"Are you going to keep bothering me about this until I answer you?" Daemon and Orion had traveled quite a bit down the length of the pathway they ended up on. But Orion had seemed to take the time the two had together as a means of bonding. Daemon wasn't exactly amused at that.

"Yes, I am. Give me a reason that actually makes sense as to why you won't join us." Orion had shot down every previous reason Daemon had listed. Even the fact that there would be no house for him to stay in, and that the gods wouldn't be happy with him there. Orion simply commented on the fact that the gods already wouldn't be happy because they were with him, and that the gods were practically never happy.

"Fine. You all are too weak. Look how much trouble you had dealing with just me. Why would I join with a group that I either constantly defeat, or have to save?" Daemon's answer kept Orion quiet for a few moments, surprisingly.

"Alright." Orion halted in his tracks and stroked his light goatee for a moment. "You and I will spar right now. If I win, you come with us. If you win, I'll leave you alone about it." Orion wanted to wait and make sure that no one was going to attack them before he decided to issue his challenge. To show that he was serious, Orion let his braces return to their weapon forms.

"Just don't cry when you lose." Daemon withdrew a small, Celestial Bronze dagger and held it in his left hand, and his Stygian Iron sword in his right. Daemon and Orion were both skilled at duel wielding weapons, and both had a weapon made out of the metal that was supposedly only able to be used by a child of Hades. It was a curious fact, but the current theory that the group had agreed on was that the two most both have a distant ancestor who was a child of Hades and passed the ability on.

"Don't you find it weird that we haven't been attacked yet?" Zephyr and Fayt had been proceeding with caution, but were beginning to miss the point of it. They hadn't been attacked at all since they were split up, and Fayt was guessing that was about a half hour ago.

"Yeah, I do actually. It's obvious that whoever is running this show, knows that we're here. "Fayt looked around to take in his surroundings, but it was all the same. Faded brick walls on the ceiling, floor, and walls around him; nothing new, no kind of clues. That was, until he felt one of the bricks sink slightly under the weight of his foot.

"Fayt! Wind!" Zephyr was much more in tune with his aerokinesis in comparison to Fayt, despite the latter being one of the princes of the sky. He was able to detect changes in the wind, and more importantly, the fact that dozens of darts were now rushing towards them from the walls and ceiling. Fayt was quick though, and the two wind users were able to put up a barrier in time to blow the attack away.

"Poison." Fayt picked up one of the darts that were now scattered upon the floor and watched an oozing green liquid drip from the tip. "This place is booby trapped. This path at least. I'm not sure how the others are doing. The walls are too thick to hear them."

"True enough. We better fly from here on out to be safe." Fayt nodded in agreement with Zephyr's idea and the two took to the skies.

"Duck, Iliana!" Mariella's dark green eyes narrowed upon the skeleton that was swinging a sword composed of bones towards Iliana. Mariella's arrow hit its mark; the direct center of the skeleton's head and it collapsed.

"That's what? The fifth one within four minutes?" Iliana had a gash upon her right shoulder from the first one. Mariella took to healing it of course, but it would still need time to be fully fixed. It stopped bleeding however and was starting to close up. More importantly, the pain was significantly reduced. Mariella wasn't unharmed either; the bruise on her thigh from one of the skeleton's surprisingly strong grip was forcing her to walk with a limp until the healing process was finished. "We're not going to make it to the others if this keeps up."

"You want me to walk so you save some strength?" Iliana had been teleporting with Mariella in short bursts so that Mariella wouldn't have constant weight on her injury, but it was making Iliana tired. It took enough energy teleporting herself, let alone teleporting something in the same weight class as her. It was quickly taking its toll.

"I should be fine for a few more teleports. Just have an arrow ready to defend us." With Iliana's approval, Mariella slung her arm over Iliana's left shoulder and held on as tightly as she could. When they arrived at their teleportation point, about forty feet down the path, they found a half dozen skeletons looking at them. In unison, both Mariella and Iliana murdered a curse in Greek under their breath, and prepared themselves for battle.

