Hero Super

Calvin stared at the giant rabbit for a second before looking back at Helena with a flat denial, “No.”

“Please?” She pouted and clapped her hands together cutely.

“No, I’m busy—,” he glanced to his back, humming in surprise after seeing no sign of any of the hundreds of fur balls chasing him earlier, “—where did they go?”

“They scattered as soon as this guy appeared,” Helena answered him, grinning and casually pointing to the big rabbit glaring daggers towards the two of them. “I think it scared them.”

He gulped, feeling shivers from the glowing red eyes still in his peripheral vision, “Can’t you just smack it with your giant spiky ball?”

“I don’t have it—”, the giant demon rabbit roared like a proper kaiju, cutting her off.

The two readied a stance, lowering their bodies and preparing to dodge whatever attack the rabbit would send their way. An instant after it finished roaring, the rabbit lifted its paw and swiped at them.

Calvin and Helena dodged easily enough, backing off and away from the rabbit’s range.

“How the fuck are we supposed to fight that?!” Calvin shouted.

“No idea!” Helena replied. “Just do whatever!”

“That's not a plan!”

Helena laughed, summoning her stick and twirling it once before tapping it against a piece of tree trunk that broke off from the rabbit’s swipe.

The wood shot out at blinding speed, hurtling towards the rabbit's face and hitting it with a loud crack.

“Take that!” She shouted, sending another trunk to its face.

The rabbit roared, obviously annoyed. It hopped in the air, attempting to stomp on the two attacking it.

Calvin grabbed Helena’s collar and pulled her back with him, utilizing [Jumper] to get out of dodge fast enough. The rabbit landed with a heavy thud, cracking the ground beneath it with its weight.

“Think you can send a boulder at it?” Calvin asked, kicking the large rock embedded in the ground in front of them.

She shook her head lightly, “Can’t. Attached to the ground. I’m the one that’ll fly off.”

“How about you send it flying instead?”

“Can’t. Too big. Same result.”

“Damn,” He looked around, trying to find one that was loose. “It’s shrugging off logs and shit.”

“Tough rabbit,” She grunted.

The rabbit turned towards them, roaring and opening its mouth. A gurgle came out from within its gaping maw, sending a shiver up Calvin's spine from the last time he heard that noise.

“It’s gonna breathe fire!” Calvin shouted, already running to the side, only to be stopped by a grip on his arm. “What are you doing?! Let go!”

“Just hold on!” Helena grinned and gripped her double-hooked staff tightly, twirling it around once before hitting him up the butt.

“Holy shiiii—” Calvin gasped as they flew in the air, barely evading the wave of acid suddenly spewing out of the rabbit’s mouth.

He looked down, gasping as the entire ground ten meters around where they stood before was covered with the toxic and probably bone-melting green fluid the demon rabbit vomited.

“What the fuck?! Acid?”

“Haha!” Helena cackled. “Help me land!”

“What do you mean help you land?!”

“I haven’t figured out a way to land yet!”

“You dumbass—”

Calvin summoned a pebble at the peak of their ascent, hanging off of it with one arm while holding onto the amazoness with the other. He looked down, realizing they were at least five stories above ground. A groan escaped his lips as a nauseous feeling introduced itself in his stomach, hanging off a single pebble at the height they were at was phobia-inducing, super or not.

His eyes traveled to the rabbit, its glowing red orbs glued onto the two of them as it started to crouch down and tense its legs.

“That was close!” Helena let out a sigh.

“It’s not over yet,” Calvin said, thinking of a way out. He summoned a couple of pebbles under his feet before pulling her closer. “Hold on.”

“Don’t mind if I do!” She shouted right by his ear.

Without hesitation, Helena wrapped her arms and legs around him, gluing herself to his side like a koala. Calvin bent his legs like the rabbit did and pulled lightly on [Jumper], letting out a grunt as he kicked and used the power to propel himself to the side and away from the rabbit’s path.

“It’s coming!” Helena warned as they were in mid-air.

“No shit!” Calvin shouted.

