In the old Waste region of Can't Be Buried, outside a particularly slanty bar by the name of Smack-dab...

...chaos ensued.

The ear-pounding rattle of machine gun fire ripped through Can't Be Buried as a small fortune of bullets deposited itself into the fleshy Starmy bank. A veritable torrent of steel and lead ploughed into their screaming number, bursting through limbs, heads and unsuspecting internal gibbly bits, vast pools of blood flowing readily into the dusty ground beneath stampeding feet. But the horde of starry warriors closed the last distance between it and madness, spears and other weapons tipped forwards, mouths equally lost in the wailing cries of bloodlust and the sudden screams of pain. The sea of white-speckled, black-robed figures crashed into Farmer Brown's bandits like a tsunami, blasting apart the Farmy's pitiful front line. Spears drove through dungarees. Axes fell on heads.

The Battle of Smack-dab had officially begun.

And then the storm hit.

It rose above the landscape like a vertical ocean, roiling and crashing, a swirling maelstrom of dirt and shit that tore through the landscape on an unstoppable path of destruction, straight into the battling bandits of Smack-dab. In its wild frenzy it swallowed the bar and all who dared stand in its path, whipping up vast tendrils of dirt and weeds from the ground and throwing them into the air before crashing them back down. Currents of tiny rocks and particles of dust swam at deadly speeds, sweeping with them debris, blood, and the weapons of those who didn't hold on tight enough. It bit with millions of tiny fangs into any skin it could find, and raked at clothing and armour to taste that which it could not. Anyone whose eyes were unprotected found their sight scrubbed into oblivion, their mouths packed full of crap and their ears sawed off. Only those quick enough to don goggles and face masks would survive the full brunt of this awful Waste storm.

Somewhere within the chaos, Bert staggered. She was one smart enough to pull out her emergency goggles and mask, but the thick air bit into her many wounds and pounded at the exposed parts of her face not covered by a mask. Fighting shadows morphed in and out of view all around her, the sounds of weapons clashing and throats crying out in horror barely making it to her drowning ears. A bloodied scalp drifted past her and rolled immediately out of view. But she carried on, searching for the biggest shadow she could find.

Sir Robert was close behind, but neither he nor Bert knew that. His elegant face scrunched tight, peering through the disaster of a scene three hundred and sixty degrees around through well-cared-for goggles - one lens bigger than the other, giving the appearance of a monocle. Doris, Toddrick, and the rest of Bert's Battalion were also close by, but again, not that anybody knew that. The Polite leader cocked his weapon and shot at the nearest shadow, suspecting it to be wearing dungarees. It wasn't. Meanwhile, Doris was having a wonderful time with her machete, beginning what would soon be a glorious collection of bloodied scalps, so long as they stopped blowing away before she could bag them

Jeb and another trader heaved one of Smack-dab's tables in front of the broken doorway while Orsen watched on, dancing from one foot to the other. Their tired old muscles strained as they wedged the wooden table into the open frame, blocking the wild storm from pushing its way into the bar so that they could go back to drinking and enjoying the show. But Orsen wasn't so happy.

"We've got to go help them!" Orsen cried, frantic at the scene unfolding somewhere out in the wild. He couldn't see said scene even if he tried, but he knew it had an Orsen-shaped hole somewhere in the middle of that storm.

"An' what are ya gonna go do, lad? Yer'll get killed out there!" Jeb replied, leaning his back against the table-turned-door.

"But so will our friends!"

"It's not our business, Orsen. Stay out o' trouble!"

"We can't, Jeb! Didn't you used t' be a hero? We need old Jeb."

"I didn't used t' be a hero, lad, I was a sheriff - an' look where it got me."

"A successful an' happy life on th' road with an adopted son whom you love?"

Jeb paused for a moment. "Err, aye, that. But if I had stayed a cop, I'd be dead."

"But you'd be a hero."

"A dead hero is still dead, lad. Stay out o' trouble, wadda I keep tellin' ya? I lost a lot o' good friends savin' you from the commune. We're not ruinin' it by throwin' our lives away for some bar."

Orsen's eyes glistened, a thin film of wetness dribbling over them and pooling at the corners. "Not even the best bar, Jeb?"

Jeb gritted his teeth together and forced down the eggy lump in his throat. "Aye, lad. Not even th' best bar. It's not worth death. Let's get another drink an' just watch. Meatsack! ...Meatsack?"

But Meatsack was no longer there. In fact, he was wearing his goggles and face mask just like Berty Bert had shown him, and had snuck out the back door, weapon in hand. It was a knobbly club, with the appearance more of the tree itself than any tree branch. He gripped it tight and swam through the dust, frightening thoughts of Berty Bert Bert getting hurty hurt hurt swirling around in his head like a little internal storm made entirely of anxiety. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he desperately sought Bert. He knew he was going to get in trouble, for being out here, for unlocking the bar, for accidentally letting the giant spider back in without anybody realising it yet, but those didn't seem nearly as important as the thought of losing Bert. And so he sniffled, sucked in whatever breath he could in the terrifying weather, and kept looking.

