Universe's End

When Rory awoke, he could instantly tell something had changed, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

That's not good. Not good at all.

He'd seen enough movies to know that there was no possibility he was imagining it. Tense, he clambered out of his small shelter as he took stock of the immediate surroundings for anything out of the ordinary.

Trees. Pond. Clover grass is still purple and gold. Bunny. The sky is blue, as always. Wait, bunny?

Doing a double-take, Rory whipped his head back around, focusing on the small animal he'd all but overlooked. It was, all things considered, an ordinary bunny.

Given there had been no other signs of life until now, it was strange enough, but the world spirit Aelia had mentioned her new creations would appear soon.

"So, she went with a bunny?"

Tension easing from his shoulders, he began smiling at the cute little creature as it tilted its head at him.

Which, of course, was when the bunny lunged at him, revealing rows of aggressively pointy rodent fangs.

"Ack!" Rory yelped as he dodged under the small fur missile. The bunny from hell continued lunging forward, landing against a nearby tree before kicking off all in one fluid motion, tearing chunks from the force of its rebound.

I do NOT want to be hit by that thing.

Once more flashing through the air like a white arrow, Rory managed to intercept the creature, snagging it by its back leg as he flung it as hard as he could against the ground. The bunny monster hissed a rage-filled squeal as it hit the ground hard; Rory had used its momentum against it. Staggering upright, it focused on Rory, who was scrambling to fetch where he had left his tools. While the bunny didn't seem exceptionally sturdy, it had torn trunks from a solid-looking tree with relative ease; he had no desire to see what it could do to his rib cage. Hand grasping the handle of his makeshift knife, he spun around just in time for the bunny to slam into him like a cannonball. The impact was like a professional football player had struck him; he saw stars instantly, but his self-preservation instincts kept him moving, even when everything else in him wanted to curl up in a ball and vomit.

Crashing into his small pond with his assaulter, Rory thrashed about as he snagged the back leg of the bunny once more. This time, rather than fling it away from him, he dropped the knife he'd just grabbed so that he could readjust his grip. Now holding the bunny monster by the neck, he braced himself as he forced the creature beneath the false water, where it thrashed with all its strength. Freakishly strong as it may be, it was still only the size of a bunny, and without anything to leverage itself against, its strength meant nothing. Rory kept the bunny submerged for nearly a minute before it finally stopped thrashing. At that exact moment, he felt a wave of energy crash into him.

Snatching his shoddy knife from the bottom of the small pond, he tromped out, soaked and grumbling, dragging along the monster bunny.

"...Sick sense of humor."

Killer rabbits weren't precisely what he had been expecting; he wasn't sure anyone would expect that, but at least he had survived with a trophy of his triumph to boot.

"Still need to come up with a name for the not-water." Rory continued his grumbling as he began wringing the liquid from his shirt. His interface opened as if responding to his comment, displaying a picture of the fake water and a few brief sentences.

"Aisormba." Rory read off. "Life-sustaining and cleanses excess energy upon consumption. Huh. So, someone else gave it a name already."

Rory paused for a moment, glancing at the rabbit he currently held.

"System, do these have a name?" Rory asked aloud. When nothing appeared on his interface, he shrugged, smiling briefly. "All right. Caerbannog."

He wasn't sure how many others would get the reference; after all, it was an older Earth movie, but it still brought a near smile to his face. Half-smile still on his face, a new pop-up appeared on his interface.

"Caerbannog. Tier one. A rapidly reproducing monster with a vicious streak a mile wide." Rory scratched at his chin, thinking.

Still scratching at his chin, Rory scowled as he examined the bunny.

For all the talk of putting effort into shaping life, this sure feels like she just pulled a bit of plagiarism and stole the idea.

Ultimately, he severely doubted any IP lawyers were on the loose, so he highly doubted the World Spirit was about to be sued. Regarding creatures, Rory couldn't deny that rabbits were a good choice. Exactly as his interface had said, they were rapidly reproducing little beasts, perfect for the propagation of life. They could quickly spread across the planet while providing an obstacle for himself and the seven others.

"Surely it's not just the rabbi- the caerbannogs." Rory mused. The world spirit had made it seem like she was planning to seed multiple types of life, and the caerbannog was just one. While it took an initial amount of energy, or whatever it cost to make life, she was a tier two planet; surely, she could do more than just the little white murderer.

Much as he wanted to continue mulling the train of thought over, from the corner of his eye, he saw motion. Something fluffy and white had entered the small clearing of his camp. Turning slowly, he came face to face with not one but three more of the caerbannogs. Letting the carcass drop from his left hand, Rory slowly rocked back and forth, arms raised as his right hand clutched his knife tightly.

When it rains, it pours.

Stabbing forward, Rory swiped his knife through the jugular of another small white body before whirling around. He was covered in muck and gore, thankfully none of it his own, though he had a not-quite-minor collection of bleeding cuts and bruises all over his body. There was a frenzy in his eyes as he searched his surroundings, expecting yet another wave of killer rabbits to lunge at him as they sought to tear his throat out. Still, when nothing appeared for the first time in the last two hours, he let himself relax, every muscle shaking.

"Fuck me," He finally uttered, collapsing in a heap next to the pile of corpses, at least fifty of the little terrors piled up. "What the hell was that about?"

Wave after wave had come after him. It had started with the single rabbit, then three, then five, then seven, nine, eleven, and a final wave of thirteen beasts. If it hadn't been for the surges of energy that flooded him after each kill, he would have passed out long ago from exhaustion. It had been a brutal struggle, even after he'd begun understanding how they operated. Turning his back to them, he could force a lunge out from the little terrors; they would scramble over one another, desperately looking to attack him in a disorganized mass of fur and fangs. Had they attacked in an organized fashion, he would have died after the third or fourth wave, that much, he was sure.

Pulling up his interface with a tired wave of his hand, he was greeted with the sight of his ascension progress, which was roughly eighty percent complete. What would have taken him around two weeks of ten-hour days of deep meditation, he'd achieved in a single day's worth of a desperate fight for survival. He wasn't sure whether he should be happy or annoyed, but at the very least, he'd made progress.

There's no shot that was an accident, either.

If he were a betting man—not that there were any casinos to bet at anymore—he would have put money down that the world spirit had intentionally ensured that the caerbannogs were nearby.

A notification appeared, seemingly confirming his thought, distracting him from checking his worryingly low health percentages across the board.