“Uh… so do we run?” Calvin asked the others behind him while watching the rabbits and slowly backing away with measured steps.
Suddenly, the closest rabbit charged for a tackle, answering his question.
He rolled to the side, summoning a single [Impervious Pebble] in his place as he dodged the rabbit. It was a tactic he used to use against berserked Ina before he noticed it was bruising her forehead.
A heavy thump rang out as the rabbit hit the pebble.
Calvin stood up and turned, seeing the furry rodent in the air as it bounced back from the impact. It landed heavily on the ground before standing up and shaking its fur. It looked fine, at first glance, but he noticed the creature wobbling as it crouched.
Knowing it was going to pounce again, he immediately summoned another pebble in front of its forehead.
This time, the bunny bounced back and dissipated in mid-air, turning into motes of black light and leaving nothing in its place.
He turned back to the rest behind him, “I think we can take them?”
“Ah…” Mara shakily pointed to the front.
Calvin followed her finger and immediately cursed, “Fuck me.”
More than a dozen rabbits appeared from the shadows, followed by possibly hundreds of red glowing eyes opening from the darkness. Calvin started counting in his mind and quickly came to the conclusion that there were too fucking many to count.
“Run!” He shouted, turning back to the others, only to see them already sprinting in the distance. “Oh come on— really?!”
“Start running!” Ina’s voice came from the distance.
“Wait—” Alden’s voice rang before getting cut off.
Calvin heard him, but he was too busy dodging two tackles from a couple of rabbits. He then started running full-sprint towards the others, choosing to prioritize his one hundred points.
'It’s not like this is life or death,’ Calvin rationalized as he ran. 'This is for a kitchen.’
His three points in Super Body made him much faster than any of the rabbits— if they were running in a straight line and through a flat and unobstructed field. However, whatever forest setting their homeroom teacher cooked up was the exact opposite of that. The rabbits weren’t gaining ground, but neither was he at his current pace.
“Fuck!” Calvin cursed, failing to dodge a tree and almost spinning from the impact. He didn’t slow down, though, and quickly caught up to the slowest of them. “You okay?”
“Haah… haah…” Mara didn’t answer him and just continued running with all her might.
“I don’t think she is,” Quinn spoke, slowing down to their speed.
“Some friend you guys are, huh?” Calvin glared at her, getting hit by a branch to the face. “Ah fuck!”
“You’re the fastest,” She stated calmly, glancing to Mara for a brief moment. “You should probably pick her up. If you want.”
“What? Why?” Calvin turned to Mara who disappeared. He looked back, seeing her faceplanted on the ground. “Oh come on.”
Calvin couldn’t use [Jumper], which would have helped tremendously, so he found an alternative summoned pebbles in front of the faces of the closest rabbits. Hitting the pebbles slowed them down enough for him to run back, pick the poor girl up, and run back to Quinn in record time.
“Where the hell are the others?” He asked as he hoisted the girl over his shoulder.
“Look up,” She nodded to the right.
Calvin glanced briefly and saw Ina grinning and parkouring through branches and swinging through vines like someone with two worlds and one family.
“Demon monkey,” he muttered, briefly stunned. He glanced behind, noting the small reduction of bunnies already given up. “The others? James?”
“I don’t know,” she answered without care. “Probably ran off on his own.”
“Yeah, splitting up, that always works in horror movies.”
“We’re not in a horror movie.”
“Demon. Bunnies.” He emphasized. “Did he really leave her behind?”
“It’s not like there’s no precedent of that happening,” She muttered.
Calvin ignored her jab, focusing on dodging trees and rocks while paying attention to the other two. His pace gradually picked up as he got used to the terrain, freeing a bit of his focus to summon and deter the closest rabbits behind with a few pebbles.
They ran for a few more minutes, an agonizingly long time for a sprint, but enough to lose more than a handful of their pursuers.
“By the way,” she glanced to the back, “you think you can take them now?”
He turned and saw only a handful of the rabbits were left, “I think? But the 'mission’ said to just run.”
“Tell that to her,” she said with a grin, stopping and gesturing to Ina.
“We can take them now!” The demon girl excitedly shouted as she maneuvered around a tree and shot off towards the bunnies. “Calvin!”
“This girl… I swear to god—”
----------------------------------------
It took a few minutes, but they handled the remaining rabbits easily enough, with Ina even showboating with a grin as she played around and led bunnies to charge and bump their heads onto trees, rocks, and other rabbits like some sort of matador. Calvin utilized his tried and trusted 'pebble-in-your-face’ tactic that proved very effective against charging morons, like a certain fast hero, while Quinn pretended to fight until either Calvin or Ina finished their share and helped her.
