“Stay away from those things, BB-0027.”
Through the lens, Fran, who was quite knowledgeable about lunar creatures, could see what exactly that grayish-white layer covering the giant worm was and gave a warning.
“If you ask me, those things are much scarier than a solar storm, you know? If we run into a solar storm, this bus might still hold together long enough to make it to a nearby station for shelter… But if we encounter those guys, we’ll be eaten to the last scrap.”
“I know.”
BB-0027 replied, “Beep beep, ending cruise control mode. Preparing to accelerate. All passengers, please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
Watching the massive worm in the distance deflate bit by bit, Clara still asked,
“What are those rabbits?”
“Moon Rabbits. Carnivorous predators, extremely violent by nature.”
Fran explained this simply, then went on to describe the threat.
“The news just reported on it… Lunar creatures have become aggressive due to increased solar activity. To survive prolonged, intense solar storms, they’re hoarding food and energy, even attacking human stations and vehicles. The lunar sandworm that was flipped over in the news is the very one being gnawed on right now. We can hardly handle that thing as it is—if those rabbits latch onto us, we’re as good as dead…”
With five heroes present, and we can’t even handle a pack of carnivorous rabbits?
“It’s fine, with the giant worm as food, those rabbits probably won’t—”
Lucia tried to reassure herself, but Fran interrupted her, asking,
“Look again, how much of that worm is left?”
“Huh?!”
When everyone turned to look at the worm outside again, the blood-colored mound had already vanished, and the tide of rabbits, nearly the same color as the lunar surface, was surging toward them at high speed.
“They’re running so fast!!”
Why are rabbits running upright on two legs like people? Aren’t they supposed to be hopping? Damn it, rabbits running like that are just disgusting!
“Faster, BB-0027.”
As a veteran driver, BB-0027 understood the threat of that horde of frenzied rabbits. The bus was already lurching and shaking from the acceleration, but there was no time to worry about ride comfort. The rear thrusters left two blazing trails of fire as they pushed the bus forward.
Yet, there was another group of rabbits up ahead.
“Gain altitude, charge right through.”
BB-0027 answered, “Beep beep, the Lunar Bus can’t fly too high. At this altitude, Moon Rabbits will pile up and climb…”
Azure Cavalier touched the transformation device on his wrist, but glanced up at the bus’s ceiling, then turned to look at Clara.
“Miss Clara, I’ll have to trouble you with escort duty.”
“Huh? Me, alone?!”
“Please, we can’t transform indoors.”
But Pure White Storm did transform at the expo center… Still, transforming inside a lunar bus would doom everyone onboard.
For now, it really did seem like she was the only one who could do something.
Everyone was looking at Clara, including Lucia and Fran.
Clara adjusted her gas mask.
“Let’s give it a try!”
She had no choice, and with Lucia and Fran on the bus, even if she wasn’t Clara the Magical Girl, she had to do something at a time like this…
[Nyx will take over the tentacles. You focus on flying and dodging.]
There was an airlock chamber at the back of the bus for extravehicular activities, but Clara didn’t need a spacesuit. The bodies of magical girls were shielded by magical protection, so they didn’t fear the vacuum and could even maintain breathing.
Clara walked into the airlock chamber, with a “Crow” drone following her inside—it was obviously there to record footage for the show. So much for tension.
“Okay, I’m heading out!”
Clara straddled her broom and opened the hatch.
“Ugh!?”
The air inside was instantly sucked out, and a powerful wind swept the drone away in an instant.
Those fluffy-looking rabbits were just like oversized white ants, gnawing on everything. If she fell in, it would be a real problem.
Even if she could be revived, being eaten alive would definitely leave a psychological scar.
She felt a bit nervous.
“Magical Girl Clara, launching!”
She dashed in the opposite direction of the Lunar Bus, laying down a barrage of magical bombs from her broom’s tail, then spun around to catch up with the bus as it gained altitude.
Originally, the Lunar Bus hovered just two or three meters above the surface, but now it had climbed to over ten meters and was still ascending. This was a real test for the Lunar Bus’s anti-gravity engine.
After all, no matter how luxurious it was, it was still just a bus—a vehicle. You want it to do a spaceship’s job? It can’t! It’s not built for that, get it?
Maybe it was the ultra-high vacuum and low gravity of the Moon, but the squid broom actually flew even faster than it did back in Central City.
Looks like it’ll just be a simple escort job. There’s no way those Moon Rabbits can reach this high—
Whoosh—
Even while flying over twenty meters above the ground, rabbits were still leaping up in front of the bus, crashing into its armored front, and some were even clinging on.
One after another, and there were more and more of them.
“Chii chii chii—!”
These shrieking rabbits had such sharp incisors they could even gnaw through the armor.
Sure, it was a civilian vehicle and the metal wasn’t the best, but being chewed apart by an animal? That was a bit hard to believe.
“Hey, hey, even on the Moon, this jumping height is way too much, right?!”
[They are rabbits, after all.]
[In theory, your current body could do it too.]
“Huh?!”
From Clara’s hair sprouted ten slender tentacles, fanning out like floating cannons and firing lasers to clear the rabbits clinging to the bus. At the same time, she flew ahead of the bus, blasting a path with magical bombs.
“Chii!”
But just then, a rabbit used the Crow drone as a springboard and landed right on her broom.
Though it was a vicious beast, its fluffy body felt oddly nice. Still, Clara dared not relax. The red-eyed rabbit opened its mouth to bite her, but she swept it off the broom with a knife-hand strike.
D
[You can see the dome of Mare Resort ahead.]
Nyx’s words brought Clara’s head up.
“Ugh! Why are these dangerous creatures hanging around so close to the station?!”
How could anyone relax on vacation like this? At this rate, making it to the resort in one piece was already uncertain.
But just then, the rabbit tide below suddenly stopped digging and was quickly left behind by the Lunar Bus.
“Phew, looks like they won’t come too close to the station, huh?”
[No, that’s not the reason…]
As Nyx spoke, the “breeze” on the ground kept sparking with electricity, and the Crow drone lost control, its anti-gravity unit exploding before it crashed and burned, as if attacked by something invisible.
“Huh?”
[Solar storm warning. 682 km/s high-energy charged particles incoming.]
Looking back, Clara saw a visible gray cloud of high-energy particles sweeping across the lunar surface from the horizon, blotting out the sky.
Clara gasped.
“Eeek!!”
Weather forecasts are never reliable—turns out that’s true even in space.
How are the rabbits breathing.