Rabbit Rescue

Managing to bend your legs underneath the furious attacking Marowak, you pulse your muscles out with a savage roar and haul the infected anthro off your body. The feral crashes downhill to toppling down from a large grass mound and falls into a ditch. Getting back up finally, you run over to the top of the forested hill to see the Marowak fleeing in the opposite direction, disappearing within the sea of trees.

Jackal, by now, pulls his arm towards to himself and finally pops his hand right out of the tree trunk's knothole. Shaking his arm a bit to circulate the blood in his wrist again, he spins around and flashes his fangs out, exclaiming with confident readiness, "Alright! Let's do thi-"

"He's already gone." You say, cutting him off as you pass right by him. He stares idly ahead, surprised that the battle had ended so fast and miserably. Glancing around, the Typhlosion discovers that your words hold true with the Marowak gone without a trace. around for the infected but has no luck from his point of view. Continuing to look down the hill from a different side just to be safe enough to know the Marowak was truly gone for good, you mention, "Here, if you want to help, go check on the Buneary to see if she's still okay."

"Oh...right..." He stammers about. Walking to the faint body of the red and brown rabbit, he pats her face a bit in attempt to wake her up. Only a soft whimper responds. Under the sense of uncomfortable tension, he then takes the girl by the shoulders and wiggles her body, worriedly yet awkwardly begging, "H-Hey...uhm...Buneary chick, wake up..." After one final shake, her eyelids break in between, revealing her hazel, uninfected eyes gaze upon the strange Typhlosion face staring down at her. Blinking again and again, she lets her eyes accustom to the light to catch the glimpse of Jackal close to her face.

Weakly, she opens her mouth to say, "Y-You saved...me?"

Jackal only rubs the back of his neck while stating, "Guh?! Well, the thing is...mmphmff!" He's interrupted, but definitely not by you this time. The Buneary had pushed her head forward, kissing Jackal against his own surprised lips. Her eyes were closed, living in a pure blissful moment, but to your view, Jackal was flailing with wide open eyes of dismay. He muffledly yells during the rabbit's smooch as he thrashes his arms out against the Buneary to desperately pry her from him.

Breaking her lip-giving present, Jackal retreats back by stepping back and almost falls over, coughing loudly from the horrific moment. He consistently spits out the taste from his mouth, shouting out with a mid-cough, “Wh-wh-what the hell?! What’s wrong with you?!” You couldn't refrain from laughing.

The rabbit only giggles as she stands up for you to get a good look at her. Her small, thin frame only stood up to just be over half of Jackal’s actual size, if you didn't include the long ears. As noticed before, the puffy fur on her ear tips and the lower half was of a crimson red, instead of the pale tan color which was odd. It was probably a recessive trait or something. Maybe she dyed her fur.

“It was the least I could do for rescuing me! I mean taking on an infected, powerful Marowak for just a stranger was so reckless, yet so brave!” The Buneary begins to blush as she crosses her arms behind her back while digging a single hindpaw into the ground, looking away from Jackal. Jackal’s eyes open a bit wider to your amazement from how wide they were before, and he was struggling with either telling her the truth about her rescue or letting himself take all of the credit, because after all, you did do all of the work.

You walk over to Jackal and give a soft punch to his back, sneering with a grin, “Yeah Jack, tell her how you scared the feral off with your fearless and god-like courage.” He gives an angry glare at you as he fumbles around in his mind to find the right words, when all of a sudden, the Buneary hops onto his back! She hugs around his neck, which was thankfully not ignited for the moment, as he yelled in agitation trying to throw the joyfully laughing girl off. He was too busy running and struggling around, fighting the rabbit off to the point where he runs face-first into a tree.

The Buneary finally hops off, laughing to herself as Jackal falls to the ground groaning. You decide to stop the Buneary from giving Jackal too much love **** by asking her off-topic, “Say, if you wouldn't mind me asking, but why are you wandering in a dense forest infested with ferals all alone? Got any place you live at? Family?”

She pauses her chuckling and flips her vision towards you, looking a bit worried. “Well, I’m not supposed to tell outsiders from my village about our hideout.” She instantly cups her hands over her mouth, frightened. “You didn't just hear that!”

