"Brmph!" grunted Jack.

It was nearly dawn and after allowing Herman to take the responsibility (or rather, the blame) for losing the two wannabe rebels, Jack had returned over the hill to the haven. He'd tracked down Mopsy and confessed everything.

"If they had been tortured, by the sounds of it they would have told Boxer and his courtiers everything they wanted to know," she said.

She was being very supportive.

"But they only wanted to help!" Jack cried.

"I know, I know."

"How can we claim to be the wholesomely good alternative to the evil regime of Emperor Morellius when we kill innocents because it serves our purpose? Your father was right, Mopsy. We're as bad as them!"

Mopsy tightened up. "Don't say that, Jack. It's not true."

"Yes, it is," he mumbled, lowering his head.

"Oh, Jack," she sighed. She moved even closer.

They were in her burrow, which had survived the hares' ramifications and was still quite near the surface. However, the nearest exit had been filled in because it was a strategic liability. They were completely alone here.

She nuzzled the side of his furry face, pecking him on the cheek. At first he didn't even respond, except to look at her out of the corner of his eyes. She edged even closer and began rubbing her flank up against him.

"Mopsy?" he began.

"Yes, Jack?"

"Mopsy, there's... there's something I've been meaning to say."

"What is it?"

"Mopsy, I-"

But that's as far as he got. At that moment, Benjamin Bunny burst in with an excited yip and ran a circle around the two of them, as far as the small chamber would allow it. He started gabbling before he stopped running.

"Come lookie! Up on the surface!"

So they followed him deeper into the new warren just so that they could find the tunnel that sloped downwards out of it. Jack would never get used to the new architecture, not having been here to hear it explained.

Mopsy was at first filled with feelings of dread. Had the haven already been found? Was this the start of the final battle for Roadkill Turnpike? But then she realised Benjamin was far too excited for it to be that.

When they finally reached the surface, there were already plenty of rabbits sitting serenely in the grass. Peter was standing near their exit. All the rabbits were looking to the westward horizon. Mopsy gulped.

Another mushroom had sprouted.

It was already dissipating fast by the time Mopsy and Jack arrived. The rabbits sat, captivated by the spectacle, watching until the great mushroom cloud had faded away completely. But when it was gone, the same orange light lingered in a fine line just above the horizon, like an aurora borealis.

"Has the sun switched sides?" asked Benjamin.

For indeed, it looked like the sun was rising in the west today.

"Looks like... fire," Mark said under his breath.

Peter turned to look at him, but saw Mopsy and Jack instead.

"Oh, Jack, there you are," he said, but he was giving Mopsy a piercing, interrogative stare whilst he said it. "I heard about what happened."

Jack's face fell again, remembering. "Oh."

"It's unfortunate," Peter continued. "Unfortunately necessary. Sometimes we are called on to betray our own principles in the cause of upholding them." He paused. "How's our alliance with the captive breds?"

Most of the rabbits turned their heads at this.

Talk about pressure, thought Mopsy. Poor Jack.

"There isn't one," Jack replied. He explained why.

The rabbits all looked on gravely and listened.

"And the really ironic thing is," he concluded. "This is all our fault! If you'd never helped the hares, Morellius would never have known there was a resistance movement, he would never have started a purge against the natural borns, and the captive breds would never have taken this as a sign..."

Mont'mar, who had been standing not far from Peter with Ball'rdo, shrank back. The whispers amongst the crowd turned vitriolic against her people. But Peter knew further disunity now wasn't going to help anyone.

"We were right to help the hares," he declared.

The crowds on the surface fell silent.

"We share a common purpose," he continued. "As we do with the captive breds. They're deluding themselves if they interpret persecution of the natural borns as emancipation of the captive breds, Jack..."

"Oh, don't think I don't know that, Pete."

Peter nodded. "Which is why I need you to go back," he said. "Keep trying to convince them that the only way is our way, that Morellius won't give them what they want, so they must join us, and take it for themselves."

"Oh, no," Jack said. "Oh, no."

"What?"

"I'm not going back." Jack chuckled pointedly. "That's it, Pete. I'm finished over there. I'm staying here for the duration now."

Peter blinked. "But we need an insider over there."

"Well, that can't be me," Jack snapped. "Look, I've done what I can, but those captive breds want an act of God! That's what Jesus says he needs to convince them the route to salvation is not by making deals with Morellius."

"You have to make them see otherwise..."

Jack sighed. "Pete, it's hopeless. If they're going to join with us now, it's going to be on their own terms, not on ours..."

Peter bit his lip and scowled.

"Pa, don't send him back," Mopsy pleaded. "It's too dangerous."

"I had to kill two innocents last night because they not only knew where the haven was but that I was involved with it too!" Jack swallowed. "It's only a matter of time before Morellius finds out the truth about which side I'm really on. And I want to be as far away as possible when that happens..."

