CHAPTER 3:
Nassty Rabbitses
If there was one thing that Daffy Duck was no stranger to in his long career, it was schizoid tendencies. Perhaps some individuals would have found his latest charge's countenance downright disturbing, but to Daffy it was just business as usual.
"Yes, yes." Daffy enthused, looking through reading glasses at an official-looking set of cards. "And you say that you lost your bracelet while you…"
"Gol'm… gol'm…" the creature rasped in its throat. "No! Lossst Preciousss, we did! Preciousss isss ssshaped asss ring!"
"Oh, right! A ring!" Daffy affirmed, looking through the cards. "I get those all the time from my many loving admirers, what with me being an award-winning superstar and all. But between the two of us, you wouldn't know what that's like, would you, Nature Boy?"
"Andy Ssserkisss dessserved Ossscar!" Gollum protested.
"Yeah, yeah." Daffy dismissed. "Ah! Here we are! Is this the ring you're all worked up about?" he asked, producing a picture of a gleaming golden trinket that Gollum knew very well.
"Preciousss…" he whispered, his eyes gleaming with obsessive desire.
"This little bauble was last seen in the possession of this untrustworthy creature." Daffy added, producing a picture of Bugs Bunny.
"Thief!" Gollum snarled. "We hates him! Kills him, we will!"
"Got a thing against rabbits, huh?" Daffy smirked. "Story of my life, cousin."
"Oh, no!" Gollum insisted. "Smeagol loves rabbitses! We loves rabbitses! Especially… raw." He then hopped down from his seat and scampered towards the door, cackling and muttering to himself.
"Let's hope it takes this guy less than nine hours to do the job." Daffy muttered to himself. "That Sauron chump wanted way too much dough…"
--
Gollum huffed silently to himself as he crept along the forest floor, his simian movements almost impossible to detect. Chanting "thief", "Precious" and "kills" to himself under his breath like a mantra, he finally spotted his quarry. The thieving rabbit was sitting up in a deck chair, rubbing sunscreen on himself and apparently enjoying the sun. Well, he wasn't going to be enjoying the sun for very long. In a few moments all he would see would be blackness. Forever.
"Gets him from behind, we will." Gollum cackled. "Jussst like we did the young Orcses." He crouched behind for infinite moments until he was certain that he was not detected. And then he pounced.
Gollum's gnarled fingers found their grip around the rabbit's throat for an instant, but then the slick suntan oil the rabbit was using caused the wretched ex-Hobbit to lose his grip and fall unceremoniously to the ground. Bugs casually turned around and looked down his sunglasses at the little creature sprawled behind him.
"Eh, they're hiring uglier cabana boys every year." He remarked. "Thanks, Mac." He muttered to Gollum. "But I don't need a neck rub. But if you could get me a refill of these carrot coladas, I'd appreciate it."
"Nasssty ssstupid rabbitses!" Gollum growled. "Gives usss the Preciousss, or we will take it from you!"
Bugs paused to raise his eyebrows at the audience and hold up a sign with a picture of a screw and a baseball on it. He turned back to Gollum with an oily smile. "Why certainly, my dyslexic friend! Do follow me!"
Gollum grudgingly followed as Bugs lead him through the forest. Eventually they reached a large wooden door. "Here we are!" Bugs obligingly explained. "I stashed it in here for safekeeping." He began rattling the door. "Well, what do ya know! I knew I shoulda oiled this thing!" he exclaimed.
"We will breaks it down!" Gollum cried, throwing his wiry little body at the door with all of his might. The door opened surprisingly easy. And the other surprise was that the door lead not into a secret treasure cache, but simply lead clean off of a cliff. "Precioussssss!" Gollum shrieked as he plummeted to the canyon floor.
"Eh, they say that not all who wander are lost, but I got my suspicions about that character." Bugs shrugged to himself.
A battered and snarling Gollum picked himself off of the ground. He threw back his head and let out a scream. "Thief! Rabbits! We hates him! Hates him!" suddenly he was stilled by a burst of wicked inspiration. "Yesss. We won't kills the rabbitses… but she will. Yesss. She will love to have rabbitses for dinner. Yesss. We will go tell her."
