The moon hangs high over the Sahara, shades of blue paint the sand. The dunes roll beneath Mike like endless waves of ash, each one catching the light of the moon. The air ripples with heat that hasn't yet bled away, and every breath tastes of dust and iron. Bahamut's presence coils around his thoughts like smoke, heavy, vast, and silent.
Above him, the sky deepens to indigo. And far higher, almost lost against the gathering stars, a pale figure drifts in the night sky. Six black feathered wings spread wide against the heavens, moving without sound. The watcher keeps its distance, eyes fixed on the dragon streaking through the twilight. When Mike banks left, the watcher mirrors him. When he dips low, it follows. Its smile is faint, unreadable.
Mike doesn't notice. His focus sharpens to a knife's edge as the desert begins to change. The dunes flatten, giving way to scrubland and cracked soil. The smell of sand and salt fades into the damp, earthy breath of the continent. Ahead, the glow of human civilization flickers, fires, lights, roads. Civilization clinging to the edge of chaos.
"I feel their essence close by." he mutters aloud, voice breaking the wind's scream.
The ancient dragon's reply thrums through his skull.
"Yes. Old power. Feral, divine."
Mike descends, black scales glinting faintly in the last shards of daylight. Ahead, the savanna unfolds into the outskirts of Parakou, dusty roads, rusted trucks, makeshift barracks under banners Mike doesn't recognize. A military post, armed, tense soldier's patrolling the area. The moment his shadow sweeps over it, alarms blare.
He lands a half mile away, the earth trembling under his weight. The shockwave sends birds screaming into the night sky. When the dust settles, he straightens, bones cracking and folding inward, scales retracting until he stands human once more, his skin streaked with sand and blood, his eyes burning crimson and gold.
The wind carries the sound of shouted orders. Soldiers. Dozens of them. Within seconds, the road floods with figures in fatigues, rifles raised. Their words come rapid, fierce, in a language Mike doesn't know. He raises a hand slowly, palm outward.
"I'm looking for a group, I have no reason to fight you," he says.
A voice cuts through the chaos, clear, confident, accented but fluent. "You are looking for gods, stranger."
The soldiers hesitate. From between them steps a man wrapped in dark red cloth, beads and bones hanging from his neck. His eyes gleam like polished obsidian, and his smile is sharp enough to wound.
Mike knows before Bahamut's voice echos in his mind.
"Eshu's chosen," the dragon rumbles. "Trickster. Messenger. Liar."
The man bows with exaggerated grace. "A pleasure to be recognized by one such as you. The others felt your approach. The air hums with your hunger. But perhaps there is room for talk before teeth?"
Mike's gaze hardens. "Where are they?"
Eshu's chosen gestures lazily to the horizon. And one by one, they step into view.
Seven figures spread across the cracked earth like the living avatars of creation. The air itself seems to warp around them.
Ogun's chosen, a massive man in iron-plated armor, eyes glowing like molten metal, a warhammer resting on his shoulder.
Obatala's chosen, tall, serene, robed in white so pure it seems to cast its own light, his skin the color of storm clouds before rain.
Yemaya's chosen, a woman with hair like flowing water, her presence cooling the air with each step.
Oshun's chosen, golden-skinned, radiant, adorned with jewelry that hums with divine power.
Shango's chosen, thunder in human form, sparks crawling across his forearms as he rolls his neck, lightning whispering his name.
Oya's chosen, the storm-witch, her eyes violet and filled with wind, veils swirling as if alive.
Eshu's chosen begins smiling, bowing once more, his body half-shadow, half-man, as if existence itself can't decide where he belongs. They form a circle around Mike, seven points of ancient divinity. The soldiers, still unsure, hold their positions. The area falls unnaturally quiet.
Eshu tilts his head. "You carry a god within you, don't you, dragon? The stench of death is all over you."
Mike says nothing.
Eshu grins wider. "Ah, silent then. Perhaps you think silence protects you. It doesn't. I can taste your hesitation." His grin fades, eyes sharpening. "Why are you here?"
Bahamut's voice hisses inside Mike's skull. "They bound themselves to mortals with weak vessels. Corrupted by the faith of humans. Devour them."
Mike clenches his fists. "You know why I'm here. You can feel it too."
Eshu's laughter rings like chimes in a storm. "To devour us, yes. To feast upon the chosen of Africa. You think yourself a godslayer, little dragon? You think you can burn through the stories of our land without choking?"
Bahamut's laughter fills Mike's mind, deep and cruel. "A proper meal has been offered."
The air ignites.
