HawkInAJazzyHat

Can you hear me, Ali? Red patches bloomed and closed in HelMidgarmon’s vision, blocking out the world around him. He pressed down with a single torn wing, and the talons curled, raking up furrows of rubble beneath them. Any sense of feeling had all but gone now; mere grains of dust between his fingers. The world was a void around him. Another crusade. Another nameless obstacle. And yet he could feel the presence of the single, glowing light. He turned his head, crystal weeping from his eye sockets, and looked down to see the dust clouds part and Hauhetmon step forwards. “Can you see me?” She walked, slowly, calmly, her feet barely resting on the ground below her. From head to toe she glowed, the great rings spinning around her arms and legs, moving with an unimaginable power. It didn’t matter that she was limping, or that she sported great gashes in her shoulders and waist. She was standing above it all. The

Alasdair could see everything. He could see the grids and clouds beneath him, raining dust down on the ruined town. And into the distance, he could see the rolling downs and the patches of forest, and beyond that the grey sky, where clouds spun around the epicentre of the storm he himself was making. It was all he could do. His body was no longer his own. His touch was cold and numb, and his head was filled with the unstoppable screaming of his partner desperately clinging onto him. When a great wing swept across the ground below and left trenches and dust, it was his own arm. His back arched upwards as the burning came again, and as he turned around, his own eyes fixed on the lifeforms beneath him. Big and small, flying through the sky and rushing along the ground. It didn’t matter. They were the enemy. They were about to break open the seal. To unleash the greatest evil. He couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t die here. His quest wasn’t over

The rushing of the river seemed distant. Blurred into the scenery. White noise, still constant even after all the devastation. And the only thing to break the silence as Lonnie stood still. Axolomon sat by her feet, the little amphibian’s crest flickering back and forth. “You’re still here...” Eirenemon stared ahead, not reacting to Lonnie’s words. She just kept scratching, her claws hooking further and further into the skin of her neck. She dug again and again, her movements growing more earnest. Her fingers bent back, pulling flecks of skin and ribbon-like flesh with them. There was nothing left of the once delicate robes she had once worn, and her skin was like bleached rubber; pulled, stretched and yellowing, with pockmarks scattered throughout where her down had been stripped away. She was still bleeding after all this time, but it no longer flowed freely now. It oozed, thick and scarlet, leaving dark stains over her flesh. Eventually she

The earth rumbled, with the air pressure carving through the centre of the street as HelMidgarmon flew overhead. He had no agency. No direction of his own. Only a single task as he swam through the sky, heading towards the first gate. That first gate. Destroy the first gate. Destroy every link. Destroy everything in his path. “Judgement Sniper!” The blast of darkness came from below, striking the dragon in the lower jaw. It struck clean in the centre, and began to reach out, enveloping the crystal structure as far as it could reach. Not far enough to even slow him down. But his eyes rolled downwards, watching the city below. He could see the source of the shadows; Herlathimon charging forwards as fast as the spectral hounds could carry him. He raised his rifle, and fired again. Shot, after shot, after shot. Each one striking true. Each one burrowing inwards. Each one clouding the dragon’s thoughts further, increasing

“...I wish it didn’t have to be like this...” Rain slammed against the windscreen as Alasdair’s foot pounded against the pedal, the car tearing down the winding road. He ground his teeth, raising the device to his mouth. “It doesn’t Wyvermon, for god’s sake...it doesn’t! Not again! I don’t need to lose anyone else to this thing!” “...Ali...” Alasdair glanced behind him, seeing Joel in his rear view mirror as he skidded back and forth across the seat. The younger man held the prone figure in his lap, his fingers interlocked with hers. “She won’t...Lizzie won’t stop shaking...” A cry echoed through the car, piercing into Alasdair’s heart. And between worlds, reaching Wyvermon’s ears. The dragon crouched down, looking forwards at the maddening abyss before him. “I’m stopping this now.” “Wyvermon, no!” The dragon heard the voice in his ears as he stepped forwards

February 2014 ~ Flecks of snow gathered on the edge of the path. They gathered in clumps, holding their shape in the chilled air. Slowly more fell from the sky, lightly dotting the path, and falling upon the fourteen year old girl who stood alone on the grass. She shivered, and groaned, supporting the cast around her arm. The cold was stinging. Every bruise, every cut, right the way down to her bones. She ignored it, and reached out, holding her hand against the white marble. As she brushed her hand sideways, it left streaks against the headstone, revealing Yvonne’s name. A whole month now, and it still didn’t feel real. She heard wheels crunching on gravel behind her, and turned around as Alasdair rolled forwards, his phone in his hand. “That was your mother. She’s been held up with the police again, so she’ll be slightly later.” “How are Sian and Anna?” “They’re with her. They’re safe.”

The setting sun pierced across the ocean waves, hitting HelMidgarmon’s body as he swung in larger and larger circles. The fading light was making him slow once again, the pain in his eyes relenting, if only for a brief period. As he moved, the water shimmered beneath him, shining with lights of green and turquoise; a truly beautiful sight. The beams travelled upwards as the sun grew lower, leaving coloured patches on the beach, and on the flats beyond, travelling up the windows. One of them traipsed over a roof, the glittering sight painful to look at. Eirenemon held up a palm, squinting as she did so. Her vision was bad enough these days without the sun causing yet more damage. Slowly the light faded, and she lowered her arm, clutching Alasdair’s digivice in the centre of her palm. She felt the cold night air on her ragged skin, providing some relief to her as well as to the leviathan. She’d noticed his movements throughout the day, as well as the changing

The sea was crisscrossed with sharp swells, cutting through one another in an erratic fashion. Each wave was laced with sharp data and flecks of green crystal, being tossed around in the boiling sea. And the closer one got to the epicentre, directly below where HelMidgarmon was hovering, the worse it got. HelMidgarmon himself was rotating, round and round, a simple movement after the brutal assault from the four Megas just hours earlier. Not that their efforts had showed. His body had regrown back to where it had been before, and it flew slowly, building up more energy for another deadly attack. Occasionally his motion would swerve outwards, or even turn completely, making a figure eight. For now he was pulling back in though, staying in stasis. And as he moved, so the waters moved beneath him. Only the mad would be out in waters like this, threatening to tear them apart, under the gaze of the world-eater above. Inez was incredibly aware of how