here it is, the next chapter. Chapter 9. The ninth chapter. Chapter of Nineness. The Niney-- *is shot*

Whatever.

Chapter 9: Serious Actions

Jack had disappeared into the remains of the R.O.A.R. Outpost quite a while ago, and Firefox was beginning to wonder where he went. He, Wizard, Splat, and the rest of their fellow soldiers had been holding a mass ceremony to commemorate the ones who died to the assault on the Outpost. But whenever Firefox looked around to try to spot Jack, the white, BIAS-carrying rabbit was nowhere to be found.
Firefox already knew where Jack would be found: on the top floor, blasting away at some target in his firing range. He wasn’t surprised that when he reached the top of the stairs, after forgoing the probably dangerous elevator, that loud, rapid bangs erupted from behind the stairway door. He opened it, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
There was Jack, blasting away madly at a hole-riddled target. He didn’t seem to care that he was slowly drilling a hole through the wall with his ammunition. Firefox didn’t even see him bat an eye when he entered. All he seemed to be focused on was utterly taking the target in front of him to pieces.
However, what Firefox saw Jack doing was completely different from what Jack pictured himself doing. Jack saw a particularly large turtle with a metal shell, surrounded by a red haze, laughing at him. Jack was firing hundreds of rounds at the impudent turtle, but none of them seemed to hit their target, despite Jack’s amazing marksmanship. This seemed to amuse the turtle further, and as the laughing continued, Jack howled in anger. He still hadn’t noticed that Firefox was watching.
When a hand descended onto his shoulder, it broke him out of his maddened trance, and, without thinking, he whirled around, his fist about to connect with the intruder’s face. Luckily, Firefox knew Jack’s instinctive attacks, and his open hand easily flew up beside his own face, quickly blocking Jack’s swift fist. Even though the block was only an inch from his face, Firefox didn’t flinch. But he was alarmed immediately by what he saw in Jack’s face.
Jack was breathing heavily, and he was sweating slightly. But that wasn’t what was scaring Firefox.
Jack’s eyes had changed, from their normal aqua-blue to a dangerous blood-red. Firefox had only seen Jack like this once before, when his sister Headcheese had come very close to death, and most of his troop had fallen, against one of Devan Shell’s cronies, a sinister, black-red-and-gold warbot. Jack had turned into a brutal killing machine, and completely destroyed everything around him. Firefox was wise enough to motion to the remainder of their troop to stay well back from the rampant rabbit, as Jack tore into Devan’s subordinate and its own underlings. By the time Jack was finished, the robotic minion was nothing but a heap of scrap metal on the ground, and the underlings were piles of dust around it. Jack finally collapsed onto the ground, and lapsed into unconsciousness.
And now it was happening again. Jack had gone into a mad rage, and he could – and would – destroy anything he needed to destroy to gain vengeance upon Buster Tank. Firefox backed off slightly, asking apprehensively, “Jack… are you OK?”
Jack’s right eye began to twitch, and he advanced one step towards Firefox. “OK? Hah! I’ve never felt better in my entire life!” he roared. Both of his BIAS’ jet boosters fired, propelling him into the air. Laughing madly, he hovered there for about two seconds, then he turned around and plowed through the hole he had put into the side of the building. Firefox ran to the now enlarged hole, and was only rewarded with the sight of Jack flying away at close to the speed of sound.
“Oh… crotch. This is very not good.”

