It was easy enough to follow the Mrs K-bot; Morwen just followed the trail of destruction, of doors broken off their hinges and stunned Agency staff.
The trail led out into the gardens, where the rabbits were running amok, and even more vegetation was on fire. The giant rabbit robot had battered its way through the walls. The rabbits were flame thrower-ing everything in sight, while Agency staff were frantically fighting back with fire extinguishers and fire hoses.
Overhead a squadron of ducks were doing a mad aerial battle with mobs of pigeons, pigeons who were also dropping filled balloons full of nasty goo148onto the combatants below.
The Rab-bot strode above all of this, making its way towards the Agency building, a cross-looking Rosa held in one giant fist, and an even crosser looking Felindre chasing it. As the Rab-bot got to the front door, it kicked one giant foot out, and broke the door down. An alarm went off in the Agency building, adding one more note of chaos to the existing cacophony. The Rab-bot pulled its foot back and kicked in another window, and another.
Morwen had no time or attention to spare for the Rab-bot, intent as she was in chasing down the Mrs K-bot. The trail led out the side of the Agency building, through a cartoon-like Mrs K-bot shaped hole in the wall, straight to the front lawn where Barbra Allen stood with a remote control in her hand, surrounded by a cadre of attack rabbits149 and her golden dragons. By Barbra’s side stood the Mrs K-bot, hand outstretched and palm up, with the white disk on top of it.
Barbra Allen should have been gloating over the destruction in typical evil genius fashion. But instead she viewed it with a faint air of distaste.
“What have you done!” screamed Morwen, held well back by a blast of flame from one of the rabbits150.
Barbra Allen looked at her, and frowned.
“I did what I needed to do to get my dragons back,” she said.
She took the white disk out of the Mrs K-bot’s hand, and looked at it, preoccupied.
“Of course,” she continued, “having the chance to get this also was an incentive.”
And she swallowed the disk.
Nothing happened for 5 seconds. Barbra Allen stood there, like a statue, and then she blinked, and focussed on Morwen.
“Morwen, what happened?” she asked in a tone of urgency. “Where’s Rosa and Felindre? How did I get out here?”
She looked down at her body and realisation dawned.
“Oh dear,” she said, looking at the creatures around her. Several of her dragons looked back at her, one whistling an enquiry.
When they didn’t get an immediate satisfactory answer, they swarmed over her in seconds, one prying open her mouth, while several launched themselves at her shoulder blades. As they hit her, she jerked forward and the white disk flew out of her mouth to land on the grass in front of her.
She straightened up.
“Well, that was horrible,” she said, almost to herself. “Good to know.”
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away, her dragons following.
Left behind, the multi-coloured rabbits looked confused, and, lacking any other orders, wandered off and tried to set fire to the nearest wall.
As soon as her path was clear, Morwen rushed forward and grabbed the disk. She was staring at it in confusion, when a scream caught her attention. It was Rosa.
“I. Am. Fed. Up. Of. Being. The. Damsel. In. Distress!” she yelled, stabbing at the wrist of the Rab-bot hand that held her. Then, having obviously broken into something with her stabbing, she stuck something between her teeth, reached in with both hands, pulled, twisted, took the thing out of her teeth and jammed it in.
“Rosa, no!” yelled Felindre, who was halfway up the Rab-bot’s back, and clinging on for dear life.
There was a sizzling sound and the Rab-bot’s arm dropped, hand falling open. Rosa screamed as she fell to the ground, and screamed again when she landed, on top of a group of fire throwing rabbits. The rabbits scattered, abandoning their weapons.
Felindre nearly got thrown off in that moment of distraction.
“I’m ok!” yelled Rosa. “The flamethrowers cushioned my fall! Stop that thing!”
Morwen rushed over to Rosa151, who wasn’t moving away from where she’d fallen. Close up, she looked pale, and was gritting her teeth.
“I think I’ve broken my leg,” she said quietly to Morwen. “But for the love of cake, don’t let Felindre know before she’s stopped that thing.”
They both turned to look at the Rab-bot, with Felindre now clinging to its shoulders.
“Duck!” yelled a human voice152, and they both did, as a rabbit came flying backwards above their head153, propelled by a jet of flame. It was put out by a well-aimed blast from a fire hose, and landed in the hedge.
“Let’s get you out of here,” said Morwen, and she helped Rosa up.
Together they made their slow way out of the field of battle, back the wall, and only a few metres away from the area of calm in the centre of the lawn, coincidentally where the camera crew had set themselves up.
“Those camera operators look really familiar,” said Rosa.
“Oh, don’t they just,” said Morwen.
Sure enough, it was their old friends, Horace van Twaddle, and the minions, Stuart and Dave, back in their old roles of camera operator and sound person.
