Lucky Rabbit

The children gathered around Pandy, bright eyes shining as she related a somewhat sanitized version of the storyline of Gacha Love. Not that Clara and her love interest ever did anything more risqué than kiss, but Pandy found that she just couldn’t tell them certain details. In the end it was just easier to cut all mentions of romance, which made the story significantly shorter.

Murders became kidnappings, the villain remained unknown, and the heroine saved everyone in the end. The war with the demons was something she couldn’t omit, because otherwise, why would Ismara bother sending someone back to change history? Though the bigger question probably should have been, ‘Why Pandy?’, because in a story filled with heroes, who would pick her?

Thaniel obviously found a satisfactory answer, at least in his own mind, because as soon as Pandy finished, he leaned forward and said, “You were the heroine, weren’t you? And Ismara made you an elemental, and sent you back to save us again!”

That interpretation had not occurred to Pandy. She hadn’t named Clara, since the parallels to Geraldine’s sister were too great to be ignored, even by six-year-olds, but Pandy wasn’t hero material. She never had been. Even if she had briefly qualified according to Keros’ apparently very, very low standards.

“I really wasn’t,” Pandy hastened to assure the boy. “I was just…there. I saw everything, so I knew what needed to happen to change it.”

“And what does need to change?” Isidor asked. He was the only one of the five who had never really gotten into the story, and now he leaned against the trunk of the tree. He looked thoughtful, but not exactly suspicious, so he was probably at least entertaining the possibility that Pandy was telling the truth.

Pandy bit her lip. “I…don’t actually know anymore. Like I said, I was supposed to appear three years in the future. Some things have already changed,” her eyes flicked to Thaniel, “and those things will cause more changes. By the time we get to when I was supposed to arrive, everything will be completely different anyway, and hopefully there won’t be anything left to do.”

Isidor definitely hadn’t missed that involuntary glance, and his eyes narrowed as he, too, looked at Thaniel. “Won’t Ismara tell you when your mission is complete?”

Mission, huh? What an interesting choice of words. Pandy almost smiled. Isidor really wasn’t very good at pretending to be a kid. Not a little one, anyway. Still, it was a reasonable question. “I don’t think so,” she admitted. “She doesn’t talk a lot. She’s, um, busy, with…other things.”

She waggled her fingers, as if she had any idea what those other things might be, and as she did so, she was reminded that her time with fingers was probably growing short. Pulling up her stats, she saw that she was right. Less than five minutes remained on Shifting Faces.

Pandy stood up abruptly. “I have to change back now, but I was hoping you all might help me with something.” She looked down at their little faces, seeing their own personalities shining in each one. Thaniel and Geraldine both looked thrilled at the idea that they could help, while Abbington and Eleanor were more reserved. Only Isidor remained unreadable, but he didn’t refuse, just waited.

Pointing to five different parts of the field, Pandy said, “Would you all split up? Just for a minute, I promise. I want to test something, and then we can come back here.” Thaniel hopped up, and he and Geraldine jostled for a moment as they both headed for the first spot Pandy had pointed to. Then they grinned at each other, and Thaniel went to the second spot instead.

Once everyone – except Isidor, who was conveniently already in the last spot Pandy had indicated – was in place, she thought, It was only as her clothing fell down around her that she realized she’d forgotten to put her outfit away. She immediately attempted to do so, only to receive an error message.

Inventory Full.

What? Why was it saying that now, when it hadn’t before? That, and the clothes were still puddled around her, getting soaked in mud and dew. Pandy poked her head out of the neckhole of the dress, thinking, while picturing the entire ensemble disappearing. Nothing happened except that the error message reappeared.

Inventory Full.

Pandy thought angrily, grasping a bit of fabric delicately between her teeth.

Would you like to replace one of the items currently in your inventory with Blue Matron Dress?

Matron dress? Rude! Pandy actually kind of liked this dress, though it was a bit ‘strict librarian’ for her. Still, it would have suited Ms. Wellington perfectly, which probably explained why it was in her closet.

Pandy thought, and the stretchy black bodysuit appeared in front of her as the dress disappeared. Only the dress. The underdress, jewelry, hairpins, and – Pandy peered down inside the tube of lighter blue fabric to confirm – the underclothes were all still lying in the mud.

