Chapter 22: Jackalope Season

The next morning when Melissa woke up and he explained, she gave him a long, long look. Eventually she giggled. "Your life is getting so weird, bro. I honestly can't tell if you're messing with me or not."

"I'm serious. Jackalopes."

"Oh no! Brother, will you be able to endure the terrible trial of the widdle fluffy wuffykins?"

With annoyance that was only partially feigned, Rick picked up his jacket and showed her the rip. "They're seriously weapons. This jacket has been through so much, but now those little monsters wrecked the sleeve."

Melissa clapped her hands to her cheeks. "Zounds! What ferocity!"

"Your tone is really shifting all over the place here."

"Take heart, oh brave slayer of tiny furry animals! Fear not!" Melissa abruptly shifted to just smiling at him. "But seriously, bro, be careful. If it's not too much trouble, can you bring me back one? I'm honestly curious to see what one of them looks like."

"I mean, it's going to look like an evil rabbit with horns. What are you going to do, stuff and mount it?"

"Of course! Then I can stroke it obsessively while rambling about the voices." Melissa finished her cereal, then looked at her phone and winced. "Oh, dang, I'm actually going to be late for my shift if I don't hurry, like right now."

"Yes, let nothing keep you from your invaluable work of making fists more cosmic."

"Haha. Sorry for leaving my dishes out but I've really gotta run!" Melissa grabbed her jacket on the way out, shot him another smile, and slammed the door as she left.

Alone again, Rick got up slowly and stretched. He picked up her bowl and spoon without thinking about it and rinsed them off before setting them beside the sink. Ideally he wanted to take on the problem as soon as possible, but it was early and he didn't know if Emily had work.

A moment later he realized that of course he knew: Emily probably kept normal working hours and it was Saturday. It was still a bit early, so it would be rude to call. Instead he went through his usual exercises and meditation. His arm no longer stung, but he examined it carefully to try to determine if it needed any care.

Most likely, even if Emily was willing to help him, he wasn't going to get out of this without some injuries. Usually Rick's health was great, but he found himself wondering if he should get some antibiotics to be safe. His cores gave him some resistance to infection, though lucrim-using animals might prevent that... or would they? He ended up distracting himself trying to find an answer online.

Eventually he decided that it was late enough to call Emily. The phone rang longer than usual and he began to regret bothering her. He'd have hung up if she didn't already know he'd called, which would just make it awkward. Just when he was about to anyway, she picked up. "Yeah?" She sounded a bit sleepy and he winced.

"Sorry, is this too early?"

"I'm fine. What's up?"

Rick took a deep breath. "Okay, so... I'm facing a bit of a challenge and I don't know if it'd be interesting to you or not. Basically, there's an infestation of lucrim-using animals..." He explained the situation with the Peakless Wildlife Refuge briefly, not wanting to waste her time, and then the potential challenge. To his surprise, she cut him off.

"Sure, I'm in. I assume you're wanting to do this soon? Would this afternoon be fine?"

Pulling away from the phone, Rick stared at it for a bit. He had expected this to be way more of a challenge, but he wasn't going to complain. "Uh, yeah. That would be fine."

"Cool. I'll pick you up at 1:00."

With that, Emily hung up, leaving him a bit puzzled. Having her along would definitely make the whole thing less of a foolish risk, he just hadn't expected it to be so easy. For a while he just stood there, then he set about getting ready.

If taking some injuries was a certainty, then he needed to wear something durable but expendable. He considered Granny Whitney's combat suit, but it was his only good combat clothing and he didn't want to get it torn apart. In the end he settled for some old jeans and a couple layers of old shirts. Not exactly fashionable, but hopefully the right choice for the job. After throwing a few more useful things into his backpack, he was mostly ready.

He found himself way more nervous than he should have been, pacing around the small apartment. Going into dangerous situations wasn't new for him, and really, the jackalopes weren't the biggest danger he'd faced - their horns and teeth might be sharp, but they had nothing on the calculated malice of Granny Whitney or the hatred of Mike.

