Jazz looked around in wonder. Grass, plants, the sky... he had not seen the
sky since 4 PM, and though almost completely dark, it was a welcome sight.
The few bushes and shrubs that grew next to the castle sparkled with
dewdrops, reflecting the light coming from the moon that floated,
peacefully, above the topmost spire of the castle.
Spaz pulled himself out of the hole, wincing in pain each time Chuck impatiently snapped at his backside. Soon, both the red rabbit and the Hip- Hop were outside as well, looking around, letting the cool breeze brush lightly across their faces.
Chuck spoke first. "It's been great seein' ya again and all, but I gotta get going now. You'll be all right with the red guy?"
"Yes, thank you," said Jazz, smiling as Spaz looked around uncertainly for a red guy. The Hip-Hop took off, wings spread outwards in graceful flight, heading off around the castle to the right. Jazz absently watched the colorful bird before it disappeared around a corner of the building, and then turned his attention to the matter at hand. "Ok... first things first - where are we?"
"Ooh, a guessing game!" exclaimed Spaz, jumping up and down with glee. "Can I play? Oh, I know! We're in the jail-house now!"
"No."
"Never-never land?"
"No."
"The War Tavern?"
"No! We're on Carrotus somewhere, ("I knew that," said Spaz) but what I meant is, where are we relative to the castle?"
Eventually, despite the constant "aid" from Spaz, Jazz managed to plot out their location and destination. Chuck's hole had taken them up to the west side of the castle, just below the royal gardens. As Hopteego Village, according to the Queen, was filled with guards (Spaz had no objection to this, but Jazz was firm on avoiding the loss of lagomorphic life), Jazz decided that their best bet was to climb up the wall of the Grand Ravine and take the straight line route to the Carrotus Spaceport - through the royal gardens of Carrotus.
The spaceport, explained Jazz, was their most likely destination, as Devan had probably just rebuilt the Turtle Gunner Destroyers or something on that order. A spacecraft was thus essential to foiling the turtle's plans, and since moving into Carrotus Castle, Jazz had finally been able to pay to dock the Jazz-01 at said spaceport. The Jazz-01 was a purely single seat craft, but if Jazz removed the pile of rocks from the back of the ship, there would be plenty of room for Spaz and several others like him, and the ship would go a lot faster as well.
Plans having been made only left the journey undone, and it had been a very long day for both of them. Spaz stumbled upon a good spot behind some bushes, where they would not be seen during the night by either turtles or rabbits, whichever should pass by. It was an uneasy feeling to be hunted by every species on the planet, but the two brothers eventually got to sleep, each dreaming their own private dreams in preparation for the journey ahead.
Eva, too, had tossed and turned herself to sleep, anxious for the fate of her planet and species but unable to get anything done by fretting. Already several brave R.A.B.T. Soldiers had died for this cause, and nobody even knew what Devan's plan was, or what they were fighting. All Eva knew was that somehow it involved the gem Jazz had set in place atop her wedding ring. Jazz and Spaz could be anywhere... as could her mother, who had not been heard from since she went out to investigate a few lizards prowling around the castle.
Only Devan Shell was still awake, working long and hard into the night, trying to get his time machine done before any more unwanted interruptions came along. Devan, that is, and Corporal Lori, who ran tiredly across Carrotus, looking for the mysterious Ex-R.A.B.T. known only as Acid.
Jazz yawned and stretched, lazily basking in the hot sun of the Carrotus morning. Next to him, Spaz was sleeping soundly, curled up into a ball with one thumb inside his mouth, and a green blaster cuddled next to him like a teddy bear. Blinking, Jazz looked around, to discover they were behind a bush. Why were they behind a bush?
Oh, yeah... the memories of the previous day came flooding back, and Jazz groaned. Spaz, wedding, lizard, Devan, Queen, dungeons, Chuck, spaceport, Devan...
"Time to go, Spaz!" said Jazz, shakily climbing to his feet and picking up his backpack. "Up for some rock climbing?"
