NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21: The Storm Dissipates
( this chapter is just a bunch of word salad and I made this chapter pretty late so if there are any mistakes, just comment on the paragraph)
The Camaro tore through the night, rain hammering down, windshields half-useless under the storm. Mom's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, but I wasn't watching the road.
The storm wasn't just weather. I could feel it. Every raindrop, every bead of water in the air. They were screaming — pulled, twisted, driven by some force that wanted me dead. It felt like being in a washing machine, except 100 times worse.
Grover kept glancing at me, nervous, but I wasn't listening to him. I stretched out with my senses, like Hekate taught me, like I'd trained for years. And there it was.
"Percy?" Mom's voice was tight, desperate. "Stay with me."
"I am," I said, eyes narrowing. "But we're not outrunning what's behind us."
Grover shifted in his seat. "You… you can feel them already, can't you?"
The storm wasn't natural. My whole body thrummed with the storm's rhythm, the water particles screaming warnings into my brain. The monsters weren't just chasing. They were hunting.
I cracked my knuckles, leaned forward, and muttered, "Fine. Let's see if they like a fight."
The first pulse hit me like a bass drum. Massive. Heavy. The earth itself groaned under its steps. "Minotaur."
Grover flinched. "Y-you can tell already?"
"Please," I muttered. "You think I don't recognize a walking battering ram when the ground itself is echoing? Big, dumb, fast, and once it locks on, it won't stop."
I didn't need to see the creature to know its weak points. The throat. The eyes. The joints at the elbow where its armor plating didn't cover. I'd sparred against constructs of it dozens of times.
But the second pulse wasn't heavy. It was quick. A dozen smaller beats scattering through the rain, too fast, too erratic for mortal animals. My lips pressed into a thin line. "And hellhounds. A pack of them."
Grover made a distressed bleat. Mom's hands tightened on the wheel.
I leaned back, breathing slow through my nose. It wasn't fear anymore. "Alright," I said, almost to myself. "Horned brute plus shadow mutts. Minotaur goes for me, hounds circle for the kill. Simple enough. Break the pack, finish the brute, before the dogs regroup."
———————
"So were you going to admit there was a Mrs. Dodds?"
"Of course."
"Then why—"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."
I blinked at him. "That's your excuse? Keep me in the dark and hope the monsters lose my address? Yeah, flawless strategy. Monsters love respecting boundaries."
Grover winced, but I wasn't done. "You really thought I wouldn't notice a Fury breathing down my neck in math class? Come on. You don't hide something like that with divine smoke. Not from me."
The bellowing came again, closer, and the whole car shook.
"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what? Who's after me?" I said, after all admitting I knew who was after me would be very suspicious.
"Oh, nobody much," Grover muttered, still sulking about the donkey thing. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his bloodthirstiest minions."
I raised an eyebrow. "Right. Just the literal god of the Underworld. Totally casual."
"Grover!" Mom snapped, but her knuckles were white on the wheel.
The car shot down a narrow road, dark farmhouses and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs blurring past.
"Where are we going?" I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea already.
"The summer camp I told you about," Mom said tightly. "The place your father wanted you to go."
"The one you didn't want me near," I said flatly.
"Please, dear," she begged. "This is hard enough. You're in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn," I said.
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover blurted. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when someone's about to die."
I gave him a look. "So let me get this straight. The most terrifying omen in Greek mythology boils down to three grandmas knitting? That's supposed to send me screaming?"
Grover nearly choked. "Percy, this isn't funny!"
"Funny? No. But let's be real if the Fates wanted me gone, I'd already be fertilizer. Them showing up in person just means they wanted me to see them. Which is creepy, sure, but I'm not going to lose my mind over some cosmic knitting club."
Grover let out a panicked bleat. Mom just pressed harder on the gas.
——————————-
There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling BOOM!, and our car exploded.
I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at once. My forehead bounced off the driver's seat.
"Mom!" I said panicked.
"I'm okay…" She said.
We'd swerved off the road, the driver's side crumpled in like an eggshell. Rain hammered in through the cracks. The metallic tang of ozone still stung my nose. Lightning—that had to be it. We'd been blasted straight into the ditch.
Beside me, Grover was a limp heap. Blood streaked his mouth. My chest clenched. "Grover!" I shook his side, already running through everything I'd learned about satyr constitution, healing rates—anything that said he'd pull through.
He groaned, "Food."
Relief hit me like fresh air. Okay. Not dead.
"Percy—" Mom's voice cracked.
I twisted around, and my stomach dropped.
