GANG of HOPPERS
My brothers and I in the ZooKzin War
by Dori Hopps
Written by Dan Rush
(c) Zootopia 2016 Walt Disney Cooperation
(c) Alex Gray from Harmarist Sheath & Knife comics
Chapter 25
Madagascar part 5
January 12th, 2042
Zootopian Task Force Julian
March Column "Gouge Out"
Madagascar
seventeen miles Northwest of the port of Maramanga
fourty two miles Southwest of Bongalava
0600 hours in the village of Mahanoro
Passion (an English Fox) pulled on my shoulders as I stuck my head further into the frozen open maw and poked around the dangerous teeth. The size of the maw intrigued me, had this sucker lived through the night he could have flicked me into the air and gulped me with one clean bite. Course...he didn't make it as didn't most of his companions.
The Kzinti unit that had been holding Mahanoro and had been forced out by our column's surge assault the day before, in an effort to save the Madagascarian civilians trapped there, had spent themselves in a crazed night charge against our fox holes and our artillery...
The "Sons of Aden" had been devastatingly accurate with their artillery; as attested by the Kzinti lying in both feral and anthro form in various states of carnage over the expansive clearing of the flat scrub plain north of the "Vil". Our "flying column" attacked at 4am, broke the back of the enemy and sent those Kzinti who survived the destruction of their two divisions fleeing North, abandoning what civilians they weren't able to kill or eat in their flight.
As I intently studied and ran my paws over one of the big saber fangs of the dead Kzinti of interest...Passion made clear his fear for my life by snatching my tail and giving it a hard painful yank! "GET OUT OF THAT THING!" The fox snapped! He then cringed when he locked eyes with the still angry looking "puss" the dead Kzinti was giving off...
"Oh snit..." Passion squeek'd..."I just wet myself! Aww...damn it!"
I giggled a little as Passion did this sort off leg shaking dance and worried he'd gotten his precious tail soaked with urine..."Normal reaction...He's dead Passion, see?" I saod as I bop'd the tiger's nose a few times to prove he was quite expired.
Passion flopped down next to my brother Ori, who would you believe this? He slept through the insanity of the previous night? Kzinti coming at us in a crazy suicidal charge and my brother's sleeping! I didn't have the heart to tell him he was sucking a paw thumb like a baby through all of it. In the craziness of the moment...I never woke him up. Finally...Ori stumbled to his feet, looked out over the expanse of destruction before us and said still half asleep...
"What the fluck happened?"
"Oh? Nothing." I replied as I reached out and closed the eyes of the poor Kzinti who went to kitty heaven at the lip of our trench. "We pounded them good obviously."
Ori stood rubbing his head tuft and checking himself over. "What about us? I mean...our unit?"
"We took some casualties." Passion replied. "But no fatalities. Should have seen them Ori...crazy as hell. Must be like over a hundred or two hundred easy over the dirt out there."
Ori's nose twitched. "No prisoners?" He asked.
Me and Passion shook our heads. "Some of the wounded pulled out paw grenades and blew themselves up. Some shot their own wounded then killed themselves. I saw a pair hug and snuggle each other and then..."BOOM!"..." I stood quiet for a moment before I got upset and punched that dead Kzinti near our fox hole in the nose..."WHAT THE FLUCK?! WHY?! WHY FRITH DAMN YOU?! WHY DID YOU STUPID MOTHER FLUCKERS START THIS FRITH DAMN WAR?! WHY IN FLUCKEN HELL?!"
Ori reached to touch me and I batted his paw off..."Don't you fricken touch me when I'm venting?!"
"Ok?! Ok?..." Ori said shocked...even Passion backed away as I smacked the dead Kzinti in the snoot...
"All this absolute bull snit!...I could be home pleasing my wife! I could be home loving on my father who doesn't have long to live! I could be home helping bunnies to give birth or healing the sick but no...noooooooo...I have to be here because of you STUPID MOTHER FLUCKERS! YOU STUPID LITTER BOX SAND DIGGING DUMB FLUCKEN CATS!"
"ORI?!" Came a concerned voice from above the fox hole.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT MOTHER FLUCKER?!" I screamed...at Nori...I flopped into the dirt floor of the fox hole and just sobbed. I was exhausted, I was stressed out, I was covered in Tiger drool and smelled like total "yuck"...
