Elemental Awakening

The blood dripped from his hands and face. The fresh kill still choking in gasping ragged breaths at his feet. The Hy-ute calf, a long legged goat like creature, gave one last shuddering exhalation as its body released its soul to the neither. The gaunt man with waxy skin like leather stretched over a frame, looked upon the calf with distaste. He wanted it to live; he wanted it to feel the pain that raked his own body. The broken and mangled hands and feet of the man only slowed him for a short time. They would heal, but never be the same. He thought to himself ‘They can’t stop me! No one can!’ the pain of his tortured shell of a body quickly becoming an after-thought as the blood and flesh of the Hy-ute calf suffused his husk with renewed energies.  The reaper flies began to swarm the dying calf and clean the blood from the gaunt man’s wretched face and gnarled hands. He began to swat furiously at the marble sized pests screaming “leave me! I own you! I will destroy you! I own you! I will destroy everything!” the cloud of flies grew larger as the sun sank behind the horizon finally dimming the sky enough to see the red and blue moons, all the while the creature that is more beast than man screamed his defiance at the world. “I will kill everything, you can’t stop me! The gods can’t stop me!” The blue moon felt wrong tonight, it filled the man with anger that it was so far away and he had to live on the ground once more. “You can’t stop me! I will destroy you!” The buzzing of the myriad of reaper flies began to grow. The disturbed little man heard something, or was it just in his head. A soft whisper brushed his awareness. {I don’t want to stop you Lochsear} Lochsear! He had a name once again! With this dawning he could feel the buzzing of the swarm begin to pick up tempo. “How do you know me? Where are you? Show yourself!” Lochsear’s head began to pulse with the buzzing of the swarm, the sound getting louder and louder. He could feel the hum of the swarm in his bones, and the answering call of his body. {You thank me with threats Lochsear? I gave you power. I gave you life. Now remember!} Lochsear looked to the blue moon as memories of his fall from the dragon clan flooded his mind racking his body with pain. Lochsear howled as he felt all the agony return to his body as he relived the night that he was beaten again and again, he felt every fall of the heavy hammer on his hands again. He felt every razor cut of the executioner’s dagger on his throat. He felt the ropes bind his wrists to the judgment block. He also remembered wondering why he wasn’t dying. The dragon clan tried to kill him, but with every drop of blood he lost to the attempts of his execution he began to glow. A sickly yellow glow, which turned to green, then to blue, to an almost imperceptible black that somehow seemed to suck every ounce of light from the area except from him. He howled in pain once more as the memory of being dropped from the sky from dragon claw shattered his reverie. Lochsear twisted in agony on the desert floor racked in the pain of his memories staring at the blue moon. He felt the pulse; he felt the moon calling him, commanding him to stand. Lochsear spasmed and contorted in agony slowly rose to the moons command, still feeling the pain of his exile, and his trip through his own memories. After hours that felt like moments Lochsear chose to take his stand once more. “I will not do what you say!” the reaper flies swarm began to thicken into a cloud. Swirling and convalescing like the sands in a dust storm. Collecting and growing in number the flies were drawn to Lochsear’s pain as much as the blood of the Hy-ute calf. He knew that down deep in the darkest recesses of his body and mind that the glow came from the power of the blue moon if not the moon itself. He knew that he could not die if he was bathed in the glow of the moon. {How many nights must I remind you Lochsear? How many times will you defy me? You will obey me!} The reaper flies clouded thicker, the swarm becoming heavier, only leaving the broken man’s face exposed. The buzzing and swarming raised the temperature around his body by many degrees he felt comfortable in the swarm, no longer chilled from the dessert night. “No! No!” Lochsear howled his protest. He would not submit he fought pining his will against the blue moon. Facing off against the celestial body, he began to bead with sweat. He stared into the moon, feeling his strength waning as the moon passed across the sky. The swarm carried Lochsear closer to the moon, lifting him above the ground, but not far from it. He felt the tugging of the reaper flies pulling and dragging him to the moon, he began to fight the momentum of the moon. He knew that he had to fight; his will had to win out tonight. This night would be his last chance to survive, as every night before had been. {I will make you submit. I will own you Lochsear. You are my vessel in this world and you will never escape me. Your time in the sun is limited. I am coming, and I will dominate the sky for all eternity, Lochsear.} The voice faded as the blue moon dipped below the western horizon and the sun crested the east. Lochsear collapsed into the cloud of the swarm. The swarm of reaper flies lowered his husk to the ground, he immediately fell into unconsciousness as the unseen force relinquished hold on his tentative psyche. His body lay on the desert floor blanketed by thousands of flies fanning their wings bringing warm or cool air to regulate his body’s temperature. Troubled he roused hours after the dawn, to find himself covered in the reaper flies and a cloud of them over his head to protect his body from the blistering rays of the sun. Lochsear feeling week after his encounter with the unseen power and force slowly rose to a sitting position. The insects feeling his weakness aided him in rising, creating an incline for him to brace against. “Why, why, why? I just don’t know, why?” He bemoaned. The reaper flies feeling Lochsear’s agitation quickly left him an arm’s length circle around to buffer him, still cocooning his slight frame in a cloud of flies. Emotionally traumatized he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. Why him? Why did he have to do this, how did his life come to this point? He lowered his hands from his face and looked around, for the first time noticing the strange behavior of the reaper flies. “Why? What do you want?” to his dismay the buzzing notes of the flies formed words.  [Only to serve you, our master] He stood feeling dirty, feeling the touch of the blue moon’s power, and contaminated for it. The buzzing grew into words once more. [We will serve the vessel, our lord on the earth, our master.] Lochsear cringed in disgust as the swarm closed the cocoon in. he felt the tugging of the swarm once more as his clothing disappeared, and every grain of dirt was taken from his body. Was the blue moon’s power growing in the day to such a strength that he was no longer safe in the sun? The swarm responded with the buzzing call. [No our master, we are here for you to command. Master you are the vessel of the blue moons power, once you submit you will have the strength to command all of the living swarm.] He was naked now except for the swarm. The reaper flies creating a living garment. And Lochsear felt clean again as the reaper flies have taken away the months of the desert grime and filth. “All I have to do is submit to the blue moon and I will have power?” Lochsear questioned the swarm. The swarm answered in intensified buzzing. [Oh yes oh master, take the blue moon’s power and let us be whole once more, let our will be yours lord and keeper, take the blue moon’s power once more and let it be as it was.] The reaper flies convalesced swirling and clouding rapidly in their excitement, trying to convey to Lochsear the need for him to have the blue moon’s power. The myriad began to dance pictures to life imitating a living tapestry. He saw in the mass’s dance pictures of the known world and himself standing in command of it. He saw the dragon clan bowing before him and killing their dragons. He saw the dragon keepers dying because he pushed his will upon them. [But master this is not all, you may have the entire world if you hold the blue moon’s power.] The host danced into shapes and images of himself at the head of an enormous multitude of all types of insects dominating the world stripping it clean of the living, cleaning the vile contamination of life from the earth. Humans and animals were a contagion and he would get rid of it. Lochsear would be righteous in his quest to cleanse the earth with his Swarm. Lochsear watched the flies dance until the sun sat once more and the blue moon dominated the sky. The red moon which is normally the larger of the two seemed dwarfed by the blue moon this night. Lochsear looked to the blue moon and spread his arms. The celestial body gathered its energies and pulsed. The Swarm began to pulse in recognition of the growing power. The insects left his body naked and exposed to the over bearing presence of the satellite. The swarm began to grown once more in variety and number. Spiders and beetles joined the Swarm, as well as scorpions and piranha flies. A direct beam of cobalt light shone upon Lochsear and he felt the presence of immense power once more. {Are you ready to submit to my will, vessel?} The familiar voice brushed Lochsear’s awareness, and probed into his mind. “Yes, I will destroy this pathetic world.” He confirmed. The presence that came with the moon began to laugh, but there was no mirth in this laughter. It was an eruption of laughter from a madman. {Lochsear, you have come back to the world to undo it, you live again and I can feel joy once more. The blood of many nations will turn the oceans red. And you will once more sit before the undying swarm.} Lochsear screamed out in unimaginable agony as he felt the pain of the moons daunting power searing and burning through every tissue and fiber of his being. He felt the intruding mind of another overpowering his own and there was no space for two beings within his head. He felt his body transform into something his exhausted and aching mind could not comprehend. His once mangled and mutilated hands were healed before his eyes. His skin became thicker, more like a carapace of one of the bone weevil beetles. Lochsear’s back broke as four massive iridescent wings erupted from his back, rearranging his bones and racking his entire body with spasms of unimaginable pain that seemed to last for an eternity.  His back was quickly healed and the pain seemed to melt away once again.  He maintained what was left of his last human facial features but they barely passed as his months alone in the desert left him gaunt and more dead than alive, his cheeks hollow and his gums reseeding from his teeth, making his mouth look as though it was full of fangs. His skin now shown grey as a beetles wing casings and his wings were green iridescent. Lochsear was a monster; he now stood an intimidating seven feet tall, towering over his Swarm, becoming a beacon to the insects of the world. His voice buzzed as if he now was the Swarm itself. “We are whole once more.” He looked around taking note of all the insects present. “We will destroy, we will command.” The Swarm buzzed excitedly wanting more from Lochsear. “We will feast upon this world of the living!” As he spoke Lochsear’s mind fused with the power and conscience of the blue moon. He and the moon would never be separated again. His body now transformed to accommodate the presence that now shared his soul and could look into his mind. The blue moon was as every bit as evil as Lochsear and more. It had plans and it would need to kill everything in the world to see these plans seed and then come to fruition. The first step would be to destroy the elementals that the red moon had sent prematurely. This is good they would be weak, easy and unsuspecting prey.