---

---

Once the dust settled the tip of the manticore's tail dropped to the ground, Kristin looked at Zeke for a moment and winced as she yanked out the two poisonous spikes and threw them onto the ground. She was still in a bit of pain, but she took out her bottle of nectar and took a sip from it before putting it away for now. "Yeah, i'm fine." Kristin said, as she walked over and knelt down picking up the part of the tail watching Zeke doing his thing. "You guys did awesome." She said, as Kristin headed over towards Leda and offered the manticore's tail to her, since she was the one to actually kill the monster. "Since you killed it, should be yours." Kristin said softly.

The busses were starting to load up now, the crowd of people who were there were mostly gone now but it would be a good time for them all to get onto the bus now. "We really should get going." Kristin said, they would need to get there as soon as possible, they only had a few days left before Apollo's competition.

---

---

Zeke's healing tickled. She tried her best not to squirm as his sunshine hands worked their magic, stitching up her wound. She almost would have preferred a bandage and some ambrosia, since the entire time she was biting down on the inside of her cheek, trying her best not to giggle. By the time he finished, she was feeling like someone had stuck just her stomach into a tanning bed. "Thanks. I guess you're not totally the worst," Leda chastised Zeke lightly. She didn't consider him her friend by any extent, but he had healed her - and he didn't have to do that. She took a swig of the nectar - it tasted like liquid S'mores to her - before handing the bottle back to him. She didn't need too much and she didn't want to risk bursting into flames.

She took the Manticore's tail tip from Kristin, staring at it for a moment. "Brilliant," she said, before she opened up her backpack and stashed it away. She'd figure out something to do with her shirt later. The stomach portion was in tatters and stained in blood, giving her the world's oddest midriff. She figured she'd just use Ultraviolet to tear the bloody portion off and that would be that. She could rock a midriff, right? "Let's go then, before his brother or whatever comes for us," she agreed, climbing onto the bus and flopping into a seat in the very back. "You guys wanna play a game to pass the time? Could do F, Marry, Kill - Olympian style?"

---

---

Ezekiel snorted and shook his head at Leda's comment of him not being the worst. "Oh thanks," he said and put the nectar back into his bag. He didn't need to be told twice to get onto the bus and made quick working of climbing the steps and taking his seat, separate from the girls. Ezekiel let out a small sigh of relief, that was the first hurtle crossed and at least his healing was on point.
He felt a little shaken from the encounter but more disappointed with his poor fighting performance. How was he supposed to prove his was a good demi-god when he couldn't even keep from burning mortals. His confidence was lacking with this mission now and he was slipping slowly into self-destruct mode. Ezekiel wanted to be more than the one that healed every body. No one ever remembered the guy that saved people lives. No, they would remember Leda who slayed the Manticore in the wilds of a New York bus station.
He pulled out one of his notebooks and the spike from the Manticore's tail before looking at Leda and answered her. "I'd rather be turned into swine by Circe," he said before he pulled out a pen and started to trace the spike of the tail and scribbled out some notes and the sensations he had felt when the poison was in his system. If he could manage to hold onto the spike, he would do some more research on it when they returned home.

---

---

Kristin flopped herself down in the back seat, choosing to pick a window seat for herself and started to take off her backpack, she lightly touched where the manticore's spikes had hit her. Luckily the nectar kicked in pretty quickly, otherwise she'd be in a whole lot of pain and probably passed out for several hours as well. Kristin looked towards Leda for a moment, she certainly wouldn't mind playing a game to pass the time pretty quickly. "I'd be down." Kristin said, giving Zeke a little bit of a look for a moment when he declined to play the game and smirked a little bit. "I'll go first."

"Fuck, marry or kill Zeke?" Kristin asked, even though Zeke wasn't an Olympian god, she wanted to just jab a little fun at him as well since he had declined to play their little game. The bus was filled rather quickly and once everyone had boarded the bus it started to leave the Greyhound station. Zeke would feel his phone going off, with a text from Rosie, the camp's oracle usually the one to give out prophecies for quests.

"So, your dad gave me a vision, which I know you already had set out for. 'A child of wisdom, healing, and the rainbow, to aide the god of medicine and music, to win a competition, must find the missing muse.'"