“You can’t just melt their insides?” He groaned, having just dispatched the last rabbit with a kick to its pebbles.
“I can, but then you can’t come to my rescue,” She said, smiling sweetly.
Ina approached, having taken care of their share, “Aw… all done? Were they really that easy?”
“You’re just disgustingly strong,” Calvin said, raising a brow.
“Pot, kettle”, Quinn scoffed, gesturing between the two.
“What’s with her?” Ina asked, pointing to Mara still on Calvin’s shoulder.
“Tripped, I think,” Calvin put the girl down now that the coast was clear. “Hey, you okay?”
“Ugh…” Mara just groaned, caressing her stomach. “I need a second…”
“You couldn’t have carried her more carefully?” Ina asked, crossing her arms.
“You try fighting with a person on your shoul— actually, you of all people probably could. Never mind,” He stopped arguing. “What now? The mission just said 'run’”
“No idea,” Quinn shrugged.
“We could look for others,” Ina suggested. “Maybe there are other students here getting chased.”
“You just want to fight more rabbits.”
“Their fur feels really good to punch.”
“You— actually, it weirdly does…”
“You two are psychopaths,” Quinn said, chuckling as she leaned on Ina. “Can’t we just hide?”
“Maybe,” Calvin looked around. “How big is this place?”
The homeroom that transformed into a small forest seemed to go on for kilometers, only stopped by a ring of mountains. It was also overly realistic. The smell, the sight, the weird feeling that something is watching you from the shadow of the trees, everything felt so authentic that he wouldn’t have questioned it if he hadn’t seen what the room looked like earlier.
“Depends on how much they spent for the modular room,” Ina said. “They can get to ridiculous sizes if they get a tinker that knows how to d-stretch.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“D-stretch?”
“Dimensional stretching.”
“Oh, so make rooms bigger.”
“Oversimplified, but yeah,” She nodded. “Anyway, it’s probably not as big as it looks, but it’s still big enough.”
“That’s what she sa—”
“Ugh…” Mara groaned from below them. “What happened?”
“Your friend left you and you tripped and hit your face before getting carried all the way here by Cal,” Quinn succinctly recapped.
“Cal?” She looked up, still dizzy. “Who’s Cal—”, her face reddened, seeing Calvin wave at her, “—I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine,” He waved nonchalantly. “Anyway, what do we do—”
“Shush,” Quinn suddenly interrupted him.
“What is it now? Ow—”
“I said shush!” She pinched his arm and crouched, closing her eyes. “Can you feel that?”
“Feel what?” Ina’s eyes narrowed.
The four stayed silent at the pink girl’s prerogative. For a moment, there was nothing, and she just looked like an idiot. But then, they felt it too. A tremor.
The trees and bushes around them rustled periodically like some angry teenager was trying to kick them down. Rocks and pebbles rattled while the ground started thumping much more noticeably with each shake.
“Wow!” “Holy sh—” “Ugh…”
“What is happening?” Mara asked, standing up to look at the three.
They gave no answer, too busy staring at the distance. She frowned at them at first before freezing as she followed their gaze, eyes widening as the shadow of the source of the shaking loomed over them.
“So that’s why we have to run,” Calvin muttered, craning his neck.
A possibly fifteen-meter-tall soot-coloured rabbit with glowing red eyes and razor-sharp buck teeth was literally blotting out the fake sun as it hopped over them and crushed trees on the other side with an earth-shaking bang. It turned around, looking down at them with its murderous eyes, before opening its mouth to let out a roar.
“How the fuck can it roar?!” Calvin shouted, covering his ears.
“Let’s fight it!” Ina said, readying to pounce as tattoos started appearing on her forehead.
“What?!” Mara looked at her in disbelief.
“Nope,” Quinn scooped her up by the waist. “Let’s go.”
“Queenie!”
----------------------------------------
“Ah!” A bunch of screaming was suddenly cut off as Lillian closed the homeroom doors.
“That should be the last batch,” she muttered before posting a note on the door saying 'class in progress, disturb with caution’. “Time to get to work.”
With that note on the door, she entered the room and quickly summoned a fluffkin with wings, flying straight towards the surveillance center she set up in an invisible room above the mini-forest she generated.
“This is so convenient,” she grinned underneath her mask, heading towards the room before something caught her eye. “What? Already?”
A giant fluffkin, presumably terrorizing her students, was wreaking havoc on a far corner of the forest. At first, she was amazed that a group had already started eliminating fluffkins, but her amazement turned to shock as the giant fluffkin started sprouting wings on its back.
“Shit—”, she cursed, racing to her summon.
