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Demi stopped in his tracks as the woman responded to him. A chill ran through his spine as she announced herself as Aphrodite, the tingling sensation doubling over when she declared an interest in his love life. Nothing good ever came from having her attention on your love life. Blush tinged his cheeks as his hands found their way towards the bottom of his shirt, wringing the fabric and wrinkling it as he thought of what to say. How to act. Before he'd thought this was your average quest monster, hellbent to ruin their day. Now he stood before a goddess, the oldest of them all.

Kristin's mention of the amphitheater and use of Hephaestus' kids brought a smile to his face, one that faded soon after. Cassian looked down at his feet as Janelle chimed into the conversation. She seemed to have a pretty pessimistic view on what he was saying. "Water and Oil don't have to mix together in order to work well with each other. Look at Ramen, it uses both to make a delicious broth and flavorful oil that complement each other in ways having only one couldn't. I'm sure Romans have to deal with something like this all the time. They work as a unit but they're composed of various types of Demi-gods. We can cover each other's weaknesses and highlight each other's strengths. Just have to…try. Ya know?"

Demetri let out a small sigh. It sounded pitiful and love struck as he kept his gaze down for a moment trying to find his voice. "Look…Zeke and I are new to all of this. It's only our first day of dating and already everything's such a mess. You're interested, fine. But could you at least allow it to play out a bit first? Let us have the talks we need to have before forcing me to do so. I just want to be able to be me for a change. It's been a while since anyone cared to see it…but he does for some reason. Even if he is a bit of an ass. So just…lay off for a bit? Please?"

As if life was trying to send Cassian a sign, no sooner did he give his best speech about working through differences than a complete stranger ruined his shirt. A man wearing Timbs, Jeans, and a jacket, tripped over seemingly nothing (probably those loosely tied shoes) and spilt his entire anchovies pizza all over Cassian's shirt. The child of Dionysus' eyes flared purple for a moment before calming back down. "Great. Just great. Just what I needed at the start of this quest." He quickly removed his shirt, swapping it out for a clean one from his bag before tossing the fishy scented one in the nearest bin. No way he was lugging around an anchovy shirt for a week or more inside his bag or on his person.

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Nancy honestly didn't mind it when her dragon chewed on her hair - if anything, she found it rather cute. "I know, girl, I'm not happy about this either," she murmured. The Greeks seemed to have finally come to the conclusion that they were entirely disorganized and most likely doomed to failure. Even Cassian was now pointing out that the Romans probably had experience with this - which they did. Simply put, Romans had their shit together and Greeks didn't.

Nancy took a few steps away from the wall, going closer to the bench. "I can get you all into shape, but you won't like it," Nancy said. "Your issue is that you each think you're the star of the show. And you're not. None of you are. No one is greater than the group. You don't fight like an individual, you fight like a part of a whole." She eyed them, curious as to their reactions. And it wasn't going to just be words. If they wanted to drill like Romans, she'd drill them - they'd have some time on the train. And practicing in a tight space would be challenging, but rewarding.

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"You aren't sick of cabbies?" Leda teased Kiera, given that the last driver had tried to kidnap them. Ultimately, no harm had really been done - besides Hades seemingly freaking out and recalling Arthur back to the Underworld, putting them a demigod short on the quest... and forcing Leda to accept bringing the cyclops who kept calling her mum along. The little kid had already been ruining the romantic vibes somewhat, the clingy cyclops definitely wasn't going to improve things.

The conversation was prematurely cut short though, as two cars pulled up - Argus must've been speeding the entire way from Camp to get here this quickly. Leda hadn't even planned on still being around when Argus showed up to get the kids, as she had imagined they would've been off on their quest again. She waved at Alana slightly, as the Athena kid got on out. "Sup?" Leda asked. The rescued kids were piling into the camp vans, and they were almost free to leave and go back on their quest when a trident appeared over the head of one of them.

Leda did her best to hide her sigh.

If Poseidon was claiming this kid now, the most likely reason was because he wanted this kid to go on the quest with them. Otherwise, why wait for this moment? Why not just claim them when they were back at camp? Leda guessed with a war going on between the gods, Poseidon would rather have his kids underwater. "Depends on who you ask," Leda told Seraphina. "Now, you fancy going on a quest with us? You might even meet your old man."