---

---

"I could ask Rebecca if she'd do it," Leda offered Zeke, smirking slightly. Her girlfriend was a daughter of Hecate. Just thinking about her, Leda's hands went to the witch pendant she wore around her neck. It had been a present from Rebecca, supposedly symbolizing power through spirituality. That was one of the qualities they had in common - an appreciation for the unseen, spiritual elements of life. "But then again, you already have certain pig like qualities, so maybe magic isn't needed." Had she started this round of antagonizing him? Yes. Did Leda regret it, teasing him right after he had healed her? No. She'd likely feel a bit remorseful for it later, but she was impulsive. She lived in the moment and tried not to dwell on things.

Kristin at the very least was willing to play the game. "Zeke and who else? You need to give three options," Leda explained. "So for example... Zeke, Chiron, Argus. And then you have to pick who you'd F, who you'd marry, and who is making a trip to the Underworld." She then thought for a moment over that group. Argus was rather silent, but he had good taste in music. Chiron was too much of a teacher figure and she didn't go for the school girl scenario. "Marry Argus... F Chiron, kill Zeke... Now your go, Kristin - the Fates, the Muses, aaaand the Kindly Ones."

---

---

Ezekiel rolled his eyes when Kristin decided to start the game by throwing him under the bus. He already knew how that answer would go. He ignored Leda's jib and put his headphones in. The music quietened when a text message came through and Ezekiel rolled his eyes as he wrote a reply back to Rosie.

"No shit Rosie. We encountered a Manticore already and manged through.
On the bus to Texas now.
Text me if you get a new vision."

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and continued tracing out the spike on his paper. Once he was done that he started inspecting it, looking for any markings on it to add to the list of side effects, healing factors and ways to kill a Manticore. On the back side of the paper, Ezekiel wrote down questions he wanted answered.

• Do Manticores carry different poisons
• What other ways are there to kill a Manticore
• Does the poison remain within the spikes even after removing spike from the victim
• Other antidotes

Once Ezekiel had all that written down he packed the spike away again but kept a hold of his note book. He tapped his pen against the pages while looking out the window, writing down any other questions that popped into his head while they traveled. He glanced back at the girls, content to keep listening to his music and ignoring their game. Ezekiel supposed there were worst people he could be traveling with. Kristin had her mother's knowledge and fight and Leda had her speed and spirit. It wasn't a bad trio for going on a quest.

---

---

It was a couple of hours, Kristin played a few rounds with Leda to pass the time but she ended up taking a little nap at some point as well, there wasn't much anything else you could do. When the bus driver announced that they were going to be taking a rest stop, just outside of Richmond Virginia. It was around six thirty in the evening now as well, once they were at the rest stop area Kristin quickly got out of the bus to stretch out her legs a little bit and yawned.

"I'm going to go to the restroom." Kristin said, as she started to follow the other people over to where the restrooms were. Over in the distance, Leda and Zeke would be able to see a small herd of horses not to far from the rest stop there was a small pasture for them as well. They looked like normal horses for the most part as well, and just eating some grass nearby there were around eight of them in all.

---

---

Leda hadn't managed to sleep, even with there not being much to do at all. She had spent her time struggling through her book, the letters flipping around and making it almost impossible to understand the story. Whenever it became too frustrating, she would walk up and down the aisle of the bus until the driver had yelled at her to sit down and that she was causing a safety hazard. She then bounced her knee the rest of the way to Virginia, beginning to feel cramped and constrained. It had only been a few hours on the bus, but it seemed more like an eternity to her. "I'm going to lose my bloody mind if I stay on this death trap for another mo'," Leda told Zeke, as Kristin had already gone off to use the restroom. She swung her bag over her shoulder and ran off the bus as quickly as she could.

While she wasn't intending on abandoning the bus, she always tried to keep her bag on her when outside of camp. Demigods tended to never get much heads up when it came to having to flee. Once off the bus, Leda had a definite spring in her step. She breathed in the night air and let out a content sigh. They were alive and they were outside, breathing in the fresh air. Leda pulled the bag of chips out of her bag that she had gotten back in Manhattan and opened them up, eating her makeshift dinner. She hadn't intended to save them. To be honest, she had completely forgotten about them until now.

