Chapter Text
Kronos was waiting for them; his back turned to the Throne Room’s oversized doors. Backbiter hung loosely in his grip, the dual-colored metal glinting in the dying embers of the hearth. At the sound of his and Annabeth’s steps, the titan turned around, a wry smile splayed across Luke’s frustratingly good-looking features.
“Ah, Jackson.” Kronos’ smile widened, instantly putting Percy on edge. First rule of bad guys, never trust the smile, “Good of you to come.”
“Nice of you to wait.” Percy replied, cautiously, eyeing Ethan who stood to the side, watching them with a deep frown on his face, “Makes me wonder why you did? Decided to think about that therapy I told you about?”
“No, no. Far from it.” Kronos replied, settling both hand on Backbiter as he placed it before him, its point digging into the marble floor, “Rather, I had to try one last time.”
“Try one last time to what?” Annabeth probed, blonde hair swinging as she mirrored Percy in looking for any surprises the titan had laid around the room. To be honest, Percy had no idea what he would do if there was one. They were already outgunned – outsworded – outweaponed – outmatched as it was.
“To see if Jackson has finally learnt to make his own choices.” Kronos answered her, though his blue eyes were focused solely on Percy, “And overcome his greatest weakness.”
“Puberty?” Percy jabbed, before a stray thought entered his mind, “… Do Titans go through pub –“
“Your fatal flaw, Jackson.” Kronos’ smile morphed momentarily into a strained smile, “You know that is what I speak of. The very thing that has kept you fighting for this hopeless cause since you entered this world.”
“You know last I checked.” Percy started, ignoring Annabeth’s look of warning to not piss of the currently mostly agreeable and most importantly not-violent immortal, “I’m pretty sure we’ve won every time.”
“And for that I must commend you.” It was getting pretty weird to hear the older, more noble tone come from Luke’s mouth. It really didn’t fit the guy. Like pineapple on pizza. Yes, Percy stood by his statement, “Very few people throughout history have achieved so much. But that is why I believe that you can overcome your flaw.”
Percy stepped back as Kronos whirled around to look towards his father’s throne, lifting Riptide marginally, but the titan did nothing but continued talking, “Loyalty is good. Desire even. However, the undeserving loyalty you hold towards your father and the rest of my children? That is what holds you back from greatness, from forever leaving behind your mark on this wor –“
Percy stepped forward, raising Riptide in a ready position as the titan slowly moved towards his father’s throne. He didn’t trust Kronos not to destroy the gods throne as soon as he was close. No matter what he said about giving Percy one last time to join him, but deep inside, he knew that wasn’t the only reason he stepped forward. “I’ll stop you right there, Gramps. No matter what you say, I won’t turn your back on my family, on my friends.” He refused to look at the girl to his side, “So, I would really love it if you just decided to give Luke back his body and go on holiday to Tartarus. All inclusive.”
Kronos stared at him, honestly unnerving Percy slightly. He was used to the unnatural, but Kronos’ golden eyes were… different. They were a constant reminder that what he looked at, no matter how human he seemed on the outside, was an undying being of unimaginable power, one that more often than not wanted, to kill him.
“Very well then.” Kronos sighed, a familiar disappointed sigh. Honestly, Kronos should become a teacher. He knew exactly how to make you feel as if you were more disappointing than a bee allergic to honey. Percy refocused on the immortal in front of him as he hefted Backbiter into a familiar stance, a stance that made Percy feel slightly better. Luke was still in there.
“We stick together.” He heard Annabeth whisper to the side, the blonde standing to the side, knife drawn. Percy felt his heart swell with warmth. No matter all the bad things that had happened in his life, Annabeth made it better. She had stood by against him through anything. Against gods, monsters, homework and now Kronos, “None of your saving people thing as well. If you let Kronos destroy the thrones to save me, I’ll never forgive you.”
“We both know that’s a lie.” He said sending one last smile to her.
And then all of Hades broke loose.
Percy and Kronos met in the middle of the throne room, both men pouncing to each other in a flurry of steps, Riptide clashing against Backbiter in a shower of sparks. The force of the Kronos’ blade almost sent Percy to his knees, the pure power shaking his bones like a Chihuahua with sock.
