<div align="center"><em>A child of Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena walk into a forest...stop me if you've heard this one...</em></div><br/><hr/><br/>Despite their intelligence, the manticore were more focused on the after the battle feast. Demi-Gods tasted wonderful. The problem these days with mortals was that damn mist. It made feeding difficult when they couldn't out right attack mortals anymore. Being restricted to demi-gods would normally mean a lack of food. Thankfully, the Gods were almost always breeding. Unluckily for this pack, Mr. D had them brought to this damn forest. Eating other monsters wasn't all that satisfying. They had to wait for a demi-god to wander in here. When that did happen it was hard to remember their intellect and just turn into the monsters that they were. The only thing that kept them from rushing was their respect for their alpha...or rather fear of him.<br/><br/>He was the biggest and strongest and he had his golden eyes on Terry. It didn't matter that their female seemed to lean towards the son of Poseidon. A child of Zeus was always considered the leader.<br/><br/>It didn't take long for the demi-gods to make a formation. That told the creatures that they had not come in here for some sort of walk or short cut to the Sound. These kids wanted to play and that was just fine with the manticores. It had been a long time since they had had a challenge of any sort. Most of the time it was some young demi-god that could barely lift a sword on their own that wandered in here.<br/><br/>The alpha watched as the group of three, why did they always travel in threes?, pushed further into the trees. A few of his own rustled leaves around them. He raised a clawed paw and lowered it quickly. The two manticores behind the group, facing the Daughter of Athena, shot their poison spikes from their scorpion like tails towards the girl. Their goal was to split the party and take them down individually while the others were being distracted. It was a simple plan and one most creatures used. Divide and conquer. Maybe that was why even the intelligent manticores had never advanced in the godly world. Because in the end, they resorted to primal tactics. Still, they were confident.<br/><br/>The two from behind the group continued to fire their spikes as the other two manticore, minus the alpha, lunged out from the trees and charged at Zachary. They roared loudly, a warning to any other creatures to stay away and that this was their fight. The alpha stood on his hind legs, putting himself equal to the demi-gods as opposed to the beast that he was. He was at least two feet taller than Terry and wielded one of his own tail spikes like a dagger as he stepped towards the Son of Zeus, "If you give up now, I'll make your death a quick one," the poison from their spikes would not kill the demi-gods, only disarm them and cause great pain, "I'll kill you quickly instead of dragging you back to my family and letting them feast on your still living flesh. We might even kill the female quickly too instead of using her for breeding," though manticore did not breed with humans or demi-gods, but it tended to anger males when their females were threatened.