3-The Forest

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After falling which feels like forever, Jouta finally spots the ground, he lands on the ground so hard, he blacks out. Jouta regains consciousness and groans in pain as he struggles to get up off the cold, grassy ground. "Ow. Ok, everything hurts, everything hurst." He scanned his surroundings, determining his next choice of words and action. "Where *echoes* am I *echoes*? Hello? *echoes*" He gets up and dusts off the dirt and grass off his clothes, takes another look around and evaluates his current situation and all of his recent events. "Ok let's see, I got jumped by Buta and his "buddies", some ghost or evil spirit came out of me and probably KILLED THEM, a cop saw me and I RAN instead of explaining what happened, I fell down a hole, I'm lost in a forest, and I can't call for help, whata day its been. Well, guess the best thing for me to do is to head north, which ever way it is." Without a compass, he had trouble on deciding on which way is north, but he remembered what he learned from his Outdoors ED class on how to how to navigate without a compass. He looks for a stick, he finds one and places it in the dirt and watches the stick's shadow lands with a rock. "Hmm, looks like the shadow's pointing this way of the forest, it's probably not the way to north, but, its my only chance." With that said, he makes his way to what he believed to be north. As he was walking, he was gazing the  trees as he never had seen actual wild wilderness before since he lives in the suburbs. As he was walking, he looks up at the trees once again, to his surprise, he spots a falcon, but this falcon wasn't like other falcons Jouta has seen. It wears an ornate falconry hood with feathers on top of it, with a heart motif. It was also wearing a scarf supporting the color of wine red. The strange looking falcon soon fixes it's gaze upon Jouta as it gives him a menacing, blank, lifeless stare at him.

Jouta notices the falcon giving him an unsetiling glare at him

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Jouta notices the falcon giving him an unsetiling glare at him. "Huh, wonder what's with that bird, why is it staring at me like that? It's startin' to give me the creeps." After not giving it anymore thought and attention, Jouta decides to continue on his way to north. As he was walking he looks up to a tree and on a brach, there he saw the very same falcon. "Huh, thats weird, I thought that bird was still in that other tree." He then carries onward towards north. As he was walking, he looks up just to see if he see's that falcon again. The falcon wasn't there so he continues on his trail. He looks up one more time just to double check. But to his surprise, the bizarre falcon was on a tree branch within his eyesight. Jouta was shocked and startled, he looked back to the other trees to see if there was more of those other falcon, but there wasn't anymore, that falcon was the only one he'd seen within the whole forest. "Now Jouta, it's all in your head. It's this forest, it's messin' with your head and playing tricks on you, there's no way that bird is following you. There's just NO WAY." He closes his eyes and rubs them in hopes of the falcon was a mirage of the mist in the forest. Once he was done rubbing his eyes, he opens them the falcon on the branch was gone. Jouta let out a relieved sigh and continued his way. But before he could take a single step, the falcon was right in front of him, standing right in his way, still giving him a sinister glare. When Jouta notices, he let out a small hi-pitched yelp. "What the? When did you- how'd yo-? Stop following me ok?! What do you want from me?! I've got nothing! Leave me alone!" He then walks around the bird and continues on his trail. "Oh god look what this forest is doing to me, I've been here for no longer that 10 minutes and I've yelled at a bird! A freaking bird! I've gotta get out of here before I lose what sanity I have left." As Jouta leaves the bird behind the area around him started to get cold. He crossed his arms and asked himself; "Brrrr. W-Why is it sssoo c-c-cold all of a s-s-sudden?" As he was freezing his butt off, out of nowhere, an icicle went zooming past Jouta, mere inches from his face, hitting the bark of a tree. Jouta was petrified, he had no idea where that ice sickle came from, not to mention it came past him like a speeding bullet. "What... what the hell was that? Where the hell did that ice sickle come from?" He turns around slowly only to see the falcon but there was something different about it. It had a cold wind aroma around it, all of a sudden, ice cracks started to form from the falcons' talons. The ice started to spread from the grassy ground to the rough bark of the trees, then an icy dome emerges from behind it and it starts to crack and crack and crack until it shatters. Form the ice dust, the falcon manifests its own evil spirit.

When fully emerged, the falcon and the evil spirit let out a terrifying and ear deafening screech

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When fully emerged, the falcon and the evil spirit let out a terrifying and ear deafening screech. "What in the name of-?" Jouta was interrupted with another screech made from the falcon and its evil spirit when it launched several icicles at Jouta's feet. That gave Jouta a signal as clear as day to run away first and ask questions later. Jouta ran away as fast as he could in hopes of avoiding confrontation or death with the falcon, which leads him astray from the his path he was originally going to follow. The falcon flies after him, shooting icicles but missing some shots but other ones are either scraping and scaring his skin or tearing his clothes. The falcon fires another icicle at Jouta, only this time, it aims for his legs. The icicle manages to scar Jouta's leg, making him falling down incapacitating him from running any further. The falcon opens its beak and from its mouth there forms a rather large icicle and the falcon gets ready to launch it to fatally injure Jouta. Jouta saw this and a hundred percent sure that its aiming for his head. Jouta clutches his injured leg and closes his eyes in hopes of all of this would end quickly. As the falcon was preparing to fire, out of nowhere, a spinning bladed top hat came from the darkness of the forest. Too bad for the falcon, it didn't notice the spinning death hat until it was too late. The spinning bladed hat landed on the falcon neck and started grinding against its flesh, the falcon screeches in pain until the hat finally made its way through the falcon, decapitating it. The falcon's headless body falls to the ground and its evil spirit lets out a dying call as it fades out of existence. Jouta could not believe what he had just witnessed, out from the darkness of the woods came a tall but not too tall dark figure, Jouta then notices the hat spinning at his direction, Jouta quickly ducks and the mysterious shadowy figure catches it and puts it on. "Hey! Show yourself!" Jouta ordered. "I suppose you're probably wondering who I am, allow me to elucidate ya." Jouta grew a confused look on his face. The stranger steps out of the shadows and into the light. "The name's Robert E. O. Speedwagon, and way I see it, you have two options. You can either stay and die now or you can come with me and possibly die later." The now named Jouta's savior is a man of medium height and athletic build. He has a long fair-haired mullet and a large scar across his left cheek, leading from his nose to his jaw. His current attire consists of a three-piece dark suit with a tie, and a bowler hat in which are hidden blades.

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