Percy gritted his teeth, surging forward and knocking Kronos’ blade back, allowing him to thrust Riptide forward at the Titan’s stomach. Luke was smart and knew how to mess with people’s heads he would have either chosen his mortal spot in the most obvious or least obvious point. Importantly, he had to find Kronos’ weak point fast, or else…
Kronos spun out of the way, bringing Backbiter around in a slash, forcing Percy to lunge to the side. It wouldn’t break his skin, but it would send him flying. All thought of trying to stay with Annabeth flew from his mind. Kronos stepped forward, close enough to Percy to make Riptide too unwieldy to use. Still clenching his sword, Percy smashed his elbow into his grandfather’s face, taking distinct pleasure at the sight of the deity stumbling back in shock.
Not giving Kronos time to recover, Percy charged forward. The startled titan recovered quickly, meeting Percy’s blade with his own, backpedalling as he tried to regain his footing, but Percy gave him not time. In the corner of his eye, he spied Annabeth fighting Ethan across the room. He couldn’t do anything to help her, so all he could do was trust that she would win and he knew she would.
Ducking under a slash, Percy shoulder charged Kronos, consciously keeping his mortal spot pointed away from the. Ethan would have definitely told his master of Percy’s weak spot, so Kronos couldn’t even be given one chance.
Slamming into the personification of time, Percy gulped slightly at the brief brightening of the immortal’s golden eyes as they both fell to the floor, or rather as Percy slowly floated through air, feeling as if he was falling through a sea of honey.
Cursing inwardly, he pulled on the water inside Bessie’s pod, feeling that familiar tugging in his gut. Time resumed back to normal as a wave crashed into Kronos, breaking the titan’s concentration. Instinctively, Percy gasped as he hit the floor, still not used to the Achilles’ curse.
Laying still for a second, Percy rolled out the way as a foot appeared in his vision, hurtling towards his face at laws of nature breaking speed. Hearing the marble crack as Kronos stamped on the floor, Percy instinctively thanked his father that he hadn’t been hit by that. He liked his head in the shape it already was.
But now came the hard part, especially since Percy sucked at wrestling. Twisting on the floor so as to take out Kronos’ feet under him, he leaped forward to try and pin the titan to the floor. Instantly, Kronos slipped out from his grasp, turning the tables on Percy exactly like how that kid in middle school used to do in Uno. Percy felt himself unable to move as Kronos pinned him, slowly but surely forcing Percy in a position where his back would be unprotected. He struggled and pulled at the nearby water, but his concentration was broken as Kronos twisted his arm painfully. Apparently, the Achilles’ curse didn’t protect him from everything.
Suddenly, Kronos was ripped off him as a third person entered the melee. With a grunt, Ethan threw Kronos to the side, sending the blonde haired, golden-eyed titan on an unplanned trip to about a yard away, where Annabeth was already slashing her dagger at him.
Stunned, Percy gazed up at Ethan, who stared at him stonily, his lone eye showing nothing until the son of Nemesis only nodded.
Then with, a roar, Ethan turned and charged at Kronos. Percy forced himself to rise to his feet, slower than he would have liked, hand searching for Riptide and heart swelling in relief as he gripped it. Coming to his feet, he looked at Kronos, only for his blood to run cold at the sight that greeted him.
Kronos has already overpowered Annabeth, as Percy spied her lying to the side without her knife, breathing loudly as she clutched her stomach and wheezed. But only a few yards away, Kronos stood, his sword pierced through Ethan’s stomach.
“I had hoped that we had dealt with this.” Kronos muttered to Ethan who was gasping wetly, but he could be heard throughout the throne room, even as Percy couldn’t take his eyes off Backbiter’s bloody tip as rivulets of blood fell on the floor, “Your guilt over the death of all these demigods is meaningless. It would have happened even without you, and now you have forced my hand. Why couldn’t you just wait until I killed Jackson? You’ve ruined my return!”
Percy tore his gaze away from Ethan’s wound at Kronos’ words. Ruined his return? What was Kronos talking about? But his heart almost stopped at the golden light that started to shine under Kronos’ skin, steam rising from his reddening skin. A shine that Percy had seen many times.
