I started taking different routes home each night, after work. It was a bit of a guilty pleasure, but deep down I hoped I’d come across something I could do to help. Crime I could thwart. Most nights, that didn’t happen, but every so often, I’d come across something. The scent of fear on the breeze or the sounds of angry voices would lead me to an altercation.
I was walking by one of the alleys between buildings, late enough that most of the stores were closing down for the night. From over the wall, I heard a woman shout, “Leave me alone!” Ducking between the two buildings, I dismissed my disguise, my tall ears swivelling to pick up the voices.
“C’mon, I’m just sayin’! I see you every night we’re working, and then you leave without even a hug?” A deeper voice, sounded like a large man.
“Because I don’t want you to touch me! You tried grabbing my ass just today!”
“You shake it like that, how can I resist? I’m a guy, I got needs, you know? I know girls like you want a guy like me to take charge.”
I jumped up onto the wall between the two halves of the alley, and the noise seemed to have gotten their attention, as the two turned to look at me. Both were wearing matching outfits, the uniform of the coffee shop whose back door they had come out of. The guy still had a bag of trash in his hand. “Hey, you wanna try to take charge of me, big guy?” I sneered down a little.
“Holy shit, what?” The bag of trash dropped to the ground, and I jumped to stand in front of the two. The guy took a step back.
“I said, you wanna try to take charge of me? Or do you wanna back off, and listen when a girl tells you no?”
The girl chimed in. “Hey, I heard about you! You’re that Superbunny, yeah? You’re… a girl? Wow! That’s so cool!”
“The what?” Guy started to puff himself up into an aggressive posture, apparently angry at being interrupted.
“She’s some kind of costumed hero, like our local Batman!” Huh, a bat-man? I made a mental note to ask Ben about this later.
“Well, she can buzz off, I ain’t no criminal!” He tapped his fist against his chest, still aggressive, glaring at me menacingly.
I stood firm. It’s not like he’d be a threat to me, anyway. “You’re looking to harm this woman. She told you no, and you’re still going after her.” I tilted my head a little as he made a motion. He was tensing up. “Last warning. Back off, or this is gonna end pretty badly for you.”
“For ME? Hah!” My warning seemed to have had the opposite effect, pushing him over the edge to take a swing at me, his fist swinging in a wide arc. I grabbed it with a paw, then stepped in, my other paw pressed into his chest to lift him up over my head. With the same motion, I tossed him into the open dumpster, the lid shaken loose from the impact and slamming down over him. A faint groan came from inside.
“Oh, wow, that was so cool! You just… Woosh! Ha, just like the trash he is!” She was grinning at the show.
I blushed a little at the praise, smiling. “Oh, well… I might not be lucky enough to catch him next time, though. You should probably try to, I dunno, tell someone who can do something to keep you more safe?”
“Totally, yeah! Gonna tell my boss about him, the police, anyone!” She reached into her purse, pulling out what was most likely her phone.
“Well, I better go.” I jumped to the dumpster lid, and over the wall from there, though as I did the alley lit up like a flash of lightning. Strange.
Now that I was on the other side of the wall, I brought my disguise back up and started running. I didn’t want her to see the “human” me and make the connection, after all.
Ben was waiting for me as I got home. “You’re home late again.”
“Yeah, I did some walking.” I huffed a little. I didn’t like arguing about it, but it felt too rude to just ignore the man letting me stay in his home.
“Walking, or ‘walking’?” It was clear what he meant.
“It was ‘walking’… Work was frustrating. So many people buying crystals don’t even know what they’re looking for. Or at.” I took my phone out of my pocket before dismissing my disguise, since it would be a hassle to retrieve it for “charging” if I didn’t. I sat down across from Ben at the table.
He sighed. “Working was your idea. You can always quit, you don’t have to do it.”
I huffed again. “But then I’d be eating your food, costing you coin. I can’t do that to you.”
“You know that’s not how I see it. If work is making you upset enough to go around looking for fights… I just worry you’re going to get into trouble.”
“You might not see it, but I do. I don’t want to… I can’t, CAN’T be a burden on you. I can’t repay you with that when you’ve shown me such kindness.” I crossed my arms. I was ready to dig my hooves in and be firm on this.
