I emerged to where the Junkyard of the Gods should be.
I found myself in a labyrinth. A poor imitation of the one I knew.
"Where is she?" I said urgently and the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth took over this poor copy. It's mind was too rudimentary. Something similar to an advanced computing bot, that something with an actual mind.
"Errr, what?"
The Labyrinth thus extended and took over the copy labyrinth, and made it a part of itself. Made it real.
And due to my link to the Labyrinth I understood what this place was. It was the actual God Junkyard transformed mostly into an imitation labyrinth.
"Welp, shit." Hope Hephaestus doesn't notice. "Did you find her?"
I saw the whole of this mini-Labyrinth in my mind, and there was no sign of Bianca.
I dove back into the Labyrinth proper and tried to get the Labyrinth to just send me where Bianca is, rather than where I thought she was.
The Labyrinth began to move, while absorbing and drawing in the previous God Junkyard underground.
Hephaestus paused in his work.
He got an alert about his backlog archive. The place he leaves anything broken or unfinished. Projects started and left aside.
It's been centuries. He hadn't actually gone back to any of it. But he would eventually.
Yet as he looked at the screen showing his previously held the archive workshop, he found nothing but sand.
"...What?"
Hephaestus was stunned. That was all the broken or left behind project.
He felt disbelief.
Then bitter. Then anger.
He sent out mechanical hawks to survey the area and find out what happened.
He would have to send some of his children on quests to retrieve what was stolen if his drones don't find anything.
Yet, underneath that anger was a sense of relief. That those projects were gone. So he doesn't have to think about them now, and focus on the actual important stuff.
...He was still going to punish whomever did this. Hephaestus was a god after all. People can't just cross him and expect to get away with it.
Although, as long as they are not affiliated with Ares, he might just have a drink with them later in the future, just for this ridiculous brazen act, that removed a mental burden he didn't know he had.
Where there was once a mountain of junk in Arizona, there was now a desert.
Oh... Shit.
Okay, was the Labyrinth usually this independent? I mean, it isn't actually harming anyone, and it always listened to my orders since we linked but still.
Now I really hope Hephaestus doesn't treat the Junkyard like something important, or there's gonna be some awkward questions.
Regardless, I sent most of the broken inventions to Daedalus, while the Labyrinth took the rest to make into false treasures.
Right, the challenge for heroes and that.
"Asterios? Why's there a broken Talos outside my workshop?" I left magitech butterfly Daedalus made (Psychafly, mind fly as the inventor explained) in my hair, so we'd have a way to communicate over long distances.
"Oh, you know, I figured you need a hobby, rather than getting cooped up doing nothing but work." I said with an easygoing tone.
"I have literally been doing nothing but work to occupy my time for thousands of years. How's this any different?" He said, and I could imagine his exasperated expression.
The Labyrinth seemed to reach where Bianca was, but was slowing down. Huh?
"You know how people go to junkyards, find a half working car, and take it back to play around with fixing it? Same thing." I said back casually and focused on what's slowing down the Labyrinth.
"...Please tell me you didn't still something from Hephaestus' junkyard?" Daedalus plead.
"I didn't still 'something'." I said in a hopeful tone.
"Oh no." Daedalus said with dread.
"More like... I stole the junkyard itself. Or more like the Labyrinth did." I grinned bashfully back.
"Huh... Well it's not like the gods were gonna hate us any less, for what we're doing." Daedalus just sighed, and hoped the Labyrinth as a defense holds. "By the way, weren't you in a rush to help Hades' daughter?"
"Yeah, I am, but the place where she's at seem difficult to get to. Or rather the Labyrinth can't burrow to it quickly." I explained.
"Must be a place with a magical entrance or condition then. It's not something it will be able to do right away." Daedalus said, and worry filled my chest.
I'm not sure Bianca has long, given the pleading I heard from her.
"ASTERIOS! PLEASE COME SOON!"
That I can still here from her! My eyes widened as her voice grew louder in the back of my head.
"Then I'll have to break into it somehow!" I cried out, urgency over taking me, as I ran into the direction where the Labyrinth was digging through.
"No need to worry! Eris is here!" A voice came into our conversation.
"Eris, now really isn't the time—" I began to say.
