Well well. Looks like I'm working on TWO JJ2 stories now.

waitasec... das w00t!

Amazingly, this story has only one foreseeable reference to the Elite Task Force. Go me, not being self-centred...

Buh. Anyway, the story.

Here goes...

Jazz Jackrabbit in:
System of Turbulence

Prologue: Beleaguered Heroes

The planet Carrotus has one particular family of true heroes: the Jackrabbits. Carrotus also has one devout enemy, known as Devan Shell. For a longer time than anyone can remember, Jazz Jackrabbit, his brother Spaz, and his sister Lori have been fighting against Devan and his hordes of turtles. They have won once, and Jazz had rescued his beloved Princess Eva Earlong from the nefarious turtle’s clutches. However, Devan has returned, and has not only plagued the planet again with his army, but has also gone to the past to finally try to completely erase his arch-enemy, Jazz Jackrabbit, from existance…

After defeating the Ovary, and cleaning the remainder of the beach of Devan’s goonies, the Jackrabbits decided to head back to Carrotus Castle to rest up for their next episode of victory over Devan. They had been successful thus far, apart from Spaz occasionally exploding, and they planned to keep hitting Devan first, fast, and hard. Already, the infamous turtle had lost a laboratory deep under the surface of Carrotus. But the threat was not over until Devan himself was destroyed, and Jazz longed to see his greatest enemy fall.
But he was completely whacked from fighting against the Ovary, as were Spaz and Lori. All they wanted to do now was sleep, and heal. They had been doing the latter very well, carving a path of destruction across the fields of super-carrots. Jazz and Lori would take a quick bite of a super-carrot as they passed, giving them more energy to bolster their own limited supply. After they had passed, Spaz would fly in and mow down the rest of the carrot. Almost a straight line of carrot stumps could be seen for a mile and a half.
However, as soon as they entered the castle, the Queen appeared right in front of them, and turned them right back around again, particularly roughly on Jazz. “I won’t have slacking warriors in my castle! No resting here until Devan is dead!”
Luckily for them, Eva wasn’t far behind her mother. “Mum! What are you doing?!”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
Eva was quick with her answer. “Being stubborn?”
The Queen faltered. Her daughter was becoming increasingly rebellious… But rebellious wasn’t the term she was looking for. It was more of a cross between rebellious and noble.
Nobellious?
The Queen was still pondering as Eva ushered the beleaguered Jackrabbits inside.
“Thanks, Eva…” Jazz started.
“No problem. My mum’s usually like that. It’s physically impossible to de-rail her train of thought… That’s how I just whisked you in while she was just standing there.”
Jazz chuckled, then yawned. Lori took over where he left off. “We’re going to need to get some sleep right about now, Eva. Thanks again for your hospitality.”
“Anything for my dear future husband and his wonderful siblings,” Eva said, with a welcoming smile. She watched them recede into the hallways of the castle, then walked away.

That night, Jazz had a dream that set them off on their ensuing quest…

----------

It gets better, I swear! That's just the prologue!

DON'T HURT ME! *runs away*

Edit: Just forcing some plotholes closed, before someone falls in and dies...

Que Passa!!!!

It's off to a good start. Very nobellious of you.

/\/\

Is this just a story of the actual game, or are we allowed to participate?

If so, I would love to be in it!

Well, yes and no. This is supposed to be a "lost episode" of JJ2, or something. I'm not going to be taking as many joiners as I am with E:JF.

Maybe one or two. Three if I'm in a good mood.

Heh. Hehehh. Good plot. ^_^

Yep, here's Chapter 1 (finally) for your reading pleasure.

no plotholes yet! yay!

oh wait... >.<

Chapter 1: One Warning

Jazz, Spaz, and Lori climbed into their separate beds in a special chamber for them. Jazz clambered up onto the top bunk of a double bunk bed, and Spaz and Lori hopped into their own beds. Spaz fell asleep relatively quickly, and his loud, irregular snores kept Lori and Jazz awake for quite a while. Finally, they became used to it, and before long after that, Lori’s quieter breaths were barely noticable without the loud noise coming from Spaz, let alone with it. Jazz lay awake for a little while longer, then finally, mercifully, fell into sleep.

Jazz strode through a thick grey mist. He felt as if he was walking towards something, but he didn’t know what. All around him was darkness and a grey fog. Nevertheless, Jazz kept going. Oddly, the fog didn’t seem to affect him.
There was a glint in the far distance. Jazz began to walk faster, and the shining thing seemed to get bigger. Then, Jazz slowed to a halt just in front of the mysterious thing.
The yellow glint was at eye level. It took Jazz a few seconds that it actually was a pair of eyes. Jazz had to get a fix on the eyes, then noticed the figure of the rabbit around them.
“Who are you…?” Jazz hadn’t moved his mouth, but the words seemed to echo around the dark space where he was, and the echoes bounced around his brain.
“You don’t need to know. You will meet me in the near future. But listen to what I say now, Jazz Jackrabbit, for it is very important.” As with Jazz’s own words, the almost invisible, mysterious black rabbit’s mouth never moved, but his voice echoed about everywhere.
“What is it?”
“Your enemy, Devan Shell, is planning a surprise attack on Carrotus City. He’s going to use a new type of technology, called the Turbulence Machine. But that’s all we know.”
“We?”
“Never mind. Once again, you don’t need to know. What you do need to know is where to find Shell before he does whatever he’s going to do with his Turbulence Machine.”
“And where’s that?”
“Just east of your castle, there is a small set of large mountains. Do you remember them?”
“Yeah, the Rockius Mountains. What about them?”
“In the tallest of those mountains is a secret entrance to Devan’s lair. You must have a strong heart and a good eye to enter it, though; it’s both heavily guarded and heavily disguised.”
“Don’t worry about the goons. I’m still alive after what Devan hit me with.”
Then the yellow glint of the black rabbit’s eyes turned a dangerous red. “I’d advise not to become over-confident about this, Jazz. What he hits you with here will change you…”
Jazz’s hand instinctively went to his blaster. But his trusted gun was no longer there. Then a very rare thing happened.
Jazz felt cold, raw fear course through him. It was like someone had just locked him in a freezer. And yet, even with the coldness around him, a drop of sweat fell down his forehead.
The now red-eyed rabbit pointed, almost accusingly, at the highly apprehensive Jackrabbit. He finally finished his sentence.
“…forever…”
Suddenly, three gigantic, red missiles flew out from behind the black figure. They seemed to follow the path of his finger, flying directly towards Jazz. As the enormous missiles closed in, the black rabbit began to laugh…

“Yawoop!” THUD!
Lori and Spaz were up almost immediately, hands on blasters, only to find the sozzled form of Jazz lying on the floor. He had fallen out of the top bunk of his bed. Fortunately, since no one slept in the bottom bunk, he didn’t land on anyone.
Something that sounded like “Mmrf.” could be heard from the floor directly under Jazz’s face. He pulled his nose out from between two floorstones, looking dazedly at his brother and sister. He smiled sheepishly at his siblings, asked what time it was, then passed out again. Lori stared oddly at the prone figure of Jazz on the floor, until Spaz asked, “What do you think that was about?”
“Beats me. C’mon, let’s get him back into bed.”
They dug their hands under Jazz’s belly, and heaved hard. Despite his only moderate stature, Jazz was remarkably heavy. Lori could only lift him to about chest level (which was about eye level for Spaz), then had to lower him to the floor again.
“OK,” Lori said, through deep breaths, “on three, we bring him straight up.”
Spaz nodded his head in agreement.
“One,” she began, turning her attention back to the amazingly still sleeping Jazz.
“Two.” She bent her knees, ready to use all her power to straighten them very quickly.
“Three!” They both sprang upwards, lifting their unconscious brother as fast as they could.
Unfortunately, in all of the twelve seconds used to plan how to get him back into bed, they had loosened their grip on his body. Jazz rolled off their arms before he was propelled into his bunk. Luckily, for him and his siblings, he rolled off right into the lower bunk.
Spaz stared dumbfounded as Jazz continued sleeping, now in the bottom bunk. Lori was also speechless at their incredible luck, then she chuckled. “Heh. Well, that’s that. He’s still sleeping, and—” she stopped for a second as she smacked Spaz across the back of the head, jolting him out of his state of awe, “we should be too. I’m even more tired than when we got back today. I’m going to sleep, and nothing is going to wake me up, or there will be serious consequences.” She couldn’t help a smile as she got back into bed, and, as Spaz fell into his own bed, consequently falling off the other side and springing back up, grinning like an idiot, Lori said, “G’night.” She almost immediately fell asleep again.

