Chapter 1: Introductions

“JAZZ!”
The loud, resounding scream of Queen Earlong’s high-pitched voice pierced the late morning air as Jazz and Spaz made their way to Carrotus Castle. Jazz ripped some grass out from the ground beneath him and stuffed it into his ears. Running relatively slowly towards the looming castle in which he unfondly recalled being a prisoner, he became slowly aware that Spaz was not with him any longer. Keeping his wits about him, he quickly turned around, hand on his gun, ready to shoot up some shell… and saw Spaz, happily blasting away at one of Carrotus’ famous giant super-carrots, which promptly fell on him. One of his hands poked out from under the huge carrot, and the hand began to frantically wave back and forth.
“Hoo boy… not this again…” Weary from the long run he had taken with his little brother, Jazz tried, to no avail, to pull the giant carrot off of Spaz. He leaned against the carrot, becoming more and more tired. He took a bite off of the carrot, which revitalized him slightly, as any size carrots will do to any rabbit. He grabbed the small, madly waving hand, and pulled hard.
Almost immediately, Spaz popped out from under the carrot. Lying on his back, he emitted his trademark giggle, hopped to his feet, and dashed off in a quick run. Jazz leaned against the fallen carrot again, massaging his aching feet. When he was ready to go, about five seconds later, he wound up his legs and took off like a bullet.
The world turned into a blur of the blue sky, the orange carrots, and the green of everything else. Jazz easily passed Spaz a good distance from the castle, then skidded to a halt and watched, laughing inwardly, as Spaz crashed headlong into the wall, then fell, unconscious, to the floor. Happens every time, he thought to himself. You’d almost think he enjoys running into things.
“Ahem.” Jazz looked up to see Eva standing on a low balcony. “You coming in, or not?”
Tapping the spread-eagled figure of Spaz with his foot, Jazz called back up, “Yup… just let me get doofus-brain here up and running again.” He gave Spaz an extra-hard nudge with his foot, which woke him up. Spaz giggled again, jumped to his feet, said, simply, “Oops,” and sped inside the castle.
Jazz shot a withering glance up to Eva. “See what I have to deal with all the time?”
Eva rolled her eyes and went inside.

On entry to the castle, Jazz found Spaz, Lori, Eva, and Queen Earlong waiting for him. Jazz looked quizzically at the Queen, who gave him a tired look, and said, “Follow me.”
Indeed they did follow, with the Queen and Eva in the lead, and the Jackrabbit siblings close behind.
“So, does anyone know what this is about yet?” Jazz whispered to Spaz and Lori.
Spaz gave him a dumbfounded look (which is the way he looked most of the time anyway), and Lori shrugged. “We don’t know yet. But the Queen says it’s important. It might have to do with Devan, but that’s left to be found out.”
Jazz gave Lori a puzzled look, and replied, “But we destroyed Devan, remember? The time machine? BANG?” He looked to Spaz, who was nodding so fast Jazz wondered why his head didn’t just pop off.
However, Lori knew what she was getting at. “But he still had his goons. They may have started a lizard revolution, and you know how the Queen feels about that.”
“Right.” By this time, they had entered the castle’s base of commands, where Queen Earlong issued orders to her Legions, the renowned name for the main branch of the Carrotus Army. In the middle of this room, there was a small table. Not a long, banquet-esque table, just a small, round table. Jazz wondered how Queen Earlong could possibly get her entire army into this small room, and his eyes strayed to the pictures on the walls. Several of them sprang out at him. Apart from his own, Spaz’s, and Lori’s, Rico, James, Adren and Aline, and K.R. Splat were familiar names to him. It occurred to him that those five had all been Captains in the Queen’s Legions. The Captains were the only Legions members to come into this room. Having figured this out, he turned his attention back to the Queen. Luckily, he hadn’t missed much; she had just finished her rant about how this new threat had to be eliminated as soon as possible. She was just getting on to exactly what this new threat was. They sat down at the table.
