AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you Anonymous Guest for the review. I'm trying to make the kittens more interesting, and different from each other, than in the original series.

Also, following this chapter, I am taking a short break from this story. Chapter 126 should come on 29 November.

Chapter 125: Fading Into the Night.

"[...] rolled her eyes. 'Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with you,' she said."

Phoebe-and-Tabbatha, Hey There Blackberry

The Speaker of the Past was sitting on a tire, floating around Darkhaven. While most of the floodwater had drained away, the pit of the junkyard was still full. Looking around her, she saw a few other objects floating across the pit, with some rabbits holding onto them desperately. Many others were lying on the edge of the pit, having already made it out. Several had drowned, and their bodies would be discovered after all the water was gone.

Suddenly, the Speaker's tire became unbalanced. After nearly falling through the hole in the middle, she turned around; Granite had just climbed on.

-"It's great to be out of this dreadful water, Speaker."

-"I can see that," the Speaker replied, emotionlessly as usual.

-"That must be the worst flood we've ever had."

-"It is. I know all about the past."

-"Right, the past..." Granite shook his head. "Do you ever think about the future?"

-"I do. But it is not my job. I am the Speaker of the Past, after all."

-"I can understand that, but still...by telling the younger generation about the past, you are, in some ways, creating the future."

-"I did not think of it that way. But education is powerless to alter the things that are set to unfold. Creatures always fail to learn from past mistakes, and repeat them endlessly."

-"That's...really deep..." Granite said, clearly unsure what the Speaker was saying. He looked further away, and saw Lionel-Hector was standing on the edge of the pit, slowly emptying it with a single bucket.

LH, however, was getting frustrated. He was making very little progress: he emptied each bucketful of water on the ground further away, so most of it simply drained back into the pit. He would have to find another solution. He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket, and dialed a number.

Fredrick was asleep in his bed, when he was awoken by his cellphone ringing. He reached over to the bedside table and picked up the device, annoyed at having forgotten to turn it off earlier.

-"Hello?"

-"Hey Sir Fred...things went wrong."

-"LH!" Fredrick looked at his alarm clock. "It's three on the morning!"

-"But sir Fredrick...it's a disaster."

-"Why are you still up?"

-"The junkyard has been flooded. Where do you keep the pump?"

-"LH! Just call a plumber in the morning to fix the leaking pipes. Now go get some sleep."

-"It's not the pipes..." But it was too late, Fredrick had already hung up. Perhaps his boss was right, LH thought, and things could wait until morning. Maybe even longer. He walked over to his car, and drove towards the village. There was someone he hoped to be able to meet.

Blueberry slowly opened his eyes. He had been asleep for a long time, and had only just woken up. His extended stay in Darkhaven, along with the previous day's battle, had left him in dire need of rest, which he had finally been able to obtain. Now that he was rested, he could step out of his burrow and see what the other rabbits were up to.

As he entered the Honeycomb, however, he saw that everyone there was asleep. He hopped above ground; there was nobody there, and it was completely dark, apart from faint moonlight.

-"You mean I slept all day?" he shouted. "Aw, come on! I missed out on everything, and now that everyone's asleep, I'm awake with nothing to do..."

He never got those berries, or any other colourful objects, after all; perhaps he should take care of that now. Fortunately, this time, he did not have to go very far: the flood had carried many things to the bottom of the Down.

Pipkin had trouble falling asleep. The thought of the phone, and his inability to use it correctly, weighed on his mind. Waking up in the middle of the night, and realizing that he would not be able to fall back asleep before making any progress, he decided to go above ground to silflay, bringing the device with him.

Once above ground, he dropped the phone on the grass, and started to nibble next to it. It was cloudy, and pitch dark, with the only light coming from the phone's screen. He suddenly noticed that it was casting a worrying shadow further away.

-"Who goes there?" he shouted. He knew that, if it was a Darkhaven rabbit, he wouldn't stand a chance in the resulting battle, but he still had to do his best.

-"Pipkin?" It was a soft, feminine voice, definitely not that of a Darkhavener. "What are you doing up at this time of night?"

-"Nyreem?" Calming down, Pipkin hopped over to the doe. "I could ask you the same question."

-"I was hungry. I always go to silflay in the middle of the night." She giggled. "From the looks of it, so do you."

-"I don't do it every night. Or even most nights. It's just...I have something on my mind."

-"How about we silflay together, and you tell me what the matter is."

Pipkin nodded, and hopped back to the phone, as Nyreem followed. He showed her the device, and detailed his previous attempts at using it.

-"How about this spot here?" Nyreem suggested, pointing to a small icon in a corner of the app launcher, before tapping it.

-"PIKA!"

The rabbits were startled by the sudden appearance of another creature on the screen, and bolted back to the tree.

-"What was that thing?" Nyreem asked.

-"It looked a little like a mouse."

-"I've never seen a mouse with yellow fur before. I hope it's not elil..."

-"If it is, it's trapped inside the phone, so we should be safe. Unless it escapes."

Pipkin peaked out from behind the tree; while the yellow creature had not escaped, there seemed to be another rabbit approaching the device.

-"Who's that?" Nyreem said, peaking out from behind Pipkin.

-"Blueberry," Pipkin said, recognizing the stranger.

-"Blueberry? But his fur is black!"

-"And the real Blackberry has blue fur."

-"There truly is no logic."

-"But what is he doing?"

-"Middle of the night silflay like the two of us?"

-"Maybe. But I have a feeling that there's more to him than we might think."

Pipkin hopped out of the hiding spot over to Blueberry, with Nyreem following.

-"Hey there!" Blueberry said, waving at the two others. "Want to play some Pokemon?"

-"Play...what?" Pipkin did not know what Blueberry was talking about.

-"On the phone, here." Blueberry tapped a few buttons in the app.

-"Do you know how it works?"

-"Yes, of course."

-"Can you contact someone?"

Blueberry looked at the device, and touched a corner of the screen.

-"Who do you have in mind?" he asked.

-"It is possible, then?" Pipkin asked again.

-"Yes. Who do you have in mind?"

-"Let's wait until morning. He's probably asleep right now, and I wouldn't want to wake him up like this."

-"Sounds good."

Blueberry hopped further away, towards a long stick and a few leaves. The others did not follow him, instead going back underground, after Pipkin picked up the device.

-"He seems to know a lot about humans," Nyreem said.

-"He does," Pipkin replied. "I wonder where he learned all that. But at least he will be able to help us contact Leo."

The two rabbits stopped in front of Pipkin's burrow.

-"This is where we have to part," he said. "Good night Nyreem."

-"Good night Pipkin cutie."

Pipkin blushed, and entered the burrow, as Nyreem hopped towards her own. Knowing that things would work out in the morning, Pipkin was able to quickly fall asleep.