Bunnygirls 2

by Simon Archer

  Finally, we’d found her.

  The inside of the dome, the Grand Temple’s Inner Sanctum, was even more immaculate than the outside, the brassy gold gilding of the inside of the roof glittering like sunlight and rising like the roof of a great cathedral. Where the cheat bronze of the gilding wasn’t exposed, beautiful painted colors accentuated the details of every figure and detail.

  The artwork here was far more elaborate, too, and the focus was far different from the depiction of history. Everything was designed to draw attention to a single object of reverence, a beautiful bunny woman in a flowing dress. Etching that looked like a cloudless night sky covered the dress, but the trim had floral and leafy patterns to it all. With her arms stretched out, she was the focus of the picture at the top of the ceiling, encircled by bunny worshipers in fine clothing. A legion of bunnies and hares surrounded these bunny priestesses, bowing before the circle of bunnies and their idol, this obvious goddess amongst the ancient religion.

  This artwork swirled down to the edges, encompassing this room in artwork and spilling across the floor, draining to the base of the center structure. Though it was hard to tell exactly what the rest of the artwork was supposed to be, as strange copper wiring mostly covered it, twirling around six massive angled cones of rock that flecked away to a bare crystal underneath at the tip. Stylish Cuniculus runes ran up and down the crystals as they pointed upward from the floor to the center space of the Sanctum, a staggering forty feet above us. The wires curled off the tips of the crystals, suspending a cage-like and rhombus-shaped device above the ornate altar. The altar consisted of a sequence of raised platforms like a circular staircase, ending at the smallest platform with a cylindrical block. Laced into the sides of the cylinder were strips of brassy colors etched in runes that rose to the top of it.

  Inside the strange cage was the bunny we’d spent so long searching for, her arms and legs restrained by more of the wiring as they adhered to the sides of her prison. She wasn’t unlike the goddess at the top of the altar in terms of beauty and graceful appearance, even in her dreadful state. However, while the artist had depicted the goddess with fiercely white hair flaring out like a fan above her head, hers instead hung down to her shins in long ropes of scarlet red. She had a pink button nose underneath all that hair, distinct from the swirls of light and dark brown that made up her fur, like a stirring of a perfect latte pour. Grey soot and dirt scuffed her dress, long and flowing with wide sleeves, though it was obviously white as starlight before, and it clung to her shape like someone had sewn it around her instead put it on. The dress, tattered with neglect and abuse, left gainful insight into her rather slender frame, not boastful in any area, but not without a distinct figure to her hips and chest. I wanted to free her from her imprisonment the moment I stepped into that dome.

  But I was stopped by the sight of the most ostentatiously garbed group of Wolves I’d ever seen, and I knew I had a fight on my hands.

  26

  A powerful-looking noble in an extravagant coat stood at the top of the altar by the cage, attended by three other Wolf knights, adorned in equally gaudy armor. Though each armor, and each Wolf in it, was colored and shaped differently than the others, they were all stylized similarly to how Wildheart’s armor had been. If the match wasn’t a coincidence, then these knights were champion challengers just like him, and the noble leading them was Regent Silverfang himself. I didn’t expect him to be here, but it saved me a couple of months of hurried looking before the Blood Moon. He must have been inside the temple for a while now.

  In the sky blue armor was the spindly skinny Wolf with black fur speckled with dark grey flecks like fiery spikes. He rose taller than the lot of them, but his chest didn’t contribute as much as his stretched legs did, matching the lanky arms that hung like jungle vines from his shoulders as he slouched, moving fairly slowly compared to the others.

  The green armor belonged to a short, brown-furred Wolf who wore a humming metal backpack attachment with a thick tube linked from the side of it to one of his forearms. Instead of the classic five digits attached to a palm that swiveled on a wrist that most Wolves had, a minigun attachment of six musket barrels that appeared to be able to rotate at the elbow replaced his arm. He was the only one with a helmet that covered his entire head and a plated tail that left no hair exposed to the elements.