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“Day twenty-three, no sign of the black-furred buck-toothed titan for some time now. I heard screams from the distance, but it was hard to tell against the sound of the forest ambiance if it was real or just a product of my delusions. My hope is that the monster has found new prey—”
“What are you doing?” Ina interrupted Calvin’s muttering.
“Nothing,” He said, looking down at her from the tree branch he was perched on. “I think I heard a scream.”
“I heard it too. Sounded like a guy.”
“Or a not-so-femme female.”
“You say the weirdest things, you know?”
“The term is 'most creative’,” he chuckled, jumping down.
Ina’s face reddened as she looked away, “You feeling cold?”
“Cold?” Calvin asked, eyes widening and covering up his chest like a maiden aggrieved. “Were you looking at my chest?”
“Shut up,” Ina smacked his head without looking. “Not my fault you’re shirtless.”
“Not your fault?”
“It’s Tix’s fault.”
“It’s your contract. How’d you even go berserk that fast?”
Ina just crossed her arms, looking down, “I don’t know. Sorry…”
“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Calvin said, shaking his head.
“I know, let’s just go to Queenie. She should be done by now.”
“She might still be mad at you, you know?”
“She might, but I can’t say sorry without being there. Let’s go.”
Running away from the giant rabbit was tough enough, fighting it would’ve been more than disastrous. It was successfully repelled by [Impervious Pebble] once, but the titanic creature shrugged the impact off like it was nothing. If it was just that, it would’ve still been easy to outrun, but unfortunately, the creature evolved. It started sprouting wings and somehow phasing through the consequent pebbles, even the trees were unscratched from its steps, only materializing when it was near enough.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Ina wriggled out of Quinn’s fireman carry and started charging towards the bunny, telltale signs of berserk appearing on her face.
Quinn and Calvin frantically grabbed her again, but it was a bit too late. The bunny performed an unexpected attack, and they were only able to dodge due to Mara warning them from the side.
“Maybe turn around,” Ina said as the sound of rushing water entered into earshot.
“Turning around,” Calvin nodded.
Ina took a deep breath and started walking closer to the river, her steps crunching against sticks and branches, “Queenie? Mara?”
“Here,” Quinn’s pouty voice came from above. “Why’s he turned around?”
“Common decency!” Calvin shouted from the distance.
“She’s dressed!” Ina shouted back.
Calvin turned around and saw Quinn, hanging upside down from a tree with his shirt in her hands, her pink hair dripping wet. She was wearing a new dress, still the same pink as usual, but without the soot and the singe from the earlier attack.
Quinn threw the shirt towards Calvin and crossed her arms as she looked at Ina, “So?”
“I’m sorry,” Ina muttered, looking down.
“Sorry for what?”
“For rushing in.”
“And?”
“Getting your clothes ruined”
“Hmph!”
The thing that miraculously made Ina un-berserk and regretful was the giant bunny’s unique ability to demotivate potential competitors by means of expelling a jet of highly reactive chemicals prone to immediately combusting at contact with air.
In non-Dox-speak: It fucking breathed fire.
Calvin watched the two argue appropriate compensation as he wore his [Plain White Shirt], feeling the strength come back to him as the tinker tech made its way back on his torso.
“How can I make it up to you?” Ina asked.
“Be nicer to me and always listen to what I say from now on!” Quinn demanded with a characteristic harrumph. “And give me ten coupons!”
“Okay,” She nodded, smiling. “Friends?”
“The best!” Quinn cupped her cheeks.
“That was easy,” Calvin chuckled.
“Also, never take Cal’s side ever.”
He rolled his eyes, “Really?”
“I’m sorry, Calvin.” Ina apologized to him.
“You guys are just bullies,” He grunted. “How did you get new clothes? And where’s Mara?”
“Miss Lillian came and gave me my pocket while apologizing.”
“Miss Lillian?”
“The homeroom teacher.”
“Ah,” he nodded, “did you ask why that thing was breathing fire? On students?”
“She said it’s not something that could hurt us,” Quinn shrugged, “but apparently that doesn’t include clothes.”
Calvin looked suspiciously, “How would that even work?”
“No idea,” she shrugged. “Mara’s behind the tree, by the way.”
The two peeked behind the tree and caught a glimpse of the girl sleeping soundly as she leaned against the bark.
“She’s just sleeping,” Quinn answered the question already rising.
“Okay…” Calvin had no words. “So, what’s next?”
“I don’t know, the teacher said to wait.”
Their watches buzzed, and a timely notification arrived.
Notification!
Received 100 points.
Pre-test Examination II
Objective: Run
Reward: 100pts
Penalty: Cleaning duty
Notification!
Map Downloaded
Calvin looked to the two, “I guess that’s next.”
----------------------------------------
Lillian slumped down her chair, tired and sweating.