A piercing cry rang from behind them and shook their ears, making both their faces wince from the volume. Calvin pivoted in midair to take a look and catch a glimpse of the rabbit stopped in midair, exactly where he left his pebbles at, before falling back down with earth-shaking force.

“It didn’t phase through?” Calvin’s eyes widened as he summoned a couple of pebbles as footholds.

Helena turned to him and asked, “Should it have?”

“It did the last time it hit my pebbles. It seems weaker than last time too, and it breathed acid, not fire... probably a different rabbit,” He muttered before turning his attention back to their predicament. “We still need to land. I can’t keep summoning pebbles.”

The koala-slash-girl nodded and looked down, eyes narrowing as cogs started clanging in her head, “That fur looks kinda soft.”

“It probably is,” Calvin answered in agreement.

She smirked, looking towards him with grinning eyes, “I have an idea.”

“What’s your idea—”, Calvin realized what she wanted to do, “—no.”

“Just trust me.”

“Not after last time.”

“Too late!”

Calvin felt her hooked staff hit his butt before her power started activating and an immense force started pushing his behind, propelling the two of them towards the giant rabbit’s fluffy backside. The two screamed on their way down, although with two wildly differing emotions.

Luckily, the rabbit was properly fluffy and the two landed on its back, scratch-less and bruise-less.

“That was fun!” Helena cackled. “And it’s really soft too!”

“Ugh,” Calvin pried her off of him like a used bandage. “Did you have to hit me on the ass?”

“Did you have to have such a hittable ass,” She shot back with a look, grinning as he ignored her.

Calvin turned to the back of the rabbit’s head, waiting for it to move and shrug off the potential concussion it gave itself. He kneeled down and held onto the fur, turning to Helena with a question, “Where’s your ball?”

“My pocket,” she answered, a hint of sadness in her voice. “If I knew this was going to happen…”

“Damn,” He muttered, making a mental note of her words. 'So the stick is her power, not the ball.’

“How do we beat this thing?” She asked, crossing her arms as she stared at the back of the rabbit’s head. “Is it even awake?”

“I think it might have knocked itself out?” Calvin said while trying to see if he jinxed it.

“Oh, good, let’s kill it.”

“Kill? It slammed against my pebbles at the speed of a truck and all that did was knock it out.” He said, sitting down to catch his breath. “I don’t think we can kill it.”

“Maybe we can gouge its eyes out and let it bleed out?”

Calvin stared at her for a moment, “You’re a little sick, you know that?”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a rabbit.”

“An acid-spewing, tree-crushing, and man-eating devil rabbit.”

“Man-eating? Where’d you get man-eating?” Calvin asked, looking back at the rabbit.

She shrugged, “I don’t know. It looked like it eats people.”

“I mean it does, but that’s true with a lot of people too,” He stood up and brushed himself off, “anyway, let’s get that damn cage off its neck before it wakes up.”

The two of them walked towards the back of the rabbit’s head as quietly as they could, being careful and softening their steps just in case the monster woke up. Thankfully, a weirdly cartoonish snoring coming from its mouth clued the two of them that the thing wasn’t going to be conscious any time soon.

They reached the collar, which was literally just a couple of meters away from where they landed and started looking all over to find a way to get it off. From what they could see, it was made of the same sticks and twine as the cage Calvin saw from earlier, with no other apparent feature like a latch, a lock, or a belt to release it from the creature’s neck.

“I don’t think we can break it,” Helena whispered as the two grouped up again.

“What do you mean? It looks like it's made of sticks and vines.”

“You think it would’ve held on if it really was?”

“Is it not?” Calvin poked the collar, feeling the 'realness’ of the sticks.

She smirked, “Go ahead and try, then.”

Feeling annoyed at her mocking smile, he looked down the collar and found a fairly large gap he could squeeze his hands in and rip out a vine. He grabbed it with one hand and pulled. The vine stayed still, with no stretching nor budging, like it was made of steel wires instead of an actual vine.

“Hrng,” He grunted, relaxing his shoulders and grabbing it with both hands this time.

