12. The Wabbit and the Poetry of Excess.

The Wabbit watched as the dust settled. His lips curled into a smirk. Agents of Rabit reeled around as if drunk. His thoughts turned to Christmas again. This happened every year - as if to a timetable. He didn't think Agents had much Christmas spirit, but all the same he thought, you never know. A door crashed down from the sky. "Shouldn't have used so much explosive," thought the Wabbit. But it crossed his mind that excess leads to the palace of wisdom. "You never know what's enough," thought the Wabbit, "until you know what's more than enough." He liked the sound of that. "Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by incapacity," he quoted. He grinned. The Wabbit would have kept quoting but the Agents had to be dealt with. He hopped over them. "Why do you do what you do?" But the Agents were groggy. "Blah, bloo blah," was all he heard. "You're not going to win this year's poetry competition," he remarked. He thought of Skratch. "On the other paw, maybe that will do it!" He chortled mightily and took a stroll along the beach. When he returned all the Agents had gone. "Must have been the poetry," he said. He was pleased he didn't have to do anything with them. "I'm fed up with judgement," he said out loud. "The last judgement comes very day," he added, "Who said that?" "Camus," answered a voice. The Wabbit turned and looked around but there was no-one there. There was nothing but empty beach huts. So he shrugged and made for the Adventure Caffè.

11. The Wabbit flushes them Out

The Wabbit went in alone. He was in charge, so that was his job, He planned to lob a minor kaboom and arrest all the Agents when he'd flushed them from their den. Out at sea, the Lepus approached as close as she could. Under her watchful eye, The Wabbit began his work. He rolled the first grenade into a hole in the wall and then stood by with the second one. "With any luck," thought the Wabbit, "I won't need it." He stood back and mused quietly on the situation. It was like this every year and so he wondered why the Agents bothered. He thought back a decade. Agents had chased the Wabbit across Rome, and he was forced to blow up a minor historic monument. It had cost the Department a tidy sum. He smiled and listened to the grenade sputter. It wasn't terribly powerful. Just sound and fury. What did that signify? He couldn't recall. He watched the first grenade sputter and die. So he gave up and threw the other one. Then he got out of the way very quickly. He dived in the sand and burrowed down. The sound intensified and there was the most incredible crack. Then nothing. The doors of the beach hut fell outwards. What windows there were, blasted into glass fragments. "I didn't mean to use that one," thought the Wabbit. He approached the hut. He heard a cough. Another. A series of dishevelled Agents began to emerge. 

10. The Wabbit and the Craft Shadows

The Wabbit conferred with the team. They were under the Testaccio Market roof and the sun made sharp shadows on the concrete. They'd only been talking a moment when the outlines of three craft blocked out the sun. The Wabbit wrinkled his nose. Skratch looked up and shook his fist but he couldn't see the craft clearly. Tipsy launched forward with an automatic but there was nothing to shoot. Lapinette was puzzled too. "Something fishy about this," murmured the Wabbit, "The Ice Mice are far more formidable" added Wabsworth. "It's not them. Nothing shows it's them" said Lapinette. The Wabbit thought for a moment. "They've run out of hardware. These are projections." Wabsworth gave a considered opinion. "Looks like the Agents of Rabit, Commander." Tipsy waved her automatic. "William Shootpoo Shatner!" she shouted and fired a burst from the gun anyway. The bullets ricocheted and smashed through the glass roof. The shadows vanished. "Aha!" said the Wabbit. "Aha what?" replied Lapinette. "Ahabracadabra, it's a trick," said the Wabbit. "So it is the Agents of Rabit. What do we do about it?" Lapinette was hopping mad and she jumped up and down. So was Tipsy. "Tripsing shifters!" she yelled. Wabsworth's circuits whirred. "Let's go back to where we last had an incursion. They're bound to have left a clue." "Wablock Holmes?" grinned the Wabbit. Wabsworth smiled "Holmesworth if you don't mind." The Wabbit laughed and laughed, "What's my detective name?" "Wabsy Chan" said Lapinette.

9. Tipsy, Fitzy, Mitzy and the Roman Play

The Three Fates swept onto the stage and swayed like the Ronettes, "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things," chanted Tipsy. "You cruel men of Rome, know ye not the Wabbit?" sang Fitzy. "Do you now put on your best attire, and do you now cull out a holiday?" sang Mitzy. "And do you now strew flowers in his way?" Tipsy's sarcasm completed the picture. They paused. "And where is the Wabbit now?" asked Fitzy. "Suffering the slings and arrows of the Ice Mice," said Mitzy. "Which is no more than his way," added Fitzy. They looked around from right to left. "What is this place? asked Mitzy, "Its look is most familiar?" They walked from one side to another and looked everyone up and down. "Interlopers!" said Tipsy. "Vagabonds," said Fitzy. "Mountebanks," said Mitzy, Tipsy pirouetted. Where was Julius Caesar they wondered? He lay prone on the ground. "They claim to make a television miniseries." Fitzy laughed. "Not about the Wabbit." Mitzy scowled. "He hates that sort of thing." "For good reason," added Tipsy, "With daggers drawn, they fill their coffers with the blood of the poor." Mitzy jumped in the air. "The Wabbit says that men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish." They swayed. "And they always will," said a mournful Tipsy. Together they danced across the stage. "The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would never look," chanted Fitzy. "Then we must tell the Wabbit," replied Tipsy. "And bid him a happy New Year," said Mitzy. Tipsy looked grave. "Not before it's here." They all nodded - and one by one they vanished, leaving only a TV crew and fake snow.