"I can rock..." muttered Spaz, sleepily, unmoving save for his mouth. "My guitar climbed up to the dungeons last month." Sighing, Jazz kicked the spherical red form, causing Spaz to quickly unbend himself, yelping. The red rabbit leaped to his feet and began looking around wildly for several seconds before noticing his brother standing next to him. A few minutes later, Spaz was awake enough for all intents and purposes, and so the two rabbits set off southwestwards towards the cliff face of the Grand Ravine. Spaz expressed confusion, which was rewarded with yet another explanation of why they were going overland towards the spaceport. Swinging himself up onto a boulder, Jazz began to climb.
So began Jazz and Spaz's epic and largely unsung journey through the royal gardens of Carrotus Castle. Along the way they faced many perils, such as the blundering and unintelligent lizards, the peaceful and harmless Moth Moths, and the gigantic and heavily armored turtles. These turtles were much tougher than the small ones that the rabbits had encountered while in the dungeons - most likely, these were the ones that could not fit into the hole. Why they had chosen to invade the royal gardens was unclear, but the turtles and lizards did seem to enjoy destroying the various flora and fauna which made up the scenery.
Unlike the more civilized sections of Carrotus, such as Hopteego Village itself, the royal gardens were remarkable unspoiled by the ever ongoing march of technology. In contrast to the flat, even terrain which spread itself across much of the planet, hills and small cliffs were everywhere, making progress across even such a short distance a slow journey. The native plants of Carrotus were allowed to grow freely - the two rabbits spent many possibly precious seconds threading their way around enormous carrots, across radishes more than double their own size, and climbing along vines to avoid falling into the thorny bushes below.
Not all the scenery of the royal gardens consisted of enormous varieties of common garden vegetables. Countless foreign tasting fruits grew from various vines or trees, all of which were sampled at least once, and most of which were rejected by at least Jazz. Despite having lived in a hole in the ground for the most part of his life, Jazz was still used to processed city food, which he would order one day and take out of his mailbox the morning after. The organic, untreated specimens growing from the hanging tendrils of greenery were not to his taste, even if you didn't take into account that it was probably illegal to pick them. In contrast, Spaz dug into each new specimen with renewed relish, as if it was the first decent meal he had eaten in days.
The only time this really caused any major side effect was about halfway through the day, when Spaz wolfed down a peculiarly bright red fruit to "give him strength" after disposing of a lizard. He began to shake uncontrollably, and within a few seconds was vibrating madly at about seventy frames per second.
"Spaz!" cried Jazz in alarm, "Talk to me!"
"Ok!" vibrated Spaz, beginning to run madly around in circles. "I'm talking to you now, right?"
"Yeah... listen, can you control yourself?"
"Never have!" replied the excited red rabbit, coming to a vibrating halt in front of a lizard when had walked up to investigate. "Hey, watch this!" Spaz extended his wildly vibrating paw and touched the lizard, which exploded into a shower of atomically separated particles.
Jazz gulped, a mixture of fear and amazement playing across his face. Before the older rabbit could say anything, however, Spaz's vibrating came to a halt, and he slumped exhausted to the ground.
When Spaz came to, it was to the sensation of being dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. Blinking, Spaz observed Jazz groan, stretch, and walk tiredly over to a cliff edge, where he apparently began sunning himself. The logical portion of Spaz's brain almost decided that Jazz must have carried Spaz there, as the location was entirely different from the last place he remembered. Spaz's most recent memory was of receiving his first lollipop at age seven... either that or vibrating insanely from a sugar high and blowing up a lizard... the first seemed more likely.
Still experimenting with opening his eyes in different patterns, Spaz noticed Jazz stiffen as his ears perked up. Soundlessly, Jazz leaped from the cliff edge he reclined upon, disappearing from Spaz's line of vision.
Curiosity perked, the red rabbit got up from the ground and ran over to the ledge his brother had recently disappeared from. On the way, he tripped and fell across a rope which was lying un-knotted in his path. Shrugging, Spaz jumped up once more, and again took off for the ledge, dragging the rope with him. A moment later, Spaz dropped to his knees and peered over the edge. There was Jazz, running at top speed, smoldering remains of two turtles behind him. Ahead, however...
