Chapter 8: Warrior Bunnies
"Rin. Out of curiosity, what did you learn about those big monsters?"
"You mean the ones that jumped Monoma's squad back at the coral reef?"
"Yeah, those things," Kodai said.
"My analysis of their corpses showed that they had no eyes, for starters. My current theory is that they either used enhanced hearing and smells to navigate their environment, or that they had some sort of built-in receptors to detect electromagnetism, like sharks do."
"Hmm… anything else?"
"Their flesh had two types of toxins in it, cereulide and tetrodotoxin," Rin explained. "Cereulide causes nausea, and tetrodotoxin causes paralysis. There's a pretty good chance that we'd die if any of us tried to cook and eat their flesh. It also explains why they came in so many different bright colors: It was to warn potential predators that eating them would be a bad idea, along with allowing them to camouflage among the coral to sneak up on potential prey."
"So that's how they surprised Monoma's team, despite being so loud."
"Yeah, it was a good thing the Lieutenant arrived just in time to save them."
It had been a week since they were at the coral reef in the desert, and since then, they had been busy traveling south-east to head back to the Collibus Hills.
However, due to the fact they still had about half a month left on their mission, they ended up taking a new and more scenic route back to the base, aided by the map that they had gotten back from the oddly-colored tree from the Corallium Forest.
Their newest destination: The Saltu Jungles.
"This is Lieutenant Yaoyorozu," the radio crackled. "Look alive, we're here."
"Oh, thank God," Kaibara groaned. "Finally, we can stretch our legs."
"Tell me about it," Komori smiled. "Can't wait to touch solid grass."
"Don't you mean solid ground?"
"Maybe for you, Mr. Geologist."
Momo breathed in the fresh air as she examined the environment around her.
On her left, she could see hills upon hills of grass, while on her right, she could see miles upon miles of giant trees. Clearly it showed that they had arrived upon the border of the Saltu Jungle. She smiled, knowing that map they got was paying off.
"Alright, everyone, gather around!"
She watched as her crew filed up to hear her orders, and smiled at how smooth things were going. She hoped it would stay that way. But for now, it was show time.
"Listen up! We'll be forming pairs of two and going inside the jungle to gather data and some evidence to bring back with us. I want you all back here in one hour. Understood?"
"""SIR, YES, SIR!"""
"Excellent. Kaibara and Tsuburaba, you're team one. Rin and Awase, you're team two. Bakugou and Kirishima, you're team three. Komori and Kodai, you're team four. The rest of us will stay behind with the vehicles. Good luck out there," Momo gave her soldiers a salute.
Yes, she knew that it probably wasn't the best idea to send their one and only medic out into the jungle, but Momo knew Kodai was a trained soldier, more than capable of defending herself.
But aside from that, that girl downright disturbed Momo.
Especially all of her "secret stuff" she brought with her.
Momo shuddered, as she remembered accidentally opening that bag on their way to the jungles. Sure, everyone had their own personal tastes, but four of them?
The jungle would be quiet, if it weren't for the fact that it was… well, a jungle.
Birds chirping, rivers streaming, animals making noises, all of those little things eventually built up to make one big annoyance. But the biggest annoying noise here was –
"Yo, Bakubro, what do you think we should bring back?"
"Don't know, don't care," Katsuki hissed back.
"Aw, c'mon, man, don't be like that!" Shitty Hair clearly didn't know how to take a hint. "Where's your sense of adventure? This is the place that separates the boys from the men!"
"You mean the shithole that's infested with blood-sucking bats?"
"Uh, I think you're confusing bats for mosquitoes," the redhead said. "Unless you're talking about Dracula. Wait, do you think that vampires are real in this world?"
"If they are, I hope they take you first."
"You don't really mean that…"
This was going to be a long hour, wasn't it?
"Any cool plants?" Yui asked.
"Yeah! Rafflesia arnoldii, Venus fly traps, and even a couple that I don't recognize! I mean, look at this one right here!" Komori smiled, as she pointed to a giant plant.
"It's a Venus fly trap." Even Yui knew that.
"Yeah, but they don't come big enough to swallow a person whole!" the brown-haired girl explained. "I swear, the photos we bring back from here are gonna rock the botanist world!"