“It’s not being a burden. You’re a friend, and friends help each other. I make more than enough, it’s fine.” He paused for a moment, but I didn’t relent. “I don’t know how to get you to relax about this…”
“It’s just not who I am. I don’t know how to get you to… see it that way.” I finally uncrossed my arms and sighed. “With Master gone, I have to do… things, myself. I have to support myself, I have to make decisions, I have to do all the stuff he used to do. I don’t know how to do all that, but one thing I do know how to do is be helpful.”
“Being helpful is fine, but you have to take care of yourself, too!” Ben’s phone chimed. These things were always doing that, I was starting to get used to it. Ben didn’t react, so I chose to ignore it too. “What happens if you get caught? What happens if you get killed? How is that going to help anyone?”
“If I get caught, I fight to get free. If I get killed, well, at least I fought while I was alive, did what I could. I can’t… These are people, who are in need! You’re a human, but you’re telling me I should ignore humans suffering? I thought you’d be happy!” His phone chimed again.
“It’s not that… simple! There’s more to it. That kind of fighting just… isn’t done here!” Another chime. “People don’t go around picking fights with dangerous criminals.” Again, chime. Ben glanced over at it, glaring at the interruption, but ignored it again.
“I noticed! Brigands, cutpurses, and the like are everywhere, and get away with whatever they want.” Two more chimes.
“They don’t always get away. The victim reports it to the police, who investigate, track them down, and arrest them. The goal is the survival of the victim, they are at risk in a fight, so the best path is to avoid a fight.” Another chime.
“Well, where I’m from, a cutpurse picks the wrong target, they get run through with a sword. It makes people think twice about choosing to be a cutpurse. Tell me, these ‘police’, are they actually effective?” The silence hung in the air for a moment, until the phone chimed again.
“Ugh, what the heck is going on?” Ben angrily grabbed the phone and picked it up, jabbing at it with a finger. His eyes widening, he started scrolling, his expression getting more… Well, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Surprise, I guessed. “You… had a fight tonight, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It was minor, though. Barely even a fight. I tossed a guy into a dumpster because he was harassing a woman. A lecherous cur. How did you know?”
“I have notifications set whenever the ‘Superbunny’ tag is trending on social media.”
I blinked. “I have… no idea what that means.”
Turning the phone around, he showed me the image on the phone. It was of me, as I leapt over the wall. A little blurry from the motion, and only of my back. “Well, you got caught. Just like I told you would happen.”
“What? How did…? How does your phone know what I look like? It wasn’t there!”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You… still have no idea how these things work. Okay. Apparently, the girl you rescued took a picture of you. She’s been posting online how she met you, and how ‘awesome’ it was.”
“It took…? But I didn’t even have a picture, how could it take one from me?” I tilted my head, confused.
“I showed you this. Look.” He poked a few more times, and then showed me the phone, which seemed to be acting like it was clear, almost. The screen showed what was behind the phone, though with a momentary delay that was a little disorienting to watch. “Phones have cameras built in. You can take a picture, like this.” Pressing again, the scene on the camera froze. “Now I have a picture of my kitchen. I can share this picture with others, who can see it on their phone or computer or whatever.”
“Yes, but your phone is here a lot, it can… know what your kitchen looks like.” I was still struggling to understand.
“It doesn’t matter, it just records whatever the lens can see. Look.” He turned around, pointing the back at me, and pointed to the circles in the corner. “I point this at you, push the button,” a blinding flash like lightning blinded me for a moment and I yelped. “Sorry, guess it was dark enough that it thought it needed the flash. But look, see?”
He showed me the phone again, and it was an image of me, facing him. I hadn’t even had time to react, the image was taken before I flinched. “That’s… incredible. But why the flash of light?”
“It brightens things for the moment it needs to take the picture. So the camera can see it well enough. It takes just a fraction of that time to take a picture, that’s it.”
“There… was a flash like that, as I was leaving…” He nodded, as if he’d been expecting that. “That reminds me, she said something about a bat man? Do you think there are more constructs like me out there?”
“Batman? No, he’s… There’s a story that’s been told a lot, a famous story, about a man who dresses up in a bat-themed costume to fight criminals. But he’s just a story, he’s made up. And even in the story, he’s human.” He worked his phone a bit before showing me some pictures of an imposing man with a square jaw. “He doesn’t even have any special powers, other than being extremely wealthy.”
I thought for a moment. “So humans here… tell stories like this, but nobody ever actually does it? Why tell the stories, then, if not to inspire people to follow in those footsteps?”
Ben seemed taken aback at that. “No, that’s not… I mean… He still inspires people, just to… to fight injustice, but in the ways they can. All the superhero stories are… not about following their actual actions, but their personality. We can’t bench press a car. Well, I can’t, maybe you can.”
