I turned only to find that Ash had already made a beeline towards my direction. On the ground, I had no choice, but to drag myself and my broken feet away from her.

Predictably, dragging couldn’t outpace walking. As much as I wished it did.

It took her no time at all to reach me, and no effort at all to prevent me from moving any further. All she had to do was press her weight down on my foot and I was sent screaming into indescribable agony.

That was also when it happened.

Intermixing with my scream, a shrilling screech echoed deep within the depths of the orange flames. The fire was starting to manifest and take shape.

The shape of a bird.

In a blinding explosion of light, hurtling towards me in a flutter of golden feathers, a large smoldering creature, still inflamed, tethered itself onto the back of my shirt with its sharp talons, and then with a strong gust of embers and wind, flapped its massive wings, sending the both of us gliding out the doorway and into the narrow halls where it took flight.

Bizarrely, unconventionally, I managed to escape… in the wings of a - technically the talons of a large bird-thing. But there was no chance of a reprieve just yet because despite lengthening the distance from that room of death, a deafening shriek could still be heard bouncing across the confined halls of the building.

Amelia wasn’t done with me yet.

“AFTER THEM!” echoed the Matriarch in a booming voice.

“Go… Go down another level!” I shouted at the bird through the sharp rustling of wind zooming past us.

I was issuing commands to a bird. A bird made of literal fire. The sole prospect of it would have been hilarious if my situation wasn’t so goddamn dire. I mean, can it even understand me?

The bird kept turning at every corner it could find, twice we passed a stairwell without it ever catching sight of it, clearly, it was lost. Once we reached a familiar route again, I took a chance.

“Turn left, not right!” I said.

The bird flapped once, turned at an angle… and spurred us westwards. Okay, so it can understand me. Wow.

‘Right, here!” I yelled again. “Now, here!”

It turned again just as I had ordered. That confirms it. Despite all the aching, and the bruising, and the bleeding, and also the dying… I had to admit, this was actually kinda cool.

Eventually, I managed to direct it to not only just the third floor but the second floor as well. Hopefully far from any danger to allow a chance to collect myself and catch a breath.

We took shelter in a rather obscure part of the building, a corner room at the furthest end of the building.

The process of setting me down was a bit complicated. Even as it gently plopped me to the ground, I still had to bear with the sharp pain on my broken foot. Once I had settled, however, it was all smooth-sailing from there.

It untethered its talons, and I leaned against the wall. Breathing has never felt so good as it did just then. Took all I had to hold myself together and not crumble into a sobbing mess.

I was alive.

“Thank you,” I said to the bird, wiping the few droplets from my eyes that had formed as a result. “Seriously… thank you.”

The bird on fire with its feet planted to the ground across from me merely ruffled its dazzling wings and cocked its head at an angle.

Curiouser and curiouser.

‘Break the amulet and I will come’ that’s explicitly what Irene had told me. I don’t think Succubi’s are capable of taking on the form of fiery birds. So what was this?

Whatever it was, it saved my life.

I couldn’t help but give a slight smile in its direction.

“I don’t suppose you know of a Succubus named Irene, do you?” I asked it, knowing full well that I wouldn’t get an answer.

At least, I thought I wouldn’t.

“On the contrary,” spoke a voice from out of nowhere. “I do.”

“What the…”

Another flash of light and the bird burst into flames in front of my eyes, enveloping the room in a bright glow as the fire swirled itself into a small blazing tornado.

Then just as soon as it had appeared, it had gone… taking my bird companion with it. What took its place in the dissipating smoke that lingered, however, was a woman clad in every shade of red that existed.

Red, red, red.

Stark red eyes. Long flowing crimson hair that ended in strands of literal fire. A mix-match of red and even more red, colored her dress which consisted of frills and laces that made up her attire. Her skin, most glaring of all, produced embers that occasionally drift whimsically into the air before dissipating from sight.

It was as if I was staring at the sun. If the sun had taken the form of a woman, that is.

After everything that had transpired, I thought I had seen everything. Clearly, I was dead wrong.