"Are we also getting samples?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm getting tons of samples, shroom!" Komori smiled.
At least someone was having fun.
"Is that a chameleon?" Awase asked Rin, as he pointed at a lizard.
"Yeah, a three-horned chameleon, also known as Jackson's chameleon."
"So… they exist back on Earth?"
"Uh-huh, they're native to Africa, but they've also made their way to the US," Rin said.
"Mm, what about that lizard?" Awase pointed to an orange one with large eyes.
"Don't know, my degree isn't in herpetology. I don't know each and every reptile."
"Which means that it might only be native to the Special Region!"
"Maybe, but don't get your hopes up," Rin said. "Not everything here's some fantasy creature."
"Well, what about those parrots?" Awase pointed upwards.
"What parrots?"
"The ones with the four wings flying over us right now."
Looking up to where Awase was pointing, Rin saw that, sure enough, some large, four-winged parrots. Their colors were green, blue and orange, with a small bit of pale yellow, and they were flying through the air like a sea turtle would through the ocean, slow and graceful.
"Huh," the zoologist deadpanned. "That's bizarre."
"Is it because they're super silent in the air, or because they have six limbs?"
"Both, if I'm being honest."
"Do you think they can talk?" the mechanic asked.
"Parrots don't actually talk, they mimic the sounds they hear from humans," Rin explained. "Hell, they don't even understand the meaning of the words that they're trained to say –"
"Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"
Rin stopped talking when he heard those words. Both he and Awase looked up at the parrots again, making sure they actually heard what they thought they heard.
"Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"
And evidently, they did.
"Hey, y'all!" Komori exclaimed, as she exited the jungle. "We're back!"
"We bright plants," Kodai deadpanned.
"That's good to hear," Momo said. "Kirishima and Bakugou just came back, too."
"So, the others are still out there?" the team's medic asked.
"Yeah, and their time's almost up," Monoma said, grabbing his radio. "Kaibara, Tsuburaba, this is Monoma, do you read me? What's the status of your patrol? Over."
"This is Tsuburaba. We're on our way back. We'll be there shortly, over."
"Alright, so they're running a little late, but nothing to worry about."
"So, what are the rocks out here like?" Tsuburaba asked. "Got any history?"
"There are signs of erosion around some of them, indicating that there are rivers nearby," Kaibara told his best friends. "What about the air? I swear, I'm sweating just by talking."
"Makes sense, it's twenty-seven degrees Celsius, with seventy-seven percent humidity."
"Yeesh, and I thought Japanese summers were hell," Kaibara scoffed.
"Yeah, well, were almost back, so –"
CRACK!
The two of them immediately stopped talking as soon as they heard the sound of a branch snapping. Silently nodding to one another, they held their knives, and approached closer to the source of the noise. They moved some leaves out of the way, and saw…
"Holy shit," Tsuburaba whispered.
Next to a creek, they saw a woman, dressed in jungle clothing, bending down from where she was sitting, in order to get a sip of water. However, the bizarre thing about her were the large rabbit-like ears on her head, along with the short fluffy tail right above her skirt.
"Duuude," Kaibara whispered. "A bunny girl! A straight up bunny girl!"
"Look at her!" the meteorologist said, in a low voice. "What's she wearing?"
"Some kind of crop top? And a skirt?" the geologist said, getting a better look with some binoculars. "But who cares about that? Look at her hair! It's frickin' blue!"
"Yeah, you're right! She looks like something straight out of an anime!"
Suddenly, the rabbit woman lifted up her head, and her ears began to twitch, almost as if they were trying to locate some sort of sound. Her face was that of alert caution.
"Oh, shit, do you think she heard us?" Kaibara asked.
"Probably," Tsuburaba said. "Don't worry, I got this."
Immediately stepping out of the trees, Tsuburaba had a smile on his face, and began to walk towards the demi-human, slowly. The demi-human noticed her, her breath hitching.
"Hey there, no need to be scared, I'm not gonna hurt you," he said, switching to Latin. "My name's Kosei, I'm an explorer. You got a name to go along with those pretty eyes?"
"..."
"Can you not understand me? I know my Latin's a bit rusty, but –"
BAM!
