Jump Bunny was back in General Brass’ office after getting the Pearl off the roof of the courthouse. As she arrived, the officer asked “Back so soon? Have you gotten all the Pearls within city limits yet?”
In response, Jump Bunny shook her head as she answered “No. That said, there are four Pearls back at the power plant now. The remaining six inside Seagem City limits are all weirdly distorted in a way I don’t know how to interpret and I was hoping I could maybe get some backup for investigating them before I go jumping into something that might be extremely dangerous.”
General Brass rubbed his chin for a few moments, before he asked “Do they all sound distorted in the same way? Or is it noticeably different for each Pearl inside Seagem City?”
Jump Bunny immediately replied “They all sound about the same, to be completely honest.”
General Brass tugged an ear nervously, before saying “I think I can spare one person on a provisional basis. That said, if these distorted Pearls turn out to be something you can deal with on your own after the first of them, that support is getting re-tasked elsewhere. There’s just too much that needs doing to keep everyone alive and not enough people to do it with, even with the power plant back to partial functionality.”
Jump Bunny nodded solemnly “I understand.”
A few minutes later, Jump Bunny was waiting outside the command center as she caught a glimpse of blonde hair approaching her. Taking a look at the young man coming in, Jump appraised his weird lobe-shaped ears and the prehensile tail wrapped around a half-length Mage’s staff to immediately identify him as a monkey-kin. After a few moments, Jump introduced herself with “Hello, I’m Jump Bunny. Are you the person sent to help me out?”
The young man replied “Yes ma’am. Grandiose Wizard at your service. And yes, that is my actual name. Please just call me ‘Grand’ or ‘Wiz’.”
Jump Bunny chuckled as she started to walk, saying “Wasn’t even going to ask. Anyway, are you any good at roofhopping, or are we groundpounding?”
Wiz wiggled his hand back and forth in a teeter-totter motion as he replied “Kind of? I’m pretty good at climbing and I know how to levitate, but jumping isn’t really my thing.”
Jump Bunny rolled her eyes as she remarked “Groundpounding it is. Anyway, the closest distorted Pearl is actually in the sewers from what I can tell, but that’s gross so we’re going to the second-closest.” and started walking towards the dockyards area.
Wiz shuddered as he followed, remarking “Yes, that is most definitely not something I wanted to be involved in. Thanks for picking the other option.”
A few minutes of walking later, both Wiz and Jump Bunny arrived at a warehouse. It was built of wooden posts and corrugated metal. Wiz asked “You’re sure this is the place?”
Jump Bunny just nodded and said “Yeah, this is the place.” before drawing her wand on heat ray mode and melting the padlock off the door of the warehouse.
The pair entered, coming face-to-face with a massive pile of crates at the other end of the building, though each individual crate was quite a bit smaller than the ones over at the armory. Looking right at the pile and listening closely, Jump Bunny said “Pearl’s under that massive pile of crates. I’m going to try and dig it out.” before setting her wand to Telekinesis mode and starting to lift crates off the stack one at a time.
Wiz looked at this and started chipping in on the digging too, remarking “Yeah, alright. Kind of wondering why a Pearl would be under all this, though.” as his staff glowed and he started telekinetically moving boxes around.
Jump Bunny just shrugged “Maybe the crate wasn’t properly labeled and got forgotten? Lots of cargo comes through places like this and I can easily believe that something would get misplaced.”
Some more digging transpired, before Jump Bunny uncovered the last crate and noted “Pearl’s in that one. Let’s go open it up.”
Prying the crate open took a bit of work, but soon enough the crate was opened, revealing a distortion in the air that seemed to be bending light in several uncomfortable ways. Looking at it, Wiz asked “Jump, are you sure that’s a Pearl?”
Jump Bunny shrugged as she remarked “Probably not, but it could be something else useful. I’m going to poke it with my wand and see what happens.” With that, she leaned forwards and found herself being sucked forwards into the rift by her wand, but she couldn’t let go.
As Jump Bunny was pulled into the tunnel of distorted space, she heard Wiz shouting “JUMP! Are you ok in theeee~” trailing off as the distance rapidly increased. Moments later, Jump Bunny found herself being unceremoniously dropped onto a hard wooden surface.
