Hey, sorry if this chapter feels like it drags on a bit. Complications arose and the chapter I was meant to upload basically isn't done yet, but this long version of chapter 8 is what I have. It still has a few nice little hints here and there inside it, so it's still pretty necessary. Anyway, I'll try and finish chapter 9 quick so I can post it on Friday, then chapter 10 next Monday. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 8: WE EARN FREQUENT FLYER MILES (Zachariah's journal)

This journal thing is starting to become a habit. I guess I've got to keep reminding myself that all of this is real. Sure, I've seen a whole lot of stuff, but maybe Mom was right that professionals are constantly seeing new things every day. I dunno, but I'm not sure I can go back to hunting down ghosts and stuff after saving my friends from a giant eagle thing that causes tornados just by flapping its wings. Maybe.

Anyway, for the first time in a while, I was able to get a full night's sleep, or something similar after I passed out in the middle of the road. I woke up with a start after the usual nightmares. Everything was coming back in bits and pieces, and for a second I thought everyone had been turned to birdfeed. Then Riley punched me in the arm and yelled at me to shut up.

Everybody was more or less awake now, and the sun was just starting to rise in the distance. Reika yawned, making way more noise than was probably helpful. At least she was sleepy, she was a lot easier to deal with when she didn't have energy.

"I snagged us breakfast," Riley said, holding up a few stale tacos. One of them might have been mouldy. They looked unhealthy at best, and downright toxic at worst.

"Where did you find those?" I asked.

"Under my seat."

"There is no way you expect me to eat those," Reika said. And then her stomach made the most ungodly of rumbling noises. Her face turned a brighter red than the car. We burst into laughter, with Reika trying to convince us that it wasn't funny (which failed miserably when her gut interrupted her with more rumbling). I wolfed down my breakfast, and tried to keep it all in. After settling down, we hit the road again.

I wanted to apologise to everyone, and to the car for my bad driving. I'd never actually driven a car before without supervision. Mom just showed me how to do it, made me test it out a few times so I would get the hang of it, but I still wasn't very good at it. I kept making the engine stall, and the car felt too big for me. Riley didn't openly criticise me, but I could see her glares in the rear – view every time I hit a pothole or hit the brakes too hard.

Whoever owned the car before had to have loved it like it was their own child, and here it had just been stolen by a bunch of stupid teenagers. I only wished I could treat it a little better. I really wished that when it started to break down after about fifty miles, smoke seeping out of the hood.

"Are you kidding me?" Riley asked in exasperation. "We just started off! Did you fill it up?"

"Yeah, I made sure, maybe I just left it running for too long?"

"Well can't you fix it?"

"I'm not a mechanic, I'll be lucky if I even know what's wrong!" The hostility radiating off of her was a little too much to handle, so I went out to check anyway. It didn't take long to figure out that probably everything had gone wrong.

The machine was in shambles after the stunt we'd pulled the day before. There were dents and nicks everywhere and the paint was chipping away. It looked like it had been scrunched up a little from when my ventus and aura tried to pick up the car. As soon as I opened the hood, smoke started flying out and into my face. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was a furnace going on in there. All in all, it looked pretty messy. I bet someone could have fixed her though, but I knew that I definitely wasn't that person.

I closed the hood, looked in through the window and shook my head. Riley looked like she was going to punch something. Reika had gone back to sleep, figuring that I wasn't any fun while I was trying to drive. It was around about then that I caught the shadow of something in the sky. Well, I heard the sound first, the roaring engines of an enormous commercial plane.

When I looked up at the sky, I saw it, barely a few hundred feet above our heads. That was way too low to be any kind of commercial jet liner, and it stood out just a bit too much to seriously be carrying anything legal. After the past two days, I was just a little bit paranoid. Besides, shouldn't I have heard the sound of its engines before it looked like it was nose diving towards me? Wait… nose diving?