Before Tsuburaba could even finish his sentence, the rabbit girl delivered a kick straight into his gut, making him violently cough up spit before falling down towards the grass in pain.
"KOSEI!" Kaibara yelled, aiming his rifle. "Don't worry, I'm gonna save ya –"
WHAM!
In an instant, the geologist could feel a fist coming into direct contact with his face. Stumbling to the ground, his mind went into overdrive. How the heck did she manage to reach him so fast?!
Looking up, he saw that there was a brown-haired rabbit girl standing over her.
It was a trap, he realized, before losing consciousness.
As it approached the twentieth minute, Momo was starting to get anxious.
"Rin, Awase, are you guys out there? Kaibara, Tsuburaba, what's your progress?" Monoma called into his radio. "Uh, ma'am? Two of the teams still haven't responded."
"Still?" Momo was now getting worried. "Are they out of range?"
"I don't think so, those walkie-talkies can work up to two miles out."
"So either they're seriously lost in the forest, or something's gone wrong." Momo looked towards her team's unofficial mascot. "Melissa, could you please survey the sky to look for them?"
"Sure thing," the blonde angel said, unleashing her wings and lifting off.
Momo called after Melissa, yelling, "Hey, wait! You forgot to grab a… radio… dam, she's already gone…" Deciding she couldn't do anything about it now, she turned to everyone else.
"All right, listen up!" Momo shouted to the rest of her squad. "It appears that two of our teams have gone missing! I want to comb through this jungle, and find them! Kendo, Uraraka, you're going in there alongside the teams that just got back. Report as soon as you find something."
"Understood, ma'am!" Kendo gave her a salute.
"THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT!" Bakugou shouted. "We come back right on time, and then we have to go back in just because those assholes are late?! Are you kidding me?!"
"Easy, man. We just have to find them," Eijiro said. "Now… where could they have gone?"
"I dunno, but if those idiots got themselves killed, I'm not gonna bury them," Bakugou hissed.
The artificial redhead hoped that wasn't the case. As the two of them kept marching through the jungle, Eijiro was stopped by Bakugou's hand signal. "I hear something."
Hearing the rustling of the leaves, Eijiro nodded in silence. The two of them slowly crept towards the vines, and parted them, only to see… "Oh my God."
In front of them was a village, entirely composed of rabbit-like demi-humans. Every single one of them seemed to be wearing something straight out of the ancient Aztecs. But the most interesting part was that Eijiro couldn't see a single male among the crowd.
Well, with about four exceptions.
Said four exceptions were in the middle of the crowd, where a wooden stand was at the center of the village, and on the stand were… Rin, Kaibara, Awase, and Tsuburaba in chains.
"What do we do?" Kirishima whispered.
Bakugou looked towards the redhead. "Alright, here's the plan…"
"Ahem."
The two soldiers looked behind them, only to see an orange-haired rabbitfolk staring at them.
"Uh-oh," the ash-blond muttered.
The last thing Eijiro saw before blacking out was a rabbit foot to the face.
"Bakugou, this is Kendo, do you read me?"
No response from the radio.
"Kirishima, this is Kendo, do you read me? Come in!"
Nothing.
"They disappeared, too?" Uraraka asked.
"I seriously hope not," Itsuka said.
Walking a bit deeper into the jungle, they could hear voices. The two of them looked toward one another, and silently moved closer to the source of the sounds. Getting close enough, they parted some of the plants in their way, and were amazed by what they saw.
"Whoa…" Uraraka murmured. "That's a lot of bunny girls."
"Hey, look," Itsuka quietly said. "It's our missing guys."
"Oh, great, they've been captured. Again."
"Now, our chieftess shall decide the fate of these outsiders!" one of the rabbitfolk declared.
"They have a leader?" Itsuka whispered to Uraraka, who just shrugged.
On top of the make-shift podium arrived a warrior bunny in golden armor, one with dark skin, hair as white as snow, and eyes the color of blood, the same color as her cape.
"All bow to Chieftess Rumi Usagiyama!"
"""ALL HAIL USAGIYAMA!"""
"Should I be recording this?" the brown-haired girl whispered.
"Mmm… yeah, sure," Kendo whispered back. "For research's sake."
