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It was a skeleton-hybrid monster, the same as Razz, but much larger. More importantly, it was the same fox that had eaten Slim. There was no mistake; Razz would never forget the sight of Slim’s legs disappearing between its jaws. And now it was chasing him; all according to plan.
Fury made him reckless and he dodged too close, then ran too fast and almost lost the fox. He would need to keep a level head if he was going to get revenge—but not too level. He wouldn’t pull this off without some risk, but it was worth it.
So he waited for the fox to catch up, pretending he was tired from running at full speed. It caught up, its eyelights forming delighted stars when it spotted him. He ignored it and it tried to sneak up on him, taking cover behind some bushes, but its bright blue fur, not to mention the matching bandanna, stood out like lights in the dark. Razz waited for it to spring before dashing away, then slowed his pace so it could catch up and force him to zigzag under its claws—or gloves, as it were. It had to look natural, like it was just a coincidence, like he was being forced to go in this direction, which no sensible rabbit would want to do.
He could only hope the fox wouldn’t notice in time, or would be too determined to catch him to turn back.
He hadn’t counted on the wolf being asleep, although he’d observed the creature often enough that it shouldn’t have been surprising. He put on speed, drawing away from the fox, and ran right into the cave, throwing himself at the wolf’s back. He needed it to be awake by the time the fox got there, and even if the wolf snapped Razz up first, it would be worth it if it got the fox too.
The wolf, also a skeleton but huge compared even to the fox, grumbled and turned ponderously around, eyes half open, one marred by a jagged scar. At the same moment the fox skidded to a stop right in front of it. Razz cowered just out of the fox’s reach.
“Oh! Excuse me,” said the fox brightly. “I was just chasing a rabbit and it ran in here. Sorry for disturbing you, I’ll just—”
The fox stretched a hand toward Razz, but the wolf leaned forward and nonchalantly closed its jaws around the fox’s skull and ribs, tongue gathering it into his mouth as it yelped.
Razz didn’t stay to watch but bolted out of the cave. The smart thing would be to keep running and get on with his life, such as it was without Slim, but he stopped outside of the wolf’s pouncing range and turned to look. The lazy wolf wasn’t chasing him or preparing to pounce on him; it was settling back down in the entrance of its den, running its red tongue over its sharp teeth. Razz hoped whatever the fox was going through now was at least as bad as what it had done to his brother.
Something caught on his ears and he tried to flick them loose. The scent of fox washed over him—how had he not noticed it?
“I saw what you did, bunny.” The fox lifted him by the ears and he kicked desperately until it raised its other hand to support his body. It was tall, its fur and clothing orange. It looked annoyed. Foxes were loners, weren’t they? But maybe it felt some solidarity toward another member of its species.
After a moment its ears perked up. “Wait, I know who you are. You smell like the rabbit he had yesterday. Were you friends?” It brought Razz closer to its face and breathed in deeply. “Brothers perhaps?”
Razz glared at it, defiantly refusing to answer.
“I guess I can understand why you’d want revenge. Maybe I do too.” The fox licked him, its tongue orange and wet. Razz trembled and squirmed in its grasp.
“Relax, I’m not gonna eat ya.” But the fox didn’t loosen its grip on his ears. It started walking. Razz felt no relief; even if the fox wasn’t lying about not eating him, it must have something at least as awful in mind.
The fox only walked a short distance, then let Razz dangle painfully by his ears again. He forgot about the hurt when he found himself swinging around to face the wolf. The fox was dangling him right in front of its face.
Razz swallowed down a whimper. He’d been prepared to accept getting eaten by the wolf only a minute ago, but since then he’d thought he’d escaped that fate.
The wolf looked him over lazily and shot a wry glance at the fox before leaning forward and enveloping Razz in its jaws. He tried to claw his way back toward the teeth but the fox still had his ears—at least that meant the wolf had got the fox’s arm too. Maybe the wolf would bite it off and the fox would bleed to death.
The big red tongue lurched around him and he found himself pushed back, surrounded in red magic, squeezed from all sides to the point that he couldn’t tell whether the fox still had his ears until things settled down again. And then he was more interested in the dimly lit sight of the first fox curled up in what he had to assume was the wolf’s stomach, its cheekbones tear-stained, its eyelights round and quivering.
“Brother!” it gasped, lifting its skull and perking up its blue ears, purple in this lighting. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Blue.” Razz realized the orange fox still had him by the ears and had apparently been swallowed whole along with him. Served it right. “I brought you this rabbit you were chasing. You’ve gone to all this trouble, you’d better eat him.” It was understandably put off by being eaten itself.
Razz struggled as the fox handed him over to other—Blue, it had said—even biting its hand, but it had no effect.
“But Brother,” said Blue, ignoring the bunny in his hands completely, “now you’re in here too.”
“Not the first time,” the other fox shrugged. “I’m sure I told you to stay away from the wolf’s den, didn’t I?”
“Only a couple dozen times,” the blue fox answered sheepishly.
“Eat up and then I’ll get us out of here.”