I don't know why that took so long to click in my head, but when it did, I ducked beneath the car in a panic. The plane passed right over our heads just barely at sub-sonic speeds. I could feel the car shaking as it passed, and the stagnant air picked up into a horrendous gale.

I strapped on my goggles instinctively. You could never be too careful. But I didn't hear any explosions or the sound of twisting metal. Not only that, but the blasts of air from the plane were still there, and getting stronger. I twisted myself around from beneath the car so that I could get a better idea of where it landed.

Well, I'm glad I put on my goggles. I wasn't being stared down by what I thought was a Boeing 747. Instead, it was our hundred ton canary, Suparna. Suparna squawked (now no longer sounding like a jet engine), scaring away every single bird in every single tree within the nearest hundred mile radius. I don't know why it was choosing not to land, because each time it flapped its wings, a few small trees collapsed. I crawled out from beneath the car, only to immediately regret it as a surprisingly solid wall of wind smashed into my chest, pinning me against the car. Riley and Reika got out, trying not to let the wind pick them up.

After what felt like an eternity, Suparna settled down, furling its wings as it placed one massive talon on the road, and the other a few metres away in the grass.

"What does it want?" Riley asked. "Cause if it's here for round two, I'm more than ready to give it another shot."

"No, you are not fighting that thing!" Reika yelled. "First chance we get, we run!"

"Wait, something's up," I said. It wasn't really… doing anything. It was just kind of standing there, staring at us. Its head kept twitching inquisitively, giving us curious glances. It hovered its beak over the car, took a few gentle pecks at it (which poked giant sized holes in the roof) then finally resettled, peering down at us curiously. "I don't think it wants to hurt us."

"Are you kidding me?!" Riley asked. "That thing dragged me halfway across the countryside."

"Yeah, but has it ever hurt any of us? If it wanted to, it could flatten us in a second, but it always came to us looking for something. Maybe it's looking for something again?"

"Well I'm not sparing it any more of our food, that's for sure," Riley declared. The look in her eyes was kind of scary. I made a mental note to myself to never let Riley be in charge of anything diplomatic. Especially when she was hungry.

"Hey, don't you have some kind of spirit that can speak monster or something?" Reika asked.

"No, for all we know, this thing might not even be capable of speech!" Compared to the day before, Suparna seemed pretty friendly. It even sat down right in the middle of the road, lowering its giant head until it was close enough to touch. It stared right into my eyes, like it was checking for something. Nervous, was a curious understatement to describe how I felt. I gulped and tried my best to smile. It looked like its eye was going to swallow me up, and I was never going to escape.

Suddenly, I felt like there were a thousand bells clanging inside my head. My vision flashed and swam with a whole array of psychedelic colours, and what little I could see was swimming before my eyes. Then, it was like somebody replaced my eyes with an old fashioned cinema reel, complete with the clicking of an old projector and sepia tones. It was as if I had been transported to a completely different time and place.

Instead of the infinite road and never ending hills, I was in the middle of what looked like a worn down apartment building, a torn up curtain and window staring me back from the other side of the room. I tried peering outside, but it was hard to see much further than the set of heavy bars that trapped me anyway. I tried moving, but I was frozen solid. Then, against my will, I leaned over. I looked down at my toes… no… at a weird pair of talons where my toes should have been, and at the comic book between them.

I'd never heard of it, or seen anything like it, but it was titled "The Adventures of Garuda, Volume Seven: The Pit of Nāga" and had this weird hero on it who looked like a feathered Captain Falcon. There were other books strewn randomly around the cage. I flicked through them with my talon. The text didn't look Greek, let alone European. Suddenly, there was a loud clatter of metal and a sharp shout. I couldn't explain it, but I felt inexplicable dread at the sound as my blood ran colder than the metal of my cage.

I looked up slowly to see a tall, and rather disorderly man lumbering towards me. I knew a drunk when I saw one, and this guy definitely needed to put down his flask and take a nap. And probably a shower. He cursed loudly as he stumbled over his own feet, pushing himself back up again.

