Lucky Rabbit

The battle was fought in waves, just as it was in Gacha Love, allowing the combatants to gather themselves before being attacked again. Captain Reedsley and his men weren’t Knights of the Royal Eagle, and they didn’t have fancy magic armor and silver weapons, but they were veterans who had obviously seen some battle before, in spite of the apparent peacefulness of West Altheric.

In Gacha Love, Clara and her proto-boyfriend were able to defeat the elementals and undead sent against them without help – though it usually required at least one gacha spin to refill their Stamina – and a squad of trained soldiers, a magical fire horse, and the unasked-for support of Edgar and Dorian took care of it with surprising speed and efficiency.

Augustus stayed out of the way during the battle, though he started to leap forward every time one of the combatants got into trouble, then forced himself to hold still when someone else beat him to it. The arms that held Pandy were trembling slightly, and she wasn’t certain he could do anything to help even if he joined the fight. It did seem like Cieris and Zephra might have been helping, since there were a few times when Apparitions were blown backward seemingly by air when they got too close to a soldier. The fire horse, Soot, did more than his fair share of fighting as well, and given the effect his kicks had on Apparitions and Bound alike, his horseshoes must have been made of silver.

When it was over, no one even seemed badly injured. Dorian still had blood in his hair, but he was otherwise unharmed. Edgar just looked like the murderous but charming lordling he was, a rather sinister grin playing around his lips, and the soldiers had taken only minor wounds. The worst was a man who’d been pulled from his horse while fighting Bound, and it didn’t seem like his leg was actually broken. The scene itself was gory, to say the least, because the way to stop Bound without Light magic was apparently the same as stopping zombies in Pandy’s world: destroy the brain or keep chopping until the Demon fled the body.

That was the good news. The bad news was that Bryan’s tower was missing. Not just damaged, not just crumbled to the ground – missing. There was a pit where its foundation had been, and whole rooms of the house stood open to the air. The broken door from Bryan’s office had fallen through the gap and now lay on the ground as a sad reminder of the absent edifice. The scene made Pandy wince every time she caught sight of it. Lian was going to be very, very angry, and she was fairly certain he’d find a way to blame it on her.

Bryan himself was still there, but he was staring into space, his mouth hanging slightly open, eyes vacant. Every once in a while, his hand twitched. If he knew anything that would help them find Lian or stop the bad guys, he wasn’t telling. Keros had carried Lian and Thaniel’s father down the tower, and the maybe-still-a-god now had a nice sheen of sweat added to the glitter of the crushed essence stone he’d managed to roll in, which highlighted his Mighty Thews in such a way that Pandy caught several of the soldiers glancing his way as they wove through the debris, looking for not-quite-dead-enough Bound.

Somehow, there were far more soldiers than Pandy had expected, but when Augustus asked, it turned out that Lady Reedsley had been less than satisfied with the amount of support her husband had, and sent servants to call in the rest of the troop. She wasn’t in the official chain of command, but when she told them to ride to the Conroy estate, they went.

There was a great deal of military talk going on as Augustus and Captain Reedsley discussed the battle and what had been going on, so Pandy wriggled down and hopped over to where Keros stood, staring down at his own hands while Bryan did the same beside him, though probably not for the same reason. Her bunny body wasn’t quite back to normal, and she thought she might still be missing her tail, but she could move, and she didn’t want to hear anything else about ‘gathering the remains’ and ‘confirming the perimeter’. Besides, she had questions for Keros.

When she reached the god, it took a moment for him to notice her, and when he did, he gave her a very un-Keros-like smile. It was wry, and tired, and almost sad. Briefly, she wondered if this was actually someone or something else that just looked exactly like Keros, and happened to have appeared at the same moment her god-friend vanished – stranger things had happened to her – but then he flexed an arm and said, “I’d almost finished six thousand reps of Divine Chalice Split Squats. Now I don’t even know if I could do five hundred.”

He sighed and started to sink into a squat, but Pandy – afraid of seeing something Aglaea would kill her for – slapped a paw over her eyes as his torn and bedraggled toga started to ride up. Keros actually chuckled, then something settled to the ground beside her. When Pandy dared to peep out from under her paw, she saw Keros seated on the dirt beside her, toga strategically draped, watching her.