So what was different? Why would the whole outfit go in before, but not now? Then she realized what had changed. She had. This time, Pandy was already a rabbit by the time she tried to put her clothing into her inventory. At that point, it was no longer an outfit, but a disassembled selection of clothing items falling through the air. 

Which meant that until she could put everything back on, it wouldn’t be an outfit again, and she couldn’t put it in her inventory without each item taking up its own slot. The hairpins might stack, but nothing else would, and Pandy had better things to do with her inventory space.

Of course, that also meant some part of the outfit had been returned to the slot vacated by the outfit when Pandy summoned it originally, but Pandy would have to figure that out later. She needed to talk to Keros about generating an inventory management screen, though. Whenever she saw him again.

she thought.

The slinky black getup vanished obediently, and the dress reappeared between Pandy’s teeth. She dropped it with a resigned sigh and wiggled the rest of the way out of the pile of soggy clothing, wondering what the children thought of this rather unfortunate turn of events. Not surprisingly, they were all staring at her, and Isidor looked distinctly amused. Laughing at her misfortune. He really was a teenager, wasn’t he?

Lifting her ears as straight as they would go, and giving her bunny tail a little extra flounce, Pandy hopped over to Thaniel. Just before she reached him, however, she thought, The ground fell away beneath her, and Pandy managed not one, but two somersaults before her paws touched down on the ground behind him.

Hop successful. One hundred eighty-eight uses remain before next level.

Ha! They couldn’t laugh at her any more, could they? Well, technically they could, she supposed, but they shouldn’t, because that was cool. Indeed, Thaniel had turned and was staring at Pandy with an expression of astonishment on his face. His mouth was even hanging open, and she actually started to feel a little hurt. He didn’t have to be that surprised, did he?

With a twitch of her whiskers and a flick of her heels, Pandy hopped toward Eleanor next. The girl actually looked excited now, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, and her eyes shining. Lord Winston, on the other hand, didn’t seem thrilled about any of this. He looked more confused than anything else, but he still tried to stay between Pandy and – not his owner, not if he was an elemental – his human.

Pandy thought, once she judged she was close enough, and, once again, she bounded upwards. Winston growled softly as she passed over his head, his droopy face looking like a mildly aggressive pancake smothered in syrup.

Hop successful. One hundred eighty-seven uses remain before next level.

Yes! Pandy hadn’t been sure, since every time she used a skill near the princess, Thaniel was also close by, but Eleanor had been mentioned by name in Gacha Love, and apparently that was enough. The same thing happened with Geraldine, except that Miss Cupcakes actually took a half-hearted swat at Pandy, and Pandy took off before the kitten managed to snatch another tail right off her rear. This probably reduced Pandy’s coolness by a factor of ten, but that was the price of a tail.

Abbington was next, and Pandy was almost certain she knew what was going to happen. As a result, rather than risk tumbling whiskers over tail when her Hop failed, Pandy drew close to him and thought, She stared at the reeds around the boy’s feet, but they didn’t even quiver. Yes, the spell was only level one, but the nearby plants should have at least perked up a little, right? So that was one down, with one still to go.

Poor Abbington looked confused and disappointed as Pandy turned away, and she almost expended a Corruption Point just to make him feel better. Brook beat her to it, though, leaning against Abbington’s leg and purring until he chuckled and bent to scratch her hip, at which point she flopped down, belly up and ready for scrootching.

Which brought Pandy back to Isidor. She was certain she didn’t recognize him from the game. There were a few characters with darker skin tones, but most of them were at the diplomatic ball Clara attended with Kaden. All of those were in their twenties, at least, and Isidor would only be seventeen by then. She also didn’t remember the name Isidor being mentioned in any of the events, which meant this was probably going to be a bust as well.

Eyeing the tree Isidor was leaning against, Pandy thought,

Verdant Surge successful. One use remains before next level.

