AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sorry, but once again I will be forced to take a short break following this chapter. The next one will be posted on 3 April.
Chapter 180: Spooky.
"[...] deep down he knew that he was right, a storm was brewing, and soon he would have to choose whose side he was really on..."
-elfmaiden4legs, The Serpant Bites
As soon as Brain was underground, he quickly got to work mapping the warren. However, this turned out to be more complicated than initially expected: Hannah kept following him and Pinky as they went from one tunnel to another. She was talking almost continuously, and she had the most annoying voice. She kept asking questions; Pinky seemed to appreciate the attention and always replied quickly (although most of his responses made little sense, as was usually the case with him), but Brain remained silent, trying to focus all his attention on his scanning. Surprisingly, apart from the two guards above ground, they did not encounter any other woken rabbits; somehow, everyone slept through Hannah's loud rambling.
After a while, Brain had had all that he could take. He grabbed Pinky by the nose and pulled him closer.
-"Pinky, make her stop," he whispered, so Hannah wouldn't hear.
-"Why?"
-"Because I can't focus."
-"Do you need glasses?"
Brain sighed; Pinky always ended up misunderstanding even most simple sentences.
-"Just keep her quiet." This would hopefully be simple enough for dimwitted Pinky to understand. As Pinky replied, however, Brain's hopes were dashed:
-"Ear glasses then?"
Coming to the conclusion that he would never get his friend to understand, Brain resorted to the same course of action he had done above ground: violence. He slapped Pinky across the face, and got back to work.
Unfortunately, Hannah did not keep quiet, and it only took a few minutes before her voice left Brain unable to concentrate once again. Had he known that she would talk so much, he would have brought earplugs. If he went to get some, it would be morning before he would be back at the warren, too late to get any meaningful work done. There also did not appear to be any objects around him that he could use to improvise earplugs either. Looking at his device, however, an idea formed into his mind. He threw it on the ground, shattering it once more. He then started to poke around its inner mechanisms, throwing out several components, and rewiring what remained.
-"What are you doing?" Pinky asked.
-"I am modifying the device to turn it into a universal translator, in order to turn her infuriating gibberish into something that is actually intelligible."
-"Ye takin aboot meh!?" came Hannah's voice, louder than ever before. "Oof, ye juss lek ze ress, ye all hayte meh fo no raisin! Juss cuz o me vice, an its no mi felt a soon liek zis! E'll go git da owzlee an tell em yer tring ta destroo ze varren an deyll hoit ye dam pwenty!"
-"Way to prove my point." Brain placed the cover back on the (now much smaller) device, and turned towards his friend. "Pinky, help me restrain her."
Pinky nodded, and placed one of his hind legs on Hannah's tail. Shocked at how quickly the situation had escalated, Hannah tried to flee, but with her tail caught like this, she was unable to make it more than a few steps forward. This was eerily reminiscent of the (many) occasions when Tabitha had captured her in the past. Except that, this time, it was her own species holding her captive; Brain was walking towards her, holding the device menacingly.
-"Eek! Heeelllppp..." she started to shout, but Brain inserted the device into her mouth, rendering her silent. She tried fighting back with her paws, but Brain ignored all attacks and kept pushing the device further down inside her. Once it was deep enough to his satisfaction, Brain moved out of reach and Hannah, out of breath, collapsed to the ground.
-"That looked like so much fun!" Pinky shouted, clapping in excitement. "Do me next! Do me next!"
-"Just...pass me a tissue," Brain said, looking in disgust at his hand, covered with Hannah's saliva.
Pinky soon complied, and Brain started to wipe his hand, realizing too late that Pinky had already used the tissue on his nose, leaving his hand even dirtier than before. He threw the tissue back at Pinky and, with his last remaining clean hand, started to pick up the leftover debris from the device.
-"Come, Pinky. It's that time again."
-"The time to check out Spartina's cooking?" Pinky asked cluelessly.
-"No. The time to head back to the mobile lab to prepare for tomorrow night, as I build myself another scanning device."
-"Didn't we do that last night?"
-"Yes, we did. And we'll do it again tomorrow night if necessary. We'll only stop once I have all my measurements, at which point we will move on to the next step, and take over the world!"
As the two mice walked away, Hannah slowly got back up.
-"What have you done to me?" she shouted, her voice unexpectedly clear. "Why do I sound like this?"
-"The device I just inserted inside you fixed your voice," Brain shouted back, from another tunnel.
-"Gee, thanks!"
But by then, Pinky and the Brain were already gone. Hannah made a mental note to apologize to them during their next visit.
