Thanks to Dreisie, my dreadful writer's block has been cured. Praise be for beta readers!

And massive thanks to anyone who reviewed/ reviews this. It's encouraging!

I looked at the van, biting my lip and sweating. The last time I had been in a vehicle, remember, it had been driven off of the edge of a cliff. This was a rickety old thing that had strawberries painted on the side and the man in the driver's seat was Argus. He's covered in eyes and he doesn't like me for some reason (okay, so maybe I did ask him where he wore reading glasses) so forgive me if I wasn't exactly willing to let him drive me to what I already knew was my doom.

I glared at him, and all of his eyes glared back at me. He was smiling at Jack, but he was scowling at Connor as well as at me. We pulled a face and Chiron came forward.

"Argus will drive you east where the sun will rise so you can catch whoever has stolen the chariot. It might be a dangerous journey, so I need to check that it is one you are ready to take."

I flexed my now clawed hands and checked my knife was in its holster. My bow was slung across my back and my quiver was full of arrows that looked more like bombs by the time Liam had finished with them. "Yes."

Connor grinned. "As if you have to ask!"

Jack smiled, and untangled a strawberry plant from his foot. "I may as well keep an eye on these two."

We turned around and he laughed. "I mean, of course I'm ready!" He grinned and opened the van's door.

"Whoa. I said I was ready for the journey. I didn't say that I wanted to ride in the van. That doesn't look roadworthy to me. I am not getting in the van."

Oh dear. Never say that in front of two boys who think that the quest you are embarking on is very important. Those two picked me up bodily, and slung me in the back of the van. They totally looked like creepy kidnappers.

Once in the van, I glared at them. "You're evil." The door had slammed shut behind them too, I might add.

"Yeah, we feel just sooooo bad about that…" Connor grinned, and I smacked the back of his head 'accidentally' as the van took off. It rumbled along the road and I dug a book out of my bag, settling in a corner to read (and sulk).

"Hey, we needed to go on the quest!" Jack said defensively. I pretended not to hear them and turned a page. He appeared rather suddenly in front of my face as the van swerved. I went red, scrambling out of his way and leaning up so my face was behind the driver's seat.

"What's happening?" I asked Argus. He glared, and pointed to another car. I sank back into the corner and began to read again. The boys started to discuss weapon strategies, which irritated me to no end, but I concentrated on the story of Fever Crumb. I gasped a little two hours later when she died, and breathed a sigh of relief when she was brought back to life. Closing the book, I looked up, and suddenly felt odd.

"What the hell is that?" screamed Connor, pointing towards a blur that had raced past. I zipped my book away and grabbed the bow, stringing an arrow and waiting for Argus to stop. Wheeling around, he vaulted into the back of the van. He drew a wicked looking sword and opened the door.

At this point, we were in a desert like place along a motorway. I don't know how far we'd driven. We might have even been lost, but Argus calmly stepped out, motioning for us to follow.

I spotted a blur again, spinning around to position my arrow towards it. It was golden, and racing towards us.

"Daisy Dude, cover my back." I grinned at Jack and ran towards the blur.

Now, I am almost fearless, but I felt a shiver when I saw this thing. It had a lion's head with a golden mane, a creepy goat's head, and what looked like a golden snake's head for its tail. I tried to aim my arrow for the goat but that was when the bloody thing barbequed my arrow, growling at me and slowing down. It snorted, roared and hissed, three pairs of eyes glaring towards me. Sparks spat out of the lion's mouth, and I felt a little bit of fear as I picked out a heat seeking missile arrow. Yeah, there's a reason Liam was expelled from his last school, but he was a god to me at this moment in time.

I drew back the string, focusing on its middle and gripping the bow wood with my other hand. Exhaling, I released the arrow, and watched as a beautiful scene unfolded in front of my eyes. The arrow was released from the missile, and carried on towards its mark. The chimera tried to burn the arrow. The missile then headed towards it and exploded, hitting the thing, and then…

Then the snake head turned the arrow to ash. Oh, damn. Damnity, damnity damn. That was no snake. That was a bona fide, hellish, extremely dangerous…

I began to run back. "DRAGON! THAT'S A DRAGON CHIMERA! EVERYBODY DOWN! THIS AIN'T GOING TO BE PRETTY!" I tackled Jack as Connor hit the dirt and looked around for Argus.

The fool was running towards the chimera, and I got up. "What the hell?" I started to run towards him, hoping to reach him before the chimera did. It was wounded, and unhappy, and really seriously not safe to be around. As he picked it up, I watched in horror as simultaneously he threw it down with enough force to snap all three necks and the chimera blasted our camp's bodyguard with a column of fire. He howled in agony as the chimera turned to a thick powder that blew into the wind on the backlash of the chimera's flame. I raced to his side, screaming his name and racking my brains for a healing spell, dimly aware of Connor and Jack getting up and racing over to join me.