Ochaco listened to their story with more patience than it really warranted since the group interrupted each other constantly, but finally, when they finished and it came to the point, Deku felt a little bit awkward about just asking her to accompany them. It was one thing when he was alone, but certainly he didn't look as desperate anymore. 

But, he hesitantly asked her "So, would you be interested in being our mage?"

Ochaco blinked. "You want me to be you mage? On a real quest?"

"Yeah!" Deku said.

"Wait, why does that sound like you've never been on quest?" Kyoka said suspiciously.

"I haven't been," Ochaco made a fist, "but that doesn't mean I'm not raring to try! I know I can do it! But, I do have one little question first."

"What?" Momo asked.

"Is there any money in this?" Ochaco asked a little sheepishly. "I don't work for free."

"There's three different royals on this quest, and you're asking for payment?" Ei said. 

"It seems reasonable," Ochaco said.

Momo put her hand up. "I would be happy to compensate you, if you join us and prove your worth as a mage. It will be dangerous though, are you willing to go into the Dark Lands."

Ochaco furrowed her brows. "Just how much are you willing to pay me?"

"How much do you want?" Shoto frowned.

"500 gold pieces." Ochaco said. Deku and Denki and Ei all almost choked.

"500 pieces!"

"How freaking good do you think you are!?" Bakugo raged.
Ochaco winced. "Well you seem pretty desperate for a mage, and this is a quest to go through the Dark Lands, plus I can leave today...but, maybe you're right, I guess I can come up with the rest myself.. How about 300?" 

"That's still a lot," Kyoka frowned.

Momo considered. "I'd be willing to pay it, if she proves as useful as we hope. It's worth it to ensure our safety."

Shoto considered. "I'll tell you what if you save our lives with your magic, I'll add the other 200 pieces to the balance. I just want us to make it to the 8th."

"Ha!" Bakugo said, "if this wench saved even one of your useless lives, I'd pay 50 pieces on the spot! She doesn't look like much to me."

"Hey! You haven't even seen me in action yet!" Ochaco cried.

"You work at a run down dump like this," Bakugo said. "And you've never been on a quest, pretty much says it all if you ask me. We don't need her! We've got plenty of power ourselves, in fact, I don't need any of you, once we get out of this village, I'm going off on my own!"

 Ochaco frowned. "Does this loudmouth speak for all of you?"

"No," Shoto said annoyed. "He doesn't. What do you think Deku?"

Deku was thinking that Ochaco was actually pretty cute, but he didn't like to say that, so he said,
"I want to give her a chance. Where else are we going to find a mage with the free time and the courage to just go with us to the Dark Lands?"

"Courage?" Ochaco blushed.

 "Or stupidity," Bakguo muttered.

"What's the difference?" Denki asked.

"It's settled then," Shoto sounded relieved. "We should go, how soon can you be ready?"

"Oh, I'll just grab my spare clothes and take my name off the availability list!" Ochaco said.

It was not that much time later that they were all back on the road. Deku finally purchased some more supplies for himself, but he was trying to keep it simple.

 "So, Deku, why are you doing this again?" Ochaco said.

 "Uh..well... It's kind of a secret, but I'm supposed to find the 8th, just like everyone else."

"And what's your special skill?" Ochaco asked. "Oh...it's..." Deku faltered. "He doesn't have one,"

Bakugo jeered. "He's completely useless."

"And yet somehow, he has the map and you don't," Shoto said, he was getting really tired of Bakugo's attitude.

"I can change that anytime!" Bakugo threatened. "I'll kill him and you, Half n' Half blaggard!"

"Sure," Shoto sounded unimpressed.

"Those two are such imbeciles," Kyoka commented to Momo. 

"There does seem to be some tension there," Momo said.

 "And you, are you really a Princess?" Ochaco asked. 

"Yes," Momo said.

"Wow," Ochaco had stars in her eyes. "I can't believe I'm traveling with a real princess! So where to first?" 

"Now that we have a mage, I guess it's straight to the Dark Lands of the North..." Deku said. "We're finally on our way."

They made good time, and by night were camping somewhere only about a day from the Dark Lands, according to the map, and also Sight, who scouted ahead. They made a fire to camp by, to scare away goblins, but the area seemed unusually quiet. They roasted some meat over the fire for a meal.

"Boy is it nice not to have to fight for this," Denki said, "One night of that, and I already am tired of it."

Kyoka snatched his stick. 

"Hey!" He cried. "Give that back!"

"Make me!" She started laughing.

"Kyoka, that's not very ladylike," Momo chided. 

"Sorry, Princess," Kyoka meekly returned it.

Bakugo grinned. "I'll fight you for it, battle wench."

"No thanks, you should stay true to Camie," Kyoka made a face. "Even if I wasn't a warrior of Creati, you're definitely not my type." 

