Rocket and the bunnies
By Strega

It started in a bar. It usually does.

It was a mercenary's bar, dark and dank and lit mostly by the flickering light of the sign outside. No one here much wanted to be recognized, for though many of them were bounty hunters, at least as many had bounties on their own heads. There was an unwritten rule about collecting bounties in here, but it was just as well not to risk being 'accidentally' killed.

From one side of the bar to the others the tables and chairs grew gradually smaller. Not abruptly, for putting people of greatly different sizes next to each other was asking for a bar fight, but there was no denying that the people who used one side of the bar were often half the height of the ones across the room.
At one of the little tables sat three small, furry, reasonably harmless looking and very dangerous individuals.

"Blown power cell," said Rocket, who had not touched Selva's cybernetic arm. He didn't need to. The scientists who made him programmed in a host of useful skills, chief among them an intuitive understanding of machines. If they'd shown him the least kindness they might have had a very useful soldier instead of the angry little thing that escaped.

The two black-furred rabbits sitting across from him nodded. They had come to Rocket before for gear and repairs.

Selva and Kranix suspected that his habitual temper came from constant pain. They had seen the horrific scars and the reddened skin around the bolts protruding from his back and good as he was with machines the one thing he couldn't seem to fix was himself. He was still the best under-the-counter tech they knew and Kranix slid a Unit chit across the table to a creature he might have called a raccoon if he had any idea what a raccoon was.

"Not enough," Rocket growled. "And you still owe me from last time. No money, no deal."

"We're a little short," Selva admitted. "But we have a new score. Fix my arm and you're in."

"I'm listening," Rocket said, and took a sip of glowing blue liquid from a shot glass. Only a sip. This wasn't the place to get falling-down drunk.

"You know the security systems at the Phyax bank," Selva went on.

"I should. Did some repairs there last month. Got good money for it too. If more people took 'subjects' seriously I could do security systems for a living."

"And I bet you could rig it to target the guards." Like many important structures, the bank had ceiling-mounted turrets that picked off threats. Calibrating them to target only bad guys was the main challenge, since few businesses wanted to pay a bunch of people to sit at monitors and operate the things.

"No way," Rocket growled. "That's lethal ordinance. I may have shot a guard or two but that's because they shot at me first. I'm not slaughtering a half-dozen men just so you can rob the place."

"C'mon Rocket," Kranix said. "You getting soft on us? You woulda done it when you were hanging with that otter."

Fangs showed across the table and the servos in Rocket's shoulders whined as his claws dug into the table. Kranix knew he'd gone too far the second the raccoon's ears went down. "Sorry Rocket. That was out of line."

"Listen, you fuck," Rocket snarled. "I'm not with 'that otter' any more because I took jobs like that, not because I wouldn't. These days I only kill people when I have to."

They had never seen the habitually angry raccoon this enraged and both rabbits nervously scouted escape routes in case the shooting started. They needn't have bothered. Rocket pushed back his chair and stood, leaving his glass half full. The grand gesture.

"I don't have time for you any more," he growled. "Find someone else to fix your shit. And if I hear about a bank security system shooting the place up someone's going to hear about it."

He stalked out of the bar and a hulking Skartaran shot him an amused look before a drinking buddy reached out an arm and dragged him out of Rocket's path. It was easy to look down on the little raccoon, make fun of him, ignore him. A lot of people learned the hard way that it was almost always a mistake to do so.

Selva shot Kranix a worried look. "What do you think? He's getting soft. He might even go to the cops."

"I think," Kranix said, and touched the exposed metal around his cybernetic eye, "That Rocket may have outlived his usefulness."

Selva nodded, took a last sip from his glass and stood. In moments he was out in the dank night air and having seen Rocket turn one way, he turned the other. Muscular bunny legs are good for sprinting, especially with implanted actuators to double their strength, and he darted through an alley and into a second. He skidded to a stop and hunkered down behind a dumpster, knowing that Rocket would most likely pass by on the street. He would only have time for one shot but his aim was excellent and who'd care if one more mercenary was found dead on the sidewalk? By the time the cops showed he'd be back in the bar drinking.

A tentacled Askavarian slithered by, then a tall lanky something with green skin, and Selva's tall ears swiveled as he heard the whine of servos. A cyborg was coming down the street and the weight of step and length of pace left little doubt it was Rocket.

He had just flipped the safety off his Gauss gun when the electrified bolas whirred around the corner and wrapped around him.

With a pained grunt Selva the ground, feeling the semi-intelligent coils of the bolas binding his arms even more firmly to his sides. Further tendrils sprouted from the central hub of the projectile and spiraled around his legs. Despite his strength and body mods all he could do was kick helplessly as the bolas wrapped itself so firmly around him he became little more than a mummy.

"Funny thing," growled a familiar voice as Rocket came around the corner into the alley. "When I work on someone's cybernetics, I always put a tracer in them so I know where they are. Comes in useful more often than you'd think."

Selva jerked at the bolas as the raccoon stepped closer. His cybernetic left arm had been twitchy since the power cell failed and it seized up entirely as the raccoon slapped a quarter-sized metal disk on it. There were cybernetic boosters in all of the bunny's limbs and they all suddenly stopped working. He still kicked on the pavement, but with half the strength he'd had a moment ago. Rocket kicked his pistol out of reach just in case.

