I've read about the Ophiotauros. I know about it and its importance.

"Moooooo!" [Weeeeeee! Water clean! Air is pretty!]

It's really fucking bizarre to see though.

"Why have you brought the Ophiotauros here, satyr?" Artemis said with a frown.

"Lady Artemis." Grover swoon, before quickly snapping into focus at her gaze. "Ah! I mean, we were heading to Long Island Sound when suddenly Bessie hear Percy through our empathic bond, and headed to him."

"I'm sorry!" Percy cried out as Artemis shifted her gaze to him. "I was just thinking 'I wonder if Gover and Bessie were alright'. I didn't think Bessie would hear that and immediately go 'yeah, I'm coming right over!'?" He quickly explained.

"...Bessie?" Artemis deadpanned.

Grover and Percy blushed and looked away.

"I didn't know it was a 'he' at the time." Percy said.

"Name kinda stuck." Grover shrugged.

"Alright, cool." I said, exasperated. Last thing I want is that damn divine timebomb in the Labyrinth. "Can you guys get it out of here?"

"You will not have the Ophio—Wait, you do not wait it?" Artemis began before she registered my words.

"No." I said back. "Do I look like I enjoy tickling Zeus' paranoia in my free time?" I said with a cheerful tone.

"You are... surprisingly sensible." The Hunt Goddess said.

"I'm gonna take that in a positive spirit it was intended." I bit back.

"It was a compliment, bull." Artemis said back in the same biting tone.

"Mooo!" [Hello, Land-Human-Brother!]

"Really? Because given everything—What the fuu—" Looking at the innocent idea of this dumb cow, I felt like swearing would be like teaching a child a naughty word. "Fudge? No, I'm not your brother."

"Moo?" [We aren't? But you're both cows, we have cow horns.]

"Horns don't mean we're siblings. Also we're bulls. These are bull horns." I said, pointing at my horns for emphasis. "Who the hell has been telling you, you're 'cow'?"

Percy and Grover suddenly found the ceiling and landscape very interesting.

"Really, guys? Really?" Annabeth said to them in a dry tone.

"More importantly," Artemis continued. "You understand him?" She asked, blinking in confusion. "How?"

"How should I know? I just can." I replied, just feeling thrown off by the whole thing. "Its really bizarre."

"Mooo!" [Because we're brothers!]

Bessie kept slashing the water, looking happy.

"We are not brothers."

"Moooo." [Brothers of different mothers.]

Bessie joyfully spun, doing barrel rolls as it swam.

"...Grover, was it? Were you teaching him rap culture?" I said, just shocked at how weird this is all happening.

"Wait, what's he talking about?" Percy asked looking confused.

"Errr, Bessie called him a 'brother from another mother'." Said the embarrassed satyr. "I think it was the kids we passed next to in Aarons Creek. Bessie kinda slowed down and bobbed with the... noise they were making."

"You mean rap music?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

"I refuse to call that music." Grover shook his head.

"Mooo, mooo, mooo, mooo, mooo." [Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground. A Young nigga got it bad 'cause I'm brown.]

My eyes slowly widened as I just stared in disturbed shock.

"What's he saying?" Bianca came and stood next to me, looking up at me curiously.

"I don't think I should repeat that." Then I just glared at Grover.

"...Sorry." Grover looked down in shame.

And yeah. He should feel ashamed.

"It's of no consequence." Pasiphaë said as she was sitting down at the edge of a lake, with fruit basket. The Ophiotauros eagerly went to her and let her feed him. "It's not like we're taking the Bane nor the satyr with us into battle, nor would they be in danger in stay in the Labyrinth." She explained. "Let them rest, recuperate and be on their way, while we handle the more important tasks."

"...And you also do not wish to use the Ophiotauros for your own means?" Artemis asked suspiciously.

"Goodness no!" Pasiphaë let Bessie come half-way to shore so she could hug its head to her chest, damping her dress a little. "Of course I wouldn't want to harm this adorable little babe, who would dare think such a thing."

"Mooo!" [Awww, magic lady really nice!]

"You may call me mother too, dear." Pasiphaë rubbed Bessie's head and scratched it in an enjoyable manner to it.

"Moo!" [Mommy Lady!]

Okay. Yeah. No. Absolutely fucking not!

I'm not sure I want to be an older brother, and I'm pretty sure that's robbing the cradle somehow.

"Mother, we really should get back to making the battle plan. Grover will look after Ophiotauros and leave as soon as he can. The rest of us have to get to work." I said, and at my mother's pout, I just deadpanned even more.

You know, I'm surprised Grover didn't comment on the "Mommy Lady" comment.

"Grover you okay?" Percy asked as he and his satyr friend were on land.

Grover looked woozy on his feet.

"The Wild." He said. "I feel... so much of the Wild here."