Kronos was about to assume his true form, the all-powerful form that all gods and titans had and which was powerful to turn everyone into the room into ash in a second.
Percy moved without thinking, the roar of the sea in his ears as he blasted forward. He crashed forward at speeds unimaginable to a normal human, a maelstrom of water gushing out from behind him as he raised Riptide. With a sickening rip, he speared Riptide through one of the golden spots on the surprised titan’s body. The Achilles’ curse had been burned away by Kronos’ true form!
Raising his head, he looked Kronos in the eyes as he pushed, sending Riptide forward as much as he could, fighting against the overwhelming heat that radiated from Kronos’ body. A heat that only continued to grow warmer.
Instinct told Percy to back away, so Percy followed his gut, attempting to jump backwards and get away from what was quickly becoming an out-of-control situation. But he was stopped by Kronos wrapping his arms around Percy, even as gold blood poured from his noise, splashing onto Percy and melting straight through his shirt onto his skin.
Percy tried to wriggle free as the blood ate away at his unbreakable skin. An unstoppable force meeting an equally stubborn wall. He headbutted Kronos, attempting to force the titan to loosen his arms and when that didn’t work, he continued ripping Riptide upwards, through the leather armour and flesh. But Kronos wouldn’t let him go as the Achilles curse gave away, allowing the golden blood to burn through his skin.
The pain seemed to reach his very core as his body superheated, any water in their surroundings evaporating. Percy screamed in his mind, his mouth not responding to his mental command to do the same.
“Not getting… away this time.” Kronos laughed, spitting warm golden blood over Percy’s face, not that he could feel it as everything seemed to disappear when Percy locked gazes with Annabeth.
Her blonde hair, dirtied from battle was matted with sweat as crawled towards him, eyes racing with an emotion Percy never wanted to see on her again. Terror. Forgetting the pain, the heat and the growing knowledge of what was about to happen, Percy shouted at her through his eyes, telling her to leave, to get away. To leave him and survive.
And as the world exploded into a golden light, Kronos laughing into his ear, he saw Annabeth mouth the words he had always wanted to hear from her even as her tear-filled eyes begged him to do the impossible.
Then the world faded into black.
XXXXXXXXX
Percy was floating in a void of black. Well, a void of mostly black with red, glowing streaks covering it, but that was pedantic. Yes his eyes were closed, which explained the black, although the red was still new.
Now him waking up floating happened quite a bit. Some mornings he would wake up to find himself and his bed floating on the lake with a bunch of naiads giggling as they draped seaweed over him. Even now he could hear them despite his pounding head threatening to drown out everything else.
He groaned as he tried and failed to raise a hand to rub at his throbbing temple. Whatever he had done last night must have been crazy. Percy had never been hungover, but if he had to guess what it felt like, this was it. His head was aching like never before and his throat hurt like a Mrs Dodds. However, despite all this, in the background he could feel a faint sense of… emptiness. Yeah, that was the best way to describe it. It was as if something was missing, something very important.
Inwardly cursing, he tried to turn over, only to gasp as a blinding pain emanated from his side. Moaning, he cursed the gods – after all they had to be good for something – and started to open his eyes. The naiads’ beeping was getting pretty annoying…
Wait. Beeping?
“About time you figured it out, Jackson.”
Percy figuratively and literally tried to jumped out of his mortal body as his heart almost stopped at the voice in his head. Dimly, he could hear something crash to the floor but he ignored it as he focused on the more pertinent issue. Who the Hades was in his head?
“Really Jackson? I would think that after all the time we spent together that you would be able to recognise me now. How many times have we tried to kill each other?”
Percy froze at the voice’s words. So, whoever was in his head had tried to kill him before. Good, using that info meant he could whittle down the… suspects. Although, now that he thouught about it, very few people hadn’t tried to kill him at some point.
“You gotta narrow that down a bit buddy.” He snarked at the voice, falling back to his default defensive position. Annoy them till they gave up. He was proud to say it had never failed him. Immortals had surprisingly little patience for living so long.
