Nick sat on a big rock and chewed on a dry straw while watching the gray eagle struggling to clean itself from multiple blood stains. While in the cage, it did seem big, but only now Nick saw the full beauty of this truck sized ‘chicken’, as he used to call him.

Remembering that Nick chuckled to himself, ‘That monster would just peck my head off if I ever allow myself to call him like that again.’

Then he jumped off the rock and neared his companion.

“May be you should consider washing yourself right inside the lake?” He said.

Around half an hour ago Nick woke up and saw the sun up high in the sky. He had slept for quite a while. But one has to understand, that despite him being carried in a random basket a kilometer or two high, he never felt so safe since arriving in this world.

Seeing they have flown for such a long time, he thought that the silver eagle might be tired. Nick had no idea if his new friend really had any injuries although it was very likely that if the eagle was at full strength, after getting out of the cage it would just clean up the place, kill all those bastards and be done with it. Be as it may, Nick suggested they land and take a rest near a lake or river.

Obviously the ‘pilot’ chose the spot and Nick had to give it to him – eagle’s taste was good. They landed near a small mountain lake with a thin, rocky brook starting it’s journey to the ocean from here. Around the lake was thick forest except for one side that had a nice green meadow. Exactly on this meadow at the lakeside they were standing when Nick asked his question.

Eagle tilted his head a little, it seemed to consider Nicks idea, then, suddenly, at the speed of lightning waved it’s huge wing and threw Nick right in the middle of the lake. With a loud splash, his belly first Nick fell into the water. After the initial shock he popped his head out and laughed loudly.

“Hahaha, thank you! Come, join me, the water is great!”

Eagle looked at him paddling back and forth and then a sight followed which Nick would never forget in his life. The silver eagle took off like a rocket and flew two, may be three hundred meters up in the air and then with a loud cry like a stone dropped in the lake. For a second the time seemed to stop as the water flooded everywhere – the meadow, the forest and even the small brook suddenly overflowed and transformed in to a river. The small lake became empty for a moment and then the water with a ton of mud flowed back in.

Water rolled Nick around like he was a pebble on the beach. After everything calmed down, he surfaced and still continued to laugh, but the eagle flapped its wings trying to wash off all the dried blood.

“Is this how you fish?” Nick pointed at many fishes that didn’t make it back and were left suffering in the grass, but eagle just answered by giving boy another shower with a wave of his wing.

Nick crawled out, dropped his wet clothes and started to throw fishes back. The biggest of them were around five kilograms and looked quite appetizing, but Nick, despite having a body of a six or seven year old child, since his birth had only eaten ‘steroids’ prepared by elder Jan and occasional glass of milk. It would not be wise to change his diet so abruptly. First he needed some soup or vegetable stew and porridge for a month or so.

“Do you want me to leave some for you to eat?” Nick tried to judge if a bird of this size could really peck these small fishes.

But eagle ignored him and continued to wash itself.

Nick looked at his robe that was still wet and realized he didn’t have any spare clothing. He definitely had to burn the white robe with his number on it as soon as possible, but the black one that was wet at the moment could last until he got something else.

He decided to make a bonfire and started to gather tree branches. He even had to walk a bit further in the forest since everything nearby was still wet.

Nick had never been a boy scout or had any prior experience of camping in the wild, but he had the grand elder’s alchemy equipment and figured that making fire won’t be so hard. To make the process easier Nick poured few flammable powders on the pile of wood that was partially still a bit wet and, because the pile was quite large, he was not stingy with those. The shadow eagle was looking at him from the side with interest.

When Nick actually lighted the fire, a flame in a height of five meters suddenly burst out. It seemed like a small volcano erupted – everything within few meters of bonfire was on fire, including Nick in his underwear. Swearing and screaming he jumped back in the water while eagle, with his beak pointing to the sky, was making strange sounds, then fell on one side and started to scrape ground with it’s claws while weakly flapping its wings. From the looks of it, eagle had a seizure from laughter.

‘F*ck! How the hell I should have known you don’t mix those?’ Nick came out of the water while still swearing.

Few months back he had the honor of ‘enjoying’ the fire resistance treatment, thus he didn’t get any burns. But what really hurt was his pride. The huge bird seemed to be laughing his *ss off. And when it saw Nick crawling out, it had another attack of the laughter agony.

All the hair on Nick’s head was gone as well as his eyebrows and eyelashes. The wet head was nicely reflecting the sunlight and one truly couldn’t blame the poor bird. It did look hideous and funny at the same time.

Nick scratched his head in confusion and immediately understood why the ‘stupid chicken’ was rolling on the ground. He just sighed, grabbed his wet clothes and went closer to the fire to dry them up.

‘At least it didn’t explode.’ Nick was always an optimist.

The shadow eagle finally calmed down, got up and realized it was all covered in grass and dirt. Then, ignoring the grinning Nick, went back to the lake and washed up once again.

After some time they sat side by side watching the fire.

“It was quite the adventure.” Nick broke the silence, “Are you alright? How are your injuries?”

Eagle looked at him seemingly surprised, then shook his big head.