"No seriously, I'm here to help." Her more serious tone, made me pause. "Daedalus, sorry, but I'm cutting off your connection for now. You need to be scarce right now. Don't worry, I'll keep you in the loop, just not part of the talk about to happen, so you don't get his attention too."
"Eris. What did you do?" I asked with dread filling me, as I felt the Psychafly become inert.
"Let a certain brewing conflict finally erupt." I could hear her grin, but then she huff. "However, I timed it so it would all resolve quickly and work out in your favor. Be sure to thank me later. Now remember, he's gonna be pissed, but once he let off some steam, remind Broody of his daughter's safety, okay? Good luck~!"
The moment Eris said that, my eyes widened as I immediately understood.
I felt something probing the Labyrinth. Something heavy like a meteorite. The Labyrinth kept it at bay as it wasn't an actual attack, just a link to talk. A link trying to get to me.
I commanded the Labyrinth to let it through, and braced myself.
Time seemed to stop.
No, it's more like I was stuck in my own body. My mind accelerating everything while the world looked slowed down to a crawl.
"MINOTAUROS!" Hades' voice roared in my being and it felt like magical pressure slammed into me. I gritted my teeth and bore it. "YOU MADE ARTWORK THAT SHOWED YOU DEFILING MY DAUGHTER, AND DISTRIBUTED IT TO THE MASSES?! HOW DARE YOU INSULT ME SO, AFTER THE TRUST I'VE GIVEN! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY BEFORE I BREAK YOUR EXISTENCE SO THROUGHLY, TARTARUS WOULD NEED AN AEON TO REFORM YOU"
"Lord Hades, while in the planning process that scene was in the story, I realized the implicates of it, and had it removed. Someone put it back." Sure as fuck wasn't going to say who. "I didn't do my due diligence while finishing up the game before releasing it."
"And who dare do this?!"
"My lord, they are a mortal child and did not know better. I am the one ultimately responsible. I am fully willing to take total responsibility for this, and will accept any punishment, or quests you wish me to undertake, to rectify this horrendous insult to your daughter's reputation. But right now that same daughter is in mortal peril." I begged. "Please I need to go save her!"
"Save her to appear like a hero and seduce her!?"
"Lord Hades, I have no ill intentions to your Bianca, I swear on the Styx by that!" Thunder cracked. "But right now every moment wasted is one in which she's stays in danger."
"And what of Hazel?" Hades spoke, but it felt different? More... calmer in a weird way. And right now calm was scarier.
"What about her? One's a fictional character and the other is real. I removed the scene of the real one before someone put it back." I said before thinking about it more, as I couldn't afford to take too long to answer.
Wait, am I talking to Pluto? Fuck. Was there a 'Hazel' in the sequel series? Fuck, I didn't read those!
"...You will pay penance for this." Said Pluto?
"I will." I said, not trying to bargain or weasel out of this.
"And you will tell me the names of all those responsible for that scene being in the story at all." The God of the Dead commanded.
"No." I said right away.
"You think you can dare to opposite me right now, Minotauros?" Came back the angry Hades.
"I will not let harm come to those innocent and ignorant of a crime they didn't even know they committed. They are mortals, they are children. And ultimately beyond the actions of one, they also chose to agree with my decision to remove the scene." I said with a quiet determination. "They are mortals, they are children. And I will not let them suffer the wrath of a god unjustly, just so I could save my own skin a bit of punishment."
"You are resolved on this? Taking on all of my wrath rather distribute it and save yourself the added pain?" Hades asked.
"Yes." I said back without hesitation.
The cavern I was in seemed to grow hotter. The walls, grow and ceiling rumbled with the rather of the Lord of the Underworld.
The pressure on my being intensified, and I prepared to fight for my life.
"Good."
Just like that, it all vanished.
The heat, the quake, the wrath, the pressure. All that was left were the heavy gaze of Hades aimed upon me.
"...Huh?"
"You care about Bianca, and you don't wish her harm. More than that, you're not trying to weasel your way into taking advantage of her." He explained. "Thus, rather than obliterate you, you will be pay penances. One for each of my daughters, and one as a scapegoat for all those who worked on the game. Do you accept?"
Wait, that's it?
"Yes!" I quickly said before I asked something stupid. "But Bianca—!