"Hold on Rocket," the bunny grunted. "We can work something out." Rocket was a tough nut but so was he. He was sure he could talk his way out of this.

"You owe me a thousand units," the ring-tailed thug growled. Diminutive by local standards, he was still slightly taller than Selva. Careful to stay out of reach of any kicks from Selva's powerful legs he quickly searched his target. Skillful hands plucked away one of Selva's concealed weapons after another and the rabbit cursed as the raccoon expertly located and took every single holdout he had.

"All right, Rocket, you got me. Untie me and I'll transfer the money to your account. You can buy that tree of yours a nice new pot."

"Oh no," Rocket chuckled. "I'm not passing up this opportunity. If you were bigger, sure. I'd take the deal or turn you in for the bounty. I hardly ever get someone alone who's my size or smaller, and I want to show you what happens when you cross a genetically modified hunter."

Selva grunted as Rocket grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him partly from the street. "Damn it Rocket, listen to reason. We can work -"

He looked up just in time to see Rocket yawn. Before he could cry for help or try to reason with the raccoon any further Rocket's jaws closed over his head. With a lurch he slid deeper, the cybernetically modified raccoon's jaws popping as they unhinged, and before Selva could work out what was happening Rocket swallowed. Powerful throat muscles gripped the rabbit like a great soft fist, sucking him to his armpits in the raccoon's maw. His long ears pressed tight to his neck as slick throatflesh squeezed him ever deeper.

"Rocket, wait!" But if the raccoon heard, he didn't listen. Selva felt Rocket stand up straight, his jaws tilting upward. A fang caught in Selva's harness for a moment but popped loose and he was to his waist in slippery raccoon gullet and sliding deeper. The rabbit's face popped free into Rocket's stomach and he felt the first sting of the acids that would consume him, along with a hungry gurgle. There wasn't much in the raccoon's belly but a few sips of strong drink and it was ready and waiting for its meal to arrive.

Rocket supported himself against the wall, muzzle tilted up, and with a series of heaving gulps he swallowed Selva whole. In less than a minute the rabbit slipped and slid down a slick gullet, torso, strong kicking legs, long-toed rabbit feet and all, and furry toes peeked from each corner of Rocket's mouth for a moment before he gathered his strength and swallowed one more time. Selva slithered down the raccoon's throat and curled up in the waiting belly, still wrapped in the bola and doubly restrained now by the muscle and fur pressing in from all sides. There were a series of clicks as the raccoon's ribcage, heavily modified when he was Uplifted, adjusted to the new bulk in his middle.

"Figured you'd know not to cross me if anyone would," Rocket growled, and in his belly a speaker on the hub of the bolas broadcast his words. "But I guess not." There was a microphone there too and Rocket grinned as Selva begged for his life.
"Rocket, come on! We can work this out!"

"The only thing I'm going to work on is digesting you, jackass," Rocket growled. "That bolas won't dissolve and I'll just cough it up later, along with your fur and clothes. The rest of you will leave my body a different way. You're shit, man. Not this second no, but give it a day."

Wrapped in the raccoon's distended belly and already beginning to sting all over as the little predator's digestive juices began their work, Selva could only curse as the speaker turned off with a click.

"Shoulda skinned you when I had the chance," Selva snarled, and to his surprise the speaker clicked on again. The mike must still have been on.

"Then you woulda had a nice fur coat," Rocket said, and Selva could hear the smile. "Which is just what you got now. Enjoy it, asshole."

Selva cursed and wriggled, but a moment later Rocket belched up the air he'd swallowed along with his meal and though the rabbit was conscious enough to feel the movement as Rocket jet-packed out of the alley, he still sank into the hot, wet dark of raccoon stomach. By the time the bounty hunter reached his safehouse Selva was dead, now just a ponderous bulge in Rocket's middle as the raccoon's belly churned and gurgled.

The little tree sleeping on the bed popped upright as the floor creaked under Rocket's paws. Wide innocent eyes sprang open and he didn't need to wait for Rocket to turn off the image inducer that concealed the bulge to know what had happened. He knew exactly what the raccoon's footsteps sounded like and a sudden doubling of weight could only mean one thing. Two, actually, but since Rocket wasn't carrying a new weapon as large as himself that left one possibility.

"I am Groot," he said.

"Yeah li'l buddy," Rocket growled. "Guy tried to ambush me in an alley."

"I am Groot?"

"No, it was Selva."

"I am Groot.". Groot watched as Rocket slipped out of his armored outerwear, which had the double properties of protection and elasticity. The latter was needed when things like this happened. Little tree hands felt the bulge in the raccoon's middle, where the bony structure of the as yet undigested bunny showed through thin-stretched fur. "I am Groot."

"Yeah, I thought it'd be Kranix too. Guess he let Selva do his dirty work for a change." A long belch bubbled up out of Rocket as the air trapped in the bunny's fur, clothes and lungs was replaced with acid. His stomach was really starting to do its work. "And yeah, I didn't like him either."