In a tree near what used to be Cowslip's warren, Tumbler the squirrel peaked out of a hole. She had been hiding inside the hollow trunk of the tree with her friends Rosie and Crackers ever since the flood, waiting until it would be safe to venture outside again. Looking around her, she saw that the entire ground was dry, there was not a single puddle; it was as if the flood had never happened.
-"It's safe now," she called out to her friends.
-"That's great news," Rosie said. "Staying cooped up in a small area for a long time gets tiring after a while, even when sharing it with good friends."
The three creatures made their way down the tree, back to ground level. Rosie, being a hedgehog, was not used to climbing down trees, so Crackers carried her on her back.
-"I wonder what the rabbits are up to," the squirrel said.
-"I certainly hope they survived the flood," Rosie said.
Looking around them, the creatures were unable to see any rabbits outside; this was not surprising, considering how late it was. They would have to check underground.
The warren was in surprisingly good condition, despite the recent flood. As they made it deeper underground, they were pleased to see several rabbits in their burrows, asleep and alive. The squirrels and hedgehog did their best to remain quiet, so as not to wake anyone up.
After a while, Tumbler's ears picked up the faint sound of someone's voice, indicating that at least one rabbit. They followed the sound until they found out who it was: Toadflax. He was in his burrow, talking to the ghost that Bluesky and Raincloud had summoned earlier. However, the squirrels and hedgehog were unable to see the ghost, so it looked like Toadflax was talking to himself. They hid just outside the burrow's entrance to listen, hoping they wouldn't get caught eavesdropping.
-"I seem to vaguely recall being in this warren before," the ghostly Cowslip said.
-"That's impossible!" Toadflax replied in anger. "I know every rabbit who has lived in this warren for the past seasons. Unless you died before I was born, which is also impossible, you don't look that old."
-"Maybe you are right, and I never lived in this warren," the ghost said with a sigh. "The place I remember was more prosperous. More active. The warren here has an aura of sadness."
-"Don't you tell me how I'm feeling! I am not sad, I am angry! Angry at those two idiots who failed to summon the real Cowslip, leaving me stuck with you instead."
-"I do not know anyone else named Cowslip, so unfortunately I cannot help you locate the rabbit you truly desire. As for me, I was brought here against my own will, so..."
-"Why don't you leave then? Nobody wants you you here, and you don't want to be here either."
-"You misunderstand me. While it is true that I did not wish to come here, now that I am here, I intend to make the most of my time here."
-"Will you stop saying 'here' so much? I certainly hope those two fools have a spell to banish you back to...wherever you came from."
-"I do not remember where I came from. I do remember the warren I mentioned earlier, but that is all. I have been dead for quite some time, yet I do not remember what the afterlife has been like so far."
-"You are truly the most obnoxious rabbit I have ever met. If you weren't already dead, I would kill you."
-"I'm sorry..."
-"Don't be sorry. Be quiet."
-"I will find myself another burrow. This warren has an unusually large number of empty burrow, so it should be very easy."
-"Shut up!"
Toadflax tried to scratch Cowslip, but since she was a ghost, she had no physical body; his paw went right through her, doing no damage whatsoever. After Cowslip had hovered out of the burrow, he started to scratch the ground in frustration; that was one thing he was able to touch.
Rosie, Tumbler and Crackers stayed outside the burrow throughout the entire conversation. Since they could not see Cowslip, nor hear her responses, they were left with the impression that Toadflax was either hallucinating or delusional.
-"Poor bunny," Rosie said sadly. "He needs help."
-"I would assume that the strain of losing a close friend is causing him to imagine that his friend is still there," Tumbler said. "But from the way he spoke, it doesn't sound like he was good friends with that Cowslip fellow."
-"You two may be overlooking one important detail from his monologue," Crackers pointed out. "He said, 'if you weren't already dead, I would kill you'. What if he is the murderer, the one responsible for the dead rabbit outside a few days ago?"
-"Just because he's deluded, doesn't make him a murderer."
-"Rosie, Rosie, always assuming the best of everyone. Don't you remember how he kicked me?"
-"Yes, I remember, that was really nasty of him. But there is a difference between kicking and killing."
-"Maybe he is the killer," Tumbler conceded. "But if that is the case, we're going to need more than a single weird comment to prove it."
-"I think I know where we might find more evidence: New Sandleford," Crackers said.
-"The annexation buns? They give me the creeps..." Rosie shuddered. "But you may be right, they may hold the key to the entire mystery. We should go and visit them tomorrow."