Chapter 6: Lightning Round

The small group left the hospital, and walked a short distance to a large, grassy field surrounded by trees. No rabbits were in sight in the field, which was about a square mile in size.
Wizard turned to Jack. “OK, let’s see if you have a quick reaction time to match your flying feet. Or potentially flying, anyway. Hit the jet buttons.”
Jack did as he was told, pushing down upon the small round buttons atop the control stick, and he suddenly felt a propulsion under his feet. The jets were more powerful than he had previously anticipated, as they flipped him head over heels, and he landed painfully on his belly.
Firefox stifled a laugh with his hand, but Wizard chuckled. “Looks like you’re going to need to practice with that thing, Jack, unless you want to embarrass yourself while fighting Tank. And while falling on your face is amusing, it’s not the best battle strategy, if I do say so myself.”
“Don’t worry yourself. I’m a quick learner.”
And so he was. Within fifteen minutes, he had mastered the jet-propelled dash, along with becoming adept with the twin blast cannons in an additional ten. He had apparently transferred his amazing marksmanship from his hand-held blasters to the monstrous guns over his shoulders. Wizard applauded his most recent trial of his new weaponry.
“Despite the fact that you almost took out the whole tree with those guns, you’re getting better. At this rate, Tank’s already dead.”
“I sure hope so. I’d like Tank to be gone sooner rather than later. Hey, where’s Firefox gotten to?”
Wizard looked around. Jack was right: Firefox was nowhere to be found in the large field.
As the purple-furred rabbit shrugged, they both heard a familiar voice from somewhere above them. “Did I miss much?”
Firefox landed lightly next to them, closely followed by Jazz, Spaz, Lori, Blaze, Splat, and two other rabbits, all carrying their airboards. Despite his name, Lt. Indigo had tawny fur, and was slightly taller than Jack, but shorter than Firefox. Splitter had neon green fur; that which was atop his head, spiked out wildly in all directions. He was only an inch taller than Spaz and Headcheese. In any case, the two newcomers brought the posse to numbering ten in total.
Jazz looked Jack over. “How’s your leg, Jack?”
“Better, thanks. Where’d you guys go?”
Lori answered on behalf of all three Jackrabbits. “My brothers and I headed back to Carrotus City to reload and power-up. By the looks of it, we’re going to need as much firepower as we can possibly get to fight Tank.”
“Good idea.”
Firefox spoke next. “The rest of us headed back to the Outpost, as we mentioned before, to pick up Indigo and Splitter. They were already set and raring to go, so it didn’t take long to get back out again. The only reason we took so long is because we couldn’t find you.”
“That’s OK. You ended up finding us anyway.”
“Yep.”
Blaze couldn’t help but notice the BIAS on Jack’s back, considering the large machine guns were still mounted over his shoulders. “Got some new weaponry while we were away, Jack?”
Jack grinned again. “I just consider it a ‘get-well’ present from a certain resident genius.”
At this, Wizard scratched idly at his long incisors, apparently lost for words. However, not two seconds later, his eyes bugged, and, reaching for one of his blasters with one hand, he pointed nervously over Jack’s shoulder with the other. “Uh… guys…?”
Jack saw the reflection in Wizard’s glasses. A yellow-scaled lizard was sneaking up behind him. Quickly Jack spun around and laid the unfortunate lizard low with a single shot.
Then his jaw dropped as he saw exactly what Wizard was pointing at. Dozens, even hundreds of lizards, similar to the one Jack had just shot out, were marching out of the tree cover at the edge of the field. The one Jack had just let daylight into was only an adventurous one who had broken off from the main group.
Firing madly into the massed ranks of the yellow lizards like the others, Jack shouted at the top of his lungs. “Retreat! Retreat and keep firing!”
Backing into the trees on the opposite side of the field, Jack kept the other rabbits under cover with his monstrous machine guns. Only when he was assured that they were all hidden safely behind large trees did he dive for cover himself. He turned to Lori.
“You said you loaded and powered-up in Carrotus City, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
Jack nodded to Firefox, and the Captain spoke calmly. “Switch your main weapon to RF rockets, and your secondary to flamers. We’re going to barrel straight through the lizards, burn a hole through them. On my mark, we go out there and fire as fast as we can…” But Firefox found himself talking to empty air. The Jackrabbits were already gone and burning holes, as he had put it.