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"De fact dat you've now resahrted to us bein cahmpared to cookin and food is kend o' sad at dis point. Besides, you in dat sense cause sahmethin to mex it tahgether. Wit dis group dat isn't really goin to 'appen..." she commented when Cass mentioned the ramen or whatever it was. That was a bad comparison given everything else currently going on. "You've also never 'eard o' an expression o' speech given de fact dat what I said was a sayin, naht talkin about cookin in actuality."

Janelle's attention turned towards Nancy as she started talking, though the way she spoke said to her that she thought people might be beneath her or something. It was something she had been used to in school as it had been the way a lot of people tended to speak to her. "I dahn't dink dat right dere is de issue entirely... I mean at dis point ahnly like, one persahn 'as sahrt o' acted like dat," she said, sort of referring to Demi in this instance,"De issue is dat people 'ere dahn't get alahng wit each ahther and prahbably wahn't ever want to. Persahnally I prefer naht to do too much fightin, but dat's partially because I know dat I can be seen as a liability in a fight if I'm naht careful. If sahmeone managed to make it so I couldn't 'ear ahr sahmethin like dat, I'd basically be cahmpletely useless sence 'earin is 'ow I see de wahrld. Though I suppahse if we were fightin sahmethin in de dark dat you couldn't get red o' de rest o' you would practically be sayin de same din, but doubt we'd run into dat issue." she knew that she was capable in a fight. Hell she'd gone on a quest with two of the people in their group. However the more people you added into a fight, the more difficult it would be for her to hear anything to pin point the location of the enemy. It wasn't her questioning her own skills, it was mainly her being realistic of everything.

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"Dink I can answer de question o' 'ow dey gaht ahn... Dat loud thud and all after de train left de station remember? Ahn de roof, dey prahbably literally jumped ahn ahr sahmethin like dat. It wouldn't surprise me, so I seriously doubt dey actually 'ave teckets, but also naht too sure if dey'd be able to get kecked ahff by de cahnductor..." Jason commented with a bit of a shrug, looking at Niah with her own comments about the monsters.

Thankfully the monsters were out of sight now, which meant that they'd have a little bit of time until they potentially doubled back, either that or they might get kicked off by the conductor. That would be a great thing in his opinion, and hilarious to see. Maybe the cyclops would think they tricked them onto the train and leave? They definitely seemed dumb enough for that sort of thing, especially since they had literally just walked by them and all initially.

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Mary was just sort of keeping her eye on the pair of eyes that were staring at them for the moment, right up until Madalyne decided to brighten up the area with some well placed fire and they could actually see what it was now. Her eyes widened a bit, seeing the monster now. "I always never really cared too much for reptiles unless I shifted into one," Mary commented, right before the thing decided to spit acid in her direction, causing a bit of a burn on her face.

"Thanks for that captain obvious," Mary said with an eye roll right before the giant lizard decided to knock them all backwards with it's tail. "Now that was annoying..." she muttered under her breath before she grip her sword tightly and swung it at the thing. Her first attempt was not very successful as she just got knocked backwards a little by it with the tail again. Her next attack managed to slice into it, drawing some blood from it at least.

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Andy hoped her aunt was okay. She had to focus on taking this thing down quickly. She sent some electricity its way. The lizard was close enough for her to stab with her dagger too. But the hide of the lizard was too thick. Her dagger alone wasn't going to do much. She tried to stab it again and maybe use the dagger as a lightning rod. But it seemed useless. She couldn't get past its hide.

"My dagger is too small. I can't stab it." She said, distressed. Alright, time to focus on electricity. She held up her other hand and pulled on the electrical energies she could always feel. This time when the lizard was hit, it seemed to actually do some damage. The lizard stumbled back, and there were some burn marks on it. She had probably only pissed it off since it was still alive.




Niah nodded. Jason's idea of how the cyclopses made sense. She had thought the thunk noise had been them throwing something at the train, but them hopping on made sense. She noticed a book left behind on a chair. She picked it up and leafed through it. Niah raised an eyebrow, wondering who would have read something like this. She tucked it under her arm and let the illusion drop.

The conductor was near their room now. She opened the door as he approached. He asked for their tickets. She smiled and handed them over. He looked at them and marked them with a hole punch. He didn't seem too concerned with a couple of teens and a kid riding a train alone. Once he had moved on, she put the illusion back up.

"We should be fine getting food and stuff now. The illusion is still there since it fooled them once. But since it looks like electrical access, be careful leaving and entering."

