An extra day

"Dead or alive, I'm taking this demon in" Percy glowered toying with a flicker of fire between his thumb and his index finger. Except Percy's remark, they walked in silence searching every path, branch, cave look alike, they made sure they didn't miss a single detail. After they had walked for an hour, their uneventful journey had come to an end again without bearing any fruitful results, but they refused to give up.

Percy suggested they comb deeper and check the circle round the trees in a 500m radius. Levi consented but abided top hurt up so the others won't panic at their absence.

…

Tony wondered how much longer they had to go before they come across the last demon. "All this stress, just to put an arrow in some damned creature" he huffed.

"Yeah, it's our first mission. We have to make sure it's goes smoothly" Jake replied. Tony scowled , he already had his bow in his hand, any movement and he was ready to shoot whatever it was that moved at an alarming speed.

When something eventually did move, Annabeth was the first to aim her arrows up in the trees. The sky had suddenly brightened, a large again was dripping a little distance from where they stood. Tony had also nocked his arrow and levelled it at the shadow.

"Bam" the shadow fell to the floor sending a mirage of dust and dirt flying, everyone immediately turned to protect their eyes, Annabeth returned her arrow to it's quiver. It was a huge branch of an oak tree.

"That scared me" breathed Kayla. She just realized she had been holding her breath the whole while

Jake noticed he was gripping the hilt of his sword so hard, he released it and rubbed his hands over his shirt, his knuckles were white from the force of his grip on his sword. "Yeah, me too. Thought it was a giant pterodactyl sweeping in on us". They laughed heartily forgetting their problems for a moment.

"The wind must have dislodged it from it's trunk weakening it's hold to the trunk" Tony surmised

"Tony is right" Annabeth thought to herself "but something must have broken it before the wind brought it down" she couldn't help thinking how something large probably as large as the Orsk could have perched on the branch and gotten it broken.

Jake idly passed a time he had ok plucked through his fingers, trailing a little bit behind the others. He gave been involved in any actual combat, he remembered taking down the second Orsk at the tents. Percy had released a ball of fire, Lisa a first of wind. Though Anna and Tony had only fired arrows he knew they could do more than that and then there was Levi who actually stood beside him, a sword in his hand. He wondered how he would fare should he encounter an actual combat.

"Don't let it bother you" came a voice from behind him. He was so caught up in his thoughts he hadn't noticed Anna come up beside him

"Let what?" he asked trying to know if mind reading was also over of her abilities

"Whatever it is bothering you. It's written all over your face" she had noticed the brief look of askance on his face. " you seem to worry to much, I don't know what is bothering you but give it a little time, where there is life there is hope" Anna said reassuringly. Have felt like she knew exactly what he was thinking about.

"I know but I can't help it" Have replied, running his hand through his hair

"You can share" she paused a little "only if you want to though. But for now, let's finish our mission. I feel like I have to take care of a kid with anger issues, I Don't want to add a distracted kid to the task." Jake smiled at her referral to Tony.

"Thanks" "Yeah, anytime" she returned his warm smile and squeezed his shoulder lightly.

They didn't notice that they had walked for more than an hour, when they noticed they invited turned around, following a different route to cover as much grounds as possible before the day came to an end.

…

"If I could track these things, I would have gone our there and eliminated then myself" Percy grumbled from the log of wood him Lisa and Levi had settled on in front of the tents.

"Wait. Levi can't you track these things?" Percy asked moving as close as possible to Levi

"No"

"But you're a spell caster" just then Jake and his group came out of the forest. Jake shook his head as they approached the trip indicating they hadn't seen anything.

"Anna, what about you?" Percy was almost frantic now

"What of me?" Anna thought Percy was losing it, hadn't he just seen Jake shake his head.

"You should be able to track these things right? You're a spell caster aren't you?"

"Percy, calm down. It doesn't walk that was" she explained to him in a calm tone like a mother trying to make her impatient child see reason to have patience. "It's called a locator spell" everyone was listening with rapt attention, Anna felt uncomfortable explaining as everyone crooned forward to hear what she had to say, but she had to continue anyway " I need to have come across this demon at least once or better still have touched it to be able to perform the locator spell. But as for tracking, it will take an experienced mage and not a bunch of first years."

Percy seemed to calm down after the explanation, he hung his head in disappointment and left to go sit on the log. It was already evening and if they decided to comb the area once more, they probably wouldn't return until it was quite late in the night and they had no idea of the dangers that lay in the forest at dusk, so Levi decided they call it a day, he instructed Jake and Percy to go gather more firewood as the last stick was already burning out, they would have to spend another night, there was nothing else they could possibly do, Levi reasoned. But he still shouldered the blame of having kept then in the forest for longer than expected.

Digging his hand into the pocket of his sweater, he strolled away from the tents and towards the bushes, his mind while around a number of thoughts.

"They certainly didn't expect us to stay in the forest forever if we didn't find this demon. If we can't get it by noon tomorrow, I guess we will head out" he said to himself or maybe the tree he was facing.

"You're right" he spun around to see Annabeth standing right behind him, have stuffed in her coat pockets to escape the freezing cold while she kicked at a cluster of leaves on the floor.

"You were listening?"

"Yeah, we can't stay here forever. Moreover, we are running low on supplies.

"That's right, we might not be able to last another day here" Levi muttered

"You know, you shouldn't shoulder the whole responsibility all by yourself. We are a team, remember?"

"Yeah" Levi drawled he just couldn't help the feeling

"So we will gradually pack up and leave after our rounds tomorrow?"

"I guess that should be it" Levi nodded I'm agreement "But we don't break the news yet till tomorrow"

"Aye sir" she nodded earning a smile of appreciation.