Honestly, he realized that it was because he was going with Emily. She was always so laser focused on everything. When they were both focused on a problem or in the tournament, he felt like they got along well. Once things were more casual, though... he found his thoughts going in other directions.

Even thinking about how attractive she was felt wrong, though, like it might bring her glare down on him. It was probably stupid. She was several years older than him and she had her life way more in order. He'd never seen her lucrima portfolio, but knew that she was worth far more than he was. Maybe it was best to just put those thoughts out of mind and be glad that she was willing to hang out with him at all.

Though he didn't feel like eating, Rick made himself eat a full lunch because he knew he'd need energy for the day. After that he sat around awkwardly until he decided to just do his meditation cycle again. That managed to last him until he heard a car horn from outside.

1:00 exactly. Rick didn't doubt who it was for a second, just grabbed his things and headed out the door.

Though he hadn't expected Emily to drive a pink sports car or anything, he definitely hadn't expected the little compact car waiting in the parking lot. He hopped over the edge and examined it as he got closer, looking for some kind of special modifications. Nope, it seemed like a normal lucrim car.

"Get in." Emily leaned over to push the door open and jerked her head at him. "I assume you're ready to go?"

"Uh, yeah." Rick ducked inside, glad that the ceiling was high enough that he didn't have to crouch. He wasn't sure exactly what to say, but Emily wasn't staring at him anymore, instead looking forward.

She tapped the ignition and the car immediately hummed to life. It stayed on the ground until they got out into the street, then lifted into the air. Not far, but enough to be in the conventional flying lane. As they accelerated north, he was surprised at the speed.

"This is going to be a lot faster than usual... is this car something special?"

"More like the right mundane balance," Emily said. "It's cheap but decent quality. Gets excellent lucrim mileage. Easy to get repaired. It's a good choice if you don't care much about cars. Plus I have an acquaintance who owns a dealership and gave me a good price."

An acquaintance? He thought that was the first time Emily had ever spoken about a relationship, but she just had her hands on the steering wheel, looking forward. Maybe that was just her resting expression, or maybe she was a bit hostile, it was hard to tell. Rick settled for a safe response. "I'm using a bike these days, trying to train my aura endurance."

"Oh yeah?" Emily did glance over at him at that, potential hostility changing to interest. "I have a coworker who's a really obsessive biker and won't shut up about the lucrim benefits."

"Well, heh, I don't know enough to never shut up about it, so don't worry about that."

"I think he's probably right, I just don't feel like I have the time for it. We already work long hours, and when you add training and normal stuff on top of it... it's just a lot. I don't want to take on a time-consuming hobby."

"I know the feeling." Rick stared out the window on his side, starting to feel a bit less tense. "It's a bit difficult to keep up with everything I need to do, so I'm really grateful you agreed to come along. This would be dangerous without you."

To his surprise, Emily didn't answer at first. Were her fingers tight on the steering wheel? But after a moment she glanced in his direction and gave a quick smile. "I'm happy to help and I don't even consider it doing you a favor. There aren't that many chances to experience life and death situations in the modern world, so this could be interesting."

"Well, I hope we won't be risking death, but those little things definitely go for the throat." That made Rick think about the encounter with the hitman and Emily's hidden technique that she worked so hard to keep secret. He wondered about why exactly she was training for real combat, yet felt certain that asking would be a mistake.

Instead he told her about meeting Blue the bear, a name he only then realized sounded a bit silly. Emily seemed to find the story interesting, though, and that led the conversation in an easy direction. They chatted about various things until they eventually got close to their destination.

Once they went off-road, a task made easy by the flying vehicle, Rick had to pay more attention and direct them toward the hills. When he eventually spotted the location, they landed at a safe distance. Once he was out, Emily retracted the entire lucrim vehicle into her car keys and hopped to her feet in the same motion, not even opening her door. Nice trick.

"Okay, do we have a game plan?"