Cracking his neck for coolness points, he used his entire body and started doubling his efforts to tear the vine in half.

Finally, there was some give, a stick broke, and a small tear appeared. But that was it. The collar stayed unbreakable.

“Fuck!” Clavin cursed, punching down on the vine and sticks in anger, the wood letting out a solid thud as the material cracked from his punch.

“Shh!” Helena pulled him closer while covering his mouth with her hand.

The rabbit’s ears twitched and the snoring paused, a tension appeared in the air as they quietly waited for what came next. There was a lingering silence that stabbed against their spines until a faint snoring appeared once, making them let out a sigh of relief.

“That was close. You got anger issues, pebble boy,” She whispered while looking at him with a brow raised. “So?”

“It’s not sticks and vines,” Calvin informed her.

“Pft—” She smacked his head, stifling a laugh. “No shit, guy. That’s what I told you.”

“I had to check,” He muttered, looking away.

“I got an idea,” She smiled widely.

“You’re not hitting me on the ass again.”

Helena chuckled before reaching behind her and taking out an iron spike, “I have this.”

“You just carry around foot-long metal stakes every day?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“One of the spikes on my ball broke off earlier,” she explained.

“Where the fuck was this earlier? Why didn’t you give it then?”

“I forgot.”

“I’m starting to hate you.”

“Bleh,” Helena stuck her tongue out at him and got to work.

While she started working away at the vines, Calvin felt his holowatch vibrate. He opened up the notification, smiling at the message.

Notification!

Received 100 points.

Pre-test Examination III

Objective: Pending

“Took them long enough,” he chuckled, turning his attention back to Helena.

At first, she was slicing at the vines like it was the cheapest steak cooked to charcoal before relentlessly chopping and stabbing like a madman not half a minute later. Slashing and dicing at full force for a couple more minutes, until a satisfying snap finally reached their ears. A single finger-thick vine was sliced off.

“A hundred more to go, keep at it,” Calvin mocked the panting girl.

“Got any better ideas?” She asked, sitting down on a heap of sweat.

“I’m still thinking,” He held a hand up, trying to summon the power of hindsight by imagining himself already having broken the collar. It took a minute of silence before something came to him, “Why don’t we just open the cage?”

Her brows furrowed, “What?”

“Why do we have to break the collar? It’s a rescue, we can’t just drop the thing probably holding the people we’re supposed to rescue six meters from the air.”

“It’s more like three meters but I see what you mean,” She nodded. “So, we go around and open the cage?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Let me catch my breath first.”

“You’re tired just from slashing? You said you’ve been running since the start.”

“This is this and that is that.”

After a minute of rest, the two traveled like ants across a wall, shimmying across the collar to the front of the rabbit. They reached the 'pendant’ part of the collar, the cage of sticks and vine that housed the people to be rescued.

“How do we open this— oh, there’s a hatch,” Helena pointed towards the top of the cage.

“I can see that,” Calvin nodded.

“Should we knock first or—”

“Hello?” A voice rang from inside. “Are you the rescue?”

“Uhuh,” He answered, knocking on the cage.

Helena opened the hatch from above, “Hello, we’re here to rescue you.”

“That seems to be the case,” the voice replied.

“T—thank you…”, Another voice, much more meek and high-pitched.

Calvin’s brows furrowed, finding the voices familiar, “Who’s in there?”

“No idea,” Helena answered, sticking her hand in. “Grab my hand.”

With a strained grunt, she fished up a very gothic-looking girl.

“Ink bird,” Calvin blurted out.

“I have a name, Calvin,” Regina glared at him as she climbed out of the cage.

“You remember me?” He sounded surprised.

“Hard to forget your face,” She muttered. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere very dangerous,” Helena pointed up before helping the other person in the cage.

“Oh,” Regina followed where she pointed, paling at the sight of the rabbit’s unconscious face looking downwards. “…I see.”

“T—thanks again…” The other voice came up. “I—I’m Sharle.”

“Talk later, I want to get off this thing,” Calvin said, jumping down.