"Trying to get into the Labyrinth under Garden of the Hesperides, would not be an easy feat. It would take you days to make headway, as only during sunset would you make any quick progress." Hades explained. "However, I am lord of all the earth that is underground, her friends have sacrificed for me to intervene, and more than that she called for you." Hades' tone turned... pained? Well more like whiny but I kept my mouth and thoughts shut. "In her hour of greatest need she called for you, Asterios."
I felt it along with the Labyrinth, the path opening. A door being made as water started to rush down, and I saw the beach at the other end, through the Labyrinth giving me the mental image.
I rushed forward, calling on the Minotaur copy of me that was the son of Poseidon to appear and swim upstream, with me grabbing onto him.
"Do not fail her." Those were Hades' last words.
A plead and also a warning.
There was something I knew but never tested.
Did you know beyond the Actual Minotaur instance that would exist in the Greek world, there's are actual a minotaur race? Basically just like there's Lamia, the daughter of Hecate that was turned into a snake lady monster by Hera, there are countless lamias that also exist as normal monsters. A difference between lamias and The Lamia.
So did you know that monsters can have sex with hunts? They don't only use them for food.
Some humans are even into monster sex. They don't exist only on the internet.
Point is the Minotaur has had children before. And those children made up the minotaur race. Only The Minotaur can have minotaur kids. The minotaurs would only have humans with some enhanced abilities from their monster blood.
When my mother used that spell to summon me, and use ASterios as a focal to gather all instances of the Minotaur, it included the minotaur race.
...Yeah. Pasiphaë just engaged in casual genocide.
Really don't like thinking about that because what if someone did the same to cyclopes? ...Then again, cyclopes don't have a singular mythical figure they originate from. The Minotaur in myth didn't have children. There is no distinguishable minotaur, but The Minotaur.
Cyclops however have many cyclops that have names. Polyphemus. Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. You can't use any cyclops as a focal point, as they are many myths about multiple unique cyclopes.
The point I'm trying to make is, the Minotaur contains tens of thousands of variants within it.
So right here? Right now? At Mount Tamalpais, where the confrontation with Atlas was taking place; where Bianca was most definitely holding up the sky if I were to guess, and facing who know what army of monsters Luke and the Titan have on their side? Well...
The Minotaur felt shocked. It then felt elation.
I had always used the Minotaur as free labor. Programmers for the games. Helpers for Daedalus or Pasiphaë for whatever work they needed.
But now? Now it was finally allowed to be released. To fight with all its might.
The focus was only on the enemy monsters. Surprising, but maybe all that time the Minotaur was within me, it got influenced by my morality?
It rejected such notion. It simply wanted to rage and battle without any constrains I'd put on it. So it would simply go after the acceptable targets I'd approve of, or not care about.
"Asterios." Eris spoke in my mind. "The prophecy is already fulfilled. All the lines done, everything they said would happen and more or less technically passed. So what I'm saying is... Go all out. Make some fucking noise!"
Thus... I simply let go of the leash.
And from my mind I felt tens of thousands of connections erupt forth as from the Mist of my body, every instance, or version of the Minotaur materialized. I still held my mind, could feel them all without any confusion or exhaustion somehow.
Seriously Pasiphaë, what fucking spell did you use? I know you explained it, but you absolutely didn't do it justice!
Regardless with the minotaurs acting as a spring board, I stepped on one and jumped.
Spoiler: Battle Music
The whirlpool we were in exploded from the full force of my lunge. The Minotaur Archetype left behind acted as a second spawning point, and thousands of minotaurs emerged, attacking the Princess Andromeda and all the monsters climbing up the mountain.
I flew in the air from the momentum, but it wasn't enough to reach the top.
That's when I saw it. The wing funnel acting as the sky for one to have to carry. I could smell Bianca. I could feel her distress and pain, with subtle hope that I've arrived.
Worse, I don't know if this was my natural ability, or if Hades was enhancing my senses just to motivate me. But somehow I could see Bianca under the sky ceiling. I could see that small kid I looked after, and grew to see as someone to care about, sweating and grimacing in pain.
I could see the stunned demigods, the wary goddess and titan pausing in their battle, while still holding up their guards.
I saw him.
Atlas. That smug sunnovabitch that forced my little girl into that torturous situation.