The horses caught her eye and she smiled. They reminded her a bit of the pegasi at camp.

---

---

Ezekiel put his items away once they stopped, being of the same mind as Leda and preferred to keep his pack on him at all times. Ezekiel smirked at Leda's slight claustrophobia from being on bus for so long. "Do you draw or write or anything? I can give you some pens and paper to pass the rest of the time," he offered. There were individual lights overhead that she could use if she wanted and couldn't sleep.
Ezekiel nodded to Kristin as she moved away to use the restroom and took the opportunity to stretch out while Leda wandered. He noticed the horses as he stretched out but didn't take much note of them. They were in the middle of the country after all, horses were bound to be a thing. The smell he could stand at least. Not like the sickeningly sweet smell of strawberries. It was awful, especially when he worked out of the Big House most days.
"I'm going to go use the restroom as well," Ezekiel told Leda before leaving. It wasn't that he needed her permission but it was good to keep track of each person on the quest. Of course Ezekiel should have waited for Kristin to return so Leda wasn't on her own but Ezekiel had to go and what was five minutes.
He returned to the parking lot from the terrors of a male public restroom unscathed and with hands freshly washed, even though the water had been cold.

---

---

Over in the mens restroom nothing would stick out to Zeke, other men doing their business and what not, some of them were on their phones talking, but nothing has happened in there. Kristin made her way out of the restroom after washing her hands and stretched again, cracking her neck slightly as she made her way over towards where Leda was. "Feels so much better now getting out of the bus for a little bit." Kristin said, when she looked over at the pasture with horses in them, one of them managed to jump the fence and trotted over towards the two of them.

She was about to reach out and try to pet it, before it ended up hacking out what looked like a half digested human hand, Kristin nearly gagged seeing it, and the horse instantly tried to take a bite out of Leda's hand, when Kristin drew her spear out and thrusted it into the flesh eating horse.

---

---

Seeing that both Kristin and Zeke had left to use the restroom, Leda couldn't help but observe this would be the perfect time for monsters to strike. "Wow, it'd sure be a shame if something were to happen to me right now!" she called out jokingly. She ought to have known better than to tempt the Fates. Being cooped up on that bus for so long had only made her impulsive nature even more extreme. She had consumed her entire soda and was currently trying to kick the empty bottle off of her legs and keep it off the ground - a solo variation of the popular serious of the floor is lava games. The bottle clattered to the ground as Kristin came over... and a horse attacked.

She really shouldn't have tempted the Fates.

"Σκατά!" Leda cursed. She owed Kristin her hand. Leda yanked down on her pendant and her sword Ultraviolet appeared, glowing a soft red due to her agitation. Leda rushed at the horse and sliced upwards, connecting with its neck and she followed through. The flesh eating monster turned into a pile of dust. For a brief moment, she had to wonder what the mortals saw - did they see her just commit animal abuse? Were they going to call PETA? Did PETA have jurisdiction over flesh eating horses? "Zeke better hurry up, he's taking a piss, and I doubt this horse's friends like us very much!"

---

---

Ezekiel walked around the bus, looking for Kirstin and Leda only to find them fighting horses. Ezekiel blinked a couple times as he took in the sight before him. Now would be the time for a picture, because WTF? "I leave you people, for five minutes," he said but he knew it had absolutely nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with demi-gods traveling outside the safety of the camp.
He shifted his pack, dropping it down on the ground and pulled out his bow and a few arrows. They expanded in his hands to regular size and he strung an arrow before lifting it and took aim at one of the horses in hope to slice the main artery in its neck. It helped to know anatomy on all body types. The arrow left his bow, aiming true and killed the horse he was aiming for. There were still ten of them left.
Ezekiel bent down and picked up another arrow but this one was a sonic arrow, perhaps it would be loud enough to scare the horses off from their fleshy meals. Ezekiel took up aim again, looking for another horse to try his kill shot on. "Might want to cover your ears!" He yelled before letting the arrow loose. It screamed away from him, scaring off five of the horses but missed it's intended target and hit a tree instead. Well, at least there were only five combatants left. "Hey Leda, maybe you should try riding one of them. Maybe they can be tamed flesh eating horses and you can gift one to Rebecca," he joked.