Legs flying through the air in a blur of regular ovals, Jazz grinned. This was what he was made to do - not shoot LFG 2000's at random specimens of otherwise neutral species, not crawl tiredly through dungeons looking for a way out, not fly through space looking for adventures - rabbits were built to Run. Really. Fast. Eva could keep her ears... the Jackrabbits had extreme speed, and they were [i]so[/i] keeping that trait for as long as possible!
An old uncle of Jazz's had once traced the Jackrabbit family line right back to the hare from the Tortoise and the Hare, though nobody was quite sure if the famous duo had ever existed, and they didn't particularly trust the old uncle either. Regardless, Jazz felt a great sense of union with the ancient Hare, as if he was not running across this open field alone - both were fast, and both ran because of troubles with turtles. But, unlike the Hare, Jazz was not about to stop running at least until he turned around and came back to Spaz, who was probably still completely unconscious from his strange fruit reaction. So thinking, Jazz looked in front of him, boggled, and quickly skidded to a stop, dust shooting up into the air in all directions.
In front of the now motionless green rabbit was an enormous turtle, far bigger than even the ones he and Spaz had encountered throughout the royal gardens - perhaps one of the recently extinct schwarzenguards, apparently not all killed by Jazz on his previous missions against Devan. This purple shelled behemoth had all the markings of a schwarzenguard - size, size, and being a turtle. The thing roared, and Jazz felt his eyes go blank with sheer, unmasked terror.
Frantically, Jazz looked around for any way to escape while the schwarzenguard was still roaring randomly into the sky. A rope hung from the air. Asking no questions, Jazz grabbed onto the rope and felt himself being hurled upwards into the air. He waved at the still roaring turtle creature, which stared up at his retreating form in confusion. It really did not seem even half so big when he wasn't standing right in front of it.
Near the peak of his climb, Jazz let go of the rope, and landed squarely on top of a rock ledge, next to Spaz, who had apparently woken up and engineered Jazz's impromptu escape plan.
"Good work, Spaz," said Jazz, checking the LFG-2000 for scratches, all thoughts of eternal spirits of speed replaced by the urgent vitality of the now. "Want to blow this pop stand and teach that hunk of giant turtle a little lesson?"
"Sure!" enthused the younger brother, after checking furtively behind his back for a rogue pop stand attack. "It's not all that far down!" So saying, he jumped off the cliff, plummeting down onto the green grass below. Reluctantly conceding Spaz's point, Jazz too leaped off, landing right next to Spaz, who was observing the schwarzenguard with some interest.
Like Jazz, the turtle had also regained its wits in the time between initial confrontation and rematch. No longer the brain-dead hulking brute of before, the creature had donned large spiked armor, and carried a long chain of spike balls which caused no apparent discomposure to his hand. Walking forwards a few steps, the schwarzenguard swung its right foreleg around in a wide circle before letting loose the spiked chain towards the rabbit brothers.
"Scatter!" yelled Jazz, pushing Spaz out of the way and firing a few rounds of blaster fire towards the impending cord of doom. All his shots went wild, and Jazz cried out as the spikes dug briefly into his skin before flying back towards the turtle, apparently of their own accord. Ripping off a piece of his bandana, Jazz attempted to bandage his wound while also paying full attention to the battle around him.
Spaz had taken it into his head to attack the schwarzenguard, and was doing so with great enthusiasm. Shot after shot of both blaster and bouncer rained out from Spaz's gun onto the armored shell of the turtle, who winced slightly at each impact but otherwise seemed unharmed. Spaz managed to jump over its next throw of the spike cord, but it was a near thing.
