2.9 Two-Rabbit

The walk back to the city gate took exactly two hundred steps. Mish joined halfway through. She and Two-Rabbit walked side by side, yet alone, because neither of them talked.

"Halt!"

The guard at the entrance was a giant. He had to kneel to check Two-Rabbit's citizen ID, then Mish's. "We got attacked by bandits," Two-Rabbit explained. "Fell off the carriage. Stranded."

"Where, exactly?"

"Hard to tell." Because desert.

"Any altercations, physical or otherwise?"

Two-Rabbit knew why he asked. Usually, the guards would've morosely watched them as they crossed the gate, but today they did their job. It wasn't just Two-Rabbit and Mish; any and all visitors were getting checked. Carriage travelers. T*ain passengers. Everyone. "We ran," said Two-Rabbit. "What is going on? Is this because of the magical anomaly?"

"Mhm." The guard moved on to Mish. If Two-Rabbit strained his ears enough and moved his whiskers, he could feel it—the tension.

The power hadn't gone down after all. Still, the city-state was in high alert. It wasn't every day that a magical chasm showed up in the middle of the desert. Even those with rudimentary magic knowledge could sense a distortion of that degree, which was why the guard was unfazed at the question.

Two rabbit asked, "Have you traced the location already?"

"Mhm. Wait. No. But there's several experts working on it as we speak and stuff. You may pass. Don't be alarmed if most places are closed. It's just precaution in case the city loses power and stuff. Do report any suspicious activity."

Youngsters weren't taught magic the way they used to. A lot of them had a vague understanding of how it worked or where it came from, but not the fundamentals. One couldn't start a fire from ice, or a breeze from a vacuum. Instantly transferring quadrillions of particles from one location to the other while maintaining an object's integrity was such a complex process that, even in this day and age, society still relied on manual mass transportation.

He got it, though. As he'd walked, Two-Rabbit had cooled down a bit.

He got it. If Akiha hadn't teleported them, they would've been captured by the bandits for sure... or worse.

He got it, that such a peculiar recruitment method would attract nothing but weirdos by design. To some degree, he'd joined due to bile fascination (and because Two-Rabbit wanted to die). In the grand scheme of things, nothing they did would matter because they were naught but a self-aware cluster of particles existing against their consent in a cosmic soup ruled by entropy and the four laws of thermodynamics, and thus, to lose his temper at a bunch of children lying to each other did nothing and helped no one.

"...hey, Two-Rabbit."

"I'm not leaving the group," he told Mish, regardless of what her question could've been. Where the main street was usually very lively at this time of the day, today it resembled a ghost town. Still, he marched forward, for he had a quest to complete: that of finding falafels. As Mish followed him, he said, "My behavior earlier was indecorous."

"In... inde... so you're not leaving, right?"

"Right."

"Me neither," she said. He knew, but he didn't tell her this. "...do you think we can get Snail back?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I'm making a plan. But first, falafel."

Three out of five members seemed to know 'Kaz', the leader of the bandit group. However, based on their reactions—Cérise's, especially—a diplomatic solution would perhaps be unfeasible. There had been fourteen bandits at the camp, at least. Some of them could've been napping. Assuming the four people they'd been fighting against were the same as Akiha's group, then to join them in order to defeat their captors could be... would've been a solution. By this point, they'd almost certainly been pacified. Two-Rabbit's stomach growled.

"Found one!"

He followed Mish to a single stand at the end of the street. The smell alone made Two-Rabbit's mouth water. He was a simple man. A hungry man, too...

...in any case, he'd have to assume the other four kids had been captured. With the city in such a state, to hire last-minute mercenaries would draw too many eyes their way, although...

...hunger...

...guards following them could actually work to their benefit. Two-Rabbit ordered whatever the girl at the stand could prepare the fastest, and also falafel. "I'll pay," proclaimed Mish, then looked at the bill. "Oh..."

"Thank you," said Two-Rabbit.

To his utmost surprise, she did pay. She didn't even look that distressed about it. She was, but she hid it. "I was thinking we could also get some mercenaries," Mish naively proposed. "I'd hire them, of course."

"No," said Two-Rabbit.

"Why not?"

So he told her that the only kind of fool who'd accept emergency commissions under such a situation were either weirdos like them, frauds, or even more dangerous criminals. He didn't tell her that they were all a combination those three to some extent. Strange—he would've expected to disagree. Mish nodded, however. Was it because the other three were not around to watch her act? To test the theory, Two-Rabbit continued: "I also considered telling the guards about it."

