Yes, yes indeed It is!

Hmmn; I'm going to try to be the 666th viewer of my own thread


*Chapter 23: We all fall down*

Schrock stood staring at the burning purple wall. A few rabbits had chucked 'water' at it, some had foolishly tried to leap it, their charred remains and eerily dismembered bodies scattered the ground. Most of the rabbits had fled when the water had turned, others were running around aimlessly screaming about an invasion. Then there were the frogs.

Not the good kind of frog that Schrock had seen around, especially on Shellion, the ones that you could tell to buzz of when they annoyed you, usually by trying to sell you shoddy merchandise. These were small, croaky and annoying; they had crawled out of what was once water and were hopping all over the place. Schrock took a step back and squished one, they only added to the general chaos. He turned to his brother who was examining one curiously. "Right! That does it! That does it! Didn't I say I had a bad idea about this? You, me, Trixi, we're going to the spaceport and getting the nearest shuttle outta here!

Erst didn't move, a strange expression had crossed his face. "No."

"No? NO? Whaddya mean no?" shrieked Schrock. "This place is going to hell in a handbasket and you want to stay to look at the pretty lights? Whatever this is, we've got to get as far away as possi-" Trixi walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. "There is no way out, the spaceport is blocked and I just heard some sort of attack fleet is up there, they're being shot out of the sky as we speak. We're trapped."

Erst was still staring at the wall. "We've got to stop it, it's up to us." He pulled out the sword he'd been given earlier, Schrock hadn't noticed he'd been carrying it, but now there was no ignoring it; it glowed a sharp blue along its edge; a faint corona several inches away from where the blade actually ended. Schrock's eyes opened wide with horror. "Oh no.. OH no! No, no, no, NO! You can't be serious! Erst!" With a smooth movement Erst brought the sword around as smoothly as if he'd been practicing all his life. It cut a neat chunk out of the flames as if they were mere images painted on a canvas that had been snipped away. In a flash Erst stepped through the gap onto the other side.

Schrock swore. "Shelt! What next" He was answered with a pitiful wail from Trixi, who was rushing about spasmodically "Gaah! It itches! Help!" Schrock rushed over and tried to scratch whatever it was that had her so antagonized. He soon found out what. Lice, hundreds of them, smattered through her fur like grains of sand. "Dear Lord! See what happens when you don't shower? Fur is disgusting!" Still itching like made Trixi stumbled through the gap, and almost immediately collapsed with relief. The lice fell of of her like dust.

Schrock stared up at the sky and it almost seemed to stare back, black ad malevolent. "Very well, two down, but I'm not following them, you hear me? And nothing is going to change my mind!" There was a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder and an angry buzz; the cloud of flies practically shoved Schrock through the gap, just as it burned into nothingness. Schrock stood staring at the wall of flames, this time from the other side, spitting out the bugs that had flown into his open mouth. Trixi, fresh from dusting bugs out of her hair patted him on the back. "That'll teach you to have a big mouth huh?" She laughed, it sounded like a hyena coughing. "C'mon, lets get to the bottom of this!" She dashed off, following Erst who was striding purposefully toward some indecipherable destination.

Schrock stormed after them, cursing all the while. "Stupid, stupid Erst! (-) bloody rabbit! Stupid frelling me! (-)! If I ever survive this Erst, I'm going to strangle you with that bloody doe's ears!"

* * *

Spaz had given up on trying to break free; not because doing so would make him plummet a hundred feet to a very probable messy end, but rather because the more he struggled the tighter Kira dug her claws in, and his arms were already numb. [He had a fear of going numb ever since he'd fallen asleep on his tounge.] Down below him was some sort of purple ring, and Kira was heading straight towards it, loosing altitude as she went. There was a flash and a boom as some craft or other soared ahead of them, then mysteriously burst into flame and plunged to Carrotus. For a second there was a purple ringed hole in the air, which Kira darted through, making ground contact a few seconds later. This was simply a matter of lowering herself until Spaz could stand and folding her wings. She then adopted her standard perching position and preened herself.

Spaz was exceedingly annoyed at the entire situation and was about to draw his blaster and rather forcefully explain this when he found a penny on the grass. [Sometimes a short attention span can be very useful]

* * *

Lori had seen the purple flames a mile off, but she rushed forward anyway; if it wasn't a fire it was some sort of emergency; and people were dying, some mysterious field had already killed every single cow on the planet, and that spoke of some sort of mass invasion. Whatever it was she had no means of contacting Jazz, or anyone else for that matter; but the swarms of bugs would probably alert them, not to mention the sudden almost darkness and mass panic.

The tip of her nose tingled, she went to scratch it and yelped when she did; there was a blister on it, and on her hands too; someone had put a chemical weapon into the atmosphere! A mixture of fear, enthusiasm and pride filled her as she realized the true horror of what could be happening. There was no doubting it now; this was some sort of attack; time for a true Jackrabbit to prove herself! A small part of her mind brought to her attention the sheer scale of what was happening; this was occurring over hundreds of miles, possibly over the entire planet; there was no way in hell that she'd be able to do anything at all without major reinforcements; she brushed it aside lightly, Jackrabbits were never ones to pay heed to common sense at the best of times, besides, did Jazz spend his time worrying about a galactic armada? He'd've laughed at a mere planetwide attack! Without even stopping Lori removed her blaster and urged her hoverboard onward, the things were piteously slow in her opinion and-

There was a brief purple flash, the smell of tin and a sharp crackling sound; Lori was tossed off of her board with a jerk. Out of the corner of her eye she saw it immediately burst into flames and became a melted fused lump. There was a faint sparkle of blue and purple a stabbing wave of pain, then a feeling of hitting a brick wall at high speed. Lori fell carrotusward, and blacked out.