"All right..." grunted Jazz, rising from the ground and cocking his weapon, "no more mister nice rabbit." Loading a new cartridge into the sleek blue weapon he carried, Jazz stepped forward and let loose five hundred degrees of flaming toaster pellets, mysteriously found in various places on Carrotus, directly into the open belly of his adversary. The flames pouring forth from the muzzle of Jazz's gun lit up the area, showing looks of first terror, pain, confusion and bemusement as they passed across the face of the schwarzenguard. Suddenly laughing, it swung the chain of spikes in an arc to its right, catching Spaz in mid jump, who had been attempting to ambush the turtle from behind. Jazz stared in horrified fascination, both at the turtle's apparent ability to survive the full force of the flamethrower, and at Spaz's limp form, as it sailed into the air and landed with a sickening thump on the ground. Jazz dashed over to his brother, to find the red rabbit once more unconscious, drool dripping lazily from his half open mouth. Eyes ablaze, Jazz turned back to the mass of muscle, which had finally stopped laughing.
"I know you..." spat Jazz, grabbing Spaz's green gun from his limp hand, bringing both weapons up to aim at the schwarzenguard. "I've seen your wanted poster in bars across the galaxy. I saw you in Decksta, after you kidnapped the woman who would happily be my wife right now, were it not for your master. And now you're back again, and you've hurt the only family I have in all the galaxy." Jazz stepped forwards menacingly, staring daggers at the face of the schwarzenguard, who had paled slightly. "My name is Jazz Jackrabbit. You hurt my brother - prepare to die."
And then the green rabbit came to life, dashing across the ground, flying through the air at high speeds, both guns firing an almost constant barrage of red hot fury from every direction, hitting every weak point on the turtle's body before it could even react. The spiked chain thing went flying off into the realms of uselessness, knocked away by the shock-waves caused by a high speed bullet to the hand. In no time at all, the turtle was on its back, whimpering, the LFG-2000 crammed deep into its enormous mouth.
"Any last words?" whispered Jazz, reloading the cartridge of toaster which had failed earlier. The turtle vigorously nodded its head, and the rabbit, interested despite himself, slowly removed the blaster, keeping Spaz's gun aimed at the side of the turtle's head just in case. "Speak," spoke Jazz, perhaps unnecessarily.
"I'll tell you everything!" gulped the annihilated antagonist, staring at the two guns held by Jazz. "Devan's plans... where he is... everything!"
"Keep talking..."
"He's got a machine... the something 2000... it's a time machine! He says he's going to travel back in time and erase rabbits from all of history!" Jazz's gasp was taken as an indication to continue. "He's working in a secret lab hidden inside of Runabout Canyon... but there's a backdoor right nearby! I can show you the way!"
A few minutes later found both rabbits and the turtle standing over what appeared to be a large pumpkin half buried in the ground. Spaz had recovered without apparent major harm, and after a little discussion, the brothers had decided to follow the schwarzenguard.
"This," said Spaz, after much consideration of the turtle's find, "appears to be a pupkins."
"Pumpkin."
"Yeah, that. Anyway, it's a pupkins," concluded Spaz, looking suspiciously at the schwarzenguard and raising his gun. The threatened turtle quickly made ready to defend the pumpkin's authenticity.
"No! It looks like a pumpkin, but it lifts up! Here..." so saying, it kicked a seemingly random rock placed on the ground. The rock shuddered, there was a large creaking sound, and the large pumpkin slowly began to lift itself out of the ground, revealing a tunnel underneath. "This," proclaimed the turtle, "leads directly to Devan's secret lab. The time machine should be over in that direction somewhere."
"Ok," said Jazz, "I'll go first. If its not what the turtle says it is, I'll call out, and you dispose of our large green friend over there. Otherwise, come on in, because I get the feeling there's no time to waste."
The pumpkin had by then fully removed itself from the hole, leaving Jazz a good deal of room to slide himself into. The green rabbit let go of the sides of the hole, dropping down into the comparative darkness below. A few seconds later, there was a thump, quickly followed by an "All Clear!" from Jazz.
Spaz looked down at the hole, back at the turtle, back at the hole, back at the turtle, and grinned. Crouching down, he braced his powerful feet against the ground.
"Uhh... what are you doing?" asked the schwarzenguard, glancing nervously at the evil grin upon the face of his antagonist.
