Shu Fang calmly sat in a café, munching on a rather absurdly large donut. She stopped to take a sip of her coffee. Her face scrunched up at the taste.

“Guh. Faulkner, could you hand me the creamer?”

At the other end of the table sat her skeletal companion,  plinking away at the keyboard of a little pink laptop as he updated their website.

“Mm? Sure.” Faulkner glanced away from the screen to look at the bottles next to him. “Uh, what kind?”

“What kinds are there?”

“Well, there’s…” Faulkner began to hold the bottles up as he listed them.  “Vanilla, chocolate, ‘azelnut, caramel, pumpkin spice, coconut, aaaand original.”

“Oooh.” Shu Fang’s brow furrowed in thought. “Give me…  chocolate and hazelnut, please.”

“Alrighty then.” Faulkner reached across the table, setting the two bottles of creamer in front of Shu Fang before turning his focus back to the laptop, boney fingers clacking away at the keys. Shu Fang happily poured a bit of each creamer into her coffee. After a quick stir, she took a sip, smiling afterwards.

“Mmm. Much better.” Shu Fang nodded, before taking a big gulp of the drink.

“Slow down there, Shu. Don’t go an’ choke yerself.” Faulkner piped up.

“Oh, shush.” Shu Fang grumbled, putting down her cup. It was a rare slow day for the two, giving them a chance to relax. Unfortunately, as was usually the case, it wasn’t to last long. The doors of the café were flung open as a panicked woman ran in.

“WOPLERTINGERS!”

Shu Fang raised an eyebrow. “What about woplerting—WHAT.”

Hopping after the woman was a stampede of brown rabbits, all with flapping wings protruding from their backs, antlers from their heads, and sharp little fangs from their mouths. An endless stream of these creatures flooded into the café. The patrons all quickly lift their legs up into their chairs to avoid any nasty bites.

“Alright, ‘ow in th’ bleedin’ ‘ell does somethin’ like this even ‘appen?” Faulkner asked closing the laptop as he looked down at the café’s new living wall to wall carpeting.

“W-well…” the woman muttered, now standing atop a table to escape the fuzzy little horde. “I was getting out of my car in the parking lot of the Enchiladarama across the street, and my door scraped the car next to mine. Right as the car’s owner walked out. He got mad. Like, sure, it sucks when your car gets scraped, but this was just disproportionate. He was flipping out and swearing and pointing at me and then he tapped at his cell phone and out of nowhere, woplertingers.”


“C-can somebody get these away?” A man piped up from a corner. “I’m scared of rabbits, deer, flying things, and pointy teeth, so I’m kinda freaking out. This is my nightmare.”

Shu Fang stood, nudging woplertingers out of the way of her feet. Finishing off her coffee, she placed the mug back on the table before beginning to rummage about in her jacket. Pulling out a shovel, she began to scoop the fuzzy critters off the floor, depositing them in Faulkner’s currently empty coffin.

“C’mon, Faulkner. Help me out here.”

“Aw, Shu! Do they really ‘ave t’ stay in me coffin? They’re gonna get bunny ‘air all over th’ lining…” Faulkner complained, picking up one woplertinger at a time and depositing it in his casket. “Jus’ ain’t fair.  What are we even gonna do with all these when we catch ‘em all, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Shu Fang shrugged a bit, dumping another load of woplertingers into the coffin. “Give them to a zoo, maybe?”

“I guess we could always sell th’ things as pets.” Faulkner mused, scooping up a large armful of the varmints. “They’re pretty amiable little things, they jus’ nibble a bit.”

“That is an option, I guess.” She gave a nod, closing the lid once the last bit of woplertingers in the café had been collected. “Maybe file their fangs down. Alright, let’s head out into the city.”

The two stepped out, only to find woplertingers as far as the eye could see, hopping and fluttering about. Shaking her head, Shu Fang reached into her coat, pulling out another shovel and handing it to Faulkner.  The two sighed simultaneously before getting to work rounding up the critters.
------

After about three hours, the duo had finally collected all the woplertingers, filling up Faulkner’s coffin and several large cardboard boxes. Shu Fang sat atop one of these boxes, talking on her phone.

“Excellent.  Thanks.” Shu Fang spoke into the phone before hanging up. She called out to Faulkner, who was working on the laptop while sitting on his coffin. “Good news, Faulkner! City zoo’s gonna take a couple boxes.”

“Jolly good!” Faulkner responded, typing away. “I’ve gotten a few hits on our ad. We’re gonna need t’ drop two boxes off at Pat Peter’s Pets in Billowton, four at World Wonders Critter Emporium in Wienersburgh, and one at The Pet Shop Stop at that truckstop outside o’ Burston.”

“Hm…” Shu Fang counted off the boxes. “That’d leave us with… one box, and the contents of your coffin.” She gave a sigh, hopping off her box.

“I’ve got me a bone t’ pick with th’ tosser that summoned all these rodents.”  Faulker grumbled, closing the laptop and standing up. “’Ow’d ‘e even manage t’ do that, anyway?”

“That woman said something about his cellphone.” Shu Fang replied, leaning her back against a cardboard box.

“Odd, that.” Faulkner was now walking around with a pen, marking each box with the destination of the woplertingers within. “Didn’t Pep say somethin’ similar ‘bout th’ wendigo we fought last week?”

Shu Fang furrowed her brow, thinking. “Now that you mention it, yeah… so did the guy that called us about the dubstep elemental.”

Faulkner paused, glancing back at Shu Fang. “Y’don’t think it’s th’ same bloke, do y’?”

“I don’t know… The incidents are so spread out it’d be easy to write it off as coincidence, but…” Shu Fang idly played with the tip of a braid as she thought. “All the stories share a similar theme. Man gets angry, man summons monsters with his cell phone, man is nowhere to be seen after that.”

“I guess th’ phone thing alone makes it likely that it’s th’ same fellow. I mean…” Faulkner trailed off as he scribbled ‘Wienersburgh’ on a box. “… ‘ow many people d’ya ‘ear of bein’ able t’ summon with their telephones?”
“These incidents are the first I’ve heard of it. Summoning usually takes lots of research, tomes, summoning circles…” Shu Fang paused as a large truck pulled up.

“’Ey!” A man leaned out the window of the truck. “We’re from the zoo. You two the ones with the woplers?”

“That’d be us.” Shu Fang nodded. “We’ll talk about this another time, Faulkner. Load these woplertingers into the truck.”

“Oh, yeah. Leave it t’ th’ poor, brittle ol’ man t’ do all th’ back breakin’ labor.”  Faulkner grumbled, hoisting a box and carrying it to the back of the zoo truck.  After loading one more in, the man handed Shu Fang a large stack of cash before driving off.

“Excellent.” Shu Fang’s face lit up a bit as she pocketed the cash.

“I wonder if they knew they could’ve jus’ walked downtown an’ picked up a bunch fer free a couple hours ago.” Faulkner muttered.

“Hush.” Shu Fang punched Faulkner in the boney shoulder, then turned to look at the rest of the boxes. “I guess we better head out. What’s the nearest stop?”

“Wienersburgh, I think.” Faulkner replied, stacking the boxes, before lifting them up with a grunt.

“Good. That’s four less to carry after our first stop.”

“Oh, yeah, says th’ girl wot ain’t carryin’ ‘em.”

And so, the two made their way out of the city, with a few days of wonderful woplertinger trading ahead to look forward to.