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Ezekiel looked over at his half-sister when she spoke about getting them into a functioning group if they wanted. He shuffled his feet and crossed his arms in visible discomfort. It wasn't that he didn't want Nancy's help, Zeus knows they needed it but they had worked well when it came down to it.
He had been on two quests already and even though they bickered, they had completed their quests successfully. Zeke had thought the bickering had helped them function better as a team and it seemed to have brought them closer if only for a time. The difference now was the stupid love triangle that wasn't even a triangle that was going on.
"A push in the right direction would be good. You've worked with large groups Nanc. Your knowledge would be an asset to us all." He knew Nancy didn't want to be here but maybe having her focused on them would help her compartmentalize.
"I'm going to go see if I can find Demetri. The train I think will be here soon. Cass, come with me, ya?" he asked before heading in the direction Demetri ran off in.

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Amtrak Train:

Things were still fairly quiet now as the train left the city, they could see the city skyline as it traveled west towards the city, the train conductor looked at the three kids and nodded. "Enjoy your trip." He said as he headed off towards the next car down train, at the far end of the car that they were in sat a man in a leather jacket wearing a pair of sunglasses and stretched out slightly in the chair boots resting on the seat in front of him. Jason would get the sense that it was actually his father Ares as he turned to look at the three of them Ares gave them a slight wave towards them.

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Kiera looked at Seraphina and smiled slightly towards her offering her a handshake after the trident had disappeared. "Looks like dad gets around a little bit to much, I guess that makes us half-sisters then he's my dad as well to." Kiera said with a slight laugh, it was nice to have a sibling now as Kiera looked at her girlfriend. "Eh it's either that or you'd have to carry us bridal style or something all the way over there. Not that I wouldn't mind at all being carried that way." Kiera said teasingly to her girlfriend as she turned her attention back to Seraphina. "I'm Kiera and thats my girlfriend Leda over there. And the one eyed guy I guess is Hercules." She introduced the new girl to the group.

"Not much, just helping with Argus here with these stragglers you guys found." Alannah answered Leda as she looked at the new girl who had been claimed by Poseidon even before coming to camp which was kind of odd, but she didnt really want to question it really either. "We'll get going now and good luck on your quest." Alannah said as she got back into the van, as she started it up. Kiera looked at her girlfriend offering the new girl to come on their quest she wasnt sure how the girl would handle it really. "You can come with us if you'd like to." Kiera offered Seraphina whatever the girl wanted to do they needed to get back on track with their quest.

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Madalyne groaned slightly as she started to get back up to her feet, she rubbed the back of her head slightly feeling something wet when she went to check it out it was blood. "Ow that hurts.." Madalyne said to herself as she watched both Mary and Andy fighting off the massive lizard, seeing that it was hurt by the two of them. Madalyne quickly summoned up a fireball in her hand and threw it at the massive lizard, she managed to blind it in one eye.

Hearing the lizard howling in pain as it thrashed around slightly and started to back up slightly swinging it's massive tail on the ground rather violently as some rocks started to become loose and cracked along parts of the grotto. "We either need to take this thing out or get out of here." Madalyne said as she held her sword out and took a swing at it however she ended up missing as the massive lizard pulled it's leg away just in time.

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Kristin looked between Cassian and Janelle as the two of them spoke, they really did need to find a way so that they could work well enough together without having the entire group falling apart in the middle of a fight. Kristin tried to hold back a little bit of laughter as a random guy ended up spilling an anchovy pizza all over him it was kind of entertaining but she didn't say anything about it really. When Nancy approached them offering her help with some training and she didn't mind learning from the Roman either really. "I'd like to learn some Roman tactics, it'd be really useful finding out what everyone is good at and what isnt and we cane work on that." She suggested to Nancy.

Aphrodite looked at Demetri as she thought for a moment lightly tapping her finger on her chin as she thought about it before turning her attention back to Demi. "No, i'd rather not it is soooooooo much more fun to see where the three of you end up, the Janelle girl really does have a crush on Zekey you know." Aphrodite said to Demi and giggled slightly as she stood up. "Expect some lovely things to happen soon." Aphrodite said and with that she was gone. "Train will be arriving now." The announcement came over the intercom system as the train slowly came to a stop at the platform.

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Location: New York City

Skills: N/A

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Sera shook her sisters hand, smiling shyly. “Well, I'm sorta glad… I mean I have someone close to talk to if I'm confused about anything…. Which this is still a lot to take in.” She looked nervous. Contemplating if she should join the group on their quest. “Oh ah I'm Seraphina. But Sera is fine. I…. I think I’d like to come along. Maybe there's a reason why father decided to claim me now rather than wait for me to get to camp!” Of course the demigod hoped it was for a good reason and not because she needed to face something dangerous.