"Revenge!" cackled Spaz, shooting forwards from the ground with a war whoop, right foot extended in front of the body. The boot clad foot connected solidly with the open belly of the schwarzenguard, who groaned and toppled backwards. Well pleased with himself, the red rabbit hopped down into the hole to answer Jazz's calls of inquiry.
Spaz pulled himself out of the hole, wincing in pain each time Chuck impatiently snapped at his backside. Soon, both the red rabbit and the Hip- Hop were outside as well, looking around, letting the cool breeze brush lightly across their faces.
Chuck spoke first. "It's been great seein' ya again and all, but I gotta get going now. You'll be all right with the red guy?"
"Yes, thank you," said Jazz, smiling as Spaz looked around uncertainly for a red guy. The Hip-Hop took off, wings spread outwards in graceful flight, heading off around the castle to the right. Jazz absently watched the colorful bird before it disappeared around a corner of the building, and then turned his attention to the matter at hand. "Ok... first things first - where are we?"
"Ooh, a guessing game!" exclaimed Spaz, jumping up and down with glee. "Can I play? Oh, I know! We're in the jail-house now!"
"No."
"Never-never land?"
"No."
"The War Tavern?"
"No! We're on Carrotus somewhere, ("I knew that," said Spaz) but what I meant is, where are we relative to the castle?"
Eventually, despite the constant "aid" from Spaz, Jazz managed to plot out their location and destination. Chuck's hole had taken them up to the west side of the castle, just below the royal gardens. As Hopteego Village, according to the Queen, was filled with guards (Spaz had no objection to this, but Jazz was firm on avoiding the loss of lagomorphic life), Jazz decided that their best bet was to climb up the wall of the Grand Ravine and take the straight line route to the Carrotus Spaceport - through the royal gardens of Carrotus.
The spaceport, explained Jazz, was their most likely destination, as Devan had probably just rebuilt the Turtle Gunner Destroyers or something on that order. A spacecraft was thus essential to foiling the turtle's plans, and since moving into Carrotus Castle, Jazz had finally been able to pay to dock the Jazz-01 at said spaceport. The Jazz-01 was a purely single seat craft, but if Jazz removed the pile of rocks from the back of the ship, there would be plenty of room for Spaz and several others like him, and the ship would go a lot faster as well.
Plans having been made only left the journey undone, and it had been a very long day for both of them. Spaz stumbled upon a good spot behind some bushes, where they would not be seen during the night by either turtles or rabbits, whichever should pass by. It was an uneasy feeling to be hunted by every species on the planet, but the two brothers eventually got to sleep, each dreaming their own private dreams in preparation for the journey ahead.
Eva, too, had tossed and turned herself to sleep, anxious for the fate of her planet and species but unable to get anything done by fretting. Already several brave R.A.B.T. Soldiers had died for this cause, and nobody even knew what Devan's plan was, or what they were fighting. All Eva knew was that somehow it involved the gem Jazz had set in place atop her wedding ring. Jazz and Spaz could be anywhere... as could her mother, who had not been heard from since she went out to investigate a few lizards prowling around the castle.
Only Devan Shell was still awake, working long and hard into the night, trying to get his time machine done before any more unwanted interruptions came along. Devan, that is, and Corporal Lori, who ran tiredly across Carrotus, looking for the mysterious Ex-R.A.B.T. known only as Acid.
Jazz yawned and stretched, lazily basking in the hot sun of the Carrotus morning. Next to him, Spaz was sleeping soundly, curled up into a ball with one thumb inside his mouth, and a green blaster cuddled next to him like a teddy bear. Blinking, Jazz looked around, to discover they were behind a bush. Why were they behind a bush?
Oh, yeah... the memories of the previous day came flooding back, and Jazz groaned. Spaz, wedding, lizard, Devan, Queen, dungeons, Chuck, spaceport, Devan...
"Time to go, Spaz!" said Jazz, shakily climbing to his feet and picking up his backpack. "Up for some rock climbing?"