Mike moves in a blur, he crosses the space between them and seizes Eshu by the throat. The trickster gasps, body flickering between solid and shadow. Soldiers panic, shouting, firing. The crack of rifles fills the air as bullets strike Mike's back, flattening, melting. His eyes blaze crimson and gold.
"Wrong move," Mike growls.
And the dragon emerges.
His body swells, bones snapping, flesh tearing into scale. His wings unfurl in a roar of flame and wind. The shockwave rips soldiers from their feet and sends trucks tumbling like toys. The night burns alive as a shadow blots out the stars.
Eshu's scream is swallowed whole as Mike's jaws close around him.
The world erupts.
Shango charges first, twin bolts of lightning in each hand. They meet Mike's fire midair, exploding into a sphere of white heat that turns sand to glass. Ogun bellows, his hammer crashing against Mike's claw, sparks scattering like fireworks. Obatala raises his hands, and blinding white light bursts across the field, cutting through the smoke and chaos.
Yemaya calls the rivers and from nothing, water answers, pouring through the cracks in the earth, coiling around Mike's legs like serpents of living tide. Oshun chants, her voice weaving gold into air, and every bullet fired by soldiers turns to dust before reaching her. Oya lifts her arms, and a tornado births itself from her fury, spinning across the desert with the force of a god's scream.
Mike roars back, his wings cutting through the tempest. The ground quakes beneath each strike, every motion a calamity. He swings his tail, Ogun blocks, but the impact sends him crashing through a dozen soldiers, pulverizing vehicles in a storm of shrapnel.
Shango strikes again. Lightning meets fire, creating a detonation that lights up the savanna for miles. Mike slams a claw into the ground, carving open a fissure that spews molten rock. The ground becomes a battlefield of elemental fury, flame, water, wind, lightning, light.
Bahamut's voice rises.
"They are not gods. They are children playing god with borrowed power. Hurry and end this fight."
Mike lashes out, snaring Obatala in one clawed hand. The white-robed chosen fights back with divine light that burns into his scales, but Mike's grip only tightens. He crushes him, blood falling from his grip before throwinging the mangled corpse into his mouth. His wounds and power growing with each chosen consumed.
Yemaya screams, the rivers around them boil. She flings water like blades, cutting through rock and steel. Mike slams his wings down, vaporizing them in a wave of heat. He lunges, jaws open, catching her mid-cry and biting through. The air fills with steam and blood.
Oshun and Oya strike together, their powers crashing in tandem, a hurricane of beauty and rage. For a moment, they overwhelm him, driving him back, wings cracking against the ground to stop himself.
Bahamut's growl rumbles deep in Mike's mind.
"Finish it."
Mike bellows, and from his throat erupts a torrent of black and red flame so intense it devours light itself. The storm dissolves into nothing. Oshun's gold melts, Oya's veils disintegrate. They fall, screaming, their forms breaking apart as essence scatters like dust in the wind. Rushing over Mike scoops up the remains, the power continuing to grow inside his body. Crimson light now slowly emerging from his scales like eerie wisps of blood red flame.
Only two remain, Ogun and Shango. The hammer and the thunder. The ground shakes as they charge, shoulder to shoulder, their power combining into a blinding storm of metal and lightning.
Mike meets them head-on.
The collision splits the ground around them in half. Sound dies. For an instant, all the world is light. Then comes the explosion, a concussive wave that tears across Parakou, shattering glass, toppling buildings, sending fire into the sky.
When the dust settles, Ogun lies shattered, his hammer split. Shango staggers, body flickering with lightning. He glares up at Mike, fury burning to the last breath.
"You think you are the end," Shango rasps. "But we are not so easily erased."
Mike lowers his head, eyes glowing like molten suns. "Then die knowing you tried."
He devours him whole before grabbing the remains of Ogun.
Silence returns.
The soldiers are gone, fled, burned, or buried. The air hums with brutal intensity, the scent of ozone and ash thick as blood. The ground is a wasteland of glass and molten stone. Seven chosen erased in a single night.
Mike stands amid the ruin, his wings spread wide against the stars. Each breath sends ripples of heat into the night, his scales still emitting the ghostly red wisps of essence as the power in his body grows.
Bahamut's voice comes, low and pleased.
"You are almost there. Your power is almost enough to stand against Abbadon."
Mike looks to the horizon, the fires, the broken city, the corpses of mortals who never stood a chance and his jaw tightens.
He doesn't answer.
The wind carries the faintest sound.
A whisper of feathers.
Far above, the watcher watches still. Its six black wings gleam faintly under the moonlight as it tilts its head, smiling.
Then it vanishes into the dark.
And the night sky is silent once more.