The chaos that would come to be known as The Day of the Bunnies started with a sneeze.
Gavin was in Boot Camp working with Stanford on their face catapult. They'd pick a target, Gavin would aim, Stanford would punch him in the head then quickly toss a piece of trash in the concave-shaped face, then Gavin's face would pop back out and shoot the trash at the target. They were getting very good, and Gavin felt that, for once, maybe he belonged at the Academy after all.
Around them, other student pairings were taking shape for better or for worse. Usually worse. Mitchell Warner had partnered up with Orianly Klugbot and he'd shoot his harmless, green beams from his eyes at the spoon Orianly was holding while she would whistle and bend it. It was hard to say what benefit Mitchell's eye beams were, but they got the timing down so that it did, in fact, look like the spoon was bending because of his beams and not her whistling. Which was all Mitchell cared about.
Colin Suarez, who could control pieces of string that were six inches long or less, had paired up with Natalie Bullion, who could talk to worms. She was trying to converse with one of Colin's pieces of string, since it was shaped like a worm. She wasn't having much luck.
Through it all, Mr. Hollowind walked from grouping to grouping offering encouragement, advice, or suggesting the team split up and try some other combination. Ever-positive, he applauded every success, comforted every failure, and remained upbeat no matter what happened.
The sneeze put Mr. Hollowind's good humor to the test.
Gavin and Stanford had just shot a candy wrapper at a spot on the wall that desperately needed cleaning. It was a direct hit.
"Good shot, Gavin," said Stanford. "But too easy. Let's go for something else."
"What'd you have in mind?" Gavin asked, feeling confident.
A malicious grin formed on Stanford's face. "How about Mr. Hollowind?"
Gavin started, a bit surprised. "You want me to shoot a teacher?"
"A moving target," explained Stanford. "You need to practice on a moving target. He won't mind. He'll applaud you for your success."
"I don't know..."
"Trust me, this'll be fun. He's over next to Samantha and Caitlyn." Stanford pointed at the two girls who were in the midst of trying something, though Gavin had no idea what.
"Fine," he said, reluctantly.
"Great. Hold on." Stanford shoved a pile of garbage away from his feet, grabbing a used milk carton in the process. "Ammo."
Gavin nodded and turned to face Mr. Hollowind.
And then he had to sneeze.
He was never sure exactly why he'd needed to sneeze at that exact moment. Perhaps a wayward piece of Stanford's trash had tickled his nose, or perhaps another student had created something that had caused the problem. Or maybe his body just needed to sneeze.
As Stanford prepared to punch Gavin in the face, Gavin went into panic mode. He raised his hand to stop Stanford as the sneeze built up, but he wasn't fast enough and an instant later, Stanford punched him in the face, causing it to squish flat per usual. Stanford quickly brought the crushed milk carton up to load the face catapult...
...and Gavin sneezed.
It wasn't a huge sneeze, just a regular, everyday sneeze. But with Gavin's face currently flat like a pancake, the sneeze reacted far more violently than usual. His face puffed up in an instant, but not in an orderly and expected way. His nose blew itself out at twice the speed of the rest of his face, striking the milk carton and firing it just slightly off-target. As the rest of his face followed suit and reinflated, Gavin watched in horror as the milk carton veered away from Mr. Hollowind and headed straight for Samantha Ruby.
Samantha Ruby's talent was the ability to pause time, but only in a very small and specific area of space. There were some who felt that even with that limitation, it was a talent worthy of Lord Thumbledown's School of Heroics, but Samantha preferred it at St. Hibbard's, and so she stayed. She was, at that precise moment, about to fire off her power at one of the soap bubbles that Caitlyn Bannorford was able to burp up on demand. The girls wanted to see the soap bubble hang frozen in the air. Not that it would be useful in a fight, but they were friends and thought it would be fun to see.
Unfortunately, the wayward milk carton hit Samantha at the exact moment that she shot her power out. The resulting collision caused Samantha to turn about and misfire her own power.
That wouldn't have been that much of a problem if she hadn't been in the vicinity of Jason Cottle and Flynn Decker, two of Mitchell's goons. Jason had the seemingly powerful ability to enchant objects. The problem was, he never knew what the enchantment would be. It was like spinning a prize wheel: sometimes he did something useful, like enlarge or shrink something, other times he changed their color or turned them into poorly-made paper airplanes. It was nothing you could count on, which was why he was at St. Hibbard's in the first place.
Flynn, meanwhile, was able to supercharge someone else's power, but only for 1.3 seconds. He had already been paired up with Jud, with the idea that together, they could create one absolutely massive punch. But neither one liked the other and Jud certainly didn't want to practice, so Flynn ended up hanging out with Jason.
At the exact moment that the crushed milk carton hit Samantha Ruby, causing her to shift the aim of her ability to pause time, Jason and Flynn were trying an experiment of their own. Jason had found an old baseball cap and was about to spin the wheel of his ability. Flynn, meanwhile, was ready to supercharge whatever happened for 1.3 seconds.
It was a very unfortunate combination.
Jason enchanted the hat. Flynn supercharged it. Samantha paused time. The end result was that the enchantment Jason unleashed was frozen in the 'on' position.
Which is where the bunnies came from.
For whatever reason, Jason had managed to literally pull a rabbit out of the baseball cap. Flynn had turned that into Jason pulling fifteen rabbits out of the hat, and Samantha paused time so that the trick happened over and over and over.
Jason's face was frozen in shock as Samantha's ability froze him in place. The bunnies that poured out of the hat, however, were not frozen. As their numbers increased logarithmically, the gym was very swiftly overwhelmed.
Cries of delight at seeing bunnies everywhere turned into screams of terror as the bunnies kept coming and became a swarm.
"Look out!"
"Bunnies!"
"The cuteness!"
Chaos reigned, with students running every which way and the increasing number of bunnies doing the same. Mr. Hollowind tried to take control of the situation, but he was soon swarmed by the bunnies himself and buried beneath layers of fluffy brown and white fur.
Gavin and Stanford stood and stared in horror, even as the tide of bunnies swept over them, driving them to the floor where they curled into balls and covered their heads. For his part, Gavin felt partly responsible for this horrifying turn of events because, well, he'd sneezed. Realizing the entire class would soon drown in bunnies if something wasn't done, he rose to his feet and lurched toward the closed gym doors. Countless bunnies tangled his legs as he fought his way forward. They were all over him, clinging to his arms, his legs, his back. Weighing him down. When he was a few feet away, the weight of all the animals shoved him to his knees, but he crawled forward against all odds and finally threw himself against the doors.
Crashing into the handlebar, the weight of his body managed to push it down just enough to unlock the door and open it wide. Suddenly, the flood of bunnies had an outlet, and they streamed out of the room by the hundreds, prancing over Gavin's inert body. He covered his head and let them flow over him, praying that the onslaught would end.
Soon enough, it did just that. Samatha's ability ran out of juice and time pushed forward, allowing Flynn's 1.3 seconds to finish and ending the regurgitation of rabbits. But the damage was done.
"Is everyone alright?" asked Mr. Hollowind.
He was answered by screams. Not from within the gym, but from outside.
Because the flood of bunnies was in the process of taking over the school.