"Who said that? I just want to kill you!" Bakugo looked a little put off.

"I can't believe he talks to ladies like that," Shoto shook his head. "It's like he never had a mom."

"Trust me, his mom was exactly like that when she was in charge," Momo cringed. "Possibly worse. We were still at war then, according to the Queen. Dark days." She frowned. "Kyoka seems off though."

"Why don't you ask her what's wrong?" Shoto said.

 "Oh... well, I'm not really supposed to, I mean, I'm a princess, and she's my servant..." Momo slowly trailed off. "That's not a good reason is it? I guess the normal etiquette doesn't apply here. Very well, I shall ask her what's wrong."

"I don't know why the princess would have to abide by that etiquette anyway, if you want to change it, why don't you?" Shoto commented very straightforwardly. "If I could, I would do the same in my kingdom."

"Perhaps you can," Momo suggested.

"Only if I dethrone my father..." Shoto said. "Besides, being his heir is what he wants me to be, and I don't want to be a tyrant like him... if I did become king, I'd want to do it for my own reasons." He tossed something into the fire. 

Momo tilted her head. "It's not so easy to change the laws, even in a tribe where they are mostly just tradition. You have to have people on your side, and you have to prove you can be a wise and successful leader first, but I think, slowly, you can win their approval, and then, maybe change is possible."

"I don't have time to wait." Shoto frowned, though not at her. Momo couldn't argue with that, so she just moved away to talk to Kyoka.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. Kyoka at first denied it, but with prodding, she admitted to having the worst day, the crowning injury of which was being saved by a bard. Momo didn't see a real problem with it, but she tried to be sympathetic. 

"It sounds dreadful, but, it wasn't all bad, the village."

"I hate it," Kyoka said. "I don't like this world very much, I've decided."

"After one bad experience? That's not enough to judge by." Momo said.

Kyoka shrugged. "I can't wait till we can return to the tribe."

"Are you homesick?" Momo suddenly understood. "You miss all the sisters? And the familiar landscape?"

Kyoka didn't answer, but she looked sad.

"I miss them too," Momo said. "But I am really enjoying meeting new people and new places. Isn't it nice to see things differently than before?"

"I liked the before, it was nice." Kyoka grumbled. Denki started playing a song on his lute:

"Ho brother! thither's an endless road to rediscov'r

ho sister! knoweth the water's sweet but blood is thicker

oh, if 't be true the sky cometh falling down, f'r thee

thither's nothing in this ordinary i wouldn't doth

ho brother! doth thee still believeth in one another?

ho sister! doth thee still believeth in love? i wonder

oh, if 't be true the sky cometh falling down, f'r thee

thither's nothing in this ordinary i wouldn't doth

what if 't be true i'm far from home?

oh brother, i shall heareth thee calleth

what if 't be true i loseth t all?

oh sister, i shall holp thee out

oh, if 't be true the sky cometh falling down, f'r thee

thither's nothing in this ordinary i wouldn't doth

ho brother! thither's an endless road to rediscov'r

ho sister! doth thee still believeth in love? i wonder

oh, if 't be true the sky cometh falling down, f'r thee

thither's nothing in this ordinary i wouldn't doth."

(Hey Brother, Bardcore, Medieval cover).

https://youtu.be/pwO-BIEA3_A

They all fell asleep shortly thereafter, and might have slept the whole night, if they hadn't been woken up by the howling of timbrewolves. Deku sat up in terror.

"What is that?!" He cried.

"I don't know.." Ochaco said sleepily, "sounds like an angry dog."

Momo and Kyoka were on their feet already. 

"No, we must away at once!" Momo cried. "Those are wolves, and not ordinary ones, unless I miss my mark, Kyoka?"

 "Definitely demon wolves," Kyoka said.

"What?" Deku said. "Timbrewolves, demon wolves, it's the same thing," Ei said, already up and alert. "They're bad news."

"Dark Lord's minions," Momo added. She shook Shoto. "Hey, come on, we have to run." 

He sat up too quickly. 

"Man, you can sleep through anything," Ei joked.

"How bad are they?" Deku asked as they all started running for the other side of the meadow they were in.

 "Oh, you know, the usual," Denki sounded terrified. "Piercing howl, freezes your whole body if you're too close to it, and then they eat you alive! Typical Dark minions stuff."

"That's scary!" Ochaco cried. 

"Aren't you supposed to be helping with this?" Denki cried.

"I don't have a spell for demon wolves!" she cried.

 "They shouldn't catch us," Momo said, running quickly despite her armor. "They were pretty far off still, the only way they'd catch us is if they were hunting in a pack and had already surrounded us, but wolves aren't usually that smart."

"Usually?" Denki said.

"Well there is the odd chance they are being controlled by a wizard, but it's far more likely they are just hunting on their own." Momo explained. 