Village? If she knew where a village was, then why would she try to hide it? Were they just protecting something? She tugs down on her large ears to covers her face as her hindpaws alternate stomps in her mad fit. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh nooooo! I'm gonna be in soooo much trouble now once the Chief hears about this! Oh me and my big, fat mouth. Please sirs, just forget what I said. I didn't mean it! I'm a liar! There's nothing for me to hide!"

You attempt to settle the frantic girl down, “Hey, whoa whoa, relax. Sir Savior here and I are searching for a cause and possible cure of the infection. We've been looking for any towns that could help or have knowledge about it. You can trust us. We did help you out, right?” You try to persuade her with the truth. "If you need help getting back home after all, we'd be around to make sure you're safe."

She ponders a bit with an unsure expression, contemplating hard until finally answering, “Okay, but if I show it to you, promise me that I wasn't the one who spilled the beans, got it?” You nod your head and smile, but the bunny presses your loyalty. "You have to swear!"

You hold up a forepaw. "I do solemnly swear." Nudging Jackal with a leg, you gesture for him to do the same. He begrudgingly does so with a lazed arm-flop. The bunny gleams a satisfied smile at you as you give a light and non-painful kick to Jackal, still mumbling on the floor. “Hey Jack, we’re leaving.”

He groans bitterly once more before replying, “Jackal, you stupid pup.” You elbow Jackal as he gets up grumpily. “What?" You flick your eyes to the girl with a head-tilt and back to him, urging him to promise to keep the village a secret as well. "Oh, yeah, uh, so do I.” He answers. The Buneary claps her paws together once with cheerful glee.

“That’s great! I’ll be happy to show you where it is then!” She incites and begins to walk back to the path as the both of you follow behind her after Jackal had courteously retrieved the bags he had set aside.

As the three of you journey onward, you think that it would kill some time if you began a conversation with the happy and skipping rabbit.

"Oh, we never mentioned, but I'm Lace." Your head peers over to your companion, "And this is Ja-"

“Jackal.” He reacts quickly, clearly expecting for your jab.

The Buneary pivots around but still manages to skip backwards to stare at the both of you. "Pleased to meet ya! I'm Rose!"

You relax from pestering the Typhlosion too much. What was currently on your mind was a why the rabbit was far off from her hometown. She clearly couldn't hold her own in a fight, and you couldn't imagine any group of people splitting up like that out in the wilds. “Rose, could you tell us why you left your village? Did something happen to it?” You ask. She shook her head.

“No, my village is one of the safest ones around! Well, actually it does get an occasional infected attack, but we've managed to keep a stable place goin' in a hidden location with our really really really big system of guards, especially with keeping thieves and other mean folk out. I left because we recently lost one of our village scouts.” She then began to skip at a lesser pace and her head tilts a bit down. “The scout that disappeared was my older sister, so I wanted to find her myself. I heard the rumor from a couple of guards talking to each other.” She suddenly embraces herself with confidence, looking triumphant. “But I promised myself to find her! She’s too fast to get caught by some fat infected! She’s the fastest Lopunny in the region, and I won’t just give up hope on her.” The Buneary begins to daze out into this strange daydream state during her speech.

You smirk genuinely across your muzzle as she hums out some kind of military-sounding tune with her skips slowly transforming into a march. She wasn't a kid, but certainly a child at heart. Rose stops when all of you arrive at a large rock wall. Only a few trees and maybe a bush or two were scattered around, and that was a large sum of the area.

“We’re here!” She exclaims joyfully while heading towards a large rock. Somehow, even with her small frame, she is able to push the colossal boulder to the side with simplest ease, revealing a small, open tunnel. You could almost hear Jackal’s jaw drop.

Rose just giggles, “The rock is fake, so it keeps most onlookers aloof. But there are a lot of open crags and nooks some infected find themselves venturing through, and there's even a massive cavern system closeby the village that's crawling with the hungry monsters. But our totally awesome security keeps them away, so that's pretty cool, right?” She gestures her hand for you to follow her into the narrow and dark crease.