Soon two other persons emerged from the forest and stood alongside the two men and Ajax quickly noticed that one of them was the girl he had seen before, making this group the same one they saw earlier in the forest. He gulped at the prospect of having to fight her, much less the other older woman with them, since he wasn’t certain how he’d feel hitting a woman, especially the one he found attractive.

Furthermore, given he heard that they were simply investigating the source of the explosion, which he assumed was the one from his battle with the proto-drake, why were they attacking them instead of asking. He couldn’t see a clear reason to rationalize this since its clear they could tell them.

Ajax got to his feet and dusted himself off, and when the group stepped closer to them, he responded to their previous attack with his own. He fired a breath of flames directly in front of the group, stopping them in their tracks, and only stopped when the flames almost passed by the girl. Angil noticed Ajax’s decision and raised a brow but brushed it off, even after seeing Ajax’s hesitation by stepping back a little.

“Decipher creation and give me power, Rush Waters” said the cloaked man, he raised his staff and a smooth stream of water blasted from it and extinguished the fire before them.

“Good thinking, get ready to cast another spell since this could get tricky.” said the man that emerged first, he unsheathed his sword and looked to the older woman, “Lay down some cover fire.”

“No problem.” said the woman, she took her bow from her shoulders and took two arrows from her quiver and aimed it at Ajax and Angil.

“Their heads will catch a good price, so try not to damage them.” the man said to the girl.

“Um…alright…I understand.” the girl hesitantly replied.

“Decipher creation and give me power, Lighting Frenzy.” the mage said.

The mage’s staff sparked with a blue electricity and fired off several bolts of blue lightning accompanied by two arrows from the archer woman. Ajax took a deep breath to fire off a breath of fire, however, before he could, he and Angil were protected from the attacks by four water tentacles that formed a screen in front of them.

“Wow, I know I said this before but you’re amazing.” Ajax said.

“Ajax, I saw what you did when the fire reached that green haired human.” Angil said and gave him a sideways glance, “Now is when you put all that training to use, you can’t hold back just because they are human.”

“I understand that but I couldn’t burn…” Ajax replied and then covered his mouth to stop himself from going further since he didn’t want to state his embarrassing reason of just finding her cute, “Alright, I will give it my best.”

“You couldn’t burn?” Angil asked and raised an eyebrow but then sighed, “I can deal with the magic caster and the larger warrior, you take care of the other two.”

Ajax gave Angil a nod and was met with one from Angil in return, Ajax took a step backwards and flew up then directly towards the group. When the lead warrior raised his sword to strike Ajax, he and the mage was pulled towards Angil by two of the four tentacles. Ajax looked back at Angil and smiled, and when he landed in front of the remaining two, he was met by an arrow that landed at his feet.

“I’ll cover you, and if it gets close I will use my dagger.” said the archer.

“Alright, I will try to keep up.” the girl said and tightened the grip on her sword.

“I want to apologize beforehand, I really don’t want to hurt any of you but I was told not to hold back.” Ajax said, when he glanced over at the girl he noticed that her legs and arms were trembling, “Are you ok...”

An arrow surprised Ajax by passing and grazing his face, leaving him to focus his attention on the archer, deciding that he had to take her out first. He ran towards her but right as he got close he was stopped by the descent of the girl’s blade. He hardened the scales on his hands and grabbed the blade before it could strike him. He watched the girl struggle to free her sword from his grip and he gave a slight smirk.

“Don’t get cocky monster, decipher creation and give me power, Phantom Shot.” the archer said and loosed another arrow.

Due to the incoming arrow, Ajax was forced to release the sword in order to swat away the arrow. The girl jumped backwards and when he reached to grab her, he felt a sharp pain in his hand which shocked him, it felt as if the arrow had pierced him but he didn’t have a scratch on him.

Ajax looked at the archer, whom was preparing to fire three more arrows and then looked at the girl that blocked his path to her. When the arrows were loosed he exhaled a cloud of black smoke that enveloped himself and the area around him and when the arrows flew into the smoke it was uncertain if they hit their target. With the smoke acting as camouflage for him, he thought about ways to get pass the girl without harming her since he doesn’t believe he could be capable to see it through.

It struck him as odd that more arrows were not fired into the smoke in order to try and hit, so he assumed the archer doesn’t have any skills to see through the smoke. He opened his wings and flew upwards, and when he was out of the smoke he fired a volley of flames in order to separate the two.

“Decipher creation and give me power, Hermes Boost!” the girl shouted and jumped towards him and into the path of the flames.

“What is she thinking?!” Ajax exclaimed, he watched as the girl landed on two circles, one below each foot, the moment she started to fall and then launched herself out of the path of the flames with increased speed, “The hell!”

Before he could get a chance to react to the recent development, the girl was directly in front of him and was swinging her sword downward again. He didn’t have time to activate any of his skills to defend himself, which made him panic a little but in a split second he remembered a scene from his training.

Right before the sword could reach his shoulder, he grabbed the girl by her wrist and yanked her forward to throw her off balance. The girl tried to wriggle out of his grip but he had made sure to get her in a good, hard to break hold. He couldn’t help but lose himself in her sparkling emerald eyes despite her struggling.

