In the beauty of the blazing summer sun, now glowing ochre
as it trotted off down behind the hills, a timid young halfling
quietly hid in the brush. Down the river came Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn,
on a raft. You could smell the ... cordite from the battery of 155s on the
opposite shore of the Mississippi. Those bastard halflings had dug in just
south of St. Louis, and all the heavy arty in the world wasn't going to dig
them out. It was up to Huck and Tom to place a tactical nuke right under
their hairy little asses, and blow them all to kingdom come. Too bad they
didn't know Vinnie "hammer toes" Greenthistle was out to stop them. The
diminutive sniper raised the Stey-Mannlicher rifle to his shoulder...
...only to be tapped on the shoulder. Vinnie spun around to see a
rather Confederate looking beard and a couple of gray uniforms before he
had this hurty feeling on his head and things went dark.
At the court of the Rabbit-Queen, Flopsy Mopsy, there was much disorder,
squeaking and nibbling. "Quiet!" the Rabbit-Queen said, nose twitching.
"Someone tell me WHY we are having so much trouble with ...
..."BLAM" was he only answer she got as the 12 gauge ripped through her
skull, "Take that you waskwully wabbit!" He then affixed the bayonet to get
"personal" with the rest of the court....
The Queen blinked her eyes. She shook her head. No man with gun.
Something was indeed wrong. very wrong. She tried again...
"Someone tell me WHY we are having so much trouble with
the plumbing!" She rose from her toadstool throne and hipped-hopped around
the room in her tell-tale Queenly swagger.
The crowd hushed before her. Everyone knew that once the Queen began her
swagger, someone was going to pay for it. Pay for it big.
Titter-tail knew that the Queen needed an answer. Nay, she demanded it.
Titter had been in the Queen's court for many a month, and learned quickly
what the Queen liked and didn't like. And if Titter knew anything, it was
that when Queen Flopsy Mopsey began the swagger, someone had better speak
up. Gently, and somewhat reluctantly, Titter raised her paw.
"Highness." her voice squeaked out meakly.
The Queen halted her swagger in mid-hip, and glared toward the lean and
gangly Titter-tail. Her right side whiskers angling upwards at near
impossible heights. "Yes?"
Titter cleared her throat inwardly. *I musn't show weakness.* She thought
to herself. *He's counting on me* Steeling her voice, she gave a slidling
glace to her peers about the court. "I believe the blame for our current
problem can be laid on the....
....Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr."
At that point, Titter was overcome with a swirl of emotion as she recalled
her days as a White House intern. Oh how she longed to be back in the arms
of that powerful man. She recalled the hours she spent with him on his
desk in the Oval Office. The way he caressed her ears, and fluffed her
tail. He knew how to treat a bunny. It broke her heart when she was
forced to betray him.
"Explain yourself!" exclaimed the Queen.
"I was well aware of my mission," started Titter, choking back her tears,
"everything was running smoothly, I almost had control of the most powerful
man in the free world, that is until my cover was blown by that infernal
investigator."
The Queen hauled off and gave Titter a wicked backhand that sent her
fluffy tail over floppy ears into the feet of the Queen's dark aide, Flop
Darknut.
Dazed by the blow, Titter tried to regain her footing, but never
made it as Darknut's blade....cleared its sheath with a rasping ring. Just
then, voices filtered down from the surface. "Hey Huck, who-da thunk the
rabbits had gone over to the halflings?"
"Fuckifino Tom, but let's do the bastards!" said Huck as he rolled the tac
nuke down the hole.
Titter saw this as her big chance to salvage the situation. When the black
ball thunked to the floor of the throne roon, she hopped on top and
exclaimed "This is a sign from above! An obvious gift from the Gods that
says my life should be spared" She looked hopefully at the Queen.
Flopsy-mopsy, as shallow as any despot, was suddenly pleased. "Young
Titter, you have done well. Come, sit by my side as we have a great feast
to celebrate this gift from the surface." As the feast was being set, Tom &
Huck leaped into their canoe and made for the far bank of the river as fast
as they could manage. Once safely on the opposite bank, Tom flipped open
the remote detonator and punched the big, red button. In a blinding flash,
flopsy mopsy and all of her stupid little rabbits were vaporized in a
cleansing, nuclear fireball....
(later that evening) Around the campfire, spit and chaw were popular.
The gray-clad figures formed a rough circle around the fire.
In the central tent, questions were being asked:
Beard: "for the last time...Who signs your paycheck?"
Hafling:
Beard: "Your sulleness tires me"
Hafling:
Beard: "Take him away"
A pair of dis-sheveled guards hustled the halfing off to the Great Pyramid,
and locked him in. The hafling sighed.
