Chapter 21:

"W-what are we going to do?" don't ask me Compa, I have no idea also.

"Let's just beat 'em all up!" Neptune summoned her katana.

"Idiot, there's way too many of them"

"I agree with Iffy, we'll get an early GG if we fight them head on"

"Eeeh, so what do you want to do?"

What indeed. This army of oversized chickens is way too many. And given that we are in an edge of a cliff, I suppose that we are doomed in every way, shape or form. I think my options…

"Neptune, give me a sword"

"Right!" A sword appeared before me. I grab it before it falls.

"Okay, Iffy & Compa try to keep them at bay. Neptune, transform and give me lift"

"Okay!" all three of them responded. Neptune transformed and we fly high carrying me by the waist.

'Holy mother of chickens!' they are way too many of them, way too many. It's like a battalion, and that's still an understatement.

" 'W-why are there so many?!' " Neptune couldn't conceal her surprise.

" 'How can we beat them?' "

"I don't know either. But still, we need to take chances. Oh well, if all goes shit, just leave me here and I can take care of them"

" 'DON'T!'" oops should not have said that.

"Don't worry, I'm only joking" and at the same time I'm not.

"But seriously though, we are screwed"

*BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!* *BANG!*

I hear gunfire and I saw Iffy and Compa shooting down some chickens. And they are losing ground fast.

"Okay, we've seen enough. Let's go back down"

" 'Right!' "

Neptune zoomed down towards our friends. I jumped off, and started cutting my way through these flock of chickens.

*SLASH!**CUT!**CUT!**SLASH!**SLASH!**CUT!*

I cut through these chickens. I slice up a head, and using the momentum left in my body, I twist it more and do a round upper-cut slash behind me. I think fast and hit two chickens from my left then to the right, and do hard downward cut on the chicken in the middle. I connect that with a two-step round house slash, creating a mini arena.

"Shit! Now this is a bad idea!" I can't complain right now. I stab a chicken in the gut, and without letting go I get ready to fight the rest of the chickens with my punches and kicks.

I do a palm strike on the chicken directly behind me. Since I'm already side-ward faced, I do a front then a back kick. I connect that with a jumping upper-cut kick; naturally the sword came off from one of the chicken. So I twist my body more, and performed a 360 degree spin in mid-air and stabbed one on the heads as I fall. Using that as a pivot, I use a chicken from the side as a stepper, and run along the circle of chickens around me. I place my foot down on the floor, and performed another round house slash creating a breather area for me.

"Wow…"

"He's really good"

" 'Yeah, but let's not leave everything to him' "

'Goddammit, I can't seem to see the end of this!' There are way too many of them.

I cut a chicken in half vertically and place the sword behind me so I can block a peck attack. I slash the oversized bird in front of me, while also cutting the chicken behind me. I dash at another and upper-cut it making fly it in the air, even though it's a chicken. I palmed strike the other one replacing him, and back kicked the guy behind me. I attacked two chickens in front and performed a back-thrust at the chicken, that I upper-cutted earlier, as he falls. I performed a two-step circular slash, three times.

"Shit! There's way too many of them!" I got a little breather. This really will give us an early GG. They're easy to kill, but if I keep up like this, I might slip-up sooner or later. I need another plan. I look around and saw Iffy & Compa having a hard time shooting at them. Neptune on the other hand is 10 meters away from me, and I can see chickens flying around. We need a better solution.

I run up to Iffy and Compa as I kill some more chickens.

"Iffy! Compa!"

"Jared!"

"W-what are going to do? There are way too many of them and I'm getting tired"

"Yeah, me too. Isn't their anther plan?"

"Okay, Iffy, let me borrow your holster, Compa, sorry for this but continue on shooting them down" Iffy quickly gave her holster and I re-entered the swarm of chickens.

I attack chickens after chickens, and they just keep on coming from everywhere. If this keeps up, we might get stuck here for all of eternity fighting them. The thought scares me. In the midst of these I found a unique chicken. It has a yellow beak that this curved downward, a white head because of its feathers, and also a white tail. It has golden talons and has a large body.

'Perfect' way too perfect, but I love it. If you don't know what I mean, it's a large Bald Eagle. Now how did an eagle get here? Refer to the story of "The eagle who thought he was a chicken".

I move to its side. The trick to mount any large bird is to move to its side and not looking at its eyes. Place your arms around the wing and grad hold onto its feathers of its body from underneath. Then slowly move up to its back. I did that as instructed.