Early the next morning, Jazz awoke with a start. Bits and pieces of his dream had come back to him in his sleep, and the red-missile culmination was what woke him. The first thing he noticed was that he was in the lower bunk of his bed, instead of in the top bunk, like he usually was. He slowly crept out of his bed, hand on blaster, and snuck to the door. He seemed to change his mind, however, and began to examine his and his siblings’ bedroom.
Lori was amusedly watching Jazz wasting his time exploring the room, and Jazz almost jumped out of his skin as Lori said, “What are you doing?”
Jazz looked at Lori, still lying on her bed, chin on her hand. He scratched the back of his head, then replied, “Getting an answer.”
“Ooo, mysterious. What’s the question?”
“What happened last night that caused me to end up in the bottom bunk?”
“Um. OK.” Lori sat up in her bed, swinging her feet over the side. She yawned once, then continued.
“You were apparently having a very bad dream last night. You managed to fall out of your bed and crash into the floor. We tried to get you back up into your top bunk, but you were too heavy, so instead of accidentally letting you fall off again, we put you into the bottom bunk.” She didn’t want to say that she and Spaz accidentally dropped him into the bottom bunk. The less he knew, the better.
Spaz had woken up to their talking, and he was occasionally nodding enthusiastically while Lori was speaking. It was a slight distraction, seeing something bobbing up and down in the corner of her eye, so she eventually turned, smacked Spaz across the back of the head, and laid him out on his bed again, snoring like a baby.
Jazz winced as Lori’s hand made contact with the back of Spaz’s head, then rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go find out what’s happening with Devan and the Turbulence Machine.”
“The what?” Lori asked, puzzled.
“Oi, didn’t I tell you?” Jazz asked impatiently. “The black rabbit, and the fog, and…”
Lori stared, blankly, at Jazz. He could tell that she had no idea what he was talking about. Then it hit him.
“Oh yeah, that was my dream. But it seemed so real.”
“Meh?”
“Remember that very bad dream you said I was having?” Jazz continued. “That was it. I was talking with this black rabbit in a black fog. Neither of us were ‘talking’, so to speak, but our words just bounced around, like echoes.”
“Creepy.”
“Very. He told me that the next place to find Devan was the Rockius Mountains. He said that he’s going to be using some kind of new machine…”
“The Turbulence Machine.”
“Right.”
“Did this mysterious rabbit tell you what kind of machine this was?”
“Well, no, but he said it could… well, change me. And the way he said it didn’t sound too promising.”
“In other words, a turn for the worse.”
“Indeed.”
By now, Spaz was up again, rubbing the back of his head, but appearing none the worse for wear. He glared at Lori. “What was that for?”
“Um. Overenthusiasm?”
“But I’m always like that!”
“Yeah, well, I need my carrot coffee. My head’s still spinning.” With that, she hopped out of bed, and wandered out the door to the main dining area of the castle.
“She’s right, Spaz. I’d be grumpy too if I hadn’t had my morning coffee.”
He paused. “Wait a minute. I haven’t yet. That would probably explain my frequent yawning, wouldn’t it.”
He left, chunnering away to himself as he followed Lori down the hall. Spaz was left in the bedroom, simply blinking confusedly. Then his stomach growled at him, reminding him to go eat something. He skidded out of the bedroom, promptly running into the wall opposite the door. Blinking indignantly at the wall, he made a slight snarf noise, then scampered down the hallway behind Jazz and Lori.

Meh. I didn't particularly like the way I portrayed Lori here. Oh well, better luck next time.

Heehee, snarf...

They then heard a faint explosian, followed by a yell.
The group paused.
"...That'll be Acid, with his coffee maker," said Jazz, and they continued.




edit: ow yea, and great story so far. Interesting dream...

Originally posted by acid
They then heard a faint explosion, followed by a yell.
The group paused.
"...That'll be Acid, with his coffee maker," said Jazz, and they continued.

Y'never know, I might actually add that...

Que Passa!!!!

Meh. I didn't particularly like the way I portrayed Lori here. Oh well, better luck next time.

Eh... It's not all THAT bad...

...what else was I gonna say- OH YEAH: Cool story, I can't wait for chapter 2.

... snarf...
Chought!!!...

Chapter 2 is on the way. And, acid, I've added that little bit about the coffee maker. Heh.

Now go read my other story, all you people! That's my better work of writing, not this!

BLAH!

heehee, snarf...
chought...
SPOY!

spoony i've been in both of jack flashes storys and that is spoony to be in a spoony story. it's a real good story i try to tell flash to go into writing. he doesn't listen though i think he should send theses storys to the people of megagames and see if they would publish one or both of his storys (when the second one is finished). so that's great and i type alot and talk alot and shoot alot so i should stop doing at least two of those three things so this is cpt. firefox signing off... wait a sec i never signed on... spoony
JJ2 rules from cff

uh, firefox... you're not in this story...

come to think of it... neither am i. *yarrgble*

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.

Well, Chapter 2's done. Go me.

When I decided that Chapter 3 was finished (on my Palm during math class, of course) I noticed that Chapter 1 was as long as Chapters 2 and 3 combined.

So, what did I do?

Combined Chapters 2 and 3.

I'm smart.

Anyway. The third chapter is everything after Lori yanking Spaz out the door, and was originally titled "Kinda Sorta Making Progress." As is the plot. Woopy.

I'm not sure what else to put here. The story is coming along nicely. I still remember what I was going to do in the first place, which is a good sign...

There seems to be a lot of rolling of eyes in my stories.

And a lot of words ending in ly.

And Firefox is an idiot. But that's another story. Which he's writing.

Yeef.

*huggles palm* n_n

Oh yeah: The post with the actual Chapter 2 is exactly 10000 characters long. I seem to have a knack for doing that.

Ignore Nick. Nick is an idiot.