"I can rock..." muttered Spaz, sleepily, unmoving save for his mouth. "My guitar climbed up to the dungeons last month." Sighing, Jazz kicked the spherical red form, causing Spaz to quickly unbend himself, yelping. The red rabbit leaped to his feet and began looking around wildly for several seconds before noticing his brother standing next to him. A few minutes later, Spaz was awake enough for all intents and purposes, and so the two rabbits set off southwestwards towards the cliff face of the Grand Ravine. Spaz expressed confusion, which was rewarded with yet another explanation of why they were going overland towards the spaceport. Swinging himself up onto a boulder, Jazz began to climb.
So began Jazz and Spaz's epic and largely unsung journey through the royal gardens of Carrotus Castle. Along the way they faced many perils, such as the blundering and unintelligent lizards, the peaceful and harmless Moth Moths, and the gigantic and heavily armored turtles. These turtles were much tougher than the small ones that the rabbits had encountered while in the dungeons - most likely, these were the ones that could not fit into the hole. Why they had chosen to invade the royal gardens was unclear, but the turtles and lizards did seem to enjoy destroying the various flora and fauna which made up the scenery.
Unlike the more civilized sections of Carrotus, such as Hopteego Village itself, the royal gardens were remarkable unspoiled by the ever ongoing march of technology. In contrast to the flat, even terrain which spread itself across much of the planet, hills and small cliffs were everywhere, making progress across even such a short distance a slow journey. The native plants of Carrotus were allowed to grow freely - the two rabbits spent many possibly precious seconds threading their way around enormous carrots, across radishes more than double their own size, and climbing along vines to avoid falling into the thorny bushes below.
Not all the scenery of the royal gardens consisted of enormous varieties of common garden vegetables. Countless foreign tasting fruits grew from various vines or trees, all of which were sampled at least once, and most of which were rejected by at least Jazz. Despite having lived in a hole in the ground for the most part of his life, Jazz was still used to processed city food, which he would order one day and take out of his mailbox the morning after. The organic, untreated specimens growing from the hanging tendrils of greenery were not to his taste, even if you didn't take into account that it was probably illegal to pick them. In contrast, Spaz dug into each new specimen with renewed relish, as if it was the first decent meal he had eaten in days.
The only time this really caused any major side effect was about halfway through the day, when Spaz wolfed down a peculiarly bright red fruit to "give him strength" after disposing of a lizard. He began to shake uncontrollably, and within a few seconds was vibrating madly at about seventy frames per second.
"Spaz!" cried Jazz in alarm, "Talk to me!"
"Ok!" vibrated Spaz, beginning to run madly around in circles. "I'm talking to you now, right?"
"Yeah... listen, can you control yourself?"
"Never have!" replied the excited red rabbit, coming to a vibrating halt in front of a lizard when had walked up to investigate. "Hey, watch this!" Spaz extended his wildly vibrating paw and touched the lizard, which exploded into a shower of atomically separated particles.
Jazz gulped, a mixture of fear and amazement playing across his face. Before the older rabbit could say anything, however, Spaz's vibrating came to a halt, and he slumped exhausted to the ground.
When Spaz came to, it was to the sensation of being dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. Blinking, Spaz observed Jazz groan, stretch, and walk tiredly over to a cliff edge, where he apparently began sunning himself. The logical portion of Spaz's brain almost decided that Jazz must have carried Spaz there, as the location was entirely different from the last place he remembered. Spaz's most recent memory was of receiving his first lollipop at age seven... either that or vibrating insanely from a sugar high and blowing up a lizard... the first seemed more likely.
Still experimenting with opening his eyes in different patterns, Spaz noticed Jazz stiffen as his ears perked up. Soundlessly, Jazz leaped from the cliff edge he reclined upon, disappearing from Spaz's line of vision.
Curiosity perked, the red rabbit got up from the ground and ran over to the ledge his brother had recently disappeared from. On the way, he tripped and fell across a rope which was lying un-knotted in his path. Shrugging, Spaz jumped up once more, and again took off for the ledge, dragging the rope with him. A moment later, Spaz dropped to his knees and peered over the edge. There was Jazz, running at top speed, smoldering remains of two turtles behind him. Ahead, however...
