Day 253 | OPEN | Bunnygeddon: Rise of the Leporidae

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Who: Bunnies, Rob, everyone - feel free to thread amongst yourselves and ignore Rob in favor of the much cuter mammals
Open: Open
When: Day 253
Where: EVERYWHERE
What: BUNNIES
Format: Any
Warnings: Animal death

This morning in the Bastion is like any other at first. Early risers won't notice anything unusual, and it seems like today will be just another day at the end of the worlds.

Then the Monument is activated, and the invasion begins. An invasion of bunnies.

The rabbits are each around the size of a large housecat, come in either brown (female) or a very light gray (male), and seem to have shown up everywhere, especially where they aren't wanted. Rabbits munching away in the garden, rabbits hopping into buildings through open windows and doors, rabbits making more rabbits in places one would really rather not see such things... the list goes on.

(Okay there are probably only like ten of them at any one time, but they're getting into everything and compared to the Bastion's previous rabbit population levels this is a pretty big increase.)

The first rabbit that Rob sees confuses him for a moment, and the second makes him realize what just happened; the Monument had no way to tell whether he'd bought rabbits as livestock or as ambiance and had assumed the latter. In fact, when he goes to check the animal pen, he discovers that absolutely no rabbits have ended up there. Cue facepalm.

[1]

Rob will be spending the majority of the day attempting to catch all the rabbits and put them in the animal pen. "Attempting" is the key word here, because it turns out that it's a lot harder to catch rabbits with your bare hands than it looks. If he didn't know better he'd say that they're trolling him, acting like they're unaware of his presence as he sneaks up on them, only to leap out of the way at the exact moment he's about to grab them.

[2]

It's starting to get dark by the time Rob finally manages to get his hands around one. It thrashes and bites, but Rob manages to hold it by the scruff in his left hand and draws his knife with his right. Screw putting it in the animal pen; he's spent almost the entire day chasing rabbits around and he's dirty, sweaty, and pissed at these rabbits. He's cooking himself some meat for dinner.

He readies his knife... and stops. He's always thought of rabbits as silent, but this one's squealing loudly. Its heart is pounding in its tiny chest, and he swears he can feel it trembling as it struggles. He looks into its eyes and is surprised to see terror there. He has such a hard time reading humans, but the rabbit's response is so primal that he can recognize it as a prey animal's knowledge that it's about to die but desperately trying to keep living. His knife hand begins to lower.

I've brought creatures into this world for the sole purpose of being killed. This one hasn't even been alive a day and already I'm trying to kill it. ...Were they even necessary? I told myself they'd be a good backup to the fake meat, but there are already other animals we could use in an emergency. I was just disgusted by the idea of eating meat that hadn't come from an animal.

His knife hand hits the ground.

I'm a terrible person, and I've just wasted 200 shards. Now what?

The hand holding the still-squealing rabbit begins to lower.

I can't bear to kill this rabbit. But...

His hand stops its descent.

But what if I had to? Part of why I bought these was in case of an emergency. If I can't do this now, how can I expect to be able to do it in an even more stressful situation? I could leave it for someone else to do, but... But how can I dump something like this on someone else? That'd make me even more of a terrible person.

His knife hand begins to rise from the ground.

I wanted to be a man. I wanted to be able to hunt and feed myself. If I can't kill the prey I've already caught then I might as well just give up right now.

He lifts the rabbit back to a better height and brings the knife towards it.

I have to do this.

He places the blade of the knife against the rabbit's throat. The rabbit's struggles cease, whether from exhaustion, not wanting to hasten its demise, or the realization of the futility of going on, he doesn't know. He swallows.

I have to do this.

He tenses, preparing to draw the knife across the rabbit's throat, and closes his eyes. A moment later he forces himself to open them and look into the rabbit's eyes, feeling its frantic heartbeat through his fingers. He clenches his teeth.

"I'm sorry."

For a moment, his world is reduced to nothing but the drawing of a thin red line.

