CHAPTER 1

"I don't really understand all of this about demon lords and heroes," Winter sighed.

"Neither do I, that is why we should find someone who does," Sapphire pointed out.

"And where do we find someone who does?" Winter inquired, sitting down on the grass.

"A city most likely, I know there is one nearby from the map I took earlier." Sapphire answered producing a roll of paper from her shadow.

"Where did you even get that from?" Winter questioned.

"From the last city we were in, it was in that room underground pasted on a wall, seemed useful so I took it." Sapphire shrugged spreading it out on the ground.

It was a large rectangular sheet of paper, a lot of places marked on it, which also included all wolf territories. There was a certain sign given for each wolf, a red drop for Blood Wolves, a snowflake for Winter Wolves, a black flower for Midnight Wolves, a thunderbolt for Storm Wolves. There were also many places marked with these symbols inside a small box. Sapphire figured those were places where they were kept. Several other places were marked with gold and jewels but she didn't understand those so decided to leave them aside for now.

"So this is the nearest prison to us?" Winter asked pointing to a city close to the sea with a river flowing into it. It contained all four symbols in boxes, with a symbol for gold and jewels too.

It was indeed the nearest. "How did you know?" Sapphire questioned, surprised Winter could tell.

"This is where we were, easy to tell because this is the most unique symbol on the map, and we went in this direction so this is where we are, and so this has to be the nearest." Winter explained pointing to each location in turn.

"Very well." Sapphire sighed letting her shadows absorb the map, somewhat irritated. It took me a long time to fully understand how to read and use maps from Kurai, and Winter was able to just guess it that easily. She got up and looked in the direction they were headed. "Well this will be a long journey."

"Use your shadow stuff to shorten it then, just teleport us there," Winter suggested.

"Good idea, I will, but later. I haven't fully recovered yet so not a good idea to do much of that for now," Sapphire pointed out.

"Fine." Winter sighed as she got up.

The two started their journey on foot around midday, hoping to reach the rainforest by nightfall. They were to go through a rainforest, then cross a river and follow it downstream. It seemed to Sapphire as if many animals were avoiding the two, running away at the sight of them. She did not think much of it still, the two of them very powerful so it seemed obvious they will run away.

They reached the rainforest around the middle of the night, having greatly misjudged the distance. Neither of them were tired but they decided to rest in the safety of a hollow tree they found. They woke back up just as the sun was rising to resume their journey, moving through the rainforest without any worry. Food was not hard to find in the rainforest at all, saving them much trouble. While Winter preferred to side track a bit and hunt something for herself, Sapphire simply feasted on berries and fruits the entire way.

Sapphire stopped in her tracks out of the blue, causing Winter who was walking right behind to bump into her. "What happened?" Winter inquired.

"Amphiptere." Sapphire answered pointing up and ahead.

Winter looked in the direction Sapphire pointed in and spotted what she was pointing at. At first it seemed like a giant serpent, coiled around a tree branch, but soon she noticed the two big wings it possessed, razor sharp and tough. As Winter was about to ask Sapphire what to do about it the amphiptere spread its wings out, revealing that it possessed two pairs of wings instead of one pair.

"Oh, poor thing, it's disabled," Winter sighed.

"Disabled?" Sapphire questioned.

"Yeah, they are meant to have just two wings, if they are born with four which very few are, they have great trouble flying and controlling themselves." Winter explained with a shake of her head, pitying the dragonoid.

"I don't know about disabled, maybe more like enabled in my opinion." Sapphire stated, lowering her body slowly.

"Huh?" Winter inquired.

"Duck when I tell you to," Sapphire ordered.

"What?" Winter questioned, completely confused.

"NOW!" Sapphire exclaimed.

Winter ducked instinctively along with Sapphire, feeling a strong breeze as something passed right over her at great speed. "What in the world?" Winter cried out getting back up.

"That's your poor disabled amphiptere, still think that's a disability?" Sapphire inquired, looking in the direction it went.

"Not yet, it will be greatly disabled once we are done with it however," Winter pointed out. "Let me handle this."

Saying that Winter jumped into action, not waiting for Sapphire, using dimensional maneuvering to get higher. She couldn't see the amphiptere but her senses were on high alert so she knew she will spot it before it could attack her.