I summoned both my axes, and drew my arm back. I didn't notice the variant of the Minotaur align their power with mine. Answering some subconscious will to cause harm to Atlas. This Minotaur was one with the myth of having heat or sun-like powers due to being Helios legacy.
I threw the axes with all my might, unlike with the drakon, I didn't hold back my killing intent. There were no bystanders near me, nor did I have to hold back my magical power, as I imbued it into axes.
From sheer force, the axes seemed to heat up the moment they left my hand, as if the air friction was that heavy.
Maybe being a monster lets me see the Mist better, maybe someone was aiding me with better aim, I could feel divine energies adding to my strike, but it felt like I couldn't miss.
Like two arrows of sunlight, the axes slammed into Atlas, making him roar in pain.
I summoned a minotaur and had them cups their hands like a volleyball player, using that as a spring board to jump from, and with them assisting in throwing me up.
I repeated the act multiple times till I was above Mount Tamalpais, then had the last one throw me toward the mountain top.
I crashed into the ground, knees bent to take the impact, landing next to my axes and grabbing them.
As I went to stand, I looked the titan straight in the eyes and roared.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
It wasn't just a simple roar. I didn't have time to talk or explain with words to the misandrist, paranoid goddess or her cultish hunters—Is that fucking Annabeth with a hunter's silver circlet? No! Not important—who I was, or that I was on their side.
So I roared and imbued my intent into the roar, letting it ripple through the Mist.
"I am Asterios, and I oppose you, Atlas." It wasn't said with words.
But a declaration of intent that the titan before me was an enemy. That his allies were my enemies. That he is a foe I will now do my utmost to slay.
Atlas' eyes widened in shock at the sheer audacity of what the Minotaur just did.
To stand before a titan and declare him your enemy? As a monsters? A natural enemy of demigods and gods? Even Artemis had a hard time believing this.
"The deserting general? What the hell is—"
The beast moved and from his body, the mist diffused and emerged a second Minotaur, that was massive. A tall beast easily a story tall.
The Minotaur with a human face, didn't give Atlas any time to talk, he simply attacked. Atlas' eyes widened as he quickly had to parry the first axe swing, before jumping back to avoid the second.
Seeing the human Minotaur, or Asterios as he called himself through the Mist engage the titan, Artemis jumped in front of the giant Minotaur.
"Not one step closer, beast." She said, standing between the giant bull monster, and her hunters and a maiden. Also Percy Jackson too she supposed. She wouldn't want her Uncle Poseidon angry at her. The boy seemed okay thus far. "What is your purpose here?"
"Saving Bianca. Lord Hades sent me." He said and moved forward again.
"You oppose Atlas, that doesn't mean you're our ally. You expect me to believe that?" Artemis summoned her bow with an arrow nocked and glowing silver with power.
To the goddess's surprise the monster didn't break his stride. He didn't seem afraid of her, just annoyed. What?
"I do not care. Lord Hades sent me, ask him if you need to. Regardless someone needs to hold the sky, and none of you are in the condition to do so." The beast paused to finally meet Artemis' gaze. "Or will you let a maiden continue to suffer in your presence?"
Artemis bared her teeth at the insolence of this monster, to speak to her like that.
"Asterios!" Bianca's cry was growing weaker. That stopped Artemis cold, they needed to act now, but...
"Let my daughter's savior carry out his task, Artemis." Hades spoke to her with commanding authority. Artemis almost reflexively wanted to oppose this man for trying to order her around. But this was her uncle, and even if he wasn't an Olympian she would dare oppose him on this.
Artemis stepped aside.
"Wait, you're with us now?" Percy asked incredulous, putting himself between the monster and Bianca, but seeing Artemis stand aside made him relax a little.
The Minotaur nodded, and kneeled down next to Bianca. Percy, Annabeth and Zoe close by just in case, even if they all were roughed up, with only Annabeth just being tired.
"I will take your burden from you. Give it." He held his arms out.
No sooner had those words and action been made, Bianca fell to the ground, whimpering in pain, but letting out a cough of relief.
The beast fell to his knees, yet the sky was held, and much higher than any of them.
The sounds of constant metal striking each other as Atlas and Asterios fought echoed in the background.