  Filled out with a mixture of muscles and fat that removed any definition or floppiness from either, the last Wolf in the orange breastplate only crouched along the ground on all fours as it slithered about like a heavyset Komodo dragon. Thin black spikes growing out of the sparse fur on his head curled back in three rows like mohawks of spikes, and leathery scales covered his stocky tail, just like his dragon-like maw.

  Gold splattered the red and purple of the coat of the noble as if it were artistic spew, and the Wolf was slicked down as if with artistic grease. The Wolf was messing with something at the cage, posing as if he was being photographed as a magazine model, even though he was in the middle of doing something completely mundane. He had silver fur from snout to tail but had more on the top of his head than everywhere else, which was pulled into a low ponytail that draped down his back.

  “It’s about time someone reported in!” The noble didn’t bother to acknowledge us directly by facing us but chose to finish up whatever he was doing. “The noise outside had become insufferable, and I will not tolerate it a moment longer!” He turned away from his previous work to address me, surprised by my appearance. “Why did they send three slaves when one soldier would have sufficed and been far preferable? When I’m done whipping you for your arrogance, you will tell your overwatchers to come to see me so they may be whipped as well. And you’ll get an extra whipping after that for your attire. What are those gauche dressings you’re wearing?”

  If he was going to spend his time gawking, I was going to spend my time strategizing. If these guys were like Wildheart, that meant that they all had strange powers like his. Two of them were obvious, the orange one being lizardy and the green one having that gun for an arm. The sky blue one had to have some sort of crazy ability, but those elongated limbs had me stumped as to what area it could have been. Maybe he grew in size, or he had some sort of psychic connection to balance out the lost muscle. That last one seemed unlikely since, so far, the other powers had been physical mutations of their bodies, like the old Baron’s massive size, Timberpine’s ability to channel charms through his body, Wildheart’s deadman monster, and Wallace’s previous inflatable muscles. Anything was possible with these mutations, but their physical features still may have provided some sort of clue as to what they were and how to counter them. While I was theorizing, I was also looking at the shape of the room and planning some possible trajectories for my shots. In an enclosed room like this, I had more bounce to work with.

  “What nonsense this is,” the green knight spoke in a Russian accent, threateningly spinning the turret on his arm as he did so, “They make a mockery of your majesty, Lord Regent. Do you want me to liquify one of them as an example?”

  Good to know, the gun shoots out something that melts things, including living tissue. Had to avoid that at all costs, and he’d have been shooting it like T-shirts at a pep rally. Was there a way to jam it, somehow? Maybe keep it from spinning, ruin one of the barrels so it couldn’t fire properly. We’d have had to see. I really hoped it wasn’t some kind of skin ooze he collected with the backpack and shot with the gun. That’d have explained the full suit.

  “Is that protection?” The sky blue champion puzzled with his graveside gasp of a voice, “Who made that for you? Did they take that precaution after I poked a little hole in that other slave? It’s cute that you think it’ll help.” He held up a hand, extending the fingers upward like a flat spearhead. “It won’t. You won’t get far enough away from my reach in here for it to matter, anyway.”

  Sky blue Stabby had sharp hands. Weird power. Was he fast, too? He certainly seemed much lighter than the others. I’d
have thought he would have said something about speed, then, like ‘you’re not fast enough’ or ‘there’s nowhere you can run,’ but he talked about reach. Was he stretchy, like an organic rubber snake person?

  “Hey, boss, something ain’t right.” The apparent meat-grinder in the orange knight’s throat matched his pig-like sniffs in the air. “Two of those slaves smell like some pretty strong mana, and the third doesn’t smell right at all. I think they’re bunnies!”

  Orange could smell mana and probably had other beast-like powers along with it, like increased strength for a Wolf and agility. Plus, that mouth didn’t look too promising. We weren’t worried about being tracked with his enhanced nose, but it’d help him when his eyes failed, making blinding him harder.