"Hey there, little birdie," he growled under his breath. His dark hair looked matted and oily, and it probably needed washing. His teeth were yellowed and his face had unnatural spots on it. He gave me a smile that was as crooked as his teeth, and got back onto his swaying feet. "Why can't you hurry and grow bigger, eh? I'm gonna need you to get my power back… to get back at those blasted Greeks… I can't have you growing up to be a runt, now can I? Eh?"

I opened my mouth, and squawked forlornly. I sounded completely pathetic (and completely ridiculous) but it didn't seem like the old man cared much. He gripped the cage tightly, his knuckles turning white as he shook it, my whole body rattling and banging all over the cage.

"Do I look like I care about what you think?! You're nothing more than my pet, and what's more, you're going to get me greatness, aren't ya? And don't even try escaping from me, lest you want your wings clipped!" That seemed to do the trick, as I shut up completely, frozen in horror at the thought of losing my flight. The man smiled. "There's a good birdie, eh? After all, you shouldn't be complaining anyway, right? It's your fault that you're in this mess." I glowered at him. I guess I didn't really care whose fault it was, this was injustice. He leaned closer to the bars. I was tempted to peck out his eye, but I remembered that for a drunk, he could move pretty fast. There was no way it would end well for me.

With him up in my face like that, I could see that his skin had an unhealthy purple tint to it, and it looked really abrasive, like instead of skin he was covered in leather. He hissed at me, just like a cat or a snake, and then looked down at the comics at my feet. He grew an amused smirk on his face.

"You're still reading those stupid comics, huh? You want to be a 'hero of justice' like this guy here, huh?" He pointed at the Captain Falcon look-alike in my comic. "Let me tell you something kid. Superheroes are just a lie that grown – ups tell you, hoping you'll become a loyal and just servant of society, that you'll never think and wise – up, never realise that the only person that matters, is number one." He pointed a thumb at his own chest as he said it. "I bet if you actually met Garuda, he wouldn't be running around in spandex. I bet he'd squash you flat for thinking you're above the gods."

I squawked angrily. I hated it when he talked as if he knew everything and everyone. What did he know? He stepped away from the cage and took a swig from the flask in his hand. He tottered slightly, like he took a bit too much.

"But I know what you're like. You're going to try anyway. But you'll never be a hero so long as I've got you here. So you better grow quick. Get big, get strong, and help me on my mission. Go on a quest, kill the villains, make me a king, and maybe then, you'll be regarded as a hero." As he staggered away, my vision started swimming again. Before I knew it, I was standing back in the middle of the road.

I blinked rapidly, and then collapsed onto my rear. I felt like I'd forgotten what it was like to not have wings and own human shoes. Riley yelped and Reika had seemingly teleported to my side.

"I knew it, this thing wants a fight!" Riley roared. Her gauntlets had appeared around her fists already.

"No! No, no, don't do that!" I yelled. It looked like all the orders to not fight were getting to her as she reluctantly lowered her fists. I wondered if all kids of Ares were this trigger happy, and wondered how appropriate she would look holding my shotgun.

"Zach, what happened?" Reika asked.

"It was like… like Suparna was showing me stuff in my head… I think they were memories from Suparna's past. Well, not just seeing them, it's like I was living them, feeling what he was feeling. I think I get him a bit better. He was in captivity, caged up by some weird guy, but the whole time he just wanted to break out, become a hero, that kind of thing. I don't know how he escaped, but at some point he ended up working for the Scythian Dracaena. He must have thought they could make him a hero somehow."

"Well they were a reliable bunch, weren't they?" Riley said. She was still glaring at Suparna.

"Look, just cool off, alright?" I suggested. "Suparna's probably here to thank us for getting rid of the Dracaena. I guess we terminated whatever contract they had with each other. He wants to come with us as repayment."

"Well, I'm glad he's so grateful," Riley said, "but what're we meant to do with him? We can't exactly feed the guy. He's massive! It would take a whole lake just to give him a glass of water."