Headcheese, Wizard, and Splat were listening to the touching conclusion of Colonel Defalcon’s eulogy for all those who had died in the onslaught upon Outpost 12, when Firefox came up behind them. “We have a problem.”
Wizard was the first to see him, in the reflection in his glasses. He turned around. “What is it?”
“Jack’s just left. He’s heading away at mach.”
“With the BIAS?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. I didn’t think I engineered it that well.”
Firefox shot him a warning look, and Wizard hurriedly continued. “But I digress. Which way was he going?”
Firefox pointed out a general direction between south and east, and Wizard pulled out his pocket computer. He pressed a few buttons on the screen, then stared at it with disbelief stamped on his face.
Firefox was obviously vexed. “What is it?”
Wizard pointed to a specific part of the screen, where the tag %NEG was displayed. “That means the computer can’t find him. I’m willing to bet that Jack’s wearing my GPS signal scrambler. Nothing computerized can trace him at all. Which basically means we won’t be able to catch up to him.”
Wizard’s expression went from disbelief to a cross of shock and worry. “He’s putting his faith in himself to the test. The best we can do is hope that he comes back in one piece, let alone unharmed.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. If I know Jack, then we’d best be worrying about what happens to Tank.” He pasted a grin on his face, as if he was totally confident in Jack’s skills, even in his unaforementioned berserk state. Which he wasn’t.
Wizard could tell. He flipped his computer back into his hand, and gave a long sigh.
Then, for no apparent reason, Headcheese turned around and bolted back towards the Outpost at top speed. Firefox blinked a few times, then shrugged and sped away after her.

Firefox had an extremely difficult time following Headcheese through the floors of the Outpost. One second, she was three floors up, retrieving something; but as soon as she was in Firefox’s field of vision, she disappeared again, and there was a loud BANGBANGBANG as she made her own way down to the basement by buttstomping the floor. Firefox had no choice but to follow her down the hole she made, or risk losing track of her.
However, the chase ended when Headcheese decided to move through rooms quickly by simply charging through the walls. Firefox made an attempt to follow her, but didn’t duck fast enough, and banged his head on the wall. He sat there for a moment, rubbing his forehead ruefully, wondering how Headcheese could possibly get the idea that she could just kick her way through a wall to get through rooms faster. Headcheese was obviously long gone by now, and he berated himself mentally for it. He stood up, still rubbing his forehead, and dropped through one of the various holes Headcheese had made to the main floor.
Wizard watched as Firefox emerged from the Outpost, shrugging as if nothing happened. “She’s small, but she’s really fast. She outmaneuvered me inside.”
“Where is she now?”
A moment later, they both heard a small bursting sound, and Firefox turned around in time to abruptly dodge to one side as Headcheese flew by, full speed, on an airboard. “Hoi! How about right there?”
Wizard had also hastily dodged the flying rabbit, but had stumbled backwards and tripped over a tree root. He sat up hurriedly, and pointed in the general direction that Headcheese had flown away in. “Quickly! Follow her!”
But Wizard found himself talking to thin air. Firefox had already left as Wizard was falling over the tree root. Wizard quickly took off his backpack, and dug into it, searching for… something… something fast.

Firefox caught sight of Headcheese, quite a distance from where she had passed him and Wizard, and he augmented his speed so that he could catch up. They were already moving at upwards of 50 km/h, so Firefox had to put all his effort into his speed boost. He slowly closed in on Headcheese, and was about to come up beside her, when she put on an extraordinary turn of speed, and zoomed away again. Firefox struggled a while longer to keep up with Headcheese, then finally slowed to a halt.
Firefox then proceeded to come dangerously close to jumping out of his own skin as a slick, metallic-blue, futuristic-looking motorbike skidded to a stop next to him. A panel on the top opened, and Wizard spoke two words. “Get in.”
Firefox hopped into the seat behind Wizard, and the panel closed again. “Nice wheels. Please tell me you didn’t pull this out of your magic backpack.”
“What would you say if I told you I did?” Wizard asked with a grin, as the superbike accelerated rapidly.
“I’d say your scientific genius doesn’t run that far.”
“Well then, you’re probably right. There was nothing in my backpack that would allow me to catch up to you as fast as I did, so I had to head back into R.O.A.R.’s vehicle hangar. I decided on this one. Functional, fast, and also a high ranking in the aesthetics department. Plus, blue is a nice colour.” He chuckled to himself.
“Well, let’s hope your little toy does the trick, Wizard, ‘cause I’m trusting you to help me get to the bottom of whatever’s going on with Jack and Headcheese.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m the resident genius, remember?”
“Only because you won’t let me forget. Now then, onward, and don’t hit anything!”
Metal rubber alloy tore the soft ground apart as the superbike, with its two lepine passengers, roared away at top speed.

YEE, this is one of my spooniest chapters yet. And considering spoony has no definition as of yet... therefore, it be good.