Well… that was new. The last time I had faced the Minotaur neither of us had been operating at our best, I knew that. He had clearly been woken up to chase after me and I had just been in a car crash, courtesy of him. But I hadn't thought that he had even been capable of speech, let alone suddenly growing two extra eyes on his forehead either.

While my brain was still reeling from this unexpected and freaky development, my mouth apparently had no problem moving on autopilot. "Wow, seriously? Prepare to die? Did someone pick up the cliched villain one-liners at the bookstore before coming there?" I rolled my eyes. "What's next? Are you gonna offer me power? Perhaps tell me how you and I aren't so different?"

The Minotaur roared and slid his ax off his back. In a weird way, I actually relaxed. This was more familiar territory, even if he still had two too many eyes. I lifted Riptide, metal gleaming off the moonlight, and shifted my stance slightly. "Okay, you walking pair of Rocky Mountain Oysters. Let's go."

The Minotaur charged me, ax raised high to crush me. I ran forward as well, sword raised to meet it. The ax smashed into me and I nearly buckled under the strength of the blow. Gods, had he been that strong before? It was all I could do to keep the ax above my head, not splitting me like a log. Even with my new invincibility, I felt like Iron Man trying to hold off Thor in that Avengers movie Paul and my Mom had taken me to see. The blade dipped lower and lower, and the world grew blurry as my eyes began to tear up with the effort to keep it away from me, and also from the smell. Whatever was up with him, why couldn't it at least make him smell better? Instead, I just got nosefulls of rotten eggs, which was very helpful for my concentration.

The ax dipped lower and lower, and I began to pant with exertion. Sure, I could have let it hit me in the shoulder, but with my luck,k it would have numbed my entire arm into uselessness, and then Gods know what could happen. I could tell milliseconds before it happened what the Minotaur was about to try. I could tell by the way he scratched his hoof on the ground. I shifted my posture to avoid the kick, which sure enough came right at kneecap level, and that was all it took. With a roar of triumph and a blaze of orange light on the runes of the metal, he broke through my defense and hit my shoulder. Instead of going numb, however, it stung. I looked down in shock to see that the ax had cut through my breastplate strap, through the shirt, and… into my skin.

That wasn't supposed to be possible. The River Styx was supposed to be able to protect me from any physical harm except for the small of my back! I had seen weapons shatter on my skin earlier tonight and watched myself evade stuff I should never have been able to evade, so it wasn't like it didn't work! What in Tartarus was happening? My denial and confusion didn't stop the blood from welling from the wound though, around the blade and down my armor and shirt. I moved on instinct, kicking at the leg that had missed me and was not back on the ground yet, knocking the beast more off balance as I dropped forward and rolled under the now-falling body of the Minotaur. He came down and where he hit, deep cracks in the concrete formed and spread as I felt the bridge give a small shudder beneath me.

I lay on my back, panting and holding my now-injured shoulder. "That's gonna leave a scar." I wheezed as I struggled to get air back into my lungs, little seahorses still swimming before my eyes. The Minotaur wasn't done though. He got up far quicker than he should have been able to, nose red and quivering with snot, some of it dripping on me as he shook his head and brought the ax down again in rapid-fire succession, forcing me to roll first to the left and then the right to avoid the blade. I bit down a scream that threatened to burst out of me as I was forced to roll on the fresh wound.

As the blade sank into the concrete mere inches from my nose, where my head had been less than a second before, I noticed a detail I had been too distracted and my vision too blurred to notice before. On the end of each blade was a multitude of small bead necklaces. I felt the rage grow inside me as I recognized them. Not specifically, but the type. They were necklaces from my people, my fellow campers. They were all kids that this beast had killed.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip out its horns and sink them into his chest to watch him turn to dust, and then be there waiting when he regenerated to do it again. There were so many things I wanted to do. But I couldn't do any of them, because I was still trapped on the ground.

"Stay down, kid!" A voice shouted. No problem there. I watched as that ax started to come down again, and then simply vanished as it was ripped out of the Minotaur's grasp as someone shouted something in the background.

"Moo?" The Minotaur asked, as surprised and startled as I was, snot dripping down his nose. I didn't sit there waiting to find out what happened. I scuttled back a few feet on my back and then pushed myself to stand. The weapon was embedded into the side of the bridge, still quivering slightly from the force of impact.

I looked at my shoulder, to where the voice had shouted. I noted as my gaze went past it that the blood had stopped on my shoulder, though it still stung. The wizard was standing there, staff pointed at the Minotaur and glowing slightly blue down the length of it. He strode forward, hair in disarray and leather coat covered in a fine layer of golden dust. "Hey there ugly. Who let you out of your box to play?" He said in a mocking tone as he strode forward, stopping beside me.

