One, Two, I Deboot You

Set in the same world as: Potatoes Of The Thundercloud Mount

In a world so dark and strange, lived a bunny by the name of V. V glanced out the window of her castle at the rift in the sky.

“Once upon a time, one could get drunk to their heart’s content! There were no rules or regulations! But then this stupid thing happened…” She complained to the rock on the table before her. The rock blinked at her in confusion.

“Yeah… You’re right. I should just take what I desire!” The rock’s eyes grew wider with concern.

“I’ve heard the feys still brew alcohol, as they’re not impacted by this curse; oh, how wonderful it would be to sample some,” she said dreamily, glancing at the rift. In that moment, her thoughts trailed off as her stomach growled. ‘I could go for a juicy salad right about n…’ and suddenly, before her, out of thin air appeared a bowl of salad. It was far too juicy for her taste, though, as it was drowned in apple juice.

Feys, fairies, creatures of dreams! They live in secluded societies deep within their regions. Contrary to popular belief, there are more than just forest fairies; there also exist dream fairies living in the land of dreams, which you can only meet exclusively in your dreams, volcano fairies, and even desert fairies. However, Miyu was a princess of the shadow fairies, who were the sneakiest of all. Rascals, as some called them, pranksters!

Miyu sat atop the tree; beneath her was a group of travelers resting for the night. Among them, she determined there was a traveling detective, a merchant, and a couple of guides and guards. She watched the detective pour hot water into a cup and then turn away to grab some tea leaves. Seizing the opportunity, she swooped down, hid in the shadow of the log, and took the cup with her. The detective heard a gentle giggle but couldn’t spot the source of it.

“Wha? Huh? Where’d I put it?” He questioned as he turned around, looking for his cup.

“What’s wrong, Theris?” asked one of the guides, who was leaning against a tree, half-asleep, a few meters away.

“My cup! I had just poured it full to make some nighttime tea!”

“And?”

“Well, it’s gone!” exclaimed the detective. Miyu slid through the shadows and hid the cup in his tent, right under the pillow of the detective.

“Well, who knows? Grab another one.”

That night, when Theris went to sleep, he found himself with wet hair, a wet pillow, and a wet sleeping bag, forcing him to spend the night on a log instead! Miyu seized this opportunity to swap the merchant’s minty toothpaste with a numbing ointment from one of the guards. It was quite humorous listening to him try to talk the following morning.

They made it back to town, albeit not without incidents. Tied shoe laces, switched objects, and other slightly evil yet harmless pranks were played on them throughout their journey, accompanied only by giggles. The night after, however, the unspeakable happened: Miyu did not return to her clan. Her wife sent out the entire clan in search, but their efforts were in vain!

They searched far and wide, inquired with the other clans, but none had seen her. When all hope seemed lost, a stranger was brought before Seapre, her wife. It was a bunny boy with red ear tips and small ears. He was brought to his knees.

“Your highness, we captured this spy lurking in our lands!” claimed one of the shadow fairy guards.

“SPEAK!” demanded Seapre.

“Your Highness! I assure you, I’m no spy! I am but a messenger from my countess, V!” She flew up to him and grabbed him by the chin, lifting his head to gaze into her eyes that resembled an aurora in color.

“A messenger with what message?”

He gulped, “I… it’s right here, in my pocket!” He reached for a scroll and handed it to her. Seapre glanced at it.

“Read it to me!”

He nodded, “yes, of course!” He got up from the floor and cleared his throat.

“I…” In that moment, a cup of water appeared next to him. “Actually, tea…” The water changed color. He grabbed it and drank, while the fairy glared at him angrily. He tried to keep his gaze averted as he enjoyed the fresh drink that had randomly materialized before him.

“Ahh, alright! ‘I, V, the Countess of the far eastern province of Writeria, have your wife, the Princess of the Shadows, Miyu! To get her back, you mustn’t stall unlike the Neph and bring me forth five trolleys of the finest Fairy Booze! Straight to my castle!’“

The bunny boy gulped once more.

“And… tha…that’s it! Uhm… may I go now?” Seapre glared at him, snatched the scroll out of his hands, glanced over it, and then growled,

“I WILL HAVE YOU…” She began

What shall she order to be done to the bunny boy with red-tipped ears, the messenger?

1- Hang him by the ears in the forest?

2- Send him back, but barefoot!

3- Hold him captive and send a counter-offer.

4- Jail him!

Now, it was time to plan the next action.

1) She had heard rumors of a legendary heroic party in the nearby town, which she could hire.

2) She could plan an offensive on V’s castle.

3) The counter-offer was still an option.

4) Alternatively, she could send in assassins!

“DEBOOT HIM!” she ordered.

“Pardon me, what?” questioned the bunny boy. As Seapre lifted her finger, he floated up, held by shadow strings attached to the ceiling. In that moment, he unexpectedly found himself sitting in a chair in mid-air, still supported by the shadow strings.

“Sorry, I… just thought a chair would be more comfortable.” Two fairy guards swooped in and removed his shoes.

“You will return to your mistress, but you shall walk back barefooted!”