Shoto suddenly skidded to a stop and she ran into him.

"More likely huh," he said, pointing.
In front of them some shadowy figures were moving over the hills, coming closer, eyes glowing.

"Oh no..." Kyoka put her ear to the ground. "No, they're all around us!"

Momo swallowed, then she pulled out a bow and arrow. "No choice but to fight them off, then we should hurry before they get any closer. Who can do range."

"I can," Shoto tapped his wristband on his right. "Cold."

His ice dragon popped out and grew to a decent size. 

"That's cool..." Ochaco said. "How can we help?"

"They're more dangerous if you can hear them, so anything you can do to drown out their noise would be good." Momo instructed.

"I can do noise," Bakugo lit his palms up with evident glee.

"Noise..." Ochaco muttered, then "Oh, I know." She waved her staff and spoke some strange words. "Fireworks!"

 Brightly colored lights exploded over their heads, drowning out the sound of howling. Denki started frantically playing a loud, fast song:

First thing first

I pray for God's grace inside the church,

My blood is hot, my honor won't be yielded to a cur. oh-ooh.

I won't yield to a cur, oh-ooh.

Seconds and seconds

Pretend not what thou thinkest thy status is

I'm the one with title,

Knighthood And a shield with a crest, oh-ooh

A shield with a crest, oh-ooh

I was broken as a young page

Betwixt the stable and church masses

I proved my honor on the field

The king took me, spoke to me, promoted me, commanded me,

Partake on a holy campaign

Retake his glorious domain

Make so no martyrs died in vein

So on earth he may ever...

Reign! Thou madest me, thou madest me a

Crusader, crusader

Reign! The angels blessed our holy war

Crusader, crusader

Reign! Let the arrows fly wherever they may,

My soul, my life, my heart, came from his

Reign! Thou madest me, thou madest me a

Crusader, Crusader

Third thing thirdly

Canst thou imagine what is to come

Constatinople joins

to fight against the Saracens, oh-ooh

Retake the Holylands, oh-ooh

Thy actions- echoed in heaven

A Kingdom of Jerusalem

Sing all the angels in unison

For Raymond, Godfrey and Baldwin

Ascalon, Antioch, Byzantine Anatolia

The fatimids, limited, retreated to egypt

So that Godfrey- So that Godfrey-

Last words last,

By thy grace of the Holy Sepulcher

The kingdom is in you, chevalier

and this is my blood, oh-ooh

and this is my blood, oh-ooh

Ascalon, Antioch, Byzantine Anatolia

The Fatimids, limited, retreated to egypt

So that Godfrey- So that Godfrey-

Reigned! Thou madest me, thou madest me a

Crusader, crusader

Reign! The angels blessed our holy war

Crusader, Crusader

Reign! Let the arrows fly wherever they may,

My soul, my life, my heart, came from his

Reign! Thou madest me, thou madest me a

Crusader, Crusader (Believer, Bardcore cover)

https://youtu.be/F6QBtRFfGjQ

It was hard to think with all the chaos, but it seemed to work. The Ice Dragon began to freeze the wolves in place. They looked mangy and menacing, but it was too dark to make out much about them. Deku felt bad he wasn't helping, except to yell and drown out their howling. They all kept running trying to get away from them. Momo kept yelling instructions, and everyone followed them, she added that the best strategy was to find running water, the noise would discourage the timbrewolves from following them. They looked for any sign of running water, Sight flew ahead searching for it. Somehow, though, they killed several wolves between the several of them, more were still chasing them from too far away to be seen. Kyoka, able to hear them, threw some spears or shot with a crossbow and got several, which was awesome, but even that didn't get rid of all of them. There must have been 50 at least. Even Bakugo began to seem tired of running, Deku was barely still moving. Denki was riding his alpaca, otherwise he would have dropped. Ochaco seemed to be using a spell to make herself lighter so she could run still. But she was puffing.
"I can't keep going like this..."

Deku struggled to think, then he said "Hey, Shoto!"

Shoto looked back. "What?" 

"Can your dragon make a big wall of ice around us?" He asked.

Shoto looked back, then made a motion with his hand. The Ice Dragon grew to be easily the size of a barge, and circled around them with its tail in its mouth, they all stopped running. The dragon then shot ice out all over its body into a spiked wall. The timbrewolves caught up just a few minutes later while everyone was still panting, Ochaco was lying on her face--then she unfortunately puked from the exertion of running for so long and using spells. The howling made the hair stand up on the back of their necks and the wolves began scratching at the ice.

"Now we're surrounded, is this your plan?" Shoto said, shaking. "I can't do this again, you know."

"I know," Deku wasn't listening, he was thinking. "But now we've got all of them in the same place right? And they don't seem stronger than regular wolves. I just thought maybe we could kill them all at once."

