School has been keeping me really busy and I haven't been able to upload my next chapter. But finally, here it is! This one is a little bit shorter.

And for those who may be curious, yes, Roadkill does still appear in this story. I just have a different role for him, later on. You'll notice a lot of similarities and differences here compared to the movie, that's the fun of it!

Chapter 2: Stranded

It had seemed like forever that the two had been going on for since they abandoned the highway. The heat only seemed to get worse and worse with every single movement they made. Rango had agreed with Jake to move on and try to hopefully find some help. But none of them were too confident about what they'd find. Or who they'd find. If there was even anybody out there. The desert was stereotypically known for being a wasteland.

Jake insisted that the desert had to have some sort of life, mostly other folks that could hopefully help them, well, not die. Either way, the hope started to fade every further they got. Nothing. No sign of another living thing so far, apart from the cactuses and yellowing desert plants. He gave a small groan, hoping that if there really wasn't any different form of life besides plants that were willing to help them out, that he'd die quickly now just to get it over with.

Having always been taken care of by humans, survival in the wild seemed like it would be tougher, but this was the freedom he had always dreamt of. He asked for it, and he got it. But why so soon? Most importantly, why, out of all of the places in the world, a desert had to be the place where his freedom was blessed? Jake kept asking himself.

"Deserts are known for having oases, right? Those have water. Maybe luck'll give us one," Rango sighed after the awkward silence between them seemed to last a while since they had left the road. He panted softly in an attempt to cool himself down as he walked beside Jake, slowly leaning sideways and resting his head on the rattlesnake's body under his shadow, sighing in relief from the shade it provided.

Jake growled and moved away quickly, causing Rango to fall on the ground beside him. "Get off of me," he hissed.

"Rude. You're taller, help me out!" Rango responded as he stood back up and dusted off his shirt. He continued to follow behind Jake as he slithered ahead, not even stopping for their conversation.

The rattlesnake flicked his tongue with a face of frustration. "Oases are a myth. The desert is too much of a disgusting place to have such a blessing like that," he said with a glance around at the Mojave's dull appearance. Cactus wasn't even all that attractive to his eyes, and not to mention the dead shrubs and rocks everywhere.

"How would you know? You've never been in the desert." Rango scoffed.

"I wouldn't need to know. I've only been here for less than an hour, and I already hate it. Shut up!"

"Wait, stop. Did you hear that?"

Jake shook his head. "Hear what?"

Rango gave a look around to try and detect where the sound he heard was coming from. But through instinct, it didn't sound safe. "I don't know, I just thought I heard…"

Rango's sentence got cut off as a huge shadow briefly passed over them. He looked up and realized that what was causing the shadow, was also causing the sound as it got louder when it went by.

The sound of wings flapping.

Jake's tail rattled softly as he now heard the screech of a natural threat that he knew should be feared already: a hawk. A red-tailed hawk, to be exact. It slightly blinded him, as the large bird was wearing some sort of metal cover over its beak, with the sun reflecting a shine off of it as it flew over them once again.

"That is a huge b-bird!" Rango stuttered as it swooped around one more time.

Jake growled as he realized the hawk had already clearly spotted them. They were now fresh targets in the middle of nowhere. The hawk had then immediately taken another dive down and held its talons out, charging directly at him and Rango. "Yeah, and something tells me it's not friendly. Move!" Jake shoved Rango ahead and quickly slithered out of the hawk's path.

With a loud screech, it had now zoomed by the place they dodged, making a turn to go back high in the air and catch speed for another dive.

Jake noticed Rango hiding by a cactus, while he looked around for his own place to hide in. He knew Rango had gotten lucky already just from blending in with the green. "Of course, it'd be a hawk!" He shouted with clear anger. When he wished for death to get him quickly if no luck appeared, this isn't at all how he was expecting to go down.

Quickly glancing around, he tried to search for a place of his own to hide in. Eventually, a space between two large rocks caught his eye. It looked big enough for him to fit, but too small for the hawk to reach in. Without hesitating, Jake quickly lunged and slithered forward, sliding between the boulders.

The hawk circled around, spotting Jake just as he hid. It swooped down rapidly and once finally landed, let out a booming screech as the bird's metallic beak started to scrape against the rocks, desperate to get the snake hiding inside.

"Crap!" Jake hissed.

He clenched his eyes shut with a shake of his rattle, feeling like this was all over for him now and there was no way out. But the sudden sound of what appeared to be gunshots had startled him even more than he was already feeling. Three gunshots to be exact. The booms echoed after all three were fired. It was followed by a loud screech from the hawk nearby.

The rattlesnake opened up an eye, then both again, realizing that the hawk was gone. Followed by another screech, he slowly poked his head out and noticed the hawk was flying away, off into the distance. A slight trail of busted feathers followed behind it, with several being piled on the floor in front of Jake where the hawk had been trying to reach for him.

"YEE-HAW!" A male's voice suddenly boomed in the distance, causing the two to react by quickly turning in its direction. The voice continued. "Woo-we, did you see that?! Hahahah! Twisted hawk knows now not to come 'round these parts of the valley anymo'. Yeah, fly home, you feathery bastard!"

Rango and Jake peered from their hiding spots and spotted the owner of the voice. It was a young male black-tailed jackrabbit, looked and sounded to be possibly around his mid-twenties, in age. He held a large rifle. A small trail of smoke left the gun's barrel from the shots that he just fired out of it.