“I don’t know what a ‘bench press’ is.” I shrugged.
“Ugh, never mind. Just… I’m going to bed, Flopsy. I guess we’ll see how bad this whole picture thing is tomorrow.” With that, he stormed off to his bedroom, and I laid out on the couch. It would be a while before sleep would come, so I simply stared at the phone in thought. Such a tiny device, causing such huge problems…
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As it turns out, having a confirmed photo was a bigger deal than before. Rumors were one thing, but now they had something to point to, even if it wasn’t much. At work, Lydia brought it up. “Did you hear? Superbunny showed up again last night!”
Having not gotten much sleep, I winced at her loud voice. I was starting to dislike the morning shifts, but I suppose that’s my own fault for staying out so late. “I heard a little. What happened?”
“They showed a picture of her on the morning news! It’s all over the internet, though of course everyone’s claiming photoshop.” She was playing with her phone as I sorted through the new stock, picking out the occasional piece for the “special stock”. Glancing over, she was indeed showing me the same photo I saw last night.
“Ah, yeah, I saw that. It’s… really blowing up. I wonder why. You’d think people would just give it a rest, don’t you?” I tried to sound as bored as I could, instead of hopeful.
“Are you kidding? We have a real-life crimefighter here in Lapine Falls! Hey, doesn’t ‘lapine’ mean ‘rabbit’ or something? Maybe that’s why they picked a bunny costume?” She went back to messing with the device.
I stood up and stretched, carrying the sorted case out to the floor where we could put it on display in the counter. “I dunno, the whole thing just seems… I think it’s best to ignore it, let it fade away.”
She followed me, watching me set the prize few with the other “special” ones. “I still have no idea what makes those ones ‘special’… They look just like the rest to me.”
“The right people will pay the cost. The people that won’t… It’s a waste to let them get these.” Ben said I shouldn’t even try to explain magic to other people. At best, they wouldn’t believe me. At worst… He didn’t get into what that would be, he just shuddered and changed the subject.
“Sold any yet? …Anyway, how are you not excited? It’s like something out of a comic book! I wonder if she’d do a public greeting type of thing?” It was almost time to open the store, just enough time to do some last-minute tidying.
“I don’t know what a ‘comic book’ is… I know what a book is, but what makes it a comic book?” I tilted my head at her.
She gave me an odd look. “Ugh, right, compound. Sometimes I forget. You seem so normal, most of the time. And then other times, just… Yeah. It’s a story book told in pictures as well as words. Mostly superhero stuff.”
“Superheroes? Ben was telling me about those last night, like Batman? Who isn’t a bat, but someone in a costume?”
“Well, yeah.” The beep of her phone interrupted her. “Oops, time to open the gates. Ready for the day?” She wasn’t waiting for an answer, and I was pretty sure it didn’t matter what I said in reply. The gate clattered open as she lifted it up and out of the way.
Of course, just because the mall was officially open, it didn’t mean there were people right away. That was the other worst part about morning shifts, they were so boring. I think sometimes Lydia asked me to be here just so she had company.
It was nearly an hour before our first customer. I nearly fell asleep at the counter, but with the motion, I had something to do, and that brought a smile to my face. “Welcome to ‘Sparkle of Your Eye’ crystal shop, can I help you find anything?”
The man that entered smiled politely and waved. “No, just browsing. Seeing if anything catches my eye.”
I nodded, fighting the urge to yawn. It was a short fight, and I lost. I tried to prevent a rematch by stretching.
Wandering over to the counter, he seemed to be trying to act like he didn’t have a target, but I was pretty sure he zeroed in on the displays pretty fast. His eyes didn’t just wander, he stopped and appraised each one. There was a slight scowl turning the corner of his lips.
I watched, but I wasn’t sure if I should interrupt. When his eyes paused in their movement from one end to another, I took my chance. “We do have a collection of higher-quality stones set aside, if you’d like to look?”
He looked up, raising an eyebrow at me. “Is that so? That’s not how this store normally has their display set up.”
Smiling, I bought out the “special stock”. It wasn’t hidden, it was just in a different section of the counter, so this brought it to him. “I’ve picked these out myself. I’m hoping we can start carrying ones like this on a regular basis.”