Through the mud-smeared rear windshield, illuminated in a lightning flash, a hulking shadow trudged toward us. Horns caught the light. The rain steamed off its skin like smoke. Every instinct I had screamed one name.
Minotaur.
Not a story. Not a warning in a book. The real thing.
My pulse spiked, but not from surprise. I'd studied its tactics—charging power, brute strength, stupid but relentless. And now it was here, in the flesh.
Mom's tone turned to iron. "Percy. Out. Now."
The driver's side door wouldn't budge. Mine either. Overhead, the twisted roof sizzled from the strike, edges glowing. No exit there.
"Passenger side!" she ordered. "Go. Run. Head for the tree—"
Her voice cut sharp, but my eyes stayed on the silhouette in the rain. The Minotaur was coming closer.
Another flash of lightning lit the smoking hole above us, and I saw the tree she meant: a towering pine at the crest of the nearest hill, tall enough to belong on the White House lawn at Christmas.
"That's the property line," Mom said, voice strained. "Get over it—you'll find a farmhouse down in the valley. Run. Don't look back. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"Mom, you're coming too."
Her face went pale, her eyes carrying that same sadness I'd seen when she stared at the ocean, like she already knew how this ended.
"Come on" I shouted, louder than I meant to. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Food," Grover groaned, still half-conscious.
The figure kept coming, closer now—grunting, snorting, shaking the ground with every step. At first glance it looked like a man holding a blanket over his head, but then the truth settled in. The shaggy mass wasn't a blanket. It was its head. Its enormous, bull-like head. And the points catching the lightning weren't tricks of shadow.
Horns.
"Minotaur," I hissed, the word bitter on my tongue.
"He doesn't want us," Mom said, voice breaking. "He wants you. And I… I can't cross that property line."
The words stabbed deeper than the rain. "But—"
"We don't have time, Percy. Please. Go."
My hands balled into fists. Anger surged hotter than fear. Angry at my mom for saying she couldn't come. Angry at Grover for being half-dead weight. Angry at the monster for daring to chase us down like cattle.
"No," I snapped. "We're going together."
I shoved the passenger door open, rain pelting my face, and scrambled out. "Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."
I didn't wait for her to argue. I hauled Grover out, his body surprisingly light, though every step burned in my muscles. Mom was there in an instant, draping his arm over her shoulder, and together we staggered uphill into waist-high, rain-soaked grass.
I risked a glance back.
And that's when I saw them.
The Minotaur loomed at the base of the hill, steam curling from its nostrils with every thunderous snort. Its red eyes locked on me, and that weight in the air told me exactly what it wanted.
And then I felt the others—slipping in at the edges of the storm. Black, hulking shapes loping on all fours, eyes glowing like coals. Hellhounds. My gut twisted, but training and instinct took over.
[Hydrokinesis Activated]
I reached for the storm. For the rain. For the water in the very air.
It answered.
The downpour surged at my call, twisting around me in a sudden spiral before exploding outward in a violent wave. The blast slammed into the Minotaur and the hounds, knocking them back, scattering them across the mud. The Hellhounds yelped, their flaming eyes blinking out as they hit the ground. Even the Minotaur staggered, bellowing in surprise.
"Stay down," I growled, voice carrying sharper than I expected.
They wouldn't stay down long. I turned to Mom and Grover, raising my hand. My fingers traced quick, practiced motions in the air—circles of blue light flaring as my mana surged. The magic flowed into them, threads of warmth knitting wounds, easing bruises, steadying their breaths.
Mom's eyes widened as strength returned to her limbs, as if she couldn't believe what she was feeling. Grover stirred, mumbling, but his color looked a little less deathly.
"Mom," I said, my voice harder now, like I was forcing myself not to shake. "Take him. Get him over the line. Don't argue."
For a heartbeat, she just stared at me—at the storm wrapping itself protectively around my shoulders, at the sigils faintly against my skin from the healing. Then her lips trembled, and I saw something in her gaze I'd never seen before.
"You remind me of him," she whispered, almost drowned out by the rain. "Your father… you have his strength."
I clenched my jaw and looked away, because if I met her eyes I'd lose focus. The Minotaur was already rising, shaking the rain from its horns, hate burning in its gaze.
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster.
[Observe]
[Asterion – The Minotaur]Level: 80
Title: The Cursed Bull of Tartarus, Beast of the Labyrinth
HP: 52,000 / 52,000
SP: 52,000 / 52,000
MP: 2,000 / 2,000
Stats:
STR: 2,700
AGI: 1,200
VIT: 2,600
INT: 100
CHA: 35
LUC: 50
Abilities:
Horned Charge: Devastating melee attack that knocks back multiple enemies.