Orion adapted extremely quickly to Daemon's powers, which was no easy task. It meant that he constantly had to be on both the offensive and defensive at the same time. He had surmised that Daemon could only use his power in quick burst while engaging in close range combat, and that he mostly used it to catch his opponent off guard. So Orion thought of the strategy of purposely leaving a spot open in his defense, and focusing his attack on that open spot to counter the blow that Daemon would inevitably deliver there. The two were evenly matched. "Got you." Daemon's words barely finished leaving his lips, before Orion planted his swords into the ground. The result was a water spout forming around Orion that knocked Daemon away. When the water subsided, Daemon launched his dagger towards Orion. He dodged it, but the dagger had caused him to slow down once it entered his shadow. Once it passed, he was against the wall with Daemon holding a blade to his throat.

"Looks like it's a tie." Orion grinned, while motioning towards Daemon's stomach. The son of Poseidon had made a drill of highly compressed water that was just inches away from drilling directly through the son of time's body.

"We didn't agree on what would happen in case of a tie, did we?" Daemon let Orion down. He was thoroughly impressed with his skill. "Ah well; it doesn't matter I suppose." Daemon sheathed his weapons and watched as Orion did the same.

"So you'll join?" Orion's voice was still calm as per usual, but it seemed to be happy.

"Only out of spite to the gods. Now come on. Our little skirmish made us lose time."

"We didn't lose time; you're right here." Daemon stared at Orion after his joke for a minute, before walking away.

"I changed my mind. "

"Oh c'mon, it wasn't that bad!" Orion chased after Daemon and the two sped towards the end of the path.

"These things are really irritating me!" Fayt zipped through the sky with Zephyr by his side. This time it was Zephyr who set off the trap that was currently hounding them; flaming boulders zipping through the sky closing in on their trail. The child of Zeus occasionally shot out a bolt of lightning at the boulders and would destroy one, but other than that the two had no choice but to retreat and hope they'd reach the exit soon.

"Don't fall behind." Zephyr barely dodged a boulder aimed at his head by dropping down towards the ground. He discovered the hard way that shooting wind at the boulders would destroy one, but fan the flames of all the boulders in the immediate area of his targeted one. They decided that wasn't a good idea. "If we can get to the exit, we could collapse the walls of the path and block the things in!" Zephyr increased his speed, which prompted Fayt to do the same.

"We're almost there!" Fayt pointed out a light that seemed to be by something other than the torches that lined the walls down their path, and two figures standing in it. Zephyr was faster than Fayt in the sky, and escaped the path first.

"Hurry Fayt!" Zephyr had already begun to destroy the walls that were surrounding Fayt. With a furious cry, Fayt pushed himself to the very limit of his gift of flight and barely managed to get out of the tunnel before the walls fell on him.

Iliana tossed her weapon towards one of the skeletons and managed to split it directly down the spine. She then teleported to her weapon while it was still in midair, and sliced a second one into numerous parts. The two had realized that they had to either split the monsters down the middle, or destroy their heads completely. Simply removing their heads didn't work, although they did have a harder time fighting without it. Mariella shot an arrow point plant into a skeleton's head and it erupted into various pieces. "Two more…Iliana!" In the brief second it took for Mariella to destroy her opponent, one of the remaining skeleton's managed to knock Iliana unconscious by driving her head into the wall. Acting quickly, Mariella shot an arrow that erupted in a pillar of light. It didn't damage the skeletons, but it gave her the chance to limp towards Iliana and throw her over her shoulder. Luckily Iliana was shorter than her, and Mariella's injury was for the most part recovered thanks to her own healing song. But she knew there was no way she was going to be able to protect Iliana and fight off the skeletons. If the blow to her leg was fully healed then she could have, but not like this. Her only option was to make a break for it. The skeletons could easily be slowed down with a shot to the knee, and she could see a light in the distance. Hopefully, her friends were there already. While the skeletons were still distracted, Mariella swung her bow hard at both of their right knees and darted off down the hall as quickly as she could. "Help guys!"

Just as the skeletons caught up with Mariella, her cries were answered. A bolt of lightning and jet of water crashed into the skeletons, while Daemon and Zephyr grabbed the two girls and pulled them out of the tunnel. "We should rest here for a little so we can regain our strength." Orion explained once the group swapped stories of what happened during their journey. The place they found themselves was comfortable enough; significantly less faded bricks lined the floor and walls, while the ceiling was open enough for the sun to shine in. They decided it was okay to destroy the tunnel that Mariella and Iliana traveled down as well, so that the only way they could get back was through the empty tunnel that Orion and Daemon took. Besides the tunnel, the only way to proceed was the two large, iron doors behind them. They figured that's where they needed to go, but for now it was time to rest.