The gold sun began its long daily climb into the blue sky, allowing its bright rays of light to shine down to the earth and ignorant of the thick gray clouds sweeping in from the west. Lightning danced between the clouds like white-hot dancers practicing for the ballet, leaping from cloud to cloud in a feverish dance. In a clearing deep in the woods was a dilapidated house. The red roof and cream walls were worn with age and weather, but it still held firm against the forces of nature. Inside the house, the only noises were the hum of the muted TV that was announcing the weather and the loud snores resonating from the couch. Then a new sound interrupted the peaceful sleeper, a threatening but faint roar of thunder.
"Augh!" He shouted as he shot up looking around in shock and worry. After a few moments of worried searching, he realized that no one was actually in the house. At this revelation, he wondered about the source of his abrupt awakening. His pondering didn't last long when he heard another low thunder clap. He let a shaky laugh escape when he realized that it was just a storm in the distance, not something from his dreams coming to attack him or his house. He groaned as he sat up, his body exhausted from the previous day's training. Shaking his head to get rid of the lingering sleepiness, he stood up and walked over to the window. He pushed back the crimson curtains and stared out the window. The clouds were far away that if he took his morning walk, he would be back before the storm unleashed its fury. He walked over to the TV set and spun one of the dials, turning the volume up so that he could hear the report.
"…in the area. Residents are advised to stay inside their houses and business and lock the doors and windows until the warning has been lifted. Now to Sandra for the weather report…" The announcer reported, his clip tone seeming unconcerned about the warning he had just issued. Rayman glanced at the bottom-left corner of the television screen and noticed the Rabbid Warning red insignia beamed almost happily. With a disgruntled sigh, he switched off the TV set. He walked past to the door and opened it. The breeze brushed past his face as he walked out the door.
It had been well over seven months since the beginning of the Rabbid Invasion, when they invaded the country and began inflicting their stupidity and horror everywhere they went. Rayman was captured at the beginning of the Invasion while he had been on a picnic with the Globox children, forced to complete ridiculous games for the Rabbid's enjoyment. He had managed to escape using plungers. However, he realized that he had lost multiple Globox children to the Rabbids and returned to the Colosseum where he had been held captive. He returned to the Colosseum, only to watch it explode when the Rabbids, furious that their champion had vanished from under their noses, used their dynamite to level the enormous building. He never found the children, but vowed to stop the Rabbids.
He followed them when they ripped through dimensions due to one of their stupid plans to create a large cannon to shoot Rabbids through walls. He managed to stop the invasion to the dimension they had found, a strange place called Earth, by taking out most of the Rabbids in the dimension and destroying the cannon so that it couldn't be used again. However, his work was far from over and after two months of battling, he had to take a break. The house was once his summer home, before his real home was destroyed when the Rabbids followed him once. Now, it served as his hiding place and base, the last remnant of his once-peaceful life.
Old decayed leaves crunched under his feet as he walked down the worn dirt path he always took in the mornings. Rayman glanced up at the trees around him, the leaves above him whispered in the light breeze like friends gossiping about the latest news before the cool wind brushed past the trees and continued on its way. Rayman sighed again and pushed back his hair as he reached his destination.
The grass blew in the clearing as he walked into the clearing. A dirt spot was near a set of two large boulders, three holes were scattered on the dirt spot. Rayman walked to it, gingerly touched the ground. It was the spot it had all started. It had started with a simple picnic and ended with their capture. Rayman always came here, to clear his head and to remember why he was on his crusade to stop the Rabbids. Rayman sighed sadly as he remembered the memories: the calmness of the forest before the Rabbids had arrived, their confusion as apples fell from the tree above him, the ground shaking beneath him, the Globox children sinking into the ground, the Rabbids popping up in the spot that the children had vanished, the large Rabbid that grabbed him by the neck and carried him off, and worst of all the screams of the Rabbids the first time he was thrown into the arena. He could still hear their telltale screams in his head, high-pitched and loud in rage.
Then, he felt the earth shake under his fingers and heard a faint rumbling from beneath the earth. He quickly stood up, glancing around the clearing in alarm. As the rumbling grew louder, he began realizing that it was signaling that something was coming up from under the ground. He looked up and a Rabbid was standing in front of him. It had erupted from one of the old holes. Then, four more appeared on either side of the first Rabbid, looking around confusedly before latching their gazes on Rayman. The first Rabbid blinked, then pulled out a thin white plastic box. Rayman suddenly realized that it was the box labeled Rayman Raving Rabbids, one of the many strange boxes that the Rabbids had found in hundreds of houses they had stormed during their invasion of Earth. He took a couple steps back as they looked all crowded around the first Rabbid, looked down at the box, up at him, and down at the box again. They blinked several times in thought, then looked up at him.
"BWAAH!" They shouted in rapid succession, their eyes turning bright red. Rayman turned and ran, knowing that the Rabbids will soon take pursuit. All his weapons were back at the house. If he could get to the house, he could get his gun and stop the Rabbids.