---

---

The five flesh eating horses that remained they were all really pissed off, seeing two of their brethren being slaughtered by the three demigods. They all busted out from the pasture that they were in and came charging at the three of them, Kristin rolled out of the way while they scared off some of the people nearby. The horses were hissing slightly at the three of them, as Kristin looked at Zeke for a moment making a comment to Leda about riding them and shook her head a bit. "Yeah riding a horse that would much rather take a bite out of you would be such a fun idea." Kristin said.

As she used her spear and stabbed the horse in the side, managing to hurt it but not kill it yet, and turned its attention fully on her. One of the flesh eating horses went in for a bite and managed to rip out a small chunk of Leda's hair and it made a sort of snickering sound at it, and another one nearly tried to kick Zeke but missed by only a few inches from his face.

---

---

Leda didn't need Zeke to tell her twice. As soon as he prompted her and Kristin to cover their ears, she put her hands over her ears as easily as she could. It was a bit difficult, since she was holding Ultraviolet too, and trying her best not to decapitate herself in the process. She could feel the vibrations and hear the sonic boom of Zeke's arrow slightly - hands weren't completely soundproof after all. Some of the horses fled and she hoped they wouldn't come back. Lowering her hands and getting a better grip on her sword again, she rolled her eyes at Zeke. "I'll tell her you said that, luv. Maybe she'll thank ya for the idea with a blood sacrifice."

She probably shouldn't have taken the time to taunt Zeke.

A flesh eating horse got closer to her than was safe, ripping out a chunk of her hair. Pain shot up through Leda's head. If she had thought pulling a brush against a tangle hurt like hell, this was a thousand times worse. "Bloody hell, for fuck's sake! Shit shit shit!" she cursed, swearing up a storm. Her sword was glowing bright red, showing the pure anger and rage she felt. "That was my freaking hair!!" she screamed at the horse. With a vicious swing, she dashed in and beheaded the creature, turning the thing to monster dust. Even though it was dead, she was livid and energized. She darted over towards another horse and stabbed it in the chest with Ultraviolet, turning it to dust as well.

"...Is it noticeable?" she finally took a second to ask.

---

---

Ezekiel smirked at Kristin and when he looked back at the horses he nearly avoided being struck in the face by a very powerful hoof. "Is there a reason they always go after the face," he asked rhetorically. He swung his sword forward, watching it glow faintly as it always did and thrust forward to kill the horse that assaulted him. It wasn't a direct hit but the horse was damaged and wouldn't be an immediate threat. Ezekiel backed up and turned to take on another horse when he heard a scream.
His heart sunk as he turned but saw it was simply a horse attempting to scalp Leda. Still horrible but not life threatening. He watched Leda take out two horses with an impressive string of curse words and smirked. She stopped to ask them how it was and Ezekiel froze. "No," he hesitated and turned to take on the task of downing another horse. He aimed his sword at the horse, charging his sword with his light manipulation and went in for the killing blow. Killing clearly was not the healers strong point as the horse still stood but was fairly crisp from the inside to the outside where the sword struck. "I like my meat a little more well-done," he noted, seeing the horse was still very much alive.

---

---

Kristin winced slightly when the one horse ripped some hair out of Leda's head, leaving a pretty big bald spot now at the back of her head she quickly ran forward towards the closest horse. The one that Zeke had burnt and used her spear on it stabbing the horse through it's side. Which immediately turned to dust. She turned to look over at Leda for a moment, and gave her a little bit of a nod, while the other horse quickly fled from the three demigods now. "Yeah there is a little bit of a bald spot." Kristin said, not wanting to really lie to her though.

While they were all busy fighting the flesh eating horses, their bus had started to board now since the rest stop break was done now, the bus doors were closed now at this point and it started to pull out of the rest stop. Kristin quickly grabbed her things and tried to run after the bus, but it had already gone back onto the highway. She closed her eyes slightly letting out a little bit of an annoyed sigh since they had lost their ride now as well.