Legs flying through the air in a blur of regular ovals, Jazz grinned. This was what he was made to do - not shoot LFG 2000's at random specimens of otherwise neutral species, not crawl tiredly through dungeons looking for a way out, not fly through space looking for adventures - rabbits were built to Run. Really. Fast. Eva could keep her ears... the Jackrabbits had extreme speed, and they were [i]so[/i] keeping that trait for as long as possible!
An old uncle of Jazz's had once traced the Jackrabbit family line right back to the hare from the Tortoise and the Hare, though nobody was quite sure if the famous duo had ever existed, and they didn't particularly trust the old uncle either. Regardless, Jazz felt a great sense of union with the ancient Hare, as if he was not running across this open field alone - both were fast, and both ran because of troubles with turtles. But, unlike the Hare, Jazz was not about to stop running at least until he turned around and came back to Spaz, who was probably still completely unconscious from his strange fruit reaction. So thinking, Jazz looked in front of him, boggled, and quickly skidded to a stop, dust shooting up into the air in all directions.
In front of the now motionless green rabbit was an enormous turtle, far bigger than even the ones he and Spaz had encountered throughout the royal gardens - perhaps one of the recently extinct schwarzenguards, apparently not all killed by Jazz on his previous missions against Devan. This purple shelled behemoth had all the markings of a schwarzenguard - size, size, and being a turtle. The thing roared, and Jazz felt his eyes go blank with sheer, unmasked terror.
Frantically, Jazz looked around for any way to escape while the schwarzenguard was still roaring randomly into the sky. A rope hung from the air. Asking no questions, Jazz grabbed onto the rope and felt himself being hurled upwards into the air. He waved at the still roaring turtle creature, which stared up at his retreating form in confusion. It really did not seem even half so big when he wasn't standing right in front of it.
Near the peak of his climb, Jazz let go of the rope, and landed squarely on top of a rock ledge, next to Spaz, who had apparently woken up and engineered Jazz's impromptu escape plan.
"Good work, Spaz," said Jazz, checking the LFG-2000 for scratches, all thoughts of eternal spirits of speed replaced by the urgent vitality of the now. "Want to blow this pop stand and teach that hunk of giant turtle a little lesson?"
"Sure!" enthused the younger brother, after checking furtively behind his back for a rogue pop stand attack. "It's not all that far down!" So saying, he jumped off the cliff, plummeting down onto the green grass below. Reluctantly conceding Spaz's point, Jazz too leaped off, landing right next to Spaz, who was observing the schwarzenguard with some interest.
Like Jazz, the turtle had also regained its wits in the time between initial confrontation and rematch. No longer the brain-dead hulking brute of before, the creature had donned large spiked armor, and carried a long chain of spike balls which caused no apparent discomposure to his hand. Walking forwards a few steps, the schwarzenguard swung its right foreleg around in a wide circle before letting loose the spiked chain towards the rabbit brothers.
"Scatter!" yelled Jazz, pushing Spaz out of the way and firing a few rounds of blaster fire towards the impending cord of doom. All his shots went wild, and Jazz cried out as the spikes dug briefly into his skin before flying back towards the turtle, apparently of their own accord. Ripping off a piece of his bandana, Jazz attempted to bandage his wound while also paying full attention to the battle around him.
Spaz had taken it into his head to attack the schwarzenguard, and was doing so with great enthusiasm. Shot after shot of both blaster and bouncer rained out from Spaz's gun onto the armored shell of the turtle, who winced slightly at each impact but otherwise seemed unharmed. Spaz managed to jump over its next throw of the spike cord, but it was a near thing.
"All right..." grunted Jazz, rising from the ground and cocking his weapon, "no more mister nice rabbit." Loading a new cartridge into the sleek blue weapon he carried, Jazz stepped forward and let loose five hundred degrees of flaming toaster pellets, mysteriously found in various places on Carrotus, directly into the open belly of his adversary. The flames pouring forth from the muzzle of Jazz's gun lit up the area, showing looks of first terror, pain, confusion and bemusement as they passed across the face of the schwarzenguard. Suddenly laughing, it swung the chain of spikes in an arc to its right, catching Spaz in mid jump, who had been attempting to ambush the turtle from behind. Jazz stared in horrified fascination, both at the turtle's apparent ability to survive the full force of the flamethrower, and at Spaz's limp form, as it sailed into the air and landed with a sickening thump on the ground. Jazz dashed over to his brother, to find the red rabbit once more unconscious, drool dripping lazily from his half open mouth. Eyes ablaze, Jazz turned back to the mass of muscle, which had finally stopped laughing.