“Huh? But… that’ll…”

“DISMISSED!” She demanded, snapping her fingers. Consequently, the bunny boy was thrown out the window by the two guards who had taken his shoes.

“Now then, no time to stall! V! I’ll have you bow before me!” She chuckled. “Prepare five barrels on a cart, but make them empty! I will not give her what she demands, for she has taken my wife from me!” And thus, the planning began.

Off in the distance, a hero sneezed, a detective yawned, and a cat meowed. These were the legendary hero party.

“You smell that?”

“Yes… I smell grilled chicken,” responded Theris.

“No, I mean… that!” The cat meowed again and the hero nodded.

“Yes, a maiden in distress! We must rescue her!”

Theris squinted. “Rescue whomst?”

The hero sighed, “No… you just have no hero senses. Why did I take you again?”

Theris shrugged. “You said something about… dumb luck.”

In that moment, a fairy fell out of the sky and landed in the hero’s mug. She gurgled and screamed for a moment before settling down and eventually sipping away at his mead.

“And you are…?”

The drunk fairy glanced up at him. “Not your drink, honey! But… this is a great honey drink you have here, honey!”

The hero tipped his mug over, spilling the mead and drunk fairy onto the ground.

“Whoa! Rude! I was enjoying that, ya weirdo! I am the scout of the stealthy ones!”

“Scouting for us?” inquired Theris.

“No, scouting for a missing fairy princess, you doofus!” Theris slammed his fist into his palm.

“Ahh! The… Mistress in disguise!”

Hero sighed again. “You mean – maiden in despair…”

“Yes!” he remarked. “Where is she?”

The cat was fast asleep.

After a brief, drunken spillage of secret information regarding Seapre’s assault plan on V’s castle, and V’s demands for the finest alcohol in exchange for Seapre’s wife, Miyu, the hero nodded. “This is our chance to earn favor from the fairies! We’ll rescue the princess, return her to the wife, fairies will owe us and cherish us, we win!”

Theris nodded – “And that will be great, I think!”

So they considered their options. They had to be fast to reach V’s castle before the fairies. Should they:

1- dress Theris as a fairy and see if he would also get kidnapped by V;

2- rush blindly to the castle and attack the front doors;

3- prepare some fake booze and try to bribe V into trading Miyu out to them instead;

4- think very hard about being inside the castle and hope the random rift effect happens

“I have a plan!” exclaimed the hero as he watched the drunk fairy fall fast asleep next to the cat. “Yes? I’m all ears!” The hero explained his plan – think hard of wanting to be in that castle, to find the princess of the fairies, and then we’ll just… wing it and escape after we find her, was the gist of the plan. And so the two got thinking. “Well??” “Nothing yet!” exclaimed the detective, when suddenly they heard rummaging in the bushes.

From behind the bushes, a bunny girl stepped out, dressed in a red dress.

“What are you thinking about?” demanded the hero.

“You, uh… her…” exclaimed Theris.

“Yeah, no, seriously? Wouldn’t have guessed,” replied the hero as he planted a mighty slap on Theris’s cheek. In that moment, Theris disappeared, leaving the hero alone with the summoned bunny girl. To this day, the mystery remains unsolved as to what happened after.

Miyu swooshed from shadow to shadow, skillfully avoiding guards. “How silly of them to think they could trap me in a cage; they didn’t realize which clan I’m from, did they?” She chuckled as she sat on the head of the shadow of one of the guards walking down the hallway, watching as the guard beside him suddenly slapped him on the head.

“What was that for?”

The other guard glanced at the shadow. “You… had something on your head.”

Miyu stared at the lowered portcullis, which seemingly led into the treasury. It had an enchantment on it, so she couldn’t sneak through shadows.

“Now, how do I…” Suddenly, it opened up before her. “Ohhhkay then…” she mumbled under her breath and flew inside. Beneath the treasury, through the air vent, she could hear someone cursing, but she couldn’t make out what was being said.

From the treasury, she found yet another door that was also closed and enchanted. But as the portcullis did, so did this door randomly open before her, followed only by echoes of more cursing and complaining.

1 – Does she trust it enough to go through? It appears to lead downstairs.

2 – Searches the treasury for a magical artifact to aid in her escape.

3 – Escapes the treasury and seeks a way out of the castle while continuing to prank the guards.

She took a deep breath, then flew through the door and down the spiraling staircase, lower and lower until the musty smell filled her nostrils. She was now in the dungeons beneath the castle. Oddly enough, the directions were well labeled. To her left, she saw a path going on seemingly endlessly with a sign: 1 ‘that way to the thing’ 2. To the right, a sign read GRBGRR, and 3 straight ahead, a sign read ‘mirror mirror on the wall.’

She flew down the GRBGRR path; the strange combination of letters somehow made her feel most secure about that path! Theris was lost in the unfamiliar dungeons of a castle. He found himself in a room with a lever, a small flame, a door, and a cat in the corner. Text was engraved on the wall: “I am always hungry, I must always be fed, the finger that touches me will soon turn red.” He pulled the lever, but nothing happened. The door remained firmly locked.

