Kyle wiped off the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead and shook his hands together.
The dice in his clasped hands rattled so loudly that I could hear it all the way on top of the tree 100s of meters from where the fight was taking place.
He shouted, "I'm Feeling Lucky!" And threw the dice out.
They landed in the dirt in front of The Enforcer who was still trying to find his bearings. I imagine his remaining ear was ringing from the explosion.
The dice slowed to a stop and, although I couldn't see what they had landed on from this distance, I saw what happened next.
6 glowing cards shot up out of the dice and flew into Kyle's hands. They sparkled and glowed with a golden sheen.
He gripped them tightly and threw one out. It spun wildly in the air, arcing around in a great curve and landing in the dirt beside the rabbit.
The second the card hit the dirt, it exploded in a blinding flash of light. Despite being so far away, I had to cover my eyes, shielding against the painful burning flash of light.
When the light cleared, I saw that The Enforcer was twitching wildly on the ground. Its massive hind legs were thumping heavily against the dirt, raising clouds of dust.
Kyle shouted something else I couldn't quite make out and August sprung up from a nearby bush and lept onto the rabbit.
He shouted, "Blood Letting!" And hacked wildly at The Enforcer. Each swipe of his giant kitchen knives produced a bright red arc of blood.
Something I noticed about the wounds caused by these knives was that they bled profusely. Far more than they ought to.
The Enforcer didn't even have a chance to get up before its throat was slit open, blood gushing out, painting the ground a dirty red.
Nearby, the rabbits that had followed The Enforcer screeched and their eyes began to glow red. They bounded towards Kyle and August with their huge front teeth bared viciously.
While I watched the pair try and dig themselves out of the hole they had created, I was somewhat impressed by their skills which seemed a lot cooler than mine.
But, I was a bit embarrassed by the way they kept saying them out loud.
Every time Kyle threw out one of his cards, a blinding flash of light, or an explosion would result. But, it became less impressive when he called out, "I'm Feeling Lucky!" Every time he threw one.
It made me want to hide my face in second-hand embarrassment.
August wasn't any better. He kept yelling, "Blood Letting!" every time he slashed one of the rabbits.
"Who are they even trying to impress?" I wondered aloud.
A squeak came from behind me in answer. Followed by the rustling of leaves and branches. The squirrel had returned.
"Wow, look at you. The second The Enforcer dies, you come running back," I joked.
The squirrel crossed its little arms and chittered defensively. Probably making up some lie about its mum calling it for dinner or something of the sort.
Together, we continued to watch as Kyle and August battled against the group of rabbits.
It wasn't long before I noticed that they were encountering a similar problem that I had against the ants. Every time they killed one, another two would appear. When they killed two, four would pop up out of nowhere to take their place. It was neverending. You would sooner die of exhaustion than wounds.
I worried that the rabbits might work in a similar way to the ants, tracking by smell somehow. If they did, August and Kyle might be in bigger trouble than I had first realised.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before another Enforcer left the warren, thumping along the ground to where they were.
This time, August fought it straight on and managed to kill it after receiving a few heavy blows from its thick back legs.
I could see that they were getting tired, but the Rabbits weren't letting up. They continued to come in droves. Squeaking in rage and pounding their thick back legs against the ground.
It would have been a lot more intimidating if they weren't rabbits.
Finally, I couldn't stand back and watch anymore. I had seen another two enforcers coming from the warren and Kyle and August looked nearly on the verge of collapse.
I stood up from where I was lying and stretched like a big cat getting ready to hunt. My joints clicked as they straightened, all the while, the squirrel watched me curiously. Its black eyes trained on my every move.
Squatting down, I got into a sprinter's pose. Activated (Light As A Feather) which I made a special point not to say out loud. And ran off the edge of the branch like a plane taking off from a runway.
Weightlessly, I soared above prehistoric grasslands, high above the furry heads of the enraged rabbits that were currently swarming towards my companions.
Suddenly, another furry head came into view. It was red and had white stripes running down its back.
As I floated in the air, the squirrel floated there beside me.
"What the... You can fly?" I shouted in surprise.
The squirrel chattered something and waved the flaps that had opened up between its legs and arms. Apparently, England had flying squirrels now. It must have been one of those mutations that I had seen occurring in animals that had grown bigger.
It glided beside me in the air and dropped down with me as I headed towards my stranded former roommates.
As the wind whistled past my ears, I gazed at the approaching ground that was rushing up to meet us.
