Lucky Rabbit

As soon as Pandy hit the ground, she tried using Minor Heal. It failed, of course, so she gave in and used CP, bringing her Life Force up to negative two. From there she limped toward the library, chanting silently as she went.

Casting of Minor Heal successful. 5.26% experience gained towards next level.

Healed Pandora for 2 LF.

Minor Heal triggered the instant Pandy set a paw inside the library. As far as she was concerned, that was enough to confirm the idea that a person or place from the original game was necessary for activation. If she could use Corruption Points everywhere else, then the only problem remaining was that gaining more CP required her to do some very squicky things. Fortunately, keeping Thaniel safe was best done in close proximity to Thaniel, so as long as she didn’t wander too far from him, like she was right…now….

Feeling a sense of renewed urgency, she looked around the room. There were five books to be read here, and one of them granted a free Stamina refill. Now that she had LF and Mana, she was curious what she would get instead. Just refilling those wasn’t nearly as useful, since they replenished naturally over time, but was this ‘game’ smart enough to adapt?

Pandy longed to linger over the books, enjoy being surrounded by the room where Clara and Edgar finally spoke about something other than school, and just generally bask in the sheer Gacha Love-ness of it all. But she couldn’t. While she thought Thaniel was fairly safe with the Reedsleys, she had no idea where he would go after breakfast, or with whom. 

If this world really was Out To Get Thaniel, it was thanks to Pandy’s terrible luck and that idiot god. She owed it to the boy to stick with him every moment of every day for the next three years, ten months, and seven days. With a long, regretful sigh, she turned around, fully intending to follow the sounds of cheerful chatter to breakfast, and found herself face to furry face with Miss Cupcakes.

The kitten was sitting in the doorway, blazing yellow eyes bright in her adorable gray-furred face. White whiskers arched away from her cheeks and above her eyes, giving her a somewhat surprised expression, but Pandy had no doubt that the feline had followed her here.

Slowly, Pandy took a step backwards. She was still inside the library, which meant she should have her full array of skills available to her. Such as they were. But she really, really didn’t want to hurt the cat. Pandy liked cats, though they, like most other animals, usually bit, scratched, or flew away from her.

At the movement, Miss Cupcakes’ eyes narrowed to slits, and she began to slink forward, her fluffy belly just brushing the ground as her tail twitched behind her. Pandy took another step backward, then glanced behind her, hoping to find someplace she could hide until someone came to find her or the kitten. It wasn’t a perfect idea, but if she could just avoid actual battle, then-

The moment Miss Cupcakes realized Pandy was no longer looking at her, she lunged, knocking Pandy over as eighteen needle-sharp claws dug deep into Pandy’s flesh. Pandy squealed, because no matter how undead she was, being injured still hurt. Which really wasn’t fair. What was the point of being dead if you still felt pain?

Pandy had instinctively pulled her back feet up as soon as she felt the first prickle of claws, and now she dug at the cat’s stomach with them, trying to force the kitten to release her at least long enough for her to try to run. Miss Cupcakes gave a growling hiss, but didn’t let go. In fact, she clamped her teeth onto Pandy’s ear and tore at it.

-7 LF

Something flopped against Pandy’s face, and with some disgust, she realized it was her own ear. Fortunately, there wasn’t much blood, at least not yet, but now she was going to have to regrow an ear, and who knew how long that would take? It wasn’t like she could just sit on it like she had her missing tail.

The kitten continued to savage her as Pandy desperately tried to both protect her own belly and figure out how to get out of this situation without someone realizing she was far from a normal rabbit. Red numbers floated away from her with every tooth and claw that sank into her, and it wasn’t like the fight was silent, either. Even if Pandy was holding in her screams, Miss Cupcakes had no such compunction, and the cat’s yowls filled the library and hallway.