Yay, got Chapter 3 done today. *huggles Palm again* n_n

Chapter 3: Distortion

In the tallest of the Rockius Mountains, Mount Whitespire, there was a long, hollowed-out tunnel. This tunnel led to an underground cavern so large, it may have housed a medium-sized city.
This was Devan Shell’s secret mountain laboratory.
Two sinister eyes examined the enormous machine in front of them. The machine itself looked like a gigantic, white turret, its single cannon barrel almost a foot and a half wide, and at least nine to ten feet long, and the base of the turret was a wide control panel, with a digital viewfinder and a big red button occupying the better part of the center of the control panel. The eyes belonged to the notorious Devan Shell himself. He nodded approvingly to the reptilian operator, standing nearby. “Good job, Tokivi. If this Turbulence Machine of yours works, it will make for a healthy addition to our armada. We will be unstoppable, and that fool Jazz Jackrabbit, and his equally foolish siblings, will finally fall to my forces!”
“You underestimate me, sir. Of course the machine works. I have even set up a test run, to prove to you its true power.”
“Oh?” Devan was immediately intrigued. “Show me.”
Tokivi picked up a handheld radio from the surface of the control panel, and spoke into it. “Bring in the captive for testing.”
Almost immediately, two Tuf Turtles entered, carrying a young, dark-cyan-furred rabbit with them. The rabbit didn’t look too pleased with his escorts, but didn’t struggle, apparently having lost the strength to hope a long time before. He wasn’t emaciated, but he was noticeably less well-built than someone of Jazz’s stature. As they approached, the young rabbit spat at Devan. The projectile fell miserably short of Devan’s feet, but one of the two Tuf Turtle soldiers kicked him in the leg anyway, for good measure. The rabbit winced in pain as the kick landed just above his ankle.
Two rectangular holes opened up in the rock floor about twenty feet in front of the machine. A stone-crafted, semicircular object rose out of each hole, and they joined to become a full circle about ten feet above the ground. The Tuf Turtles tied the rabbit’s wrists and ankles to the stone ring with belt-like straps, so that he was upright, but spread-eagled, inside the ring. He sneered at Devan and the assorted cronies once he was tied in.
“Hah. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you do to me… I will never serve one as cruel as you!”
Devan snickered at the helpless rabbit. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you. Don’t you fret yourself, this will be quick and painless.”
He grinned maliciously. “I think.”
The strapped-down rabbit glared with fierce, bright green eyes at the bespectacled turtle, as Devan indicated to Tokivi to start the machine. The lizard pulled a lever on the side of the machine, opening a hatch atop the turret, then saying something to the two Tuf Turtle guards, which the rabbit didn’t catch from the stone circle. The guards left for a moment, then returned, toting an oversized, blood-red missile with the letters “(Dby:Fbr)” along the side of it. They hefted the giant missile into the hatch in the turret, then scattered far out of the way as Tokivi closed the hatch, thereby cocking the enormous weapon. He took aim through the viewfinder, and locked the turret into position directly facing the venomously scowling, imprisoned rabbit. He then stepped away from the control panel, bowing to Devan’s superiority. “The honour is yours, sir.”
Devan giggled like a naughty little child as he stepped up to the controls. He held his closed fist above the big red button marked “Fire”, and looked through the viewfinder, even though the cannon had already been aimed perfectly.
Devan’s fist dropped upon the button.
The red missile ignited with a roar, then flew out of the machine’s barrel. The only thing keeping the turret from flipping over backwards were the claw-like metal spikes, attached to the base of the turret, that dug deeply into the rock floor. The missile easily cut short the distance to the tied-down rabbit, and the prisoner shut his eyes tight, awaiting the inevitable.
However, instead of a massive explosion, the outer shell of the missile disintegrated a few feet from the rabbit. A black essence, previously entombed inside the missile, was revealed as the metal exterior deteriorated, and the dark thing hit the rabbit in the midriff.
Then it went into his body.
The dark essence appeared to fade on contact, but the Tuf Turtles at the side of the stone ring clearly saw it go in through the base of his ribcage. A dark sphere began to come to sight, and since the sphere was mostly transparent, they could all see, but somehow not hear, the rabbit screaming in agony. There was a huge amount of strain on the belt-like straps holding the rabbit to the stone ring, and they eventually snapped in two, allowing him to curl up into a fetal position inside the dark sphere. He only stayed in this position for a few seconds, however, as he quickly snapped backwards in the air. He was now bent backwards, floating in the dark sphere, as if a massive amount of energy was being infused in him. Which was true.
The sphere suddenly shattered like glass, causing the rabbit to fall to the ground. However, instead of landing hard on his back, he flipped over impossibly quickly, and landed easily on one knee. The first thing the turtles and lizard noticed was the immediate colour of the rabbit’s fur: it had turned from a bluish shade to a steel-grey tone. As the last pieces of what used to be the dark sphere landed on the ground, the rabbit stood upright. He still had the same fierce eyes as before; but, instead of being a brilliant green, they had turned a dangerous shade of red. His face was expressionless, but they could all tell that there was a lot of fire in those eyes as they roved around the room, searching for nothing in particular. Then, his fiery eyes went straight to Devan.
Without warning, the rabbit began to advance toward the bespectacled turtle. One of the Tuf Turtles moved forward to try to stop him, but the steely rabbit pushed him backwards again with one hand, and seemingly no effort, as if he was weightless. The Tuf Turtle sailed through the air like a dead leaf, and skidded across the floor on his shell. After sliding across the floor like a puck on an ice rink, he collided with the other wall, which, while knocking him unconscious, flipped him over, so he was not on the back of his shell anymore. Devan was apparently apprehensive as the rabbit approached, as he shrank backwards slightly. He reached for his blaster pistol, hidden in his shell.
However, as he gripped the blaster’s hilt inside his shell, the rabbit stopped advancing. He simply stood there, stock still, not two feet from the increasingly anxious turtle. There were a few seconds of tense silence; then, as Tokivi had done only a few minutes before, he bowed to Devan, with three terse words.
“I stand ready.”
Devan’s apprehension turned to pure malicious joy, and the turtle giggled and rubbed his hands together evilly. Talking to no one in particular, he said quietly, “I am going to have so much fun with you...”
He quickly cleared his throat, and turned his attention back to the silvery-gray rabbit. “Now then... what shall I call you?”
“Vaper.” His expression never changed as he said the word. It was like he was a robot rabbit.
“Vaper.” Devan repeated the name, almost reverently. “Well, Vaper, you are the first of a new breed of soldier in my ranks. You are, as you have just shown us, one of the strongest strains of warriors to ever walk this planet, let alone the strongest to be given a place in my army. You are...”
Here, Devan stopped abruptly, and frantically tried to come up with an intimidating name for this new breed of soldier that he had created. As he pondered a name for Vaper’s rank, he happened to glance at the turret of the gigantic Turbulence Machine. A name immediately popped into his head.
“You are a Turbulent, the first of my ultimate legions. Welcome, Vaper, to my army.”
There was a glint in the new Turbulent’s red eye, his ears flattened back on his head, and his mouth curled into a vicious sneer. “I am pleased to join your forces... Lord Shell.”
Devan turned to Tokivi. “Lord Shell,” he whispered. “Write that down somewhere.” The reptile skittered away to do his master’s bidding.
Devan turned back to Vaper. “So, what shall you do first?”
“Let me destroy something for you, Lord.”
“Hmm, but what to destroy?” Devan inquired knowingly. He snapped his fingers, as if he had just remembered something. Vaper’s long ears snapped to attention, waiting for his first orders.
“Your first mission is to find that family of warrior Jackrabbits. You do know of the Jackrabbits, I presume...?”
“Of course.”
“You forgot the Lord part.”
“Of course... Lord.”
Devan smiled slightly at the sound of his new title. “You will bring the three Jackrabbits here, dead or alive, under your custody. I will see them fall, by my hand or not, or I will die waiting!”
“You will not need to die waiting, Lord. I will carry out your orders.”
“So you will bring them to me?”
“Gladly, milord.” With that, Vaper was gone before Devan could even blink. The other Tuf Turtle, who hadn’t tried to stop Vaper earlier, suddenly fell over as the rabbit flew by.
Devan stood there, expressionless, for a few seconds, then burst out laughing wild laughter, maniacal laughter that echoed and spread through the passageways and tunnels of his secret laboratory deep in the rock bowels of Mount Whitespire.

Have I mentioned that FORESHADOWING RULZ YO!

Chapter 4 will be done between now and when the sun explodes.

"They all know that I won't get started until 3 days before the deadline."
"But you don't even have a deadline!"
"Shows how late it'll be."

Well, the sun hasn't exploded yet, and here's my latest instalment of System.