Nori climbed into the hole and just sat looking at me..."Do you feel better now?" He asked. "Hey? Look at me "Door, Door", I'm not angry trust me."
I took a deep breath, reached out and almost knocked Nori off his feet. "Yeah...I do actually." I said with a big exhaust of breath as I gave him a hug..."Ugh...this is flucken stupid. Such a big fricken waste." I rested back against the hole-side and just growled things out.
"That's good." Nori replied. "Very good Door Door...let it all come out, I'm not angry at you yelling at me one bit little brother. We're going to wait another hour here and then have a quick breakfast before we reconstitute and figure out the next move." Nori snuggled my head..."You sure you're alright "Door Door"?"
"Yeah...I'm fine." I replied. I took a deep breath. "Everyone else all right?"
"Made it through again without a scratch." Nori replied. "It got very close and hairy for a moment obviously..." Nori pointed at the dead Kzinti by our fox hole. "Owen played "hot potato" with one Kzinti, Frith damn that was hilarious! It was dangerous? But I was laughing my tail into my throat!"
Nori sat down in our hole..."So here we are right? The height of the charge! Owen's calling in artillery, oblivious to everything else while he's on the radio phone and this Kzinti throws a paw grenade right off his chest! Owen? Didn't even break from talking into his phone...he picks up the grenade and chucks it right back at the sender! So the sender? He throws it back at Owen! Here they are...Owen and this Kzinti throwing this stupid grenade at each other, calling each other swears, insulting their mothers and the grenade doesn't go off..."
"Well? They're not thinking of what they're doing in the middle of all the craziness and just as the Kzinti throws the grenade back? The charging fuse goes off! "POP!"...lucky for them? The grenade was a complete dud."
"What does Owen do? He stands like a dumb fluck with his mouth hanging open and his tongue waving like a flag. What does the Kzinti do? He stands like a dumb fluck with his mouth hanging open and his tongue waving like a flag. Till the Kzinti realizes there's this sweet little fat rabbit waiting to be chomp'd in half! That tiger gets right up to Owen's snoot and roars at him! All teeth and all screaming and what am I doing?"
I replied. "Standing like a stupid dumb fluck?"
"Standing just like a stupid slab of stone dumb fluck." Nori replied. "No one's taking notice to shoot this cat so you'd think Owen is a goner right?"
"No...oh no...Owen jack rabbit slaps that cat right in the fricken nose and he goes off! "DON'T YOU ROAR AT ME WITH YOUR SNIT SMELLING BREATH YOU STUPID MOTHER FLUCKER!" SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! He's making this big Kzinti back up! "LEARN WHAT HYGINE IS YOU STUPID SNIT SNORTING FELINE DIRT BALL! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!"
I'm laughing my butt off as Nori tells this tale of obviously stupid bravery...
"Owen got that cat running! "GET BACK HERE! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!" That's when Owen figures out he's gone a little too far from the line for comfort and our friendly Kzinti got his courage back. Here comes Owen screaming like a female rabbit! "HELP! HELP! SAVE ME! SAVE ME!" With sed Kzinti chomping his teeth right on Owen's ass."
"And everyone killed him." I said.
"No..." Nori replied. "Powen clubbed him with his M-14 and knocked his silly butt out. He's the only prisoner we took from last night. He's been begging us to kill him for the past three hours now. Fursonaly? We should oblige his fantasy of the litter box afterlife. His yeowing and sniveling is becoming sickening. We got him caged up in ome of those "kitchen cages" they used on the poor civilians. Justice served."
I looked at Passion. "Do you think we'll be needed for the wounded?"
"I think they went back with the supply run that just dumped off about an hour ago." Passion replied. "The supply line's firm between us and home port so they wouldn't waste time shipping them back."
Nori pulled me up into another hug and I followed him, Passion and Ori out of our fox hole and back through the "Vil". As Nori said...the Kzinti prisoner was yeowing and crying out. The sound of his voice was distressing...
"Watashi wa kazoku ni haji o kaka sete imasu! Watashinojinsei o owara sete kudasai!"