“Help Fel,” ordered Rosa. “I’ll be fine here.”
Felindre, by this stage had reached the Rab-bot’s neck, and was reaching around it, trying to find a point of vulnerability. It shook its head rapidly, trying to shake her off.
“Felindre!” yelled Morwen, as she ran towards the Rab-bot, dodging rabbits and the occasional gust of flame and spurt of fire extinguisher. “The ears! Go for the ears!”
Felindre wrapped her legs around the Rab-bot’s neck, and hit it, hard. When she pulled her arm back, her steel hair stick was jammed into its skull, sticking out like a thorn.
The Rab-bot lifted its one useful arm to swat at her, but couldn’t reach. The hair stick wasn’t doing much.
“Go for the ears!” Morwen yelled again.
“Why?” yelled Felindre, dodging another swipe.
“Trust me!”
Felindre let go of the Rab-bot’s neck and balanced for a moment on one of its shoulders. She crouched and jumped, climbing up the back of its head, until she stood on the top of its head, clinging to its giant, white, fluffy ears.
“Now what…eeep!” she yelled, barely dodging as a giant fist swept over the head.
“Pull the ears off!” yelled Morwen.
Felindre pulled at the ears, testing their attachment, grabbed large handfuls of one of them, then took a deep breath.
“Geronimo!” she yelled as she jumped off the Rab-bot’s head.
Unfortunately, the ear she was holding on to was firmly attached to the Rab-bot’s skull, leaving Felindre hanging from it several metres above the ground, saying things that were lost in the noise, but can’t have been suitable for polite company.
“Now what?!” Felindre yelled to Morwen.
“Hang in there for a moment!” yelled Rosa from the wall, where she was tinkering with something.
“I don’t have much choice!” Felindre yelled back, wildly swinging from side to side as the Rab-bot thrashed its head around.
“Just one more minute! Keep distracting it!” yelled Rosa. “Morwen, help me!”
To be fair, Felindre did an excellent job of distracting the Rab-bot as it swung her, and its ear, this way and that, trying desperately to shake her off. Felindre abandoned the ear, jumping for the body as soon as she could, searching for a weak spot.
By the words coming from her, she wasn’t finding any. Frustrated, she climbed around to the Rab-bot’s face, and stabbed it in the giant glass eye with her other hair stick.
The glass broke, and in that moment of surprise the Rab-bot caught her with its one good arm. It plucked her from its face, and held her for a moment.
“Oh no you don’t!” said Felindre, twisting out of its grasp and jumping to the ground, landing hard and rolling.
“Got it!” crowed Rosa in triumph.
A fire extinguisher arced across the lawn, and flew straight into the back of the Rab-bot’s supporting knee as it raised the other foot to stomp on a stunned Felindre. Pushed off balance, the Rab-bot fell backwards, and landed head first in the pond.
This was not an ideal situation, given that the pond was still on fire, and one of the Rab-bot’s eyes was cracked, allowing water to get into its metal skull. It flailed around frantically for a moment154, before it managed to get turned around, and its head above the water. It crawled out of the pond, using its one good arm and one good leg, but its ears, the only flammable part of it, were still on fire. It swatted at them, attempting to put the fire out, but only succeeded in pulling the ears off completely.
As soon as the ears were gone, that was it. All the rabbits dropped their weapons and fled, leaving what was left of the pigeons to the un-tender, yet militarily precise, mercies of the ducks155. All the Agency staff converged on the Rab-bot, spraying it with water and carbon dioxide fire extinguisher as it tried to crawl away, until it slumped into a charred flower bed in defeat.
There was a pop, and the top of the Rab-bot’s head opened up, and a small furry body156 with a back pack was catapulted out into the sky. It flew up into the air, and just as it was about to hit the down slope of its parabola, a parasail came out of the back pack and caught a gust of wind, heading for freedom, outside the walls157.
“Oh no you don’t,” muttered Felindre, as she picked up a rock from an ornamental border, and threw it.
The rock arced through the air, and hit the parasail. It folded like a cheap umbrella, and with a terrified squeak, Snuffles fell to the ground.
Rosa caught her.
___
151 Shoving the disk into her non-torn jean pocket as she ran.
152 Belonging to Tom, wielding a fire hose with all the in-born skill of a hardcore chess player.
153 One of the supporting pyramids had obviously failed.
154 Looking for all the world like an upturned tortoise, or one or one of those little toy robot things with all the legs that walk by vibrating.
155 Note for future reference. Ducks aren’t particularly merciful. Vicious sods, in fact.
156 Belonging to Snuffles the guinea pig, in case you hadn’t already guessed.
157 Coincidentally, heading for that section of wall that currently had Rosa propped against it, fiddling with yet another fire extinguisher.
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