Beneath Isidor’s arm, the tree’s trunk shifted. The bark changed subtly, gaining a deeper hue, and the ground bulged slightly as roots moved beneath the earth, extending toward the beckoning pool of water. Overhead, leaves rustled, the existing ones shifting toward emerald green, rather than olive. Tiny, fresh leaves budded, then began to unfurl, before the growth stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

Isidor had leaped away from the tree as soon as the changes started, but he couldn’t have been more surprised than Pandy. She stared at the tree, mouth hanging open just as far as Thaniel’s had. Why had that worked? How had it worked?

The obvious answer, of course, was that Isidor was, indeed, in Gacha Love, but where? When? Pandy certainly didn’t have perfect recall, but in a sea of complexions ranging from golden tan – Dorian – to lily white – pretty much any female – Isidor’s deep brown skin definitely would have stood out. In the end, it probably didn’t really matter, but Pandy knew it was going to bother her nonetheless.

Isidor stared up into the bright green canopy of the tree, then down at the softened earth beneath his feet. “What just happened?” he demanded, as if she could tell him. Well, all right, she could, but she had no intention of wasting her last five minutes as a human just so she could try to explain something that wouldn’t even make sense to him.

Hopping back to the edge of the pond, Pandy stood on her hind legs, peering up over the tall grass. She fully intended to call everyone back in, but they were already there. Not close enough to be the reason Verdant Surge had worked – at least, she didn’t think so – but certainly not in their assigned places.

Thaniel was grinning so broadly that even his dimples couldn’t keep up, and had simply become deep creases in his cheeks. “That was amazing, Bunny!” He held out his arms. “Can you jump to me?”

He had been the farthest away, and while the others were already rounding the edges of the small pond, Thaniel was still on the other side. That was all right, though, because Pandy had twenty levels in Hop, and she wasn’t afraid to use them. Not very afraid, anyway.

Hop successful. One hundred eighty-five uses remain before next level.

Pandy hurtled through the air, and for a terrible moment, as she seemed to hang above the muddy but glistening water, she honestly thought she wasn’t going to make it. Yes, the pond was small, but only in relative terms. It was at least fifteen feet across, and given that Brook could vanish completely beneath the surface, it had to be at least three feet deep in the center. It was going to be very embarrassing if she did a belly flop into the muck, or, worse, found out that undead rabbits couldn’t swim.

But she landed safely in Thaniel’s arms, even if he had to reach out slightly to catch her. She felt his heart pound beneath her as he cuddled her against his chest, and realized that he had been worried as well. Either that, or he’d really enjoyed watching a flying rabbit. Which reminded her…

Wings of Glory successful. One use remains before next level.

-20 LF

Her back burned, and Pandy abruptly remembered two things. First, Wings of Glory should have been called Wings of Gory, because it hurt. A lot. Second, she didn’t have the beautiful, feathery angel wings Clara did. No, Pandy got leathery white bat wings, which probably weren’t exactly going to be reassuring to anyone who still had suspicions that Pandy might be just a tiny bit demonic.

It was too late, though, and her wings snapped out as Pandy launched herself into the air. That air chilled the blood she could feel soaking her back, but also felt amazing as it wound through her fur and whipped back her whiskers. She sneezed once, then again, and her wings flapped, lifting her higher, before spreading wide so she could glide gently downward in a slow circle above the pond.

Five small faces stared up at her, slack-jawed in amazement. Miss Cupcakes and Lord Winston seemed equally astonished, though the cat quickly recovered and sat, lifting a forepaw to lick and then smooth over her own whiskers. Tempest must be back in Isidor’s pocket, because Pandy didn’t see the tortoise, but Brook was still lying by Abbington’s feet. The capybara opened one eye lazily, flicked an ear, then closed her eye again, clearly unconcerned.

The first time Pandy used Wings of Glory, she’d been plummeting toward certain death, if not for herself, then for the kitten she was attempting to rescue. She’d also been in a shocking amount of agony, most of which had apparently come from the claws of her ungrateful rescuee. This time, once the initial damage was done, there really wasn’t much pain, and so Pandy was able to properly enjoy the freedom of flight. At least, she did until a Very Large Bird, possibly, ironically, a condor, dove screaming from the sky overhead, talons extended and beak wide.

Pandy did the only thing she could, diving straight down, and plunged into the center of the pond.