1x1 with яαιnнeαят and Éibhear the Blue.

[kannagi]

Dylan
Dylan saw Rose land, and winced painfully. He rushed to her side, just in time to hear her exclaim in pain. "Are you alright?" He asked, concerned. Little pebbles dotted along her arms, cutting deep into her wounds.

Martin
Martin meanwhile checked up on Jacob, who was no better. "Here, have some ambrosia," he muttered, pulling some of it out of his backpack.

(oh my gog sorry I have a writer's block Dx)

[ragemonster]

((It's fine. x]))

Rose

"I'm —ow— fine," she muttered, struggling to stand but managing after a few seconds. "Evidently it takes our combined efforts to do that. Otherwise... it's almost as bad as leaping from the train face-first." She gritted her teeth and set to the painful task of removing the shards of sharp stone from her arms. She noticed Jacob had finished doing the same already and gratefully took a chunk of ambrosia. His cuts sluggishly disappeared as the skin knit itself back together, leaving nothing more than dirt, blood, and faint white scars in their place.

[kannagi]

(Sorry for late replies! We just had our interim reports, and my teachers of course just had to bombard me and my classmates with tests and quizzes all at the same time! Basically, the week before Christmas break always sucks for me >.<)

Dylan
Dylan peered at her wounds curiously. They sluggishly started disappearing, just like his wound did all those months ago when he and Rose just ran away from school. He poured water on his cut, and miraculously, it just... faded. Once again he found himself contemplating water's healing powers. What if he were able to channel it through his fingers, and heal others? "Here, let me try something. It might help speed up the healing process." He searched through Martin's bag, who had previously left it propped up against a rock, whilst he ran to Jacob's aid. He pictured himself pulling out a bottle of crisp Aquafina, and sure enough, it popped out, still cold. He untwisted the cap, pouring it out above his left hand. He created an orb of water, and carried it back over to Rose. "Remember that time the Heckhound attacked my leg, a few months back?" He asked. "Well, I healed it with water. And I don't know if this'll have the same healing properties as it did for me, but we could try." Dylan brought the water down towards her arm, guiding it down until it pressed against her arm. It curled around her wound, taking on the shape of a bean, yet the top still looked vaguely round. He could literally feel her shiver as the cool water trickled down her arm.

However, it seemed to be working... kind of. It was almost like Dylan could trick the water into healing her, but it was rather weak and would take a while to do anything extremely effective. "Oh well," he sighed, shrugging. If anything, it just seemed to numb Rose's arm further, replacing the wound with a chilled sense of relief, like when you jump into a cold lake on a sizzling-hot summer day.

[ragemonster]

((No worries! I've got finals this week, too. Physics finals tomorrow, as well as U.S. History finals. Laaaaame bro. :|))

Rose

Rose felt her muscles tense and start to quiver in both anticipation and cold as Dylan's ball of water shaped around her arm. It sped the healing process a little, but the numbing cold was what really helped. "Th-thanks," she said as he let the water go. "It feels a lot better now." She lifted up one arm, examining it, then let that one fall and inspected the next. The ambrosia was still working its magic, at a slow but sure pace. After a minute or two, they were nothing more than grime-and-blood smeared scars, like on Jacob's arms. "Gross." She wiped the remaining gunk off her arms, watching Jacob take the bottle form Dylan and dump it over his own arms after shedding his jacket. Rose figured that would have been a good idea, but her own appearance was once again back to normal. She was thankful for this, as three powerful-blooded demigods plus an Athena camper and a Huntress would surely be sending out beacons of "free lunch!" to any monsters within twenty miles, let alone said campers covered in their own blood. Plus, it would arouse suspicion, and they really didn't need any more of that.

[kannagi]

(Ugh I know >.> Why can't we take finals at different times?! Is it really necessary to have one set week of crazed studying and cramming?)

Dylan

Dylan shook his head. "That could've worked better... but you're welcome, anyways." He walked up towards Amaryllis, who held a strange star-gazing contraption up to her right eye as she stared up at the sky. "You know, you can't see stars during the day." He said slowly, peering at her with a dubious expression.

Amaryllis scowled angrily and slipped the contraption back into a pocket on her fleece. "Before thou bloody humans clouded up the sky with thy pollution, thou used to be able to!" She crossed her arms and spun around, her back now facing Dylan. "Now I have not the slightest idea where we are, since I cannot see the stars to guide us."

Dylan didn't know what to say, so he just stood there awkwardly for a few more moments before turning around to face the others. "Well, uhm. I was thinking we could head towards Las Vegas over there," he said, nodding his head slightly to the north where the city laid. "Maybe we could get a taxi or some other transportation?"

[ragemonster]

((So sorry for the belated reply! My computer contracted the Trojan virus and I had to get a new one, so I couldn't find a way to reply beforeI had to get off. :< But I'll try to make this post good to make up for it! Sorry of the spelling's messed up, I haven't got spell-check on this computer yet.))

Rose

Glancing wearily at Amaryllis, who was still muttering disgruntledly, Rose said, "I agree with Dylan, but do we have enough to have a taxi drive us to Vegas? It's got to be at least a 35-minute drive, and that's looking at about... Sixty bucks, give or take, I'd wager, to drive out here and then to drive us all the way back." She glanced expectantly at Martin, who had the bottomless backpack strapped securely to his back. Out of all of them, he'd know if they had the sufficient funds to hail a taxi. He shook his head. Jacob snorted and said, "We could always manipulate the mist to make the taxi driver think we payed him in full." His voice was exasperated. "Do you know how to do that?" asked Rose. He nodded, confusing drawing his brows down into an inquisitive frown. "I thought you knew that."