Enjoy.

Chapter 4: Snare

Lori, true to her word, had taken off in the direction of the Rockius Mountains, leaving her brothers to ponder their fate when having to face Queen Earlong on their return to Carrotus Castle. She could just imagine the Queen going hysterical at Jazz – again – and her poor brother cowering before Her Rotundity as she rants at him for hours on end. She laughed at the thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spaz, still behind her, but slowly gaining ground. So they did decide to get up off their butts, eh? she thought to herself. I suppose I should somehow be proud of them...
Nah.
At that moment, Spaz launched himself at Lori’s back, emitting a cross between a playful growl and a small roar as he flew through the air. Without any warning, Lori dropped to the ground, stopping almost instantaneously, and watched as Spaz sailed over her head and did an ungainly faceplant into the ground. He actually skidded across the ground on his face for a short distance, then slowed to a halt.
Jazz was not far behind Spaz, and he stopped next to Lori. His jaw dropped so greatly in stunned amazement at the valley-like trail Spaz left with his nose that he almost fell over it.
Spaz got up, and wiped his nose calmly. He hardly appeared to be fazed, let alone injured, by his ungraceful nosedive into the ground. Spaz looked at his speechless brother, and blinked once. “What? What is it?”
Jazz shook his head quickly, as if pulling himself out of a trance, and said, “Nothing. C’mon, let’s go.”
Lori glanced at Jazz incredulously, then smirked. “You for real? Don’t you have a carrot to finish a while back?”
Jazz glared at her. “You’re not helping, y’know that?”
But Lori’s attention had shifted, from Jazz to something far away, over Spaz’s shoulder. She appeared to be trying to focus on something, and considering she had the best eyesight of the three siblings, Jazz trusted her to identify whatever it was she was looking at. Jazz squinted in the general direction, trying to be able to distinguish anything of interest. All he could see was a large dust cloud, which itself was not a profound sight.
“It’s a rabbit,” Lori said, after a few seconds of silence. “Dark grey. Male, I think. Looks like he’s being followed... by something huge. Or a lot of small things. I can’t tell from here.”
“Should we go help him?”
Lori shot a withering glance at Jazz, as if the answer was obvious, then bolted towards the rabbit. Jazz and Spaz quickly followed.
Spaz caught up to Lori and ran alongside her, while Jazz sped ahead a few metres. The green rabbit could now easily discern the figure of the approaching gray rabbit as they pounded their ways toward each other. However, what Jazz saw the other rabbit do next took him completely by surprise.
With a vicious snarl, the approaching rabbit lifted his right arm, the lower part of which somehow didn’t resemble a normal forearm, but instead a bulky, angular machine. He grabbed a handle on the side of the machine with his other, biological hand, and looked down the length of the machine. The end of the machine on his arm flashed thrice, and Jazz just barely had enough time to quickly spin around and begin a hasty retreat as three missiles slammed into the ground where he had been a split second earlier, exploding on contact and putting three large craters in the ground where they had hit.
Lori and Spaz were a few metres behind Jazz, and had stopped when they saw the weapon on the gray rabbit’s arm firing on Jazz. Even before the missiles hit the ground, both immediately readied their blasters, aimed, and fired on the attacking rabbit, to either damage the weapon or its holder, or simply to provide a distraction in order to allow Jazz to make good his escape.
They didn’t manage to injure the attacker, but Jazz did escape, and Lori and Spaz continued firing on the rabbit as Jazz ran for the cover of gunfire. The gray rabbit continued advancing intimidatingly rapidly, apparently oblivious to the hail of gunfire, and three more missiles ripped the ground to pieces as the three rabbits dashed away in the opposite direction.
By now, whatever had been creating the dust cloud behind the rabbit came to view. An assortment of
vehicles, everything from armed and armoured dirt buggies to large ‘Mechs bristling with gun-power, each and all of the machines piloted by turtle soldiers, was right on his heels, and were ready to open fire at any signal.
Lori looked back to the advancing rabbit, and immediately regretted it. He now had at least fifty vehicles behind him, all with guns aimed at the three retreating Jackrabbits. Lori, now running on autopilot, raised her blaster over her shoulder, and without slowing down, sprayed bullets randomly into the horde. She was rewarded with the sight of several of the machines exploding in flames, and the turtle pilots flying through the air a short distance before crashing back down to the ground, and invariably getting run over or trampled by those still intact vehicles behind them.
Jazz and Spaz followed their sister’s example, and fired shots in every direction at the enormous numbers of enemy forces, quickly beginning to pick away at those numbers. Machine parts flew everywhere, accompanied by their former pilots. Explosions threw more than their own vehicles up and away, as more and more tumbled over sideways from the innumerable blasts around them. Chaos began to spread through the ranks, as several pilots made an attempt to turn around and escape, only to crash head-on into the more courageous pilots behind them. The horde’s strength in numbers was quickly fading.
As the vehicles began to fire back at them in retaliation, the three Jackrabbits were too busy dodging various projectiles and shooting back with everything they had to notice that the rabbit who had originally attacked Jazz had disappeared from the front of the ranks.
Jazz didn’t even have enough time to react as he reappeared, in midair, and laid a crushing smash to the green-furred rabbit’s skull with the missile machine.
He was instantly knocked out cold.
Lori caught Jazz in mid-fall, hoisted him onto her back, and ran full bore forwards, leaving Spaz slightly behind her to kill the rabbit who had rendered Jazz unconscious. Spaz aimed and fired several times, but the rabbit simply deflected the shots off of the missile machine’s heavy armoured plating. Before Spaz could aim to compensate for the rabbit’s impromptu shielding, he landed a second knockout smash upon the red rabbit’s head, flattening him.
Lori slowed to a stop as Spaz fell to the ground, and lowered Jazz off of her back. Neglecting to wipe the beads of sweat from her furry forehead, she began blasting madly at the killer rabbit, still standing over Spaz’s limp body, in an almost blind rage. But a split-second before any of her shots struck the gray rabbit, he looked up, then simply disappeared into thin air.
Lori lowered her blaster. She felt so useless; after she had allowed that rabbit to defeat her brothers so rapidly, she had allowed him to get away unscathed. If only she had been faster in helping Spaz, or even Jazz, before they had been knocked flat out...
Lori had almost completely forgotten about the approaching remnants of the vehicle horde, but the growling sounds of their advancing engines quickly reminded her of their presence. She turned on a pivot toward the source of the engine noise, but all she saw was the heavily muscled arm of one turtle pilot, outstretched, in front of her face, and coming in fast.
There was a fraction of a second of immense pain.
And then everything went black.

“...Did you get ‘er?”
“Yep. Clotheslined ‘er right across the eyes, and at top speed, too. Laid ‘er out flat.”
“Good job. Load ‘em into the back of Drachoon’s carrier; Devan’ll be pleased with us when we get back.”
“Yeppers.”
“Oh, one other thing. Make sure you... disarm them first, before you put ‘em in.”
“I was going to do that.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Hey, where’d Vaper go?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Pers’nally, I couldn’t care less about ‘im. The little creep’s been around for two, three hours, and ‘e already acts like ‘e’s so much better than the rest of us.”
“That’s prolly ‘cause ‘e is, last I checked.”
“How d’you figure that?”
“Well, did you see how fast ‘e was movin’ around? I bet you couldn’t move that fast.”
“Durr. He’s a rabbit, we’re turtles, you moron! Of course ‘e moves faster’n we do!”
“Well, he sure moves a lot faster’n any rabbit I’ve ever seen. A whole lot faster’n that Jazz, too, by the way ‘e just up’n’crushed ‘im. Just like that.”
“Yeh, well, I still say he’s gettin’ too high’n’mighty for his own good. Next thing ya know, ‘e’ll be plottin’ to kick Devan out from his high seat, an’ he’ll take over. I can’t even picture myself bein’ led onwards by that... that... rabbit. I might as well leave now, while I still have the chance.”
“Shut up, before someone hears you!”
“What’s it matter, anyway?”
“Don’t you remember what happened to the last guy who said somethin’ like that? Remember what Devan did to ‘im?”
“Ooh, right... ‘e got... punished. Yeah, I remember.”
“Right. An’ I’m pretty sure you don’t want that happenin’ to you as well, now do ya?”
“Not really, no.”
“‘Xactly. C’mon, let’s go. The rabbits are all loaded into Drachoon’s carrier, an’ I don’t want to end up stickin’ around here waitin’ for who knows what, an’ then have to deal with reinforcements.”
“When was the last time you ever had to deal with reinforcements?”
“Well... never, but, y’know, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Y’know what?”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
“‘Kay.”