Oh, right. Because of Pan and all that.

"Woah, Grover!" Percy said.

Grover fell to the ground, laying on his back looking like a dazed happy drunk.

"I knew Lady Artemis' presence affected Satyrs, but this much?" Annabeth said, as she went to her friend's side trying to sit him up against a rock with Percy helping.

"Yes, although, it's never this bad." Zoe commented.

I sighed. This is gonna take a while.

The Bessie and Grover situation was more or less handled. In that Grover was set aside with some food and water, and woke up hyped up wanting to look for Pan, but reminded of his job looking after Bessie.

Bianca asked Artemis to spar with her, as she felt that would be a good way to exercise, and try to sharpen what skill she had in the little time they had. Artemis raised an eyebrow at the request, but agreed all the same, seeming pleasant with Bianca's attitude. Thalia and Zoe went to watch the spar.

Pasiphaë made some firework illusion spell entertain Bessie that somehow worked, and the sea bull was left to swim and play in the background while we focused on the important bites.

"Look, I just can't do this earthquake thing. I'm sorry, but clearly I just don't have that power." Percy argued.

Annabeth suggested that Percy try to learn how to cause vibrations that go from the lake's water to the land around it, but all he managed to do is caused a small wave.

"Or there isn't enough time." Annabeth argued.

"How did you discover you can use water?" Bianca asked, looking thoughtful.

"Clarisse, girl from Cabin Five, that's the Ares Cabin. First day I went woke up at camp after, well... you know." Percy subtly gestured with his head to me. "You tried to kill me and my mom." Oh, he lost the subtly. Okay.

"I am genuinely sorry for that. Myself in my past incarnation wasn't the best." I frowned in thought. "Scratch that, none of my past selves were my best. Regardless I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you both, and hope your mother is doing well."

"Oh..." Percy blinked, seemingly thrown off by my apology. "Yeah, yeah. She's doing better. Didn't even notice that she went to the Underworld, so it all worked out. We ended up living in a better place now."

"You know, I could probably send your mother royalty checks, since I did technically use your likeness." I suggested. The memory of my last incarnation was still pretty vivid, so I felt sorry for the kid.

"Nah, it's fine. Kicking your ass as a twelve year old was enough." He shook his head with a grin, before seeing Pasiphaë there. "Errr, sorry, I meant, um..." Ah, there's that Percy "foot in mouth" syndrome.

"It is because of your actions, young Percy Jackson, that I was fortune enough to succeed in gaining my son back. For that you have my gratitude." Pasiphaë said smiling.

"Uhh, what?" Percy blinked in confusion.

"Your act of slaying the Minotaur with his own horn, recreating the myth of his defeat at the hands of Theseus, allowed me to succeed in gaining back my son, as he was meant to be." Pasiphaë said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I smiled and patted her hand, before focusing back on the discussion.

"So wait, you're responsible for him being able to talk full sentences and everything?" Annabeth interjected.

Pasiphaë frowned at the question.

"You're a rude girl." Pasiphaë said. Annabeth flinched a bit. "Although I should expect that from children of Athena. They always act before thinking."

"What's that suppose to mean—" Annabeth began.

"A-hem!" I coughed loudly. "I feel we're losing the point of the discussion." I said. "Annabeth, its rude to talk about how people used to be bullheaded." I joked, making Percy snort, and even Annabeth couldn't stop cracking a smile. "And mother? She's a child. Patience please."

"Very well," she sighed. "For you, my dear." Pasiphaë patted my head, and moved back as Percy and Annabeth focused on me.

"Percy," I focused back on the main kid. "Before we went on a tangent, you said you discover how you can use water?"

"Oh, right," he took a moment to recall. "So Clarisse, daughter of Ares, really mean mug and everything. Tried to dunk my head in the boy's bathroom, and I didn't want that... so all the toilets blew up and sprayed her and her friends."

"Did you feel something specific?" I asked.

"Like a... kinda of a tug in my stomach." Percy furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

"Well, the ability to shake the earth likely comes from a different feel. Maybe your breathing, lungs movement, or your heart rhythm." I rubbed my chin and hummed. "Or maybe we're going about this the wrong way."

"You're not gonna fight Percy to make him discover his inner power, now are you?" Annabeth asked.

"Wait, what? No, I don't like this method." Percy shook his head.

"Why? You kicked his ass when you were twelve." Annabeth said to him, with a sardonic smile.

"He seems way scarier now, okay?" He hissed back.

I coughed, getting their attention, while also trying not to laugh.

"One, the world isn't shounen enough for that to work sadly. Two..." I reached down, dug my fingers into the ground and broke off a piece of rock and dirt. "Tell me, Percy. What is this?"

"Um, a rock?" Percy blinked in confusion.

