The creature had egressed from Ingress. It had found a hole in a hidden area near the surface of the dungeon; the hole was quite small but large enough for an insignificant creature of its size to fit through.

The creature had egressed from Ingress. The outside world was a much more beautiful and brilliant grey. Trees and grass, a lush silver nature that the creature had never seen before; there was a wonderous blue sky with an enormous yellow circle up above. It was completely unlike those cramped grey caves it had spent its entire life in. Sometimes the creature thought it could see vibrant greens in the distance but whenever it approached those greens would always reveal themselves to be that same dull grey.

The creature made itself at home in this new and bright place. Without ever having truly intended to do so the creature had once again furnished its home with the usual decorum of stone animals of all variety. Anytime some animal wandered into its territory or attempted to investigate the intruder they would always freeze up at the sight of the creature’s horrible gaze.

The creature was very aware of the might contained within its eyes, it could almost be said that any who saw it would be petrified in fear… and in stone. The creature did not mind this so much since it was that very stone which was the staple of its bland diet. Anytime one would walk into the creature’s territory they would be met with hundreds of life-like statues littered with missing pieces from where the creature had nibbled upon.

It was only on very special days that the creature would sometimes smell unpetrified food from a distance. The creature had developed a very special trick that if it closed its eyes and followed the scent of that food it would be able to taste something other than the bland stone, an unbelievable explosion of flavor and joy so rarely enjoyed by the creature.

Today the creature was aimlessly wandering around the grey forest searching for that wonderous smell. Sadly, although it had been walking for a while its nose did not capture anything of interest, but it did; however, hear the sound of rushing water. If the creature focused as much as it possibly could, it could manage to see the blue liquid and not those flat grey plates that would sometimes appear when it lost focus. The creature wandered through the quiet stone woods until it had arrived at the source of that sound.

A small waterfall fell from atop a steep cliff and drained into a calm pool. Waves washed out from the waterfall and slowly shrank as they barely caressed the edge of the pool where the creature stood. The creature looked to the sky and made sure to exert as much restraint as it could before looking down into the pool’s watery depths. Within the water were a few stone fish sinking to the pool’s floor. More interesting than the common grey sight was the thing on the water.

A face staring back at the creature, a small head with large penetrating eyes, a thin beak leading to a long neck that connected to a plump multicolored feathered body. Two thick wings rested on either side of the creature’s body, and just like all those other stone things with two wings, it could not fly for long with them. Two thin featherless legs poked out of the bottom of the creature’s body. The creature had remembered back when it was in Ingress a human had laughed and called it a chicken. When the creature turned to see the human, it had only been met with another statue, a frozen snapshot of a life once present and then not so.

When the creature lost itself in the thought of if it was a chicken or not its concentration on its eyes dwindled and the reflecting waters turned to a dull grey slab. The chicken quickly regained its composure allowing that growing slab to sink to the bottom of the pool for new unpetrified liquid to fill in its place. The chicken took this opportunity to enjoy a few soothing mouthfuls of the fresh liquid.

The chicken having fully quenched its thirst left the small pool and continued on its way. It lifted its head up in the air and tried to sniff out that delicious scent of actual food; it was such a shame that the chicken had a terrible sense of smell, usually any wafts that the nose could catch were just residual teasings of a meal already turned. The chicken did not lose hope, it continued to walk down the stony path ahead of it sniffing for something, anything.

The second that appetizing scent filled its nose the chicken immediately closed its eyes. It did not want to risk accidentally spotting the meal and destroying its only source of joy in life. The creature carefully walked around trying to triangulate the location of that scent. The creature wandered aimlessly until it felt the scent dissipate and would adjust its direction then blindly walk in that new direction. The process was slow, but it was the only way to ensure that the meal remained untainted.

The creature was sure that it was close to its meal when its search was interrupted by the chime of a bell. Another animal must have caught the scent and come to steal the meal. The creature could have easily felled its enemy if it opened its eyes, but it would risk losing the meal. Thankfully, the creature’s hearing was better than its smell.

The creature quickly darted between the location of the sound and the smell. It had yet to pinpoint its meal, it could only hope that it had correctly guessed and blocked off its opponent. The creature waited for the enemy to make its first move, but it was not making a sound. Why was so much time passing without the enemy moving? Perhaps the enemy was a stealthy opponent, one that could move without the creature’s sensitive ears catching notice. The creature grew panicked at the prospect of having lost track of its enemy, so it switched to its second plan.

The creature raised its neck high and stretched its legs tall. Having enlarged itself it then violently flapped its thick wings and cawed as loudly as possible. It made itself seem as dangerous as it could possibly be. The bright and varied colors of its feathers demonstrated to onlookers that this creature had a deadly gaze and should not be approached. Surely when the enemy saw these colors and verbose actions that it would be scared off.

Then the enemy moved, the creature could hear the sound of rustling bushes as it shifted closer. It could tell that the enemy wasn’t moving in a straight line, the enemy was trying to throw it off. Eyes open. There was a grey featureless human stood before the chicken. The grey being had a single limb holding onto a dull grey parchment. Another statue fallen victim to the eye of the powerful creature.

The featureless humanoid was unlike anything this chicken had seen before; it floated slightly above the ground and had a perfectly geometric body with a long thin arm containing a small seven fingered hand at the end of it. The last feature of interest was that perfectly round head with a flat divot where other animals tended to have a face. The chicken was not completely familiar with humans, but it was sure most did not look like this.

