"Are we there yet?'
"No."
"Are we there yet?
"NO!"
"Okay....We there yet?"
"NO FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME!" Sarah screamed as loud as she could into the com channel. Laughter began to fill the silence as Sarah sat in her pilot seat, fuming with anger at the stupid joke.
"HAHA! Come on! You need to lighten up! We've been marching in our titans for almost eight hours now. I'm just trying to lighten up the mood." he said, still trying to hold his laughter. Sarah rolled her eyes at Jax's antics. The pair have been marching through a dense forest for a while. When they were dropping from the ship, an explosion knocked them way off course with the landing zone. Now they were making their way through the forest to try and find a small village they saw when coming down.

"As much as I hate to say it Sarah, he is right. You've been pretty silent this whole time." Sarah's titan spoke in her usual calm yet cheerful tone. Sarah just huffed and laid back in her chair. She sometimes wished her titan would back her up in these types of conversations.

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm not being very talkative. I've just had a lot on my mind. I've been trying to contact the others, but all I get is static. I'm just worried." she said, trying and failing to hide the sadness in her voice. Sarah then felt something grab her titans shoulder. She turned around and saw it was Jax in his ION titan. The titan was black all over with a few parts that were covered in a green camo.

"I know. I'm worried about Alex too. We'll find her and the others. Hell if we're lucky they will find us." he said, trying to lighten up the mood. Sarah shook her head and smiled. He has always been known for his jokes and trying to make everyone smile. She turned around and look towards the direction where the small town was.

"Alright, lets try to get there before tomorrow. I don't want to see what this place has for us at night."

The two had been marching for eleven hours now and they still haven't made it out of the forest. Jax was fine walking since he wasn't the one who was actually the one doing the work. Sarah, on-the-other-hand, was just getting more and more aggravated. She hated being so far from the team and not knowing where they could be. She let out a long groan.

"UUUUUUGGGGGG, how long is this fucking forest! If we don't get out of here soon, I swear I'm going to start shooting my way through the trees!" She shouted out loud. She maneuvered her titan to walk up to a nearby tee and punch it, putting a slight dent in the wood. She heard Jax come up from behind her, trying to see what she was doing.

"What did you do that for?" he asked. She looked back at him.

"I am making sure we don't go in circles. I am pretty sure we are not, but this whole place is making me doubt myself." she said, trying her best to calm her temper through steady breaths.

"You could've done that earlier." he remarked. She rolled her eyes, knowing that he was right but not wanting to admit it. When she was looking at him, she noticed his titans eye was looking past her in the tree line. She turned around and saw what he was looking at.

Just almost a mile away, they could see many pairs of eyes staring at them through the darkness. These eyes seemed cat like and were fairly big when given the thought of distance. As soon as both of them were staring at the six pairs of eyes, they started to get bigger which meant they were coming closer. Jax used his enhanced sight mod to see what they were. Using thermal sights, he could tell they were big and dangerous. The eyes belonged to three beast that looked fairly similar. Each one looked like a lion with bat wings and a scorpion tale.

Jax instantly knew what the creatures were. After reading so many books in his downtime, he knew a fair amount of myths and legends. The three monsters currently moving towards them were manticores. He quickly stepped in front of Sarah and activated his shields. His unique titan had a very high issue batter that allowed him to do more actions that that of a regular ION class titan. If he wanted, he could use his primary laser to kill them all, but instead he used his secondary shoulder cannon.

Aiming the laser at the nearest manticore, he waiting for them to make a move. They moved slowly, like they were analyzing the situation. He could hear their growls though his cockpit, making the room vibrate slightly. Before he knew it, the manticores were circling them. He was too busy thinking on what to do that he didn't notice they were trying to get an advantage on them. Charging the laser, he fired the beam at the closest manticore. His eyes widened when the manticore manage to dash to the side before the laser hit it. The manticore took his surprise as an opportunity to attack. The manticore charged and leaped at him, claws and teeth reaching out at him.

The manticore never made it close to him. Over his shoulder, he heard the sound of a missile fly past him. He watched the missile hit the manticore directly in the face. The missile exploded on contact and blew the beasts face away, scattering brains and blood all over Jax's titan. He quickly wiped the blood off with his titans hand and turned around to see the other two manticores also blown to bits. Their bodies burning from the explosion of the missiles fired. He looked at Sarah and saw her shoulder missile cannons folding over her back.

She looked at him. Even though he couldn't see her face, he knew she was a bit annoyed.

"Why did you hesitate?" she asked, anger clearly evident in her tone. He raised his hands defensively.

"I was just surprised to see those things. I didn't know they existed." he said, trying his best to sound honest. She stood there staring at him.

"What do you mean?" she asked. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, slightly tired form the long day and the experience they just had.

"Those things were manticores. You know, the things with scorpion tales and bat wings. They're supposed to be myths. I was just surprised to see that they were real." he said. She looked away from him at the burning bodies. She stared at them for a minute before looking back at him.

"We should keep moving. If these things are from myth, then I don't want to know if the other things exist as well." she said. She walked past him in the direction they were going before they were attacked. He mentally shrugged and continued to follow her.

Author's Note

These will be very short tid bits on the whereabouts of the other members. Eventually things will come together, but there will a lot more before that happens. Peace!