The white-haired rabbit looked towards the captured men she was standing beside, silent. After staring at them for a few moments, she asked, "Why are there outsiders here?"
Kirishima said, "Ma'am, were simply peaceful explorers –"
"SILENCE!" Usagiyama roared at him.. "I did not give you permission to speak! To trespass in our jungle is to forfeit your life! Now… I shall decide your punishment!"
"Oh my God, they're gonna execute 'em," Uraraka quietly gasped.
"That's it, I'm calling the Lieutenant, right fucking now," Itsuka hissed.
"Hmm… after much debilitation, I, the great Rumi Usagiyama, have come to a decision," the chieftess said. "I sentence these men… to death! BY PROCREATION!"
"What," the orange-haired woman deadpanned.
As several of the rabbit-like women cheered, Katsuki looked absolutely stricken.
Nope. He wasn't gonna die like this. He absolutely refused. He wasn't gonna –
"WHOO-HOO!"
"ALL RIGHT!"
"YEAH!"
Katuski turned to his left to see that Kaibara and Tusburaba were celebrating, despite the fact all six of them had literally just been sentenced to death. Those fucking horndogs. Even Rin and Awase were smiling. The only person who wasn't happy was Shitty Hair.
I gotta think of a way out of this…
What would get him out of this jam? There was no way in hell he was agreeing to a fucking gangbang, that absolutley disgusted him. Wait… disgust…
Katsuki had an idea.
"I'M GAY!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
The chieftess looked at him, as the rest of the bunny bitches' cheering died down.
Perfect.
"You're what?" the boss bunny bitch asked. "Say that again."
"I'm gay," Katsuki repeated. "I like men, I can't get it up for women, no matter how much you try."
"Is that so…?"
"I'm also gay!" Shitty Hair shouted, copying his idea. "Women make me limp!"
The chieftess looked at the other four idiots. "And the rest of you?"
The other four idiots shook their heads, and confirmed they were completely straight.
"Hmm… alright," she said. "These two shall not partake in the copulation."
Katsuki breathed a sigh of relief. He was gonna live! He was gonna go back home to –
"Throw them into the Blood Snake's Pit!"
Shit, spoke too soon.
Momo could feel a headache incoming. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"Warrior bunnies, ma'am," Kendo's voice sounded through the walkie-talkie. "Our six missing guys were captured by a tribe of what I can best describe as… rabbit kemonomimi."
"And four of them are gonna get fucked to death, while the other two are gonna be eaten alive by snakes. Fucking wonderful," Momo cursed. "Alright, guess we're doing a rescue mission."
As everyone else prepared for the rescue mission, Momo went into one of the cars and grabbed Kodai's bag. It may not be her medical equipment, but it could still help us…
Still didn't like the fact that Kodai carried this stuff around with her, but whatever.
"Komori, Kodai!" Yui's radio buzzed. "It's Kendo. We found our missing teams, but they've been captured by an enemy group. Be prepared to stage a rescue mission."
"Understood," the black-haired woman said. "What do you need from us?"
"Lieutenant Yaoyorozu has a plan, but we'll need your help. We're about a couple of kilometers west from where we parked. Meet us there, and be ready for a fight."
"Understood. Over and out?"
"Guess we're fighting our way out of another jam, huh?" Komori sighed.
"Yes, I…" Yui trailed off, as she noticed something. "Kinoko, did you happen to see a statue while we were exploring this part of the jungle? Specifically, a head of a statue?"
"No, why?"
Yui proceeded to point at the structure to their left, one of a head. It was just a head, and was made of a dark type of stone, which reminded Yui of the statues found on Easter Island.
However, unlike those heads, this one didn't look human. The carvings showed a face with sharp teeth and tusks, a bald head, minor facial hair, evil-looking eyes, elongated ears, and a scrunched-up face, with the main features of the face being a flat, upturned nose, and a forehead which Yui could only describe as belonging to literal Neandrethals.
In short, the statue wasn't depicting the head of a human.
"How did we miss that?" Komori asked herself.
"We probably came through this area from the other side, so we weren't looking directly at it. If anything, we probably saw it from the back of the side, so we wrote it off as a weird rock."
