Baking up a New Adventure! (A Cookie Run: Kingdom Story)

Part 21: Attack of the Dust Bunnies!

"Hang on," I urged him as I heard faint sounds of chewing, which turned out to be Chili Pepper, who was enjoying some of the bear jellies she had taken yesterday.

"Hey... why are you looking at me like that?" She pressed.

"You owe me one after I defended you today," I commented.

"What?!" She pressed. "But you've already had something!"

"So have you," I pointed out.

"Ugh, fine, but only one," Chili Pepper relented as she tossed me a bear jelly.

"Great, thanks!" I thanked her, turning to hand it to Custard III. "Here you go."

"You'd give that... to me?" He wondered.

"Of course," I assured him. "It sounds like you really need it. Now eat up and let's get going!"

We started walking down the hallway together to get to the kitchen.

"I can't believe you're encouraging my brother's laziness," Alchemist muttered as we walked out of earshot of him.

"If it'll get him moving for now then just roll with it," I urged her.

"Oooh, what are those things up there?" Princess Cookie asked me as she stared up at the fish tank on the shelf.

"Oh, those?" I responded. "Those are called fish."

"They're all... fish?" She pressed. "But they all look so different. I never knew there were so many types of different fish, especially not like these ones. And look at all those different colored rocks!"

Knight Cookie looked all the more uneasy at her continued enthusiasm.

"Gah! We're under attack!" Gingerbrave cried out.

"What?" I pressed.

"What on earthbread are those things?!" Wizard wondered.

I turned my head to see what they were talking about and saw that we were being confronted by...

"Dust bunnies," I sighed. "I guess they're not going to let us past without a fight." ***

Gingerbrave, Strawberry, Adventurer, Alchemist, and I took the lead to deal with these dust bunnies.

Gingerbrave charged forward to knock them all back, and I formed a wall of ice spikes to prevent them from reaching us again, at least for a little while.

"Go away!" Strawberry cried out, taking her lollipop and spinning around in circles with it held out in front of her, swinging it almost like a club, which was enough to finally take down the first wave of dust bunnies.

"My latest concoction!" Alchemist exclaimed as she readied her potion and tossed it into the fray, poisoning the next wave of dust bunnies as they approached and damaging them over time.

"Hold still!" Adventurer exclaimed as he pulled himself up into the air with a rope and lowered himself down behind the line of dust bunnies, using his whip to deal massive damage and take one of them down.

Gingerbrave charged again, and that was enough to do them in.

I saw a circular object just up ahead, almost like a marble, with a flame pattern inside.

"What's that?" I wondered, pointing.

"A blast jelly?" Gingerbrave replied, sounding rather confused.

"How did that get here?" I wondered.

"I'm not sure, but we'd better hurry and take it," Gingerbrave decided. "Because there's a lot of those dust bunnies incoming!"

As soon as one of us touched the blast jelly, the five of us took off at blazing speeds, crashing through the dust bunnies as if they were bowling pins. We started to run out of speed just as the final wave of dust bunnies approached, headed by a...

"Giant dust bunny," I gasped as its figure towered over us.

I tried forming a wall of ice spikes to stop it, but it just charged through them like they were nothing. The ice wall did succeed at stopping its smaller hench bunnies, though.

The giant dust bunny swiped its paw at us, damaging all of us and stunning us briefly from the force of the blow. The ice wall had now vanished, and the smaller dust bunnies rushed forward to meet us before we could attack their leader.

Strawberry cookie started spinning around and swinging her lollipop again, which took out most of the smaller bunnies, but a few who hadn't sustained much damage from the ice wall managed to survive. One of them engaged Alchemist Cookie and attacked her, using its ears almost like fists. She chucked a smaller potion at it, which was enough to do it in.

"Alchemist Cookie!" I gasped as Gingerbrave charged forward and felled the last of the smaller dust bunnies. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she assured me as she shook the bottle of potion in her hand and flung it at the large dust bunny, dealing poison damage to it over time.

The large dust bunny charged forward to meet us again and slammed one of his ears into the ground, causing it to shake, dealing sizable damage to Gingerbrave, Strawberry, and Alchemist who were near the front, while Adventurer and I were hardly affected since we were farther back. I formed another ice wall to prevent the giant dust bunny from attacking us for a little while.

"Alchemist Cookie, you've taken a lot of hits," Gingerbrave commented. "I think you should fall back for a while."

"I need to finish my research on how my concoction affects these dust bunnies," Alchemist insisted, holding another large potion to throw at the dust bunny.

The big dust bunny became poisoned, and some of the dust surrounding it even started to fizzle away as if hit by acid.

"Interesting..." Alchemist murmured as she produced a pen and paper to write this all down. "It seems to have a different, more potent, effect on the larger ones."

"Ack! Where'd it go?" Gingerbrave gasped, and I turned to see that the giant dust bunny had vanished.

At first, I thought it had been corroded by Alchemist's poison, but then I saw a giant shadow looming over head, aiming straight for--

"ALCHEMIST COOKIE!" I gasped as I formed a platform of ice over her head just before the giant dust bunny would have pounced on her.

The dust bunny was falling with such force that he managed to crack the ice. The dust bunny leapt up again, high into the sky.

"One more crash like that, and it'll shatter the ice!" I gasped. "We need to get you out of here, and fast!"

I put her arm around my neck and took off in the opposite direction, back towards my room, but the dust bunny was in hot pursuit, changing its trajectory as it fell so that it would have landed right on top of us had I not formed another platform of ice to block it.

"Look, my concoction! It's corroding it!" Alchemist pointed out as more fibers of dust fizzled away.

"But not fast enough," I pointed out. "Come on, we've got to—WOAH!"

I tripped over the unraveled string of carpet just outside my brother's door, and I thought we were done for. Even if the attack didn't land a direct hit, the shockwave would still do a decent amount of damage when it hit, and I knew Alchemist couldn't take much more of this.

"I need a drink!" Vampire Cookie declared as he approached the front lines.

"Err, Vampire Cookie, now's not the time to--" I started to say, but I broke off as I realized he was just announcing his special attack. "Oh."

He turned into a tiny fruit bat and flew up towards the dust bunny in attempts to stop it before it reached us. He bit down on its ear, and in an instant, it exploded into tinier bits of dust that floated harmlessly down on us. Well, harmlessly except for the fact that it put most of us in sneezing fits.