Christmas of 2012 didn't look much different from any other year.
Stores along the streets looped cheerful carols.
Snow fell from a gray-white sky.
In the neighborhoods, kids packed up in little gangs, laughing and tearing around on this special day.
All of New York soaked in the joy of the season.
Families were either celebrating in restaurants or gathered at home around crackling fires, sharing the holiday together.
Hawk was with family, too.
As he did every year, he rode a bus near dusk to Calvary Cemetery, crunching over snow to spend Christmas with his sister.
Helen had invited him to Long Island to celebrate with the Stacys.
He'd declined.
Hawk figured that, barring surprises, he'd marry Gwen someday. She'd be his only wife, and they'd be one family.
But that was the future.
And right now wasn't then.
Most important—
He had his own family.
So he'd said no.
From childhood on, he'd spent every Christmas with his little sister Anya. Even after she died in '09, he came every year at Christmas to be with her.
Anya loved lively places, but her congenital heart condition meant she mostly watched from a distance.
That already hurt Hawk enough. Leaving Anya to spend the holiday alone?
Sorry.
He couldn't.
In the cemetery, just like last year, Hawk set out all of Anya's favorite food before her gravestone, then leaned against the stone and gazed into the distance.
Feathery snow kept drifting down.
Strangely—
Though it had been snowing hard for nearly two hours, laying a soft white quilt over everything, the ground around Hawk—and around Anya's marker—stayed dry, as if it were a clear day.
Like a tiger lying in a blizzard, yet its patch of earth is dry as summer.
Eyes half-closed, Hawk slipped his mind into the Microcosmos.
Three days of rest had let his Microcosmos fully digest the Gamma power he'd seized when Hulk died—renewing it from the inside out.
Clearly—
His Microcosmos had ascended.
Gamma energy is a real force in the Marvel world.
So by absorbing that very real power, his Microcosmos had itself become just that much more… real.
Still far from a true Saint's Microcosmos—miles and miles to go.
But—
Even that sliver of added "reality" separated him from his former self like heaven from earth.
Put it this way—
Before, to kill Hulk he'd needed the lake to drown him.
Now, he didn't.
If he met Hulk again on land—so long as Hulk was the same as before—Hawk could beat him to death, straight up.
No exaggeration.
More importantly—
Within his Microcosmos, Hawk raised his eyes to the heavens: the Phoenix constellation blazed—dazzling, searing, unmatched—and across that sky, several dozen new stars had appeared.
Yes.
Dozens.
That was his second windfall from avenging Anya, besides Gamma power.
Not really an accident, either.
Saints are forged in holy war. Every battle adds stars to a Saint's Microcosmos—power compounding with every fight.
These new stars? Hawk meant to use them to light the Dragon.
The Phoenix gives him the courage of "undying" and "rebirth."
The Dragon would grant "the dragon's ferocity" and "the dragon's guard."
Brutal force and peerless defense—
That's the Dragon.
The one Saint who can be stronger without his Cloth than with it.
And, well—
It's a dragon.
A phoenix cries across the heavens.
A dragon roars through the nine skies.
Hawk opened his eyes and glanced at the photo on the stone—Anya's smile, like she was smiling at him now. His own face softened.
"Hulk should be in Hell by now."
"You've seen it, right?"
"Don't worry. Abomination's next. He's almost due."
"Tell Mephisto this for me: if he doesn't take good care of you, when I get to Hell I'm twisting his head off and using it as a chamber pot."
Just like Mephisto did to Zarathos back in the day.
What? Don't know Zarathos?
You know Ghost Rider—the power he wields is Zarathos's.
After beating Zarathos, Mephisto twisted off his head and made it a urinal.
Ghost Rider's power was something Mephisto "granted" with that urinal.
Hawk's voice was gentle, as if that way Anya—down in Hell—could hear him.
Leaning on the stone, eyes closed, he rambled on about the year—anything that might amuse her, cheer her.
At moments like this, Hawk was no longer taciturn.
He was downright chatty.
He even got to today's front-page news: Tony Stark's showdown with Extremis-enhanced Aldrich Killian at the tanker docks in Rose Hill, Tennessee—and that sky full of self-detonating Iron Legion "fireworks."
In life, Anya had loved that kind of billionaire gossip, like any other girl.
"Last night, at the tanker docks in Rose Hill, Tennessee, a once-in-a-lifetime curtain call and identity confession lit up the night."
"After thwarting the deadly plot of terrorist Aldrich Killian and his Extremis soldiers, Tony Stark did something jaw-dropping—"
"He ordered the remainder of the Iron Legion to climb into the sky and explode in a brilliant, priceless fireworks display."
"This morning at seven, Stark reappeared and told reporters…"
He murmured the lines he'd read in the paper.
The cemetery was still; only Hawk's whispering carried on the air.
If some timid passerby had wandered in and heard that voice by their ear in the cold—like a devil speaking from Hell—they'd have sworn they'd seen a ghost.
After a while, Hawk fell silent.
Head against the stone, he looked like he'd drifted to sleep.
As in years past, he meant to stay—spending Christmas here with Anya.
Barring surprises, this would be the last time.
Because—
By next Christmas at the latest, he'd find a way into Hell and bring his sister back in broad daylight.
Either Mephisto returned her—
Or Hawk turned Mephisto to ash.
There was no third way.
He didn't know how long he'd been there.
The bustle outside the cemetery had faded to nothing with the evening.
For a moment it felt like all of New York held its breath.
But—
A faint patter began to creep in from far off, accompanied by a tremor underfoot.
Bootsteps.
The clatter of treads grinding earth.
Distant at first—then clearer, closer.
His phone buzzed in his coat.
He'd silenced, not powered it down—just in case Gwen called. Feeling the vibration, he opened his eyes and pulled it out.
The caller wasn't Gwen.
It was Anna.
Hawk thought for a second, then answered.
"Hello—"
"Hawk, we just got word—the military knows you're the one who broke into Quantico. They've locked your position and are already on the way."
She'd barely gotten on the line before Anna's urgent words tumbled out.
Translation:
Still sleeping?
They're here to collect you.
Hawk's brows lifted. The five senses he usually kept damped down snapped open to full.
Instantly—
He heard armored cars thundering over asphalt.
He heard the rattle of gear on fully kitted soldiers as they jogged.
And…
He hung up without replying, rose from the ground, expression blank, and looked up into the sky—toward the approaching roar of rotors and pulsing searchlights.
Very soon—
A gunship swept over the cemetery, its spotlight snapping on—pinning Hawk in a hard-white circle and turning night to day.
Whup-whup-whup!
Holding steady over the graves, the side door slid open. A soldier swung onto the mount of a Metal Storm array, the kind that spits hundreds of rounds a second, and leveled it at the man in the light below.
At the same time—
Boom!
Two lead armored vehicles slammed the cemetery gates aside. Bristling with sonic cannons on their roofs, they plowed over headstones without a glance, growling to a halt in front of Hawk.
Clack.
Clack.
More trucks rolled in behind them with federal troops pouring off. As the beams and cannons fixed into place, rifles were racked and readied; standing or kneeling, a forest of muzzles settled on Hawk.
War.
A spark away.
…
(End of Chapter)
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