"Oh relax, we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right?" Reika asked. "As far as I can tell, this guy's our ticket west, right?"

I furrowed my brow as I stared at Suparna. No matter what I did, feeding this guy wouldn't be easy. "Looks like I don't have a choice," I finally said, resigned to it. I pulled out my hunting journal from the tattered remains of my trench coat, taking out the pencil that came with it. "Suparna, I've seen your memories. You're pretty smart, aren't you?" I asked as I sharpened the pencil with a cracked steel sharpener I had in my pocket. "Then you should probably know what I'm going to ask of you next." I turned to a blank page and stepped far enough away from him that I could see most of him at once. I sat down on the road and started sketching him out.

"Uh, Zach? What are you doing?" Riley asked.

"Just wait, you're distracting me," I said as I continued drawing him. Suparna seemed to get it, even posing for me with his massive wings outspread. It took me roughly twenty minutes to get a decent sketch of him. Reika and Riley kept on looking over my shoulder at my work, but none of them said anything (or at least to me, they both retreated to do their own thing). I could add the details later, for now, all that mattered was getting something that at least looked like Suparna.

On the opposite page, I started to write down some info on him: where I found him, his hunting ground (the ME A T restaurant), what I knew about his mythology, and his size roughly. When I was done, I bit down hard on my thumb until blood gushed from the wound. I planted my bloody thumb on the page, and proceeded to draw a sigil onto it.

"Hey, Zach," Reika began. She didn't need to say anything else for me to know I was really starting to freak her out. I couldn't blame her, I really didn't like this whole devil summoning thing either, but if I wanted to keep this guy well fed, then we would need to forge a contract. After finishing the seal, I pulled out the Megiddo Circuit, opened it up, and placed it next to the book on the floor. I looked up at Suparna.

"Avis, ordinem ventum," I chanted, "audi vocem meam, et accipe sanguinem meum!" Reika and Riley's demigod brains would probably be whirring to figure out what I just said, but from what I knew, they weren't that good at Latin. Compared to them, my shoddy Latin was that of a master linguist thanks to Mom. I'd had enough of it drilled into me by Mom that I didn't need a big dusty tome for it. I'd basically said: Heed my calling, accept my blood, avian of the wind order, or something like that.

Suparna dipped his head in approval. Already I could feel the winds around us sifting gently, the ominous calm before the storm. I felt a tugging sensation inside my belly, like there was wind billowing in my insides. I could feel the wind inside me and everything outside: the thick manes of the trees around me, the leafy teardrops they shed, the rough skin of the dirt and coarse scabs of the tarmac. The feeling of the wind running its fingers through Riley's hair, the slow, measured, and all too human breaths Reika took, sucking my breath away and into her own lungs. Being everywhere and nowhere at the same time… it was trippy as hell, and kind of creepy. Any longer, and who knows what would have happened to me, but I had to force myself to snap out of it, shaking my head to chase away the daze.

I looked down at my journal and the Megiddo Circuit. The Circuit was glowing white hot, vibrating violently on the ground as it registered Suparna's tremendous force, and my book was hovering a few centimetres off the ground before falling gently again, courteously closing itself. I took both of them and stood up again, still a little bit disoriented from the feeling of having the wind flowing around inside my head.

"Zach, what was that?" Riley asked.

"I forged a contract with Suparna," I replied. "The same way I've got a contract with Nekomata or Ventus. Suparna isn't registered in the Megiddo Circuit, so I had to use a more traditional Latin incantation. It's a good thing the Megiddo Circuit doubles as a catalyst, or else I don't know what I would have done."

"Do hunters normally do stuff like that?"

"Pacts with demons? No… most hunters are completely against that kind of stuff. But this is my weapon, I might as well use its full powers, right? Plus, we need Suparna's strength. Like this, I can supply him with energy if he starts feeling drained. Look, we're keeping Suparna waiting. Shall we go?" I didn't want to keep talking about this topic. I didn't like this ability either, it seriously creeped me out. Meddling with demons is the work of sorcerers and shamans, not teenagers.

