The storm cleared by the morning light. The boys exited the cave, looking around as the sun rose from the east. Bryan checked his watch. "Good, it's still early," he smiled. "We have the entire day to search for that temple,"

"Right, I almost forgot that stupid temple," Jackran huffed. "Well, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we leave, so we better get to it,"

"...right," Bryan nodded. He held the medallion. "Where to?"

The medallion glowed gold in response, beaming a trail of magic down on the ground. The other medallion glowed green before releasing it's magic downwards as well, mixing with the half-sun trinket's magic. The trail swirled into a ball, moving into the dirt before building a golden-green path through the forest.

Bryan's eyes sparkled. "Woah..."

"Gotta admit, these things impress me," Jackran chuckled. He walked forward. "Come on, History Nerd, you can stare at it another time,"

Bryan huffed, following after the other boy. "I wasn't staring..."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that," Jackran rolled his eyes.

They trekked through the forest, following the path. The more they walked, the further they went. Jackran noticed as he watched the trees getting stranger and stranger. He could feel a shudder as he felt eyes of the creatures hiding in the bushes. "Are we sure this is the right path?" he hissed.

"Don't you trust the medallions?" Bryan asked.

"No." Jackran scoffed. "I don't trust the medallions. They led me to you."

Bryan stopped in his tracks. "What is the matter with you?" he growled. "I know that you're upset with me being here, but you act like the medallions did that on purpose. They're medallions! They're trinkets! They're not sentient beings!"

"But you are." Jackran's fist shook. "And right now, you are annoying me."

"Not like you aren't!" Bryan moved forward. "Do you have any other personality than being a big jerk!?"

"At least I'm not some booknerd who thinks everyone around him is stupid!"

"I do not think anyone's stupid!"

"Then act like it, History Nerd!" Jackran shoved the boy away from him. "But all you act are is selfish!"

"I'm selfish!?" Bryan stared in disbelief. "I am not the who threw away years of friendship for no apparent reason!"

"No apparent reason!?" Jackran gritted his teeth. "That's what's wrong with you! You don't ask about how I feel! You don't care about how I feel! All you think about is how you feel! How you look to others, but never to your 'friends'," He glared daggers.

"That's not true!" Bryan argued. "I do care about people! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fact that I cared!"

"Oh, please, cry me a river, Bryan," Jackran rolled his eyes. "The only reason you're here is because your books finally bored you, and now you wanna make history! Be in this history! Read this and see yourself being this 'hero' and making history!"

"I-" Bryan swallowed. "That's not true!"

"The way you hesitated, I'm confident that it is." Jackran rolled his eyes. He turned to walk off, but he halted in his tracks, his eyes narrowing as he looked around.

The wind blew against the trees and bushes, nothing but silence filled the air. Bryan glanced at him, his anger slowly leaving him as he looked around to follow where the other was looking at.

"Jack? What's wrong?

"Someone's watching us." Jackran hissed. He backed up towards Bryan. "We have to run."

"What? But-"

"RUN!" Jackran grabbed his arm and dragged him off, running off-path.

Bryan couldn't catch up to his running, stumbling and nearly tripping. Jackran groaned and picked him up, carrying him on his shoulder. He made his way through the trees, jumping upwards to hide in the leaves. Bryan gasped, but he was unable to speak as Jackran placed a hand on his mouth. He glared and motioned downwards, their gaze glancing through the leaves.

A strange, frightening being stepped was walking through the grass. He had blood red skin and two horns in it's head, twisted, like a ram's. He wore formal clothing with fiery design, with his ebony black hair slicked back to his pointy ears. Scarlet red spikes went from the back of his neck to the tip of his long, sharp dark red tail, flicking in a rather quick motion.

Bryan swallowed. Demon.

"I sensed them here..." the demon growled. He turned to the side. "Immanuel! Eugene! Search for them!"

Two more demon creatures came beside him, each wearing their own armor. One was sapphire blue with a letter "I" on his shield, and the other was golden brown with a letter "E" on his shield. Their own horns were unique, the blue having straight horns while the gold had one broke horn and the other pure black. They only nodded at the command, tails flicking as they went on searching.

