Mary-Ann awoke to a rather furry brown eye shoved into her face. The eye was shut tight and the fur surrounding was covered in an iridescent sheen almost like a thin coating of oil. The eye winked but instead of an eye looking around a bubble floated out and slowly rose up and Mary-Ann smelled the stench of rotting carrots. She suddenly realized that she wasn’t looking at an eye but rather the rear end of some kind of animal and she started to flail around to push it away but she couldn’t seem to get her arms to work properly.

Suddenly the memories of the last couple of weeks resurfaced and nearly broke down again. Taking the equivalent of a deep breath she regained control over herself and pushed floppy out of her body. There was an indignant huff that seemed to echo in her mind but she didn’t pay attention to it as she worked to expel the bunny fart that was slowly drifting through her body. The bubble made an odd fating noise as it squeezed out of her but it left a lingering taste of rotten carrots. Mary-Ann was sure that she would have thrown up already if she could; she certainly felt the impulse to do so. As soon as he was free of her Floppy wiggled out of the pocket and hopped off.

Checking her condition while making odd gagging noises she found herself to be fine, or at least she was fine for having been turned into a jelly, which again led her to be down cast. She was about to sigh again when it turned into a strangled ‘eep’ as she recalled the explosion. Looking around she found that she was back in the pocket of the robe that seemed to be lying on the ground. This wasn’t a good sign as she was hoping that the blast was just some backlash that had knocked her unconscious. Dreading the worst she worked her way out of the pocket but what she found was even worse than she imagined.

The wrinkly green butt waving around as the goblin was bent over in a shallow creek washing away the dust that had covered his skin was perhaps the single most traumatizing thing she had ever seen. It was even worse that a close up view of a bunny fart. She thought to herself that the only thing that could make this worse would be…

She stopped thinking and rushed back into the pocket as Al let loose an epic fart. She wanted to scrub the image of his butt cheeks flapping as he expelled a massive amount of gas but the image just wouldn’t go away. The flapping had been oddly hypnotic but luckily, unlike Floppy’s fart, this one was not released directly into her slime so she could block it out, which was important as there was an actual green cloud formed and she was truly worried about its toxicity. She was also pretty sure that wouldn’t smell as pleasant as rotten carrots.

She was glad to see that Al was still alive and even though she was extremely curious as to what happened, there was no way she was going back out there until she was sure it was safe.

******

Floppy was extremely annoyed. There was the explosion which singed his tail and threw him headfirst into a slime. He was screaming at the time so he swallowed quite a bit and so much was forced up his nose that he was still sneezing it out, even worse it made his nose itch like crazy. After that indignity his nest mates turned on him and wouldn’t let him near. In truth this wasn’t too surprising as they had always hated him. He was not only the runt of the litter; he was a strange color as well.

His best memories of his brothers and sisters were his earliest memories before any of them had opened their eyes. At that time they all piled together for warmth and they were all the same as far as they could tell. When he first opened his eyes he saw all the little black balls of fluff staring at him. At first he confused as to why they were looking at him so oddly but looking down at himself he found that he had no black fur and this frightened him. As time passed and he continued to be the smallest with a strange colored fur, the other kits distanced themselves further from him. They began to bully him, forcing him away from their mother so he couldn’t get enough to eat and when she started to bring in solid foods they would always take the best and trample what was left so he had to live on scraps. His mother turned a blind eye to all this and he might have even starved if it wasn’t for the goblin that that barged to their nest being chased by a couple of local dogs.

The dogs were so stupid that they actually tried to attack the kits. Thankfully even baby hell bunnies are incredibly tough and so they did little more than scare them but the goblin actually started throwing rocks at them to get them to leave us alone. It sort of worked as the dogs ignored the kits and attacked the goblin instead. All the noise caused by the kits squealing, the goblin screaming, and the dogs growling and barking caught the mother hell bunny’s attention. The goblin was lucky that she figured out that he was defending her kits but the dogs, well that horn isn’t ornamental.