  “What?” the noble shouted in disgust as well as surprise, “I ordered all of them transferred to the Citadel of Purity, especially the ones in the Mana Crusher! Where could these bunnies have come from, and why are they here?”

  There’s the confirmation that he was the Regent, the asshat I’d spent so much time working against. What a priss.

  “And what in Wraithmane’s glorious name is with the noise outside?” The Regent fumed at the muted screams outside, “Don’t tell me that Chompfist came to attack us while we were preparing our forces for an invasion. I swear, you let a champion take over one city, and they think they own the world. Well? Answer me, slaves, before I begin with the whipping!” His emotional gears shifted with the squinting of his eyes as he looked at me closely, seeking a discovery. “Wait a minute…”

  “Hey, look at that distraction over there!” I fired a round from the pistol, cutting through four of the six tethers holding the cage up as it bounced between the crystal stalagmites and walls before it landed in the back of the Regent’s leg. When would one of these Wolves attack me on sight, already? Maybe one day. The silver-furred noble fell down to one knee milliseconds before the cage swung down and conked him in the head, sending him tumbling down the altar steps. Without the other straps, it tangled off to the side and hung between two crystal spires.

  “Capture them!” Silverfang called out to his three champions, springing them into action, sprinting towards the three of us while we picked our opponents. “Find out what they know, then kill them!”

  The orange knight roared as he crawled towards Tinker, his body lengthening as he moved about. His legs shifted to the side of him as his body became more of a crocodile column. His jaw grew in size with the rest of him as it opened up to reveal three rows of teeth, one like a shark’s and another like an alligator’s surrounding the canine teeth. Now more reptile than mammal, the Champiodile’s demon maw snapped at her like chattering teeth before Tinker gave him the fire megahammer special, forcing him off to the side as he flipped, landing on all four feet and charging again.

  At the same time, Hopper jumped off to the side, running along the side of the dome with her lightning speed and moving about with portals to get to the cage while the Regent was distracted. The sky blue champion’s arms followed her, magically stretching all the way to the ceiling to meet Hopper, where she stepped and preventing her from ever getting close to the altar or the bunny trapped by it. Wherever his hands attempted to stab the speedy girl on the ceiling, a chunk of the metal and artwork in the shape of his spear-like strikes. They shot out as quickly as bullets, rapidly firing into the roof in an arch as Hopper sped around it.

  “Stay still, you little rodent!” The Sky Stretcher grew frustrated as he muttered to himself in his gasping tone. “How are you so fast?”

  I was also experiencing some rapid-fire of my own from the green gunner as he shot out globs of glowing mucus from his rotating arm turret. Running to the side, I witnessed the globs hitting the back wall eating away at the material they glommed onto, slowly turning a chunk of the metal and stone into a chemical vapor. I shot him six times with the pistol, the bullets ricocheting off his armor without leaving a dent.

  “Tinker, switch to ice,” I told her, stepping out of the way of a booger blast as I shot more icy pistol rounds at him. “It’ll work better on him than most.”

  “Ha! Weak, little hare,” the snot champion taunted me as he kept up his onslaught, “Focus on the enemy in front of you instead of a pathetic bunny who can’t fight. Or maybe you wish to distract yourself from impending failure? My armor is thicker and stronger than all others to contain my powerful sludge, which burns through anything, even you when I hit you. I have perfect defense and perfect attack. Why don’t you run back to whoever sent you and tell him we are insulted that he sends vermin to do Wolf’s job? He should be ashamed to even let such little pest hold musket at all, even if it is beanshooter.”

  “Well, it’s your perfect defense, yes,” I said, firing off a few more rounds that bounced off him. “But is it theirs?”

  At that same moment, the final loose cable had snapped from the cage, dropping it on top of the Regent as he attempted to get back up from his embarrassing wound of first blood. He fell flat again, crushed by the weight of the cage.