"I know you..." spat Jazz, grabbing Spaz's green gun from his limp hand, bringing both weapons up to aim at the schwarzenguard. "I've seen your wanted poster in bars across the galaxy. I saw you in Decksta, after you kidnapped the woman who would happily be my wife right now, were it not for your master. And now you're back again, and you've hurt the only family I have in all the galaxy." Jazz stepped forwards menacingly, staring daggers at the face of the schwarzenguard, who had paled slightly. "My name is Jazz Jackrabbit. You hurt my brother - prepare to die."
And then the green rabbit came to life, dashing across the ground, flying through the air at high speeds, both guns firing an almost constant barrage of red hot fury from every direction, hitting every weak point on the turtle's body before it could even react. The spiked chain thing went flying off into the realms of uselessness, knocked away by the shock-waves caused by a high speed bullet to the hand. In no time at all, the turtle was on its back, whimpering, the LFG-2000 crammed deep into its enormous mouth.
"Any last words?" whispered Jazz, reloading the cartridge of toaster which had failed earlier. The turtle vigorously nodded its head, and the rabbit, interested despite himself, slowly removed the blaster, keeping Spaz's gun aimed at the side of the turtle's head just in case. "Speak," spoke Jazz, perhaps unnecessarily.
"I'll tell you everything!" gulped the annihilated antagonist, staring at the two guns held by Jazz. "Devan's plans... where he is... everything!"
"Keep talking..."
"He's got a machine... the something 2000... it's a time machine! He says he's going to travel back in time and erase rabbits from all of history!" Jazz's gasp was taken as an indication to continue. "He's working in a secret lab hidden inside of Runabout Canyon... but there's a backdoor right nearby! I can show you the way!"
A few minutes later found both rabbits and the turtle standing over what appeared to be a large pumpkin half buried in the ground. Spaz had recovered without apparent major harm, and after a little discussion, the brothers had decided to follow the schwarzenguard.
"This," said Spaz, after much consideration of the turtle's find, "appears to be a pupkins."
"Pumpkin."
"Yeah, that. Anyway, it's a pupkins," concluded Spaz, looking suspiciously at the schwarzenguard and raising his gun. The threatened turtle quickly made ready to defend the pumpkin's authenticity.
"No! It looks like a pumpkin, but it lifts up! Here..." so saying, it kicked a seemingly random rock placed on the ground. The rock shuddered, there was a large creaking sound, and the large pumpkin slowly began to lift itself out of the ground, revealing a tunnel underneath. "This," proclaimed the turtle, "leads directly to Devan's secret lab. The time machine should be over in that direction somewhere."
"Ok," said Jazz, "I'll go first. If its not what the turtle says it is, I'll call out, and you dispose of our large green friend over there. Otherwise, come on in, because I get the feeling there's no time to waste."
The pumpkin had by then fully removed itself from the hole, leaving Jazz a good deal of room to slide himself into. The green rabbit let go of the sides of the hole, dropping down into the comparative darkness below. A few seconds later, there was a thump, quickly followed by an "All Clear!" from Jazz.
Spaz looked down at the hole, back at the turtle, back at the hole, back at the turtle, and grinned. Crouching down, he braced his powerful feet against the ground.
"Uhh... what are you doing?" asked the schwarzenguard, glancing nervously at the evil grin upon the face of his antagonist.
"Revenge!" cackled Spaz, shooting forwards from the ground with a war whoop, right foot extended in front of the body. The boot clad foot connected solidly with the open belly of the schwarzenguard, who groaned and toppled backwards. Well pleased with himself, the red rabbit hopped down into the hole to answer Jazz's calls of inquiry.