"Are you real?" Annabeth asked in disbelief. "Like the actual Asterios from Fate/Téras Konístra?" She scrunched her eyebrows. "Although he didn't have Minotaur cloning abilities."
"No, that was fiction." The hulking Minotaur said. "I'm not an alternate version, I'm the actual one."
At hearing the name of that annoying game her brother would badger her about, Artemis immediately frowned. Both in irritation and concern.
Apollo wouldn't shut up about how interesting and innovation the story of that game was. He never shut up about it since he played it, saying he wished to travel to Japan to see the company and talk to the head writer and creator, Akai Tsuno.
"Why isn't the other you using Sygkéntrōsi Ēlíou Sfragída?" Annabeth hurried asked.
""Using what?"" Zoe and Percy asked.
"His Noble Phantasm." Bianca said as he gathered her breath and stood up, after eating an ambrosia cube.
"Special power he should have." Annabeth added, and went on to explain it.
Sygkéntrōsi Ēlíou Sfragída, or Gathering Sun Stamp. Basically Hero Asterios' Noble Phantasm, where he gather's sunlight and shapes it into arrows that are meant to conceptually wash away darkness and impurities. Or basically sun laser arrows.
"Again. That's fiction. I don't have that." The giant Minotaur grunted.
Artemis looked back to the Minotaur fighting Atlas. Disturbingly, almost evenly. They both had about the same level of skill, which was poor in her eyes. But it was their strength and durability that was a concern. That this Asterios could hold a titan in battle, alone, was a worry.
No, taking a closer look at the human Minotaur, there were a few notable difference from the image she saw in Apollo's game. The black sclera is most noticeable. His horns pointing upward, rather than curved to the front, almost like a crown. His clothes were more barbaric, rather than the armor the game showed. Also two single-edged axes, rather than a single double-edged axe.
This transformation was inconceivable. It plainly shouldn't have happened or been possible.
The disturbing concern was because a known fictional addition to the Minotaur's myth, which was as recent as a few months, should in no way have impacted beast this much.
"Okay, that's all cool." Percy spoke up. "But what do we do now?"
Artemis wanted nothing more than to take her hunters and demigods and run. Yet they couldn't let Atlas roam free. The Minotaur can't hold the sky indefinitely, also his copy army wasn't as effective as it seemed, only having numbers to them.
"We need to get Atlas back under his prison." Artemis finally said.
I slammed my axes at Atlas, only for him to block the strike, holding his spear horizontally with both hands.
"You have disappeared from your post, a general in Kronos' army, and now return as a slave to the accursed gods?" Atlas shouted. "What has Olympus offered you?! What possible reason—"
I dismissed both axes into ether, making him stumble forward, and socked him right in jaw. Titan should also have glass chins right?
"You talk too much." I said as he groaned in pain.
Also my knuckles fucking hurt. Holy shit, what's his body made of? Oh right, fucking titan, made of primeval divinity or whatever.
I dodged the thrust of his spear, and summoned a labrys to slash at him, yet he quickly dashed back to attack a different way. For a titan, the fuckers was really nimble. Thought his joints would be acting up from being in one position of holding the sky since forever.
Also his spear was worrying. I could fee the tip of it evoking the inevitability of death. Likely magical poison then.
The few times it did scratch me, I felt one of my variants pop out. Not gone forever, but just out of cycling for a while till it reforms within the Archetype.
We both danced around each other, a bashing and ringing of metal shouting to the world of our clash. I felt like my minotaur army wasn't doing as well as it did at the start against Luke's monster army.
Actually I wasn't doing as well as went I fight attacked him.
The fatass of Ouranos seemed to fall on all of me at the same time. It was getting more and more difficult to fight the more this battle went on.
An arrow flew at Atlas' face making him jerk his head aside.
"Gods be damned!" He shouted, looking at Artemis, Annabeth and Zoe.
I didn't let his slip up go unpunished.
I kicked his knee.
"Arrrgh!" He cried out. "They will turn on you! Are you two stupid to see that, Bull of Minos!"
My axe slashed at him, forcing him to dodge as he used his other leg to jump back. Yet I was relentless going after him not letting him get a break.
"What can I say? I like the world the humans have right now." I said clashing with him again. "It has movies, video games, pineapple on pizza."