His eyes widened as he looked them over, picking up a large rectangle-cut amethyst. Holding it up to the light, he nodded. As he looked over the others, holding each of them up to the light, he began to eye me a little strangely. Finally, he picked up the amethyst again. “You picked out… all of these?”
“Oh yes, their clarity, their lines… Their affinity and properties… Amethyst is a very ‘defensive’ stone, a lot of Earth magic aligns with it.” I was a little proud to show off the knowledge I learned by assisting Master with his work.
“Magic, huh?” There was that strange look in his eye again. Oh yeah, I wasn’t supposed to talk much about magic.
“Well, I suppose everyone has their own take on magic, don’t they? It IS a lovely stone, whether you care about that sort of thing or not, isn’t it?” I waited for his reaction, watching.
He watched me in return, eyes glancing at the stone in his hand. “It’s a bit… expensive, isn’t it? It doesn’t look all that different to the rest of the bulk stock.” He tried to sound confident and dismissive, but I smirked.
“Ah, but sometimes the smallest of details makes all the difference. It’s hard to find ones that are proportioned just right. To the right person, it’s worth the price. And it allows us to start stocking ones like these more reliably. Our ‘special stock’ is small for now, but I’m hoping it will grow over time. And you won’t have to guess it’s time to come in and hope to get lucky, when there’s something you need.” I knew I had him, it was just a matter of letting him know.
He narrowed his eyes, either trying to make it look like he was considering it but hesitant about the cost, or to evaluate whether he could talk me down. Finally, he sighed heavily. “You certainly know how to pick them. All right, I’ll take this one.”
I nearly tippytapped on my hooves at my first sale of a “special stock” gem, but I kept it together, smiling as I put the rest away. Now the hard part, working the “register”. I mostly had the hang of it, but it was still unpleasant. Still, the store was four hundred dollars richer, and the customer had his amethyst. Even if he grumbled a bit while paying.
The transaction finished, he looked at the stone in his hands. “So, Earth magic, huh? What about emeralds?”
“Well, they– I mean, I always felt that… they were a different branch of Earth magic. Usually involving strength, or sometimes plant life. So perhaps more offensive than defensive.” I was curious about the question, he’d seemed pretty dismissive of the idea before.
But he nodded to himself, as if I’d given the correct answer. “Yeah, I think I’ll definitely be back next time I need something. Buying online is such a hassle when you can’t actually hold and see the exact stone yourself, and if you’re going to have the ‘special stock’… Yeah. Thank you again for your help.”
Once he was out of the store, I couldn’t wait any longer. I slipped off to the back to tell Lydia the good news. It made the rest of the day seem so bright.
To my dismay, over the next few days, the whole “Superbunny” thing did not die down. Seemed like there was always a new article being posted. “Who Is the Superbunny?” “Superbunny: Real or Hoax?” “What the Superbunny’s Design Says About Her.” And so on. I was tempted to sign up for accounts to reply to comments, but Ben assured me it would be a terrible idea.
“Ugh! This one’s claiming he made the original photo as a prank!”
Ben nodded. “Yeah, some people are just so eager to rain on others’ parades that they’ll lie just to do it. Is anyone believing him?”
“Well, it looks like a couple? Others are asking for more.”
“There you go. He won’t be able to give more, and he’ll be exposed. Or he’ll have to make up new ones, and that’ll take the focus off you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I huffed a little, tapping the stylus against the phone screen and scrolling. “Yeah… But he’s lying…!”
Ben looked over at me, smirking. “It bothers you that much? I could always post the photo I took of you, tell the world you exist…”
The thought was actually almost tempting, just to get all this over with. “No, you said that’d be really bad… I don’t want to make people panic, or be scared of me.” Glumly, I kept scrolling through the articles.
“Maybe you should put that down, and stop reading about it.”
I sprawled out on the couch and sighed heavily. “Ehhhhn. But it’s… I should keep up with what they’re saying about me, shouldn’t I?”
“Have they actually said anything about you, instead of just wild guesses?”
Glaring at the phone, I let the paw holding it fall onto my stomach. “There’s a few that say I’m a furry freak. One said I should ‘go back to Pittsburgh’, but I don’t know what that means.”
Ben seemed similarly confused. I let out another heavy sigh. After a moment, he spoke up. “Oh, he meant THAT kind of furry…”
I raised my head and looked over. “Huh?”
“Oh, there’s a kind of person who… has an interest in creatures like you.” His face got a little more awkward the more he talked.
“That doesn’t make sense. People… like hoofbuns? How do they even know what a hoofbun is?”