Just as she reached above the treetops the amphiptere burst out from the canopy and rushed towards her. Turning the dimensional platform into a vertical wall she jumped to the side onto another just as it collided with the one she was on before, easily shattering it to pieces and moving ahead, with close to no difference in its speed.

"It's a tough one, but not tough enough to win against me." Winter chuckled before using her Warrior Howl.

She propelled herself towards it using her dimensional movement platforms. The amphiptere turned around in a small arc and rushed towards again, she jumped over it and attacked it with a Glacial Attack as it passed below her. The amphiptere roared in fury and lashed at her with its tail, securing a hit and knocking her to the side. She rebalanced herself with the help of a platform, almost falling off as she did.

The amphiptere rushed towards her again, this time at its full speed. Winter barely managed dodge it this time, but again got hit by its tail as it passed below her. The amphiptere turned to charge again but it didn't see Winter anywhere. As it hovered in the air it was stabbed by an icicle from its back before three other icicles stabbed through the rest of its body.

The amphiptere's dead body fell to the earth, crashing through the tree cover. Winter reached down much later with her dimensional maneuvering aiding her. She didn't have any appetite at the moment so left the amphiptere as it was and returned towards Sapphire.

"See? It was light work for me." Winter announced, proud of herself.

"Congratulations on taking that one down." Sapphire congratulated Winter as her shadow absorbed three dead amphiptere near her.

"There were more?" Winter exclaimed.

"Seven more, that one was the alpha. My plan was to stop them from getting to you, but they didn't even survive till you returned," Sapphire shrugged.

"Let's just move ahead with our journey," Winter sighed.

"As you wish, we should reach the river by dusk based on how long it took us to reach here," Sapphire informed.

"Let's just move ahead." Winter sighed pushing Sapphire ahead.

They journeyed through the rest of the forest, spotting many more amphipteres but none coming to attack them. The amphipteres stuck to higher spots in the trees, using their long body to grab onto trees and their wings to glide and fly between them gracefully.

While the ones Sapphire and Winter fought were mainly green and brown with hints of cyan and purple, these ones were a burst of colors. They were certain that none of the amphipteres looked the same. All possessed a spectrum of different colors and many even possessed feathers of entirely different color than the rest of their body.

"Finally at the river." Winter announced as they came upon the river after a long journey through the forest.

"Fairly clear water." Sapphire remarked as she observed the wide river blocking their path.

"Want to go for a swim?" Winter offered.

"No, you can if you want to," Sapphire replied

"Oh? Can't swim?" Winter mocked.

Sapphire glared at Winter from the corner of her eye. Winter smirked, clearly provoking Sapphire. Sighing Sapphire took a step in the river's direction.

Blue lines shot through her legs and she launched herself right past and through the river, creating a large water spray as her legs went through the water, parting the water in a thin straight line.

Winter simply stared in the direction dumbfounded. "You call that swimming?" She burst out laughing.

"My style, if you have any problems, then drown." Sapphire replied coldly as she dried her clothes, barely holding in her laughter.

"As you wish milady." Winter said and walked right into the river, submerging entirely as the river deepened.

She resurfaced at Sapphire's side half a minute later, completely soaked as she got to Sapphire. Sapphire stared at her, barely able to hold in her laughter. The water flowed from Winter's hair and clothes at a decent rate. Winter turned to Sapphire and looked at her for a moment before violently shaking her body and spraying out all the water, drenching Sapphire in it.

"You!" Sapphire laughed clenching her stomach.

"Helper? Thank you, I don't know how that helped but thank you." Winter said with a bow as she also burst into laughter.

After calming down the two walked downstream, both starting to feel a growing sense of unease as time passed. They didn't speak of it to each other, but both knew the other felt it too. Grabbing winter by her collar Sapphire dragged her into a bush without saying anything. Winter also remained silent knowing Sapphire sensed whatever it was first. Due to the silence now even Winter could hear it, the wingbeats above them.

"Predatory birds?" Winter inquired in a low whisper.

"No, a phoenix," Sapphire replied gravely.

Just as Sapphire said that as if due to a curse the bush lit ablaze and burnt away, leaving not even ashes behind. The two of them now exposed to the threat, the phoenix standing right in front of them, though it was in it's humanoid form.