I approached Suparna. I was just contemplating what kind of acrobatics I would need to perform to get up his leg when Suparna lowered his head until I could reach up and climb onto his neck. I clambered up, clinging to feathers where I could so that I wouldn't fall. Seating myself on top of his neck, it actually felt really comfy.

The feathers were like gigantic blankets that wrapped themselves around me. They felt a little bit on the itchy side, but the sacrifice was worth it. I looked down at the others, beckoning them to climb up.

After a short, panicked climb, they made it up to the top of his neck, arranging themselves in a line going behind me in the bird's plumage. Reika was directly behind me, with Riley just behind her. Suparna spread his massive wings, squawking loudly as he flapped them, slowly at first, the wind blowing up great gusts of dust and leaves. The flapping sounded more like a loud, though slightly muffled thumping than anything. Then, Suparna flexed his knees, his wingbeats getting stronger. He launched himself from the ground, a tiny tornado billowing around us temporarily before he took to the skies, leaving the road, and the destroyed car behind.

I clutched Suparna's feathers desperately, trying not to think about falling to my doom off his back. I could feel my body getting pressed down into Suparna's neck, the G-force threatening to completely flatten my body. Suparna seemed to remember that he had passengers, and didn't rise any higher vertically, instead, easing himself up as he flew straight ahead at a gentle climb.

I've only ever flown in a plane once in my life, but this was nothing like that. The sheer speed that Suparna was moving at was a lot like take off, but I could actually feel the wind billowing around me as we rose through the air. I didn't feel that much if I buried myself in the feathers, but why would I do that and take away all the sensations of the sky?

I leaned over to my left a little, peering down at the ground below me. Trees and cars were now tiny specks in the ground below. I looked around me and all I could see was clear blue sky, a giant sea that only we could sail. The steady beating of Suparna's wings was a welcome change to the expected thrum of a car engine. We were still rising higher, the ground getting further from us as the clouds got closer, and I looked up, waiting for the moment when we would rise above them.

I heard a small yelp, and felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around my waist and grip me tightly, refusing to let go. For a moment, I panicked, not really sure why there was this sudden need to restrain me in my position on Suparna's back. I turned my head around so I could just barely see Reika in the corner of my eye, holding on for dear life, a very concerned expression on her face.

"What's the matter?" I said. "Don't like heights?"

"I'm fine with heights!" she yelled back. "Just… not this high. And not while I'm conscious!"

"Haven't you ridden on Suparna before?"

"That was an emergency! And I was passed out when I did that!" I shook my head and looked ahead again. I have to admit, it was a little bit hard to concentrate on anything with a girl clutching me from behind, and I was just glad that nobody could see my face going red. I tried not to think too hard on it, and instead turned my attention to the flock of birds to my right. They looked like swans, or something similar. I tugged at Suparna's feathers and pointed towards them.

"Suparna, let's go that side!" I yelled. Normally there was a very faint mental link between my monsters and I so they could hear my commands in their heads, but it was very faint and rarely worked, and I'd only just forged a contract with Suparna, so speaking was the best bet. He got the idea, banking towards the flock. Reika squealed, squeezing the air out of me while Riley laughed. I wouldn't have been surprised if Riley had let go and was waving her hands in the air. That girl worried me.

The birds were flying in a huge V shaped formation, as if they were one bird. And of course, Suparna decided to casually dip his head up between them, looking around and squawking excitedly. I almost expected them to all scatter in fright, but they didn't seem to mind. Maybe they were his friends?

I gazed in wonder at a bird that was hovering by my head. It almost looked close enough to touch. I'd heard somewhere that swans were incredibly aggressive so I didn't dare, but I could see Riley stretching her fingers out in wonder. Suparna dipped slightly, then rose higher into the sky, leaving the rest of the flock behind (and scattering him with the sheer force of his wings). The higher we rose, the colder the air got, and I was doubly thankful for Suparna's warm feathers that covered me, even if they made it a bit harder to see.

