The Chronicles Of The Finalists

The Rumour Of The Dying Birds

Finally, the force subsides, and Hyper opens his eyes. The birds are flying away, revealing themselves to be in a place which looks much like a garden, with a rich blue sky and hedges growing everywhere, unnaturally trimmed to perfection. Flowers dance on the hedges, smiling with sinister intentions.

The whole place is covered in birds. From crows, to parrots, to budgies, to pigeons - birds you'd see in a city, for sure.

Hyper makes sure everyone's adjusted. Kreek's cleaning his glasses, whereas Tanqr's just rubbing his eyes,

"Alright." Hyper looks around. He's always been the leader when it comes to rumours. "I'm not sure what the focus of this rumour is, but we can find it if we go deeper into th-"

"More of you! That's unfortunate."

The group all turn to the unfamiliar voice behind them, to see something they sure weren't expecting.

A magical girl, much like them, soul gem a headdress with feathers in their hair, stands before them. They appear to be dressed in a hoodie, with a scarf around their neck, and multiple straps covering their body. Holding a spear in their hand, just staring blankly at the group. On their right shoulder sits a parrot, chirping happily. They have no expression or anything, just a blank stare.

But they don't look normal. Their eyes are an unnatural neon shade of green, their hair's been turned a fluorescent blue. It matches their hood, and their straps are all yellow. Their colours match the parrot on their shoulder. Surrounding them, as they walk, are floating holograms of green glitches. There's something so..unsettling about them, something so wrong. Maybe it's the way they're staring, with no highlights in their eyes, maybe it's the blank way they just spoke, maybe it's the fact they seem to blend with the area around them.

"Wh- who the hell are you?!" Kreek yells, pulling out his sword and pointing it at the other.

"I'm the caretaker for the birds." They respond. They sound somewhat cheery, but there's not enough expression to seem human.

"No, what's your name?!"

"Eh, that's not important." The person chuckles, before pulling out his spear and gearing up to fight. "Now, I need to eliminate you all, so if you'd excuse me."

"Eliminate?" Hyper asks, pulling out his cutlass. "What do you mean, eliminate?!"

James doesn't respond. Instead, he just gives Hyper one look before pointing at him. Immediately as he does so, all the birds around him (excluding the one sitting on his shoulder) look up with a start and fly towards Hyper at top speed. He only gets in one look of fright before he's caught up in the flurry of birds, trying to keep his balance from the speed that they're attacking him. Kreek steps in, slicing through some of the birds from the outside, while Hyper's attacking the birds at the top speed he can, slicing through many a minute.

"Jesus- how are there so many of them?!" Hyper yells while he's attacking, trying to keep his focus.

"I have no idea!" Kreek responds, getting a grip on Hyper's arm and pulling him out of the mess of feathers.

Ashley and Tanqr meanwhile have set their sights on the caretaker himself, running past the birds and gearing up to shoot him. Once he notices, though, he positions his spear directly in front of his person, ready to attack.

And with the rumour, a fight breaks out.

Ashley and Tanqr start shooting towards James, gun fire ringing loud and frightening some of the birds. Pink arrows fly out of Ashley's bow, which the caretaker deflects into the ground with a swing of his spear, so the arrow simply slams into the ground. Upon escaping the trap, Kreek and Hyper start to swing around at the birds that are still attacking, swinging at the flowers on the hedges too, which seem to be spurting out some form of green goo. Hyper narrowly avoids one to the leg as Kreek pulls him away, seeing the disintegrating effect it has on a bird corpse that it lands on. Fight, slice and dice the enemies that come. They won't survive long, these magical girls have experience. They've fought rumours many times before. Even now, many of the birds have been eliminated, seemingly the main source of the rumour's power.