2 Mary Sue
The rolling plains of Eidolos were the very image of pastoral serenity. Sprawled out along the eastern edge of the Alvari Kingdom, the green and golden swaths of grass and shrubbery seemed to stretch on endlessly in every direction, and they were broken only by the occasional river, forest, or small village hamlet.
To the various fauna that called those plains their home, theirs were lives of relative peace and comfort. Food was in abundance, and predators had such easy pickings that many of the animals there could grow old and die without ever having known the fear of being hunted.
Yet things hadn't always been like that, nor could such idyllic conditions stand the test of time. As the life of a single person might move in cycles, so does mother nature in her long, drawn-out machinations.
Prosperity always gives way to poverty; fertile lands grow overused and death looms ever larger on the horizon.
Even the little family of rabbits sitting atop one of the plain's many small hills, under the shadow of a single, ancient tree, appeared well aware of this fact.
The mother, in her instinct, had noticed something was amiss, and she had gathered her young from where they were hopping merrily through the grass. They huddled close together, despite the warmth of the afternoon air, and sat with eyes peeled, ears pointed up and alert.
Seconds passed.
A minute.
An hour.
And then…
Crack!
After announcing itself thus, a wretched tearing sound followed, as if the very fabric of reality was being split apart.
The rabbits frantically turned their heads, looking for a source.
And there it was.
A ball of pitch black that seemed to suck away all the light around it, yet paradoxically spewed forth purple tongues of smoke at the very same time. It hung in its spot, a meter or so above the ground, producing a deep and chilling hum that shook the mother's cowering bunnies to their very core.
Was it the end? Was this it?
But just as quickly as these terror-stricken thoughts entered the mother rabbit's single-tracked mind, the ball collapsed upon itself. The smoke vanished in an instant, and the light the ball had previously consumed suddenly erupted outwards in a blinding burst.
When it cleared, and the rabbits' visions had recovered, they found in its place a strange…
Beast?
It reminded them vaguely of the wooden boxes the humans often traveled in, yet this one was so much… sleeker. So much more… alien.
One of the male bunnies, who was easily the bravest among them, curiously raised his head and slowly left his mother's side in the hopes of getting a closer look. Before long, however, he bounded right on back; the sleek box beast had let out what could only be a roar and had started to move.
Little did the rabbits know that they were looking upon the catalyst for the greatest change their world would see since the cataclysmic war of a thousand years prior.
An M1 Abrams, a vehicle of death from another time, another reality.
As the armored beast continued to move forward, towards the cover of a thick forest a short distance away, its turret shifted somewhat, as if saluting the family of rabbits with its raised and outstretched gun.
Had the small animals been able to read, they surely would've shuddered as the light of the sun washed over the main gun. There, in bold, black lettering emblazoned along the length of its barrel, the tank proclaimed its fearsome name:
"MARY SUE"