When Emily looked to him, Rick blinked in surprise. Somehow he'd expected her to take the lead, but he supposed that it was his job. Literally his job. Fortunately, he'd been thinking about the problems. "Last time, the jackalopes attacked when we got close. I was thinking we should start by doing the same, to let us get used to their attacks."

"Makes sense. But the region where the lucrim anomaly might be is too big to draw them all out, right?"

"Yeah, probably. I considered going around the edges to draw as many as possible, but I'm not sure if that would be worth our time. We're going to need to head in eventually and feel our way to the anomaly."

"Seems reasonable. Let's go."

Emily followed close behind him as they approached the hills, her hands tucked in the pockets of her hoodie. Once they got close, however, she pulled down her hood and kept her hands loose at her sides. He saw no hint of her aura blade, but sensed that she was ready to use it at a moment's notice.

They walked near the edge of the grasses before Rick stopped them. His eyes tracked over the hills, looking for some sign of jackalopes. For a moment he thought he saw a rustle in the grass, but it was simply the wind blowing in an odd pattern. As the silence stretched on, Rick awkwardly glanced over to Emily.

"Uh... this was actually just a pretense to get you to try my multilevel marketing program..."

"Relax, Rick. I know they won't necessarily appear immediately."

"They did last time." Rick stepped back and scratched his neck. "We could enter, I'm just conc-"

"Heads up!"

He jerked his attention back to the ground just in time to see a brown blur rushing toward him. Before he could react, Emily intercepted it with an aura blade. Two halves of the jackalope tumbled to the ground and its blood splattered over Rick's body.

There was no time to get distracted, because there were at least two more emerging from the grass. By chance or more intelligence than he expected from rabbits, they were closing on Emily in a pincer movement. He assumed that she could take the one on her right, since that was her sword hand, and rushed in to attack the other as it jumped.

His fist easily struck the side of the jackalope and he felt a fatal crunch as it fell away. As expected, Emily had skewered the other one running at her. Yet in the moment his attention was drawn away, yet another leapt from the grass, again for his throat.

Rick tried to punch it head on, yet to his surprise the jackalope lowered its head. One of the tines grazed his hand, opening a painful gash. He pushed through the pain and slammed his elbow into the side of the creature's head before it could reach him. That one went flying as well, but it hadn't even hit the ground when he saw the grasses shake violently and a number of jackalopes rush at him.

There was no time to count, he just had to strategize and act instantly. Part of him wanted to Bunyan's Step away, but he wasn't sure of Emily's position and didn't want to leave her back undefended if she had her own problems. So instead he took them head on.

Two of the jackalopes leapt at him, heads lowered, but this time he wasn't stupid enough to punch into their horns. Instead he just kept his hands open and grabbed the horns out of the air. A third had somehow gotten on his flank and leapt straight at his head, but he barely managed to use the jackalope in his right hand as a melee weapon, smacking it out of the air.

Too late he realized that he didn't have them all accounted for: there was yet another rushing in low, aiming to spear his leg. He tried to kick at it, yet it dodged to the side with surprising agility. Rick immediately tried to line up another attack, but at that moment the jackalope in his left hand managed to twist enough to bite him. The bite didn't draw blood, but it hurt enough to distract him for the critical second.

Just before the jackalope impaled his leg, Emily swept in from the side, cutting it in half. Her other hand came up as well, surrounded in a second aura blade. In a brutal sweep, she cut apart the ones in his hands, leaving him even more blood-spattered.

He nodded to her and dropped the remains, keeping his guard up, but it was almost over. There was one more jackalope attacking, having gotten around behind them, but Emily cut it down effortlessly. Meanwhile, he found one that was still injured and stomped it.

"Thanks for saving me back there." He leaned forward on his knees for a bit, though that made his hand twinge, so he had to start bandaging it instead.

"Don't worry about it. That's just how this will go." Emily tucked her hair back behind her ear as she usually wore it. Her gaze on him was a bit odd, matched with an expression he couldn't interpret. "Uh, sorry for getting you so bloody."