“I don’t know how useful I'm going to be on the quest. I’ll try my best if anything comes up! So sorry if you guess have to step in to save me or anything....” Seraphina knew only a small bit of combat. Mostly self defense, how to throw daggers, and a good two years of fencing practice. Plus she’s never used any of her demigod powers before. That was a whole new thing to learn about.

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Stella was glad that Arbor was soon calm, and so she went to clean her hand of the bite wound, fishing some tissues out of her pack. She really didn't have anything better with her, and she wished she had some of that magic stuff she had seen them eating at the camp the other day. She was thankful that it seemed that her pup had calmed down again, and that the conductor had checked their tickets, so that they wouldn't be tossed off the train. She went to relax again, feeling her stomach growling a bit as she was still a bit hungry.

She squeaked as she suddenly spotted the man that was in their cabin, as he had not been there before and he was clearly not human. He had snuck in, right? Who was he, and was was he there?! She dare not speak up first. She wasn't going to say anything stupid and risk upsetting someone that could easily smite her or turn her into some kind of weird creature. She gently set Arbor down on the ground, to let him run around in the compartment a bit. He wasn't going to be let out of the compartment, but he was going to enjoy some freedom.

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Nancy didn't feel much sympathy for Janelle in this instance. Nor did Nancy agree with her. People could phrase it however they liked, but the issues the Greeks had was that they saw themselves as individual heroes at the end of the day - to handle this like Romans, they had to think of themselves as a group first. She raised an eyebrow as Kristin asked to learn Roman military tactics in one breath, and then instead wanted to focus on individuals with the other. "I don't think you all know what it means to fight as a group - you don't start off by focusing on the individuals, you focus on the whole. For demigods, that means we start with formations and movements."

She doubted this would excite them very much. Roman demigods drilled through these strategies in units from the moment they joined the Legion until the day that their service ended. They drilled Triple Line formations, the Flying Wedge, and the Testudo. They learned about onagers and pila. But more importantly, they learned construction - they learned how to build bridges and ladders and everything that the Legion could need, just like the days of old. "Once you've drilled your formations, then you can think about the individual abilities and powers. You can treat them like weapons. For example, do you need people in the front of the Flying Wedge who can deliver ranged attacks? Where do you place your healers? Where do you put the experienced members - in the Triple Line, the new recruits go in the front. But in the Wedge, the opposite is true."

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Leda flexed her hand somewhat gingerly. The sudden surprise of seeing one of the demigods they rescued by claimed by Poseidon had distracted her for a moment from the fresh wasp sting, but now Leda found it harder to ignore. She was used to more serious injuries and could deal with the pain, but the minor pain from the wasp sting was somehow a million times more unbearable. Maybe that was why she immediately was in somewhat of a mood, a little bit irritated with Sera despite not getting to know her. But then again, despite very few people picking up on it, Leda could be a bit two-faced at times - and a bit, well, bitchy really.

"Please, luv, one sibling does not a slut make for your exalted father," Leda teased. Most people at Camp Half-blood had way more than just one sibling, with a dozen or so per cabin not being unusual at all. Add in of course the Roman demigods and then Leda was fairly confident that some of the gods had literal armies of children behind them. Poseidon having three kids - that they knew about - was just a drop in the bucket.

Leda shrugged a bit at Seraphina. "Don't sweat it, kid. I can protect both of you," she said. Leda was boasting, but she wasn't entirely unfounded. She was a gifted sword fighter, plus the speed she had inherited from her mother meant that she could move faster than most people could react. She did sigh slightly though - a romantic quest with her girlfriend would be somewhat impossible with Hercules and Sera joining them.

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The words echoed inside of Demi's mind for a moment. The Janelle girl really does have a crush on Zekey He didn't like the idea of that. Not in the jealous sense that someone else had had eyes for Zeke. No, it made him feel gross inside. Like he was truly like his godly parent. Intervening in others' love lives and ruining them. Would Zeke have been happier with Janelle? Should he have simply kept his feelings to himself? Aphrodite said her final words before finally disappearing again, though Demi had a sinking feeling he'd see her again another day.