“Apologies, Jackson.” The voice snarked back, sarcasm evident in his face, which actually helped Percy quite a bit. Sarcasm and Greek deities didn’t really get along, “I forgot who I was dealing with. Perhaps a demonstration will help more.”
A demonstration? How would the voice demonstrate anything? But Percy’s question was answered when the black void with red streaks flowing through it that he was floating in suddenly turned into a bright gold, momentarily blinding Percy and even worse informing him of who was living for free in his head.
“Nope!” He shouted, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to ignore the golden light that pounded on his eyelids, “I refuse! You are hereby evicted! Get out!”
“Oh yes. Why didn’t I think of that?” Kronos drawled, “Let me just leave, forgot to destroy your father’s throne you see. I should go back and do that.”
“You do that.” Percy muttered, trying to go back to sleep so that when he woke up Kronos would be gone and that empty feeling would disappear.
“Do you think I haven’t tried?” Kronos roared, “What makes you think I want to be stuck in your head?”
Percy wanted to smash his head against something, a wall, his hands, Kronos’ face. Anything to get rid of him. Maybe Annabeth could help…
“Now you remember.” Kronos said, the disappointment in his tone immeasurable. But Percy ignored the titan, focusing instead on the memories flooding through his brain. The throne room, the fight, Ethan’s death, Annabeth.
“What did you do!” He screamed at Kronos in his head, even as he started to force his eyes to open, ever aware of the increasingly loud beeping to his right.
“That is a question I cannot answer.” Kronos replied, the golden void fading back into black as his voice lost some of its strength, “But even I know that something is wrong.”
Percy finally opened his eyes, only for a wave of light to overwhelm them. Blinking away the spots, he frantically looked around, every additional inch of the room only adding to the panic that was flooding his body.
He was in a nice enough room. To his left, sunshine bled through a large window, the view beyond it easing him somewhat. He could recognise New York from a glance. But the rest of the room terrified him. To his right stood IV that fed a see-through liquid to him, snaking about his arm that lay weakly on the side, Percy’s most strenuous efforts to move it barely resulting in the twitch of a finger. To his revulsion, Percy realised that the IV was being fed through his mouth, which explained why his throat hurt so much.
To the side of the IV stood a heart monitor, with the number growing increasingly larger. The bed he lay on had white sheets and he could see that all he was wearing was a blue gown, one that could be recognised anywhere.
He was in a hospital.
But that wasn’t what terrified him. Hospitals he was familiar with, even if he was surprised he wasn’t being treated at camp. But that emptiness inside of him. The moment he had opened his eyes it had exploded, encompassing his entire being and threatening to drown him.
Percy struggled against it, forcing himself not to fall into it and to focus on something else.
“Doctor! In here!” A woman’s shout broke through the emptiness, “He’s awake!”
“-son! Jackson!” Kronos’ shouted, drawing his thoughts away from the terror that gripped his body, “You need to calm down!”
“What… is this?” He gasped in his head to the titan, wanting to clutch his heart as it seemed to yearn for something. In the corner of his blurry vision, he could see the door fly open and a white gowned woman run in before freezing when she saw him.
“I can’t say with complete surety.” Kronos said morosely, “But I feel it as well. That sense of emptiness. That sense of longing. We are part of the Greek pantheon boy. We are all connected to a larger being, connected to every other immortal, monster and demigod in the world. They make up part of us, even if we aren’t aware of it. But… this feeling.”
“The gods are gone.” Percy muttered, but inside he knew that wasn’t all, “All my friends…”
“Are gone.” Kronos finished for him, “It seems that somehow the entire Greek world has disappeared.”
No! No! They couldn’t all be gone. Kronos had to be lying. He had to be trying to trick Percy. Yeah, this was all a trick to try and get Percy out of the way. No! It wasn’t true…
Blinking away the tears that threatened to fall from his eyes, he stopped that train of thought, that emptiness coming back in full force, accompanied by that sense of realisation.
It was true.
The doctor finally seemed to wake up, darting forward to check the machines to his right and firing off a rapid assortment of orders to the nurses that rushed in after her. Percy ignored them all, the reality of the situation setting in.
He was all alone.
“Well, thank you for completely ignoring my existence.”
Where was the closest bridge?