Berserker: When HP falls below 25%, gains +50% STR and +30% VIT.
Monster Immortality: Cannot truly die; if defeated, reforms in Tartarus.
Divinity Sensing: Can detect divinity within a high radius.
—————————
He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man Magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny if the rest of him hadn't been nightmare fuel.
Coarse brown hair started at his belly button and thickened up to his shoulders, his neck a mass of muscle and fur leading into that enormous head. The snout stretched as long as my arm, the brass ring in his snotty nostrils catching the lightning's flash. Black eyes glared down at me, cruel and dull, framed by horns that looked sharp enough to gut a truck.
The bull-man bellowed, the sound so loud it rattled in my chest.
But even as my gut twisted, my training screamed at me. I'd studied this thing. Minotaur—brute strength, thick hide, rage-driven. Weak points? Eyes. Ears. Both terrible. Its sense of smell was better than a wolf's, but sight and hearing? Practically a joke.
That explained why it didn't charge yet. It wasn't watching me so much as sniffing me out, steam hissing from its nostrils as it searched.
Then it proved the strength part, grabbing Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof. The chassis creaked, groaned—then the monster hurled it down the road like a shot put. The car skidded a quarter mile in sparks before the gas tank ignited in a booming fireball.
"Yeah," I muttered, squaring myself as the rain gathered at my back. "Blind and deaf. But strong enough to crush me flat."
The Minotaur lunged just as I pushed my senses outward. Every raindrop, every puddle, every thread of moisture in the air pressed against my awareness—I could feel it all, as if the storm itself was a part of me. I drew the water into spiraling streams, flinging them toward the Hellhounds. They yelped and slid across the mud, their claws skidding as icy currents slapped them aside. My mind calculated trajectories, anticipating their movements, keeping them corralled at a distance.
At the same time, the Minotaur's massive fist slammed toward me. I dropped low, feeling the vibrations in the wet earth, tracing the patterns of its momentum. A sudden surge of earth beneath its hooves erupted into a twisting wall of mud and water, staggering the beast. But the effect was brief—its hatred and sheer mass powered it forward, relentless.
I didn't waste a second. Riptide was in my hand, the blade cutting arcs through the rain, water spinning around it like a living extension of my arm. In close quarters, I could sense every twitch of its muscles, every shift in its weight. My strikes weren't wild swings—they were calculated glances, rakes and slashes aimed to slow it, to force it into missteps without letting its rage peak. A glancing blow tore across its forearm, drawing a thin line of blood.
All the while, my left hand danced in the storm, controlling the Hellhounds. Jets of water knocked them off balance, icy currents curled around their paws, and even the mud under their feet seemed to rise against them. Every creature at range was kept in check while I danced with the Minotaur inches away, feeling the earth shake with each step it took, hearing the storm's roar as though it were part of the battle itself.
I could heal, too—tiny threads of mana seeping through the storm's mist. My mind ran the battlefield like a game map: the Minotaur's predictable strength, the Hellhounds' erratic speed, the terrain underfoot, the rain in the air—all resources I controlled.
I didn't pause. The Minotaur lunged again, and I met it head-on, Riptide spinning in my grip, a whip of water coiling around it as I stomped the ground and sent another tremor rolling through the mud.
[Create Earthquake Activated]
The Hellhounds snapped at the water jets, but they were being held at bay, corralled like animals in a pen I controlled.
For a brief moment, I glanced over my shoulder. My mother and Grover were moving steadily, about a hundred meters from the property line, Grover draped over Mom's shoulder. Relief surged, but only for an instant. Something felt… off. Not immediately visible, not audible—but my instincts screamed at me. There was a shift in the air, a subtle weight that didn't belong to the storm, the mud, or the monsters.
I couldn't put my finger on it. The hairs on my arms bristled. My heartbeat slowed, focusing, scanning, analyzing. Everything about the terrain, the water, the rain—all of it I understood. But that feeling… that pressure, like a shadow pressing against the edges of my senses, was new.
I blinked, refocusing on the Minotaur. My mother and Grover were safe… for now. But that prickling sense at the back of my mind refused to fade. Something was coming. Something I couldn't see. And I had the creeping suspicion that when it arrived, it wouldn't just be a Minotaur or a pack of Hellhounds.
The Minotaur charged again, horns lowered, eyes blazing with fury. I let it reach me. Let it grab me. Its massive hands clamped down on my shoulders, crushing, but I didn't struggle. Every fiber of my being tensed in anticipation.