“Well, this is a bit of a pickle, isn’t it?” he said conversationally, poking at a small mound of dirt with a curious finger.

Without pausing to wonder if it would work, Pandy thought, <What happened?>

Keros shook his head. “My magic happened. That stupid spell that I didn’t bother to limit. If I ever get my divinity back, I’m going to be on probation for a millennium.”

Pandy sat up, ears perked. <So you can become a god again?>

He grimaced. “If we can end the spell before it achieves sapience, possibly. I think… it finally became self-aware, and when it did, it decided it had to be a god. Which didn’t leave me with enough power to maintain my own divinity.”

<How is that even possible?> she thought, blinking. <Is that how gods are born?>

To her surprise, he blushed faintly. “That’s a very personal question, Pandora. But no. Once the spark of divinity has been lit,” he coughed, cheeks turning even redder, “a new god is little more than what the people of this world would call an elemental. These freshly spawned gods have different names in different places, but they move throughout the universe, gathering power and experiences until they grow strong enough or intelligent enough to bear the power to which they were born. At this point, their parents usually step in to guide them, though not always.”

Some emotion darkened his eyes, but he didn’t explain. “Once we, ah, mature enough, we take on the role to which we’re best suited. Or, if we don’t have a path, we do whatever is needed. There are never enough gods to do everything that must be done in an infinite universe.”

Keros shook his head. “I’ve never heard of a god creating another god alone. It takes too much magic. All of it, apparently.” He held out his hand, concentrating, and eventually a tiny flicker of fire flared up in his palm before puffing out again.

Pandy thought about the vision she’d had of him just before she’d managed to heal herself. If that was what had happened. Honestly, she still wasn’t convinced that magic had come from her. It felt more like she had served as a conduit for something – or someone – far more powerful. In any case, she was certain Keros still had at least some of his power, though he was obviously having difficulty accessing it. And if that blazing sun-burst of magic was only a fraction of what he was meant to have, no wonder he was considered a god.

Pandy attempted to sum up what she understood, which honestly wasn’t much, and felt like less every day. <So your spell stole your magic and went off on its own? And you became a…> She hesitated over the word she wanted to use, but Keros did it for her.

“A mortal? Yes.” He clenched his empty hand into a fist, tendons and muscles flexing as he squeezed.

<At least you’re still, um, well muscled?> she ventured, trying to cheer him up. When he’d originally come to ask her to stop using the gacha button in order to stop draining him, he’d been- She gasped. <What if I use the gacha button? Now that your magic isn’t in you, couldn’t I weaken it by spinning the gacha?> She held out a paw, waving it through the air as if to press an invisible button.

Keros started to scoff, then looked thoughtful. “Maybe. It’s worth a try. But you can only use the button during game events, and this,” he glanced around at the carnage, “isn’t one. Not any more.”

Wasn’t it, though? It certainly seemed like the spell had been pushing it in that direction. The moment when Clara and her love interest defeated Lian and sent him fleeing from the school was a pivotal plot point.

After that, there were only a few more romantic events, including the Declaration of Love, against the backdrop of the war. They could go to a couple of dungeons in order to level up, but the next big thing was when they heard Clara found out her father had been sent to fight, and Clara decided to stop the war herself. Which, in retrospect, was kind of a silly thing to do, but it worked out, because everything always worked out for Clara.

Looking up, Pandy thought, <System, I want to use the gacha button.>

When the button appeared, it was almost entirely black. The surface looked like cracked and burned plastic, the letters running into each other where they’d begun to melt. It wasn’t smoking any more, possibly because she hadn’t used it in a long time, but it looked somehow brittle, as if it might shatter if she actually tried to use it.

<Oh,> Pandy said, shrinking away from it slightly. There was something almost dangerous about it, far from the enticingly glossy, candy-like appearance it had always had in the game.

“What?” Keros asked, staring past the button. He waved his hand through the air, and Pandy flinched when his fingers passed through it. The image didn’t dissipate, however. It simply continued to lurk there, a shadowy, matte black thing with an ominous sense of finality around it.