Bugs yawned contentedly as he lay back in his deck chair. "If that little noodnik knows what's good for him, he'll have given up." He sighed to himself. Little did he know that a thirty-foot spider was creeping up behind him, claws and venomous fangs poised for the kill.
A shadow loomed large over Bugs. "Hey, do you mind?" he growled. "You want I should get an uneven tan or somethin'? Take your big flatfooted self outta my… yikes!" Bugs yelped when he finally saw what was stalking him. "Sweet mother of arachnophobia! Where'd that thing come from?"
Before Bugs could react, the sinister Shelob had spun a sticky, slimy web, encasing him from his neck to his ankles. The spider did the arachnid equivalent of licking her lips in anticipation.
"Look, lady." Bugs scolded. "I don't know who you think you are, but this is going way too far for a first date. We ain't even been formally introduced!"
Shelob lowered her head to take the first bite, not noticing that Bugs' dextrous ears had grabbed a small canister from the ground nearby. As the spider drew near, Bugs' ears pushed the button on the top of the canister, sending a cloud of insect spray shooting directly into her face.
Shelob reared back, coughing and sputtering like Jack Benny's car, before shakily retreating back to the Misty Mountains. "That sure didn't look like the friendly neighbourhood variety, if ya ask me." Bugs commented.
From his hiding place, Gollum grew enraged at his lackey's failure. "Kills you!" he screeched, throwing himself at the still-webbed-up rabbit. There was a cloud of smoke and a flurry of limbs. When the dust settled, Bugs was free and Gollum was tangled up in the webbing.
"Thanks, Doc. I owe you one." Bugs remarked as he sauntered away. Gollum boiled over with rage. With a primal scream, he tore through the webbing. "Hates him! Hates the rabbitses!" he wailed. So furious was he that he went into split-screen mode.
"No! We likes the rabbitses! Rabbitses nice!" Smeagol insisted.
"Rabbitses steals the Preciousss!" Gollum countered. "Kills him we will!"
"No! Smeagol no kills the rabbitses! Take Preciousss from him, but don't kills it!" Smeagol whimpered.
"You kills him!" Gollum sneered. "You kills anyone! Murderer!"
"No! Smeagol wouldn't hurts anybody!" Smeagol insisted. "Smeagol takeses Dramamine!"
"I have an idea." A third personality said. "Let's forget the whole thing ever happened."
"No!" Gollum insisted. "Kills the rabbitses and takes the Preciousss we will!" Smeagol looked torn, but sadly nodded in agreement.
"He went thataway." The third personality said, pointing. Gollum took off like a shot. The third personality pulled off his mask, revealing his true identity. "Eh, all those personalities and so little brains." Bugs Bunny shrugged. "Bad combination if you asked me."
Gollum skidded to a halt, realizing that he didn't have a third personality. "Nasssty rabbitses! He tricks us again! Well, we are more tricksy than he is!" he declared, racing back to where he came from.
Bugs was standing on the edge of a cliff, something shiny on his finger. "Don't try and stop me, Doc!" he shouted. "I'm getting rid of this thing for once and for all!"
"NO!!!" Gollum shrieked, jumping on Bugs' shoulders and wrestling him to the ground. So insane with rage was he that he bit the ring clean off of Bugs' hand – and the finger with it. "The Preciousss! At lasssst!" Gollum cackled, dancing in glee. Unfortunately, he proved to be a little too close to the edge of the precipice and he tumbled over the edge, the ring and finger still clasped in his greedy hands. He didn't care. He had what he wanted.
Gollum laughed triumphantly as he fell in slow motion. It was only then that he discovered two disheartening facts. Firstly, the ring was actually a plastic prize from a cereal box and not the Ring of Power he sought. Secondly, the "finger" he had bitten off was no finger at all, but actually a cleverly-concealed stick of lit dynamite. Gollum whimpered in slow motion as Annie Lennox crooned in the background.
BLAM! The force of the explosion sent the thieving little creature blasting back up into the air and soaring over the horizon. Bugs watched the fireworks display with a smile. Gandalf would have enjoyed these.
THE END
Next Chapter:
I Love You Too, Honey Bunny