“Oh! Okay.” Blue brightened at the promise of escape, but Razz redoubled his fury. This blue fox was going to eat him as well as his brother and then escape unharmed? He wasn’t sure how they intended to pull it off, but if they did—It was the worst thing that could possibly happen!
He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of begging for mercy, but he put all his strength into twisting out of the blue fox’s grasp. Not that he would have anywhere to run here inside the wolf.
It didn’t matter. The fox pinned his arms to his side and set his head and shoulders on his horrible blue tongue, rested his teeth on the bunny’s back just firmly enough to keep him steady, and then pushed him deeper in until his skull was engulfed in wet blue magic, followed shortly by the rest of him.
Tears of frustration and rage mixed with the blue fluids as he was squeezed even tighter than when the wolf had swallowed him. No one would see him in here in his final moments. There was no real need to hold back. If he still had the strength after taking a moment to gather himself, he’d try to do the fox some harm from inside.
“Razz?”
He was pressed up against something harder than the fox’s soft blue magic. Something very bony and familiar.
Wiping the blue fluids out of his eye sockets, he stared at his brother for a moment. Slim was alive—but in a way that just made everything worse. They weren’t going to escape from here, and it apparently took more than a day for the cursed blue fox to finish off a bunny. And he was just crying harder now, which meant the last thing Slim would see was his brother making such an undignified scene. He let the walls of ectoplasm squeeze them close together and put his arms around his brother’s ribs.
“What are you doing here?” Slim whispered, returning his embrace.
“Does it hurt?” Razz asked. Slim didn’t seem to be in any pain, but he was good at hiding it. Not that there was much Razz could do for him in this situation.
“No—no, it’s okay. What’s going on outside?”
“I tricked the fox into getting caught by a wolf—but we all got eaten.”
“Oh—that’s—less okay. Who’s ‘we all’?”
“Me and the fox and another fox—I guess it’s his brother.”
“Oh.” Slim hugged him tight. “This will all work out, probably. Let’s just wait here for a while.”
Being stuck inside the fox for a day had clearly rattled Slim’s mind, but if he suffered less for his delusions that was just as well. Razz buried his face in his brother’s shirt and waited to die.
***
“This is what comes of chasing strange bunnies,” Stretch scolded, shaking the worst of the red magic off himself.
“He’s not a strange bunny! He’s Slim’s brother! His name’s Razz.”
Stretch folded his ears. “You don’t know him, do you? You must’ve scared him out of his wits.”
“He still had wits enough to get me into this mess.”
Stretch wanted to object to the characterization of the wolf as a mess, but he couldn’t.
“And besides, I think you scared him worse! You basically fed him to a wolf and then to a fox.”
Stretch’s ears pressed down flat. “Fair enough. I was mad about what he did to you.”
“Sure, I was going to eat him, but then he’d have seen his brother right away and realized it was fine.”
Stretch wasn’t sure the bunny would have jumped to such a conclusion, but he let it slide. “Let’s get out of here.”
He held tight to his brother’s arms and teleported. Both foxes appeared in front of the wolf’s den.
“Aw, now I’m hungry again,” the wolf complained. Stretch laid a hand on his skull, leaving a red hand print, and the wolf twisted to lick his arm.
“Don’t get any ideas, Red,” he warned. “Blue? You wanna let those rabbits go?”
“What? Already?”
“I know you’ve had the one since yesterday.”
“All right, fine.” Blue poked at his belly a couple times and waited expectantly. A mass of rabbit fur and bones and cloth appeared on the ground in front of him.
The wolf’s ears perked with interest. “The bunnies do that same trick.”
“Hey bunnies,” Blue said as Slim lifted his skull and looked around. “Sorry if I scared you. Even though it’s really mostly my brother’s fault.”
“Hey, it was much easier to get them out of the wolf if they were both inside you,” Stretch said in his own defense.
“I guess that makes sense.” Slim accepted the explanation, then turned his attention to his brother. “Look, see? We’re out.”
“Already? I thought it would hurt more.” The smaller bunny stayed balled up. “And I thought you’d—it’s just as well. I wouldn’t want to wait around with your dust.”
“Nobody’s dust, bunny!” Blue laughed and Stretch smiled, wondering if he’d noticed the potential pun.
Ignoring the blue magic still dripping from himself, Slim started combing out his brother’s ears. “Just look around. We’re not dead. But, ah, do prepare yourself to see some foxes.”
Razz finally lifted his skull and looked around at the assembled predators. For a moment he pressed closer against Slim, but then he jumped to his feet. “Slim, run! I’ll distract them!” He fainted a kick at Blue, whether because he was the least intimidating or the target of the greatest portion of the bunny’s ire.
“Whoa, calm down, bunny.” The wolf reached for Razz and got nipped for his trouble. “Ouch. Fine, if that’s the way you want it.” He pinned Slim under his hand instead. “Calm down or else.”
Slim shoved him off. “Stop it. You’re just going to rile him up worse.”
“I said I was sorry, bunny!” Blue protested. “Please don’t kick me!”