<I… don’t think I should use that after all,> Pandy thought, and the broken heart-shaped thing faded quietly from her vision, causing her to breathe a sigh of relief. Which made her realize she was breathing. Really breathing. Not breathing just to force air over her vocal cords. Not expanding and contracting her ribcage to make the people around her feel more comfortable. Breathing.

<Status,> she thought, before she could realize that she’d been avoiding it.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Liminal)

Age: 25

LF: 22/22

Mana: 27/956

Stats▾

Skills▾

Spells▾

Boons▾

Corruption Points: 1

Not surprisingly, the Mark of Keros was still missing, which meant her Strength had gone down by one. Not a big deal at this point, though it had certainly made a difference in the beginning. There were certainly enough other surprises, though.

Probably the least of these was that she now had more Life Force. A lot more. And her race no longer said ‘Deceased’. Though what ‘liminal’ meant, she had no idea. That was what they called spaces like doorways and hallways in the kind of movie where you found out the main character had been dead the whole time, right? Except this was the opposite of that, wasn’t it? She seemed to be becoming more alive – though no less rabbity, a fact which gave her mixed feelings.

It took longer to realize that her ‘Ismara’s Blessing’ Boon no longer had a number following it. It just was, but since she didn’t know what that meant either, she just filed it away in the back of her mind. She also had only one Corruption Point remaining, even though she hadn’t gotten a single notification to let her know how or when she’d lost them. That would require some thought as well. Later. For now, she just made a mental note not to use any magic if she wasn’t with Augustus, then underlined and circled it several times for emphasis.

The last thing, and the one that made her freshly-revived heart start to pound in her chest – which nearly gave her a panic attack until she realized what it was – was that she had a new spell. Heal. Not Minor, not Major, just Heal. It also had an infinity symbol for its level, so she was guessing that meant it couldn’t be leveled up. It was what it was, and what it was might – just might – allow her to heal Thaniel.

That was why she’d been so focused on leveling Minor Heal, after all, in hopes that it might rank up or morph into something more powerful when it reached the next threshold, or the one after that. Most important of all, there had never been a spell called Heal in Gacha Love, so this was something entirely new, and, given that it had apparently used up all of her Mana and Corruption Points, very expensive.

<Info, Heal,> Pandy thought. Once she’d looked at each spell and skill, she hadn’t bothered with this command, but it was easy enough to remember. She needed information.

No such spell or skill.

Did you mean Minor Heal?

Pandy frowned, even though bunny faces weren’t exactly meant for that expression. <No, I mean Heal.> She poked a claw at her status, which still hung patiently in the air. System messages faded after a few seconds, but her Status always seemed to stay until she looked away.

No such spell or skill.

Did you get hit on the head?

Minor Heal could probably help with that.

Maybe Dark Restoration?

Pandy waved away the over-eager messages. Well, Keros’s change of situation hadn’t affected her Toaster System. Unfortunately. She looked back at Keros, who was glaring at his empty hands as if they’d personally betrayed him when Augustus came over. The chancellor was leading Bryan Conroy by the hand as if the man was a very small child, and Soot the magic fire horse trailed along after them like an enormous homicidal duckling.

Taking in Keros, who still sat in the dirt, unheeding of whatever remained of his clothing or dignity, Augustus held out his free hand and said, “Augustus Blackwood. And you are…?” His brows went up questioningly, and Pandy noticed that one of the lenses of his glasses had cracked down one side. The eye on that side had nearly swollen shut by this point, so even if Augustus actually did need his glasses, it probably didn’t matter.

Standing, Keros ignored the hand but offered a nod of his head that probably would have been considered quite an honor when he was a god. “Ker-” He stopped, glanced down at Pandy, and said, “Kappa. Pandora’s… friend.”

What Augustus would have said to this was forever to remain a mystery, because when Keros said Pandy’s name, Bryan jerked as if someone had hit him. His faded blue eyes came into focus as he looked around. “Pan… dora?” Tears welled up, spilling down his thin cheeks, and he crumpled to the ground.

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