more appropriate. - CT)

(THAT'S CHEATING OMJ - 4I)

[4I Falcon]

The young Jackrabbit sprang at the turtle with a feral roar, his long incisors suddenly accompanied by a row of sharp, gleaming, if not irregular, teeth. His eyes glowed with primal rage, shining furiously as he closed in on the murderer of his brother and sister.
One of Devan’s hands shot forward, and caught Spaz by the face, almost sizeable enough to wrap around the rabbit’s entire head. The turtle snickered as he listened to Spaz’s muffled screaming, and watched his squirming, thrashing body attached to the bottom of his fist. A particularly loud cry of agony escaped the rabbit as Devan gradually began to crush his skull in the iron grip of his bone-white hand. Devan smirked darkly, and drew back one other arm, readying it to throw a punch to Spaz’s midsection strong enough to all but rip the one remaining Jackrabbit’s head right off of his body.
However, he never got the chance to throw the punch at all; there was a loud crunching noise from Devan’s hand, and the turtle yelled in pain, throwing Spaz away like the rabbit had just stung him. In a way, that wasn’t far from the truth; Devan stared at his hand in shocked anger, as his blood began to flow from the fresh wound right in the center of his palm.
Spaz got up slowly, growling audibly, and wiped his mouth with one arm. His large front teeth were stained with Devan’s blood, after he had sank them deep into the softer scales of the turtle’s hand. Spitting disdainfully, he glared vituperatively at the angered turtle before launching his second attack.
Devan swung a massive arm at Spaz as the latter approached, in an attempt to smack the young rabbit away. There was a noise that sounded like a brick hitting ground as the turtle’s forearm collided with the rabbit full force, but Spaz did not go hurtling across the cavern, as Devan had expected. The Jackrabbit clung to the thick arm like a magnet, his arms and legs wrapped tightly around the pale extremity. The expression on Spaz’s face was nearly as comparatively frightening as the rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth that made up Devan’s furious scowl, and the turtle caught a glimpse of Spaz’s enraged, bloodshot eyes as he shook his arm in frustration, trying to dislodge the aggravating rabbit. Spaz could feel the sharp spikes on Devan’s arm raking across his fur and skin, but they didn’t seem to hurt; instead, they only infuriated him further.
Suddenly, Spaz sprung upright, and planted his feet onto Devan’s closed hand, using the leverage from the flailing limb to virtually catapult him high into the air. Time seemed almost to slow down as Spaz ascended nearly to the ceiling of the cavern, then swiftly resumed its original pace as he began to plummet rapidly back to the ground in a rear-first dive.
However, Devan was ready. A steely fist came up to intercept the rabbit as he approached the hard stone ground, and Spaz let out a grunt of pain as he felt his entire body rattling from the formidable strike. The sheer force of the punch sent him backflipping to the ground, and he landed heavily on his belly as all the air in his lungs left him in a single rush.
Taking only a moment to catch his breath and stem the sudden feeling of nausea building within him, Spaz propped himself up on his hands and knees, and sprang forward, aiming his signature flying kick directly at the cracked midsection of Devan’s shell. The turtle’s four hands were only a fraction of a second too late to stop the rabbit, and the sound of Spaz’s heel cracking the hard shell even further was not dissimilar to a rifle going off.
As Devan powerlessly toppled backwards onto his spike-covered back, Spaz turned to face Vaper, his breath coming in onerous pants through tightly gritted teeth. “What are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to help at all?!”
Vaper chuckled darkly, his crimson eyes glinting ominously. “Oh, you have no idea…”
Spaz raised an eyebrow, not entirely understanding what Vaper meant by this statement, before turning back to look down upon the fallen Devan. However, he didn’t even get a full step before he was shot forward by a vicious strike to the vulnerable small of his back.
As he flew headlong across the cavern, Spaz clearly saw Vaper, standing directly behind where the Jackrabbit had been only a second before, his leg still outstretched despite already having long since laid the single, devious attack.
Spaz crashed to the ground, and rolled uncontrollably into the hard rock wall with a loud thud. With a pained groan, he rose arduously to his knees, and tentatively checked the shoulder he had landed on, which felt as if it had wrenched itself out of place when he had hit the floor. He grimaced clearly as it snapped back into its socket, and a wave of tingling numbness rolled up and down the entire length of his arm. Slowly, laboriously, he got up, and glanced at Vaper, who was now helping the previously incapacitated Devan off of his shell and back to his feet.
Vaper sneered at Spaz. “You look surprised. My, but your brood is so exceptionally gullible. Somehow I’m not astonished that two of you are already dead.”
“But… but how could you?” Spaz stammered. “What happened to that whole ‘detaching yourself from Devan’ idea? I thought you were on our side!”
“Well, you obviously thought wrong,” Vaper snickered. “Betrayal seems to be something I’m particularly good at. Your brother and sister had faith in the same idea you did, and look where they ended up.”
“You… you backstabbing, double-crossing rat scumbag!” Spaz screamed.
Vaper only smirked, and wagged a finger at Spaz, as if reprimanding a naughty child. “Now, now. If my count is accurate, I believe I’m a triple-crosser by this point.”
With that remark, he turned to Devan, and bowed his head respectfully. “What shall you have me do… my lord?”
Devan’s needle-sharp teeth glimmered wickedly as his mouth split into a wide, evil grin. “What shall I have you do? …Simple. I shall have you destroy Spaz Jackrabbit, once and for all. And I shall have the pleasure of watching you remove his head.”
Leering at Spaz, he added, “Whether it is before or after he dies is your choice.”
Spaz backed up slightly, but found himself pressed against the solid rock wall. He could only hold his ground, now, as the stalwart Turbulent moved in for the kill…


Now that the holidays are over, I get to go back to work on things that are actually somewhat sort of partially perhaps kind of important, I guess. Hooray.

Dork.

[Risp_old]

Is it now a fad to kill cannon characters or something?

[Coppertop]

4I's been planning this for a while, actually. Awesome as always.

[Violet CLM]

Yay for mad rages. Good stuff, though I can't say I particularly trusted Vaper.
<strike>Seemed a little familiar at points? Nah.</strike>

[4I Falcon]

<strike>Seemed a little familiar at points? Nah.</strike>
Weh?

[Coppertop]

He's talking about his Psyde Psychrabbit parody, heh. He killed all the Jackrabbits and then revived them.

[4I Falcon]

Oh. Well, that makes sense.

Sort of.