I seems to be doing much on my Palm. Which is why it's such a great investment.

Go get a Palm. *puts on spiral-y glasses* Goooooo geeeet Paaaaaaalm noooooow... @_@

Oooooo scary!

I have the feeling we're going to have some slight problems facing Vaper...

Great story! Like it!^^ It would be nice if Acid might have a slightly larger cameo, but, hey, it's mostly about the real Jazz chars, so no problemo if you don't use Acid.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anywhere to put Acid at the moment... maybe somewhere near the end of the story...

The way this looks, it's going to be a considerably short story. Only 70000-90000 characters. Ah well. It ish goot.

I've included a whole bunch of small thingy cameos already... such as the following:

• That bulky, angular weapon on Vaper's arm is a spinoff of the Bullgut, from Shogo.
• The 'Mechs... c'mon, please don't tell me you don't know where the 'Mechs are from.
• The idea for the high-speed retreating battle was an idea I got from TankPilot, a game I have on my Palm. (So many uses, and it still fits into my pocket. :3)
• I paraphrased that part about Jazz tripping over his fallen jaw from a story in the Ultimate Spider-Man anthology.
• The Queen's nickname "Her Rotundity" comes from U.S. President Taft, who was referred to as "His Rotundity." No relation.
• The phrase "I stand ready" was inspired by StarCraft: Brood War's Corsair. I play that way too often. *drool drool*
• Just in case anyone was wondering, it stands for Direct Adrenal, Musculoskeletal, and Neural Energies Disruptor. Took me a long time to come up with that one, but I did it. ^_^

Well, now to go work on E:JF and finish Chapter God-knows-what. I've completely lost track by now.

Derby: Content clearance.

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.

Well, I haven't updated in god knows how long, but I finished Chapter 5 today.

There's not really much to say here. Well, I've caught up to myself in writing E:JF and SoT, as I have recently finished a chapter in both of them.

Oh yeah, and the square-bodied pistol is based off of the Dispersion Pistol from Unreal.

That's it.










APPLE TAXI SPONGE

That's hilarious, 4I Falcon! RuxOr.

PS, can I join? No one else seems to be asking. Besides, I don't care if I'm a bad guy

In reply to CopperTop:

The reason nobody's no one's asking to join is because this is mainly a story about the main Jazz Jackrabbit characters, not about ours.

Hope this clears up a few things, but I'm not saying 4I falcon won't let you be in the story!

Regarding joiners:

Originally posted by 4I Falcon
Well, yes and no. This is supposed to be a "lost episode" of JJ2, or something. I'm not going to be taking as many joiners as I am with E:JF.

Maybe one or two. Three if I'm in a good mood.

I'm very flattered that you wanted to join my story, CT. I may be able to find a spot for you. Same with acid, except I already got a small cameo in for him.

Do you have a profile in the "Everyone's characters" thread that I can take a look at?

Yes, tho I think I may have an update for it.

*Growlz* CONTINUE!!!

*jumps and falls off a cliff*

When I get chapter whatever-chapter-i'm-on-now finished, I'll post it here! I promise!

I don't know, SoT seems to have slowed down a whole bunch lately. I've been working on my character profiles and E:JF way too much. Tell you what, CT, I'll work on it right now, just to make you feel better.

I'm so generous.

*Feels better*

Wow. Excellent story so far. For some reason, the image of Spaz lying unconcious screaming "GIANT DONUT!" cracks me up. Um...include me.