Peter nodded. "You're right." He sighed.

"Somebody's been spreading my name around," Jack continued. "It's just a pity I didn't get a chance to interrogate those two bucks, after all. They could have told us whom. As it is, I have no idea. It could be anybody..."

Unbeknownst to him, that anybody had just been caught. Back on the other side of the hill, Boxer had launched a crafty sting operation. Emperor Morellius saw the loss of the two defecting bucks as a setback, and ordered Herman beaten. Boxer, however, knew he was now closing in on the traitors. It was in all their interests to bring the purge against potential dissidents to a conclusion. Morale was waning. The rabbits of Roadkill Turnpike were only joining the ranks of the Emperor's mighty army out of fear. That didn't inspire loyalty to authority.

Boxer and his courtiers now knew there was a place called the haven, where the resistance movement was growing. This was outside the confines of Roadkill Turnpike, but its agents had infiltrated the Emperor's lands. Those two bucks had made contact with one, and he had told them how to get to the haven. So Boxer set up a trap, sending two volunteers to pretend to be defectors.

For a few hours, they returned with nothing. However, reports kept coming to Boxer and Morellius about two traitors asking around. The Emperor was much chuffed by the apparent loyalty of so many of his people.

Then just before dawn, the two spies returned excitedly. They had found somebody who had taken them into his confidence and told them that, yes, there was indeed a mounting resistance movement and he was an important figure. Even Boxer hadn't thought it would be that easy. The traitor agreed to meet the two spies again just after sunrise, but Boxer and his courtiers were there to meet him instead. They caught him, tortured him until he confessed, then tortured him some more just for the sake of it. Then they brought him before the Emperor.

"Casper..." Morellius gasped.

Casper spluttered and spat out some blood. Both buckteeth had been knocked out and he had been blinded in one eye. One leg was broken.

"But you used to be so loyal..."

Casper said nothing. He looked defeated.

"I'm most disappointed," the Emperor continued. "Of all the rabbits that would turn against me, I hadn't expected a courtier..."

"Former courtier," Casper sneered.

He glanced at a jubilant Boxer.

"Yes, well," Morellius said, ruffling his shoulders. "Obviously Boxer was right about you all along. Good job we got rid of you."

"He's confessed to involvement, Your Majesty," Boxer said wearily. "He claims he can muster forces numbering over a thousand."

Emperor Morellius looked alarmed.

"But he offers no proof," Boxer added quickly. "Though seeing as we know there must be some, having fought them ourselves, I can only assume he persists in withholding information. Permission to torture him again?"

"Granted."

Casper began to tremble.

"Tell us where the haven is," Boxer said matter-of-factly. Then he nodded to Herman and another courtier named Basil.

Basil was a thin, wiry rabbit with a bushy, top-heavy head. He also had something of an anal fixation as far as torture was concerned. Herman, redeemed through his own punishment, was in a particularly vicious mood.

"I... don't... know... a... bout... the... ha... ven!" Casper pleaded between blows. Basil and Herman were taking turns on him.

"Stop," Boxer said calmly.

Casper sighed with relief, but any delusions he had of Boxer suddenly finding a sense of mercy were ill-judged. Boxer moved in close.

"Do you remember when this used to be your job, Casper?" he asked the fallen courtier quietly. "You used to be quite an expert, if I remember rightly. Indeed, our current torture techniques still revolve around reaching that previously unknown threshold of pain, which your methods defined for us."

Casper gulped. He knew what was coming.

"Do you remember your grand finale, Casper?"

Casper gasped. "No! No! Anything but that!"

"Tell us where the haven is, then..."

Casper held his breath. The next few seconds seemed to stretch out to a few minutes. He had time to think. And what he was thinking was: what the fuck are they talking about? Then he realised; they still knew nothing about Christ's holy army in the woods. They thought they had caught someone from the haven!

They thought they had caught Jack.

Casper felt immensely bitter. He owed nothing to Jack. But here he was, being tortured in his place. And if he didn't tell them something about the haven soon, they would take the ordeal up a notch, a notch of excruciating agony to which he had inflicted many poor souls before he had found God. Then they would kill him. At least if he sold the haven, he might buy his life.

"All right," he muttered.

But immediately he had second thoughts. Didn't his and Jack's causes want the same thing? Weren't they both fighting against Morellius?

"You know where the haven is?" asked Boxer.

Well, it was too late now, thought Casper. Boxer knew there was one rebellion and he knew about the haven. All Casper could do now was send the Emperor's army off in one direction whilst Christ swept in to victory behind. Yes, that was it. Casper was going to be instrumental in this regime's defeat!

"Yes," he said. "It's just over the hill."

The courtiers all looked at each other.