"I thought you hadn't met the Minotaur?" I said out of the corner of my mouth. The Minotaur turned at the sound of our voices and the second set of eyes narrowed and seemed to radiate anger like actual heat.

"Never met the freaky bull man, but I've had dealings with the thing hitching a ride on him." He replied also out of the side of his mouth and then raised the volume again as he shouted, "Gotta say, I liked you better when you had flowers sticking out of your chest big guy. Took the edge off your ugliness."

"You know the thing that's inside the Minotaur? Why was it able to break through my invulnerability protection?" Even as I said it, my shoulder gave another twinge of pain.

The wizard turned and blinked at me. "Invunreablility pro- no, no time for that. Listen, kid, we have to keep him boxed in if we want any chance of defeating him. Give him enough range and he can build momentum. Keep him on a short leash and tire him out is the best chance we got. We can play twenty questions later."

"Short leash, tire him out. Yeah, I can do that." I reached into my pocket, where I found my pen sitting comfortably, and pulled it out, uncapping the blade once more.

"I'll take left, you take right," Dresden said and lifted his staff once more, runes once again starting to glow. "We'll do Will and Georgia proud."

I had no clue what that last statement meant and didn't care enough to waste breath finding out. I raised my weapon and began to run at my old friend the Minotaur, now in limited edition four-eyed form. "Hey, I got a question!" I shouted at him, and he swung his head towards me, snorting snot bubbles. "Now that you have two pairs of red eyes, does that mean when you see yourself in the mirror you just charge at your reflection? Or are you too stupid to do even that?"

The Minotaur roared with rage and charged me, moving at a peculiar side shuffle angle at me. Score one for me, yay. I rushed to meet him, but this time I made sure to do a baseball player's slide and avoided his swinging arms, slicing a narrow cut on his calf (haha) on the way. Even as my blade went across the skin, where the sword had just cut started to heal itself.

"That's just not fair," I muttered to myself as the Minotaur tried to turn clumsily, stumbling to a stop with a grunt and shambling around 180 degrees. It reached down and using its hands, simply ripped a piece of concrete out from the bridge with as much effort I would have used to scoop up a spoonful of ice cream from my sundae and hurled it at me. I threw myself to the left out of the way of the projectile and watched as he reached down and simply scooped out another piece of concrete the size of my head. That's when Dresden came in. I don't know how he had vanished, probably magic, I was starting to sense that was a theme with him, and punched him in the side. I'm not sure what in Olympus he did, but the moment that fist hit the side of the beast he went… well, it wasn't exactly flying, it was more like aggressively sliding in one direction until he hit the side of the bridge and stayed there.

As he got up from the ground, I noticed that his fist seemed, larger somehow. Even as I watched, his arms lengthened again as his horns thickened. He also had less hair now, his body assumed a more leathery cast to his skin. His eyes glared as he ripped the ax out of the wall and attacked in a side shuffle once more. Me and Dresden settled into a pattern, me creating long but shallow slashes that quickly healed, but leaked some golden ichor before fully doing so, until it looked like someone had thrown golden paint all over the ground for no reason at all, while Dresen would blast him with raw force, trying to throw him off balance. There were a couple of close calls, but the fight fell into a sort of rhythm.

I should have known that even thinking it was probably a bad move though, because right as I did, Snot-Nose abandoned all subtlety and smashed a now massive fist on the ground, causing the whole bridge to speed up its wobbling and creaking, which still hadn't completely stopped from the tall man's impressive display of magic a while ago. Or I thought it was at least, it was hard to keep track of time while fighting. The vibrations were enough to make me stumble, which was all that really mattered. My instincts screamed at me to move, sure the beast would attack the moment my footing was off, but instead, it spun and loped at the wizard, ax coming in at an overhand posture to cleave the wizard's head from his shoulders. I had an irrational moment of smugness, clearly he saw the man as the weaker link.

I saw the man wind up with another swing of his staff, and once again ducked like a professional boxer, weaving and getting around to his side to lay a punch that left fur burned as it hit, almost looking like blue light was coming out of his staff as he did it. The Minotaur didn't go as far as he had the first time the wizard had tried that trick, but he still moved a few feet in the opposite direction of the fist.

