[Hex Maniac TF]

"All Candidates! Be on guard, we've detected brand new Noise in the vicinity. But, the signs that they give off are... strange, to say the least. As soon as you clean up the incident, report back to us with any data you can get!"

Those were the words that the three Symphogear Candidates, Tachibana Hibiki, Kazanari Tsubasa, and Yukine Chris received from their commander before the transmission cut off. They had to drop everything they were doing and head straight to the source of the Noise signal. Given the way they were spread out across the city, getting there was easier said than done.

"Okay! Get ready, Noise! I'm about to make you regret hurting p-" The first to arrive was the sandy-blonde Hibiki, who immediately lost her train of thought as she noticed a critical strangeness about the creatures. Namely, the lack of the dust of their victims having been strewn about.

Instead, there was a practical sea of identical girls shambling around, giggling eerily as the cartoonishly purple monsters merely ignored them. They were all dressed in dreary colors that made their purple hair stick out, and every single one of them looked... demented, in some fashion? It was creepy, to say the least.

The sandy-blonde girl cracked her knuckles. "The commander did say that the Noise was a new type, but... What kind of Noise doesn't attack people? I mean, they're kinda weird but that doesn't mean..." She questioned aloud, only for the strange girls to turn their heads towards her and giggle. "E-Eh?"

While Hibiki was taken aback by the people practically turning on her with a simple glance, the horde of girls suddenly dashed towards her. "W-Wait! I don't want to hurt you!" Her words fell on deaf ears as she sprung out of the way of a trio that dove straight at her.

That leap managed to get her into a worse place, as the Noise hiding amongst the crowd sent out their tendrils and other armaments in an attempt to inflict some sort of damage on her. The Candidate tried her best to deflect them or even strike back at them, even managing to yank a Noise into the air for her fist to pulverize... but she was unable to get them all, as she fell to the ground with a set of spikes sticking out of her back. "What kind of Noise are these anyway... Ehe..."

She blinked for a second. Did she just laugh? Why was she laughing? More than that, why did she feel a sudden chill running down her spine? It didn't seem right at all. "What's... going on..? Ehe..." She couldn't stop the creepy laugh from leaving her lips, and she couldn't help but collapse onto her knees as she felt the needles sinking further into her.

The Noise approached her, the sea of strangely pale and dreary girls circling her. All of them laughing in that foreboding fashion. All of them completely unharmed despite the monster attack. Just like she was. If she tried to feel her back, she'd find that there were no wounds left behind by the attack, just a little strangely pale patch of skin. As if the monsters weren't here to destroy, but rather...

"Wait... Ehe... T-They..." The thought crossed Hibiki's mind, and the effects intensified in turn. She could feel the creepiness wash across her body as her skin turned pale, draining all sorts of hope from her looks. Her lighter tones turned darker, the yellows and blondes being replaced with deep purples just like the girls standing around her. "E-Ehehehehe..." And still, that creepy laugh left her lips. The laugh that was gradually filling her mind. It was kind of like the sound that the Noise made if only filtered through a healthy heaping of creepiness...

She didn't understand what was happening to her. She knew that she was being transformed, but what was she ending up as? And why did it feel good to laugh? Why did it feel good to think about awful things? Something about the thought of helping the Noise convert more people into these strange pale-skinned girls felt so enticing. So wonderful. Maybe she should...

"N-No! I don't... Ehehe... I don't wanna..." The last vestiges of her sensible mind rebelled as she tried to transform her gauntlets into a weapon... only for the entirety of her gear to crack into dust, revealing a girl wearing a purple dress underneath it all. Just like all the other girls standing around, watching her with their awful smiles.

That's right. She wasn't Hibiki. She was just another Hex Maniac. A girl that loved the occult, the spooky, the creepy! Like those Hex Noise that were so nice, filling girls like her with those kinds of thoughts and remolding them into identical girls that didn't know any better! "Ehehehehehe! It feels so good! Feels really good to be a Hex!" Hex-biki giggled like a madwoman, trembling all over as she tried to imagine her friends as fellow hexes...

Almost as if on queue, a rain of bullets filled the nearby Noise, causing them to explode into dust like their victims usually did. Ah. Her friends were here! How lovely! She couldn't wait to show them the glory of being a Hex!

"Damn it! Where's that hot-headed idiot!? Didn't she say that she was going to be here first!?" Chris shouted in her usual loudmouthed fashion as she continued pumping out bullets by the gallon, firing upon the monsters without even thinking about what they might've done. Even if there were a lot of people here, the monsters were more important.

Tsubasa peered from the outskirts of the Hex mob, keeping her sword down low as she took a careful approach. "This doesn't feel right. Yukine, you should be more careful. We don't know why the Noise aren't attacking anyone." The stoic girl told her red-clad partner over their communications link, only to flinch as the loud sounds of her partner's voice echoed throughout her ear.

"You wanna tell me that we should let the Noise live, Senpai? What, have you gone crazy!?" The younger Candidate shouted over the sound of her gunfire, gasping a little as she landed on the ground, her guns retracting into her outfit. "If we don't... do anything... h-hold on." Her breathing suddenly grew a little heavier as her sight started to blur.

What in the hell was going on? Why was her body acting like this? Was the gear rejecting her again, as it did after a dose of Anti-LiNKER? No, that couldn't be it. There was something about the girls around her, the ones that giggled so ominously... "S-Scram! You shouldn't be here! Get to safety! Anything! Before those things come back and try to kill you!"