"On the opposing flank," Casper continued. He wondered how specific he should be. "That's where their army is waiting..."

"Their?" Boxer queried.

"Our," Casper corrected.

Boxer glared at him suspiciously.

"How soon can you mount an offensive?" the Emperor asked.

"That depends," said Boxer. "I can take several hundred men now, but if what he says is true about there being a thousand rebels awaiting us… well, it'd best wait until sundown. I can mount an army of twelve hundred by then..."

Emperor Morellius nodded smugly.

"And what about me?" Casper said.

Boxer and the Emperor looked at him slyly.

"Your Majesty?" asked Boxer.

Morellius chuckled. "Break his legs," he snarled. "No, take him down to the peat bog, then break his legs. Then chuck him in..."

"No!" went Casper. Drowning in the new quagmire at the base of the hill where the hare colony had once been was now the favoured way of executing those found guilty of treason. He'd hoped to escape that.

"Seize him!" Boxer ordered.

Herman and Basil leapt on Casper.

"But I helped you!" he cried as they took him away.

After the wailing trailed off into the distance, and Morellius despatched the other courtiers to rouse their battalions in preparation for the coming battle, Boxer turned to his emperor and grinned from ear to ear.

"By this time tomorrow," he announced quietly. "There will be nobody left alive who would oppose our regime, Your Majesty..."

"My regime, Boxer," the Emperor corrected him.

Back at the haven, the drums of war were beginning to beat in everybody's hearts. The day was bright and breezy, and everybody was in a hopeful mood. But that didn't stop them being secretly petrified of what was coming.

Jack and Mopsy spent the entire day together. It was the first time they had actually been able to spend more than a few hours in each other's company at any one time. Having retired from his spying duties, Jack felt relaxed for once. He spent several hours that afternoon just canoodling with Mopsy.

Most of the rabbits and hares were on the surface too. Nobody said it, but there were a lot of people treating this day as if it were their last. This might be the last time they saw sun and clouds. The last light rain.

Mopsy and Jack were happier than most, it was true to say. Jack had had so many things he needed to tell her, but in the end he didn't have to. They joined in games and dances and sing-alongs, and when the sun started to set and most of the others got hungry, they retreated to the bottom of the hill. And there, amongst the trees, they made love. For Mopsy, it was the first time. For Jack, who had participated in numerous festivities at Roadkill Turnpike, it just felt like it was.

Afterwards, as the clouds disappeared and the setting sun shone orange through the boughs of the trees, they lay side by side and looked at each other. Mopsy could tell Jack wanted to say something now. He was holding back.

Likewise, Jack could tell that she could tell.

"Your father wanted me to take you aside and have a word in private," he finally told her. "I don't think this is what he meant..."

Mopsy closed her eyes and laughed.

"I don't think it matters now, anyway," Jack continued, sighing. "He wanted me to convince you to leave before this all blew up."

Mopsy opened her eyes, but blinked. "What made him think that I would listen to you?" she asked, in little more than a whisper.

"He had this crazy idea that I was in love with you," Jack said coyly. "And that maybe you felt the same way about me..."

Mopsy smiled. "My father's a very wise man."

"Oh, yes. A very wise man."

They fell silent again. They just looked at each other.

"We can't win this fight, can we, Jack?"

Jack's expression was stony. It betrayed nothing.

"Don't protect me," she whispered. "Be honest."

So Jack was, without even speaking. His face fell.

"Do we even have a chance?"

"Always," Jack mouthed.

Mopsy licked her little rabbit lips.

"Mopsy, if you want to go," Jack said. "I'll come with you."

"What?" she said distantly.

"I know your father would approve. He'd damn well thank me, I bet. If you want to go, now, then let's go. I mean, right now."

Mopsy stared at him.

"Do you want to go?" she asked.

He hesitated. "I care more for you than this war, yes."

"But do you want to leave it?"

Jack said nothing.

"No," Mopsy replied. "And neither do I."

In a way, Jack felt both relieved and anxious.

"I love you, Jack, but they're going to need us here."

Jack nodded. "It's probably time we were heading back," he said. "They'll be wondering where we are." He got to his feet.

But Mopsy didn't move. Jack got a few feet away before he realised she wasn't following. He turned round and smiled.

"Not coming?" he asked jovially.

Mopsy frowned. "You didn't hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jack felt a chill.

"Thought I heard something," Mopsy said through her teeth. "Down there."

Jack turned quickly and looked through the trees. They were both silent, trying to distinguish what Mopsy might have heard from the plethora of natural sounds of the woodland. But soon everything began to sound alien.

"W-what was it?" Jack asked.

"I dunno," Mopsy admitted. "A voice?"

"Someone... spying on us?!"

Mopsy also shuddered at the prospect.