  Green Gooper stopped firing and looked to his side, seeing one of his friends had both fallen to the ground as he failed to clutch the bullet wounds on his legs in his new form, though the fall wasn’t far for Champiodile. The breastplate only covered one small part of his body, and even then didn’t protect much. Although the scales were tougher than I expected, the cold got to them first and left clouds around him to slow the beast down even further.

  Tinker had cracked her hammer down on his head, knocking that thing flat before it could step back up. When she lifted the hammer back up, the creature’s head was still intact, though it had begun to retreat back to its regular size and shape along with everything else of his, and he was out cold. Stout one, that Champiodile, but not stout enough to stay in the fight.

  To the Booger Blaster’s other side, Sky Stretcher was holding the back of his head with one arm, the other having slumped to the ground like a long rope as it retracted back to regular size. While the arm could stretch out to crazy lengths, the armor didn’t, leaving much of it exposed while it was out trying to stab Hopper, and I aimed for those moments specifically.

  Hopper saw the opportunity right as I gave it, launching herself through portals to close the distance between them quickly to crack her foot against the back of her nemesis. The armor caved in with a massive indentation before the rest of the Wolf carried off with her, crashing into the wall beside them. Now that armor was, in fact, flatter than a pancake on that one spot, but the Stretcher was still alive, and I saw no blood spilling out of the cracks between the plates. He must have been a lot stretchier than I thought.

  “Is this what bullets feel like?” Elastic Elite breathed out in a more whispery voice than usual with no air to use, “I’ve been able to rebound any musket round I’ve been shot with. They hurt so much.” So he was really stretchy all over the place. That was good to know when we needed to kill him in a minute.

  “You tricky vermin!” Green Gooper pointed his gun at where I was, finding that I’d already reached the steps of the altar platforms while he was worried about his friends. “Coward! Face me like warrior!”

  Tinker slammed the Gooper’s side with her hammer, sending him flying over to where Hopper had placed a portal. The other end of the portal was close to forty feet above us, pointed straight down as the tin-can champion flew through it, hurtling towards the ground like a meteor and cracking the stone as he landed. Even still, he managed to get himself up from the fall to shoot globs at my girls. As much as I wanted to help, I had a bunny to save.

  The Regent had finally moved the cage off his back, attempting to rise back up to a knee, at least. Without giving him a word or chance, I shot both the pistol and the shotgun at him to keep him on the floor. He was getting no chances to do anything crazy, and the ice would have kept him steady if I just kept it as thick as possible. I only needed a few moments to get the bunny out of here.

  Between two of those moments, the Reg
ent had somehow slipped around the blast and grabbed my throat, and he suspended me in the air before I had registered the sensation. My muscles suddenly prickled with unnatural fatigue, as if the fibers were quitting one by one upon the interim king’s touch.

  Looking with only my eyes at my girls, I saw that they were handling the Gooper quite expertly, but the other two were being roused from their concussions and other injuries.

  The Sky Stretcher slipped out of his own chest piece, leaving it behind like a manta ray, then refilling himself back to normal.

  Champiodile shook the ice off its head, returning to its primal form and snapping wildly again. They weren’t playing around as champion challengers, turning the mismatched tag-team battle on its head, and I was hanging helplessly like a limp noodle.

  “So my herald was right after all,” Silverfang snarled, “a Hunter has appeared amongst the Rabbits after all these millennia. That’s the only way you could have gotten here without dying a painful death. You are a hefty hare, aren’t you? What did your old master feed you before you rebelled against him?”

  He assumed I was a hare, too. Did he not know about humans? If that were true, he wouldn’t know how to make more werewolves and feed them bunnies to become Wolf soldiers. The ‘where do Wolves come from’ evil plan was racking up major points. Pity, I had a question I was going to ask him, but he probably didn’t even know now. Maybe I could have jogged his memory if I interrogated him. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. I was being drained dry like a raisin, suffocating, and running low on time. Not for long.