Chapter 218: The Pictures and the Trees.

"i don't like what he is doing to you. This isn't right." "I know but what choice do I have?"

-destinycopley13, Love Is In Bloom

-"Hey Brain, take a look!"

Brain turned around to look at Pinky, and was horrified by what he saw. Pinky had applied tons of makeup on Lady May's face: lipstick, eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, braids on her ears...Brain sighed: why had Pinky wasted his time going over the top on this doe, when he could have applied fake blood on the owsla instead? He went and smacked him.

-"Hey, why are you hurting him?" Lady May asked. "He's making me look prettier!"

-"He's not hurting me," Pinky replied. "This is actually pretty fun! Narf!"

-"Do you seriously think this is pretty?" Brain held up a mirror; upon seeing her reflection, Lady May took a step back.

-"EEEK! Please tell me I'm not stuck like this forever!"

-"Not if you go clean yourself right now."

Without waiting, the doe quickly ran off to the river splitting the pit in two, shoving her head under the water's surface. Brain was about to get to work putting fake blood on the next rabbit, when he saw Woundwort was approaching again. His fur was stained red; since he had refused the fake blood, there was only one possible explanation.

-"That's one owl that won't be bothering us anymore," he said. "Does this look threatening enough?"

-"Yes! This will do nicely. Now don't move, I must handle the lights, to enhance the feeling of terror to those who will watch this."

Pinky and the Brain had brought several professional-grade projectors with them to Darkhaven. Brain flipped a nearby switch, turning all of them on, flooding the battle pit around Woundwort with light. He then started to adjust the light intensity of the individual lamps, and the directions in which they were pointed, to obtain the best possible lighting. Woundwort did not move, just like Brain had asked, but it was clear he was getting annoyed at how long this was taking.

-"I don't see why we have to bother with the lighting," Orchis eventually said. "He's already terrifying enough as is."

-"See? He gets it."

-"All right, fine, I'll leave the lighting as is." Brain didn't want to risk getting Woundwort angry; he would compensate for the poor lighting by using clever camera angles. "Let's start by taking a group photo."

-"Taking a what?"

-"A group photo. The phone camera's lens will capture the photons and encode them into a standard JPEG file stored on the device's internal storage, a permanent record of this monumental meeting..." Brain had started with the complicated scientific explanation, only to realize halfway through that those dumb bunnies likely wouldn't understand. "Just gather everyone, and I'll show you once it's finished."

The many rabbits grouped in front of a pile of tires. Brain placed the camera against a pile of dirt further away in order for the lens to get a good view of the entire crowd. Setting it on a timer, he ran over to the rabbits and stood by Woundwort.

-"There's going to be a bright light, don't worry."

-"A bright light?"

At that moment, the camera's flash was triggered. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but Woundwort was still startled.

-"Ugh!"

-"Did it work?" Orchis asked cautiously.

Brain slowly approached the camera, and soon announced the results:

-"It worked. Come take a look."

-"That's so cute!" Pinky said upon seeing the picture.

-"Cute?" Brain was left annoyed. "It's not supposed to be cute. It's supposed to be intimidating. I'll have to take a new picture. Woundwort, try to look as aggressive as you can."

-"Is there any way to avoid the flash of light this time?" Woundwort asked.

-"I'll try my best," Brain said with a sigh: with all these new restrictions, it would become increasingly difficult to obtain quality footage.

Fredrick took a short break from work, to play solitaire on his smartphone. He was realizing just how meaningless it all was. The letter he had received said that his junkyard had predictably failed Hazel C's inspection. The result was so bad that he was ordered to cease operations within 30 days. This was actually a blessing in disguise: he could easily sell the trash to another scrap dealer, then sell the land, and pursue a more pleasant and meaningful career.

-"Sorry sir Fred, I think the crane is dead."

Fredrick raised his eyes from his smartphone. Lionel-Hector had just come back inside the building, oil stains all over his hands and face.

-"No it's not. It never was alive, so it cannot be dead." Fredrick had understood what LH was trying to say, but he felt like nitpicking.