Chapter 6: Switching Sides

Devan’s head popped up from behind the turret, greeting the Jackrabbits with an evil grin. “Well hello! I see you’ve all managed to get yourselves out of my trap! Of course, those idiot henchmen I assigned to put you there could have done a better job, but what the hey, this might actually be something of a challenge!”
Jazz was becoming frantic. Here he was, facing off against his arch-enemy, and he didn’t have a single gun – or any weapon, for that matter – on him. Lori held the only gun between the three of them, and she slowly raised it to eye level, pointing it at Devan. The turtle scoffed.
“Bah! You think, at this point, I’d allow myself to be defeated by a little pipsqueak rabbit with a stupid little gun?” Devan sneered at Lori, then forgot himself. “Er, again?”
Devan pointed accusingly at Jazz. “You! You may have defeated me many times before, Jazz Jackrabbit, but this time the victory will be mine. I will never have to face you again, because, simply put, I will have you. In fact, not only you, but your brother and sister, as well.”
Lori, trying to retain her composure from Devan’s tirade, fired a single shot to the left of Devan’s head, so that it bounced off of the turret’s white metal exterior with a loud ping. However, instead of intimidating him, as it had before, it simply caused him to laugh again. “Oh, you silly little girl, you think you can even hope to dent my beautiful machine with that blaster of yours?”
“I’m willing to bet I could put a better dent in your skull, you stupid, sadistic shellfish…” Lori said, through grinding teeth, reaiming the blaster so it was lined up with Devan’s forehead. However, Devan didn’t look anxious in the least, which simply added to Lori’s frustration. She pulled the trigger, sending a white-hot blast of energy directly at the impertinent turtle’s skull.
Devan grinned evilly. The bullet glanced off of him like it was a piece of dust. Infuriated, Lori sent a dozen more blasts at Devan’s head, and each one bounced off of him like he was made of steel.
Lori blinked. Was it Devan that so easily deflected the bullets? Surely not, as this blaster had taken him down more than once before. She fired one last shot in desperation, and it too, rebounded off of him.
Something white flashed in front of Devan’s face as the bullet approached, ricocheting it away. Devan had some sort of invisible shield around the open part of the turret, deflecting any projectiles so they would do no harm to the driver.
Devan laughed again. “Unbelievable. You rabbits still think you can beat me. I admire your persistence, but, unfortunately for you, nothing can defeat me this time. I have the most ultimate way to destroy you, once and for all… and it’s right under my fist.”
Lori lowered the gun. Her eyes darted from one part of the turret to another, searching for anything that could constitute a weak point. No exposed joints, flimsy plates of armour, or any other weak spots betrayed themselves to her, and she felt a single bead of sweat roll down the back of her head.
Devan grinned widely, baring his teeth in a devilish leer. “Now, I have one last thing to say before I vanquish you…”
He raised his fist, about to bring it crashing down on the red ignition button. “Run, rabbits, run!”
All three of the Jackrabbits backpedaled as the massive turret launched a single, bright red missile. The projectile cut through the air, and the Jackrabbits scattered to avoid being its first target. Spaz was the unlucky one to be traced by the missile, and it seemed to put on an extra boost of power to catch up with the small red rabbit.
A second missile blasted out of the turret, and gyrated in the air before coming back downward again. This time, Jazz was its intended target, and it chased after him like an angry, blood-red wasp. Jazz immediately scarpered as fast as possible, but the missile just kept gaining on him.
The third and last missile was shot out of the massive turret. It seemed to stall in midair, then came plummeting back down again. As if it knew that the other two target rabbits had been taken care of, the missile directed itself at Lori, and charged full-bore at her retreating back.
Without warning, Lori turned around, with Jazz’s blaster raised, and sent a cavalcade of quick shots at the approaching missile. Each one rebounded off of the red metal, but with considerably more effect than they had had on the turret. As the shots hit the projectile, they knocked it temporarily out of control, spinning it wildly from one side to the other. Lori slowly strafed to her left, keeping the hail of gunfire strong, and hoping that she could confuse the onboard computer enough to drive it crazy.
Suddenly, one of the bullets evidently hit a weak spot on the missile, as the blast drove right into its side and plunged out the other, drilling a hole right through it. The missile flipped backwards, like a dead animal, and then erupted into a black fireball as it flew towards Lori. Thinking quickly, the rabbit jumped as high as she could, to avoid the dark fireball as it rushed by.
The edge of the cloud managed to catch the tip of her right foot as she was at the peak of her jump, and when she landed on the stone floor again, her right foot felt abnormally cold. She looked down, and gasped in horror. The fur on the lower half of her right foot had turned to a dark, silver-blue colour, and it was slowly spreading upwards toward her ankle. Lori, suddenly stricken with a wave of panic, looked back and forth, as if to try to find something to stop the silvery tone from spreading across her foot.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the dark tone began to shrink into a smaller and smaller circle upon her foot, with her normal yellow fur replacing it as it shrank. As she watched, the blue part disappeared within a few seconds. She sighed in relief as the wave of panic that had passed over her faded. She had not yet seen that her brothers did not fare as well as she did.
Spaz, being the first to be traced by the missiles, was the first to be put to action. At first, he ran as hard as he could, straight away from the incoming projectile. However, one look behind him proved that, while he was fast, the missile was faster.
Suddenly, Spaz jumped forward a short distance, to set himself up for a jump. Less than a half second after he landed, he sprung again, and performed an unusually graceful backflip up and over the missile. Spinning halfway around in midair, he landed on the ground again, facing away from the missile, and ready to get up and run again. But the half-second Spaz needed to start running was all the missile needed to turn itself around, explode, and send its dark cargo flying at him. Spaz didn’t get a full step forward before the dark essence hit him.
Jazz, on the other hand, trusted his breakneck swiftness to keep him away from the missile that was tailing him. He didn’t look backwards at the red rocket, but instead practically flew along the outside wall. However, the missile almost seemed to realize that there was nowhere for Jazz to escape, and it spun on an axis to face the other way, and rocketed along the outer wall in the opposite direction. Jazz, never having looked behind him, did not realize that the missile had doubled back, and that the two were racing toward each other on a collision course along the curved cavern walls. Not twenty meters along the wall, Jazz saw the rocket speeding towards him. Running on autopilot by this point, he spun around, trying to get away from it again. It caught up to him before he had started in the other direction.
Both Jazz and Spaz were almost immediately trapped in black spheres after the darknesses entered them. Jazz began to rise slowly, as the sphere carried him a few feet above the ground, and it looked like his arms and legs were being pulled to their limits, keeping him spread eagled inside the sphere. Spaz, although not hovering as high up as Jazz, was flipped upside down, and was arched backwards in a certainly painful position. They both appeared to be screaming silently in pain as their bodies were stretched to their limits. Lori was still panting from the close call she had just had with her own missile, and she had her back to her brothers.
A loud crack was made from behind her, and she turned around. Jazz and Spaz were floating in midair, five feet from each other, both imprisoned in dark spheres. Another crack sounded, and a thick, black bolt of electricity, if that was indeed what it was, connected the two spheres for a split second. Lori could only watch in horror as Jazz and Spaz were tormented inside the black orbs, and for the third time that day, she felt powerless to do anything. Her jaw dropped in dread as she realized that this was what Devan, having waited years, had finally achieved: the defeat of Jazz Jackrabbit, even without having caused his gruesome death.
Lori looked on as the two spheres exploded into glass-like shards, and Jazz and Spaz fell to the ground. They both landed on their feet, and they knelt there, in silence. As Lori looked back, she noticed, as Devan had noticed with Vaper, that their fur had radically changed. Jazz’s fur was now jet-black, and scarcely a glint shone off of its pitch-like hue. Spaz’s fur had changed from its normal red to a silver-gray, and he had what appeared to be a light silver stripe running down his back.
Then, as if by some cue, their eyes snapped open. Jazz’s eyes, like Vaper’s, had changed to a deep red. Spaz’s had changed from their normal green to a pale white. They stood up in sync, and waited for a signal.
“Hahahahahaha! Well, two’s better than zero, but I won’t have to worry about that for long! I may not have been able to get you, but I’m sure your brothers will be more than pleased to do the job for me!”
The Turbulents charged.

In honour of CT's as of yet unnamed story, I have updated System of Turbulence. Enjoy.

Oh, and I also have Acid, Coppertop, and Canadian booked for some rather large appearances. Now if I can just remember how I'm going to do this, it'll be all good.

Love it

Wow. You're actually including me. I honestly didn't expect that. Not that being included is a bad thing, of course. You can use Canadian Bot and American too if you want. Their profiles are in your character topic, 4I Falcon.

Don't call him 41, he'll yell. I have had the benifit of that experience.

Chapter 7: Into the Fray

Eva paced back and forth inside her room. She was mumbling to herself, and looking frantically around the room, looking for something that wasn’t there. The princess was obviously in a state of disorder over worrying about her absent husband-to-be, and had been for the past fifteen minutes. She had not yet noticed her mother, standing in the doorway, and observing her bemusedly.
“How long have you been doing that?”
Eva jumped, startled. She glared at her mother, with an expression of righteous indignation stamped upon her face. “Mum! How long have you been standing there?!”
The Queen smiled. “About ten minutes, why?”
“You were watching me for ten minutes?”
“You really weren’t doing anything interesting. What’s all the pacing for?”
Eva’s indignance died down. She looked off to one side, as if she was avoiding looking into her mother’s eyes; then she looked out the window forlornly. “I’m worried about Jazz.”
The Queen chuckled. “That rabbit reprobate? I’m sure he’s fine, Eva. He’s gotten out of tougher scrapes than this, and he’s always managed to come back and pester me to no end. Don’t worry about him; he’ll be back in no time.”
Eva continued to look out the window, waiting for an uplifting sight. “I don’t know. I feel like something really... bad has just happened. Something really bad. But I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like a premonition that I can’t explain.”
She sat down heavily on her bed. “I can’t shake it, mum. I can’t help but fear the worst.”
Queen Earlong sat down gently on the bed, next to her daughter, and laid a tender arm about her shoulders. She tried to pick her words carefully, so that she didn’t accidentally prod Eva’s distress further. “Eva, I know you love Jazz. I know why you love Jazz, and I’m not downplaying that at all. But at the moment, we can’t do anything. We have to trust him to get back himself.”
As Eva took a deep breath, her mother mentally smacked herself in the forehead. She obviously realized she had said something completely wrong, as she felt Eva’s shoulders shudder in silent, broken sobs. Her mind raced as she frantically searched for something to say to make up for her accidental ignorance.
The Queen decided to try a different path. “Remember the first time Jazz had to... uh, get rid of Devan? When he rescued you from that cage on Acidius?”
Eva looked to her mother. Her sobs had lessened in magnitude, and she waited for the Queen to continue. After hesitating momentarily, she did.
“Jazz had to fight his way through twenty-five – twenty-five! – planets, full of Devan’s little goonies, to find you. I’d say if he can get through that, he can get through pretty much anything.”
The Queen embraced her daughter gently. “Don’t worry about Jazz, Eva. He’s come back before, and he’ll come back again, I’m sure of it. Jazz will be back before you know it, safe and–”
At this moment, Acid, the castle’s resident technobrat, and the only rabbit in the castle with an exploding coffee maker, burst into the room. He was panting slightly, but he did not forget to bow in the presence of the Queen. “Your Majesty, thank goodness I found you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. We have a problem.”
Queen Earlong stood up quickly. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Acid hesitated. He looked to Eva, then back to the Queen. He took a deep breath, and relayed the bad news. “We’ve lost the Jackrabbits.”
“What?!” Queen Earlong was suddenly hysterical. “What do you mean, we’ve lost the Jackrabbits?”
“They were... incapacitated at the field of engagement. All of them.” He stuttered, trying to find words that could convey his point, without worrying the already anxious Princess further. No words came from his mouth as he scratched the back of his head, trying to think of something to say. He quickly gave up, and turned around. He simply said, “Follow me.” before leaving the room.
The Queen stood, glanced at her daughter apologetically, then went after Acid outside, leaving Eva sitting on her bed, staring blankly at the open door, sobbing and alone.