Jackran waited for them to leave, watching them closely. As soon as they were gone, he breathed out a sigh of relief. "Finally." He let go of the other and glared. "What part of 'run' do you not understand!?"

"I didn't know there were demons after us!" Bryan argued.

"I didn't either, but we still should have ran." Jackran scoffed. He gingerly got down from the tree, eyes lingering in case the demons came back.

Bryan sighed and followed after him. "What if it had been a nice creature?" he asked. "Not only would we have scared a potential ally, but we'd be off the path,"

"Nice?" Jackran turned to him. "Are you sure that you were informed of this prophecy? Most of these creatures are horrible, vile beings. None of them are 'nice', Bryan. Get over it."

"They are! I've met one!" Bryan hissed. "And maybe these demons are nice if we got to know them,"

"Are you crazy?" Jackran stared in disbelief. "How are you alive?"

"At least I give people a chance." Bryan huffed. "I'm not a distrustful jerk."

"I'd rather be a distrustful jerk than be a naive idiot who trusts every dangerous being around them in a forest meant to kill mortals like us." Jackran growled.

Bryan gritted his teeth. "I'm not naive!"

"Yes you are!"

"I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

The medallions glowed in alert, but neither boys noticed, butting heads as they glared daggers at each other. It only took Bryan a burn from the half-sun medallion to catch his attention once again. He heard a whoosh of a net and instinctively pushed Jackran away.

Jackran fell to the ground with a gasp. He looked up, horrified as Bryan was captured in a glowing red net. "Bryan!"

"Watch out!" Bryan cried out, even as he was scooped.

"Huh?" Jackran turned around, but the last thing he heard was another whoosh before he was knocked out cold.

He didn't know how long he had been unconcious. It felt like hours, the pain on his body weighing down on him as he regained consciousness. He found himself in a metal cage, wrists and ankles tied up while the cage was hung by a tree.

He heard a growl beside him, and he turned to see Bryan beside him, tied up as well as he glared at the three demons. "Let us go!" he cried out. "We have an important quest in the name of Goddess Night!"

"Sure, mortal, sure," The red demon scoffed. "Do you really expect me, King Alonso Flamington, to believe that one of the almight Goddesses will task a mortal such as thee to be in this forest? Don't be absurd!"

"Why I oughtta--"

"Don't bother, they're not going to free us," Jackran huffed. "They're demons, they won't listen to you,"

Bryan sighed. "But there's gotta be a way to be free! We can't just... give up!" He hissed.

Jackran hummed. He looked around and glanced at the rope in their wrists. "I wonder..." He bent down and began to bite on the rope.

Bryan blinked. "What... are you doing?"

"Argh... escaping," Jackran tugged on the rope while biting down. After a few more tugs, the rope broke free. "There,"

"Woah..." Bryan's eyes sparkled. "How did you do that?"

"Escape room training," Jackran shrugged, moving to untie his ankles before moving to untie Bryan. "My brothers and sister and I enjoy the training every weekend," He hummed. "I wonder how they're doing right now..."

Bryan's eyes softened. "I'm sure... they miss you," he spoke. "They've always been nice people,"

"Sure... when they're not being annoying," Jackran huffed. "Always worrying about me and asking what's wrong when everything's fine... it's annoying,"

"You call it annoying, I call it lucky," Bryan chuckled. "I'd love to have siblings like yours,"

"..." Jackran hummed. "Angel's still against you, huh?"

"Yeah..." Bryan nodded. "And she's been teaching CJ her tricks, so it's basically two against one,"

"CJ?"

"Our little brother," Bryan smiled. "He's an adorable little one, but Angel's influence makes him less adorable," he snorted.

"...His name is CJ? I didn't know..."

"I never got to update you..." Bryan sighed. "I didn't want you to come home with me because of your experience with Angel, then after you left..." He rubbed his wrist as the other went to untie his ankles. "You blocked me everywhere,"

"...Yeah, I did," Jackran managed to untie the last bits of rope. "I thought you just didn't want me to come over. They said that you were ashamed of me,"

"What? I was never ashamed of you," Bryan frowned. Why would they say that? "You were my friend."