"Perfect," I muttered under my breath. With a surge of mana, I slammed my palms into the ground, and the earth roared to life beneath us. The Minotaur's legs buckled as fissures ripped through the mud, shaking it violently. I could feel the tremor running up its arms, grinding its hold tighter—but that only made my next move more effective.
Riptide was in my grip, spinning fast enough to slice air itself. I swung, water curling around the blade like a whip, latching onto the Minotaur's massive head and shoulders. My free hand reached up, controlling the rain, the puddles, every trace of moisture in the storm. The Minotaur stumbled, disoriented, each movement measured by my instincts and calculations.
And then I struck. A single, precise slash across its neck, guided by water and earth alike. The head came off with a sickening crack, tumbling into the mud, steam hissing from the wound. Its body collapsed, a mountain of fur, muscle, and rage, twitching briefly before going still.
From the distance, the Hellhounds surged forward, snarling and snapping. I smiled faintly. Raising both hands, I wove the rain, the mud, and the puddles around their heads, spinning the water into tight, unbreakable coils. Their yelps rose in terror as the water hardened, ice forming instantly, encasing their skulls. A sharp twist, a squeeze, and the ice crushed them silently but completely, leaving nothing but frozen husks behind.
——————————
I felt it before I saw it. Mom. Being dragged. The Hellhound had her, teeth sunk into her coat, pulling her from the shadow that shimmered unnaturally, bending the air around it.
I surged forward, using every molecule of moisture around me, every droplet of rain, every puddle in the mud, to water travel right next to the beast. I moved so fast it felt like slicing through the storm itself.
[Hydroknesis Sub-Skill: Water Travel Activated]
Too late.
The shadow swallowed the Hellhound—and Mom along with it—before I could reach them. Rage exploded in me.
"You piece of—" I started, claws of water and air forming around my hands, ready to tear the thing apart.
Then I remembered Grover, right next to me, frozen with terror. My head snapped toward him. "Grover! Get up!" I grabbed him, practically throwing him over my shoulder.
With a pulse of Hydrokinesis, I sent us both skimming across the rain-slick grass toward the property line.
Grover's furry arms clung to me, and his legs kicked as we tumbled forward, but I could feel the ground under our feet, the wind whipping, the storm still screaming—but at least he was safe.
My mother was gone, swallowed by the shadow, and my rage boiled higher than the storm itself.
———————————-
The property line looming ahead, a thin boundary between the storm-swept hill and the farmhouse below. I didn't slow. Grover was slung over my shoulder, his furry arms dangling as he mumbled incoherently, half-asleep, half-panicked.
"Hang on, you little goat," I muttered, ignoring the rain on my face. Every step carried us closer to safety—but I could feel him, the Hellhound dragging my mother, the unmistakable presence of Asterion. His bulk, his movements, even through the shadow, were clear to me—every droplet of rain and puddle of water vibrating with his terrible energy.
The moment we passed the boundary the difference was obvious, the storm, whoever made it cannot pass through the boundary, but weirdly, I could still feel the water like I could drag it into the boundary with no resistance.
We skidded onto a wooden porch. I set Grover down, and he scrambled upright, trembling but alive. I crouched, letting the storm howl around me, hands brushing the water on the porch as I reached out with my senses.
"You think you can drag her into your little shadow playground, Asterion?" I growled into the wind, not needing to see him. "I'll find you, and I swear I'll make you regret every step you've taken."
Grover peeked up at me, wide-eyed. "Percy… you're… scary when you're like this."
"Good," I muttered through clenched teeth. "I want him to be scared."
Then I forced myself to calm. To sleep.
I let my body slump, dropping Grover gently onto a porch as I eased onto the wet boards. I let my eyes close, letting the rain soak my hair and coat my skin, hiding the storm of power coiling just beneath. Every instinct screamed at me to strike, to tear at the ground and rip them out of hell—but I knew better. After all. There are people less than 20 m away.
If they thought I was weak, tired… they would let their guard down. They would make a mistake.
I even let a soft groan escape my lips, as if I were too drained to care, too exhausted to fight. The water around me trembled with the illusion of fatigue, my control hiding in plain sight.
Beneath the surface, my senses remained razor-sharp. Every drop of rain, every eddy in the puddles, every vibration in the air carried information about the shadow, about Asterion's movements, about the Hellhound dragging my mother.
I was sleeping, yes—but only on the surface. Every molecule of water was a sentry, every gust of air a scout. And when they try anything, I would wake.