A black circle appeared on the ground, expanding from golf-hole to man-hole size within seconds, but what emerged from it wasn’t a man at all.

  The creature that came from that inky void looked made of ink itself. Pill-shaped black eyes with small crescents of white shading, on a circular head with long oval ears. Old-fashioned clothes in different shades of grey: a blazer and bow tie, but no pants.

  Roscoe T. Rabbit had come to play.

  Black gloves contrasted against the white body, making it extremely clear what its hands were doing at any given moment. Right now, they were waving in time with the cheerful theme tune that had started playing the moment the hole in reality had opened up. The sound came from the Rabbit itself, as if its entire body was a speaker.

  Tops wasted no time—he tossed Tori into the boat and leapt in after her. It rocked hard, nearly capsizing.

  Bastion shifted on his heels. “Should we run? It really feels as though we should run.” He stepped back, then forward again. “But if it goes for the thief instead of us, we can grab his hat. Then we could find someone else with the same theme to get our discs back out.”

  The Rabbit opened its mouth wider than any real mouth could have. Rows of razor-sharp teeth appeared like spring-loaded retractable knives.

  The boat’s propeller roared to life, but the Rabbit’s neck stretched out like an accordion and its jaws clamped down on the hull, locking it in place.

  Tops pushed harder on the throttle, and the propeller whirred louder, straining against the strength of the Rabbit’s jaws. The bow rose out of the water, and the Rabbit's teeth bit harder.

  Metal screeched. A chunk of the speedboat tore away in its mouth. The boat lurched off balance and skittered free, barely escaping the extending arm that grasped after it. Then it was speeding away.

  “Our stuff…” groaned Bastion.

  He wasn’t the only one unhappy about their escape. The Rabbit stomped with fury. Its eyes flashed fluorescent yellow, green, and red, then turned into knives, pointing toward the boat as it shrank into the distance. Then its head turned toward them.

  The tingling rush of the fight or fight response. Always choose fight. This was a being of legend, and Roy wasn’t about to pass up the chance to take it on. Nor was he going to wait for it to make the first strike.

  Fighting through the pain, he raised the Castle Maul with both hands and brought it crashing down on the Rabbit’s head. He pummelled it repeatedly, like he was playing whack-a-mole. Different things orbited the Rabbit’s head after each strike. Stars, bells, eggs that hatched into bluebirds, caterpillars that metamorphosed into butterflies.

  He only stopped hitting it when he’d pancaked it to the point of being fully two-dimensional. His arms burned, and the hammer was too heavy to lift. Roy let it drop to his side, satisfied that it could do no more.

  “That’s it?” Bastion said. “This is what Big Time warned us about? Sure, it looked scary with the glowing eyes and the teeth and all that, but if it goes down to a simple sustained attack, then those last treasure hunters must have been useless. Just total wastes of— wait, what the fuck is that?”

  The ears disappeared from the top of the white disc. Pill-shaped eyes and a U-shaped mouth took their place. The mouth opened wider and wider until it resembled the inky hole the Rabbit had first popped out of.

  Then it started inflating like a beach ball, first the head, then the body and limbs. Finally, the ears stuck back up, and the Rabbit stood whole again. Unharmed and apparently impervious to all attacks.

  “Now we run,” said Bastion.

  They bolted, past the crumbling storefronts and back toward the hovercraft. Roy refused to leave the Castle Maul behind, though every moment spent running away drained his resonance and made it heavier.

  Roy couldn’t help but look back over his shoulder. The Rabbit’s face glowed red like hot coal, and steam blew from its mouth with a blaring Toot-Toot.

  From nowhere, it pulled out a hammer of its own—an oversized grey mallet. Its arm wound so fast it blurred, then it snapped forward.

  “Bastion, duck!” Roy shouted.

  The hammer spun, curving toward Bastion. He threw himself sideways and rolled, spawning another small dust cloud. The cartoon hammer arced to the right, passing in front of Roy and smashing through Smash Hit Video’s last remaining window.

  Bastion leapt back to his feet and pulled ahead, gaining resonance from the dodge. Roy risked another look back, curious what the Rabbit would pull out next.

  It turned out to be a boxing glove, which Roy was vaguely disappointed by, until it shot toward him, extending on a concertina-style metal arm.

