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.