8. The Lepus and the Alien Crafts

The sound of explosions echoed across the waves as Jenny fired on the Ice Mice. The Lepus had just reached the coast near Fregene when the Ice Mice came out of the sky. They circled around and hurled disc after disk. Most bounced harmlessly from the Lepus but one or two sliced at her masts. "Come about!" said Jenny. "Take aim and fire," The giant 4.5-inch gun on her bow spat flame and an Ice Mouse craft fell from the sky. She lifted her radio and contacted the Wabbit. "I have trouble, Commander."  The radio crackled. "I think my trouble just became your trouble." Enemy fire trebled and multiple discs stung the bows of the Lepus. "They're a devilish nuisance but nothing we can't handle," shrugged Jenny. The Wabbit was stoic. "Probably they'll go away." "They don't give the impression they're going anywhere," said Jenny. All of a sudden disc fire died away. Then the remaining craft wheeled and vanished in the direction of Rome. The crashed vessel creaked like a galleon and sank in a sea of bubbles. "We sent one to Davy Jones', but I don't see any survivors," said Jenny. She cast around with binoculars. "No, nothing." The radio crackled once more. "I think these could be drones," said the Wabbit. "They're probably controlled by a mother craft." Jenny made a comment on mothers that set the Wabbits teeth one edge. "We'll meet you further up the coast," he advised. "But I know the Ice Mice. So I'm advising you to proceed with caution." Jenny laughed. "My caution's all used up. I threw it into the last wind."

7. The Wabbit and the Ice Mice Attack

It was all very sudden. The Ice Mice launched an attack on the Wabbit in the midst of the city and he began to run. Worse still, they fired a series of discs that cut through the air and grazed the Wabbit's fur. The Wabbit wasn't having a good Christmas Eve. Not by a long chalk. He should be sitting by a roaring fire, reading that book he'd bought on Satan in the cinema. He jinked right and left but still the discs kept coming. They were razor sharp and lightning quick. There was more than one Ice Mice craft and the Wabbit felt outnumbered. They hovered in the sky close to the Tiber and the Wabbit reckoned there were more. He rummaged in his fur, found his automatic and twisted round. He took brief aim and fired at the closest disc. It shattered. He let off another three shots and all of them found their mark. That'll teach you," mouthed the Wabbit. He heard the diesel throb of an approaching truck and knew it was Lapinette and her personal guard. Could he hold off the Ice Mice until they reached him? The smell of mice was overpowering as if they were using odour as a weapon. It was a rotten fish odour that would anaesthetise a bull. "Yuk, smelly mice," growled the Wabbit. Then he heard the crump of explosions. The craft wheeled and fled. "Reinforcements," thought the Wabbit. He tucked his automatic in his fur, together with some disk shards for analysis. Then he sat on a wall to wait for Lapinette. He thought of a saying. "Don't be a mouse or the cat will eat you." He needn't have wondered where Puma and Skratch were because they too were on their way. "I'll expect them for Christmas," thought the Wabbit.

6. Puma, Terni and the Ice Discs

Puma lurked in Rome, waiting to hear from the Wabbit. He settled in a tree, restless but watchful of the passing traffic. His ears pricked up and his tail threshed as ice discs loomed into sight. He knew of the Ice Mice and recalled giving them a good thrashing on a previous occasion. He launched into action. He jumped from the tree and pawed at the discs. An approaching Terni witnessed the whole thing and he called out a warning. "No Puma, don't touch them!" It was too late, Lightning crashed from the discs and stung Puma's paws. "Aaaagh," screeched Puma as he flew through the air. "Pesky Ice Mice!" Terni zoomed closer, his pepper nose throwing Tabasco enhanced flame. Terni was the Wabbit's pal and Puma recognised signs of anger. So he twisted away with speed. Terni let out another lengthy blast of fire and caught the edge of a disc. The disc flamed round the edges and began to melt, smelling strongly of bad bacteria. Puma veered back to the tree, crouched on a branch and looked on. A Food Dragon's breath was not to be treated lightly following a Wabbit modification. Terni swooped round and returned with an even bigger blast. Both discs were aflame now despite the ice. They melted and disappeared sizzling into the Tiber. Puma purred with continual satisfaction. Then he meaowed, "Terni, that was a good job." Terni flew close and hovered. "Jump on, Puma. I'll take you to the Wabbit." Puma sighed with relief. Although he felt it undignified for a wild cat to hitch a ride on a dragon, he wasn't passing up a lift. He stuck to Terni like a wildlife wig and they sped across Rome ...