Chapter 153 - Spirit on Rooftops

"Huff!"

The 6.7ft figure huffed out, exhaustion racking his frame as he jumped from roof one to roof two. The weather condition of this place was really dusty. That meant that for each roof he jumped on to, a little cloud of dust rose up to greet the soles of his feet.

However, he did not mind that at all for he was focused on what he had to do. Tonight was dark, just about the perfect time he had to come out for all the things he had to do. In this time, he did not have to worry whether some perceptive humans sighted him or even other spirit beings.

And even if they did, he was not planning on being stationary long enough for them to catch up to them.

He sighed, the memory of how a once proud elite group of humanoids had now descended to this mundane life, subjected the the restraints of Earth sickened him, every day.

His eyes were yellow, glowing softly as they were deeply entrenched in his head. Skin of graying tone and hue, with some sharp feather bristles projecting out from where eyebrows ought to be. His face was strongly edged out with a sharp V jaw curving that descended down from squarely built high cheek bones. A return curve of bristly short feather growth outlined a curve just below the eyes of yellow while a nose, flat but square almost as if someone just put in a piece of square leggo there, resided at the place for his nose.

In the place for hair was a spiky mass of sharp, sturdy feathers. Or so they appeared but upon close, gentle touch, were actually soft massed of grey feathery growth.

He kept running, huffing and launching himself over gaps between buildings, unwilling to take a break for whatever reason. Tonight was his time, the time when he would get to explore all of this place without having to cower in fear of the unknown.

The green scarf that was belted to his waist, diagonally down to the left hip while the two ends of the scarf swayed about in the wind behind him, touched down to his knees at full length on the left alone. The belt was black in color, having a few pods of black metal here and there about the length as it circled around his waist. Although on closer observation, it would seem as though the pods were some storage containers or something.

On his lower body was a plain pair of black trousers, rhyming in with the grey tone of his body. The scarf, green in color, was positioned underneath the belt and over the trousers such that the belt that he had one was primarily in touch with only the scarf.

On his upper body, he had a simple clothing of an unbuttoned waist coat that stopped just about half of his upper body, of the color of brown, revealing his rippling taut muscles and finely chiseled c.h.e.s.t to the night airs.

An arm guard of black leather was on his left arm, the ends of it at the wrist and the elbow bend having a fur piece of light brown. His right arm did not have the same piece on but rather had a metal arm guard on it. Although, the design of it appeared rash and poorly constructed.

On his shoulder was a shoulder padding of metal, having three iron slates placed diagonally to the center of it. The space beneath his arm, the armpit was unprotected being that it was allowed so for the easy movement of the arm, instead of it being stiff because of a metal plating.

However because of the diagonal placement of the small metal plates at the shoulder guard, the joining of the metal guard at the biceps could not be seen as it appeared as though it was made from one piece. But when viewed from the underside of the arm, one could clearly see that the arm gauntlet there was never a one piece item with the shoulder guard.

The gauntlet was simple. Or at least appeared so being that the upside of the arm was revealed to be a shiny piece of metal all through, only breaking at the bend of the arm by the leather strap of the elbow guard and the continuing from there to the wrist and knuckles.

However, at the underside of the hand, a piece of brown clothing was present there, most likely to provide some sort of support for the gauntlet over the grey toned hand or to provide some sort of comfort from the metal casing placed out against raw skin.

And to top it all, a pair of greying hip length wings were present at his back, the feathers splaying out widely with each time he lifted into the air as he jumped. The shape the wings took when it arced out from his back was a soft upside down U shape before it angled down again, ending into soft feathers with which it graced the winds.

His face was stern and his yellowy, almost glowing eyes, focused. He knew what he had to be.

Lately he had been unsatisfied with what he had been through. He had not really suffered, not really. At least, if one did not want to take into consideration his ostracisms at his family and the mental torture they forced him to live by all in the sake of being so damn neutral in every thing. At least, if one did not want to count all of those, he had not suffered in anyway.

All so that they did not have to become an extinct race of Spirit beings.

It was pathetic and he hated it. He wanted more, more than all they could present. He was a Hawk Kin or if one considered his origin, he was a Were Hawk but years out of practice had somehow subdued their transformational genes. Thus and thus, majority of them had remained in this form of partial transformation.

Not that they complained. They had even fought in those wars in this form better than they ever did when they transformed fully. It was said that for ever complete transformation, they lost a sizable portion of their rationality. Which meant that when in complete hawk form, it was harder for them to come up with sharp judgements as their beastial instincts was mostly in play then. In the long run, those with partial transformational ended up being the ones who remained alive for longer and could make more tactical decisions as regards battling and what next to do.

He was not there but then, that was what he had being told. And he never doubted it for once. What he did not agree with was how a once proud race of warriors had so subjected themselves to living the life of fugitives.

That, that made the least sense to him.

If they trained hard, they could return to just how they were, back then, to the glory that had eluded their fallen race. If he trained hard, he could become the light to point them in that direction.

If he did.

Biut then, it was forbidden. He was commanded to live a normal life. All of them were. And so, after beng suffocated to the throat, he had run away, seeking a different life of himself. A life where he did not have to cower away in the hills and mountains where no one visited.

At least, almost never.

Now, he could only glide for few seconds, before the wings gave way. But then, that was going to change.