So glad you enjoy my stories, Gecko.

Chapter 24: Pressure

“Jack! What the—?!” Firefox bellowed into his headset mic, causing Electrik to stop dead in his tracks. “What in hell is going on?”
He was not yet aware of Blaze’s untimely demise. None of the rabbits were. They had only heard the black rabbit’s desperate cry for help, a short pause, and then Jack’s enraged roaring. This understandably left the others in the dark, unknowing of what had set the volatile white rabbit off.
There was no discernible answer to Firefox’s belligerent inquiry from Jack’s end, other than a loud snarl and the sounds of him exacting vengeance on a few hapless crewlizards. Firefox frowned, and there was an audible expletive from one of the other rabbits, probably Jazz.
Electrik dealt a small zap to Firefox’s shoulder to get his attention, and gave him a “What’s taking you?” look. In response, Firefox removed his headset, and tossed it to Electrik. A bright spark of electricity leapt from his hand to the microphone as he caught it, and another one burst from the base of his left ear as he fitted the headphones onto his ears.
A few seconds passed, and then Electrik’s eyes went wide in shock as he heard Jack roaring, sounding almost bestial in his rage. He slowly removed the earphones from his ears, and handed them back to Firefox, his eyes still wide with fright. “Was that… is that Jack?”
The crimson rabbit nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is. I haven’t the slightest what would set him off like that, but I get a sinking feeling that it has to do with Blaze.”
Electrik fell silent, and looked at his feet as Firefox placed the headset on his head again. The headphones fitted into his ears in time for him to hear Jack launch into another outburst.
“…the reactor, I’m coming after you, Tank! You killed Blaze, and it all comes full circle now, you’ll be dead at my hands before the day is—”
Firefox turned the headset off, and removed it from his ears, nodding sadly. “Blaze is dead.”
“Oh no…” Electrik moaned. “Blaze? Your spy?”
Firefox silently nodded again, and Electrik resumed staring at the floor. “That’s what set Jack off, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” Firefox affirmed quietly. “Now he’s going right after the source—”
Electrik’s head rose, and an arc of electricity ran upward between his ears as he understood. “Tank.”
“Bingo. The thing is, he’s probably on the way out of the Moebius arm…”
Electrik shot a glance at him. “You’re going to ask me to switch over to the Moebius reactor arm to take Jack’s place.”
“You catch on fast.”
“Are you going to be okay, continuing on your own?”
In response, Firefox hefted the megablaster he had chosen back on the Hybrid Corsair, and it clicked as he activated it. He grinned as it hummed to life. “I think I’ll be fine.”
Electrik looked over the gun once more, then nodded to Firefox, and disappeared down the corridor, back to the hub. There was a loud yelp as he electrocuted an eavesdropping lizard, and then Firefox was alone.
With a furtive glance around him, the crimson rabbit nervously cocked the megablaster. “Yeah… yeah, I’ll be fine…”
The normally stolid Captain felt a lot less sure of his words than he sounded, and he silently continued to make his way toward the Colossus reactor, his gun always ready.

Electrik was almost surprised to find Lori, on the way from the Titan reactor arm, for the same purpose that he had left the Colossus arm. Jack was nowhere to be seen, and Electrik was unsure whether or not this was a good thing.
“Electrik?” Lori was apparently as surprised as Electrik, judging by the pitch of her voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Probably the same thing you’re doing here, Lori,” Electrik stated calmly, with a nod of his head toward the entrance of the Moebius reactor.
“Oh. Firefox sent you?”
“Yup.”
“Ah. I had the privilege of hearing Jack snap first-hand. Does he do that often?”
“I have no idea; this is the first time I’ve ever been on the same mission with any of these people, excluding my cousins, of course.”
“Oh. Well, if it helps any, my brothers and I hadn’t heard of them either, before this mission.”
“It doesn’t.”
Lori shrugged, then turned, and disappeared into the Moebius arm. Electrik, as always, was not far behind.