There was a loud call for the train's soon arrival and Demetri began to wonder just how long it had been. He quickly began to make his way towards the platform he had come from. His steps were heavy with a bit of anger towards the goddess of love, now knowing she was the one who had soured his day and first quest. Tears started to form in the corners of his eyes, hot and stinging from the rage he was feeling as he ran conversations in his mind about what he wished he could've said to her. Looking for some way out of this horrible ordeal.

Nancy had joined in on the conversation and for the most part Cassian was glad she had. It allowed him a bit of an out so that another could take the reins on it. The argument had begun to get cyclical and that was typically when Cass would just give up and move on from a point. He was surprised however to hear Zeke join in before asking him to come with him to find Demetri. "Uh. Sure yeah." There was a bit of silence as they stepped away from the others before Cassian decided to break it.

"You doing alright? You seem a little…tense? No, that's not quite right but there's something up. Or are you just worried our fine feline friend here will knock off one of his nine lives." Cassian's tone was melodic, not in an uncaring way but almost in the same fashion a mother would speak to coax the truth out of a child. He had no idea what was happening between the two of them or why Demetri kept running off. But perhaps Zeke could shed a bit of light on it.

As they made their way through the area where Demetri had been seen running, he spotted the dark haired son of Zeus marching back towards them in his male self. He tapped Zeke with the back of his hand on the shoulder and pointed towards Demetri. "Oh hey! We were just coming to look for…" Demi bolted past the pair. Hardly noticing Cassian as he made his way towards the platform. "...you…great."

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She was just sort of listening to what was going on, since everyone was now talking about tactics and fighting. Which despite being able to contribute in fights and all, which despite being a decent fighter when it came down to it, she was a liability and figured that she would be better off not helping. With fewer people she wasn't so much of a liability, she had more space to move around and listen to her opponents. With them having a decent group of people, that was going to be a lot more difficult. At least when she went on her quest before she could more easily move around, and those two didn't really have too much to worry about.

Now they were talking about formation and structure? Yeah, it made sense, but this was also adding onto the whole she was going to be useless in combat. Janelle wasn't able to do that sort of thing, she could keep those sort of movements in mind, that was easy, she's gotten good at memorization over the years. However trying to stay in one specific spot in a fight or in a group or unit, that was something entirely different, and she wasn't sure that she'd be able to do anything, and probably be more of a liability.

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He was kind of glad that the train conductor just sort of moved along down the train, leaving them be for the moment. They only still had to worry about the potential of the cyclops coming back. Since that wouldn't exactly be a good thing, but hopefully they wouldn't. If they were lucky that would be the case. However who knew how long their luck might hold out, but the idea of being able to leave the compartment and move around the train a bit would be nice, so that they weren't confined to the area for now.

His attention was turned away from that thought, by the appearance of a man who was sitting there looking at them. It took a moment for him to realize who it was, and his eyes went a bit wide at the thought, since as it turned out, his father decided to pay them a visit. "Oh, um, 'i dere dad," he ended up saying to Ares. Not entirely sure what else to really say when his godly parent decided to make a surprise visit on their train ride to the west coast.

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Well, she was all for the idea of ending this fight and dealing with the lizard. Running away didn't seem like the greatest option in her mind, since the lizard could either chase them or cause more monsters to be drawn to where they were, since they'd be running without really looking, causing them to have bigger issues. At this point, just killing the lizard made the most sense in general with everything, so that's what she was going to do, of course trying to be a bit mindful of the creature's tails and spit.

Mary swung her sword, and managed to swipe off one of the creature's hands (hands? Or would it be considered a foot?), before she lunged forward, running the thing through and killing it once and for all. Thankfully they didn't have to worry about it any longer. "So we should move on from here I think... don't want to stick around and see what else might come after us while we're here..." she said, looking at Madalyne and Andy now.

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Ezekiel wasn't sure why he asked Cassian to join him. Maybe he was trying to listen to Nancy and do things as a team, rather than individually or maybe he just wanted him to quit speaking to and bugging Janelle. Whatever the reason was, Ezekiel instantly regretted it when he was asked what was wrong.
Ezekiel tightened his hands into fists and clenched his jaw in an effort to keep from rolling his eyes and telling Cassian to mind his own business. "I am more worried he'll knock off one of all our lives. It's his first quest and he's already broken the number one rule." They rounded the corner and Ezekiel spotted Demi at the same time the announcement was made that the train was pulling into the station.
Ezekiel was relieved and angry at the sight of Demetri. He wanted to yell at him for being stupid as well as hug him in relief that the idiot was still alive. However, Demetri didn't seem to notice or care that they were there as he pushed past, completely ignoring Cassian's words. Ezekiel watched Demetri's back, frowning before looking at Cass and hurried to catch up to Demetri.
"Why did you run off like that?" Ezekiel asked as they made their way back to the proper platform and the others.