Snapping a quick picture, the botanist said, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
"Shh," Yui said, placing a finger over her mouth. "I hear something."
The two soldiers remained quiet, as they approached the statue from a new angle. Getting clear of the leaves, they both gasped at what they completely missed.
It was a village, entire homes and bridges made out of stone. The builders must have carved each and every door and window out of rock outcropping, allowing the inhabitants to live within this gorge, of sorts. And speaking of the inhabitants…
The two girls hitched their breath as they saw… a whole lot of ugly. The locals were tall, easily three meters tall. They had hunched backs, and fat bellies, but it was clear from their arms and legs that they were incredibly strong. But most importantly of all, their faces looked just like the statue's. Tusks, elongated ears, scrunched up faces and swelling-looking foreheads.
Yui had read enough fucked-up doujinshi to instantly recognize what those creatures were.
"Ogres," she whispered to Komori.
"Wait, how do you know that?" the botanist asked.
"Umm… I've read fantasy manga?" she half-lied.
"Well, what do we do now?"
Yui hated to admit it, but Komori was right. These were straight up ogres. There was no guarantee that they would be able to sneak past the entire village a second time. Not only that, but the commotion the rescue mission would cause was bound to grab their attention.
Which meant that there was a good chance the team would be fighting two different enemies on two different sides. Wait… she thought to herself. Two different enemies…
"I have an idea," she whispered. "But be ready to run like hell once it works."
"So, do you have a plan to get us out of here?" Eijiro asked.
It had been about ten minutes since he and Bakubro had been sentenced to be eaten alive in a snake pit. And currently, they were inside a giant pit, but still no snakes.
Just a bunch of rabbit ladies watching from higher ground, arrows pointed at them.
"Actually, yeah," Bakugou said, pulling out two grenades from his pants. "These bunny bitches may have confiscated our guns, but luckily, they didn't check our pockets."
"Uh… do you always carry grenades with you?"
"Always," he said, with a malicious smirk. "Aight, here's the plan: When their little ceremony starts, I'm gonna throw these little beauties at both the left and the right sides. When they go off, we hightail it out of here by climbing from the least elevated part of the pit, in the middle."
"Wait, what about the snakes?" the redhead asked.
"Run as fast as you can, and pray they aren't venomous," the blond said.
"BWWAAA!"
Before Eijiro could ask any more questions, a horn was rung by a blue-haired rabbit lady, signaling that the execution was about to begin. "It is time!"
Alright, showtime, Eijrio thought to himself.
"RELEASE THE BLOOD SNAKE!"
Wait, what? "Snake", as in singular?
Bakugou also seemed to have also caught that, but before the two of them could react, the gate across from them in the pit opened up, revealing… OH, WHAT THE HELL?!
Out of the gate came a giant snake, literally. It was over seven meters long, at least by Eijrio's quick estimations, with its head easily towering over both him and Bakubro by almost a whole meter, so much so that they had to look up just to make eye contact with it.
The main color it had was a dark green, while its underbelly was a lighter shade of green. It also had a hood, like a cobra, which came in both the light green coloration, along with orange diamond-shaped dots lining it like a pattern. Its yellow sclera helped its black, cat-like pupils emphasize that it was staring down at him and Bakubro like they were lunch.
But the scariest parts about it were its large, white horn on top of its nose, like that of a rinoscerous, and the two giant fangs it had, easily the length of Eijrio's forearm.
"Welp, guess we heard it right," he could hear his buddy deadpan. "It is just one snake."
Please be alive, please be alive, please be alive!
As Mina Ashido kept running towards the jungles, that thought kept repeating in her mind.
Please be alive… MY CRIMSON-HAIRED SAVIOR!
Author's Note: For those who don't know, this whole chapter is based on the whole "death by snu snu" thing from Futurama. If anyone has any issues with that, let me know in the comments I'll be replying to in the next chapter.
Anyways, it's time for this week's comments:
valkrus: Yeah, you're right, I was supposed to say "truthful." I honestly don't know how "youthful" slipped in instead. And as for your second question, there are two reasons I don't directly reply to comments: One, I can't do it on , so it doesn't seem fair to me. And the second you can write off as paranoia. Please don't ask.
And now, for the last bit of shilling…
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