All the woodlanders gathered at Brockhall to meet Martin.
Pepe embraced Martin warmly. "Ah, mon ami, it is good to see you made it back in one piece!"
"Welcome to Brockhall, matey," said Gonff, holding out his paw for Martin to shake. "Ben Stickle told me you gave a Kotir patrol a taste of your warrior skills single-pawed, before they managed to capture you. We could use more beasts like you around. They call me Gonff, the Prince of Mousethieves."
"Yeah, an' they never call him late to table," said Bugs.
Gonff pointed at himself innocently. "Who, me? I hardly ever touch food, matey. A crust an' a beaker o' water's good enough for me!"
Bella commented drily, "Lackaday, then it must be the birds eating all those pies an' pasties I'm forever baking. What d'you think, Gonff?"
"Must be," Gonff said with a straight face.
Everybeast went to the main hall to eat the dinner that Goody Stickle and Pepe le Pew had prepared. When they were all seated, Bella stood up at the head of the table and said, "As you can see, we have a new friend in our midst, Martin the Warrior. He and Bugs Bunny recently escaped from Kotir in a very brave and daring manner. Martin, do you have anything you want to say?"
Martin got up. "I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to settle in your beautiful Mossflower country. I will do all I can to help free this land from the tyrant Tsarmina!" Everybeast cheered.
"With you on our side it shouldn't take more'n a couple o' days, eh, Doc?" Bugs called.
Martin had never tasted such delicious food in his life, not even when he visited Equestria that one time in my Redwall/My Little Pony crossover fic. There were roast chestnuts served with cream and honey, clover oatcakes dipped in hot redcurrant sauce, celery and herb cheese on acorn bread with chopped radishes, and a huge home baked seed and sweet barley cake with mint icing. "In the name of mice, I'd have been a cook and not a warrior if I knew food could taste this good," he muttered through a mouthful of cake and milk.
Gonff grinned, trying to answer through face crammed with chestnut, honey, and strawberry juice. "Mmmfff, shouldn' talk wiff y'mouff full."
In the middle of the feast, who should turn up but Lady Amber, none the worse for her ordeal!
Skipper was overjoyed to see her. "Amber, me old treeflyer, I knew you'd make it back alive! An army of vermin's no match for a queen of squirrels!"
Amber explained what had happened to her. "When I got hit with an arrow, I fell from the tree I was in and landed in some bushes. I didn't want to crawl away for fear of leavin' a blood trail, so I just slapped a good pawful o' mud on my footpaw to stop the bleedin' and lay waiting until the vermin had passed by. Then I made my way back here."
"You'd better let me take a look at your footpaw," said Brenda, a squirrel healer.
"I'm glad you're okay," Martin said to Amber. "I would have felt terrible if you'd gotten killed rescuing me."
"I'm glad you're okay too," she replied.
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Meanwhile, Tsarmina had called Fortunata, Ashleg, and Cludd to her private chamber. "I will hunt down that mouse, and I will kill him!" she declared.
"And we'll help you do it," said Cludd.
"But Martin would never have escaped if he hadn't been assisted by that hare, that… Toon!" Tsarmina spat. "There's nothing in this world I hate more than Toons."
"But wasn't your Tasmanian Devil a Toon too?" Fortunata pointed out.
"Shut up! Now, luckily, I have a way of dealing with Toons." Tsarmina went over to the corner of the room and pulled a sheet off a large barrel marked "DIP." Then she took a box out of her dresser drawer. She opened the box and inside was a cartoon shoe. It had a happy animated face and it was singing to itself.
"Stop that at once!" Tsarmina ordered. "Shoes don't sing!"
"Well, why shouldn't I sing?" the shoe said in a squeaky voice. "After all, I have a tongue!"
"This is why I hate Toons. They're always disobeying the rules of reality, and physics, and common sense!" Tsarmina picked the shoe up and walked over to the barrel of Dip. "Now watch closely, morons, and see what happens to Toons that defy me!"
She dropped the shoe into the barrel, and it was engulfed in the green liquid inside. The poor shoe had time for only one scream before it disintegrated.
Tsarmina grinned nastily. "When I get my paws on Bugs Bunny again, I'll do that to him! Now, I want you three to each take one third of our forces and scour the woodlands, looking for Martin and Bugs. When you've brought them back, I'll try them, convict them… and execute them."