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Mary had finished the fight. Andy let out a sigh of relief. "Good job." She said, nodding at Mary. Then she moved over to where Mads was. "Are you okay?"[/color] She asked worriedly. Mary was right they should keep moving. Staying in one spot for too long here was inviting trouble.

"Which direction from here?" She asked Mary since she had the map. Andy reached into her bag. "I don't know much about first aid or anything, but Demi gave me this before we left. If it will help with your wound." She pulled out the box that Demi had given her. She hadn't looked at it, but he said it was a first aid kit.




Niah wanted to do some people-watching. She noticed the man, and something about him put her on edge. She couldn't quite place if he had broken an oath or not. Then Jason addressed him. She nodded mostly to herself. Niah looked over and saw Stella struggling with the wound the puppy had given her. She was surprised it had been that bad.

"Puppies don't know how to control their bite. You'll have to work with him on that." She said and leaned over and conjured a bandage. She hoped it would help. Niah didn't have a first aid kit. That was an oversight.

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Amtrak Train:

Ares looked up at Jason and smiled as he addressed him as his father and stood up making his way over towards him. "How are you doing on your first quest so far?" Ares asked Jason him as he looked between Niah and Stella for a moment before snapping his fingers as a staff appeared in his hand and gave it to Jason. "This'll help you out once you get to where you need, but it's one use only." Ares warned Jason, figuring that he'd know when to actually use the spear that he had just given him. "Also your cyclops friends won't be bothering you anytime soon." Ares told the three of them.

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"Nice to meet you Sera." Kiera said to her new sister as she watched the last of the demigods climbed into the van, she wasnt sure how well Sera could handle herself but the more help they had the better. Though Kiera was slightly hopping to have time with just her girlfriend alone. "I'm still kind of new to everything as well to I guess, but you'll get the hang of it." Kiera told Sera as she went over to give Leda a gentle kiss on the cheek. She then noticed the small wasp sting that was on her girlfriend and quickly summoned up some water around her and started to heal it using her water ability to heal the wound. "Feel better now love?" Kiera asked Leda as she made her way over towards their cab that they pretty much had stolen at this point now. "Lets get going."

"I call shotgun by the way." Kiera said as she quickly climbed into the front passenger seat as Hercules looked between the two girls. "I guess I got the back seat then." Hercules said as he quickly went towards the back seat opening it slightly and awkwardly got into it, due to his size it was a bit of a tight fit for the very young cyclops.

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Madalyne's head was pounding slightly as she looked towards Andy and offering some of the medical supplies that Demi had given her before they had left camp. She smiled towards her niece and shook her head slightly, one of the perks of her little condition she healed a little bit faster. And it wasnt super serious to her in her opinion. "No thank you, i'll be fine thank you for the offer though i'll be fine soon." Madalyne said to Andy and smiled gently patting her on the head.

Madalyne made her way towards where the Drakon had been killed and pulled out a fang from it's mouth just as it had burst into monster dust and tossed it towards Mary. "Nice kill by the way." Madalyne told her, they had to move on out of here as this area wasnt as safe as she had thought it was anymore. Whenever Mary took out the map again the arrow would appear again pointing towards a tunnel nearby.

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Kristin listened to Nancy as she started to talk about some of the formations that the Roman's used and nodded slightly, she had seen some movies that used those formations. "Hmm, i'd put both experienced and inexperienced together maybe, i'd have the leaders in the center of the formation. And any archers and other ranged people in the back." Kristin said as she heard the announcement that their train was arriving and stood up. Seeing their train starting to pull in now, then she waited a little bit before looking at the others seeing them catching up now. "We all need to sit together once we board." Kristin told them.

Kristin was still slightly annoyed that Demi had decided to run off to do whatever he wanted to do. "Hurry up you guys could have missed our only ride there." She said as Kristin started to board the train, and looked around the car was fairly empty for the most part seeing an elderly couple sitting in the back of the train. She wasnt sure if there were any monsters that were on any of the other train cars they just needed to stay alert now.