Mish didn't say that it went against warrior etiquette to ask authorities for help. "It might be too late by then," she replied.

They got the first batch of falafels. While impractical, Two-Rabbit ordered onion soup, too. It smelled too good to pass up. "I propose joining forces with the other prisoners. You heard them, too, didn't you?"

"Uhhh... I did, but... Cérise and I kind of got into a fight with them before."

So that was what Two-Rabbit had heard at the time. "Indecorous," he said.

"Inde... yeah. So I'm not sure if they'll want to join us."

"If you ask them nicely, I'm sure they will," said the girl at the stand. A dozen rations of onion soup and three batches of falafel were ready. "There you go. Be careful. I'm not sure if they'll even let you guys leave the city right now."

Two-Rabbit stashed everything inside his satchel. It was designed for adventurers, so it wouldn't leak. He and Mish left the stand. There were a few other people around. Most of them had gone home from the day. Most of them were scared. Because of the magical anomaly Akiha had spawned after casting a cataclysmic spell out of desperation that he'd allegedly earned via the academic equivalent of drugs.

At the tavern where mercenaries for hire famously hung out, there were only weirdos, frauds, and dangerous criminals.

When Two-Rabbit told one of the guards at the gate about the bandit group, the kid said that they already knew, that they were working on it, yadda yadda. The giant guard glanced at them from the corners of his eyes. Not too far away, a pack of visitors squabbled because they didn't have an ID, how this had never happened before, how they had no idea what was going on with the anomaly, yadda yadda.

"The bandits I told you about caused the anomaly," Two-Rabbit told the guards. They ignored him. He wasn't good at lying, because lying wasn't good.

But then the giant guard stopped them again as they exited the gate. "Where are you going?" He asked.

Mish glanced at Two-Rabbit, her tail swishing under her skirt. "Yes," he replied, because he couldn't think of anything in time.

"Yes what?"

"To save our friend," Mish replied. Since it sounded as though she were asking a question, she cleared her throat. Her tail stopped swishing. "Yeah, to save a friend. Because you guys won't."

"Working on it!" A guard called out.

"How shameful, to let a criminal organization run under your noses! How can you be so sure that those fiends had nothing to do with the anomaly? Hmm? Go on, trace their location. It's one and the same. But alas, you're too blind to what you refuse to see. How inkedo... in... at any rate, my friend and I must depart to inflict our own justice."

"Yes," said Two-Rabbit.

It would've had more of an impact if they left after that, but they kind of needed a carriage to survive their way back to the oasis. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find one willing to take them wherever. Business would be brutal for the following days. Two-Rabbit told the carriage guy to follow them instead of carry them to avoid that fee.

Not too long after, Mish giggled. Cackled, even. "They're following us," she said.

"Yes."

"They'll follow us to the oasis."

"Yes."

It took Two-Rabbit a hundred and three steps to realize what this meant: that with the extra help, they'd have much, much less trouble facing the bandits.

"Doesn't it bother you?" He asked.

"Nope. They'll get reinforcements once they notice we're going to the anomaly. Once there, we just have to wait for them to show up. We'll save Snail, Kaz will go to prison, and all the bad guys will lose. You'll see."

She must've come up with the idea around the time Two-Rabbit did.

She shouldn't have.

She, a self-proclaimed warrior. Relying on city guards to do the dirty work for her... for them...

As if this weren't ridiculous and stupid enough, Cérise and Akiha weren't fighting—not at all. Instead, they leaned against the city walls side by side. Akiha even waved at them as they approached. "I brought falafel," Two-Rabbit told the twosome upon reaching them. "I apologize for my earlier behavior."

"Me too," said Akiha. He kept his gaze down, but that just made it more obvious his eyes were still red.

Bizarrely, Cérise stepped ahead, covering this. "Why are you getting followed?"

"Escorted," Mish corrected. "I have connections."

"Uh-huh." Cérise barely, if ever, held eye contact for some reason. "Does the driver know where we're going?"

"Of course. This one is legitimate. I checked."

So many unanswered questions. How and when. Why. If.

They rode the carriage.

The driver asked nothing, just followed instructions—towards the source of the anomaly. In a sense, like the guards, he was only doing his job. None of them were functionally different from animals leaving their den for food.

Mish explained the "plan", between mouthfuls. Naturally, they snacked along the way. They'd stocked up on water, and it helped that this driver did have a cooling spell. "I surmised the guards would serve as backup," Akiha said, "Although..."

On they went, to "rescue" their "comrade".

"...it's kind of lame, isn't it?"

Two-Rabbit supposed someone had to say the quiet part out loud.