At the perimeter of camp, a guard froze, his ears pricked up, breathing
stopped. Silent and motionless he peered into the night. He let out a low
hoot-whistle. Discussion around the campfire ceased. Gray-uniforms crept
to the perimeter. The guard continued to peer intently into the black
night. Suddenly, ...
(there was a time-shift to)
(earlier that evening)
With the exception of Titter. Mere seconds before the devastation occured,
the young rabbit felt the hackels on her fuzzy neck rise. *Something's
afoot.* she mused as her gaze swept the chamber, landing on the black ball
that had been so carelessly left in the chamber.
Without a second thought, Titter threw herself on the Queen's throne, now
vacant as her Highness was swaggering about the buffet, glacing over the
fresh plate of sugared carrots.
Landing square in the goose feather cushion, Titter keyed the small blue
button located under the right armrest. Gritting her buck teeth, she held on.
The initial shock was devastating, but the g-forces slammed her hard into
the cushion, keeping her still. The ejector seat blasted through the rabbit
hollow's escape chamber, rocketing her high on a stream of super heated
plasma.
The the nuc went off. Titter's altitude climbed under the blast. Climber
higher than she dared look. She dug her teeth into the goose feathers. Then
the blackness overtook her.
When she awoke, she was amazed at still being alive. Taking a moment to
gather her senses, she saw that she was still in the forest, currently
hidden by tall grass. The chair rested uneasily on something. Titter leaned
over the edge of the chair to look.
Crumpled around her seat rested two small halflings, clad in gray
uniforms, sporting tattered beards. *Curious.* Titter continued to look
around, then spotted a third body. Her initial surprise turned to horror as
she recognized the face. *No! Not Him!* Titter began to recall her youth as
the name of the body in front of her lay sleeping.
Vinnie "hammer toes" Greenthistle.
Before Titter could act, she heard the sound of..... the approaching mx
missle. This time, no pathetic author's license could save her. The ten
warheads detonated simultaneously, using the airburst so favored for the
anti-rabbit mission. One megaton of atomic death vaporized Titter,
scattering her basic components over a hundred mile radius.
From around the campfire, a gray-clad figure raised his cup in salute to
the majestic mushroom as it utterly annihilated every god-forsaken rabbit
in a three state radius. "at last, he thought, no more stupid bunny crap
in a perfectly good war...
...Captain Shelar stood on the bridge of the Galactic Destroyer Des
Moines. "These scientific missions are a waste of a good battle cruiser,"
she muttered under her breath. However, this mission gave her an
unaccustomed uneasy feeling. Messing with Space/Time was not something she
liked to do. This mission was more dangerous than any battle she had ever
fought in.
Supposedly, that damned bunny clone was the key. The scientists claimed
that "Titter," as she called herself, was to be placed back in the past in
order to save the future. Titter was destroyed by a rouge missile nearly
450 years ago. Many saw it as a good thing back then, but Shelar's history
had shown that that one event caused a ripple of destruction that over the
past four-and-a-half centuries threatened to destroy the planet Earth.
"Captain, we are in position."
"Thank-you, Ensign. Lt. Mirax we are in position, you may proceed with
your launch. The particle beam has been activated, you have 10 standard
minutes to enter the anomoly."
"Understood Captain, we'll see you in the history books." That would be
the last time Mirax's voice would be heard on the bridge of the Des moines.
The small modified Kessler4000 shuttle pod entered the temporal rift with
plenty of time to spare. The last thing Mirax and Co-pilot T-Skal saw was
the Des Moines wiped from existence. "Lt. Mirax, it would appear that the
Department of Intergalactic Science has miscalculated the changes in the
timeline," said T'Skal coldly. Then darkness.
The next thing T'Skal heard was Mirax's screams as the small Kessler pod,
screamed towards the Earth at blinding speed. "We have no power at all,
we're going to crash."
Sitting around the campfire, the halflings were still bickering over who
would get the last bit of Flopsy Mopsy stew. They never saw the speeding
bullet of death that was screaming in from above.
When the debris cloud cleared, out of the smoking crater hopped a lone
figure. Somewhat stained by the mist that became Mirax and T'Skal, Titter
looked around at her surroundings. "My enemies are dead, I can now
continue with the conquest of Earth." Titter turned and headed up the bank
of the river.... Sadly for Titter, the recent explosion had masked her
sense of smell and impaired her hearing. She never knew the fox was there
until his jaws were around her neck. A quick flick and the vertebra snapped
like twigs. The fox settled down and consumed every last bit of the
delectable bunny. After such a large meal, he no longer felt the need to be
very active, so he padded off to his den for a nice long nap. When he awoke
the next morning, he yawned and stretched before heading out. First order
of business was to take a tremendous crap, and shortly a steaming pile was
deposited. It was to be the only headstone Titter ever had...
wangchung, chap. 2
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