Earthshaker (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

We Don't Follow Our Parents' Advice Pretty Well

I smelled the monster before I even saw it. It smelled like a huge stable of one-year unbathed horses and a ton of pepper and Tabasco sauce mixed together with pegasi waste.
And it didn't matter if Luke had broken his glasses, and his eyes were pretty close to not seeing light, because I'm sure everyone else was seeing the eight-foot tall monstrosity that had a man for a body and a raging bull for a head.
I knew it immediately as the Minotaur, from my very first lessons of mythology at school and at monster-declassifying classes at Camp Half-Blood, but most of all I recognised it from the very first stories Dad had ever told us as kids. The way he'd described it was very clear in my mind and I knew immediately it was the same Minotaur from Dad's younger days.

Bullish shoulders, neck and head which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you couldn't even imagine possible. So I'm guessing he grew his horns back. All monsters do that, because unfortunately for us, they don't die. They just vanish and reappear again after years of rotting in Tartarus.
Coarse brown fur started at about his belly button and gotten thicker as it reached his shoulder, much, much thicker than I would've preferred.
His arms and legs were swollen with muscles and he wore only a loincloth, which would have been funny had I not known what he could actually do.
It stands ten feet away in front of us, on the other side of the road of the freaking out cattles, slowly walking in our direction, crackling his knuckles as if getting ready for a brawl.

"Not this again," Dad muttered and I heard him curse hard in Greek under his breath, one that would've gotten a look of blasphemy from aunt Hazel.

"Everyone, stay in the van!" uncle Jason instructed, and I didn't understand the need to because I totally would not have gotten out of the car.
I've had too much experience with monsters, probably more than my age would've required.
But then I heard the back door of the van click open and saw Tristan Grace leap out through it, his imperial gold sword in hand, and Beck yelling behind him to stay.

Our parents were in chaos, yelling for us to stay seated but the idiot Beck Valdez ran off after Tristan, running towards the Minotaur and charging past the panicked cows, looking like rugby players trying to get across the field of bulky men.

"Jason, Percy, get the boys!" Mom yelled and before I knew it, they were both leaping out of the van and running towards danger.
If there's one lesson I'd now sworn to always follow, it's that you never run towards danger, because it might cause the destruction of your dearly-loved camp.

I could just see Camp Jupiter's front gates from here, through the chaotic herd of cattles that are running past us. I longed so much to stay inside it, to see my best friend Bianca and to sleep in my own bed in our cobblestone house. It's all so near, but danger got to us sooner.

"Diana, stay exactly where you are," Mom instructed and I wondered why, but then I realised I was clutching onto my bow that I got from under my seat, and I was right next to the door of the van which Dad and uncle Jason had left wide open.

I heard Luke groan, and I realised his head injury may have been more than what it seemed, because soon the side of his temple was pooling with blood and he was again on the floor of the van. Aunt Piper heard him and squirmed past me to finish Dad's first aid on him.

"Annabeth, we have to get Luke to camp," she said and my Mom turned to the front of the car where the cows were still crossing.
I don't understand where they'd all come from, how so many could be crossing the road at such an urgent time.

"Could we get past them?" Mom asked Argus, looking over at the group of frantic cows running downhill.

"I don't think so," he'd answered in a low voice, "we'd have to run over them, or worse they could run over us."

I listened to the angry charging of hooves that sounded and felt like an earthquake coming.
And then I saw lightning, not from the sky so I'm guessing it could be Tristan or uncle Jason, then the monster roared so loudly I swear it could be heard all throughout San Francisco.
I recoiled in my seat and turned around and realised uncle Leo wasn't there.

"Uncle Leo, he's gone," I told aunt Piper who looked up at me.

"Where did he go?"

"I-I don't know. I didn't notice him leave, or anything," I answered in a shaky voice.

I felt the van's engine come to life, and heard Mom instruct Argus to move backwards and just run down the slope.

"But, Leo," aunt Piper muttered.

"He probably went after Aiden," Mom said.
"We have to go. Jason and Percy is there, it's just the Minotaur."

Thunder rumbled and then rain started to fall, hard, and I heard the loud sputtering as it made contact with the vehicle's roof.
Then from the corner of my eye, I saw the homeless man from earlier, standing ten feet from us on the side of the road.
He stood there, his hands crossed in front of him, and I realised he was watching me. He was really looking at me. And even though it was raining hard, he didn't seem to notice or just didn't mind.

"Mom, that man," I said. "Do you see that man?"

I pointed out the door where the man stood minutes ago, but then he was gone and mom and aunt Piper had asked me, "What man?"

"There. He was just there," I whispered. I couldn't believe my eyes. There was nowhere there to disappear to except up the hill towards another highway.

"We've got to go. Everyone hold on," Mom said and the car lurched forward, angling downhill where New Rome would be, just behind a tunnel.

But before I even knew it, I was bolting out the van and towards where the man I'd seen stood, as if giving me a message, "Come."

I realised I'd jumped off a moving car because I heard Mom yelling from the passenger seat of Delphi Strawberry Service van for me to come back.

But I didn't listen, and the car is spiraling downwards, towards safety, towards home, and that was enough for me.

The rain was falling hard on my shoulders and in the distance, I could hear the roaring of the bull-man, and the rumbling of the storm clouds above.
And then I realised I was running up the hill, drawn by a figure of a man on top, like I was Icarus drawn to the warmth of the sun.
But there was no bright flames of sun, and it was dark in the highway of Berkeley and rain was falling hard on my back, matting my hair to my face and wetting my palms and my bow.
I climbed up, crawling on all fours, clinging to the slippery mud and grass, cutting my knees on wild stones and my jeans and shoes caking in the mud.
And once up there, I realised there really was a flame, and I realised why I was drawn to it.
Because I realised it was the sun god, staring at me with dark eyes as he muttered,
"Well, hello. Child of the prophecy."