Queen Earlong caught up to Acid a short way down the hall. The latter could easily tell that the former was not impressed with him.
“You know, you could not have picked a worse time to say that. I was right in the middle of telling Eva that that idiot rabbit would come back.”
“I apologize, your Majesty, but I had to find you ASAP, wherever you were. That’s how it works in matters of global emergency.”
“Jazz? Cause for global emergency?” The Queen scoffed, but Acid remained dead serious.
“Jazz and his brother and sister are everything we have to defend against Devan Shell. No one can even compare to them in speed, accuracy, and whatnot. With all due respect, if I were you, I’d be pretty worried if the only viable defense Carrotus has suddenly went MIA.”
Queen Earlong took Acid’s words into consideration as they continued down the hallway towards the younger’s area of expertise: the castle’s technology wing. Her brow was furrowed, and her expression had changed from a look of sarcasm to one of worry. “I don’t want to admit it, but I think you’re right. They’ve been working around the clock to stop that tyrannical turtle in his tracks. I’d hate to lose them now.”
“Agreed. They’re the best of the best, and the only shot we’ve got.”
Out of nowhere, the Queen smiled. “That was pretty good. Be sure to write that down somewhere.”
“Um... okay...”
A few minutes later, they entered the technology wing, a single, enormous room, filled with technological paraphernalia from wall to wall. Several rabbits occupied stations and computers in various places around the room, and there were a few active terminals with no one sitting at them. As Acid progressed to one, he called out, “No one’s touched my compy, right?”
There was a resounding chorus of “Right”s, and Acid fell carelessly into a chair in front of one of the active terminals. The Queen stood behind him, waiting to see what he had to show her.
“I sent a little bug out after them, to make sure they didn’t get themselves killed or something. It stored a vid of the battle, and it managed to get itself back to us to deliver the vid. This is how it turned out...”
A video popped up on-screen, starting with the Jackrabbits tearing across the flat plains, unaware that they were being viewed from a distance by Acid’s “bug.” Jazz was a few metres ahead of his brother and sister, and as the point of view shifted, they could see what the three were running towards: a grey rabbit, being followed by a huge dust cloud. The two rabbits seemed to be on a collision course as they veritably flew toward each other. As the Jackrabbits sprinted along the flatlands, the bug, and therefore the viewpoint, changed, moving forward with the three heroes.
Suddenly, the grey rabbit lifted his arm, and grabbed a hold of the machine that seemed to be attached to the lower half of his arm. He looked down the length of the machine, poising himself to fire on Jazz.
Just before he fired, however, the vid stopped. Acid pointed to the weapon displayed on the screen. “Do you recognize this weapon?”
The Queen looked at him puzzledly. “Should I?”
“Well, you probably should, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, that answers my question. That appears to be a new version of the Hercules, a portable multi-missile launcher I helped engineer a few years back, after getting the go-ahead from your good self. Devan must have gotten hold of the prototype and retrofitted it for use by his own forces. In any case...”
The vid resumed playing, and the scene was, to put it mildly, not uplifting. The dust cloud behind the grey rabbit appeared to clear away, and now dozens of armed vehicles showed themselves. The Jackrabbits were forced to bolt as three missiles plowed into the ground where they had been not even a full second ago. Lori had turned around, and fired several bullets randomly into the mechanical masses. Jazz and Spaz quickly followed their sister’s example, firing blast after blast into the horde, picking away at their numbers.
Then, from out of nowhere, the grey rabbit appeared above Jazz. He hadn’t jumped, or ran, but simply appeared. Before Jazz could react, he clubbed the green rabbit down with a single smash of the Hercules. Lori caught her brother in mid-fall, but didn’t get far, as Spaz was decimated not fifteen seconds after Jazz.
Lori set Jazz back on the ground again after Spaz was smacked down, and turned to fire at least a dozen more bullets at the grey rabbit; but before any of them made contact, he disappeared.
Lori looked at the ground, devastated by her loss. She only looked up in time to be clotheslined across the face by an approaching pilot.
There was nothing more to the video worth watching, as Acid closed the vidwindow. He turned to the Queen. “Now you know.”
Queen Earlong was stupefied. “But… so… where are they now?”
“We’ve traced them to the Rockius Mountains, and Mount Whitespire to be even more precise. My first priority, after seeing the vid, was to come find you; my second was to get going and find them.”
The Queen stared at him, but Acid knew that she was really looking off into space, once again, deep in thought. Her eyes snapped back to his, and she nodded. “Go then.”
Suddenly, a dark grey-furred rabbit stood from her chair. She glanced at Acid, shouldering his pack and readying himself to be gone, then said to the Queen, “I’m going too.”
“So am I.” A red-furred rabbit had also risen from his seat. “We’re not about to sit back here and be tortured by the knowledge that the Jackrabbits have been captured by Devan Shell. We’re going to help.”
Acid looked from the grey rabbit Coppertop, to the red-furred Iam Canadian, then back to Coppertop. “But…”
“No buts, Acid. We’re coming with you whether you want us to or not.”
Acid grinned. “So be it. Get yourselves moving; we’re heading out in ten minutes.”

Like I said, it's about freaking time, too.

Nothing interesting to put in here. Canadian and Coppertop are in, as promised. I have no clue what to do for Chapter 8. Hopefully something interesting.

Anyway.

Ooh. I can't wait to see where this is going.

YEESSSSS!!!!!!
*dances around in circles, screaming*
Okay, I'm done now.
Thanks, 4I. Perfect ...