---

---

Leda groaned, seeing that the bus was gone. She could have grabbed Zeke and Kristin and tried to run them onto the bus, but she was feeling exhausted. Traveling on a bus always made her a bit tired on its own, but fighting flesh eating horses the same day they faced the manticore made her weary. Her head was throbbing in pain, thanks to her newly acquired bald spot. "Aphrodite, have mercy on me," she mumbled, looking around for a piece of fabric or a hat or something - anything to disguise the spot. Maybe Aphrodite was looking out for her, as she found an abandoned baseball cap. She tucked all of her hair back behind her ears and then put the hat on, holding it in place and disguising the spot where the horse had eaten her hair.

One problem was solved, the next they needed to figure out - they had to get a ride. They were still pathetically far from Texas. She looked around the rest stop and her heart sank. She couldn't see anything to help them. There weren't any cars they could try to borrow. No helpfully placed advertisements were present for a taxi service. While Leda knew that they'd figure something out, she couldn't help but feel frustrated. They were so far from Houston - they'd barely made any progress. "...Someone had to own those horses. Probably no one good. But maybe they have a ride we can jack?" she asked, her eyes flickering towards the pasture. "At the very least, killing another monster gives us something to do."

---

---

Ezekiel turned when he saw Kristin running and groaned. "You're welcome for saving your asses!" he yelled at the departing bus. He pressed a button on the hilt of his sword and it shrunk back to it's small medallion size and he stuffed it back into his pocket. He put his hands on his head and smirked when Leda found a hat. "Yes, put on a strange hat. Hopefully you don't get head lice Leda," he noted.
He looked around and had to agree that there must be house nearby but those horses were also mythological so, maybe no house was around. "No sense standing around here, we may as well start walking and see if there is a house," he noted. "Not that I like the idea of meeting a stranger on the way. Doesn't sound like that would be such a good idea. Anyone got a phone on them?"

---

---

Kristin turned to look over at Zeke and shook her head slightly it was more of a group effort in her opinion when they fought all of the flesh eating horses. "You know it was more of a group effort right?" Kristin said as she made her way back over towards the group, the hat Leda had looked like a yankees cap to her though she felt bad that the horse took a chunk out of her hair. She looked over at the broken fence that the horses broke out of, and figured that some monsters were raising the horses. "We should probably check out where the horses came from. Nice hat by the way Leda" Kristin suggested, ignoring the lice comment that Zeke made, she'd rather have lice than be bald in her opinion.

She cautiously went through the small pasture and looked around, and noticed that there was a lot of junk that would end up leading to a rather old looking house. And there was a number of junker looking cars as well, looking over at Leda and Zeke it could end up being a monster's lair but it was better than nothing. "Maybe we can find a car we can use?" Kristin asked.

---

---

Leda made a clawed hand over her heart, pushing it off towards Zeke. It was an ancient gesture of warding off evil - but with the way she used it, it was more like the middle finger. "Thanks, it's vintage," she told Kristin about her hat. She didn't really care if it gave her lice or if the thing was crawling with worms. It was hiding the hideous bald spot on the back of her head. And if she did get lice, well, it wasn't like she had a full head of hair to be worried about anyways. Her compass in her backpack felt incredibly heavy for a moment, as Leda contemplated whether or not to consult it.

Instead, she went forward with Kristin through the pasture. They ended up in what looked like a hoarder's version of a haunted mansion. Junk was all over the place, with a bunch of cars that probably had never been driven in ages. It was probably a monster's lair. Knowing that didn't stop Leda's heart from hammering. "I'm going to scout the house real quick." She didn't wait for an answer. She raced off as fast as she could - it wasn't anywhere near her maximum speed. She tried to be as stealthy as she could. She was lucky - she wasn't seen. But in the upstairs bedroom, she spied the monsters that called this home - two cyclops. She was about to run off, to warn the others, when the cyclops saw her.

She ripped down on her necklace and Ultraviolet turned into a celestial bronze sword, glowing yellow - Leda was afraid, anxious. "Is there a chance you two are nice, non-demigod eating cyclops?" she asked, her British accent dominant.