"...that's what I heard," Jackran crossed his arms.

Bryan let out a sigh. He moved over. "Jack..." He tried to reach out, but Jackran moved away.

"I don't wanna talk about it right now, Bryan."

"...okay," Bryan sighed. He moved beside him a little. "But... after all this... can we talk about it?"

"..." Jackran glanced at the metal under him before shrugging. "Maybe,"

Well... it wasn't a no.

Bryan chuckled. "Alright," He looked around. "Hmm... now, how to get out of here..."

Jackran turned to look around himself. He hummed, holding onto the medallion. "I wonder..." He took a breath and closed his eyes.

The medallion glowed a bright aquamarine. Jackran let go, allowing the trinket to float into the air. The half-moon unlinked from the strings, shifting into form of a bow and arrow, each with a crescent moon symbol on it.

Bryan gasped. "Woah..."

Jackran opened his eyes. He glanced down at the bow and arrow, eyes sparkling. "Incredible..." He placed the arrow in the bow, stretching the string and aiming upwards. "Now let's see how useful this is..."

He let go, and the arrow shot up. It missed the rope hanging the cage, bouncing from one tree to another before twirling back. Bryan watched in awe, holding his breath as the arrow returned like a boomerang. He yelped as the rope was cut, and he felt the cage crash downwards. Jackran held onto him, both breaking each other's fall as they fell.

Alonso's ear flicked, and he turned around to watch the boys weakly made their way out of the destroyed cage. He scowled. "Get them!" Alonso pointed to the humans. "In the name of our Goddess; Goddess Day!"

Immanuel and Eugene dashed towards the boys immediately. Jackran hissed and held out his bow, an arrow appearing by his hands before he aimed to shoot the demons.

Bryan went behind him, grasping the half-sun medallion. "I need to help him," He took a breath. "Please..."

The medallion glowed pink in his hold. He slowly let go, allowing it to float. Jackran's bow and arrow began to glow as well, and he stared, watching it float from his hold.

The demons took the chance, taking out their own weapons. They flung them towards them, and Jackran yelped, falling to dodge the blades. One was making it's way to Bryan, and Jackran hissed.

"Bryan... WATCH OUT!"

He ran and stood in front of him, shutting his eyes. He awaited the pain of the blades to pierce through his skin, but even then, he stood still.

To his surprise, he felt nothing. He opened one eye, and his jaw dropped, gazing up at the magical purple barrier appearing around them, his bow and arrow no where in sight. The blades met the barrier, and they were deflected at touch, flinging back towards the demons. Both shrieked as they were hit, blood spilling onto the floor.

"Woah..." Jackran blinked and looked back. "Bryan...?"

Bryan hissed and held out his hands. The barrier slowly disintegrated, and Jackran's bow and arrow reappeared, falling beside him. A pink glow leftover warped into a different form, moving into Bryan's hold to form two kunais, each of them had a symbol of the sun.

By then, Alonso ran forward, hissing. His eyes gazed at the weapons, and he stiffened, recognizing the symbols up close. "Blades of the Sun... Bow of the Moon..." he stuttered. "But... that's not..."

Bryan held out a kunai. "I told you that we were sent by one of the Goddesses." he hissed. "Now stop attacking us, or we won't hesitate to attack."

Jackran grinned and held out his bow and arrow, ready to shoot. The other demons whimpered and ran off, the trail of blood following them.

Alonso growled. He held out a katana of his own; dark with a fire blade. "I know no defeat." he glared. "I accept your challenge mortal."

Bryan gripped his kunais. "If that's what you want." He stepped forward. "Then so be it."

Both parties glared at one another, the grips on their weapons tightening. Jackran was lightly shaking, keeping his aim straight. Bryan had one kunai targeted at Alonso's head, and the demon king's blade targeted his chest, ready to aim for the kill.

Before any of them could move, a cry rang through the air.

"Crystalo Teleporto!"