"Kill us? Chris, that's so harsh. They're not going to kill us! Ehehehehe..." The white-haired girl peered into the crowd, mystified by the familiar-sounding voice since the owner of the voice was nowhere to be found... "Over here, silly! Ehehe!" She turned her head once more to see one of the girls waving at her, barely standing out amongst the crowd due to the slightly shorter purple hair. Such a curious sight...

Chris narrowed her eyes a little to try and discern the identity of the girl, only to have them widen once she did. "Wait, Hibiki!? Why are you one of them!? Who are all these girls even!? Explain! Now!" The hotheaded shorty manifested a pair of handguns as she pointed them around, a sweat running down her cheek in the process...

"We're all Hex, Chris! Just like you should be! It's all nice and fun! Ehehehehehe!" The creepy laugh that left Hibiki's lips was joined by a similar laugh from the others in the massive horde. The Noise might be gone, but the girls were more than willing to carry on its legacy. It'd be easy too, especially against a girl who didn't look like she was ready to shoot anybody... "Just let us touch you and rub you and have all sorts of naughty fun, it'll be great! Ehehehehe!"

The purple creeps crept closer, as the white-haired Candidate grit her teeth. She wanted to get away at this point, but the same sluggish feeling was keeping her from taking off. "Stay back, I won't hesitate!" She barked out, hoping to make them back off as she jabbed her guns towards them... only for a set of the girls to reach out and snatch the weapons straight from her hands, leaving her unarmed and defenseless. She couldn't do anything but watch as they crept closer.

Once they were so close that there wasn't any room for the girl to move around, it didn't take long for them to start rubbing and grinding up against her like a bunch of creepy perverts. And she'd be one soon too, once they pushed the creepy factor into her goodie-goodie brain. "Ehehehehe, Chris! Just give in and become a Hex like us! You'll be loved and you'll have a big family!" Every single Hex chimed in unison, the sounds assaulting the young girl's brain...

Something about the words they were trying to drill into her head was starting to sound nice. Like, the fact she could have a family. Sure, she considered the Candidates and the Commander as part of her family, but... To have an actual one, where she could constantly be doted on, feel a part of something that she hadn't been for a long time... "E-Ehehe..." That same creepy laugh left her lips as she dwelled on the thought for a little too long.

Thankfully, she was saved in the nick of time. "BLUE FLASH!" The sound of her blue-clad partner echoed from above as the girls were blown back by a wave of energy, with Tsubasa landing right beside Chris moments later. "Yukine. We're leaving. We have to regroup and figure out how to cure Tachibana and the others!"

Leave..? Was that really what they should be doing? The white-haired girl's skin slowly turned pale as the awful thoughts rooted within her mind. No, they needed to stay, they needed to give in.

Right as the blue-haired Candidate was about to take off with another leap, she suddenly found herself being kissed directly on the lips by the girl in her arms. "Yuk-" She didn't even get to pant or squeeze out a protesting statement, forced to lock lips with a girl that she admired and cared for... A girl whose hair was gradually turning purple as the seconds ticked by...

"Senpaaaiii..." Chris giggled just like the rest of the Hexes, as her armor cracked and dissolved. Leaving behind yet another identical girl with just the faintest traces of the Candidate that had once been. "You should join us, we don't need to leave just yet..." The purple-haired girl giggled as she wrapped her arms around the blue-haired girl, trapping her with a surprising amount of strength.

Tsubasa struggled to the best of her ability, but not only was the same awful feeling now filling her mind, but she simply didn't feel strong enough to break free from the girl's grip. "Y-Yukine, snap out of it..." She weakly gasped, only for the purple-haired girl to kiss her lips to silence her once more, filling her body with a little more of that hexed essence.

Hex-ris giggled as she rubbed her cheek up against her companion's. As the rest of her fellow Hexes approached the two of them, slowly trapping the two in between their bodies. The blue-haired girl could barely manage to lift a single arm out of the crowd of identical twins before she was completely swallowed by the masses.

Thus, the Candidates fell silent... and a creepy, lustful giggle filled the general area...

---

"This is the last place the three of them were seen. Stay on guard you two, we don't want to be defeated too early."

Several days later, the three other Candidates, Maria Cadenzavna Eve, Akatsuki Kirika and Tsukuyomi Shirabe, had gathered in the same part of town where the Hex Noise had materialized. The same place that was now home to plenty of identical girls, who seemed to just go about their day like normal...

"Maria? Are you sure they'll be here, dess? It really doesn't seem like they would. Like, these are just normal girls! They're only a little creepier than Shirab-" Kirika chimed, only to receive a swift chop to the head by her twin-tailed companion. "Owowowow!"

Shirabe sighed as she scanned the nearby environment briefly with just her eyes. "They're here. They have to be. But... If the intel that the Commander was able to gather from Tsubasa's transmission was correct, then..." The pink-clad girl muttered before she turned her eyes towards her elder sister figure, who nodded in turn.

"Then they're one of the girls here. That's why we have to be careful. Unless we get caught and turned as they have." Maria drew a blade from her gauntlet, feeling confident. "We'll get them back. Whether they want to be returned to normal or not. We owe them that much."

That confidence would be short-lived as the three of them quickly found themselves hugged from behind by a familiar trio. A triad of girls who couldn't help but giggle like madmen at the sight of their favorite friends having come to play with them. A set of Hex triplets whose grim strength disarmed the three Candidates with nothing but a simple friendly embrace.

"Our friends have come to play, ehehehe..." The creepy laugh that echoed throughout the three girls' heads would mark the end of the Symphogear Candidates... and the continued Hexification of the world...