"Ten'nō Heika! Watashi no haji o yurushitekudasai! Watashi ni shi o kudasai!"
"Watashi wa kitanaidesu! Watashi o koroshite! Ikiru no wa tamaranai!"
Nori snorted. "Yeah right...keep yapping feline prick! You know he's blowing snit smoke. The moment anyone shows him pity? That cat will rip the first poor sorry bastard he gets his claws on to pieces. Should just shoot the flucker so he'll shut the fluck up!"
I replied. "We don't kill prisoners."
Nori stopped and turned..."Please? Please do not tell me you are starting to get feelings for that...that...beast? Please tell me that Dori?"
"I'm just saying..." I replied. "We do not kill prisoners. Now "they" do...but we don't and we shouldn't start being like them. That's all I'm saying."
We all walked to the place in the "Vil" where our column set up the temporary bivouac and chow services and joined our brothers who sat on a spread out canvas sheet "chow'ing down" on the morning fare...
"Your boy-friend's been crying for you Owen." I snickered in Owen's ear.
"Keep it up and you'll be wearing a trash can." Owen snorted back at me.
Powen was munching down oats from a ration can..."He's lucky I clubbed that "Zint". He sure got a hold on your tail. I think you should have Dori check it for infection or poison since you got chomp'd enough to break the skin."
"If it was poison?" I replied to Powen. "Owen would be dead by now. But let me see it anyways Owen."
Owen huffed back. "It was just a couple of puncture wounds that weren't that deep."
I demanded..."Owen?! Show your tail now? Don 't make me have you restrained?"
"Any of you with the balls to touch me? get froggy I dare you." Owen huffed in our faces. He changed his mind quick when Nori, Ori and Powen reached for the buttons on their uniform shirts...
"OK! OK! Here!" My grumpy brother replied as he turned his butt into my face and waved his tail at me!
"You fart while I'm checking it and so help me." I growled as I quickly parted the fur in my fingers to check the skin of Owen's rabbit tail..."Tsk, tsk...The bite marks are sore red, a good sign of infection setting in. You realize, like canids, that feline mouths can be very foul and toxic don't you Owen?" I asked.
Owen tried to turn and crane his upper body around..."How bad is it?! Seriously Dori? It can't be infected that quick!"
"Oh yes it can." I replied. "Felinius Cori Osotosis" can on-set very fast trust me. This is going to require a special counter-active antidote shot. If it's not treated in rapid time? Your testicles could become infected and you could go sterile."
"Oh fluck me!" Owen yelped. "Well? Don't just stand there Dori?! Help me!" Owen said in a panic.
Ori yelped..."Owen got the clap from a Kzinti! Now your collection of exotic STD's is complete!"
"This isn't funny!" Owen snapped back. "Why are you standing like a rock Dori?! Chop, chop doc!"
"I have to go to our column head surgeon and get the shot. Just sit down and be calm ok Owen? If you get too excited? You'll spread the bacteria faster through the blood stream. Just stay calm till I come back with the shot." I said as I patted Owen's chest and then went to the field clinic we had set up out of sight bringing Passion with me.
Moments later, we returned with Passion dawning rubber gloves and pulling a paper package from his back pocket. "Go ahead Sarge and drop your pants and draws. All you other mammals stand around us so Sarge can have some privacy."
Owen gave Passion a snort..."What's in that package?"
"Oh this?" Passion said with a toothy slight grin. "This is for the anal swab after we give you the shot. Since the medication is fast acting, the anal swab is a requirement to ensure it's showing rapid onset against any infection."
Passion pulled the thick tip swab from the package and I swear Owen about launched into orbit! "Oh hell fricken no! You're not sticking that in my butt! Dori?!"
"It's part of the procedure Owen." I huffed back. "Don't be a "puss bunny" about it oh eldest brother." I said. Then...I pulled out the needle! Not just any needle...but a big Morgan Horse ass pricking needle! Bigger than the rifles we use!
"Now bend over Owen?" I asked my brother calmly. Owen as expected...passed out with a flop!
Passed out...and sprayed piss everywhere doing it!
"Oh snit!" Ori yelped as he leaped off the matt after feeling the hot stream strike him on his back!