He stays there for a while in silence, holding his knife in one hand and cooling meat in the other, breathing heavily as he feels a few drops of warm blood make their way down his cheek, eventually mixing with tears as their paths converge. His mind begins waking up again, annoying him by making frivolous associations and remembering inappropriate jokes relating to the current situation.

Dammit.

Then a single sentence emerges from the chaos of his thought processes, and context appears around it. Perhaps other people would consider the idea tacky and inappropriate, especially given its source, but to Rob it was slightly calming and felt right. He stood and wiped at his eyes with one of the cleaner parts of the hem of his tanktop, then began walking with purpose in his step.

[3]

As dusk begins to fall, Rob can be seen walking, dirty and sweaty, with red-rimmed eyes, splatters of drying blood on his tanktop and face, and a dead rabbit in one hand. He looks serious about whatever he's doing, which seems to amount to brief visits to the kitchen and workshop before he returns to his cottage for the night.

Comments

1

[scary_music]

"Bunnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy-chaaaaaaaaaaan~ Come baaaaaaaaaaaack~ Ibuki won't bite~!"

Ibuki is being... very unhelpful. She's just laughing happily as she chases one of the rabbits around with her arms held out as if trying to catch it.

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Rob stops to catch his breath and sees... that. Ibuki the point of having rabbits is that you're supposed to be biting them.

"Could you try herding them into the animal pen?"

[scary_music]

She's perfectly happy with the other food she can get around here without having to kill woodland critters, thank you very much.

Besides, she's a city girl, the thought of eating wild rabbit never occurred to her.

"Huhhh?" Ibuki paused at Rob's request, before glancing over at the pen, "But there's not as much space to run around with them in there! It's so cramped! Ibuki and the rabbits need to be able to stretch their legs!"

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

Rob is a city man himself and has actually never eaten rabbit before, he's just read about doing so. Also they weren't supposed to be wild.

"It's big enough and empty enough that something that small should be okay. Can always let one out later if it seems unhappy."

[scary_music]

"Hmmmmmm...,". Ibuki seemed to give Rob's request some serious thought, before nodding, "Very well! Ibuki shall lend her strength to the cause, Robbie-chan!"

And with that, she shall do as promised and try to herd rabbits into the pen.

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

"Thanks."

Rob will now head off to go chase some other rabbits.

This is ultimately an exercise in futility, since the rabbits will respawn outside of the pen when they're killed, but at least they might be able to get the current situation under control until they discover that, assuming Ibuki is better than Rob at rabbit-wrangling.

[scary_music]

If Ibuki had Gundam's skillset, she would have no trouble wrangling the rabbits. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. After a number of failed attempts at herding them, Ibuki just goes back to chasing them at random.

[windgod]

Ippo had been actually sleeping in for once when all the chaos from outside woke him up. With his hair haphazardly tied into a ponytail and with a half-awake curiosity, Ippo came down from his room and the second he stepped foot outside the apartments...he saw Ibuki tear across the Bastion past him chasing...a rabbit.

What even?

He was just going to...catch up and run alongside his friend, tapping her on the shoulder so he could potentially get her attention. "Um...Ibuki? What's going on?"

[scary_music]

She stopped to turn around, beaming happily and letting out a laugh before responding, "Look, Ippo-chan, look! It's bunnies! Rabbits everywhere! It's a bunpocalypse!"

[windgod]

"Well...yeah, but how? And why?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow up slightly. They were cute and everything, but when he went to sleep, the Bastion had been distinctly lacking in rabbits. Why the sudden change?

[scary_music]

"Who knows? Who knows? Ibuki doesn't! But look, Ippo-chan, look! It's the miracle of life! Isn't it cute?! The cutest miracle of life!"

[windgod]

The rabbit, now no longer being chased, had just taken to chewing on a nearby patch of grass while others just hopped along aimlessly exploring their new environment. "They are cute...but I think we should probably get them to the animal pen somehow. I wouldn't want anyone to accidentally hurt one."