There was nothing for it. Pandy would have to use her skills, and hope that the kitten didn’t take too much damage. But which skill should it be? Bite was only level five, and in theory should therefore do less damage, but in Gacha Love, the difference between a skill at level one and the same skill at level ten was actually fairly small. Those levels were the ‘free’ levels, there to make new users feel that they were growing quickly, so they would continue playing even after leveling further required either excessive amounts of Stamina or real money.

Then she had it. she cried. Her hindquarters bunched, and the kitten screeched in fury as she was thrown violently away from Pandy. The cat slammed against the wall on the other side of the hall with a force that made Pandy wince, but at least she should be relatively intact. Unlike Pandy herself.

Hop successful. 12.5% experience gained towards next level.

+8 Corruption Points for Badly Damaging the Defender of the Realm

The library door had been wide open when Pandy entered, but during the battle it had swung half-closed. Now, Pandy stuck out a back leg, caught it with her toes, and pushed it shut. It was a fairly feeble push, but it was enough, and the latch clicked into place just as Miss Cupcakes gathered herself enough to lunge toward Pandy again, only to find that she was now on the wrong side of the door. The kitten hissed in righteous anger, and bloody claws scrabbled through the gap beneath the door, reaching for Pandy.

Most of the force of Pandy’s Hop had been absorbed by the kitten’s body, but Pandy herself had been spun backwards on the polished wooden floor, leaving her dizzy and breathless. Well, breathless for some meaning of the word that didn’t actually require breathing. Now, she lay still, watching the little paws as they slowed, then lay still, barely twitching. Angry hisses died down to pained mews, then gasping whimpers.

This was not good. Pandy had been trying to save Miss Cupcakes, not injure her more, but either the kick itself or the impact with the wall had clearly caused some serious damage. If Pandy hadn’t been sure what ‘badly damaged’ meant in the System message, the way the kitten was acting would certainly have confirmed it.

No, no, no, no, Pandy thought, and tried to force herself to her paws. Unfortunately, her own condition was no better than that of the cat, and she found that while she could move her feet, she couldn’t convince them to hold her up. She could, however, dig her claws into the wooden floorboards and pull herself toward those tiny, deadly little paws, and so she did.

Inch by inch, she moved, ignoring the feeling that bits that were supposed to remain inside and attached to her were, perhaps, not currently either inside or attached. She absolutely wouldn’t look back to see what she was leaving behind, because Miss Cupcakes had only one chance, and Pandy was it.

It seemed to take forever, but finally Pandy’s nose touched the very tip of one of Miss Cupcakes’ toes, which was still protruding from beneath the door. The kitten’s head had fallen to the side some time ago, but at the contact, the single eye Pandy could see slitted open, and a rumbling, painful cough emerged from the small body. Pandy ignored it. She was out of Mana, thanks to her, ah, ‘fall’ down the stairs, and she couldn’t afford to have any more of her bits fall off right now. That was all right, though.

Use Two (2) Corruption Points to cast Minor Heal?

she yelled at it.

Casting of Minor Heal successful. 5.26% experience gained towards next level.

Healed Miss Cupcakes for 20 HP.

Casting of Minor Heal successful. 5.26% experience gained towards next level.

Healed Miss Cupcakes for 18 HP.

The yellow eye, which had been glazed with approaching unconsciousness, if not death, brightened, then blinked twice. The claw that had retracted into the little paw popped out again, pricking Pandy’s nose. Pandy flinched, but the needle-claw didn’t dig in any further than the top layer of skin.

Pandy realized she’d closed her eyes in preparation for a fresh onslaught of pain, and slowly opened them again when it didn’t come. She found herself staring into Miss Cupcakes’ eye. The kitten looked at least as befuddled as Pandy felt, but no longer seemed on the verge of death, which was good. Presumably, she’d only recovered thirty-eight health because that was all she’d needed to bring her back up to full. Did that mean she only had forty health total, and she’d been two points away from death?

Then Pandy, too, blinked, as she realized that this System message had been subtly different from the one she got for healing herself. The cat had recovered HP – presumably either health or hit points – while Pandy always got back Life Force. Had Thaniel gotten HP, too, but she hadn’t noticed? Was the difference simply a matter of healing a living creature versus an undead one, or was there more to it?