Kyoka looked up. "Hey, that's not a bad idea, but I don't think all of them are here yet, we need to stall for more time to be sure, Prince Shoto, can you keep this going for five minutes?" 

Shoto frowned. "I think so." The dragon reinforced its ice painstakingly.

"That gives us five minutes to figure out how to take them all out at once," Deku said. "Bakugo... can you blow them up?"

"Of course I can, you dimwit!" Bakugo snapped. "Half of 'em anyway, it might take two shots to get all of them."

"I don't know if you have enough power left for that," Ei warned. "Maybe the rest of us should help too."

Momo put a hand to her chin. "Killing-en-masse is not what I usually do in a fight, so it can be hard to come up with an attack weapon for that... Wait, I have an idea." She closed her eyes and a moment later, a huge keg appeared in front of her. They saw her magic for the first time, a kind of pinkish rainbow color. She panted. "That took a lot of effort." 

"Oh, a barrel, that'll show 'em," Denki said sarcastically.

"It's what's in the barrel, you idiot," Kyoka said. "We need to scatter it around the outside... er, none of us can fly though."

Ei looked up. "Oh, actually, about that," he suddenly sprouted two red wings out of his back, little horns appeared on his forehead, his teeth became pointy.

"I can fly," he said.

They all stared. 

"Okay..." Kyoka said strangely, but went with it. "Just take this and scatter it around as much of this circle as you can, but make sure it all connects."

"Got it, Magic dust here I go!" Ei picked up the barrel. 

"He can lift that?" Denki muttered.

Ei took off and started pouring stuff out of the barrel.

"All right, once he's finished, Bakugo, if you could blow up the end of that," Momo said. 

"Don't tell me what to do, Princess!" He yelled.

"Fine, I'll ask someone else," Momo said sharply, because she was nearing her limit. 

"Yeah, he probably would ruin it anyway," Denki said.

 "Shut up you pipsqueak! I can do it!" Bakugo shouted at him.

Kyoka gave Denki an almost impressed look, but then she said, "everyone get in the center, okay?"

They all did, Ei landed. "Done and done." He picked Bakugo up and flew him into position.

"Could that kill them?" Kyoka asked Momo.

"They should be too high," Momo said.

"Though, I can't say I'd miss them too much..." Kyoka muttered.

"That's cold," Denki said. "I mean, Ei's not so bad."

A terribly loud BOOM followed this statement, and lights exploded, and the ground shook. Everyone covered their heads and went down on their knees, ice flew everywhere, one hit Tibult, who was already terrified enough, and she almost kicked Ochaco in the head. Then it was quiet and smoke was clearing. Most of the ice wall was destroyed; the dragon had reverted back into a wrist guard, and... no wolves were in sight. 

Denki, Deku, and Ochaco started laughing in delight. "It worked!"

Ei and Bakugo were flying high out of the way.

"Yeah! We did it Bakugo!" Ei said.

"Put me down, you moron!" Bakugo said grumpily. "Blasted warrior, what if that killed me?"

"I thought you could handle it," Momo said, weakly.

"That wasn't bad, Deku," Kyoka punched his arm by way of showing appreciation. "It's not a strategy a warrior would normally employ, but it worked. Where did you get that idea?"

"Oh...well," Deku rubbed his head sheepishly. "I used to help herd sheep back in Green Village, and we'd put them in a pen to keep the wolves away from them, and if one tried to get in, the shepherds could just attack it from inside the pen while the sheep were safe... I just kind of got the idea from that."

"You mean, we're sheep?" Denki said.

"What?" Bakugo growled. 

"Uh.. only in a metaphorical way," Deku said quickly.

"A what way?" Ei said, confused.

"Who cares? It worked," Ochaco did a fist pump. "That was an awesome idea, Deku! And Shoto was so cool! And even Bakugo wasn't as much of an ass as I expected."

"What?" Bakugo raged. "I'll kill you!"

Ochaco didn't listen. "But what was that powdery stuff?"

"Flaming Medicine, but we just call it black powder usually because that's easier," Momo said. "It's an invention I learned about from a foreign trader... never used it on so many things, but, Kyoka and I used to experiment with it to see if it would be useful in battle, but it was always too dangerous to use with other warriors around, Shoto's ice was the perfect cover."

"Well, it was Deku's idea," Shoto looked kind of pale. "But at least it worked, uh, I think I may be useless for some time now--" he collapsed.

"Ah!" The girls jumped, and Denki.

Then Momo felt his forehead. "He's really cold... Using the dragon so much must have an effect on him." 

"Because elemental magic takes more out of your body," Deku remembered. 

"Nice," Denki gave a nod of approval.

"Well, can we warm him up?" Kyoka asked.

"I can set him on fire," Bakugo offered way too eagerly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Momo said sharply. "A real fire would be better, and a blanket...hurry, he could catch something." 

They scrambled to follow her directions.