Once he collected a good load of sticks, branches, and bark, Quinten headed back towards Django. The Jeep's headlights were a good beacon to guide him back. About a third of the way there, he heard a rustling in the grass nearby. Freaked out by the sound, he dropped his load and tried to scramble away but working against the new gravity, he tripped on a particularly thick branch. Thinking quickly he grabbed it as a weapon.

The next moment, a decently large, green-furred rabbit thing suddenly jumped out at him. It was freaky looking, with fangs and horns that looked ready to impale him if he got too close. Its eyes glowed red and it hissed a challenge at him. It came up to his knees and a line of white text hovered over its head.

He didn't know what it said of course, but some of the characters were at least starting to look familiar. Or maybe it was his imagination. One of them at the end might have been a number maybe? But he really had no context to understand what it might be. He assumed it was the monster's name though since that's how it worked in games. Maybe the level too? Could be why one of the characters looked familiar. But without any reference, he just couldn't be sure.

He squared off against the aggressive enemy in front of him. Without warning, it hopped at him at a frightening speed. Surprised, he launched himself to the side in order to get away. Not fast enough. The rabbit thing planted its feet into the side of his head, causing his body to angle awkwardly in flight.

He landed, dazed, and scrambled back up and away before another hop attack slammed into the ground where his head was. In a fit of panic, he swung the branch at the monster and struck it in its face.

It flew away and a small red bar appeared under its name. The attack seemed to have taken about 1/6th of its health if he was reading it right. It reminded him of his own and he glanced at it and grimaced. He was now down to 77% and he could feel every bit of the missing portion. 'It can't be good getting hit in the head so often' he thought to himself.

"Come at me fool! I'll wreck your life!" he issued his own challenge to the now upright Terrorbun (His own name for the little devil rabbit. He thought it was pretty apt). It screeched then bunched its legs back and launched at him with all its might.

Quinten was never great at sports, he'd tried a bunch of them throughout his life but none ever stuck and baseball was one of his worst. No hand/eye coordination. And with the new gravity, swinging around his arms was even harder. He remembered all of this in a flash as the monster approached and was readying himself for a home run swing.

It hopped, he swung, he missed. He utterly failed and even the rabbit seemed to laugh at his incompetence. Not letting this advantage go, rabbit sunk its fangs into his shoulder and Quinten let out a high-pitched little squeal as he felt the teeth sink in and scraped his bone. He saw his health dropped another 10% and he instinctively grabbed the rabbit by the neck and squeezed before it would let go.

A small chunk of flesh came off with the Terrorbun and the searing pain in his arm doubled. The bleeding debuff box came back, at least that's what he assumed it was, and a small notch of health disappeared with a flash and a small squirt of blood. The rabbit struggled in his hand and it slipped out and hopped backward to get some distance.

"Fuuuuck that hurt you evil little bastard!" Quinten dropped the stick and grabbed his shoulder reflexively to try and stem the bleeding. He quickly picked up his dropped weapon with his other hand and stared furiously at the devil rabbit.

He ran at it, the rabbit seemingly surprised he was going on the offensive. It tried to jump away but was caught off guard by Quinten's foot while its eyes were glued to the branch. He punted the rabbit and it flew back and rolled twice before coming to a stop. Its health bar dropped to a little over half. Now it was hopping mad.

The rabbit once again launched itself at Quinten, but this time he was ready. He tracked the rabbit in air and, at just the right moment, swung the branch... and just about whiffed it again. The branch barely clipped the top of its head and slid past on the soft fur. The grazing hit didn't do much damage, only dropping the bar maybe 2%, but it altered the momentum of the rabbit just enough for it to miss its attack and it sailed past, the horns just missing his face.

Without the rabbits mass to stop the swing, his momentum caused him to continue spinning around, catching the unlucky rabbit on the backswing. Its health dropped a whole 15%, but more concerningly, the strike snapped the branch at his hand and the larger portion sailed off into the night.

He stared at the broken weapon and spun around towards where the bunny landed. Its face was bloodied and it was staring daggers at him. A shudder of pain originating from his shoulder ran through his body and a small chunk of health drained into the abyss.

"Come on you avocado looking, little bitch! You're gonna get stomped" he ran to the rabid rabbit as it picked itself back up and before it could try to dodge, he brought his foot down and curb-stomped its back leg. A satisfying crunch reverberated through his own leg as the rabbit's bone shattered from the impact.

It let out a squeaking roar as it's health dropped to maybe 18 percent. A couple more good attacks and the fierce battle would be over. It struggled to get up, but with its lame leg, it could barely do more than limp. Quinten took a deep breath, dashed over to the pile of firewood and picked out another decent-sized stick to finish the fight.

He warily approached the Terrorbun and, keeping a small amount of distance to avoid any kind of attack, proceeded to pound the life out of it. 3 strikes and its health dropped to zero.

He collapsed on the ground, breathing hard. A small series of unreadable notifications popped up but he ignored them as pain once more lanced through his body when another sliver of health drained away.

The notifications disappeared after a moment but the bleeding debuff continued unabated. He was down to under 70% now and the bleeding didn't seem to want to stop.

He plopped down on his back, breathing heavily from the workout. His legs felt like they were on fire and there was a stitch in his side. He hadn't felt like this since his first cross-country meet back in middle school.

After another drop in health and a shot of pain lancing through his shoulder, he picked himself up and gathered what he could carry off the firewood and headed back to the Jeep. As he passed by the rabbit corpse he thought 'I'll come back for you later.' One more flash of pain spurred him on towards the Jeep.

As he walked he thought over the battle. "I could have died to that thing..." He shuddered at the thought. He told himself that it's just like a game, to try and combat the small pool of fear welling up in the pit of his stomach. "Who knows, maybe I'll get to respawn if I die?" as he said a shiver ran through him and a hint of mortality washed over him and he felt that was just wishful thinking. He somehow knew, deep inside himself, death was most likely final here.

He made it back to Django and dropped the firewood near the rear driverside tire. He patted his pockets searching for his keys again and unlocked the door. It was time to take stock and see if he had anything to help with the bleeding.

---------

The goddess Demi cheered, laughed and gasped at all the proper moments. When the fight was over, she almost dropped her popcorn as she clapped at his victory.

"This little fellow actually won his first fight! He's one step closer to fulfilling his destiny" She couldn't help be proud of his accomplishments. That and she was happy she finally had something good to watch.