Chapter 7: The Authority of the Hare

She slowed, ears tilting and brow furrowing as two boys began praying in a different direction.

Please, ’isekai’ me instead of putting me in a ’system apocalypse’ world? Wonderful, it’s a verb. Run me over truck-kun... Let’s go run into traffic... What?! Why would a god answer some weirdo talking about sending trucks to murder them? Cult-think much. Wow. Yeah, let’s stick with listening to the people not wishing for death. I can’t be the only one blessed, right? Why would I be singled out? None of this makes sense...

Rachel rolled her eyes and ignored the not-so-subtle catcalls of a few boys in the lobby, wanting to know if she’d changed like the guy on fire outside.

Have I been like this all my life? She pushed open the doors to enter the night. Oh, absolutely! I’ve had a tail growing out of my ass since I was a kid. And ears? Those only came during puberty. How stupid—

The moonlight touched her again, dashing Rachel’s thoughts and making her fingers reflexively tense; her phone’s frame bent and the screen cracked, going black. The reflection showed her nose twisting with aggravation, lips parting to reveal her glossy human teeth.

Shit... I’m way more powerful than I thought under the moon.

Those who were coming closer to engage her came to a dead halt as she tightened her grip, crushing her phone and compacting it into a mangled mess before tossing it into the nearby garbage can. It was useless anyway and would send a message not to follow her, or maybe it was just her releasing stress because everything was changing so fast.

She picked up her pace, heading for one of the recreational buildings Zoe’s friends had been escorted to on their way to her dorm. Unluckily, they’d run into the Coast Guard. It was hard for anyone without super-hearing to dodge the patrols as the men and women tried to get everyone to stay indoors and wait for further instruction.

Martial law meant lethal force was in effect to keep the peace, and local military officers were swiftly taking command.

Rachel didn’t have time to mess with them playing catch-up, though. She knew too much by now, and far more concerning struggles were to come from the discussions between the lieutenant currently in charge of setting up the base here at the university and his superiors.

She listened closely to the officers’ conversations and movements, using various angles to evade the troops. Rachel found her way into the recreational building, pretending to follow the orders to go into one of the rooms with those who had physically changed, since everything was a mess at that point—beastkin were mostly in this area, which made it easy.

CDC was trying to isolate those who showed animalistic characteristics, those without, and those who took on more monstrous appearances in order to discover the cause. Blood work was already being done to determine whether it was biological, but early testing didn’t suggest it.

The military was preparing to hijack most of the infrastructure to link with other research branches across the United States to share their findings, but it would still take a few hours, and there were bound to be kinks to work out.

The government was only in the beginning stages of figuring out how these abilities functioned. It was a bit funny that college kids were ahead of the game, but there was a reason: it did function similarly to fiction, and it was hard for grounded, logical thinkers to forget reality and delve into the impossible.

If Rachel wasn’t experiencing it firsthand and had been able to link together everything these ’clueless teens’ were piecing together through her combination of Feats, she wouldn’t have believed you could enter a black void to select from a list of abilities through meditation. Now, she didn’t have time to question; she just acted.

Opening the door and letting a woman with the lower half of a snake slither through, hugging herself and looking scared, Rachel put on a confident face as she scanned the room. "Is there a Zoe here?"

She knew exactly where the girl was but had to keep up appearances. Her attention shifted to a CDC woman, who tripped on the stairs leading up to them, unaccustomed to the suit she’d been given to prevent contamination; the runners were sent to ask those who had changed to identify what type of ’Kin’ they were—basics at this point to Rachel.

Zoe sat awkwardly in the corner, seemingly having social anxiety in front of a lot of unknown, changed people, which made sense since she was linked to a domestic cat. Cats were skittish.

The girl tentatively raised her hand. "U-Umm... My name’s Zoe?"

"If you could come with me. Quickly—we’re on a clock."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah! I’m coming!"

Zoe stumbled up and jogged over to her, while several women in the gender-separated area asked her questions that she brushed off. "A woman will be in shortly to ask you further questions; we’re still discovering the cause. Please be patient."

Relieved mumbles passed between a few of the beastkin that it was nice that someone who had changed was working on it, as well. Thankfully, it wasn’t a false hope since a decent number of scientists seemed to have also been affected by the lights—the current working theory on the cause.

Rachel let Zoe by, and everyone averted their gaze, shivering when she swept the room before closing the door. She hadn’t expected everyone to be so compliant, but when someone came in acting with authority, it was normal for those with weak wills to cave and fall in line. She, however, wasn’t normal.

"Follow me."

"Okay... Umm. You don’t look like, well, like a normal beastkin—like everyone else in there," she tentatively chuckled, probably looking for some way to break the ice. "Do you...know what you are? I’ve discovered a few cool things..."

The woman in the suit rounded the corner and froze when she saw them. "Who—"

Rachel swiftly cut her off, showing absolute confidence as she took on a busy attitude and name-dropped her superiors; the wide-eyed woman glanced between them, at a loss, as if being driven over.

"Excellent that you’re here, Lydia. Allison sent you up with the papers?"

"Uh, y-yeah..."

Nodding with a smile, she put a hand on her back and pointed at the door to direct her to get moving. "They’re quieting down, but still looking for answers. Any further news other than the Kin discovery? Heh. I’d like some answers myself, as you can see. You see, Allison sent me ahead to ease their minds, so I don’t know the updated data."

Zoe quieted down, tail lowering and ears pulling back as the CDC worker tried to mentally catch up with the sudden question.

"Huh? Oh! Umm, n-nothing concrete yet. Sorry. Hehe. Have they, umm, said anything?" she asked, grip tightening around her papers while glancing between them. "Are you going to report something new?"

Rachel forced a smile, her ears pulling to the side to distract the woman. "I don’t know if it will be classified or not; they might not even tell you they sent me... Sorry."

She swiftly shook her head, backing away with a nervous chuckle. "No, no, I get it! So many crazy—eek!"

Rachel reached out to stabilize her as she almost tripped backward in her suit. "Careful!"

"S-Sorry!" Lydia stammered, face going red with embarrassment.

"No, you’re fine. Haha. I hate getting in those—so stuffy, right?"

"Y-Yeah! Sorry, I don’t want to hold you up! Umm, anything I should know, or you can tell me?"

Prompting Zoe to continue down the hall, she spoke hurriedly. "Thanks, Lydia. Uh, there are a few categories we can use to separate them further; I’d focus more on those called aberrantkin, since they appear to have more...problematic instincts. Following?"

She nodded emphatically, and Rachel finished it off. "Great! Guards should be sent to that area just in case something happens, and treat them delicately; some are very anxious. Can you pass along the information?"

"Of course! Thanks for your hard work... This is crazy... Your ears?"

Rachel forced a smile while walking backward. "Please, Doctor, we are on a tight clock."

"R-Right! Haha. Sorry—that’s the bad, curious part of me coming out... Oh?!"

The doctor made a startled noise as Rachel moved her ears in a heart shape and waved her goodbye. "Keep up the good work; behind all those scary scales or fangs are scared girls... Try to be gentle."

"First, do no harm!" the doctor chimed, returning her wave.

Moving with purpose, she turned away and motioned for a silent Zoe to follow, bringing them to the next floor; yet again, she found herself questioning her bizarre new acting skills. It felt strangely natural to mold into her environment to blend in, and a curious note was that [Lunar Pride] wasn’t triggered in this way.

So many things to test.