XXXVIII

Jason

Inside the door, the piece was just sitting there. Yep, simple as that. Jason picked up. No army of ghosts appeared. No traps killed him. Again, there was a Post-It. But instead of riddles, or snidey comments, there was one simple word, neatly written: Epirus. For a moment, Jason was confused. Then he realized how good this was: They wouldn't have to waste time taking a detour to find the last piece.

Jason turned around to leave, a smile on his face. It was wiped off when he saw the door. Or rather, the lack of one. Where his exit was supposed to be was now solid obsidian. He turned around again, where the stand held the bow. That was gone as well. Instead, there was a long, black hallway with torches every 10 feet. Jason cautiously began to walk the path, expecting swinging ax and spear traps. Instead, when he reached the end of the long tunnel 5 minutes later, there was something even more terrible.

Standing in front of him, wearing shiny golden armor, was the Minotaur.

Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem. Jason had heard stories from Percy and CHB about how Percy had killed it. But this Minotaur was HUGE. It was at least twice the size of how Percy described it, and had muscles that would put an augmented Heracles to shame.

It wielded a battle ax that was as tall as Jason with ease. He gulped. From what it looked like, one swing from that axe could probably smash Jason's shield and then cut him in half. With the plate armor he was wearing, he wasn't in a very good position to roll around very much, either, and he doubted the Minotaur would wait while he took it off.

In fact, as soon as that thought completed, it roared and sniffled, which was pretty disgusting and charged. Jason jumped to the side rolled out of reach of the ax, which missed him. The Minotaur couldn't, however, control its own momentum, and it went several dozen feet forward, before coming to a stop.

In that time, Jason had hidden himself behind a column that lined the side of the fairly large room. He peaked, knowing that the monster's eyesight was horrendous, and probably couldn't see Jason very well. Sure enough, the monster roared and looked around, but didn't seem to see him. Jason ducked back into cover and rolled to the next column, close to the Minotaur. The door the monster was guarding was open, but Jason suspected that he wouldn't be able to pass until got past this "obstacle."

As Jason slid into the next column, he accidentally clanged his sword against his armor. He took a sharp breath quietly and swore at himself. He heard the Minotaur growl in his direction, then begin stamping towards him, none to subtly. Then again, the Minotaur wasn't exactly a ninja.

Jason grabbed his sword tightly and took a deep breath. When he heard the Minotaur on the other side of the pillar he was hiding behind. Another breath, then he left the cover of it and rolled past where the Minotaur was, quickly gained footing, and turned around and stabbed the monster in the back. It roared in pain, but didn't seem very injured. Before Jason could pull his sword back, it twisted around and wrenched the gladius from his grip. Jason stumbled backwards and raised his shield at an angle as the ax came down.

Like he had hoped, instead of cutting clean through, it deflected off. However, it still removed a chunk of the shield and send jarring pains up Jason's arm. Jason rolled away from the Minotaur as it stumbled forward and attempted to lunge for his sword, but right foot was in a bad position and he only made it half the way before tripping and falling. Jason swore.

The monster picked itself back up turned around, once again blocking Jason access to his weapon, still buried in the Minotaur's back. It snarled, then lowered its head and charged without even winding up. Jason was taken by surprise and he barely managed to duck under 2 nasty horns. At the last moment, he rolled to the side to avoid being trampled. The Minotaur buried one of its horns in the pillar, and Jason used the opportunity to quickly snatch his sword.

Before he withdrew, he quickly slashed at one of the monster's legs, making it collapse and make its buried horn support the weight, which could cause some pain. Jason walked back, then sprinted forward and kicked off the Minotaur's foot and used both his own force and Issac Newton to bury his sword in the monster's neck. Again, it screeched painfully. However, it didn't disintegrate, which was a problem.

Jason withdrew his sword and landed on the ground and withdrew a couple yards to take in what had happened. The Minotaur was certainly much tougher than before. Even the leg that Jason had cut deeply into was working, and it had pulled its horn and body out of the pillar, and was currently snorting and attempting to regain its footing.

Jason really wished he had his pilum to do some damage from range. He ripped off his helmet and threw it at the Minotaur's head, which bounced off harmlessly. However, it did attract the monster's attention. It turned towards him, and instead of charging, raised its battle ax and began swinging it as it walked towards Jason.

Jason adopted a low position, and praying to every god he knew, he charged forward. The good thing about the Minotaur being so tall was that its horizontal arc was up around Jason's head, and he ducked down past it easily. Jason slashed at both legs again, before rolling through them. For a moment, his nose took a horrible stench, then he cleared it. Seriously, had this monster never heard of hygiene?

Jason was hoping for the Minotaur to collapse so he could strike its head again. Unfortunately, it didn't seem the slightest bit fazed. Jason realized the only way to disable the legs was to completely separate them. The thought nauseated him. Dismembering anything, even a monster, was disgusting and quite frankly, unethical. Unfortunately, there was no other way to reach the Minotaur's vulnerable part- the head. Or was there? Jason didn't know any way as of yet, but you never know.

He decided to target the Minotaur's right leg first, which already had 2 deep cuts. While the Minotaur still stumbled around, Jason charged forward and dropped the shield, grabbing the sword with both arms and hacking into it as hard as he could. It went about halfway through. Before the monster's nerves could even register the pain, he was taking it out and spun around, using as much force as he could to bury the sword from the other side.

Again, it went halfway in. 2 halves equal a whole though, and the edge of the sword made contact with the other half he had cut a second earlier. With a sickening thunk, the bottom half of the Minotaur's right leg fell off and Jason quickly retreated, barely dodging the falling monster, who was roaring in genuine pain, and Jason couldn't help but feel a little bad for it.

Then something happened, which had never happened before. Dust began gathering around the leg stump, and in seconds, the leg had regenerated, the part which Jason had cut off having disintegrated. He knew monsters were coming back from Tartarus, but this kind of regeneration was beyond surprising. It was… surprising.

Jason realized that was why the Minotaur could take such a beating—the wounds were instantly healing. There was no way to kill it, Jason realized. Swearing, he looked at the door the monster was guarding. In a split-second decision, he said to himself, "screw it," grabbed his shield and ran for the door.

He probably should've just done that in the first place. As soon as he entered the doorway, which looked like it led to a dark passage, the world flipped, and Jason found himself back on the same beach area where the ghost Anna had found him. He looked around to make sure that nothing followed him, then sighed, and making sure the piece of the bow was still strapped to his belt, began the trek back to camp.

Make sure to check out my other work, Of Hates, Rants, and More Hates. Basically I criticize parts of the PJO community that could be improved.

QOTC: "One, don't you ever touch me again. Two, don't you ever touch me again." –Stacker, Pacific Rim

SOTC: Ocean Princess by Thomas Bergersen.

EOTC: Attack on Titan (Japanese Anime)