Stretch looked for a chance to grab Razz’s ears—that had kept him pretty helpless the previous time. But whenever he thought he saw an opening the bunny threatened to bite him.
“It’s okay, brother, don’t get bitten,” Blue cautioned. “If he wants to bite someone he may as well bite me. I guess I earned it.” He slouched down in surrender.
But the gesture only convinced Blue posed little enough threat that he could concentrate on the other two predators. “Slim! Why aren’t you running?” he hissed as he rushed at Stretch.
Stretch managed to avoid the attack by snatching him up by the ears at last. “I’ve never seen such a feisty bunny.”
“Blue, are you okay?” Slim paused on his way to check on the fox, watching with alarm as Stretch grabbed his brother. “Razz! Calm down. They’re nice foxes!”
“What are you talking about?” The bunny’s voice was shrill. “That one ate you! And—” He pointed at Blue again. “That one ate me too!”
Slim turned to Blue and put his hands on his hips. “He has a point, Blue. Why’d ya eat him?”
Blue squirmed under the bunny’s gaze. “I don’t know—he was just fun to chase! And I might’ve gotten carried away. But Stretch is the one who ended up catching him!”
Stretch was forced to hold Razz at a distance to avoid being kicked. “There’s plenty of blame to go around here,” he said when Slim turned his disapproving gaze on him. “I might even venture to suggest that if you’d told Razz about you and Blue, none of this woulda happened."
“What about you and Blue?” Razz asked over his shoulder, not letting it interfere with his efforts to scratch or kick at Stretch.
“Oh, uh. We’re…friends.”
The wolf chuckled. “Oh, that kinda friends. Same as me and Stretch.”
“Wait, you and Stretch are—friends?” Blue was startled.
“Oh, now who hasn’t told their brother about their…friend?” Slim crossed his arms.
Stretch sighed, letting his guard down, and Razz grabbed onto his wrist and bit his hand. Stretch dropped him, and the rabbit gathered himself as if to pounce on the fox, but didn’t.
“I guess you’re not the only one hiding things,” Stretch admitted. “Does he at least know you can teleport?”
“He can what?” Razz growled, backing toward his brother.
“How did you think you got out of my tummy?” Blue asked, perking up a bit before Razz growled him into submission again.
“It’s the easiest, cleanest way to get back out again,” Stretch explained, not looking either of the bunnies in the eyes.
“And to sneak up on me earlier!” Razz accused.
“Well, yes,” Stretch admitted. “But you had just got my brother eaten—and he can’t teleport out, and he had no way of knowing that—Red, you wouldn’t have—?”
“Course not. I could taste he was your bro.” The wolf rested his skull on his arms, enjoying the show.
“Oh! Really? Well—thank you!” Blue perked up again.
“Sure.” Red leered at him. “If you ever wanna, y’know, do that again—”
“He doesn’t,” Stretch cut in.
“I think the take-away here is that you should ask someone before eating them,” said Slim, placing a restraining hand on Razz’s shoulder.
“But Slim, I didn’t ask you the first time I—”
“Or maybe just be careful who sees you doing it,” Stretch interrupted his brother, changing the subject. Red hadn’t asked him, either, the first time. An exchanged glance revealed the wolf was thinking along the same lines, grinning knowingly at him. Stretch shuddered to think what would have happened to him if he hadn’t been able to teleport out.
“You—you teleported us out? Both of us?” Razz asked his brother, his voice low but clearly audible to the foxes. Slim nodded. “Can you do it again? Make yourself useful and get us out of here, somewhere we aren’t surrounded by bloodthirsty predators?”
“They’re not—” Slim started to protest but thought better of it. “Sure, I can take us straight home.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea, Slim,” Blueberry agreed. “Give him some space to calm down. I’d love to meet him properly later.”
Razz turned on him with a snarl.
“Not to eat! Just to talk!”
“We’ll see,” Slim said with a sympathetic glance at the fox.
“Yeah, you’d all better clear out before Boss sees ya. He don’t take kindly to his lunch teleporting away,” the wolf added.
“Boss?” echoed Razz in the moment before he and Slim disappeared, leaving only a few splashes of Blue’s magic on the ground.
“Right,” said Stretch. “Guess we should be going too. Blue, you want a ride?” He knew Blue hated teleporting, but he’d been through a lot today.
“No, I’m good. I’m gonna wash off in the river. You should too!”
“Yeah, probably.” Stretch looked down at the red magic staining his clothes and fur.
“This explains why you always kinda smell like wolf!”
“Hey.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Red grumbled.
“Uh! Nothing! See you—see you around!” Blue turned and left, trying not to look hurried.
“Just me and you, huh?” Red said to Stretch. “I wasn’t kidding about Boss coming back.”
Stretch sank down next to him. “Yeah? I know a good place to hide from him, though.”
“Oh, really?” Red grinned, parted his jaws and let his tongue loll out.
Stretch leaned against it, tired from the excitement, ready to hide away from the world for a while. “Just don’t send me any visitors, okay?”