The jackrabbit twiddled the rifle in his hands and sat on a rock, lifting a knee to rest the weapon against it. He spit out chewed tobacco from his mouth and glanced up to the two strangers he had just saved. "Well? Applaud and appreciate it! I just saved you damn fools."

After now getting a clearer view of the stranger, they saw how he fully looked, in detail. He had tan fur, no shirt, and a dark brown hat with a black feather attached to the side. A dark red poncho was tied around his neck and thrown back like a cape, a long dark grey coat, dark brown pants with patches sewn onto it, a black belt, and bandages on both arms. One of his coat sleeves was ripped. He had dark blue eyes that almost resembled an ocean.

Jake looked over to Rango, with a confused expression. The chameleon simply chuckled in response at his brother's face and looked back over to the jackrabbit. "Thank you."

The jackrabbit popped fresh tobacco into his mouth again and squinted, pointing a finger up to them. "Wait a minute. Now I have a good look at y'all. You folks don't look like you're from 'round here. Who the hell are you?"

Jake scoffed. "We should be asking you first. First day in this barren wasteland and we don't want to run into a new threat."

The jackrabbit chuckled and laid the gun down on his lap. "Alright, big fella. I'll go first. My name's Lasso. I'm a rancher, just a few miles away from here in a little town called Dirt. Is that where you folks are headed to?"

Jake scrunched up his snout, slightly disturbed by how pathetic a town must be to have such a boring name. "Dirt?"

Lasso nodded and picked at his teeth. "Yeah. Small town ran by a mayor who's a bastard. Fair population. Amazing alcohol. Fun times. Did I mention the mayor is a bastard?"

The brothers exchanged looks, until Rango lit up and shook his head. "Y-Yes, of course we are! Dirt, how could we forget? We've heard many great things about it, we've been there before, yes! That's… That's where we are headed!"

Jake's eyes widened as he looked down at the chameleon, his voice whispering. "What are you talking about?"

Rango waved his hand in a motion to tell the rattlesnake to be quiet. "Would you mind taking us there? The heat isn't exactly friendly, you know? Just cowboy things, am I right?"

Lasso raised an eyebrow. If anything, these two didn't look like any cowboys he had ever seen. He grew somewhat suspicious, but figured the heat really was getting to their heads; starting to just feel bad for them. He sighed heavily and crossed his arms. "Folks, I'd love to give you a ride, but my roadrunner's only a seat for one. Unless you want me to drag you behind with a rope, but you'll get bruises!" He ended with a small laugh.

"Then how the hell are we supposed to get to this town?" Jake growled, arching his eyes at the jackrabbit. "I am not spending another minute traveling in this ridiculous heat."

Lasso tapped his chin. "Hmm… Tell you what, I can ask my boss if she can come and pick y'all up in her wagon, how's that?" He smiled until having a sudden realization. "Well, actually, snake boy here might be a bit of a problem."

Jake widened his eyes and hissed. "Snake boy? You little…!"

Rango held his hand out to stop the snake from lunging forward, giving a nervous chuckle. "Okay, no worries! Not a problem at all. Another helping hand would be very helpful. We'd appreciate that."

"Great! I'll see you boys tomorrow then."

"Tomorrow?" Jake gave a snort. "You actually expect us to stay here overnight? What if another one of those damn things comes by again?" Hinting at the hawk that had nearly killed him not long ago.

Lasso walked over to start mounting up on his roadrunner. "We're not exactly close to Dirt. My boss isn't even in town at the moment. Won't be back till tomorrow. Keep your heads high up until then, that little cave right behind y'all looks to be cozy. Stay in there till then, you'll do fine." The jackrabbit turned away to face the direction of town and slapped the reins of the roadrunner, directing it to start running forward.

The roadrunner gave an alert chirp and sprinted forward. Rango and Jake watched in silence as the jackrabbit left, until he was no longer in their sights.

Jake sighed heavily. "Great. Just great."

As the rattlesnake turned to slither towards the entrance of the cave, Rango shook his head, following behind. "Hey, I'm sure it won't be so bad. He seemed like a nice guy. I trust him that he'll get the help we need."

Jake grunted and quickly bolted his head in front of the chameleon's, fang out, causing the lizard to flinch back. "Listen to me. I have trust issues, and you should know that by now already. If that Easter bunny is lying to us, then I'll track him down myself and make him regret it!"

Rango squinted at the rattlesnake's angered face. Slightly breathing heavily, Jake's scorching red eyes looked into the lizard's yellow ones, almost as if the brothers were now in an intense staring competition.

After the awkward silence between them seemed to last long, Rango chuckled. "You know what, why don't we get some early sleep? We both had a rough day, hm?"

Jake sighed. "Not like we can do anything else." He watched as Rango walked away beside him, going in the direction to the back of the cave and laying down on the ground, hands placed behind his head, acting like a pillow. The rattlesnake sighed and looked out the cave entrance one last time before he did the same, curling up and resting his head on his body.

He hadn't slept at all the night before, having been so nervous about where the human was going to take them. But with that plan done for, he finally saw this as his opportunity to finally get some rest now, with no more worries of their past life. But if that jackrabbit really wasn't lying, he wondered how their new lives in the wild would be. Jake had then dozed off right away, through exhaustion and stress. The thought that he was most likely going to die in the middle of nowhere, in a desert that he felt like resembled actual hell, all too well.

This has got to just be one terrible nightmare, he thought to himself.

Next chapter won't come out till next month, sorry about that! I'll be busy these next few days with Halloween activities and such. I'll try to upload two chapters next time.