“Intelligence reports have brought back to us that one of Devan’s followers, Buster Tank” – here Lori nudged Jazz in the side, and whispered “Told you.” – “has built a super-satellite, one as large as Carrotus City itself. He intends to use it to spy on Carrotus, mainly to clue himself in on our battle plans and strategies.”
Lori piped up. “So? We’ve destroyed satellites before, and a spy satellite isn’t anything new, even one this big. This’ll be easy,” she said, turning to Jazz and winking.
“Lori, I know what you’re thinking, but let me finish,” the Queen interrupted.
Jazz cocked an eyebrow. The Queen wasn’t this nice to him, why was she acting so peachy towards Lori? Hopefully it wasn’t just because they were both female… Jazz had no way of rectifying that.
The Queen continued. “This satellite is also equipped with some heavy weaponry. He’s armed the satellite with a beam cannon strong enough to destroy a planet. Which means, eventually, when Tank gets tired of us and our species, he presses a button, and Carrotus explodes.”
“Ouch. I take it that would not be good,” Jazz said under his breath.
“I heard that. And no, it would not be good at all.” The Queen frowned in Jazz’s direction. “As you might have guessed, we need to find a way to get up to the satellite, destroy or neutralize the beam cannon, and take out Tank. I presume this will be no hard task, considering you have destroyed Devan already?”
She cast a sidelong glance at Jazz. “Twice?” The green-furred rabbit grinned sheepishly.
A voice came from the door to the room. “I can help you get to the satellite.”
Immediately the Jackrabbits were up from their seats, blasters trained on the speaker, a modestly built, completely black rabbit. He even had shades on to block out his eyes. If the room had been any darker, they might not have seen him. As it was, there were a few seconds of silence, and then he raised his hands, showing them his empty palms.
Queen Earlong was about to explode at this unwelcome intruder, but the assurance that he was not carrying any weaponry (or, at least, didn’t have any immediately at hand) mollified her a little. Still, she was fuming at this newcomer, who still had his palms open.
“Relax. I’m not here as a spy, certainly not for Tank. My name is Blaze Blackrabbit. I can help you out, to get rid of Tank. That’s if you don’t blast me to oblivion first.” He grinned.
At this, the Queen did relax, and said to the Jackrabbits, “Lower your guns. This one means no harm.” Lori and her brothers did so.
Blaze lowered his hands back to his sides, but not before removing the shades. His eyes glinted a bright yellow tint. “Right. Now, as I was saying, I can help you get to the satellite. Not only that, but I can get you a way in.”
Lori looked at Blaze, with a puzzled look on her face. “What do you mean?”
The smile on Blaze’s face spread even wider. “I’ll give you a clue: Blueprints tell you everything.”
Jazz only had to hear the word “blueprints” before he rushed forward to Blaze. He put his hands none too gently on the black rabbit’s shoulders. “You have blueprints? To the satellite? How?”
Blaze’s grin dissipated slightly, but his face still beamed. If it could, considering his fur was as black as obsidian. “Well, not me exactly. However, I can get access to them relatively easily, seeing as my superior has them in his possession at the moment.”
“Your superior?”
“Yes. Jack Flash.”
“Who?”
“Jack Flash. The finest gunner in all of Ouistreham.”
“Never heard of him.”
Blaze sighed. “Well then, you’re going to have to meet him. He’s a good leader, as far as I know.”
Lori was next to fit a question in edgeways. “And how are we going to meet this… Jack Flash? How will we know who he is?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll meet him soon enough. He has a tendency to be exactly in the right spot at the right time. As for knowing who he is—” at this point Blaze flipped his shades back on “—you’ll be able to take one look at him and know that it’s him. It’s just something he has, or does, or something.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. It’s happened before. Now, before I bid you all adieu, I must say good luck, and I’ll probably see you again sooner than you might think. But whether or not you see me is an entirely different story.”
That last statement was more than just a little ominous, Jazz thought to himself, exchanging a glance with his brother and sister. When he looked back to Blaze again, he was gone.