Yes, fast(er) update! I had a little more time to write, so here ya go!

"I'm tired!" Lucia exclaimed for the hundredth time that day.

"If you're tired, go to sleep," Coleman replied, "but don't blame us if we leave you behind."

"We've been walking all night!" Lucia complained in reply. Coleman sighed. The young girl spoke the truth. Not wanting to be attacked in their sleep again, the ragged group had continued walking until the sun had long since risen over their heads.

"She's got a point," Vince chimed in, yawning as he did so.

"For once, I agree with Wolfy here," R.O.S.E. said tiredly, motioning with a thumb to Vince.

"'Wolfy'?" Vince asked. "Seriously?"

"Would you rather I called you Dog Breath?"

"I'd rather you just shut up."

Kiara walked behind the others, giggling mischievously at the argument between the two chosen. The demon was tired as well, but she wasn't going to let sleep get in the way of her amusement. Coleman, on the other hand, was trying to avoid ripping his hair out.

'Why did I have to be the only adult here?' he thought. Lucia tugged lightly on his sleeve.

"Can we please camp here for a rest?" she asked innocently, her big brown eyes shining in a classic puppy dog face. "We haven't seen a Primid for miles!" Coleman turned away, pulling his hat down further over his eyes. His one true enemy: the puppy dog eyes.

"We'd be left exposed out here," he muttered as soon as he found a possible reason. "There's no cover, we'd be sitting ducks if something happened."

"Well," R.O.S.E. began. "We haven't slept in nearly a day, and it's almost nightfall. Do you really think we'd be able to take a horde or run in our condition anyway?"

"I could!" Kiara said, raising her hand quickly.

"Quiet, you!" R.O.S.E. snapped. She turned back to Coleman. "Well?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. Coleman could feel the pressure from the others' gaze as he fought to make a decision. Eventually his need for sleep won out.

"Fine," he said, exhausted. "We'll take a rest here. But we're getting up bright and early tomorrow morning!" The group barely heard him as the rolled out the tattered rags they used as sleeping bags and began to snore.

….

Lucia was awakened by a loud crash that night. She slowly propped herself up on her hands and sat up. 'What was that?' she wondered just as another crash shook the landscape. Picking herself off of the ground, she inched over to Coleman. She knelt by the large man's head and tapped her chin, thinking of a way to wake him. After a moment of serious consideration (well, serious to her), she got an idea. If it were possible, a little light bulb would have appeared over her head.

The young girl grabbed Coleman's left ear and yanked it. Hard. But the warrior simply frowned in his sleep and turned to his side. So, Lucia did the next thing she could think of: she walked over to Coleman's other side and kicked him forcefully in the stomach.

The brute woke from his sleep with a loud exhale of air. "Ooof," he groaned as he got unsteadily to his feet. He looked over to Lucia, standing innocently to his left, hands folded behind her back and smiling cutely. Coleman wasn't fooled.

"Was that… really necessary?" he asked, half gasping for breath.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucia said with a small frown, cocking her head to one side. Coleman simply scowled in reply.

"Well, why did you wake me up, kid? Don't tell me you need a drink of water or something."

"No," Lucia huffed, slightly annoyed. "I heard some kind of explosion and it woke me up. I think it might have been the Primids." Now Coleman lost any trace of sleep on his face.

"Let's wake the others," he said seriously. "This could be very, very bad if we don't move." With that statement, we walked over to Vince and snapped his fingers in his face a few times. "Get up," he muttered gruffly. "We need to go." The groggy teenager slowly got to his feet and yawned.

"Alright, alright, I'm up," he told Coleman.

Lucia walked over to R.O.S.E. and Kiara. "GET UP!" she screamed at the top of her voice.

R.O.S.E., startled, got to her feet quickly and stood stock-still, like a soldier in line. Realizing it was only Lucia, she relaxed and said, "Geez, did you really need to yell?"

"Yes, yes I did."

Kiara, on the other hand, wouldn't move no matter what they tried. They'd gone so far as to try and stab her in the gut with a sword, but the demon stayed completely still, oblivious to their attempts.

"Whatever, let's just leave her," Coleman muttered, eager to be on their way.

"But she's a chosen!" Lucia protested stubbornly. "We can't just leave her here!"

"If she's going to be like this the whole trip, she'll be useless baggage that we'll need to carry around."

"Dude," Vince began, "that's just cold. We are not going to leave her here. We need her to beat this Lord of Shadows, so she'll be coming one way or another."

In the end, they decided to drag Kiara by the rag she slept on as they walked through the barren plain. It wasn't until around noon that Kiara awoke, more fresh and ready than any of the others.

"Finally!" Coleman shouted, dropping the rag he'd been dragging. "You couldn't have woken up earlier?"

"Oh, please," Kiara said, waving her hand dismissively. "I was awake the entire time."

"If you were awake, why did you make us drag you?"

"Simple: I'm lazy."

….

"This looks like a good place to stop," Leon said as he, Hikari, Asima, Will, Gammic, Jerid, Chris, and Bob neared a small river. Leon dropped his pack and sat down to rest with a sigh of relief. The others did the same.

"How far do you think we walked today?" asked Chris, dropping down next to Leon.

"Oh, I'd say at least ten miles," Asima replied, wiping sweat from her brow.

"Close," said Bob, adjusting his hood. "We walked ten point eight-three miles."

"Wow," replied Jerid. "That's, like, the least distance I've ever gone in a day." Leon glared at him.

"Well, not all of us can move at the speed of sound, dude," he said, filling his canteen with fresh water from the river.

"Have you ever wondered why flamingos are pink?" Gammic piped up. Most of the others either ignored him or rolled their eyes, although he did get one "I know, right?" from Bob. Immediately the two launched into a detailed conversation that somehow got into why strawberries are not made of real straws.