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Zeke's voice broke Demi's concentration. Tension left his shoulders immediately as his rage melted down and left behind a mess of other emotions. He whipped around and saw his boyfriends face, the tears that had threatened to burst out were now slowly streaming down his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away with the back of his sleeve, hardly noticing Cassian coming up behind them. At this moment in time it was just he and Zeke. No one else mattered around them. He took a half step forward, wanting to hug Zeke, but his annoyed tone made him take it back.

Demetri tried to take Zeke's hand before turning back around and heading towards the platform as he spoke. "I saw that woman again. Once is happenstance. Twice is intentional. So I followed her. Turns out it was Aphrodite, she decided she wants to mess with our love life for amusement. So here we are…" His voice trembled as he spoke, tears looming again as the thought of having a gods attention rattled his brain. Every word clearly choking back a tear. When he saw Kristin and the rest he forced himself to smile and wave as if nothing had happened. "Sorry! really had to take a leak, but now that I've used the loo I'm ready for a long and boring train ride " He said as he flashed a smile.

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Cassian had clearly struck a nerve with Zeke. He spent most of his life studying and reading people, yet Zeke tended to wear his emotions a bit more openly in small displays. Others were a bit harder to read such as Nancy or Janelle. But he had a point, Demetri's reckless abandonment had put them all at risk. He needed to start thinking of how his actions affected the others, something he was more than certain Janelle was already aware of given what she'd thought of this group.

Before Cassian was able to reply back towards the son of Apollo, he too had gone off a bit ahead; chasing off after Demetri leaving Cassian alone. "No please go off ahead I'll be fine alone." he muttered silently to himself. "Oh no Cassian please join us, we didn't mean to run off. Tch" he continued as he sped up to keep pace with them while leaving them enough room to still be somewhat alone and private. Clearly there was something more underneath it all but Cassian didn't quite get what it was.

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Location: New York City

Skills: N/A

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The girl nodded softly, yet she somewhat felt unwanted. Of course she kept that feeling to herself. They had invited her along. Not the other way around. She'd just suck it up, play nice, and hopefully the two wouldn't notice anything. Perhaps they'd just believe she was overly nervous and scared. Which was very true, she was frightened.

Sera followed along behind them, giggling quietly as the poor cyclops tried his best to fit inside the cab. "Too bad its not a larger car." Getting into the back of the cab with the cyclops. Due to Hercules size it was a bit cramped. Which made her very uncomfortable. Claustrophobia sucked sometimes, even more so when there was no other way to travel. At least she didn't have motion sickness. That would have made the experience even worse. 'I can handle this.... I can do this....' She thought to herself.

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Ezekiel very nearly ran into Demetri when he stopped abruptly and turned around. Ezekiel watched recognition cross Demetri’s face before the tears fell. Ezekiel took a step forward when Demetri took one back and then turned back around after wiping his face. Ezekiel frowned but continued to keep up while Demi explained.
At first it didn’t make any sense and then Demetri said Aphrodite wanted to mess with them. Of course, that’s why she was screwing with his powers but that still didn’t answer Ezekiel’s other burning question.
”Gods above,” he cursed before looking back at Cassian who likely heard the whole thing. Ezekiel wasn’t “out” yet, but he also knew Demi and him had been pretty obvious and then there was the whole Janelle calling him out thing. Truthfully, Zeke would have liked to approach the whole coming out thing differently but it was too late, so he was going to try to make the most out of it; especially now that the goddess of love herself was getting involved. As if this quest hadn’t already been doomed from the beginning. They reached the platform just in time to join everyone boarding. Ezekiel turned his attention back to Demetri and grabbed his arm.
”It’s fine, she’ll get bored of us soon enough. In the meantime, you seriously can’t run off like that, Dem. I know you’ve been in battle before, but this shit is serious. We are completely vulnerable out here. No going off on your own, alright? Also, you might want to shift back to a cat or risk getting thrown off the train,” Ezekiel added before letting go of Demi and boarded the train.

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When Jason addressed the man in the cabin as Dad, Stella could only stare for a moment before remembering that it was really impolite to stare so much at someone, no less a god. However, when she had pictured the God of War she had always pictured that Angry Bald man that was popular in video games. (Not that she played those ones, video games often gave her headaches and she much preferred to be outside.) She did look over to Niah as she was handed a bandage and offered her a small smile. "Yeah, I know I'll have to train him. He was just also wanting to go out and wander as well, so I can't be too mad at him. I want to explore a bit of the train as well."

