Reincarnated

Chapter 12

Panic set in almost immediately. I thrashed around, but the mud started drying up in a case around me. 

All of a sudden I heard this sniffing sound, but it was accompanied by ferocious growls that send shivers down my spine.

OH, NO! The Minotaur is right here!  I knew it. I was going to die. No! My second life was too short!

All of a sudden I felt weightless again. My seatbelt broke, hurtling me towards the seat in front of me. 

The Minotaur had flipped over the car. Sparks flashed everywhere around me.

I looked around and noticed that the mud around me had loosened. I tried pushing my hands against it. It cracked and euphoria filled me. It crumbled down and I immediately fell down. I had been upside down with only the mud holding me up. 

I tried to calm myself down. Why did the Minotaur not just sniff me out and kill me? I guess the mud protected me in some weird way. 

 I crawled my way out of the car, but spots kept floating into my vision. I felt my head and when I looked at my fingers I saw the trunk hanging open. I grabbed our bags. We would probably be needing them. 

I wonder what Percy is doing right now. All of a sudden my head starts throbbing harder and my vision goes black. 

I open my eyes, except I am no longer in the same place I was before. I am like a ghost floating,  watching but unmoving. I am high above a hill. I look down to see a group of four hurrying up. they are all scratched and bruised. 

I almost immediately recognized the group to be Annabeth, Grover, Thalia, and Luke. Grover was struggling to keep his fake feet on. 

"Just take them off, Grover!" Annabeth yelled at him. Grover took off his shoes revealing his hoofs and bounded ahead.

There was a horde of monsters following them. I looked and could see several dracaenae, empousa, and hellhounds following them. I could also see the Minotaur chasing them. 

They reached the top of the hill. The camp was right in front of them. Some people were noticing the commotion happening.

Thalia turned around. "Go." She told the others.

Annabeth, Grover, and Luke turned toward her. 

"No! We aren't leaving you here!" Annabeth cried out.

"We can take them together Thalia." Luke tried. 

"No! They'll kill you. It's my fault for attracting so many monsters, so I'll be the one to get rid of them! Go to safety!" Thalia shouted as she pushed the three of them away from her. She then turned her mace canister into aegis, took out her spear, and charged the monsters. 

She did pretty well, taking out about a third of the small army following them. But it was on the minotaur that she suffered big injuries. The Minotaur had charged her, but instead of trying to run to the side and avoid it Thalia had moved her shield in front of her. the impact had sent a huge jot through her arm, effectively breaking her shield arm. Cursing, Thalia put away her shield seeing as it was too heavy for her now-broken arm to hold.

She killed about 15 other lesser-monsters before one got in a fatal blow on her. She crumpled to the ground on top of the hill. All of a sudden a lightning bolt came down and hit her, replacing where she was with a  huge pine tree.

I blinked and the scene changed. I saw Percy climbing the same hill with mom, holding Grover. The pine tree was only a few yards away from them. The Minotaur closed in on them. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover.

 "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said." She shouted at Percy. Oh gosh, was this happening right now?

Percy sprinted to the left, turned, and the Minotaur bore down on my twin. He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at Percy's chest. The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I was stuck in some vision. Percy could die! But he won't, I tried calming myself. Otherwise, the Great prophecy (#1) wouldn't work. But what if I changed that!? The Fates themselves told me I could change the future. Oh no, oh no! 

I held my breath, and at the last moment, Percy jumped to the side. I exhaled. I looked just in time to see the minotaur turning towards mom. No!

Spots fill my vision and all of a sudden I was back by the car. I staggered. They were going to die!

I grabbed the suitcases and ran up the hill as fast as I could with blackspots forming my vision. I reached the crest of the hill. I stopped running when I realized what was happening. 

I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged mom. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told Percy to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to getaway. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. 

"Mom!" Percy yelled.

She managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" 

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, turning into light, a shimmering golden form as if she were a holographic projection.  A flash of light later she was gone.

Mom died! No, she was kidnapped, I reminded myself. Mom was kidnapped by Hades. 

"No!" I shouted. No! She wasn't dead, and she wasn't going to die soon. But that didn't help. I couldn't believe what just happened. Mom was gone, and it was my fault for not being able to do anything. 

Percy turned toward me, eyes wide with shock. 

The Minotaur started circling Grover. No, another person was not going to die if I could do something. 

"Hey! Ground Beef! Come and get it! Unless you think you're too much of a  wimp to defeat one puny girl!" I shouted. 

I put my back to Thalia's pine tree. Sorry cousin, this might hurt, I thought mentally. 

The stupid-cow-with-a-human-body charged me. I was going to fling my self to the side but he was swinging his arms around him to catch me so I changed my plan. Instead of dodging I focused my anger and jumped at the last possible moment. I grabbed his horn and used it as a pole to turn myself around mid-air. I landed on his neck as he slammed into the tree.

The monster shook himself and bucked, trying to get me off. I had to hold onto his horn to make sure I didn't fall off. If I did I would have died a short and painful death from his hooves. 

On the ground, Grover started groaning, attracting the bull-man's attention. He turned toward Grover and started pawing the ground in preparation for a charge. I knew that I had to distract the Minotaur somehow so I pulled. I was out of ideas so I just pulled back on his horn, hoping I would make him unbalanced or something. 

Percy had started shouting insults at him, making him angrier by the second. The Minotaur tried to charge Percy but then snap! The horn I was pulling on came off. The monster screamed, shaking, and I flew off him, the horn landing next to Perce. I hit the ground a few yards away, my vision fading. I saw Percy grab the horn and in a fit of rage, stab it in the side of the Minotaur as it charged me, effectively killing it. The horn had flown into the air like a rocket.

A sharp pain erupted in my stomach, evoking a scream from my mouth. I looked to see that the horn had fallen onto my abdomen. My breathing slowed, as the adrenaline faded. 

Everything turned dark.