“You’re not Irene,” was the first thing that came out of my confounded state of mind.

To my surprise, that caused her to go bursting into laughter, the smoldering cinders on her hair growing stronger with every chuckle she let out.

“Oh no, Irene wishes she was me,” she responded, bringing herself back to composure with a deep sigh. “I mean, why be a demon, when you got fiery wings, am I right? Really, they aren’t all that. Looks - oh yes, absolutely. Solid ten. Ability-wise, personality - well, yeesh… come on now, you rather have something pretty to look at than a bird on fire? Actually, why are you even looking for her? I’m right here. I saved you, didn’t I?”

She cocked her head at me. Just like the bird. How is this the same bird?

“You’re… something, aren’t you? I asked, unsure of what to make of her.

She snorted.

“Well, I could have told you that much. Clearly, you know Succubitch. You're practically best friends with Ms. Matriarch back there, and the Elf-Girl seemed nice. So what do you think I am in this equation? Three guesses.”

It’s at the tip of my tongue.

“You’re a bird.”

She slowly blinked once. When she opened them again, a smile was on her face, twitching. “You're getting there. It starts with a P.”

“Fire bird.”

“H.”

“Fire bird girl.”

“O.”

I contemplated for a moment before answering.

“Photosynthesis?”

“I don’t even know what that means!” bellowed the girl, frantically flailing her arms at me, her hair practically ablaze in hot flames. “Phoenix! I’m a phoenix! You couldn’t tell? Big bird! On Fire! Emerged! FROM FIRE! How bad did they hit your head?!”

“Quite bad, actually,” I said, caressing the painful throbbing in my leg. “I know phoenix, I just forgot the word… So you’re a phoenix, huh? What’s your name?”

She gave a quiet squinting stare before responding. “No. No name for you. Won’t give it.”

“Okay… Well, my name is - “

“Don’t care.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

She turned away from me, huffing her face to the air, and crossed her arms. “You couldn’t even answer what I was, why should I bother myself with knowing who you are?”

That’s some nice sense of logic right there.

“So why did you bother saving me then?”

Her crimson eyes stared at me in a half-glance, from that stare I could tell she was looking at me as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Because you broke the amulet, you dummy.”

Okay, I’m still lost.

“And breaking it did… what, exactly?”

She rolled her eyes and exhaled a deep breath.

“Next time - ask more questions. Don’t just blindly do whatever Irene says. I know she’s pretty, beautiful, sexy and I would totally hit that but sometimes she ain’t all there. She may look like she knows what she’s doing, truth is, she doesn’t really. She’s a bonafide dumb-dumb. A dumb-dumb with a badge, apparently. Be careful. Wanna know what happened? She gave you the wrong amulet. She gave you MY amulet. If you knew me, which you obviously don’t - ouch. You would know that us phoenix birds serve as loyal companions to those who have ownership of the amulet that we reside in.”

I leaned over slightly, mitigating the aches and pains all that I could. “So you belong to Irene, then.”

“No I BELONGED to Irene,” she corrected. “Now I belong to you. That’s why I saved you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she nodded her head. “Lucky you.”

“So… you’re kinda like a pokemon, then,” I said, slowly processing the information in my possibly concussed head. “Do I get to… give you orders or something?

“Of course. That’s what… Why do you think I’m still here?”

“Anything?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Maybe you should tell me to get you a dictionary first, cause I don’t think you’re grasping the concept here. Yes, Mr. Photosynthawa, anything.”

“Okay - first order of business,” I snapped my fingers. “Your name.”

I saw her expression freeze with sudden realization, her wide-open eyes like deer in the headlights.

Yeah, who’s the dumb-dumb now?

Realizing there was no way out of it, the phoenix exhaled a deep moody sigh, begrudgingly turning herself towards my direction again, and limply offered her outstretched hand.

“Ria Ignis…” she said in a flat dried-out tone. “Friends call me Riri. Don’t call me Riri.”

“Pleasure to meet you, then, Ria,” I said, accepting her handshake with a smile and a nod. “Now my name is - “

“Still don’t care.”

Right.