She had to un-summon and re-summon the giant fluffkin as fast as she could before the next batch of homeroom students could trigger the event. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary for the test she wanted to give.
The plan was to have it as a deterrent for students who have developed a taste of fluffkin murder or have grown complacent if they find the normal fluffkins too simple to beat. She used the bare minimum to summon them, making them dumb but still cute. That should’ve been enough for kids without training.
Apparently, those three weren’t without training.
“I should take note of this,” she muttered, tapping on her desk and opening a notepad on a hologram. “Remember to exempt clothes. Or request a tracksuit from admin.”
The fluffkin’s attacks were never meant to hurt. It was supposed to just be a large impact with no pain, and then send students that get ganged up by the fluffkins to the sidelines. She forgot that clothes weren’t a part of the students, and so it wasn’t exempted from the damage.
“Haah…” She sighed, taking off her sunglasses and mask, making herself more comfortable. “Hopefully nothing else pops up. It’s time to just watch.”
She sat up and cracked her back, looking around her and feeling healed as she watched her big-headed fluffkins monitor each student and group with surveillance screens. A few screens per fluffkin, plus one computer to create easily-digestible montages of interesting moments.
Satisfied with their productivity and cuteness, she turned to the biggest screen in front of her and opened another notepad at the side.
“Let’s see…” She pulled up a smaller screen and started watching highlights of the earliest students. “Let’s start with you. James Renfield. Superpower, vocal mimicry by means of sound manipulation. Suspected partial Elementalis. Cool cool cool.”
She started typing while watching the video, “Quick on his feet… quite literally— he really just left them, huh. Well, we can fix that with—”, she smirked as the non-physic eventually got caught by the rabbits. “—not quick enough, it looks like. Nothing much to note for now.”
Lillian chuckled, immediately finishing the note for the boy and opening a new one.
“Alden Croftweld— why’s he dressed like a butler?” She narrowed her eyes before typing 'weird’ on the document header. “Temporal kinetic replication on specific objects at will, what the hell does that mean? Whatever, I’ll just see. Damn techie jargon.”
Watching the video, she cringed at the butler who suddenly started shaking in place before immediately falling on his behind before he could even run away, “Well, that’s… unfortunate. Is the test too hard? Whatever, it’s my first time. Next one is…”
She pulled up another screen, seeing a familiar girl without the tattoos on her forehead this time.
“Marina Riverstone. Riverstone… where did I— ah, a council baby, huh? Lots of redacted information, blah blah. Superpower is… creation of contracts with extradimensional entities facilitating personal integration using her physical body as a medium, suspected to be a full Mythos,” she narrowed her eyes, trying to decipher the text, “I don’t get it. Ugh… whatever happened to just writing laser eyes or fire breath. Goddamn…”
Just like before, she wrote a report while watching, “Pretty reckless, but has good instincts and is well-trained. Okay, not just pretty reckless… who charges a big monster like that? I’ll need to take a note of that.
Next one, Calvin, no last name— immovable lithic fragments summoned at will, a summoner-slash-canon,” she typed while watching him fight, “similar with Riverstone so far, although less reckless. Doesn’t seem to like making decisions on his own… not necessarily a bad thing.”
The scene of him fighting bunnies came up, showing him summoning pebbles, “And his power… lithic fragments? They’re damn rocks. Interesting way to use it, though. Next—”
Pinning the note, she changed the screen. “—Quinn Margarett, fancy name. Looks important, the whole document’s pretty much black from the redactions,” she groaned, “even her power’s pretty much hidden. Just vibrations? Yeah, right. Let’s see how you are, kid.”
She watched as the girl did something unexpected immediately. If it wasn’t for the surveillance systems, even she as a ninth-ranker wouldn’t have been able to notice it.
“Vibration… so that’s what happened with the weirdo. They seem to know each other,” she tsked, typing a note, “I’ll need to keep an eye on this one. Clever use of power, but somewhat malicious… there.”
The screen changed, but not due to her this time. One of her fluffkins deemed it interesting enough to show her on the big screen.
“Speaking of…” She smirked, seeing the four survivors of the first batch look towards a small clearing with a covered cage in the middle, guarded by more than two dozen of her fluffkins and a handful of elite fluffkins. She turned to the big-brained fluffkin in charge of this particular screen, “What’s interesting about this?”
The fluffkin, with its oversized rabbit head, looked cutely at her before pressing a button on the keyboard in front of it.
The screen changed to show a close-up image of the cage in the middle of the camp. Inside was a particularly interesting, incredibly bored, and mildly annoyed butler, sitting and watching a movie on his holowatch.
“Ha! I see. This should be fun.”