I jumped onto its wings, the eagle tries to shoo me off but I already grabbed my hands onto its body. The eagle went wild on me; it shakes its body and jumps wildly at unpredictable times. I slowly moved towards its back during the small breather room that it gives itself. Once I have mounted onto the eagle, I quickly place the holster on its beak, fastened it, and I have mounted the eagle successfully.

"Let's turn you into an eagle, shall we?" how do I do that? Easy. If humans gain a shit load of experience from near death experiences then it's also true for animals as well. I force it to turn its way to the nearest cliff. I slap it back as hard as I can and he ran at full speed.

Holy shit eagles are fast. We're at the edge already and I force it to jump. I place its beak down towards the abyss. It's really dark down there; let's hope that this eagle learns how to fly fast. The eagle slowly spreads its wings, until they were fully spread. I instantly pulled up and like he already knew what to do, we flew back up.

I saw Iffy and Compa at the edge. I force the eagle to hover near them.

"Hey! Get on!"

"W-woah, that looks cool" Iffy looks astonished.

"H-hello mister eagle" Compa bowed.

"Okay, okay just get on" I make the eagle level with their footing and they mounted on him behind me without any difficulty. We flew off towards Neptune.

"Where did you get this guy?" Iffy asked behind me ears.

"During battle" then I saw Neptune, still fighting those chickens. And is she smiling?

"Yo! Let's get the hell outta here!" I shouted towards her.

" 'Woah! What's that?' "

"An eagle. Let's just go" she flew up leaving her kill streaks of chickens laying there. We both flew up together.

"You look like you were having fun" commenting on Neptune's smiling face.

" 'The monsters are so numerous here. Makes things that much more entertaining…!' "

"Nep-Nep, you act so tough in that form. Why do you think there are so many monsters here?" Compa said.

" 'Don't ask me, but how could this be caused by the diminishing power of the CPU's? Do their powers even weaken?' "

"Well, their power comes from the faith of humanity. If monster keeps on attacking people, their faith will be shaken" I explain.

"Meaning less protection, more monster attacks, less people, less faith… It's a downward spiral. And wait, how do you know that?" Iffy added.

"Research"

" 'That's succinct. So, as more time passes, more monsters will appear' "

"I-I didn't think of it that way, but it makes sense! What do we do?" Compa got worried.

" 'Don't worry. I'm here. Someone told me… I'm the only one who can save the world' "

" 'I can save it. I'll prove it right now!' "

"She has the same strong sense of justice, but this Nep-Nep is more dependable. I feel comfortable trusting her!" now she's relieved in an instant.

"I agree she's an improvement over her casual, laid-back attitude… but am I the only one who can't stand her either way?"

"Well that may be true, but-" her over confidence on saving the world will be her downfall.

"but?"

"It's nothing" I stay silent on my small comment.

We continue to fly upward until we see the hole at the side that we went through. I made the eagle hover towards the hole.

"Okay! We're here! Thank you for riding with Jared the eagle man" okay that name sucks. Iffy and Compa stepped on to the hole. As I was about to un-mount myself the eagle flailed at me.

"Whoah! Easy there!" it went wild flying all over the place. This eagle has gone crazy.

" 'Jared!' " fuck I'm getting dizzy. Then in the middle of its flailing it hit shoves its back onto the wall hard. I un-willingly let go of the strap.

"Shit!" I still have the sword. So using that, I stabbed the wall deep. Even if it's made out of sand, a deep enough stab to it would be enough to leave me hanging. I place my foot up against it.

The eagle continues to flail around in mid-air, and he shook of the holster on his beak. A quick look tells me that I'm only just a few meters away from them. Then the eagle turned to me, it floated for a second staring at me. It opened its talons at me. And a quick second after, moved towards me head first. Thinking fast, I removed the sword and jumped off the wall. My jump is a bit high from him, but it's perfect. My foot landed on its head, using the rest of momentum, I run along its body and cut off its wings. I reach the end of its body and jumped with everything I got towards them. Of course, the jump itself is short. Neptune catches me.

" 'I thought you won't do the same thing as you did yesterday?' "

"Well at least you saved me without any worries" we both landed inside the hole. Iffy and Compa came up.

"That bird went wild on you huh"

"Yeah it did, but that's what birds do nowadays anyway"

"Haa? How do you know that?"

"I was once a bird in my past life"

After laughing a little, we all went back tracing the hole back up to the surface.