It took the goblin two days to heal up enough to leave but during that time the kits discovered that while he was quite smelly, he was also warm so they tended to pile up on him. Several days after he left he returned and the mother hell bunny probably would have at least chased him off if he hadn’t discovered her weakness. Where he found a two foot long carrot is a mystery but it, along with a bundle of smaller carrots earned him a pardon.

Somewhere along the way the goblin had discovered how Floppy was being treated so when he gave all the other kits their bundle of carrots to fight over, he would always hold one back for the tiny bunny. Given how starved he was at the time this probably saved his life but he really wasn’t too aware of this.

So it was no surprise that his brothers and sisters rejected him, but what was a surprise was when his mother did. She had always treated Floppy with indifference but she never actively rejected him and when she did it hurt and frightened him like nothing before. He couldn’t figure out why she would suddenly reject him but before he could think about it he was shoved into the goblin’s pocket. The dark and somewhat quiet space would have been a great place to figure out what was going on except that he was tossed into a wet puddle in the bottom of the pocket. At first it was spongey and he was standing on the surface but it didn’t take long before he started sinking. He kicked his back feet to try and work his way out but he just sank faster. Eventually his butt settled onto something hard and round leaving him half sank into the jelly. He tried to get out several times but all it did was spread the jelly throughout his fur.

He squirmed periodically as the urge to relieve himself grew more and more as he felt the goblin swaying back and forth as he walked. It’s a good thing he figured out that this slime was a friend of the goblin or he would have pooped already. Eventually he felt the robe drop to the ground and he struggled to get free even releasing a fart as he tried to hold the rest in. Luckily for the slime it must have woken up as Floppy was finally pushed out.

He gave an indignant huff and worked his way out of the pocket, quickly hopping away to do his business.

******

Mary-Ann wasn’t sure how long she had cowered in the pocket but she was surprised when the robe was lifted up and tossed through the air. She was startled and somewhat frightened by this turn of events and tried to make her way out of the pocket before it could slam back to earth. She was halfway out when the both the robe and herself splashed down into the creek.

At first she freaked out, she could swim but she was tangled up in the robe. After flailing around for a bit she discovered that she wasn’t drowning. This was the first time she had been submerged since she became a jelly and it had completely slipped her mind that they didn’t need to breathe. In fact most slimes and jellies were found in swamps and could live equally well on land or underwater.

Once she calmed down she worked her way out of the pocket only to find that actually didn’t know how to swim as a slime. As she let herself sink to the bottom of the creek she saw both the iridescent and purple jellies slip out of the robe. She watched as they both swam in their own way; the prince would suck water in the front then squeeze it out the back causing him to jet through the water while the iridescent jelly flattened itself out and rippled through the water. Both were interesting and effective though she doubted she could perfect either in a short amount of time. She tried to copy both styles but gave up and just crawled out across the creek bed.

She had just surface at the edge of the water when she heard the prince scream as he flew through the air and slashed back into the creek.

“Too noisy.” Al complained as he fished the robe out of the creek and started smashing it against a rock. It took Mary-Ann a few moments to figure out that he was trying to clean it. The rock was stained grey as the dirt and dust were squeezed out of the fabric. After a few good whacks Al tossed the robe back into the creek where it smashed into the prince as he surfaced and drug him under again. Mary-Ann had to wonder if Al had great luck or the prince had poor. Either way when the prince surfaced again he did so quietly and slunk off to the side where he squeezed enough water out of himself to shrink back to his original size. It seems that his method of swimming caused one to bloat up to a rather large size.

Looking around they seemed safe enough so Mary-Ann finally let loose the tension she had been holding since the explosion.

“Ok Al,” she started, “I think it’s about time you told me what the heck happened back there.”

Al looked at her and seemed to take his time thinking about where to begin. After a few minutes he nodded to himself and began. “Phyron made the world go boom.”

This of course not only confused her but also freighted her. If Phyron had caught up to them they should be dead or recaptured, not bathing in the woods. She could feel a headache coming on as she realized just how hard it was going to be to get the story of what happed from Al.