"DORI YOU FLUCKER! DAMN!" Powen barked as he got hit in the face!
"Snit! Snit! Snit!" Nori screamed as he scrambled to avoid getting "rained upon" by the yellow deluge!
Of course the needle wasn't real...I threw it back over my shoulder and busted my gutt laughing my ass off on the ground! I never said I was a sweet, innocent and wholesome rabbit did I?!
January 12th, 2042
Zootopian Task Force Julian
March Column "Gouge Out"
Madagascar
seventeen miles Northwest of the port of Maramanga
fourty two miles Southwest of Bongalava
0930 hours in the village of Mahanoro
I spent most of my time that morning between our established medical facility and the supply clerk's tent for obvious reason...Owen wanted my ass. I was re-stocking my medical back pack when Passion came through the door flap...
"They need "snacks" I mean volunteers with that Kzinti prisoner." Passion said.
"What for?" I asked.
"Medical examination and basic interrogation." Passion replied. "The officers want anything he can tell us before we send him on back to the port and they want his condition documented to make sure he's not "tampered with" on the way back."
I scratched my head. "Sheesh...he's just a private if I got the ranking patches on his uniform right and he's like "a squirt", I think he's like fifteen or sixteen? He couldn't tell much."
"Still...they want small mammals to do the physical exam." Passion said. "I'm not going in there even if they dope him up, screw that. I only thought of you because you were poking around inside that dead "Zint's" mouth this morning and this would be right up your block...since it seems you have a fantasy going with that."
I didn't have a "fantasy" but I sure had a fascination. Turns out I wasn't the only curious bunny in the bunch of our column. As I walked into the building where they were keeping the prisoner, I saw three other rabbit medics dressing up in medical scrubs...
"Is this where I sign up to be devoured?" I joked as I started taking my uniform off.
One of the other rabbits, a taller brown March Hare replied...
"Yamu, yamu... Anata wa shinseide hiretsu ni miemasu!"
"You know Kzinti?" I asked surprised at how well the words rolled off the rabbit's tongue.
"Yes. Took the new "ling-go" course that was set up back home after I graduated from medical school." The brown rabbit replied. "Name's Ronny, Master Sargent. Our other two "confections" here are Sargent Gorman and Corporal Lice."
I regarded my comrades with nods..."We are all fricken crazy."
"It's all mutual interest." Lice replied. "I'm excited to see how I'm rated. Am I one or ten on the delicious scale? What do you guys think? Plump enough for multiple bites? Salad as a side dish?"
"I just want to put my paws on him." Gorman said smiling. "I know, sounds perverted but I've heard so many stories of just how tough and muscular these tigers are compared to our own Zootopian Tigers. Very important if you need to know just where to land a good kill shot or stab to the vitals."
I turned back to Ronny. "So you know what he's been screaming and saying?"
Ronny looked towards the improvised cage the prisoner was sitting in. "He deems himself worse than dog snit. To be a prisoner of ours is a shame. He keeps begging to be put out of his misery. He's also refusing to eat or drink. Another rabbit even dared to put his arm through the cage bars and the "Zint" cowarded away from him like a whipped feral dog. I told him we wouldn't harm him and his death would be meaningless but he doesn't care. So we're going to "trank" him so we can give him IV fluids and nourishment while we check him out."
We all followed Ronny over to the cage where the Kzinti sat on the floor dressed in just a cloth wrapping around his waist and over his privates. He looked physically fine, save the nasty black eye where my brother Powen clubbed him with his M-14 rifle. He just looked tired, then again he was obviously depressed and perhaps a little scared.
Ronny took a big risk just touching the bars of the cage which caused the guards around it to slap their rifles in warning...
"Master Sargent! Keep your paws off the cage until we "dope" this thing up!" One of the wolves growled!
Ronny waved a paw back. "Right now I don't think he's in a condition to put up a fight." Ronny said as he turned to look at the Kzinti...
"Ohayōgozaimasu... Watashi wa masutāsājentoronīdesu. Watashitachi wa anata no kenkō o miru tame ni koko ni imasu. Namae wa nani?" Ronny said with a smile.
I gave Ronny the obvious..."huh?" look.
"I asked for his name and told him we're here to see to his health." Ronny said.