My mind worked furiously as I took a second to catch my breath. We were avoiding being killed by whatever old Beefboy had become, but we didn't seem to actually be making any progress on bringing it down. Well, if we couldn't kill it… "Try and push him to the edge of the bridge," I shouted as I capped my sword, putting the now pen into my pocket. I closed my eyes and reached deep inside me. Dad, please help me out. I sent out in a prayer as I extended my… well I had been calling it my water sense but I wasn't really sure what it was, though Annabeth could probably have explained it to me, making me feel stupid in the process of course.

I continued sending my prayer to the Sea God as I extended my water sense almost as far as it would reach, and felt very distantly, like a tugging in my gut, the churning mass of water far below us. Almost… I seized control of the water, or at least that is how my brain interpreted what I was doing, and I held on tight. "Now!" I shouted at the wizard, and with a muttered word a huge blast of wind was sweeping across the bridge, cutting into my bones with its chill and force. I watched as the momentum of ol' Snot nose faltered, and Dresden wrapped a hand around the nearest guard rail to keep himself in place and not go flying off the bridge from his own magic. I tensed, waiting until I saw the Minotaur take a shuffling, snuffling step backward, fury in his four eyes, and… his haunches hit the back of the bridge, and I thrust my hand out. "Hey, Beefboy! Let me lend you a helping hand!" I bellowed over the wind howling, and all four eyes flicked to me. I winced inwardly. It wasn't my best work, but I was tired and it was the best I had. I gestured with my outthrust arm and water appeared over the edge of the bridge, splitting into five tendrils that became recognizable as fingers, and wrapped around the surprised monster, dragging it over the rail. It tried to hook its axe into the railing, but all it succeeded in doing was taking a chunk of the bridge with it as it was dragged away. The last thing I saw was a flash of its panicked eyes, and then it was gone, hopefully dragged straight to the depths of Tartarus itself.

I sat down on my butt heavily, panting and rubbing at my shoulder, which still stung awfully. I just didn't understand how my protection had failed. I took out Riptide, unsheathing the blade, and tried to poke myself on the tip of one finger with it. As the blade came close to my finger, it began to slide, almost imperceptibly, away from the trajectory that would make it connect with my skin. The harder I concentrated, the more pronounced the altering became. It was like trying to push two magnets of the same pole towards each other. It simply… wouldn't.

I looked up as a shadow loomed over me, abruptly remembering I was in the middle of a battlefield and this was not the time for science experiments. In fact, I should have been attacked by now, when I thought about it. We had our own personal ring of spectators. I looked up with alarm, pushing myself to my feet, but it was only Dresden. He was studying my hand, lips pursed in thought. At least that's what I thought that expression meant. The scar across his face skewered all his emotions, making him look perpetually annoyed. I ignored that for the moment, and looked past the man to see where the rest of the army had gone. All I could see were fleeing backs. Seemed that my guess had been right. Take down the Minotaur, and the entire army had broken, fleeing back across the bridge and away from my army, such as it was.

"Huh. So that was the invulnerability you were talking about, eh?" The wizard said, and then suddenly he was whipping his staff at me, thigh level, and I let out a grunt of pain as the wooden stick connected solidly with my ankle.

"Ow! What the hell did you do that for!" I cursed as I reached down and rubbed the bruise that I could feel forming there.

"So blunt objects can still connect with you, just not blades. Or was it because it recognized I wouldn't do serious harm?" Dresden mused as he looked down at my throbbing ankle.

"There were other ways you could have found that out, you _!" I said as I glared up at him, sweeping my sword off the ground and putting it back into my pocket as a pen.

Dresden's eyes seemed to snap back into focus, and he flushed a little, looking embarrassed. "Oh yes. Sorry about that, kid." He replied giving a wry smile. "Wizards. We don't always think things through." He was silent a moment, "Or, well, I don't at least."

I gestured at my shoulder, which was still burning, but had closed up well enough. "Any idea why that happened?"

"No clue. Maybe Bob will know. He knows more about magic and protection than I will ever be able to learn." He shrugged and gestured to where the Campers had gathered, some coming towards me. "Want to go greet the victors?"

Before I could say yes, and mainly I just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep, horns rang out in the air, disturbing the quiet that had settled rather quickly after the end of active battle.

In the far distance, I could just make out something golden approaching from the other end of the bridge. I felt a stab of fear, hoping it wasn't the Neamen Lion, somehow back from the dead just like the Minotaur. I didn't think I could survive a fight with a Telkie right now, let alone the Lion. As it drew closer then, one fear left my heart to be replaced with another. I could see that it wasn't a lion, not even anything living. It was a golden chariot, being pulled by two _ and surrounded by an entire troop of riders on skeletal horses. And sitting in the seat, looking as relaxed as if he was on a stroll in the park, sat Kronos.