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.