-"Oh...well that's true, probably. That's too bad, we just finished paying it off. We'll have to buy a new one..."

-"No we won't." Fredrick waved the letter from the government; LH snatched it from his boss's hands, and quickly read it.

-"This says we need to close!" he said in horror once he had finished.

-"Yup. Sorry LH, but your employment is terminated, effective four weeks from now. You'll have to get a new job."

-"Oh, that doesn't bother me, sir Fred. The BBC will pick up my show and that will keep me busy for years! It's you I'm worried about, do you have any plans for the future now that your junkyard will be gone?"

-"I haven't thought that far just yet. But our priority at the moment should be to clean up the current mess in the pit, so I can sell the land next month."

-"How do you plan to do that, sir Fred?"

-"I won't do anything, WE will. Let's start by sorting everything into categories, based on what type of material it is."

-"I think we got it!"

Granite proudly jumped on the fallen tree, as Shale looked on, annoyed. This pointless mission of finding and bringing back a tree had been prematurely halted due to Spartina's arrival, but the next morning, Woundwort had sent them away once again. Progress had been annoyingly slow: they had spent the morning wandering through the woods until they stumbled upon a fallen tree. They had found several so far, but they were all too big to be transported back to the warren. For some reason, Granite thought this one would be manageable, although Shale had his doubts.

-"You've got to be kidding me...this thing is huge!"

-"We can't keep looking forever. I don't think we'll find a smaller one anytime soon."

-"But we crossed several smaller ones..."

-"No, Shale. They were larger, but you found them. You're jealous of my discovery."

Shale growled in anger, unable to tolerate this unfair accusation.

-"Of course I'm not jealous! Come on, let's get to work."

Granite smirked; he knew accusing Shale of being jealous was the best way to get him to help. As the two rabbits stood next to the tree, however, he wondered just how they were going to move it.

-"What do we do now?" he asked.

-"We push, of course," Shale replied sarcastically. "It's not like we had a choice, is it?"

-"But how? It's too heavy to just push."

-"That's what I was trying to tell you earlier!"

-"So...we pull?"

-"Are you crazy? If we do that, we will get crushed!"

-"All right then. We push."

With that, Granite stood up on his hind legs and pressed his front paws tightly against the tree. Shale looked at him, thinking about how silly the former Chief looked, before joining him with the push.

They spent several minutes hard at work, but the tree did not budge.

-"We'll have to push harder!" Granite shouted.

The two rabbits started pushing again, as hard as they could, grunting as they went. After a while, the tree finally moved, ever so slightly, less than one inch, snapping off one of the branches. However, the moment the rabbits stopped pushing to catch their breath, it rolled right back where it had started. The two rabbits collapsed next to it.

-"That was exhausting," Shale said, gasping for air.

-"No kidding!" Granite was just as exhausted.

-"I have a suggestion."

-"Which is?"

-"You noticed that one branch we broke off when pushing?"

-"What about it?"

-"We bring that back instead."

All Granite could do was shake his head.

-"Woundwort asked for a tree, not a branch."

-"We could say that it's a very small tree that had only just started growing."

-"Do you seriously think he will believe that?"

-"At this point, I would rather face his anger than keep pushing that tree."

As much as he hated to admit it, Granite was also willing to take his chances with Woundwort. The two rabbits remained with their backs against the tree, stocking up on energy before carrying the branch. Soon afterwards, Shale fell asleep; Granite only realized this when he heard snoring, and he was infuriated.

-"Wake up!" he shouted, cuffing the buck in the ears.

-"Oh, give me a break, that was exhausting...you should sleep too..."

Granite, realizing he would not be able to wake up his mission partner, decided to take his advice and sleep as well.

Unbeknownst to the rabbits, however, a few minutes after they fell asleep, a bird landed on the tree trunk; it was the same falcon that had spoken to Campion the previous day. She was looking for materials to build a new nest, and the broken branch looked very appealing. She picked it up; it was heavy, but manageable. She soon flew off with it; neither rabbit woke up.