"Okay…" Hikari said. "We're gonna need some wood for a fire. Who's gonna volunteer?"

"No need," Will replied, pulling a bundle of dried sticks out of his seemingly bottomless pack.

"Seriously," Chris said. "How do you hold all that in one pack?"

"Dude, my smasher is Link," Will replied with a grin. "The guy who carried a ball-and-chain big enough to knock down a wall across all of Hyrule in a backpack, along with twenty other tools. Compared to that, this is nothing."

"Alright, so we've got a fire. Anybody got food?"

"I picked up a couple loaves of some kind of bread from the Iron Building," Leon replied. "It's kinda moldy, but there's easily enough to last us a few days."

"Wow, for once we came prepared," Jerid said. He and Will began to start a fire while Leon and Chris began debating which was more important in a fight, speed and agility or strength and endurance. This eventually led to a debate over who had the better choice of weapons, and finally who would beat who in a fight. The two argued fiercely over this topic, eventually turning away and stubbornly not talking to each other. It wasn't until Will finished the fire and offered to teach them to fish that the two warriors began to speak again.

Hikari and Asima simply sat in awkward silence, occasionally bringing up a topic that would be quickly shut down and falling back into boredom.

Gammic and Bob continued their conversation, each laughing and pointing out something new in their turn. After a while, they joined the other boys in catching fish, and when they had caught a generous amount they simply sat around the fire, roasting pieces of bread and fish and, in Bob's case, a beetle he'd found crawling around.

The boys eventually struck up a conversation about who would win in a fight again, this eventually leading into a footrace (Jerid, of course, was disqualified). Will came in first, Chris in second, Bob in third, Gammic in fourth, and Leon, panting, came in last.

Humiliated, Leon declared a second challenge: an arm wrestling contest. This time the results were quite different: Leon was the champ, then Will, Chris in third, Gammic in fourth, Jerid, and finally Bob.

Bob, angry, declared a burping contest, which all but Gammic refused. No one could decide a winner in that area (mostly because no one wanted to be the judge), so it was declared a tie.

"What is it with guys and competition?" Asima muttered to Hikari.

"I don't know," the spiky-haired girl replied with a grin, "but you have to admit that it's kinda fun to watch." Currently Chris, Leon, and Will were trying to see who had the biggest muscles. None of them seemed to be willing to admit defeat.

"Okay, I gotta give you that," Asima said with a small smile. Finally, she and Hikari had found something to agree on.

A half hour later, Leon was going for his sixth piece of fried fish, when suddenly it disappeared from the stick he was using to hold it in the fire. "What the heck?" he muttered, confused, and searched the ground for the lost piece of meat. A slight giggle came from a nearby bush, and Leon quickly turned towards it.

"Is someone there?" he questioned into the darkness.

"What are you doing over there, Leon?" Hikari asked, walking to her fellow fighter.

"I could've sworn I just heard someone laugh," he replied, frowning.

"Probably just your head," Hikari replied, hitting him on the top of his skull with her knuckles.

"No, seriously!" Leon shouted in defense, rubbing his head. Another light, childish laugh came from the nearby woods. "See? There it is again!"

"Okay, so maybe it's not in your mind. Let's go check it out." Without another word she dashed into the trees. Leon smirked a little.

"Finally, someone agrees with me," he said, following his friend. He and Hikari stood in the undergrowth, waiting for another sign. A bush nearby rustled, and Leon caught sight of a pair of bright blue eyes and pink hair. 'Wait, what?' he thought. Sure enough, when another shrub rustled the same features popped out from the darkness.

"Come out, whoever you are!" Leon called.

"You have to catch me first!" answered a small, young voice, followed by a giggle. The two pressed forward into the thicker wood.

"C'mon, we just want to know who you are!" Hikari called out.

"You can call me Dominique!" said a voice behind her. A young girl in a kimono decorated with petals looked up at her with big eyes. The girl tried to run back into the trees, but Leon caught her wrist.

"Ah ah ah," he said. "Not so fast. What are you doing out here, kid?"

Dominique puffed out her cheeks. "I'm not a kid! I'm eight!" she said stubbornly, folding her arms.

"Yeah, Leon!" Hikari agreed, trying to keep from smiling.

"What, but- Ugh, okay, okay," Leon said, defeated. "So you're eight. But that doesn't answer the question as to why you're here."

"I'm going to the ruins!" Dominique said cheerfully, as though this were as normal as going to a park.

"And why are you going to the ruins?" asked Hikari.

"'Cause Kirby told me to," the girl replied, still smiling. Hikari and Leon shared a glance. Apparently this girl was chosen, too.

"Alright, well, we're going to the ruins too," Hikari said. "So why don't you come with us?"

"Okay!" Dominique said cheerfully, and followed Hikari out. Leon followed them.

When they were almost out, Will's voice called out, "Leon! Hikari! What are you two lovebirds doing in there?" The tall teen's voice broke a little to keep from chuckling at the last part. Both Leon and Hikari flushed red, and ran out of the forest with Dominique following, leaping along in her little ballet slippers.

Leon got out first. When Hikari and Dominique were out of sight, he punched Will in the arm. "Dude, that was not cool. Nothing was going on in there."

Will simply grinned. "Sure there wasn't." At Leon's glare he held up his arms defensively and said, "Okay, okay, nothing happened!" Leon, satisfied, walked back to camp. Will grinned again, shook his head, and followed.

….

Alright, that's it. Next chapter will just be the group I haven't talked about in this one. R&R, and don't forget the criticism!

Also: Shikishima, I changed your OC's name a bit because Dominic is the male form, so I thought Dominique would make more sense.

Anyway, Later!