He banked to his left this time, and I could see a lake far below us. I wondered what the other mortals down below would see. I thought Suparna was a UFO, then a commercial jet liner, but who knows what they saw, just a really big bird? Reika waved meekly at them, and when I turned to see her, she had a nervous, very forced smile on her face.

Suparna rose once again, and this time I could see we were rushing up to meet the clouds. Before I knew it, we were inside one. I'm not sure what I was expecting to feel (maybe like I was touching candy floss?) but it wasn't that different to the rest of the rather cold air around me. The world around me had turned white and misty, as if I were in the middle of a dense fog. I stretched my hand out into the air, feeling the moisture gathering on my arm.

We broke the surface, my head poking out the top of the cloud. My feelings of elation were nigh on indescribable as I observed the white, fluffy sea around me, the gentle waves of cloud rolling around us as we broke through them like a massive sky ship.

Suparna was no longer beating his wings, probably for fear of dispelling the clouds altogether, and instead was soaring and gliding through the air, the tip of his right wing scraping the top of the cloud, cleaving a thin chasm through the ball of fluff. This was the closest that any of us would ever get to walking on cloud, and my gut felt giddy in excitement as I looked around us. In the distance, I could see a large commercial plane, still far above us as it appeared and disappeared from view behind the higher levels of cloud.

"It's beautiful, Riley said in awe, and I had to agree with her. As far as the eye could see, it was a large white canvas, the sheets of cloud occasionally getting restless and pushing themselves up in waves, rising with streams of warm air. Above us was another white ceiling, another layer that was still beyond us, and all around oddly shaped twisting pillars.

As Suparna turned, soaring higher in circles, I stared back the way we came. There was a bright flash of light, temporarily blinding me as I shielded my eyes before my eyes adjusted. The sun was still rising in the mid – morning sky, but the further in that direction I looked, the more the clouds were getting tinted in pale pinks and crisp oranges.

"Yeah… it's beautiful," I agreed, the view taking my breath away. A second wave of constriction reminded me that Reika was clutching tight, cowering away from it. She was now pretty much glued to my back, her face buried in my coat, refusing to look away.

"Oh come on Reika, you're missing this!" Riley said. "This is a once – in – a – lifetime view!"

"No!" she shouted, her voice a little muffled under the cloth and feathers. "If I look down, my arms will turn to jelly, and I'll slip off and die!"

"Oh come on, you know I'll catch you!"

She didn't care, clutching me tighter. Suparna rose a little higher, now turning back on course and beating his wings occasionally. Every time they moved, the clouds nearby all shifted around, like they were punched out of their peaceful drifting. It made me a little sad to know that we were disrupting them like that, but it was better than dropping out of the sky.

"Hey, check out that cloud!" Riley yelled, leaning over Reika and pointing so I could just barely see her hand. I followed her arm and saw what looked like a gigantic four leafed clover, slowly warping itself.

"Hey, what about that one?" I said, spotting a fleecy ball to my right. "It looks a bit like cotton candy."

"They all look like cotton candy, Zach!"

"Yeah, you're right… maybe a marshmallow? Yeah, it's definitely a marshmallow!" Riley laughed incredulously.

"A marshmallow? Really? Better like next time, mallow head!"

"Fine then, that guy's like a big ol' giraffe, over there."

"Either that, or it's the world's weirdest cricket bat! Hey, check out that guy, it's like a big bear!"

"Yeah, a bear with six legs! What about that one? It looks like a Jack Frost!"

"Oh my gods, it really does! It's waving and everything!" We went on like this for five minutes, pointing out all the weird shapes that drifted through the sky, and then another five just admiring the scenery when I started yawning.

"What's the matter?" Riley asked. "You tired or something?"

"Nah, it's nothing… it just feels hard to breath all of a sudden," I replied.