"Hmm, close but not quite." I shook my head.

"I'm pretty sure its a rock." He said.

"Try again."

"A rock with dirt?"

"Next guess."

"It's a piece of!" Percy looked at Pasiphaë before considering his words. "Solid... piece of rock?"

I sighed.

"It's matter?" Percy threw his hands up.

"It's a piece of a Labyrinth." Annabeth said with that proud smile of figuring out a puzzle. "Which means its a piece of magic that's part of the world, right?"

"Wrong." I said plainly.

"What? How's that wrong?" Annabeth looked so offended, she made it looked like I spat on her family's grave, cursed her bloodline and killed her firstborn. Seriously kid, chill.

"What are you guys arguing about?" Thalia said as she arrived, joining the discussion.

"The Asterios science class." Percy quipped.

"How's the spar?" Annabeth asked.

I felt something connect to my shadow. Something, well, someone familiar.

"Already done." Bianca appeared from my big shadow, before flopping down on the ground panting.

"Here you go, dear." Pasiphaë gave Bianca a flask with a rejuvenation potion. "Do take it easy for the next hour. Do not use your powers, so as to let yourself reciprocate fully."

"Thank you, Lady Pasiphaë." Bianca said as she drank the potion. "Huh, kinda... taste like blueberries?"

"Blackberries actually." Pasiphaë said. "And you can call me Ms. Fae if you like Bianca. After all, were—"

Yeah, nope! Stopping that right now.

"Mother," I spoke up. "You sure wanna go with 'Ms. Fae', given the, you know, implication?"

"What implication?" Annabeth asked.

"Morgan le Fay." I said.

"Where you do think the name came from?" Pasiphaë said with a cheeky grin.

"...Wait, are you saying—" I began.

"You have a lesson to get to, Asterios." Pasiphaë said with an amused look. "We were talking about how young Percy discovered his powers, and what it felt like to his body."

"Pull in my stomach." Percy nodded to Thalia.

"Oh! That. Static on my skin." Thalia said.

"Coldness in my veins for shadows." Bianca added.

"Right, right." I nodded. "Right, so for those of you who missed it," I said as Zoe and Artemis joined us, along with Grover who finally woke up enough, and was aware enough to join the discussion. Grover was eating some peaches as he listened. Bessie actually rested on the Lake's shore looking attentive. Wow. I have a full class here. "I picked this off the ground and ask what is it?"

"A piece of the Labyrinth made of earth and Mist." Artemis answered.

"That's what I said." Annabeth insisted and looked smug and challenging at me.

"Technically correct." I said, then followed up before Mount Annabeth erupted at the indignity. "It's not a result of magic, it uses the Mist as a component in its structure. However for the purposes of this lesson, that answer is also wrong, as it's too focused on the small picture."

Artemis frowned but patiently looked intrigued.

"Then what is it?" Percy said, exasperated.

"A piece of the Mother Earth." I said, and that threw everyone off. "What do you think this is made out of? Rock? Minerals? Solid matter? All wrong. This is just a piece of belief solidified into the world." I said the most absurd thing possible.

"That is not—!" Annabeth began to say outloud.

"Do you think this world is made up of what? Math? Physics? Solid, liquid, gas, plasma, Bose-Einstein condensates, and time crystals?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "No, it's—"

"Wait, what were those last two? I'm pretty sure you made that stuff up.

"It's university level matter physics, you're not gonna find in random high school books. One's about a state near absolute zero that results in the particles acting like one giant atom, and the other is about objects that can have movement even at its lowest energy state. And none of that is the focus of what I'm saying." I said quickly before focusing on Jackson again. "You don't walk on the ground. You walk on layers of Gaea. This rock might as well be an atom of hers. That thing you're breathing to be alive? Oxygen? Please, it's diluted and filtered Aether. Water? That's just the scattered remains of Pontus." I explained. "And if those elemental forces make up the structure of this world, then why are you bothering to constrain yourself with something flimsy as the 'logic' and 'reason' presented by science?"

"That's not how that works." Annabeth protested, which was natural. I was basically telling her that everything she knew about the world, beyond what she already discovered was a lie. "That's not how anything works." Yet doubt lingered in her mind. "Right?" So she asked the actual god present.

"...Technically he is correct." Artemis said after a shake of her head. "However, the Protogenos have all long since vanished from the world. No longer having the capacity to be aware, forever slumbering or faded. Yet even so the effect of their existence remain. Such as the case with the earth, the seas, the air, and the sky. However its important to remember that there are gods that rule over these concepts and phenomena, such as your parents." She looked at each child of the Big Three. "Thus there is no power for those old beings anymore, nor faith to revive them."

"And that's the point." I smiled at the perfect jumping off point Artemis gave me. "Faith is literally what makes up creation."