"We do not take him. He's not with us! I do not get how he got that pineapple on pizza was something we were fighting for!" Percy Jackson shouted out.
God dammit, Percy. You almost made me laugh and lose my focus.
Over and over I kept fighting, pushing Atlas more and more. Yet slowly but surely I was growing slower.
Artemis jumped in. Literally. A cheetah jumped in at Atlas' arm, after he over extended and I deflected away, biting his arm viciously.
"ARRRGH!" He cried out.
I slashed at his knees and he expect that, bringing his armor covered arm up.
I dismissed the axe, grabbed his arm.
And kicked him in the balls.
"AAAAARGH!" He went down, this time.
But not before grabbed Cheetah Artemis by the neck and throwing her away.
"It's over." I said, the pointed spear tip of my axe at his throat. "Get back under the sky and I won't kick you in the dick again."
Atlas panted, looking at me with genuine hate rather than the annoyance he had earlier.
"She was shouting your name." Atlas finally said with wide-eyes, now that he had some room to talk, and fuck me did he like to talk. "That's it isn't it? You were offered a woman?" He said like he solved a great mystery.
"Really? That's the excuse you wanna go for why you lost?" I raised an eyebrow.
"No," he said, smirking now. That set me on alert. "I just simply wonder if the affection goes both ways."
Atlas grabbed my axe, blade first and pulled me in.
I tried to react, swung my other axe at him. Yet I was finally slow enough that he could summon his spear to his hand and stab me in the heart with it.
"NO!"
The magic poison was too potent. It instantly ended me.
Or rather, when I tried to shuffle the damage to other instance of me, I found myself under the sky, substituting the body Minotaur that was holding it.
This time, as the weight hit me in full, all other Minotaurs popped away.
"Did you think that I wouldn't notice that your injured never seem to stick, yet the other bull monsters would die instead?" The Titan General smirked. "I figured that would happen." He held his spear up. "But this is a fight between Titans and Gods. It has no place for lowly monsters."
He threw the poisoned spear.
"ASTERIOS!"
And to my horror I saw Bianca jump in front of me.
Zoe had seen her do so, and moved in front of her, barely getting in time to divert the spear path.
By taking it into her gut.
The spear went through Zoe and and slashed Bianca's side.
My eyes were wide in disbelief, in shock.
"Ahahahahahahahaha, I could not have foreseen this. It's one thing for an idiotic demigod to save a monster, but for you two to fall to this daughter? Is this what the humans call a 'two for one' special?"
Annabeth and Percy were by their side, giving them nectar or ambrosia as first aid.
"ZOE, NO! ATLAS, YOU'RE PAY FOR THIS!" Artemis shouted, although I could see her leg having a visible wide gash.
Rage over took me. Yet I was never a wrathful person. Shouting, roaring, all that I was in a sense hyping up the act. But this was real anger, and it just made me calm.
We originally needed Atlas to carry the sky, but fuck it. I will mount his corpse as a pillar to uphold the sky.
"Eyes. Nose. Ears. Mouth. Maybe even genitalia." I said coldly.
Atlas blinked for a moment, at my sudden comment.
"What?" He said nothing else, that thrown off.
"Things that you don't need to carry out your punishment to hold up the sky, Atlas." I said.
Atlas blinked for a moment, then laughed again.
"Oh? And how are you going to do, Minotaur?" Atlas looked on with a smug smirk.
Percy tried to use his sword again, and it was still heavy. So he dropped it, and held up his fists. Artemis stood up front, and Annabeth readied her bow.
I pulled at my connection to the Labyrinth with all my will.
It answered and started to make a door.
"You will wander." I spoke, and this time, a chill was in the air.
Everyone looked at me, feeling something was off.
"You will be lost."
"What are you doing?" Atlas asked, eyes narrowed.
"And you will die."
Atlas wanted to laugh at this worthless threat, yet the look in my eyes made the words stuck in his throat.
The Labyrinth made a door.
Right under my feet.
My body went down a single step, and my connection to the Labyrinth was affirmed and strengthened once more.
It eagerly awaited what's next. Wanted it. Wished for it.
And this time I granted it.
"Chaos Labyrinthos Eternally Unchanging Labyrinth."
