The Adventures of Rurik: Part 253

The birds flew on thousands of giant winged humpback whales, bionic eyes trained on the surface of the human world.  Fire and chaos consumed the cities.  Skyscrapers crumbled into ash as a cold wind pushed from the north.  

Rurik saw the cathedral where he used to live, better preserved than his fading memory.  He spread steel wings and lept off the whale, trying to move closer to his old home, but Rurik could no longer fly.

  The other birds quietly watched him fall, even the bluejays were silent.  Some say when he hit the ground the explosion from his internal power core vaporized the cathedral in seconds, but Rurik's body shattered with no fireworks or trumpets.  The mechanics failed and Rurik died.

And that, my friends, is the true story behind the War of 2012 between the United States and the New Avian Revolutionaries.