Phoenix and the Constellator were like ballet masters, but ones who killed bad guys instead of dancing about swans or their lakes. She would twirl and slash with her glittering sword, him leaping around, pulling a dramatic hero facial expression and shooting bandits with an automatic rifle. They made a beautiful murdery partnership, pirouetting around a farmer's axe, lopping his head off at the neck with one clean swoosh, the other partner twirling in from behind to fire off one bullet, two, three, and down goes another enemy. It was a perfect unison, until it literally all went wrong.

OK, so maybe it didn't literally all go wrong, but literally a few things went wrong more or less at the same time, which was close enough. Firstly, two bandits conjoined somewhere in the middle stepped between the Constellator and her Bringer of Dreams, successfully cutting them off from each other. The storm then moved in, a particularly chewy whorl of dust spluttering across the scene and reducing visibility from "I can't see a bloody thing" to the same, but less of a hyperbole. Phoenix fired off a few shots at the two-man band(it), but very quickly lost sight of the body - he couldn't tell if it was a kill or not. But he had, most assuredly, lost the Constellator.

Then another bandit, whose dungarees were made of stuck-together metal mugs that jingled and jangled as he moved, clobbered Phoenix from behind with a wooden bat. It struck him on his already sensitive skull, which had been clobbered more than enough recently for his liking. Phoenix heard himself croak as he went down into the dust. His rifle clattered to the ground a few feet away and promptly vanished. Phoenix was alone, dizzy, and now weaponless. Well, not weaponless, but without his favourite one...

Farmer Brown growled loudly in his throat, his goggles strapped tightly to his skull. They were made from more than one pair of goggles, for no singular strap could fit his vast, meteoroid head. With muscles bulging out of his sleeves, he hefted his giant anvilhammer into the air, thick globules of blood clinging between it and the smooshed corpse now blended with the landscape. He could hear fighting all around him - weapons clashing, guns crashing, and his truck still letting loose on its unfortunate victims. He had no idea if he was winning or not, but he knew that his lads would fight to the bitter end no matter what, and they'd make damn sure it was as bitter as can be if they weren't to be the victors. It truly was a sad affair, though. For some reason, he couldn't just improve people's lives for them - he always had to kill a whole bunch, first. What did that say about society?

Well, it said it needed improving.

Terrance Leeland's pistol had jammed almost instantly when the storm hit, on account of its many poorly attached upgrades letting too much dust in. Sheer ferocity was his weapon of choice, now, aided by a metal pipe he found in a corpse (not on, in) that at one stage had been painted with a naked lady. Now she flaked and peeled, looking like a naked zom-bee. Each bloody kill with the pipe splashed Terrance's black leather coat with more crimson ichor, and his boots were splattered with the contents of some intestines he had stamped on a few minutes earlier. He didn't give two shits about some nobody bandits, though. They were just meat, and he didn't want the meat. He wanted the butcher. His dark eyes scanned all around, searching for any silhouette that could be one of Smack-dab's staff members. And he was not disappointed, for what appeared before him but the awkward, lop-sided shadow of Bert's disgusting grey mutant. He smiled grimly to himself and stalked after it, metal pipe gripped tightly in his fingers.

H2-149 did something. And that something, specifically, was to tear out a star-cultist's spine via his neck, all the while lecturing him about the futility of organic life, and how having his spine removed was actually the kindest thing someone had ever done for him. Needless to say, the man did neither agree nor disagree. He didn't put up much of a fight at all, really, just sort-of tried to flee, fell on his face, cried to his gods and his mother, then died. Spineless, some might have called him.

Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind folded his paper hat away into his stomach pouch and marched, resolute, through the choking storm. He hunched as tightly as he could within the folds of his matted grey fur, his black marble eyes as narrow as can be without being closed. The dust ravaged his tiny, rabbit-like body, but onwards he marched all the very same.

Behind him strode The Many Sons and Daughters of the Grentuputron Moon, a nasty, war-loving mercenary group he had hired from the great rabbit-like capital, The Burrow of Lords and other Reputable Sorts. Most of the Many Sons and Daughters of the Grentuputron Moon were rabbit-like in nature, although it would seem that they had recently hired some additional muscle in the form of a bird-like creature, dog-like creature, and some kind of giant insect - Helga Who Eats Your Internal Organs, who turned out to be Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind's favourite.

Humans seemed to be fighting all around the warband, but over what did not matter to the small creatures who marched at their feet. Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind was here to enact his swift and merciless vengeance against the spiked beast; that which would not only destroy his predecessor (which, admittedly, was not such an issue), but would dare insult Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind. To his face, no less.

His vengeance would be complete, of this he was certain.

* * *

Perhaps we should do a Randolf spin-off in future? A Wattpad-exclusive, perhaps. Game of Thrones but with rabbits, and also a better ending. Or any ending, if you're a reader of the books. Hey, maybe one day.

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