"Come on, let's go," Jack said urgently. For whilst Mopsy had imagined a peeping tom, he was imagining Boxer or Herman.

She got to her feet also, but then started in the opposite direction, picking her way through the undergrowth. "I want to see," she said.

"Mopsy, no! It could be dangerous."

But there was no telling her. So Jack was obliged to follow. They didn't get far. They didn't have to go far. There wasn't just one voice, there were many. For a moment Jack saw Boxer's army in the shadows, but then when the light changed, the army was gone. But the voices were getting closer.

"Mopsy, we should go back," he hissed.

As if they would have a chance, he told himself. So he followed her. And then, all of a sudden, the trees parted before them, and Jack saw his first rabbit, closely followed by his second, his third, his fiftieth, his four hundredth...

All captive breds.

And still they came...

"Jack!" one called, but there were truly so many swarming through the trees all around him that Jack couldn't pick Jesus out.

Mopsy stared incredulously between her lover and the multi-coloured horde that filled her vision. "Jack, what's going on?"

"It's the captive bred army," he said. "They came!"

For indeed they had. By the time Jesus reached Mopsy and Jack, they were surrounded by rabbits (mostly captive bred, but some natural borns amongst them), at places twenty or thirty deep. Yet still there were more. There were still dozens and dozens of rabbits pouring through the trees as far as Mopsy and Jack could see. They were swelling around their saviour, silent, waiting.

"How many?" Jack said, breathless.

"Eight hundred," Jesus said proudly.

Jack smiled one of those smiles it's impossible not to smile.

"And it took an act of God?" he scoffed.

Jesus looked around sheepishly.

"God sent us a sign this morning," said a rabbit with a fluffy grey complexion, the shade of the clouds. "He made the sun switch sides."

Jack recognised him pretty quickly. He'd had numerous run-ins with him before. He was a notorious tell-tale-tit and a born follower. He'd also been humiliated by Emperor Morellius in front of Peter a few days before, so it didn't surprise Jack that he had become a Christian. His name was Fox Mulder.

"It rose in the west rather than the east." Mulder was obviously alluding to the giant mushroom. "Our Lord Jesus pointed out that, obviously, it meant we were on the wrong side. So we switched sides too. Just like the sun..."

Jesus looked even more sheepish. "And they killed Casper, too," he added, but in a dismissive way as if that wasn't the main reason.

"We have to tell my father," Mopsy said.

The sun was setting behind the hill that towered over Roadkill Turnpike by the time Mopsy and Jack emerged from the wood with the holy army in tow. Silhouetted against the orange sky were numerous rabbits standing at the very top of the hill. Just as he had with her, weeks before, Mopsy now recognised her father from only his profile. She picked up the pace. Those behind her did also.

There were hardly any rabbits on the hillside, which was strange. Perhaps those not on the hilltop were feasting below ground, thought Mopsy. But as she got higher up the hill, she saw there were more at the top than she'd first thought. Jack slowed behind her, and she reached her father alone.

Peter was standing with Mark, Tom, Benjamn, Mont'mar, Ball'rdo, and countless others Mopsy didn't recognise. They were all facing away from her, as if looking down the other side of the hill.

"Father! Father!" Mopsy called.

Peter had turned back into the protective daddy figure since he'd found his daughter again. He turned instantly at her cries.

"Mopsy, where have you been?"

"Father, I have such..."

Then she saw past him, and trailed off. She saw what had all the other rabbits and hares on the hilltop transfixed in silence.

Morellius' army was coming.

"This is it, Mopsy," said Peter, defeated.

Mopsy staggered at the sheer numbers climbing the hill. It was as if a black shadow was slowly blanketing the hillside.

Fortunately, what Peter had told Mont'mar was right. This location gave them a strategic advantage. There were more rabbits than Mopsy had ever seen, but coming uphill, it seemed like they were barely moving at all.

"Quite an awesome sight, isn't it?" Peter said distantly.

Mopsy could only nod in agreement for a few seconds. Then she shook her head and came back to her senses. She turned to him.

"Yeah, well, how's this for an awesome sight?" she said jubilantly, then she cocked her head back toward the opposite hillside.

Peter slowly went forward. The holy army hadn't even finished emerging from the trees yet. But there was no more room on this lesser slope for anymore. Peter saw Jack at the front. He'd never seen a rabbit smile so broadly.

"Is awesomer a word?" Peter asked.

"Almost makes you feel pity for Morellius, don't it?"

Peter laughed.

"Fuck no."

NOTES:
Somewhat less successful than the last chapter, but it seemed better than I remembered on reading it again than it did when writing it. A little too much talk, when things should be careering full throttle toward war. The last bit where Mopsy discovers the captive bred army remains particularly awkward. I like some of the dialogue in places, especially those final few exchanges. Pure Hollywood.