War on the Rabbits

Rico looked out over the camp. He was dead tired but his PowerHopper needed a new coat of paint and he liked to do the work himself. He reached for the pink paint and touched up the “Good” part of “GoodAndPlenty”. The black was still in good shape. He’d been leading the Fuzzbutts for a few months now, but he still did not feel like he was Razzcat’s replacement. He was secretly hoping that the old cat might show up somehow, but the memory of his horrible death was still fresh. A bluebottle’s scaler had taken his left eye two months back, and the patch he wore over it now was one more way he’d become the old cat without ever asking to.

He’d moved Dizzy as his second and they were waiting for a fresh bunch of rabbits. The Fuzzbutts were severely underbunnied and even this batch of fresh recruits would not fill all of their open roles.

Rico saw the truck with the fresh meat arrive and stretched up to meet them. Dizzy took lead as was customary. The new bunnies looked tentative as they hopped off the back of the truck.

Dizz sighed then shouted out, “Line your fuzzy butts out right now. This is Rico’s Fuzzbutts! You need to hear the rules of being a Fuzzbutt from the fuzziest butt of them all, your Sergeant Rico. Yoohah!”

The twelve rabbits that currently made up the Fuzzbutts in PowerHoppers yelled, “Yoohah! Rico’s Fuzzbutts!” Rico walked up to the line of recruits to inspect his new charges.

Rico used his unpatched eye on each bunny, raw, medium-rare and well-seasoned to instill his rabbity creed:

“Every rabbit fights! Everybody does their job! Nobody quits! If you quit, I’ll j-bean you myself right on the spot! DO YOU GET ME, RABBITS!”

The rabbits were in mid “WE GET YOU…” when the first rabbit fell to a sniped Enamel pellet between the eyes. The platoon pivoted as the giant worm’s shadow covered them all. “BUGS! SCRAMBLE!” yelled a rabbit before being swallowed by a large worm.

Bugs with pellet launchers and sharp implements flew down from a maze of inbound worm jaws. Rico fired his glute jets to gain distance, but was immediately smacked back down by an incoming worm.

His pink and black mech was slammed into the ground and left a heavy divot. Rico saw a worm mouth descending on his body and rolled quickly out of the way. His carrotsight was damaged by the evasive maneuver but he could see Dizzy’s red and yellow BitOHoney. She was swarmed by bugs and was violently defending herself.

She quickly fried four bluebottles with a j-bean lemon/lime combination that splashed purple gore across her gritting teeth. Dizzy snarled and pulled out her jordan almonator to deal with the rest. A bluebottle then neatly took her right arm off at the shoulder and the blood streamed down to make her fur even redder.

“DIZZY!” yelled Rico. He was at least a quarter millimeter away and leaned forward to fire his glute jets horizontally. He lowered his ear blades and the blades made a purple wave of gore as his GoodAndPlenty carved toward her BitOHoney. He arrived in the midst of a swarm of bugs with knives of various kinds.

Johnny’s BunUrge had his fur on end as he brought out his toasted marshmallow thrower. “Bug OFF!” he roared as innumerable bugs were turned into sticky white goo. The rest routed like the cowards they were.

Johnny reached Dizzy as her red blood was flowing down her pelt. She looked into his eyes. “Johnny? I always lov…”

“Not now, Dizzy! I’m getting you out of here.” said the enraged trooper.

Rico slammed his black vines up to full and cleared out the red — all black, no red. He shook as he injected double his maximum recommended BunUrge. His eyes slowly turned black as he watched his sugar levels hit “raccoon left alone with a 10-pound bag of C&H”.

His carrotsight made out a nearby pocket in a white enamel tower. Ace landed nearby and asked, “What’s the play, GoodAndPlenty? Mountain Don’t has your back.”

“Good. I’ll clear the way,” snarled Rico as he switched his j-bean to black.

“Chemical weapons?! Are you sure, Rico?” yelled Ace.

“I’ve never been more sure, Ace.” said Rico as he fired a dark beam. The nearby bugs fell to the toxic beam and the purple blood mixed with the blackness created a sticky mess.

“Carve through all this, Ace!” yelled Rico as he swung the black j-bean to other bugs in their path. He was dragging Dizzy along as well. Ace used his leg blades to get a way through all the blackened bodies.

The red and purple path was slowly built over several minutes, and the three bunnies managed to get inside the pocket. Rico planted a forward-facing basket used to control a narrow space. If someone walked nearby, twenty chocosteel eggs would launch from the basket and sugar everyone in a 180-degree arc.

“Johnny…” Dizzy said softly.

Rico turned past Ace and looked over, “Yes, Dizz?”

Dizzy stared off.

Rico’s black-on-black eyes sobbed as he gently closed Dizzy’s brown ones.