“Ah, that bad? Don’t worry, I already killed the old guy who was their leader and you took out a third of their force in one go.”

Eagle tilted its head in surprise, but Nick shrugged. The part where eagle killed over hundred sect members was not surprising in any way, but him killing the grand elder took a lot of luck in addition to a bunch of fortunate circumstances.

“What would you say if we just cleanse that place? Of course, I need to get much stronger and you need to heal as well.” Nick asked.

After a minute of silence eagle cried softy towards the sky and nodded.

“Hahaha, great! It’s a deal then!”

“My name is Nick. What is your name?” Nick looked at the bird while smiling, “I just can’t call you ‘eagle’ all the time, right? There are thousands and thousands of eagles. Obviously none of them are as impressive and strong as you, but still.”

The great shadow eagle puffed his still wet gray colored feathers and looked really proud and arrogant.

“How about I call you ‘Shadow’? No, you don’t like it? Then how about ‘Silver’? It suits your color very well.” Nick was trying to think of suitable name. But the eagle didn’t seem to like those names.

The boy scratched his bald head and thought for a minute.

“Hmm, you are very handsome and have huge beautiful wings. How about I call you ‘Angel’?” He could not think of anything and joked. But eagle tilted it’s head as if it was thinking.

‘Really? What modesty, what humility! Hahaha, I really like this guy.’ Nick laughed to himself as the shadow eagle, a rank six beast, one of the strongest beings on the continent, nodded his head in approval of his new name.

“Great! Angel! I also like your name. It suits you very well.” Although Nick was surprised, he had to agree the name fit the graceful bird, “We have one thing to discuss. As you can see I am still small and you are injured. I am not sure how soon you will recover, but I need few years to grow in strength.”

“The bastards who injured you, killed my mother and baby brother. They also poisoned me and I have yet to detoxify myself. That’s the reason I asked you to bring me to Aurora – I have to find a way to get this poison out of me. For you I would suggest to proceed more to the north. The huge mountain range stretching along the northern part of Mainland continent could be a good home for you, at least while you recuperate. After few years when I grow up, I will go and find you there, then we will return and burn that damned place down! You saw – I am quite good with fire.” Nick winked at the end.

Angel didn’t laugh at his joke and appeared to contemplate.

After a long period of silence, when Nick already didn’t expect the answer, Angel gently pecked Nick’s shoulder and seriously nodded.

“Good! Now we are brothers in arms! Bump me!” Nick was ecstatic and stretched his fist towards the eagle. The latter looked back confused.

“Oh, it is like this: when good brothers agree on something, or find some joke funny, or just did something that both liked – they bump their fists together. Like this!” Nick bumped his tiny fists together to show and then stretched right hand out again. Angel tilted his head a bit, then after a moment clenched his claw in something like a ‘bird’s fist’ and touched the small one in front of him.

“Hahaha, it is a lot of fun with a good brother like you! Let’s relax a while and then fly to capital.”

Then they sat there without speaking – half naked boy with a bold head and brown skin and incredibly majestic bird, both staring at the fire.

It was wintertime. They flew for several ours, but were still not too far from mount Corbus. This place had climate similar to the one Nick enjoyed in California, therefore the snow was extremely rare occurrence. As they will fly more to north east, soon the temperatures will drop and there will be snow and ice everywhere. May be not that much in the capital of Sun kingdom where Nick was headed to, but in Northern mountain ranges for sure. Neither of them were bothered by low temperatures – being a rank six beast, Angel didn’t care if it was hot or cold, although favored a cooler climate, and Nick went through the special ‘baptism’ at the Holy Order and didn’t care either. Therefore, when Angel flew back up high in the skies, neither of them felt any discomfort.

The endurance of the shadow eagle was amazing. With very few stops they flew for one more day and night. Nick didn’t know how fast Angel was, but he guessed they were flying not much slower than a small airplane. While sitting in the basket and patiently waiting for the nonexistent flight attendant to bring a hot beverage and snacks, he calculated that they should have covered distance similar to North America’s west to east coast and back, may be even more. This world seemed to be a bit bigger than Earth although it might only be an illusion because of the size of his current body.

Nick did see the existing world map back in the sect and wondered how the countries managed to govern in such distances during this medieval period. Were enslaved flying beasts that common? How do countries wage wars? Bringing army from one side of the country to the other is a long and expensive journey. And it was highly unlikely for every unit in the army to be a mounted one.

Another thing Nick guessed was that his ‘taxi’ was infusing Qi in the basket – otherwise it would have fallen apart long ago. It made Nick theorize about the Qi usage and if animals could manipulate it. The old freaks in sect told him, that animals just get stronger physically, but it certainly was not the case, at least not with this rank six beast.

When Nick offered beast cores to Angel so he could replenish his Qi, he just got a short and arrogant snort for an answer. It looked like the ‘tiny’ rank two and three beast cores was nothing much in the eyes of this shadow eagle and earlier he consumed those because of the desperate situation he was in.

Nick had time to ponder about many things, but he tried to let his mind float around and not fixate on the real problems – he will manage those after the arrival in the capital.