The surprises from this being did not just end with its looks when suddenly, the chicken heard cracks and breaks of movement. The being was shifting and transforming, breaking out of its stone confines. The chicken saw a small piece of stone break off revealing the enemy’s pink body which quickly turned back to stone before breaking back out. The creature quickly closed its eyes and turned for its food. This enemy could somehow break out of the chicken’s gaze. The chicken’s only option was to grab the food and eat it before the enemy could.

A loud snap echoed from where the enemy once was. The chicken had to quickly make its way over to the source of the smell. It just knew that the snapping sound must have been the enemy breaking free from its petrified shackles. The chicken knew that it was unbelievably close to the food, it opened its mouth ready to take a gulp, that strong aroma deeply filling its nostrils. It reached its beak down to unexpectedly tap on to some soft rubbery flesh.

The annoyed chicken angrily opened its eyes to see the grey hand of that monstrous enemy clenched around what the chicken could only assume to be the chicken’s rightful food. The chicken was close, it could practically taste the succulent dish, but this demon ruined everything.

The enemy slapped the chicken with the grey hand that held the amazing prize. The chicken was sent flying back with an unbelievably devastating force, but it quickly used its wings to regain control and elegantly land back on its feet. The chicken became enraged and opened its eyes as wide as possible and focused its power so intently that the air itself began to petrify raining small pebbles to the ground.

The chicken charged at its enemy ready to unleash absolute retribution. The enemy was exceptionally fast constantly zooming out of the chicken’s sight. The chicken could only catch glimpses of the enemy in the corner of its eye petrifying small pieces of it which quickly cracked free again. The chicken would dart its eyes back and forth twisting its body on a dime in a feeble attempt to catch that ever-escaping pink blur.

The chicken’s terrifying gaze was so powerful at this point that the petrified stone of the surrounding area began to expand like a monstrous tumor constraining the entire forest as the calcified mass of different trees merged together into a single rocky behemoth. Blades of grass sprouted into sharp swords and petrified statues fattened into indecipherable blobs. The tranquil forest was gone being instead replaced by a complex labyrinth of refuse and stone unmatched in magnitude.

The battlefield was shrinking and choking itself forcing the pink enemy to jump up the newly made steppingstones. The entire forest was blending into a single suffocating mass. The pink enemy desperately sprinted up the closing tunnels barely squeezing through the constricting path just about managing to pop out over the tree-line escaping out of the forest that had now turned itself into a single massive block of petrified rock.

The tired pink enemy had finally given in to its frustration. That flat empty divot on the pink creature’s face opened revealing a single gargantuan eye; the eye shown like a brilliant star illuminating even the darkest of hidden crevices. It was an unfathomable light of blinding brilliance. The eye scanned across the horizon and as it did so, it disintegrated all inorganic matter that befell its ocular assault.

Not even a minute ago this place was a beautiful and lush forest; within a matter of moments it had transformed into a homogenous blob of fossilized life and then just moments after that it was transformed into a completely flat plain. The battlefield had turned into an empty wasteland in every direction. This had been a deadly encounter in which nothing had survived the insignificant bout over a handful of fatty seeds. No homes, no trees, no statues, not even a single bug. The only two things present other than that infinitely flat and bland terrain was the hungry chicken and that horrible pink enemy that slowly floated back down to the ground.

No matter how hard the enraged chicken glared at it, that brilliantly shining entity was wholly immune to any effect. The pink enemy landed next to a glowing parchment; the parchment looked similar to that grey one the enemy was holding back when the chicken saw it for the first time, back when their fight was in a forest. For some reason the parchment could not be petrified either anymore. The pink enemy placed its hand directly above the parchment and then dropped the seeds on top.

The brilliant glow of that parchment enveloped the seeds and even when being stared at, the food remained unpetrified. The chicken was immediately taken by the prospect of reclaiming those seeds, there was still hope. The pink enemy moved off to the side away from both the chicken and the seeds, the chicken had its sights glued to its enemy despite the pointlessness of the attempt. The pink thing held its arm outstretched towards nothing. It was as if the pink enemy was relinquishing its claim on the food turning its back for the chicken to acquire it without threat.

The chicken was surprised by the enemy’s sudden kind gesture, but it would not look a gift horse in the mouth. The chicken would not risk accidentally destroying its meal even if it was safe from a distance, so it closed its eyes before waddling over to the seeds and happily munched down on the delicious non-petrified snack. The taste of those seeds made everything the chicken had done today worth it. Such a deliciously fattening and mildly salty taste it practically melted in its little beak.

Now that the seeds had all been consumed the chicken felt a little sad. That sort of sadness that settles in after a delicious meal where one realizes that they had just finished said meal and so can no longer eat said meal. The chicken liked said meal. Maybe the chicken had judged the pink entity too quickly and it was not an enemy at all. If it was an enemy then why did it give the seeds away. Maybe the pink entity would give more seeds to the chicken or maybe it had just missed the seeds since its eyes were closed. The chicken felt around the area with its feet to try and find any leftovers. Tragically all the seeds were gone, all it could feel was the constant ruffling of that glowing parchment shifting under its feet. The chicken began pecking at the parchment in case it was edible. The chicken swallowed a couple mouthfuls but it did not taste particularly good. The chicken suddenly had a divine thought. “Should I consider that as you accepting the invitation?”

The chicken had never thought in such advanced terms before, the only way the chicken could think of coping with the sudden influx of information in its mind was to cluck out loud.

“Good, can you get to the arena of Utnapishtim on your own?” Once again overwhelmed by an impossible flood of thoughts and ideas too vast for the small mind of the chicken to comprehend it could do nothing but cluck. In a strange and indescribable way, the chicken had a divine thought of a deep sigh. Then another thought.

“Fine I’ll take you there myself,

You have accepted your invitation to

the tournament

You are the Cockatrice”