She gently applied the bandage to her wound and looked back to Ares as he spoke again, telling them they wouldn't have to worry about the cyclops monsters. "Oh thank goodness... If we don't have to worry about them anymore, that means it should be safe to explore the train a bit. May I please go find the food car now? I think Arbor is hungry, and I know we both want to get out of the compartment for a bit." She had seen enough old cartoons to also know it was probably a bad idea to split the group, but she also figured Jason might want a moment along with his father. It wasn't like the gods appeared every day.

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Nancy wasn't too certain how much the Greeks had actually understood what she had said. Minerva's daughter at least did seem to have some thoughts on tactics that weren't bad, and didn't entirely contradict what they had often spoken about during drills at Camp Jupiter. She was disappointed to see that Janelle hadn't joined in on the conversation. These tactics were the most important for her to learn, as she would need to learn to spatially orient herself in these formations quickly. Already, Nancy was scheming up some ways to use the girl to the best of her abilities in order to enhance the group as a whole.

She didn't say anything else though, instead getting up and boarding the train with the group, careful to keep Joanie on her shoulder. The mortals probably just saw Joanie as some sort of pet, but Nancy didn't care. If any of them said a word to her about her dragon, she'd deal with them. Nancy could be quite intimidating when she needed to - some people described it as trying to win a staring contest with the sun. Few people could last very long. "Classic Greek punctuality," Nancy muttered sarcastically, as the rest of the group made it on at the very last second.

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Leda pretended to be annoyed by Kiera fretting over her wasp sting, but she secretly really appreciated it. "Mmhmm," she replied, a slight smile on her face. She did love getting little displays of affection from Kiera. Her eyes darted over towards Sera - they didn't know much about her - but it didn't seem like Sera had any sort of a problem with them being, well, gay. And if Hercules had a problem with it, Leda would turn him into a pile of monster dust. "Don't bother trying to buckle, Herc," Leda said, as she got back into the driver's seat. She was, as far as she knew, still the only one there who knew how to drive.

Leda fastened her seatbelt and waited for a moment, watching in the mirror as Sera squeezed herself into the back with Hercules. She smirked slightly, a little bit amused at the awkward fit it was for Hercules. He wasn't the small baby cyclops she had met anymore. Luckily no cops seemed to be aware of the fact that they had a stolen cab either - sometimes, the Mist really did work small miracles.

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"If 'e wants to get 'imself kelled by runnin ahff alahne by all means I'm naht goin to stahp 'im," she said, more of to herself then anyone else. Clearly she was referring to Demetri, though she was loud enough in order to be heard by the others in the group. There was the sound that she heard of the train arriving in the station, and at this point, she was ready for this quest to be over. She really didn't want to be here, her mind was still wandering around, thinking about other things.

She made her way very carefully along, not really wanting to bump into any strangers, not to mention she didn't really want to potentially have anyone touch her to help guide her along. Janelle was capable of navigating her way around the world, that was fairly simple, even with all of the noise going on around her. The train was here at the least and they finally get on with their quest and finish this potentially or something like that quickly.

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He was still a bit stunned that Ares had decided to make an appearance during their quest. Let alone right now when they hadn't even gotten very far along on their quest, and the main thing they had dealt with was the cyclops, well, more of the one and they hid from the others. Though that whole answering question went out the window as an object appeared in his hands, and he was very confused as to what was up with in general. Yeah, this was definitely a super fun instance of meeting up with your parent and all.

"I mean um... it's goin alright, de ahnly real din we've dahne at dis point was dealin wit de cyclahps. Though danks if you ded sahmethin to make dem disappear ahff de train," Jason ended up saying, looking at the object he had been given again, "And fun, one use din dat I'll suppahsedly know 'ow to use and figure wance we get dere, dat'll be fun to see what it does," he added with a bit of a shrug, unsure what else to say at this point.

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"I mean it is dead, that's all that matters really at this point right? Really this is a bit of an insane adventure, but let's just enjoy the very slight pause we have now and then get going. Sticking around in one spot is a bad idea, so let's see where we need to go then shall we?" Mary commented, taking the tooth that Madalyne had tossed her and pocketing it, before she once more pulled out the map, to see if she could figure out where they were and where to go next.

Looking at the map, she saw the arrow again pointing down another tunnel near where they were. "Alright, looks like it's going to be that way," she said as she pointed down the tunnel, and started to move a little bit towards it. "If we're all set to get going again, then we should. Unless you want to patch yourself up from your injuries or something like that, it's up to you though," she added with a slight shrug.