[scary_music]

"Huh? Huhhh? Why do we need to pen them up? We have cute little baby dragons that aren't penned up and aren't hurt, why the rabbits?"

[windgod]

"Well...it's a lot easier to accidentally trip over things that aren't flying most of the time. Plus we have things roaming around the Bastion that'd probably like them for snacks...best to keep them safe you know?" Putting a wall between them and everything else around here seemed like a good move to him.

[scary_music]

"Mm... I see, I see. Actually, Ibuki tried to help Robbie-chan herd them into pens earlier, but it didn't work! Ibuki failed! She's the Super Ultimate Music Person, after all, not the animal handler! Mm... Gundam-chan could have probably handled it easily! He'd be all like... UWAH! Supreme Overlord of Ice! And then the rabbits would be in the pen."

[windgod]

"Gundam-chan? Is that a friend of yours?" This person sounded awfully strange...but then again, Ibuki was the one explaining him and being honest...she could probably make anyone sound strange.

[scary_music]

"Yes, yes, one of Ibuki's friends! He was really intense! Really scary, but he's not so bad! Also, he has four cute hamsters! The Four Dark Devas of Destruction! Mirage Silver Falcon, Jum-P! Star Destroyer Grey Fox, Sun-D! Invading Black Dragon, Cham-P! Steel Red Elephant, Maga-G!"

[windgod]

"Those are...really interesting names." They definitely were interesting names, but he could only imagine what kind of vivid imagination this person had if those were the names for his hamsters. At any rate, they were here to catch rabbits and not hamsters, so it was probably time to focus on that, lest he get distracted again.

"Alright...as far as the rabbits go, if you can chase them towards me, I can probably catch them without hurting them. How's that sound for a plan?"

[scary_music]

"Very well! Catch rabbits, take two! Ready! Action!"

And Ibuki attempted to do as Ippo requested... but it's a bit harder than Ippo made it out to be. They tend to veer off to the left or right when they get close to the boxer.

[windgod]

Unforunately for the rabbits, Ippo had a lot of training in catching things that were hard to get a hold of and after the first few misses, he eventually managed to nab one by the skin of the neck. From there...it just kind of hung limply and stared at him, it's nose twitching from time to time.

"Well...it's not the quickest route, but it works I suppose?" Jeez this thing was adorable. Was he giving it pets? He totally is.

[scary_music]

"You did it, you did it! Ippo-chan is now in possession of one rabbit!" Ibuki cheered, coming over to peer closely at the aforementioned animal.

And she began to pet it as well.

"So fast! Ibuki hasn't been able to catch one yet, and then... a surprise! Ippo-chan deftly outmaneuvers the herbivore! As expected of the person that Ibuki had to cheat against to win the race back on her first day here!"

[windgod]

"Haha, it's no big deal really. Takamura-san made me catch 8 leaves falling from a tree before he agreed to help me start boxing." he said with a laugh as he continued to give the rabbit pets...oddly enough, it didn't seem to mind the attention, even when he started moving towards the pen.

"As far as that race...a win is a win, isn't it? I let my guard down so that was my fault as much as anything."

[scary_music]

"Hmhm, impressive training...!" Ibuki nodded, before saying, "But Ibuki will let you in on a little secret: Ibuki wasn't really trying very hard to catch them at all! Ibuki was just chasing them around for fun!"

She's still giving the rabbit the occasional pet while following alongside Ippo.

"Ibuki still hasn't decided what she wants for winning that race..."

[windgod]

"Take your time, decisions like that shouldn't be made quickly anyways." After all, something could come up later down the line that she needed help with and then could call on a free favor. Not that he'd say no even if he didn't owe her a favor...but it just kinda made sense like that.

[scary_music]

"Be prepared, Ippo-chan! Who knows what Ibuki may come up with!? Not even Ibuki knows! It's a complete mystery!"

She considered the rabbit for a bit.

"Hey, hey, do we really have to put it in the pen? Maybe you could adopt it, Ippo-chan! You'll be a bunny daddy!"