"I knew it, we're all gonna die!" Reika said, trembling slightly.

"It's probably because of how high up we are," Riley suggested. "The air here must be super thin and hard to breath. Zach, it's getting dangerous. Let's go down a bit." Suparna dipped his head a little as he went for a shallow dive, staying just high enough that we were above the clouds, out of sight of everyone below, but low enough that we could still breath.

Like that, we spent the rest of the journey admiring the scenery as we soared through the sky, talking and commenting on things we noticed either in the sky or on the ground below. Sometimes, we would dip beneath the canopy of clouds and observe the world below, but we were moving pretty fast, and we didn't want to get too low thanks to all the damage Suparna would do.

When we weren't talking, we were sat in silence, just drinking in the atmosphere. Occasionally, one of us would go to sleep, and we always alternated it so that the other two would be awake, in case we slid off Suparna's back. That didn't seem likely though, Suparna's feathers were really strong and secure. It's almost like his neck was meant to have humans riding on it. I stayed awake anyway. If the Megiddo Circuit malfunctioned and Suparna disappeared, I wanted to make sure I was awake to fix it.

It took almost five hours before Suparna started to descend, slowly to get us used to the change in altitude. I looked down to see a vast expanse of bone – dry desert, stretching in a vast expanse of sand coloured sea and rocky crevices. Totally different to the almost heavenly paradise that we had been flying through. It was almost like we had descended from Heaven to the jaws of Hell. In the distance, I could see a tiny town, hidden amongst the rocks and sand. It looked like it was trying to blend in with the desert, waiting for some unknown prey to rear its head from either the sand or the sky.

"Let's try and stay away from the people," I said, steering Suparna away from the town. "In the middle of Nevada, so close to Area 51, I really don't want to know what they would see."

"Can't you check?" Riley asked. "All you've got to do is remove your goggles and you'll know, right?" Zach shook his head.

"Wouldn't work. Us mortals all see different things. Besides, after riding on his back for so long, I don't think I could see him as anything other than an oversized parrot. Hey, Suparna, why don't we land over there? That way it won't be too long a walk before we can get ourselves some food."

Suparna squawked in confirmation, heading for a small plateau in the distance. It would probably take another hour or two of walking to get to the town, but it would still be easier than explaining how we were miraculously dropped from the sky. I just hoped that nobody was looking up as we finally landed, Suparna's wings kicking up a massive dust storm before he finally hit the ground with a loud thud, laying his wings to rest.

He lowered his head so it would be easier for us to clamber off, though I still ended up tripping and falling onto my face. Reika was no better, her legs completely failing her as she collapsed on her rear whilst Riley just leaped off and made a perfect landing.

"Well guys, looks like this is our stop," I said, gesturing around at the abundance of nothing. "Welcome to the new frontier!"

"Yeah, let us go out and conquer dust devils," Riley laughed. "Quit the melodrama and let's go! The sooner we get to a town, the sooner we can get some food!"

"Wait, is Suparna okay?" Reika asked as she stood up again. "He just travelled across the whole country with us on his back. Do your monsters even eat?"

"Don't worry, all he should need is a little bit of rest," I said, pointing the Megiddo Circuit at him. He shut his eyes in exhaustion before an intense flash of lightning – like light enveloped him, Suparna disappearing in a manner of seconds. "They do eat, but they do that in their own time, and when I summon them, they run off of my own energy."

"Oh, well that changes the question then, are you okay?!"

"Relax, it's not much. Suparna's still doing most of the work. So stop worrying and let's go! The more we wait, the hungrier I get!" Reika shrugged, and then together, we headed towards the town in the distance.

A/N: I do not know Latin. Latin is far beyond my understanding, so I have to say thanks to ArthM for helping me out with the translation of Zach's incantation. Without his advice it would have become a horrible gooey Google Translate mess! I also say go check out his fics, he's really good! I recommend Looking for Something to Do, but I found him through Saying No to Nouns and really enjoyed that one. Anyway, I'm out!