“Well, that went swimmingly.”
“Sir?”
“That was sarcasm, you twit.”
“Oh.”
“I suppose it is a good thing that there are only eight left in the reactor arms. Two less to worry about.”
“Um, sir…?”
“I could release the Shockbots on them… but judging by the way that blue one uses electricity, they’d be useless…”
“S-sir?”
“The Attacknids might work, as long as they can see in the dark. Wait, of course they can; they have IR, so it’s a given they can see in the dark.”
“Sir!”
“Wha— hurkk!”

Jack threw the body of the slain lizard captain to one side, and destroyed another with a devastating kick to its scrawny chest. He quickly and efficiently dispatched any lizard that so much as dared to move from its seat, and then those that didn’t, with powerful blasts from the twin cannons over his shoulders.
The white-furred destroyer, eyes reddened by bloodlust, breathed heavily as the carcass of the last lizard fell to the ground, and a drop of sweat fell into his eyes as he furiously looked about the ceiling for a security camera. Failing that, he made do with his reflection, on the polished metal next to the hole he put into the wall.
“Start running, Tank. I’m coming after you.”
With that, he tore another door out of the room, and was gone again, leaving a trail of slaughter in his wake.

Electrik functioned as an improvisational nightlight as he and Lori made their way into the unnaturally dark Moebius arm. Lori had her weapon ready, perched on her shoulder at all times; Electrik was his own weapon, and kept a respectably dense charge in one hand, just in case.
A few minutes into the arm, Lori accidentally bumped into Electrik, and was immediately rewarded with a high-powered jolt. Electrik turned around to see a very stunned Jackrabbit whose yellow fur stood on end, giving her an appearance that would have been amusing had they been somewhere that was less ominous than a reactor corridor.
Dispersing the electric charge from his other hand, Electrik held it out to Lori to help her off the floor, where she had suddenly decided to make herself uncomfortable. Lori came to her feet with no great problem, and scratched the back of her head, grinning sheepishly at Electrik. “Sorry ‘bout that…”
The blue rabbit shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s alright. You should keep your distance, though, or you might g— mff!”
Electrik’s sentence was cut off as a dark figure dropped from the ceiling and wrapped itself around his head. Lori instictively pulled out her blaster, and was able to fire off two shots at the dark form before a similar one dropped onto her, blinding and smothering her with its body.
Fortunately, Electrik was able to dislodge the dark-scaled lizard clinging to his head with a strong zap, and he watched in disgust as it fell to the ground. He quickly dispatched the reptile wrapping its tail tightly around Lori’s neck, then pried it off of her and threw it down the hall. He turned back to her as she coughed a few times, and looked around fervently.
“There are lizards all over the place. Dark-scaled buggers. Too many for us to fight individually…”
“So what do we do?” Lori asked quietly as Electrik’s voice trailed off.
The blue rabbit glanced up at the ceiling, and frowned. “I have half a mind to cheat, and just electrocute ‘em all… mmm, yeah, that sounds like a very attractive option right about now. When I give you the word, jump.”
Lori nodded silently, looking around the room edgily. There were a lot more of the black-scaled lizards than she had expected, and she kept her trigger finger taut, waiting for one of them to make a wrong move so she could put a hole through it.
After a few seconds, she heard Electrik speak one word. “Now.”
Without hesitation, Lori jumped almost the entire height of the corridor, and her ears narrowly avoided touching the ceiling as Electrik sent out a massive electric shockwave through the metal floor and walls. Dozens of bright flashes came and went as the black lizards were suddenly and harshly electrocuted. As Lori landed neatly on the ground, numerous loud thuds were heard around them as the lizards fell to the floor, all dead. Electrik was not one to leave a job half-done, and he had just proven it.
“Come on, Lori. We need to move quickly. There will be more of them, I’m sure of it.”
“I bet you’re right. Let’s go.”
Then they were off at a dead sprint toward the end of the arm, toward their target: the Moebius reactor, one of the six that had to be destroyed for any hope to be restored to the fate of Carrotus.