"How?" Percy asked. "These gods existed before humans. They created us, right?"

"Well, a lot of other pantheons would conflict with you on that." I shrugged. "Besides, maybe it all happened retroactively, or the gods faith in us, created us, and our faith in them sustained them."

"Other what!?" Annabeth nearly shouted wide-eyed. Artemis glared at me.

"Not important." I waved her off, and then continued at the look in hers and Thalia's eyes. "Literally not important right now. You can look it up later." I said before sitting up straight (and towering all the seated kids), as the penultimate point of my lesson was reached. "If the absence of faith can erase gods, and the existence of it can empower the ones present, then for a demigod, what do you think the faith you have in yourself can do?"

"You are teaching them the core of hubris that we, the gods, have punished many a demigod for." Artemis accused with a frown.

"That's not advice for interacting with people, interpersonal relationship, or personal behavior. This is about divine, supernatural combat. Of course pray to the gods, ask and get every advantage that you can. But once you have made all your preparations and push comes to shove, when its on you to act, you need to believe you can do more than what you're told you can do." I said, putting emphasis and emotion in my voice. "Yeah, you're not gonna be able to do that right away, but you need to stop thinking with the limits of world you were born in."

"So what? We're all walking reality warping demigods? How come you can't beat any monster that comes after us? Or do whatever we want?" Thalia asked with a frown.

"I have gravity powers." Bianca chimed in.

"Wait, what?" Annabeth asked wide-eyed. An expression mirrored Thalia, Percy, Grover and Zoe.

"Yeah, since I can put and pull things from my shadow, it means I can push and pull things through it. So I extend that to the shadows cast by an object and my own shadow, and use that to push and pull object toward me." She explained.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Annabeth exclaimed. "Hades doesn't have powers over the forces of gravity."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I believe I could do it by just pushing the logic of what I can do to the extreme and I got that." Bianca shrugged.

"I thought you should discard logic." Annabeth said bitterly.

"Like any tool, science should be used or discarded whenever convenient." I said. "As for why you can't warp reality? Well, same reason why when you go to the gym you don't start with the heaviest thing there. You work your way up to it. And while theoretically you probably do have a limit, you need to stop thinking about them, because they are likely far further away than you believe."

I closed my eyes and did something I haven't bothered to do till now. Its only during the fight with Atlas when I first arrived to Mount Tam that I noticed it. How I superimposed... heh, intoned my variant that was a Legacy of Helios.

So this time, I grabbed my variant that was the Son of Poseidon, and placed him upon myself. The Minotaur that was seen as the reason why the isle of Crete was plagued with earthquakes.

Artemis blinked and looked at me alarmed. Percy noticed something but wasn't sure what.

I gently place my hand on the ground next to me. I felt the beating of my heart sent vibrations through my body. I took those vibration from my body as a whole, down my arm and into the ground.

rumble.

I opened my eyes, and took in their faces.

"Woah!" Percy shouted, surprise erupting out of him and everyone else (sans my mother) as the ground and the area we were in, shook a little bit. Not a true earthquake, but the lightest passing of one, that makes people notice there was something.

"H-How?" Annabeth asked shocked.

"The Minotaur has many legends about him. Throughout the ages, those legends morphed and changed. In one of them, rather than the Cretan Bull being the one who fathered me, it was Poseidon disguised as the bull." I said, meeting Percy's wide shocked eyes. "I am all of those legends, and I can call upon them. So I can teach you how to do this. You just need to open your mind to the possibility that you can."

"...I have another monster as a brother?" Percy asked.

"I mean, sure." I shrugged.

"Does that make you my..." He turned to Pasiphaë.

"You can call me 'Stepmom' if you want, Percy." Pasiphaë smiled.

""NO!"" I didn't realize Annabeth and Thalia shouted with me.

"What's wrong? Is that not how modern kids address their stepmothers?" Pasiphaë blinked in confusion.

"No one addresses their stepmother like that." Annabeth said, while shaking her head.

"Except in po—" Thalia continued.

"They either use your name or call you 'mom' if they are close. And in this case I think your name alone is enough." I quickly explained.

"Aw," Pasiphaë pouted. "I hope we become close enough for you to call me 'mom' as well."

"No!"

Is she really oblivious or just doing this to mess with me?

Given the gleam in her eyes as she smiled at me, I'm pretty sure Pasiphaë is just having fun at my expense.

"Sooo... can you help me with the quake power... Step-bro?"

"I will hurt you."

"Oh my gods, the smut fics are becoming real." Thalia whispered. Everyone turned to look at her. "I didn't say anything!" Her eyes were wide like a deer seeing headlights.

Artemis visibly facepalmed.

Right. Now I remember how annoying it was to work with kids.

AN: Yeah, it's not gonna be two chapters till the fight. Likely three counting this one.