He pondered the poem. “Always hungry, must be fed… red finger… Red is the cat!” Glancing at the black cat, he said, “Never mind…” After desperately attempting to kick the door open for a while, he finally surrendered.

He sat down by the cat and proceeded to pat it. The cat purred gently for a while, until suddenly he gave it a belly rub. The cat hissed and bit his finger. Ather jumped from the jolt of pain and stumbled backwards. Trying to catch himself, he accidentally planted his hand over the small flame on the wall. The door clinked and swung open. “SON OF A BISCUIT GOD DAMNED CAT!!!”

Before leaving the room, curiosity got the best of him. He decided to pull the lever once more, oblivious to having accidentally extinguished the flame. Something creaked above him, but nothing happened in the room. He shrugged and went on. Shortly after, he found himself in a maze. Although small in size, it used magic mirrors on the walls to transport him from one place to another.

As he jumped from mirror to mirror, he took a mental note that each mirror seemingly led to a smaller room with a colored lever, each accompanied by a text plaque.

“Yellow: New beginnings.
Red: Passion.
Blue: Knowledge.
Green: Growth.
Orange: Courage.”

Finally, in the last room, a message: “A path to new beginnings is through these.”

“A path to new… beginnings… If I had to guess, to start anew one must be smart and… hmm, what does it take to start anew?” He went through all the rooms once more; however, the answer did not seem obvious. That was until a cockroach crawled onto his arm while he hesitated to pull the red lever. In response, he slammed his hand with his other hand. The roach escaped, but the lever was already pulled.

He panicked as the roach crawled inside his sleeve, stumbling through the portal mirror without paying attention to the lever he had pulled. After entering, he pulled various levers in random order and threw off his jacket. The roach was nowhere to be found, but he now stood in front of the yellow lever— “New beginnings.”

He shuddered, “GOD DAMNED BUGS! UGHHH, I hate, I HATE BUGS! CURSED BE THIS ROACH THAT JUMPED ON ME!”

He then read the plaque once more and chuckled lightly. “A path to new beginnings is all and none of those things; how foolish of me.”

He pulled the yellow lever, and something clicked above him. The walls with mirrors dropped into the floor, and he was free to leave once more.

As he exited the room, he found himself standing in front of a bridge with colored blocks, each a meter long. The paint on the tiles was slightly hard to see. On the other side of the bridge, he could see a door and a shape floating behind it, its shadow visible through the slit beneath the door. He could faintly hear strange growling sounds: “grrbrrr br grr brr.”

His heart sank; he gulped with fear. ‘A beast unlike any I had ever seen before…’ He thought to himself, concerned for his life. He watched the shadow pacing back and forth. “Gahh! That’s it, I’m going back! This place is lame!” He heard a faint voice echo from beyond the door.

“WAIT!” He called out.

“Not today! I’m tired and annoyed!” replied the voice.

“Wait, no! I, uh, who are you?” The voice remained silent for a minute. “Not your business!” “Well, sure! Farewell then!” He called out, listening to the faint mumbling of the fairy as she floated away, back in the direction she had come from. “GR BG RR… What a bunch of nonsense…” she mumbled under her breath. Theris heard the letters called out and jumped on colors he thought were right – and right they were.

Miyu heard the door swing open behind her and glanced over her shoulder at a half-naked man standing in the doorway.

“Uhmm… No thank you!” she exclaimed, beginning to fly away faster in the direction she came from.

“WAIT! I came here to save you, maybe, I’m not sure! But COME BACK!” the topless man behind her yelled as he burst into a sprint after her.

Before she could get away, he leaped and caught her by the foot. In the meantime, he thought he didn’t want to land on the hard stone floor, and the two found themselves falling through the air from a great height.

“WHOAAA!!!” screamed out Theris.

“Well played, moron. I can’t carry you, so enjoy.” Replied Miyu as she floated away from him but still continued to fall alongside him.

“Oh, look, that’s the castle, free!” She exclaimed and glanced down at the army of fairies from various clans approaching in the distance.

“Uh-hoh… Well, gotta run now, ciao mister hero!” she joked, then flew off to meet her wife at the front of the approaching armies. The two talked and embraced, happy to be reunited once more. Miyu pointed out the falling man who seemed to have accepted his fate; he was now falling with a small pair of wings attached to his back and a blanket over him. He looked rather cozy but clearly had failed to think of things that would actually save him.

The fairies saved him. V glanced out her window at the scenery before her and sighed.

“All this work to get some booze, and you return to me with an army of fairies, bare handed, and barefooted?” She glanced over her shoulder at the red-eared bunny boy. “I’m sorry, they ordered to deboot me!” V sighed. “I swear, a rock would be more useful than you.”

The rock’s eyes widened again.

Immerse yourself in a whimsical tale filled with fairies, enchanted mazes, and an alcohol-thieving bunny, as they navigate a world where thoughts can become reality. Dive into a hilarious journey filled with misadventures, as the characters continuously find themselves in tricky situations, pranking and outwitting each other along the way. Witness the power of dumb luck, hilarious twists, and true love in this captivating short story that will leave you wanting more.