“How do we open this— huh, a hatch? Why is it on the top?” Ina was speaking to herself as Mara and Quinn walked closer to her and the cage

A boy’s head popped out as soon as Ina unlocked the hatch.

“Ah, so that’s where you went,” She muttered, seeing the familiar Alden pop out, wearing a flat cap for some reason. “Where’s your moustache?”

“I ain’t got no mustache, lass,” Alden said, looking disgruntled as he climbed out, “thank god the lot of you finally opened this fuckin’ thing. It was gettin’ shite stuffy in e’re wit’ all these fuckin’ people appearing outta nowhere.”

“Never call me lass again,” Ina grunted.

“Can we stuff him back in?” Quinn asked, looking annoyed.

“I agree,” Mara nodded. “Push him head back in.”

“Oi! Don’t you get any wise ideas bub,” He quickly rolled himself out and held his hand up towards. “Oi, knifey, sparky, help me out here! I’m outnumbered!”

“There’s someone else?” Ina looked inside the cage, looking surprised at the familiar face looking back up. “Oh, cutlery guy.”

“I told you, my name isn’t Knifey,” Another kid popped his head out, looking up at Ina. “It’s Lonnie, not cutlery guy.”

“Can you hurry up!” Another voice came from inside.

“There’s another one?” Ina asked as she helped Lonnie out.

“It’s like a clown car,” Mara muttered as she watched another person come out.

“Bloody shits just appeared from thin air a few minutes ago,” Alden grunted.

A boy with spiky blue hair, tanned skin, and a manic smile jumped out as soon as Lonnie got out of the way. He landed with his arms crossed, looking smug with his eyes closed. A second later, he raised a fist to the sky and summoned sparks all over himself, basking from the weird looks everyone around was giving him.

“Sparky is here to kick some rabbit ass!” He announced.

There was silence for a moment, broken by Ina’s coughing, “Uhm, yeah. You go do that,” she turned to the others below, “Queenie, is the mission done?”

“Since five minutes ago, yep,” Quinn nodded, looking at her watch. “Notif popped up when you beat the rabbits.”

Mara looked at her own watch, finding the same message on it, “What now? Is Calvin okay?”

“He’ll be fine. It’s just a test,” She waved her off, although there was a look of concern on her face as she glanced towards where he ran.

“What’s the go now? We ain’t got a mission,” Alden asked, leaning against the cage.

Quinn scoffed, “How about running away? That’s all you do after all.”

“You—”, Alden’s brows furrowed, but he ultimately ignored her.

“Queenie…” Ina jumped down between them, walking towards her best friend with a face full of worry.

She paused for a moment before breathing deeply, “I’m fine. I just— let’s look for Cal.”

On the sidelines, Mara was looking between the three, confused at their words and reactions. She remembered Calvin telling her that something complicated was between them, but she had no idea it was this kind of complicated.

“What’s happening?” She muttered, anxious at the tense atmosphere.

“Probably about what happened six months ago,” Lonnie answered as he walked to her side.

“Mara,” She nodded. “Six months… the kidnapping?”

“Yeah,” He nodded. “I was there. We thought she was hatch— hm?”

A collective vibration rang out as a notification came to all of them, even to the students who were rescued.

Pre-test Examination III

Objective: Defeat

Reward: 100pts

Penalty: All the points rewarded so far

Notification!

Map Downloaded

“Defeat what?” Mara asked, opening the coordinates. A red dot appeared on the map, moving towards a particular direction. “It’s… coming towards us?”

“Holy shit!” Sparky shouted, pointing towards where their friend lured the rabbits away. “Giant Rabbit!”

They all followed his gaze, a mix of dread and excitement came as they saw a ball of fluff literally traveling mid-hop, casting a shadow over them as it blotted out the fake sun in its leap. A scream came from the rabbit, not a dragon’s roar like before, but a human screeching at the top of their lungs.

A closer look and they could see that there were a couple of people hanging off of the rabbit’s collar, waving towards them frantically

“Help!” One of them screamed.

“Is that…” Mara muttered.

Quinn chuckled, “I think found Cal.”