"Oh, that's right." Rick had been too focused on the fight to think about it, but he had a lot of jackalope blood covering him. He wiped some of the nastier parts off, but it was mostly a futile effort. "Sorry, but I'm sure I'm going to be even bloodier by the end. Hopefully not with my own blood."

"Nah, you're rocking the look." He had no idea if the slight smile on her face was mocking him or not.

Once his hand was bound, Rick took a timeout to gather himself. His defensive core wasn't in bad shape, it just wasn't strong enough to stop the piercing horns. Still, he was sure he could improve it over time, and even now he had a few simple ideas. After he did that, he looked over the bloody field and shook his head at the jackalope bodies.

"You said you wanted to collect these?" Emily had her arms folded, looking over the scene as well. "Did they give some kind of artifact to absorb their lucrim?"

"Uh, no. I had in mind something a lot more mundane." Rick tugged off his backpack and pulled out his secret weapon: a bundle of black garbage bags and some canvas. "It's going to be nasty, but..."

Just rolling her eyes, Emily helped him pick up the bodies and dump them into the sack. She held them carefully with two fingers, getting blood on herself for the first time - somehow she'd gotten through the previous fight completely untouched. She didn't complain, though.

It was unpleasant work, so Rick distracted himself by thinking that this must be what game characters would actually be like, without magical inventories. He hoped that the corpses would ward off other jackalopes, but he had a feeling that they would throw themselves into a homicidal rage no matter what. This was one form of wildlife he had absolutely zero sympathy for.

When they were done, he stood up and wiped his hands off on his shirt, since it was going to be ruined anyway. "Okay, I need to do the surveying technique, then we can advance further in."

"I'll stand guard until then." Emily put herself in between him and the tall grass, but kept glancing back. He realized that she was considering the surveying technique that she'd helped enhance, but decided to focus on doing it quickly for now. They could talk once they were safe.

They advanced inward carefully, getting out of the tall grass as soon as they reached an incline. Several more jackalopes tried to attack them by leaping from a nearby mound, but Emily noticed them early. With forewarning, they easily took the creatures out before they could take any further injuries.

Unfortunately, when he repeated the survey technique on top of the hill, it suggested that they needed to head deeper into a tangled area. When given the news, Emily just nodded and they advanced inward. For a while there was only the sound of the wind and their legs passing through the tall grass.

Rick realized that he shouldn't have been surprised - realistically, there couldn't be enough jackalopes to attack them every few steps or they'd have overrun the entire region. Still, he found his tension increasing the further they went without any attack. The jackalopes didn't seem to have anything more than animal intelligence, but he didn't want to underestimate how smart animals could be.

"I think we're getting closer." Rick checked the aura between his hands again, debating whether or not it would be safe to walk with it constantly instead of just checking from time to time. "That way, I think."

"Can you just keep that on and home in on the anomaly?"

"I was just debating that, actually."

Emily shrugged. "Go ahead. I can cover you."

Trusting that she could back up her words, Rick did as she asked. That did allow them to target the anomaly more quickly, especially since he came to realize that the lucrim flow warped strangely within the hills. Twice they were attacked by a single jackalope that Emily effortlessly cut apart and then dumped into one of the garbage bags.

She had a frown on her face that was increasing, distracting Rick from his work. Afraid that she might be getting bored, he decided to speak up. "Do you think it would be possible to kill one without damaging it? My sister joked about stuffing one and it might be funny to actually do it."

"Possibly. If they attack in isolation, it shouldn't be too difficult." Emily kept frowning, however.

Not long after, another jackalope leapt at them. This time Emily dissipated one of her aura blades, instead catching the jackalope by its horn with surprising grace. She swung it around several times, disorienting it, then stabbed it. Not with her full aura blade, but with a single finger extended, a needle thin spike of aura going into the creature's head. It went limp without any visible sign of injury.

"That was damn impressive." Rick glanced toward Emily, but she was frowning more severely than before. "Is everything ok-"

Without warning she dropped to one knee and let out out a hiss. "Shit. They're smart enough to ambush. Get ready."

Around them, the grass began to tremble.