The Kzinti replied..."Watashi wa banīde wa arimasen. Watashi wa fumeiyodesu. Watashi ga shitai no wa shinu koto dakedesu!"
"He wants to die." Ronny told us. He then spoke to the Kzinti. "Kono koto wa shimasen. Watashitachiha horyo ni yoru shi no negai o kanaemasen. Watashitachi wa anata no kujō nimokakawarazu anata o hogo suru tame ni seikyū sa remasu. Shirabete moraemasu ka?" "I just told him he won't get what he wants and if he will let us look at him."
The Kzinti started to ball...seriously ball without any shame. "Watashi wa totemo konran shite imasu. Dōshite watashi o korosanai no? Watashi wa tekidesu! Daikirai! Watashi wa anata ga kirai de, naze ka wakarimasen ka? ! Koroshite kudasai!"
Ronny waved a paw and two guards drew their "tranky" pistols and nailed the Kzinti in the neck with two darts! After fifteen minutes of trying to resist...the big tiger flopped over onto his side...
"Ok..." Ronny directed us. "Gorman? Lice? You set up his feeding and hydration IV's. Hopps? You stay with me and we'll examine him and document what we find. He should be "under" for two hours.
We rolled the big tiger onto his back with the help of two guards and the first thing we all took note of was the physical feel of the patient slash prisoner. He was indeed more muscular than tigers from Zootopia, his body alone was tough and rigid with little give from the skin to the subdura sinews...
"The training these guys must be under? Damn it has to be brutal as hell." I said as I ran my paws over the chest and around the shoulders. "Nice "claves" (The clavical muscles) Feel how hard these shoulder blade muscles are!"
Gorman waved a paw at us..."We've set his I.V.'s and have the tubes being hooked up. Any revelations?"
Lice was kneeling between the Kzinti's legs and looked under the cloth wrapping..."Puts our tiger's to shame in the tool department."
"Lice you fricken pervert." Gorman huffed as he grabbed at one of the Kzinti's big paws and took a moment to gaze closely at the palm and finger pads..."Obviously this guy worked on a farm for a long time."
I heard that and craned my head around Gorman in curiosity. "How so? I mean...my family are farmers and I know you can estimate what a mammal does for a living by how worn and rough their paw pads are but these guys must go through some intense physical training."
Now to side note the story...We Zootopians were pretty much blind about the Kzinti until about a year before the war started. What we scantly knew of them came from our own ancient history, the Zootopian Middle Age when Lupinian Rome dominated our land. The Romans tried twice to invade Kzin and twice they got their teeth knocked out... along with a few thousand of them and their slaves turned into "puppy chow" can stuffers. After the fall of Rome and sometime in the midst of the great slaughter of our Predatorial Civil War, Kzin completely shut itself off from the rest of the world and practiced self-subsistence or "Juche" (Jew-chee) as the philosophy is called by them. They feared "contamination" of their "singular and unified culture" by other mammal nations bringing their ideas and ways into Kzinti society so...we didn't know anything more about them until the arrival of Kawamura.
Kawamura was like our prisoner, a young teenage Kzinti when he showed up on a fishing vessel off Sahara Beach. He found life at home too repressive, to backward...a rare behavior for a Kzinti or so we thought. Muc h of what we know now came from Kawamura by way of Zootopia's Central Intelligence and Defense Agency and through articles in National Geographic written by Kawamura in the hopes we could avoid the war that came upon us.
Kawamura was, like our prisoner, among the lowest of the lowly in Kzinti society. He came from a farming family, serfs who worked the lands of vassal lords who in turn gave most of the gains and spoils to the upper nobility who then deemed who should get what and how much.
Gorman played his paw fingers over an ear until he found the tattoo Kawamura often spoke about that clearly identified the "class" our prisoner was a member of. Gorman was right. In Kzinti terms...our prisoner was a dirt eating farm boy stoked with propaganda and kept mute and stupid save what little education was deemed "society appropriate and required" for a low crawling piece of pond snit.