Well, it didn’t matter, at least not at the moment. What did matter was that she was now lying in a pool of fur, blood, and…stuff, with a barely functional body. She needed to heal herself, as well, and do it quickly.

she thought again, wishing she could afford to wait for her Mana or LF to recover naturally. There was just something about using CP that made her uncomfortable. 

Use One (1) Corruption Point to cast Minor Heal?

she said, already tired of having to confirm that she meant what she said every time. It was like when she told her phone to restart and it asked her three times if she was really, really certain she wanted to do that.

Casting of Minor Heal successful. 5.26% experience gained towards next level.

Healed Pandora for 20 LF.

Instantly, she felt better, and the ear that had been dangling just at the edge of her vision suddenly vanished. She carefully brought a back leg up to scratch an itch on her scalp, and found that the appendage seemed to have reattached itself.

Miss Cupcakes had watched all of this from beneath the door, but while the cat’s eyes were definitely still more than a little suspicious, they weren’t blatantly hostile any longer. She’d withdrawn her paws  and was fastidiously licking the blood from between her toe-beans, but made no move to take another swipe at Pandy, even though her arch-nemesis was still within swiping distance.

Speaking of which. Pandy tried hopping backwards, and found that her body was under her control once again. Not only that, but the squidgy bits she’d half-expected to find strewn around behind her had also apparently gone back where they belonged. That was a very good thing, because it meant that while there were clumps of white fur all over the floor, there was no sign that a serious altercation had taken place.

Pandy thought. It wasn’t exactly the optimal time to be staring at numbers, but she still didn’t have opposable thumbs, so now that the door was closed, she was stuck here for the foreseeable future.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: -3/0

Mana: 1/10

Stats

Strength: 3 Intelligence: 12 Agility: 10Skills

Hop: Lv. 8 (87.5%) Bite: Lv. 5 (20%) Scratch: Lv. 7 Minor Heal: Lv. 11 (31.56%)Corruption Points: 22

And, yes, she was only one use away from levelling Hop. Better yet, she was now in a room where she should be able to use that or any other skill as many times as she liked. At which point she realized that she really hadn’t had to use CP to heal herself or Miss Cupcakes, either. She was just so used to doing it that way when Thaniel wasn’t around that she’d panicked. Maybe there was a reason the System double-checked her CP usage after all. Honestly, it was embarrassing, especially since the fact that she could heal herself at a cost of half the LF she recovered was exactly the kind of cheat she would have exploited when she was playing games.

What was done was done, however, and she had other skills to level. Not that she thought the Reedsleys would appreciate it if she bit and scratched up the room, but she could, at least, Hop. So she did, and every time she landed, she caught sight of the kitten’s fierce yellow gaze tracking her. Up and down, up and down, finishing out level eight, then nine, ten, and, at last, eleven.

It had only taken her about forty Hops to reach this point, but apparently during that time someone had finally noticed that both cat and rabbit were missing. Feet pounded through the hallways, and voices began to call for ‘Bunny’ and ‘Cupcakes’ with varying degrees of concern. Pandy stopped Hopping and began to push the scattered hunks of her fur beneath the edge of a nearby carpet. She hadn’t quite managed to get it all when a soft gasp sounded from outside.

“Oh, Miss Cupcakes, you naughty kitty! Did you trap poor Bunny in the library?” It was Geraldine, and her hands appeared just long enough to scoop Miss Cupcakes up. The kitten didn’t even protest, and a moment later, the doorknob turned, revealing the little girl’s pale, freckled face. She was obviously worried about what she might find, because relief brought instant color back to her cheeks as she turned and called, “Thaniel! I found her!”

The kitten stared down at Pandy as more feet pounded in their direction, and then she very deliberately looked away, pretending that the rabbit no longer existed as Thaniel ran into the room and scooped up his pet.