Groaning as she hauled herself to her feet, Jump Bunny took in her surroundings. First thing’s first, she was on top of a giant crate floating in the middle of a black void. In the distance she could see a glowing blue speck that sounded like a Grand Soul Pearl. Cobwebs were commonly connecting some of the floating crates to each other, and in them Jump Bunny could see abnormally large spiders, currently sleeping.
Looking ahead, Jump Bunny thought aloud “Alright, so to get to the Pearl I’ll need to be jumping on past these platforms, avoid the spiderwebs so I don’t get stuck, and I have to do it all without falling into the ominous void of nothingness. Relax, you’ve got this!”
And so she popped a Windstep pill into her mouth and jumped off her starting platform to the next crate, passing perilously close to one of the webs. For a moment Jump Bunny thought she’d made the jump just fine, then she felt an overwhelming premontion of incoming doom, jumping just in time to only be partially clipped by the spider as it lunged. Still, that partial clipping flung her far past the bounds of her platform, meaning that even with the double jump from that Windstep pill and the levitate function of her wand she couldn’t recover before falling down into the void.
Jump Bunny x7
Jump found herself back on the starting platform. Immediately, she decided that the spider needed to go, and opened fire on its location with the heat ray. This turned out to be a bad move, as while it certainly burned the spider, it also ignited the spider’s web. That fire spread to the crate it was connected to, and Jump Bunny realized she needed to move now, or she was screwed. So she jumped, continuing past the first platform even as more and more of the platforms behind her lit aflame.
Jump Bunny’s stream of consciousness became nothing more than a flow of nearly seamless action as she continued through the death course. Jump left. Double jump to gain height. Incinerate another spider. Jump right. Jump forwards. Then Jump Bunny realized that she’d made a horrible mistake, having failed to spot the sheet of web directly between the platform she was currently on and her goal. She tried to escape, but these accursed webs were just too sticky for her to get out and moments later the fire consumed her.
Jump Bunny x6
Jump Bunny respawned again, the entire obstacle course having somehow reverted to its non-incinerated state, complete with spiders. Looking around, Jump grumbled “Stupid fucking spiders.” and set her wand to Telekinesis before using it to try and grab the first spider. Said spider did an admirable job hanging onto its web for dear life. Still, it came loose after Jump Bunny shook it back and forth enough. Immediately afterwards the arachnid got dropped into the void and Jump Bunny continued on her way.
Navigating the platforming course was much easier when not being pursued by a raging fire. The second and third spiders both received the ‘shake them loose then drop them into void’ treatment that Jump Bunny had used on the first. And that unfortunately positioned web in the way was dealt with by simply levitating around it now that Jump Bunny knew it was there. Then Jump Bunny looked at what was next and promptly swore “What the fuck!? How is this even remotely fair!?”
Ahead was a pair of rotating groups of platforms, each composed of four crates held together by strands of webs. She would need to jump from one to the next, and then from there to the platform where the Grand Soul Pearl was located. Jump Bunny groaned as she carefully observed the timing of the rotating platforms. Then, she jumped and hovered over the gap, realizing far too late that she’d flubbed the timing completely as she tumbled into the void.
Jump Bunny x 5
Jump sighed in frustration as she shook the spider loose again. Then it was simply another case of running the obstacle course to the rotating platforms of doom. This time Jump Bunny slammed a Windstep Pill into her mouth as soon as she reached the obstacle, using the double jump to cross more of the gap without needing to hover, letting her get more levitate time out of her wand as she the platforms rotated beneath her, letting her drop down onto one as it arrived without needing such strict timing on the departure.
The same trick allowed Jump Bunny to easily hop from the first carousel to the second, landing flawlessly as she rode around to the Pearl. Another quick jump bounced Jump Bunny from the rotating set of platforms to directly beneath the Grand Soul Pearl hovering above her. Looking straight up, Jump Bunny exclaimed “FINALLY!” as she jumped up to grab the Pearl and the pocket dimension started dissolving around her.
YOU GOT A PEARL!
The next thing Jump Bunny knew she was back in the power plant, that same fox woman from before prattling out “kthanxbyeplsgetmore!” as the Pearl was snatched out of her hands.