  Roy whirled around to face it, gaining just enough energy to lift the Castle Maul into its path. The glove smashed into the towers and flew back toward the Rabbit at equal speed. Its eyes went wide as the glove approached. The impact left it dazed, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and stars.

  Running faster, Roy caught up with Bastion at the big Gator-man corpse in the middle of the street.

  “Roy—watch out!”

  He swerved, putting the mass of gator-flesh between him and whatever the Rabbit was launching at them this time, which turned out to be itself.

  The Rabbit contorted its body into a cartoon cannon and fired itself along the street. It struck the juggernaut gator head-on, smashing it apart, raining guts and giblets everywhere.

  Hot viscera blasted Roy right in the face. He spat, gagging. It tasted and smelled like his mouth and nostrils had been jammed full of pennies.

  Bastion fared no better. His hair ran redder than Roy’s now, and his beard was dripping with the stuff.

  On the upside, the look worked with both of their costumes, and when they resumed their flight, they did so with boosted alacrity. When they made it back to Bay Town, Roy would need to ask W. to add a butcher to her list of suppliers.

  The next flung object was a black hole, which arced over them and stuck to Kino Kingdom’s far tower. Another landed on the ground, skidding toward the fallen chunk of sign.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  When it reached them, the sign and the Gator-man crushed beneath it both fell in, reappeared through the other hole, and started falling.

  They took cover behind the Revus Bandit. Sometimes in a movie, people would act like a car was an impenetrable barrier, stopping bullets despite being only a thin layer of metal. That would have been nice right now, but neither of them had the right theme for it. The roof caved in with a wrenching pop. The gator’s carcass dangled over the wreck, mouth hanging loose, eyes glassy.

  “Dammit,” said Bastion. “This thing never stops coming up with new ways to attack us. It’s like it can’t even consider using the same thing twice.”

  “Looks like it’s made an exception,” Roy said.

  Another hole skidded toward them.

  “Move,” Bastion shouted.

  “Nope.” Roy reached out and grabbed the edge of the hole before it could reach them. It worked. A surge of elation hit him. If cartoon logic was the Rabbit’s power, it could also be his downfall. “Sometimes you have to wield the weapons of the enemy.”

  Bastion caught on and grabbed the edge with him. Together, they shoved the hole back as hard as they could, sending it skidding right under the Rabbit.

  It dropped in.

  A moment later, it shot out of the higher hole and crashed into a video phone booth. The screen shattered into a spiderweb of dark glass. Weirdly, the Rabbit didn’t bounce off, but kept on going into the screen.

  Bastion blinked. “Is that it? Is it dead?”

  “That wouldn’t fit with what we’ve seen so far,” said Roy.

  The screen next to it hummed, whirring to life after a hundred and fifty years without power. It lit up to display an image of the Rabbit, tapping, then headbutting the screen from the other side, forming fine cracks, trying to break through.

  “God damn it,” said Bastion.

  A cartoon sword slashed across the screen, decapitating the Rabbit. Sir Protagonist appeared behind it in stylised form, waving to Roy before pressing the attack.

  “Wait, what happened to its head just then?” asked Bastion.

  “You didn’t see it? Roy asked.

  “I saw it come off.”

  ”It was Sir Protagonist. My Mascot.”

  “Mascot?”

  “That’s what Tops called his.”

  “That bastard has one too?”

  “I’ll explain later. He’s buying us time, and we have to use it to get away.”

  Even as they spoke, the Rabbit was reattaching its head.

  “You don’t think he can kill it?” asked Bastion.

  “No. I’m not sure if anything can.”

  They ran past the last of the stores, Virtua Quest’s steel warehouse. The portal was open, glowing with energy, and a robed figure stood just inside it, watching.

  Weird. No time to think about that now, though.

  With a shattering crash, the Rabbit burst from the screen and collided with Timeless Wonders’ hanging clock. After a few dazed seconds, it opened its mouth to consume it. As it swallowed, his jacket and bow filled in with blue and yellow ink.

  Roy and Bastion finally reached the end of the street and scrambled through the brush, getting scratched and whipped by twigs as they went.

  Behind them, the Rabbit feasted on rotten fruit from Festival Mart. It was in full color now, and its design was different too: more detail in the eyes and face, more anthropomorphic in proportion.

  It consumed so voraciously that it tangled itself up in the festival mart bunting, granting them precious time.

  They scrambled down the ledge and into the hovercraft, and Roy thanked his past self for remembering to fire up the engine.