I dropped to the dirt and rolled, coming up in a sprint without losing an ounce of momentum. The squirrel scampered along the ground beside me.
"What are doing?" I shouted at it.
It paused for a moment, looking around to survey the situation. Then I saw realisation flood over its furry face. Only then had it figured out exactly where it was. Surrounded by 10s of angry rabbits, on the ground.
The squirrel quickly began to freak out and sprinted off into the undergrowth. Tearing past numerous rabbits and off into the shadow of the tree we had just come from.
"What a fucking idiot," commented as I ran straight into the centre of the battle.
I sprinted up to a rabbit that was about to kick August with one of its heavy back legs and landed a kick of my own, sending it flying off into the dirt.
Hauling August to his feet, I dragged him over beside Kyle and made sure they weren't about to collapse from exhaustion.
They both looked terrible. Drenched in sweat and covered in hundreds of scrapes and bruises. Their clothes were practically rags, hanging off them in tatters.
"Are you both okay?" I asked while evading a kick from a rabbit and sending it careening off into another one that was standing behind it with a heavy punch.
"We're fine," August said while panting.
Kyle wasn't even able to muster up the energy to reply, simply opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.
"Good, the first thing we need to do is back away from the warren slowly. The further we are from the rest of the rabbits, the longer it will take them to send more after us," I told them.
The problem was, that this was easier said than done. Each meter we travelled back from the warren was hard-fought.
I was forced to drag Kyle and August back while simultaneously fighting off the attack from rabbits.
If not for the support of Kyle's flashbang cards and August's weird ability that allowed him to control the rabbits slightly after he cut them, I wouldn't have been able to manage.
Ducking under a kick, I sprung up and brought my elbow into a rabbit's throat, crushing its windpipe and leaving limply on the ground, gasping for air.
I followed this up by jumping onto its neck and snapping it, propelling myself off its corpse and into its companion. Raining down fists and elbows on the rabbit I landed on until its body went limp.
[LVL 15 Rabbit Worker Killed - 1000 Experience gained]
[LVL 15 Rabbit Worker Killed - 1000 Experience gained]
[Level Up - 30 -> 31]
A heavy kick landed on me, sending me sprawling into the dirt. I desperately rolled to the side, dodging a kick that landed heavily on the ground where my head had just been.
I sprung up and saw that what had kicked me was one of two Enforcers I had seen leaving the warren earlier.
Its matted patchy fur and scarred flesh were particularly striking when paired with its glowing red eyes. It was far more intimidating than any rabbit I had seen before.
Dancing between the blows it rained down on me, I weaved like a leaf in the wind, gracefully parrying and redirecting the force of the attacks that landed on me.
Finally, I seized an opening and burst up towards the giant rabbit. I thundered into its chest and sent it sprawling into the ground, raising a cloud of dirt and dust.
Before it could get up, I landed on its chest and sent down hammer blows on its exposed ribcage and throat. It wasn't long before I heard the message I had been waiting for.
[LVL 25 Rabbit Warrior Killed - 2500 Experience gained]
I climbed off the dead rabbit warrior, only slightly disappointed that its name was way less cool than Enforcer and jumped back into the centre of the battle.
The second Enforcer was much easier to deal with because it was preoccupied with Kyle, who was throwing cards that kept exploding in its face, charring its white fur black.
Creeping up behind it, I got the creature in a chokehold and strangled the life out of it. Once again, I waited for the notification before I moved on to my next target.
[LVL 25 Rabbit Warrior Killed - 2500 Experience gained]
[Level Up - 31 -> 32]
As the battle raged on, I was very conscious of the fact that we had to keep moving backwards and away from the Warren. If we attracted any more enemies it would be a disaster.
When we finally managed to make it half a mile from the Warren and had killed off all the rabbits that had been chasing us so far, we had left a trail of blood and scattered tufts of white fur in the grass behind us.
I had just gotten the notification that I had reached level 35 and was catching my breath with Kyle and August, who were practically dead at this point when I felt the ground begin to shake.
In the distance, I saw the tall grass being split apart and flattened by something huge. The longer I looked, the closer whatever it was grew to us.
"I think it's coming right at us," Kyle mumbled exhaustedly.
"Do we fight it?" August asked half-heartedly, still wheezing for breath.
I answered them not with words, but with my actions, picking them up by their waists and carrying them beneath my armpits while running like hell in the other direction.