By the time they were inside, Hawk was leaving behind a trail of shed feathers and bright right droplets of blood that smoked and hissed as the rest of him did. Under the stark lights of the atrium, the fitfully moving ghostly heads and arms and wings had settled somewhat closer to him, in a sheen that made him glow. Beneath that he seemed fuzzy and not quite settled, but the shape of him was ever more massive, and his usual form had nearly vanished under that of a grey-feathered, fan-tailed, taloned and beaked creature. All other activity had stopped, and people were peering around corners and out of doors, watching him pass curiously. Numair trailed behind him in silence, not returning any of the looks from the crowds.

Yoshi and Vlad had taken to physically holding Hawk up as he lumbered towards the glowing portal at the end of the hallway. Vlad was helping him hold a wad of cloth over the wound in his shoulder, though the cloth was fast becoming saturated in blood.

"Almost there, hon," Vlad murmured. "It's just through that portal--"

Another twinge hit Hawk's injured shoulder, and he groaned. Vlad glanced up at him worriedly.

"...For the record, I think this was a bad idea and you should've gone to a hospital," he said. Hawk didn't respond or even indicate that he'd heard, though as they got closer to the bright white circle of the portal, a few of the ghostly heads separated themselves from his own and lifted towards it.

Vlad paused, and then said, "Can you even hear me?"

His voice, though, had degenerated into something garbled. Hawk didn't answer, though somewhere beneath the face plate of glowing yellow, his eyes wandered ceaselessly.