  He slammed the lift lever down and pushed the throttle before the skirt had fully inflated. The hovercraft spluttered to a start, then surged forward as Bastion frantically shovelled extra coal into the furnace.

  A Gator-man rose from the water, but Roy drove straight over it. White spray fanned behind them as they picked up speed, leaving the stores and the Rabbit in the distance.

  Then came a thunk against the stern.

  “It’s a hook,” exclaimed Bastion. “We’ve been hooked, Roy. It’s water-skiing behind us.”

  Roy jerked the handlebars, attempting a sharp left turn to throw it off, but of course, sharp turns were impossible for a hovercraft. All he managed was a lazy spin. That’s when he saw it: a rope strung with colorful triangular flags, swinging around to their side, and at the end, the Rabbit, miming laughter.

  In a snap decision, Roy yanked left again, taking them out of the water and into the partially flooded ruins of a subdivision. The broken road was tough terrain, but that was what hovercrafts were made for.

  They floated over roots and low branches, over broken fenceposts and a rusted lawn mower, off the sidewalk and between two bubble-shaped minivans. Zig-zagging down the street, hoping to smack the Rabbit into the obstacles.

  “Keep steady,” called Bastion. “I’ll cut it loose.”

  The craft lurched as Bastion cut the rope. Roy throttled hard, racing down the rutted road.

  “Is it still coming?” asked Roy, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

  “You bet. And—oh shit—it’s jumping.”

  The Rabbit landed ahead of them and stretched out its arms. In one hand, a circular saw. In the other, a sword with a face, singing in some harsh-sounding foreign language.

  With zero hesitation, Roy released the handlebars and slammed his fist into the big red button, cutting power to the lift fans. The hovercraft screeched across asphalt, skidding to a halt inches from the Rabbit’s blades.

  The saw and sword swiped at them in a pincer movement. Bastion got sliced through the shoulder and went down, leaking a dangerous amount of blood onto the decking. The sword’s song reached a crescendo as it arced toward Roy’s neck.

  Wield the weapons of the enemy.

  He threw out his hands and grabbed it. The blade sliced through his hockey-glove gauntlets and into the meat of his hands. Pain exploded through them, but he kept gripping and pulling until he tore the sword from the Rabbit’s grip.

  The saw came in low, grinding sparks from his brigandine. Roy twisted aside, eyes stinging.

  He swung the singing blade—but not at the rabbit. Even if he cut it in half, it would be whole again a few seconds later. Instead, he aimed for W’s padlocked chest. The sword let out a long-winded laaaa as it severed the lock.

  Roy didn’t know what he expected to happen. All he’d had to go on was “break lock in case of emergency.” Maybe he thought a one-use weapon would come out of there like in a video game, or some kind of forcefield.

  What he didn’t expect was a spring-loaded hot air balloon.

  The furnace was white-hot, and the balloon inflated in seconds, probably helped by how much the entire craft looked like a flying machine to start with. It was genius, really; steampunk and airships went together perfectly.

  A moment later, the hovercraft lifted off the ground, floating into the sky.

  “Roy…what happened?” Bastion slurred, pale and swaying. “I think I blacked out for a few seconds there. This is why blood should stay inside your body.”

  “We’re flying Bastion. We’ll be fine now. I’ll get you an elixir and…” All of their healing drinks had been in his backpack, which was now inside Tops’ hat, racing away on a red speed boat. “Just stay awake, OK. I’ll think of something.”

  As they rose higher, Roy looked around for any signs of civilization, somewhere they could get some healing. He could make out the Great Mall to the north, a giant slab of concrete with letters across half its facade. It was closer than Bay Town now.

  Roy engaged the rear fan, angling toward it, and—a ball of colored ink shot past, ears whirring like propellers.

  Before he could turn around, the Rabbit opened its mouth wide enough to swallow the hovercraft whole. Its eyes looked demonic, a riot of psychedelic colors.

  The hovercraft rose, but the Rabbit climbed faster, until it was directly above them, sinking its teeth into the balloon.

  Suddenly, it dropped beneath them as if a hand had smacked it down.

  The balloon kept rising, though now with air hissing from a tear in the top. The Rabbit bounced again and again, stuck against an invisible ceiling.

  They’d reached the upper boundary of its zone.

  The hovercraft spun around as the balloon leaked air, tipping sideways and spiraling out of control.