He found her outfit to be captivating as well, she wore; a light green tunic that had golden embroidery around its neck and sleeves, a black leather belt that had a connected satchel straddled her hips, a smooth deep black cloth pants covered her legs and finally a pair of black boots. When he and her made direct eye contact he broke into a blush and looked away the moment that he saw her stare at him and blush back, momentarily stopping her struggling.

“Tell me why are you all doing this?” Ajax asked while still looking away, “You people had no right to attack us.”

“You’re really asking me that right now, like this.” the girl replied, “We were told to investigate a strange explosion that happened in the forest a few days ago.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you attacked us.” he said.

“Because were also told to stop whatever monster caused it since just the explosion damaged the nearby village.” the girl replied, “You two are demons, so such an explosion would be within your capabilities.”

“It damaged a nearby village.” he said, after hearing what his actions had caused, it made him wonder if it had hurt anyone.

He hovered motionless while lost in thought but was brought back when he was wounded by an arrow that scratched his arm. The sudden pain made him lose his grip on and dropped the girl that looked up at him in fright. When he realized his mistake he quickly dived down to grab her again but was stopped by a new volley of arrows when he almost reached her. He let out a brief shout and continued his dive, taking two of the arrows in his left wing.

When he got close again he grabbed her and spun around since they were too close to the ground for him to safely take back flight. He at least wanted to shield her from the impact with his body by hardening the scales on his back which lessened the pain when they finally crashed into the ground.

“You protected me.” the girl said in disbelief and looked down at him.

“Well, you wouldn’t have survived the fall, you aren’t hurt right?” Ajax asked with a forced grin.

“No thanks to you, I don’t have a scratch.” she said and reached out to touch his face, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Ajax groaned and then nodded but soon grabbed his hurt wing when he rolled onto it by accident. The girl quickly got off him to help ease the weight on his wing and Ajax sat up to take them off the ground, the arrows had torn two small holes into the wing which made him question his ability to get airborne from here out. Three arrows landed between himself and the girl and brought his attention back to the archer lady.

“Get away from him you monster!” the woman shouted, she placed her bow back around her shoulders since she was out of arrows and drew two daggers from within her boots.

“This lady is annoying…wait did she say him?!” Ajax exclaimed and quickly turned to the girl, he saw her looking away from him but nodding her head, “You’re a guy, but you’re pretty and your skin is so soft.”

The girl or now rather guy’s ears perked up when he heard what Ajax said and his blushing got to the point his entire face was left beat red. It took a few seconds before Ajax realized all he said and he quickly hid his face with both his hands, how embarrassing he thought.

Their brief pause in hostilities were shattered when the woman lunged at him and forced him to jump away from the boy. He was forced to harden the scales along his arms and put onto the defensive in order to block the woman’s strikes. Her speed and movements were nothing compared to Angil’s, making it easy for him to read and block her attacks with ease. However, he kept on jumping backwards since he wasn’t being given the chance to counter nor did he want to harm her too badly in front of the boy.

Ajax soon reached the lining of the forest and his back slammed against one of the trees, blocking any further escape and with his wing damaged he couldn’t take flight at the last minute. He gulped, closing his eyes, he raised his right arm to block her unavoidable attack. He could hear the seconds tick by as he waited for the pain of being stabbed but when he felt nothing he opened his eyes. He gasped when he saw the boy holding the woman back by her hips.

“Why are you holding me back?!” the woman shouted.

“He saved me when I fell and didn’t harm me when I was in his grasp.” the boy replied, “I don’t think they are evil monsters so we should hear them out on what happened.”

“Hear them out, they are filthy monsters, worse than that they are demons, why should we waste time listening to their excuses and lies!” the lady shouted, “The village will be safe, we get a decent payment and I am sure the church would give a nice reward for the heads of demons, so let me go so I can get the job done.”

“Is money all you can think about right now.” the boy softly said.

“I don’t need to take advice from some inexperienced child!” the woman shouted and punched him in the back.

Ajax watched as the woman repeatedly pummeled the boy with the bottom of her daggers, and each blow was met by a tighter hold.

He was amazed that the boy was still able to hold onto her given that each strike appeared to contain all her strength and his face showed that he was clearly in pain with each hit. He took a deep breath and put on a serious face, stepping towards the two, he slowly flapped his wings. When he was directly in front of them, the lady glared at him and then he looked over at the boy.

“Let her go.” Ajax said.

“Please don’t kill her!” the boy begged.

The look that he was given made his heart skip a beat and filled him once again with hesitation. He clenched his fist and slapped the daggers out of the lady’s hands, and used his flames to distort and melt their blades. When he looked back at the boy, the face born from surprise to which he witnessed made him flustered again. He hated the fact that he wasn’t able to control his own reactions upon just laying eyes on him.

“Let her go…please.” Ajax said while avoiding eye contact.

The boy hesitated but eventually released the woman from his grasp, Ajax stretched out his hand and trapped the woman inside of a black bubble. The boy looked at the bubble in surprise and then up at Ajax. Meanwhile, the woman let out a mad scream and punched her side of the bubble.

“You really didn’t kill her.” the boy said while looking at him in amazement, “But why, why listen to me?”

“I didn’t like that she started hitting her own teammate, that is all.” Ajax said, “Besides, I didn’t want to kill her in the first place.”

Ajax reached out to touch the boy but stopped half way when he heard an explosion suddenly erupt.