>Chit yawned, and dropped to the floor. After a few minutes he laid down and
>rested his chin on his paws. After a few more he felt his eyelids slooowly
>closing....

>"Got it!" he heard one of the bunnies exclaim as he drifted off, "We'll..."

Chit dreamed of fire and death.

He was jarred awake to the sound of someone pounding on the door. He leaped
up to look through the tiny barred window. "What?"

"What?" one of the bunnies, the only one awake, asked. Chit was fairly sure
it was the same one he'd talked to before, probably the leader.

"You pounded on the door."

"Did not."

Whatever. Chit dropped down to go back to sleep.

"I'm going out now," the bunny said loudly, "To check up on the patrols."
Chit jumped back up, and saw that he was talking to a pair of bunnies
standing guard outside the guard chamber. Guarding the guards? They let him
past, and he hopped out down the tunnel, out of sight. Chit checked, and
saw that one of the other bunnies was actually awake, just keeping rather 
still. Damn.

Chit tried to go back to sleep along with the rest of the squirrels (who'd
also been awoken by the pounding) but he couldn't. The bunnies were just
acting too wierd. He wasn't surprised at all when, ten minutes later, a
crackly voice came from the alert bun's armor.

"We're under attack!" came the frantic voice of the missing bun. "Mobilize
the warren! Aieeee!!!!" The three armored buns lept to their paws and
clambered out of the guard chamber, shoving aside the guards in the hallway.

"Wait!" one of them protested, "You're supposed to stay here!"

"We're under attack! Go notify the warrenleader!" The bunny blanched, and
ran off in the other direction, while the three armored bunnies headed for
the surface.

The last bunny hopped into the guard chamber, a bit confused. "I'll stay
here and guard you, I guess... [whiskertwitch]"

On a whim, Chit tried turning the doorknob. It turned easily. He left the
cell door closed.

He woke up Kara and the others and indicated the situation as best he could
with gestures and tailflicks. Kara nodded, and silently opened the door as
soon as the guard turned his back.

There, against the wall of the guard chamber, right next to the door, was
a pair of squirrel spears, marked 'exhibit A'. Kara grabbed one and plunged
it into the bunny's spine. He screamed and fell over, thrashing weakly as
the vanilla extract worked its way through his system. The others filed out
of the cell. Chit grabbed the other spear as he passed.

"This has to be a trap," Kara chittered, wiping off her spear on the bunny's
fur.

"It is," Chit answered, "but not for us. Let's go before they catch on."

"Look!" Zander exclaimed. There, on the other side of the door, were the
grenades, marked 'exhibit B'. Kara gave one each to Zander and Charlie.

The hallways were mostly deserted, it being the middle of the night, and
they managed to make it to an air vent without meeting anyone. The grating
set off an alarm when the grenade went off (as if the explosion wouldn't
have alerted the guards anyway), but they were out before anyone could
respond.

Once out, they took to the trees, and headed quietly in a random direction
until morning.

-----

The humans didn't look like Fudds. They were too old. And sick. They looked
more like bums. But the axes and supersoakers clutched in their cold, dead
hands gave them away. Joven sat on the chest of one of the humans whose
throat he'd personally ripped out, staring smugly at the warrenleader.

"I knew the squirrels had Fudd support," he said, "That's why we should have
been on patrol. [fluff] This --" he waved a paw at the civilian patrol, half
dissolved in foul-smelling vanilla, "wouldn't have happened if you hadn't
had us guarding those worthless squirrels. But it all turned out for the
best, I suppose... with them dead and the squirrels captured, our work here
is finished."

"The squirrels escaped when you deserted your posts! [stomp!]"

"Really? We left your guards in charge of the situation. We felt we were
needed here more... urgently." He turned again to look significantly at 
the slaughtered patrol. "I told you we should have killed them when we 
had the chance."

"Find them! [stomp]"

"We'll try, but they're long gone by now... [dismissiveearflick] They'll be
back though, you can count on it." He hopped off the human's chest and 
advanced on the warrenleader, until the bunny had to hop back to avoid being
overrun. "And from now on, when I give you advice you'll take it. Right?"

==
Chit