Explorers of the Unknown vs Kaiju Foo-Foo

4 - Real Heroes Stretch Farther

"Talk to me, Jason!" Chris yelled as he swung mere feet off the ground, one arm stretched up and looped around a street lamp while the other encircled a small gaggle of selfie-snapping pedestrians.

Chris had seen Jason fall from the Greenville Financial Center at the same time the pedestrians were trying to take selfies with the four-hundred-foot bunny rabbit that was about to (unwittingly) crush them. Chris chose to save the idiots, knowing full well that the other idiot usually found a way to land on his feet.

Except now Jason wasn't responding on the comms.

"Yo, Jason! Gimme something here, man!"

Chris set the pedestrians down in (relative) safety, threw his free hand up to the street lamp and slingshotted himself into the air. As he began to arc at close to two-hundred-feet, Chris spun weightlessly, limbs flailing, before his hands shot out like the human-rubber-bands they were and snatched the ledge of a nearby rooftop.

The rest of his body snapped after his hands until he tumbled onto the roof, rolling into a crouch.

"I'm fine," Jason finally growled through the earpiece.

Chris let out a silent sigh of relief.

"But I want the record to reflect that I really hate this plan!" Jason said, his voice strangely muffled. There was a series huffs and grunts which sounded to Chris like Jason was attempting to punch something too fluffy to punch.

"Well, then you'll be happy to know we're about to move onto Plan B," Chris said, finger to his earpiece as he walked over to the one-armed mad scientist and his daughter.

"The shrink ray was Plan B—!"

Chris muted the comms to talk to the one-armed scientist. He had a lab coat with a dangling sleeve. Wiry salt-and-pepper hair. Eyes that were plainly too big for the man's face. He stood with his daughter over a large electronic device the size of a trunk. It was flipped open, revealing displays of information resembling complex waveforms, arrays of dials and switches. Two radio transmitter dishes were mounted to either side of the device.

"How's it looking—?"

The empty lab coat sleeve flapped in the air as the scientist waved his stump at Chris to silence him. His other hand danced across the device controls.

"One moment—I just need ..."

The scientist sounded as crazy as he looked. Chris let his gaze wander to the nylon climbing harnesses the scientist and his daughter were wearing. The harnesses were strapped to the electronic trunk and another series of nylon straps anchored the trunk to the roof.

Crazy, indeed.

Chris tapped his earpiece. "Jordan, you there? I think we're about ready to try Plan B."

"It's not gonna work," Jordan said, his tone flat and distracted—he had already explained in detail why attempting to control the rabbit with sonic brain manipulation was fool's errand.

"The shrink ray was Plan B!" Jason repeated through the earpiece, even more exasperated. "The sonic brain manipulator is Plan C!"

Chris tried to placate: "Until we have another option—!"

"Just buy me a few minutes," Jordan said before cutting his comms.

Chris shrugged and looked at the scientist. The one-armed man turned a slow gaze up from the now-beeping sonic brain manipulation device.

The scientist's eyes sparkled in wonder. "... it's ready."

Chris stared silently at the crazy, one-armed scientist for what felt like a small eternity. Finally, he gestured at the giant rabbit that loomed over them, shuffling down the street in search of carrots, probably.

"... well?" Chris prompted. "Do the thing, then!"

The scientist exchanged a look with his daughter and then flipped a switch on the device.

Chris felt a strange prickling in the back of his brain as subsonic sound waves began broadcasting from the radio transmitter dishes.

One of the rabbit's bunker-sized front paws froze in the air, hanging precipitously over downtown Greenville's lone Big Burger Boys. Inside the fast food restaurant, in the shadow of the rabbit paw, people were scrambling to evacuate. While most trash was left on the tables, some thoughtful customers tossed their trash in the direction of the restaurants bulky orange trashcans. One particularly considerate man haphazardly hurled a tray at the trash can as he crashed through the window in order to escape the Paw of Doom. The tray successfully pushed the receptacle flap back, sliding into trashcan and activated a painfully outdated robotic voice.

"Thank you, ma'am," the trashcan said to the man who had crashed through the window.

Above the Big Burger Boys, the giant rabbit's paw hovered for another moment before slowly backing away.

The restaurant (and its binary operated receptacle compactors) were safe. For now.

Sadly, the man who had tossed the tray and then crashed through the window to escape certain doom ended up getting crushed as he ran to what he thought was safety when Big Bunny Foo Foo backed up.

These things happen.

The shuffling Big Bunny Foo Foo turned and lowered its massive head until it was practically on top of the roof the sonic soundwaves were being broadcast from. It stared down at the puny-sized human, its nose jittering as it sussed out danger. Whiskers flattened against fluffy cheeks. Giant red eyes narrowed in agitation.

Sonic brain manipulating soundwaves pummeled the rabbit.

The mad scientist's daughter recognize the look of distress on her pet bunny. "Dad ..."

Big Bunny Foo Foo's jaw dropped open, revealing a saliva-dripping maw. The rabbit let out an ear-splitting scream that sent gobs of thick strands of spit flying, bellowing in rage against the sonic attack. The bunny's roar whipped up a gale-like wind that knocked Chris off his feet, sending the rubber-band-man tumbling across the roof and over the opposite ledge.

The newly-enraged Big Bunny Foo Foo scoffed, snorted, then turned. The giant rabbit rampaged into the nearest building.

The mad scientist and his daughter—as well as the sonic brain manipulation device—remained secured to the roof, thanks to those nylon anchors.

Unfortunately, they were covered in thick, goopy, mutant bunny saliva.

The scientist glanced over at the ledge Chris went over. "No strap," he said. "Some people are just born dumb."

His daughter frowned at him and pointed to his missing arm. "Do I even have to say it?"