“No, I mean, part animal and part people. ‘Furry’ is kind of like a slang term for it. Apparently they have a big convention in Pittsburgh each year.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment. “…Like constructs? There are constructs like me there?”
“No, not… There’s no creatures like you, just humans who wish they were.”
“Why would a human want to be like me…? Humans are… humans! Why would they want to be constructs?”
Ben pinched the bridge of his nose in the way that told me I was missing something important, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. “No, no, not constructs. They just want to be creatures with animal features.”
“But then they wouldn’t be human.” I raised my phone, though the screen was still off, as if the confused look I gave the device could somehow be sent to the humans of this land instead.
“Yes, well, they don’t want to be human. Sometimes I can’t say I blame them, humans can be jerks. But I don’t think that would really be cured by a coat of fur and a tail.” He leaned back in his chair, seemingly amused at my reaction.
“I still can’t imagine a human wanting to be like me. If they had the choice, I mean.”
Ben smirked. “Would you want to be human, if you had the choice?”
The question caught me off-guard. I scooted so my head could hang over the arm of the couch, looking at him upside-down, ears dangling. The tips almost brushed the floor. “Me? A human? …No, not really. Having to pretend is bad enough, but actually being one…? It’s not me. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Hey, no need to. But if you prefer being a hoofbun, doesn’t it stand to reason there might be others, even if it’s rare, who would feel the same way?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You sound like you had something for if I said I did want to be a human.”
“I did, actually. I would’ve said, ‘You can understand what it’s like to be something other than what you are.’ I was honestly kind of expecting you to say you did.”
I slid back into my previous position, since it was more comfortable. Sighing heavily, I thought for a moment. “I’ll admit, when I first woke up, it was weird. I didn’t know anything about what a hoofbun was. ‘General baseline of knowledge’ and all, everything was telling me that being human was normal and something was wrong. And there’s times where I envy you humans, a bit. But in the end, I’d rather have my Master than be free. And now that I don’t have Master… it’s even worse. Being a human just isn’t ‘me’, I don’t know if I could ever get used to it, and I’m glad I don’t have to. It’s hard enough just pretending each day… Though it’s a little nice, seeing people react to me without fear and suspicion and unease. They just treat me as normal. Well, closer to normal than they would if they knew. Lydia still doesn’t like it when I talk about Master, and I can’t say much about my old home since she thinks it’s a… What did you call it? ‘Creepy cult compound’? There’s still such a huge divide between myself and humans.”
Ben gave a sigh of his own. “Yeah, I can’t begin to imagine. We’ve made a lot of guesses about what it would be like to meet a non-human sentient race. Even if you’re not a whole race, you’re still something we can only begin to guess what it’s like to… be. What it’s like for you to meet us.”
“I’ve met humans plenty of times, though. I’ve never met anything but humans.”
“Yeah, but that was Terra. This is Earth. This world has never met anything like you.”
A soft groan slipped out of me. “I’m still not completely sure I’m ready to believe this ‘entire other world’ thing. I’m still trying to come to grips with the idea that there are more cities like this one. So enormous, with so much stone, and this technology.”
“Heh. Sorry, I think that’s the first time I’ve heard someone call Lapine Falls ‘enormous’. By Earth standards, this place is tiny. I think this city has… I want to say around eight thousand people? The really big cities have populations in the millions.”
My eyes were wide. I picked up the phone, once again using it as a stand-in for looking at this Earth in general. “I have no idea how to even picture that. It’s… incomprehensible. How does anyone keep from being… lost in the flood of voices?”
“Oh, everyone has their own way. Keep to their own friends, be their own unique self. Some even dress up in animal costumes and gather in Pittsburgh, for instance. You don’t have to compete with the entire world, after all. Anywhere you go, there’s people there.” Ben smirked lightly, watching me try and fail to wrap my head around this concept that came so naturally to him.
I let the phone fall from my paw and land on my stomach, laying back and staring at the ceiling. I didn’t have words to say.
Elsewhere, in another part of the city, a man browsed the various articles on the “Superbunny”. He had made allies, and they had introduced him to this ‘technology’, in return for bits of the gold he carried, and the promise to use his skills to further their own goals. Malik didn’t care that they were criminals, he would use them, like he would use anyone who wasn’t part of the Brotherhood. Staring at the blurred image of the white-and-black figure, he scowled. “So, the construct survived as well. I guess I get to kill that abomination after all.”