This story is tagged PWPN: Plot With Porn. It will have graphic sex scenes, but they won't be every chapter, nor will they be the entirety of the story.
I hope you enjoy!
The world was standing still.
Everyone always says time feels slower in important moments, but this time it might've literally been true. Luke Castellan stood in front of me. His armor was pulled down, exposing his side, and he held a knife in his hands. I'd given him that knife, and bet my life and the lives of everyone I loved in the process.
Luke had pleaded for this. Now more than ever, his skin was flashing gold as the near-omnipotent Titan lord crammed into his chest threatened to break free. We only had one chance— for Luke to bury the knife in the weak point that only he and his twisted master knew, taking both of them down forever.
"Thank you," Luke said. He held the knife out, point turned back toward himself. He could finish everything with one move.
He didn't.
Standing in front of him, I caught the look in his eyes before anyone else. Fear. Veins popped into view along his arms as they strained to bring the weapon home, but it was as if his hands were anchored to the air. Something glowed. Patch by patch, the skin on his knuckles and fingers broke off and fluttered to the floor, leaving vaguely hand-shaped balls of pure golden light in their place.
"Thank you," Luke said again, but it wasn't Luke's this time. "I had my doubts if you would be so stupid. I am glad to see they were unfounded. Always outdoing expectations, Jackson."
I tried to respond. I couldn't move my lips. So much should've been going on inside my head, but instead nothing was. This plan had to work! If it didn't—
We were doomed.
Kronos laughed an awful laugh. "You didn't truly think my servant could resist me, did you? I admit, he put up a good effort… But I am beyond effort. I am beyond mortals, and their last ditch attempts. Put simply, I am beyond you."
I had to move. I needed to. Every muscle in my body screamed. Somehow, I managed to stagger back.
Annabeth was on the ground. She was bleeding. I had to get her away. I stumbled toward her with no idea what I'd do once I got there. I wasn't a god. I couldn't teleport others or help them fly or turn them invisible.
Thud!
I almost fell, but didn't. Something warm ran down my back. Unlike the chill that had been creeping over me, my chest felt deadly warm. I didn't need to look or turn around to know what happened.
Kronos had buried Annabeth's knife in my back.
"Die slowly, little hero," he said. "I want you to witness what happens next. You won't forget it for the rest of your short time."
A voice screamed. It was Luke's, full of pain and helplessness. As quick as it came it was gone, drowned under a cacophony of malicious chuckles. The entire throne room glowed with an impossible level of light, as if Apollo's chariot had crash-landed behind me. Backbiter flew out of the hearth where it had landed, but just like its master the sword was gone. As it flew it changed shape. The handle lengthened, the blade curving into an arch. By the time it reached its master's hands it had become a scythe as tall as I was.
"Olympus is the heart of the gods' power." Even Kronos's voice had changed. Now it sounded as if there were ten of him, all speaking in unison. "What do you think happens if it's destroyed?"
He paused, pretending he wasn't the only one in the room capable of speech.
"They lose," he said. "They disappear. And you, little heroes? You are going to disappear with them."
A whoosh of displaced air marked his first swing.
All around the room that bright golden light flickered. Kronos was in his true form now. The thrones shook. Fissures formed in their marble surfaces. A corner cracked off of Apollo's, dropping to the floor.
Kronos swung again.
The fissures widened. Some broke apart, revealing gaps. Precious stones shattered across Aphrodite's. The skulls built into Ares' throne broke into fragments. A miasma was leaking into the room. My eyes couldn't even see it, but the divine part of me could feel it. The air in the room was turning to raw energy, bathing our skins and bodies.
Kronos swung a final time.
I can't tell you what happened. It simply wasn't something any mortal was ever meant to see. I'm sure the thrones broke. I'm sure Kronos laughed. I'm sure, somewhere, the Olympians collapsed, the heart of their power completely ruined. But in that moment all I experienced was a blinding flash and the feeling of my body coming apart at a molecular level.
No, even that isn't quite right. It was deeper than that. The parts of me didn't just come apart, the very concept of me did. For an instant there was no Percy Jackson, not in this world or the next. I wasn't in the Underworld. I wasn't on Olympus. I simply wasn't. When it passed, and I snapped back into being, something was different. I could see.
I spotted rubble that used to be the thrones, but I could see more than that. Behind each throne was a palace— all completely wrecked. Aphrodite's, pink and white and bedecked with arches, was shattered and burning. My father's, which looked eerily like his home in Atlantis, was collapsing before my eyes.
These things weren't actually there. I was sure, because I'd been inside the throne room a dozen times and never seen anything like them. But they were real. I knew that from a single glance. This was what each Olympian's power really looked like, the true versions of the thrones that mortals could never see.
And they were crumbling.
Only one wasn't destroyed. It wasn't a palace, or villa, or castle like any of the others. It was a cozy one room cottage no bigger than my family's cabin at Montauk. It was on fire, but that wasn't damaging it. The whole building glowed as invitingly as the hearth it hovered over.
Suddenly, the door snapped open. Warm wind rushed out. I felt it caress my body, dragging me up like a helping hand. More rushed to Annabeth and Grover where they lay on the floor. Kronos hadn't yet noticed, too busy laughing as he celebrated his victory.
"Go!" a woman's voice whispered urgently in my head.
The cottage's windows shattered. More air burst out. The pleasant sensation strengthened. I noticed distantly that my feet were leaving the ground.
Then I was flying.
Annabeth and Grover were moving too, on either side of me. All of us were hurtling away from the throne room, passing straight through stone walls.
"No!"
Kronos had noticed what was happening. I saw him now— and I mean really saw him for the first time.
With the disguises stripped away he no longer looked even slightly human. He was at least thirty feet tall, with pure golden light for skin. His face was featureless except for a mouth. There was a gap where his heart should've been in the shape of two triangles touching at the tips. Golden particles alternated between drifting down and floating up between them, as if an hourglass had been carved into his abdomen. He hurled out his hands. Energy rocketed after us.
We passed Thalia, still trapped beneath the statue that crushed her legs, and she was whisked along beside us. There wasn't a destination, but I knew where we were being taken. Away. Anywhere but here.
I actually thought we were going to make it.
The threads Kronos sent after us were slowing down. I knew, instinctively, that they wouldn't be able to follow us off of Olympus, although I had no idea how I could know that.
At the very last second, we slowed down.
Whatever Hestia did was still fighting just as hard to carry us away. Time itself was what changed. Kronos' energy caught Annabeth and Grover.
It couldn't get a grip on them, but it didn't have to. They were knocked aside, launched off in directions I couldn't even guess, plummeting toward the unforgiving Earth. Just like that they were gone. It's all it took.
Kronos' laugh echoed around us, still with that awful choire-like quality. It thundered through my brain. I wanted to cover my ears.
But there was something else I wanted more. I wanted to fight back. I want to hit him. To hurt him, and claw even the tiniest bit of retribution back for everything he had done.
I might've screamed. Something impossibly hot erupted from my arms. It was like bathing in the lava under Mount. St. Helens, except no matter how much poured out this never hurt. I blasted away the tendrils chasing us, and whatever I'd done kept going.
It looked like a luminescent stream of water, one that crossed the distance to the throne room faster than I could follow. Kronos' laugh cut away in favor of a screech filled with raw pain.
The time dilation around us snapped. Thalia and I fired off, carried away from Olympus. We soared out over open ocean, and I felt consciousness fading. I saw a speck on the horizon, like an island, before my eyes couldn't stay open any longer.
The last thing flashing through my mind was an image of Grover and Annabeth, torn away and fading, as the world went dark.