Yes..."a little" Mammality (humanity) seeped through between us as we continued to examine and document our charge. A little...as far as understanding some of the "back story", the motivation that turned a lowly farmer considered the "dirt floor" below the ladder of Kzinti culture into a loyal and ruthless killing machine for emperor and country. We all wondered what was really going through his head, the shock that we were not going to kill him must have been scrambling his brains far worse than any knife. Even Kawamura wrote that some nights as he got adjusted to living in Zootopia...he actually contemplated suicide because the sensory overload he was experiencing between what he knew from home and what he was learning...was becoming crushingly oppressive.
Still...we had to be very careful with every "prod" and "poke". It would not have been beyond the Kzinti to booby trap themselves or each other in some way in case of being captured, which I guess prompted Lice to pick up and move the Kzinti's tail so he could "tunnel check" for hidden explosives...which Gorman stopped as he slapped Lice's paw...
"Don't be serious?! If he had anything in there? We'd be dead by now." Gorman said to Lice as he pulled him away from the big tiger's rump...
We finished our examination and stood outside the cage to collect our notes and talk between each other. In the meantime, two wolf guards dressed the prisoner in a pair of coveralls and attached a tag to one of his ears so there would be no mistake between him and our own tigers. Then again...you can't miss a Kzinti, they're abnormally huge cats.
Slowly...our prisoner woke up and once again took a pouting and somber appearance as he sat in a corner of the cage. Ronny told him that he was nourished by IV tubes and asked if he was a farmer by trade because of his rough paws...
"Yes..." The Kzinti replied in his language. In turn, myself and Gorman told him that we too were farm children which seemed to "boyant" him up a little. We told him we were sad, in all honesty we were because too many of the Kzinti we found dead from this fight were just too damn young in our opinion to be soldiers, we were sad that he was the only captured survivor. Lice took a serious risk to rub and pet the Kzinti's side which ushered no complaint nor violence from the exhausted and bewildered tiger. We then left the building.
It was two years after the war ended when I was doing medical volunteer work in the village of Yutsuma on the Kzinti home island that I re-united with our temporary charge. "Kawakami", like most of his fellows who occupied his lot in the Kzinti social order, described the "rushed hurry" so many of these farming based Kzinti found themselves in as the military rushed to fill their ranks to replace the numbers being "chum'd up" in the charnel house the upper nobility had put the nation in. Turns out that while the Kzinti were indeed physically tough and brutally demonstrable in combat, they weren't exactly well organized nor in many cases...well led. Advantages plus on our side, horrific on theirs. Still? They did brutal damage and exacted a good price from our ranks.
We police'd up the "Vil" and once our column was re-supplied and stocked with fresh Amo and new replacements, we rolled forwards again towards our primary objective on the morning of the 14th of January. Before we embarked, we got mail from home. My wife Linzi was promoted to a shift manager at the defense plant she worked at and with her bump in pay was keeping herself busy with our house, preparing it for...you know...what rabbits do best...having kittens. The nursery room as starting to look like a league soccer locker room and the pictures enlisted giggles from my brothers as well as annoying twitching noses as the scent of my wife's "Pheromones" drew them like crazy magnets to the letter and the envelope.
A little sadness hit us...poor Powen got dumped by his girl, she wasn't going to wait out the war for him. "I'm second rate to a candle maker?" Powen snorted as he showed off the letter. "Get this! She fell for this candle stick maker in Deerbrook guys..."I'm so sorry Powen, I can't take the sleepless nights any more. I couldn't survive the news of you being eaten. I found a very caring and wonderful male in Deerbrook, I'm sorry."...Powen moap'd as the letter fell from his paw to the floor of the truck we were in...
"Filthy hutch bitch." He snorted, though he displayed no dramatic emotional outburst about the whole situation.
Ori leaned over and snickered..."She must have fallen for the waxy texture huh?"
Powen took a deep breath..."Obviously." He replied.
Letters from family enlisted both smiles and grief. Two of our older brothers and three cousins were dead from the slog fest at Mattaking. But finally word reached us on the afternoon of the 15th that the Kzinti line had been shattered there and the Kzinti were in full retreat towards the center of the country. With that nut cracked, we felt that our own charge to get to King Julian was going to increase in speed substantially. Problem was...no one seemed to tell the Kzinti that the writing was on the wall. As always...they were going to continue making life absolute hell.
End of chapter 25