[kannagi]

(Oh its okay!>.< I've been really inactive lately too so I don't know how much I would've been able to reply anyways. That really stinks, I would die if my computer got that virus because I'm too poor to buy a new one xD And that's fine, I just recently got Google Chrome with spell-check, and I don't know how I lived without it before xD Spell-check is amazing.)

Dylan

"Dammit," Dylan muttered under his breath, out of ideas. He placed his hands on his hips and closed his eyes, thinking for a moment. "I... ugh. Amaryllis, are you good with The Mist?"

Amaryllis stared at him, incredulous, before scoffing at his ridiculous antics. "I do not meddle in mortal affairs." She frowned at him one last time for good measure, before turning back to her contraption.

Martin shrugged, looking just as dejected as the rest of them. He rummaged through his back, whispering little snippets of things Dylan couldn't quite catch. However, occasionally an item would spit itself out of the enchanted backpack. A bell rang in the distance, coming increasingly closer and closer. Dylan looked up in search of a train, but was startled suddenly when he heard a loud Oof as Martin was hit in the forehead by an alarm clock. He rubbed his head, a welt slowly forming, before smacking the alarm clock's snooze button irritably.

"Maybe we should just try and walk." Dylan said, before slumping down onto the dusty desert floor. He embraced his legs, and rested his chin in the little dip in between his knees. He felt very childish for sitting like that, but he didn't care at the moment; he just needed to think.

[ragemonster]

((How do you get the spell check with Google Chrome? Do you just download GC and it automatically checks it as you type, or do you have to copy-paste what you write into it? I'm having no luck finding a good site to download it, they're all "7-day-free-trials" and then you have to pay for it after the 7 days are up. P:))

Rose

Rose sighed, squinting off into the distance, then glancing up at the blaring sun. It would take us hours to walk even halfway to the city. I don't know if we'd have enough water to even make it that far, she thought, chweing on her bottom lip. It was a long-time habit of hers that she had when she was agitated or deep in thought. Which, at the moment, was both. She refused to accept defeat when they were this close. Think, Rose, think... They had no form of transportation other than the train. A thought occured to her. The train was obviously stopped, but why so far from the city? Surely if it were delivering goods to the city, it would stop much closer. Unless... unless this wasn't its final stop.

"Guys," she said, "I could be wrong, but I think this might just be a fuel stop for the train. Why else would it stop so far from the city?" She saw a kindle of animation spark in Jacob's eyes. "You're right!" he said loudly. Rose winced. Too loudly. A gruff but faint call of, "Hey! Who's back there?!" Eyes wide, Rose said, "Hide!"

[kannagi]

(it automatically spell checks ^_^ And I got mine from here: https://www.google.com/chrome?&brand=CH ... _medium=ha It's 100% free, and downloads/installs in seconds. Trust me, it's totally worth it, and 10 million times faster than IE or Firefox >.<)

Dylan

Dylan shot to his feet quickly, grabbing Martin by the wrist to haul him up as well. The son of Athena scooped up his back, shoving all the scattered items back into his bag, before running after Dylan. Even Amaryllis, who before seemed very distant and distracted, got the memo. She followed the group of demigods up from behind, checking over her shoulder every so often.

Dylan scanned the area for some sort of cover, but with no success. Several boulders poked out of the rough red terrain, their edges sharp and jagged from years of harsh wind and erosion. But the land was far too barren to provide any sort of shelter, or refuge, for that matter. Even if they did hide away from this man, they would still be lost out in the middle of the desert. Plus, they had no hope of walking to Las Vegas. He didn't like their chances, but they were out of options. "Rose," Dylan said, sighing. He stopped suddenly, causing Martin almost to collide with him. "I think... I think maybe we should just give ourselves up. We don't have a choice; at least here they could get us to a city, where we can hopefully escape. Otherwise... well, I don't like our chances out in a desert, not to mention the fact that we're on a quest and short on time."

[ragemonster]

Rose

Biting her lip, Rose looked at Dylan for a long time. Finally, with steel in her eyes, she shouted, "Hey!" The sound of gravel being crunched underfoot paused, then increased as the train conductor broke into a run, heading toward the sound of her shout.

All her instincts told her different things; one, to stand and fight; two, to run; and three, to hide. She acted on none of these impulses, however, but stood her ground and waited for the man to apprehend them. She wondered what he'd do with them once he found them. Probably alert the police, thinking they were running away from home or something. She barely held back a snort. She wished it were that simple.

When the panting train conductor finally made it around the back of the train to where the five of them were, his face red and covered in a sheen of sweat, his eyes bulged in their sockets. "What—are all—you kids—doing back here?" he wheezed, starting to recover his breath. "Were you on my train that whole time?" he asked. Rose nodded. The conductor's small eyes narrowed as he seemed to swell with anger. "You know that's against the law? I could have you arrested for this." Under his breath, he added as he stalked to the open train compartment that they'd been in, "Delinquents... better not have vandelized anything... I'll skin 'em alive..."

When the conductor found no damage done to his train compartment, he stared at them suspiciously. "Well?" he barked. "What were you doing on my train?"