With Groot massaging his belly to ease the strain that always followed eating someone whole Rocket settled down to sleep, full and content. He didn't strictly need to do it but his cybernetics had self-repair systems that periodically needed massive infusions of minerals and calories to replenish themselves. He could just hit a buffet and gorge himself but why bother when he could send a bunny on a short trip through his digestive tract?

Selva wasn't the largest meal he'd ever had but he was big enough, and taking out an untrustworthy fellow bounty hunter gave the meal a double purpose. Not only did he end up with a full belly, but he'd never liked Selva and very much and enjoyed the rabbit's final struggle inside him.

Even with his augmentations, digesting someone his own size took time and Rocket spent most of the next day sleeping it off. Periodically he visited the toilet, since what checks in has to check out too and there was a lot of material in the bunny that his body didn't need. It would make its way to the building's central recycler with the rest of the sewage.

Not all of it was useless, though. Groot, the only person he'd let touch him without protest or violence, stroked his tail as Rocket went through the uncomfortable process of regurgitating fur, clothing and cybernetics. One clank after another sounded from the sink as an entire arm along with a dozen smaller metal bits came back up. Rocket's stomach was engineered to sort useful material from prey and most of the gear was still usable, if slimy and stinking. Rocket set on it with a brush and tools, cleaning the cybernetics and replacing various serial numbers and identification marks with anonymous ones. Selva's conformal body armor had sustained more acid damage but was also mostly salvageable. It had protected the bunny from many a bullet or beam but had failed to save him from a hungry raccoon's stomach. The pistol and assorted weapons weren't damaged at all and just needed a little anonymizing. He thought about keeping the mat of wet black fur as a souvenir but ultimately flushed it, as the last thing he needed was someone confronting him with evidence of Selva's fate.

A day later he collected just more than a thousand units from a fence, not without some haggling, and more or less back to his usual thin self (other than a few new pounds of bunny fat) headed back to his favorite bar.

He was surprised to see Kranix in a corner, and bristled a bit as he sat at one of the other small tables. Professionalism kept the two from glaring at each other but eventually hatred won out and Kranix made his way to Rocket's table. Every eye in the place was on the bunny, whose body language promised that violence was imminent. They were disappointed. He didn't sit and kept his hands away from his weapons. Even mercenaries needed a place where they didn't have to watch their back quite so rigorously and attacking Rocket would bring the bouncers - and the bar's security system, not that different from the bank's - down on his head.

"I know you did something to Selva," growled the bunny. "But you didn't turn him in to the cops. What did you do, sell him into slavery?"

Rocket shrugged. "Don't know what you are talking about. You're an asshole, he's an asshole, but I don't do bad things to people unless they try to do them to me or there's money in it. Your loser brother wouldn't get me a hundred credits. Not worth my time."

There was a perfect lack of expression on his furry little face save for a wicked gleam in one feral eye. Kranix snarled and stomped out of the bar and everyone had a good laugh for once not at Rocket's expense.

Rocket had worked on Kranix's cybernetics as well and as he slowly sipped his drink he looked at the little tracker unit from his belt. He watched with great interest as the bunny made his way into an alley - the same alley Selva went into as a rabbit and left as a bulge in a raccoon's middle - and stopped.

"Just can't let it go, can ya." Rocket casually finished his drink and left the bar, stepping around a drunken patron twice his height rather than pick a fight. He had bigger fish to fry.

Kranix was crouched in almost the same spot Selva had stood, waiting for Rocket to pass by the alley. The raccoon was predictable in the route he took to and from the bar and neither bunny had grasped that this was not carelessness or simple habit. It was meant to create similar predictability in those who wished the raccoon harm.

Kranix had just reached for the safety on his pistol when one of the bricks in the wall behind him suddenly lit up. The gravity trap snatched him off the pavement and pinned him spread-eagled on the wall. Thirty seconds later a cautious raccoon muzzle poked around the corner, bringing a smile with it.

"Looking for your brother?" Rocket said cheerfully. "Seems like I might have seen him in a place like this recently."

"What did you with him," Kranix snarled.

"If you two were a little more professional, and a little less bloodthirsty, we could do business." That provoked a laugh from the bunny, for Rocket was as bloodthirsty as they came. At least he really, really liked hurting people. That he liked it because people had been hurting him his entire life wasn't something the bunny considered.

Naturally the trap didn't affect the raccoon, who spent more than a minute plucking every weapon and piece of tech from Kranix's harness before continuing.

"Here's the thing," Rocket growled. "Can't just leave you hanging there. No bounty on your head. Can't just shoot you. People might remember we were arguing and my new crew doesn't need static from the authorities. But I gotta do something, right?"

"Gonna do to me what you did to my brother?" Kranix grunted, for the more he struggled against the trap the harder it clamped down. It didn't resist when the raccoon reached out and grabbed his ears, though, pulling his nose toward Rocket's.

"That's right," Rocket growled. "Let me show you what happened to him."

For a moment Kranix was confused as the narrow muzzle parted and Rocket leaned forward, fitting his jaws around a bunny skull. Then the raccoon swallowed, and all became clear.