"Your mom." Allison said evenly as she turned calmly to face him with a small smile plastered on her face.

"...My mum's not a 'he'." Kyle said with a frown, not quite getting the joke Allison was giving him.

"Proves how much you know about your own mother - maybe you should give 'em a call and talk this out."

Kyle frowned, still wrestling with the concept, before dismissing it completely. "So, what're you all up to?"

Allison smiled in amusement when Kyle dropped the subject.

"I've got a mini-mission!" Wendall said with enthusiasm.

"You're actually the person we need. Kyle, this is Wendall - don't know if you've met or not." Allison gestured to Wendall who held up his hand in a peace sign. "I was wondering if you would help him track a certain monster down for us - since we're out of commission for a little bit."

Kyle nodded, glancing down at the brace around Vee's ankle and what was visible of the bruises on Allison. "Yeah, I kinda noticed..." He shifted his gaze back up to Wendall. "...Have we met? You look a little familiar... I'm pretty sure I've seen you around, but I'm bad with names and faces..."

"I'm sure I've lapped you once or twice on my runs." Wendall chuckled good-naturedly but with a teasing, almost challenging, glint in his eyes.

"...What, like passed me twice on the same circuit? Hate to break it to you, man, but that wasn't YOU lapping ME..."

Wendall smirked with no amusement on his face. "You sure about that? Maybe you should get your eyes checked."

"Yeah, pretty sure. You might be a bouncing ball of energy, but I'm still the faster runner." He waved his hand dismissively. "Moot point for now. Once we get back with this bird, we can have a footrace or something."

"You wanna go right now, sm-"

"Calm down, boys. You have a job to do, right? So play nice." Allison said with a roll of her eyes.

"I play nice. Raw-nerve here might not, but I can play nice."

"'Raw-nerve'?" Wendall growled. "If that's the best you've got-" The boy was quickly interrupted by a slap to the back of his head by Allison.

"Focus, Wendall." She said sharply.

Wendall rubbed the back of his head bitterly and shrunk away from Allison. "Okay, okay.. So where did this thing attack you?"

"Nyx cabin."

"We'll start there then. Come on, slowpoke." Wendall walked away from the group without even looking back at Kyle.

Kyle sighed and turned to Allison, giving her an exaggerated shrug. "If this is any less important than it looks, you'd better have some way of compensating me." With that, he turned and followed Wendall, keeping at a brisk jog, rather than a full sprint.

Allison nodded in understanding before Kyle left than leaned against the cabin with an exhausted sigh. "I hope they don't strangle each other."

Meanwhile, it wasn't long before Wendall and Kyle reached the ruined Nyx cabin. Wendall slowed to a walk as they approached it. "That's gonna be fun to clean." He commented as he took in the damage to the building while still scanning for any signs of the monster.
He walked a little closer and crouched down to pick up a feather off the ground.

"Any idea what kind of bird that came off of?" Kyle asked, staying a safe distance away.

"A really big Stymphalian bird? That would explain why it would attack them." Wendall pondered as he spun the feather between his fingers. "Or maybe the Caucasian Eagle that's supposed to eat Prometheus's liver forever, but I don't think it would leave it's job undone. Other than that, I can't really think of any bird-like monsters."

"...So, we've got one for motive and one for size, but no match yet? That's just brilliant."

"Well, any time you want to contribute to this little exercise, I'm all ears. But really it doesn't matter that much what it is, we just have to find it, right? Sure, knowing the species might give us an idea of where it went but what's the fun of knowing? I like it to be a challenge every once and a while."

"Well, the girls asked you to track it. So track it. Just don't expect me to know what the Tartarus we're going after."

"Watch your language, son." Wendall scolded mockingly. "Anyways, looks like it's been wounded so it was messy getting away." He pointed to some a small path made of broken twigs and crushed debris. "It should be easy enough to follow, for a while."

"And if we can't catch up with it before it takes off? What's your plan then?"

"I have a plan." Wendall nudged a small, almost unnoticeable, sack hanging from his belt. "This isn't my first hunt, sometimes you have to do it with style."

"What, you got pixie dust or something?"

"Yeah, and maybe if I have any left afterwards we can go fly to Neverland!" Wendall clapped his hands giddily before letting the act drop. He untied the strings and pulled something the size of his finger out, he opened his palm to reveal a dart. Most of it was made of Celestial Bronze, but the middle was a small glass chamber with a clear liquid splashing around. "If this isn't a stylish way to hunt, I don't know what is."