“What about us?” asked Blaze hastily. “I mean, we don’t have rockets or flamers loaded in our guns.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Wizard pulled off his pack, and rummaged about inside it for a few seconds until he found what he was looking for: a set of gun clips. Each clip had an insignia of a white arrowheaded laser on it. He flicked a clip out of the holder for each of the R.O.A.R. rabbits; however, as Jack reached to take one, Wizard’s hand stopped his own.
“You have enough firepower already, bud. Load one of these into that hulking machine –” he gestured to the BIAS “–and the whole thing will explode. It’s not meant to handle that kind of heat.”
Jack hesitated, then drew his hand away. “Then whose clip is that?”
“Mine.” A young female voice had said the word. Soon enough, the rabbit the voice belonged to appeared in the group.
It was Headcheese.
Jack cocked an eyebrow at his sister. “Then load it, and let’s get –”
He stopped, and looked his sister in the eye.
“You just spoke.”
Headcheese was unfazed. “I did.”
“You’ve never spoken before.”
“Right.”
“Because…?”
“Because you never gave me a blimpin’ chance to. Besides, I have spoken before.”
“Intelligibly?”
“Eh…”
Then Jazz’s voice rang out clearly. “If you all don’t mind, a little help would be greatly appreciated!”
“Aie!” The yelp was identifiably Spaz’s. “Like, now would be nice!”
“You heard ‘em.” Firefox was smiling devilishly. “Let’s out and roast us some cold-blooded cronies!”
He cocked his blastgun. No one dared to argue.
Jazz was fighting back-to-back with Spaz. They were holding their ground bravely around Lori, who was out cold from a vicious double-handed smash to the back of her head. Both brothers had run out of rockets and toasters, and were blasting away with any other weapons they had. But no matter how many lizards were roasted by the two valiant rabbits, more came to fill their place. The Jackrabbits were rapidly losing ground.
Just as Jazz and Spaz were about to fall to the crushing weight of numbers, a white beam of light cut through the ranks of lizards closest to Jazz, reducing them to embers. A similar laser ripped through those lizards only inches away from Spaz, and then Indigo was on his way in, charging, yelling, punching, whipping with the side of his blaster, and lashing out with his long legs. Before long, the Lieutenant stood beside the Jackrabbits.
“Nice weather, huh?” he laughed. “A veritable hailstorm of lizards!” He smacked another yellow reptile upside the head with the side of his blaster. Jazz nodded, and shot out yet another lizard as it leaped over its comrades’ heads to get at them.
Jack, Firefox, and Splat moved to cut off the seemingly infinite flow of the yellow lizards, leaving Splitter, Wizard, and Headcheese to attack the mad mob from the outside. With their supply of numbers blocked off, the lizard army soon began to dissipate. Apparently, the lizards realized this, as some of them tried to break off and flee. They were easily sniped off by Blaze.
After the last of the lizards were toasted, all of the rabbits excepting Jazz, Spaz, and Wizard fanned out to scour the surrounding forest for any renegade lizards or other potential enemies. The remaining trio crouched near the unconscious Lori.
Jazz was noticeably unnerved as he looked to Wizard. “Is she…?”
Wizard dropped to one knee, and placed two fingers against the side of Lori’s neck. He felt a strong, regular pulse. “Alive and well, despite the fact that she’s unconscious. That must have been one smart hit to lay a Jackrabbit flat.”
He stood up, scratching one of his long ears. “Do either of you have any freezer ammo left?”
Jazz had none, but Spaz had three left. Following Wizard’s instructions, he unloaded one shot from his blaster, and handed the small ice cube to Wizard. Slightly warming the ice in his hands, Wizard applied it to the small bump on the back of Lori’s skull, while Jazz coaxed his sister back to consciousness. She came around within a few seconds.
Jazz smiled. “Welcome back.”
Wizard stood, and offered a hand to help Lori up. She took his hand, and he pulled her upright. Other than her being slightly woozy, she was fine. “What happened?”
“You got laid out, is what happened,” Jazz replied. “One of the lizards got too close, and gave you a good shot to the back of your head. I shot him back.” He chuckled.
She frowned. “And I was dropped… just like that? By a single punch?”
“It was a pretty strong hit. No one could have stayed standing from something like that.”
“B…pfft. I’ll take your word for it.”
Just then, Wizard heard a faint ringing from his pack. He swung it off his back, opened it, and produced a small cell phone with a headset. Wizard positioned the headset on his head, then pushed a button on the phone. “Yeh?”
“Wizard of Odds?”
“That’s me.”
“This is Colonel Defalcon. Gather the others and get back to the Outpost as fast as you can. We’re being attacked!”


Sixth chapter, finished at camp. I spent at least 24 hours (not 24 hours straight, silly!) working on this up at camp. That's a lot longer than I usually work on chapters. Then again, I had to hand-write this one. (nooooo!)

Updated on August 27.