Chapter 8: Killer Instinct

“So do we have any idea what happened to the Jackrabbits after that uplifting vid of yours?” Coppertop asked Acid, as they bolted out of Carrotus Castle.
“None whatsoever. The only clue we have is that they were taken to the Rockius Mountains, and Mount Whitespire in particular. After that, we draw a blank.”
“The Rockius Mountains? Isn’t that where they were trying to go in the first place?”
“Well, yes and no. While they did indeed get there, they were taken there by force. Devan’s going to try to resolve his past mistakes. He’s not going to risk anything.”
“And this means...?”
“Devan will do anything and everything to give himself the advantage over the Jackrabbits, even if it’s completely arbitrary. I’ll bet my coffee maker that he made sure they had been disarmed first.”
Coppertop made no response, but instead concentrated on where she was running. None of the three said anything as they sped along the Carrotan flatlands.
Before long, the looming, jagged monstrosity of the Rockius Mountains cast its enormous shadow upon the three runners. Canadian looked upwards, in an attempt to find the pinnacles of the towering stone spires, but they were lost in the clouds above, the greyish-white clouds themselves making the already tall mountains look even more enormous than they actually were. The three rabbits were headed directly at the tallest mountain, and closing fast. At the rate at which they were moving, they could make it from the base of the mountain to its peak in less than fifteen minutes, if they had started at the base of the mountain.
Without warning, an explosion erupted from the side of the mountain facing them, propelling rock and debris outwards from the cliff face above. Acid signaled to the other two rabbits to stop as the flames licked outwards, like a small volcano venting its molten innards out through the mountain’s surface.
From out of the fire came Lori, flying out of the farthest reaches of the heated tongues of flame. She flew outwards, for a split second seeming to defy gravity, and then came plummeting downward again. She hit the ground running, and raced toward the foot of the mountain at an incredible speed.
The fiery explosion had finally died off, and from the cloud of smoke and dust came a brilliant blue beam of energy. It tore down the mountainside, leaving a rut a foot wide and two feet deep streaking down the rock face. Lori immediately dodged away from the blue energy beam as it sliced by her, and it disappeared not long past her.
As if the blue beam wasn’t enough, the unique and unmistakeable sound of a multi-shot gauss gun reported repeatedly from the dust cloud. Explosions left craters in the stone surface, and Lori started to zigzag down the slope, in an attempt to throw off the user’s aim. It seemed to work; Lori had already made it halfway down the mountain without an injury, other than some slightly charred fur from the original explosion.
The dust cloud began to clear. It was then that Acid, Coppertop, and Canadian could see the two gunners, armed with their weapons. Acid gasped in surprise as he realized that he recognized the two almost immediately.
It was Jazz and Spaz Jackrabbit, Lori’s own siblings – or was it? Outwardly, they looked like the two famous Jackrabbit brothers, excepting one major detail; their fur colours had all gone to greyscale. Jazz’s normally green-hued fur had become as black as pitch, and Spaz’s crimson fur, interrupted on his chest by a tone of brilliant gold, had turned to deep grey and lighter silver, respectively. Jazz was armed with a shoulder-mounted beam cannon, and Spaz attacked with, as previously assumed, a four-barreled, gauss-gatling weapon. They seemed uninterested in the three rabbits at the base of the mountain, but instead concentrated their hail of weapon fire on the rapidly descending Lori.
Then it happened. As Lori dodged around another blue beam razing down the mountain at her, one of the multitude of gauss shells exploded too close to her. It sent her flying off the face of the mountain in a crazed headfirst dive, topping 75 kilometers per hour. Iam Canadian immediately put himself into action, running headlong towards the falling rabbit.
Fortunately, Canadian made it to Lori before the ground did, catching her with outstretched arms. He nearly toppled over backward as Lori’s body slammed into his own, but managed to keep his balance,
backstepping once or twice.
Lori looked at him. “Nice catch.”
Canadian chuckled. “Thanks.”
“You can put me down now.”
“Okay.”
As soon as Lori’s feet touched the rock surface of the mountain, another blue beam sliced into the thick stone, and began to advance towards them at an alarmingly rapid rate. Both of them dodged out of the way as the beam razed past them, and Lori raised Jazz’s blaster up towards her two brothers, sending a quick volley of bullets upwards. Spaz quickly responded with a hail of gauss blasts ripping into the mountain’s surface, but Lori and Canadian were already long gone.
Coppertop provided cover fire for them as they continued their hasty descent down the mountainside, and Acid had stood his crimson missile launcher on its end to drop one of its infamous RaCO rockets into the barrel. Quickly checking the depth of the rocket into the barrel, he swung the massive red missile launcher up onto his shoulder, and aimed at the two gunners.
There was a roar as the missile was blasted out of the barrel of Acid’s rocket launcher. It began to pick up speed as soon as it left the barrel, and left a trail of smoke along the sky as it sped toward Jazz and Spaz. Acid immediately realized what he had just done: by sending such a powerful missile at them, he had essentially killed the two Jackrabbit brothers even before the missile exploded. He could only watch in slackjawed horror as the missile continued to accelerate toward the two gray-furred gun-rabbits.
But just before the missile made contact with the stone surface of the mountain, causing it to explode in a giant shockwave, the two Jackrabbits simply disappeared from view. They hadn’t run, but merely disappeared.
The missile, however, continued onward, and it crashed into the side of the mountain, setting off its massive payload. The resulting explosion blew an enormous hole into the side of the mountain, sending large chunks of stone both back into the hole from which Lori had made her leap of faith, and outwards into space, only to be pulled back down again by the force of gravity.
Acid had to dodge out of the way as one particularly large rock crashed into the ground where he had stood. Rocks came flying from the sky like giant hailstones, and the four rabbits at the base of the mountain scurried out of the way of falling rocks as jagged-edged pieces of precipitation embedded themselves into the ground like giant, irregular gravestones. Canadian and Coppertop ran headfirst into each other as they dodged showers of pebbles from the air. Lori quickly made for the limit of the range of the torrential storm of stone, and successfully dodged projectiles as she dashed away from the mountain.
By the time the rocks had ceased falling, no one was injured, save for a few bumps to the three who, as Lori had done unthinkingly, had not made haste for the outer boundary of the rockfall. Lori made long, ardent strides back to the group, who were still dusting themselves off from the various debris that had fallen on them.
Acid sneezed, and a cloud of dust floated outward from his fur. For a few seconds, the dust lingered like an aura around the amused rabbit; then, as it settled on the ground, Acid chuckled. “Wow. I must have had a beach in my fur.”
Coppertop flicked her small tail idly. A similar cloud of dust arose, then slowly floated back to the ground. “Mount Whitespire is made of igneous rock, not sedimentary... Where the heck is all this dust coming from?”
“Beats me,” Canadian replied, with a shrug. He happened to glance upwards at the enormous hole that Acid’s missile left in the mountain. “Well, would you look at that.”
“What?” Lori asked, looking up to match Canadian’s gaze.
“Not only did Acid manage to take a good quarter of the mountain out, but he also got us a pretty wide way in to Devan’s base.”
Acid squinted up at the large hole he had put into the mountain. “Well, so I did. That was convenient.”
“So… are we going to go in, or not?” Lori asked, with a hint of impatience in her voice. “I mean, what better time than the present to go whip Devan’s slimy butt and get Jazz and Spaz back?”
“You mean those two were your brothers?”
Lori hung her head. “Unfortunately, yes. I even had to watch them become… like that.” She paused. “It was horrible. They looked like they were in so much pain… like their bodies were being pulled apart…”
Suddenly, she vented on no one in particular. “Dammit! If only I had been just a little bit faster! Then none of this would have happened!”
“Lori, it’s okay!” Coppertop tried frenetically to calm the suddenly enraged Jackrabbit down, but she didn’t appear to be making progress. “You did the best you could. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because that’s the truth. But now… Lori, your brothers are counting on us to get them back. So let’s not keep them waiting, huh?”
With an awkward smile, Lori turned to Coppertop. “You’re right, Copper. I’m sorry, guys, I shouldn’t have over-reacted like that. It’s just that… well, you know how close me and my brothers are.”
“It’s alright, Lori. I’m sure Jazz or Spaz would do the same for you any day.”
Acid grinned. “Well, now that we have that all cleared up, what say we head for Devan’s base?”
“I’m ready.”
“Good idea.”
“I’m all for it.”
“Well then, let’s make haste, shall we?”
Without another word, the four departed, with Lori at the forefront. She knew that if anyone was going to save her brothers from whatever Devan had done to them… she was the one to do it.

I just narrowly saved it from the edge of the forum. I just want you all to know that I worked extra hard on this to get it done before April 30th.

Now, I only have one thing to say...




ACID! GO UPDATE ANIMALS!

NOW!

Good work, keep it going.