Destroy with a hero's final breath

Recently I reread PJOO in an attempt to deal with my newly-diagnosed ADHD. This was a spur-of-the-moment thing I cooked up, and I don't know yet if it's going to be a one-shot, a two-shot, or a three-shot, or whatever. Maybe if you guys bribe me with a year's supply of pepperoni pizza (as Percy puts it in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes), and maybe if my ADHD cooperates, then I'll continue adding bits and pieces to this story. Hope you guys like it!

(Annabeth's POV of Chapter 11: I Set Myself on Fire. The Battle of the Labyrinth)

Somebody was running towards me, breathing heavily. It was Percy, all right, and he bolted right past my hideout without noticing me, a wild look in his eyes. I'd seen that look a million times before, and I grimaced. Not again, I thought.

"Annabeth!" he yelled, right next to me.

"Shhh!" I hissed furiously, clamping my hand over his mouth and wrestling him down behind the big bronze cauldron from which I'd been spying on the strange creatures. "You want to get us killed?"

I scowled at him as he took my cap off. "Percy, what is your problem?" Do you have a death wish? Why do you have to ruin everything?

"We're going to have company!" he told me, giving me a rough summary of what had transpired — he'd gone after me and happened on a monster orientation class, and now the telkhines were hot on our heels. "We're going to have to make a run for it," he said finally. I wanted to rage at him for not bothering to wait for me and mucking up my plans, but we didn't have time for that. Besides, there were more pressing matters at hand.

"So that's what they are," I muttered, cursing myself internally for my slowness. "Telkhines. I should have known. And they're making…well, look."

Percy and I looked over our cauldron at the sea demons working intently on a blade.

"The blade is almost complete," one said. "It needs another cooling in blood to fuse the metals."

"Aye," a second said. "It shall be even sharper than before."

"What's that?" Percy wondered aloud. I shook my head at him, thinking hard. "They keep talking about fusing metals," I said slowly. Then something dawned on me. "I wonder—"

"They were talking about the greatest Titan weapon," he interrupted. "And they…and they said they made my father's trident." He looked deeply disturbed about it. I wanted to go back and finish what I had been saying, but something in his voice caught my attention. It was almost as if …as if he was doubting the gods.

"The telkhines betrayed the gods," I said, but carefully. "They were practicing dark magic. I don't know what, exactly, but Zeus banished them to Tartarus."

"With Kronos."

I nodded, and suddenly remembered that this was no place to talk. "We have to get out —"

BOOM! Telkhines burst forth, bumping into each other and growling furiously, but they would see us soon enough. I steeled myself to grab Percy's hand, and made my move. But I didn't realise that he was still holding my cap, so my hand met his midway and unintentionally took hold of the cap, which he'd pushed towards me the same second I'd moved to grab his hand. "Put your cap back on," he said almost calmly, like we weren't about to be overrun by a pack of monsters. "Get out!"

"What?" I couldn't believe my ears. "No! I'm not leaving you!"

"I've got a plan. I'll distract them. You can use the metal spider — maybe it'll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what's going on."

"But you'll be killed!" I shouted. I was so angry at him that I wanted to stamp my foot on his, shake some reason into him, maybe. I'm in, he'd said to me immediately after I'd asked him to come with me. My heart thudded against my ribcage.

"I'll be fine. Besides, we've got no choice."

I glared at him, and my heart thudded even harder. There was a fire burning in his eyes, just like when he'd fought Ares in Santa Monica, and at that moment I knew, just like I had on that beach so long ago, that there was no changing his mind. He'd blushed when I'd loaned him my necklace as a token for luck, going on to win his fight with Ares and saving the day. I guess the present situation warranted another token for luck, and I had to make it count. I kissed him.

For a moment or two it seemed as if it was just the two of us in the world, that everything else had melted into nothingness. My heart thudded against my ribcage like crazy so that it almost hurt, just like it had hurt seeing him instantly vibe with the mortal girl. Just like it hurt to watch him carry the world on his shoulders while I lay helpless on the grounds, my hands and feet tied together. But even when he'd sunk to the ground, looking dead tired and about to give up, I hadn't entertained the thought of him dying, right there. He made it out alive. And he was going to make it out alive now, because I refused to think of the alternative.

My head spinning, I broke free of the kiss first. Percy looked as if something — or someone — had hit him. "Be careful, Seaweed Brain," I blurted out, right before turning invisible and running away from him, tears clouding my vision as I did so.

I stopped myself from entering the tunnel. I wiped away my tears, but more just kept on coming.

Focus, I told myself. It didn't work.

I was about to run inside, tears be damned, when I heard an all-too familiar yell.

Percy.

There was no question about it — I had to go back to help him. I'd never heard so much pain in his voice before.

I ran like the wind, but I was too far away to do anything except hear his cries, which tore at me like knives.

"STOP IT!" he shouted. The telkhines howled in delight.

"Burn away, godling! Burn and die!" they shrieked with relish.

"PLEASE!" he shouted, sounding really terrified now. "STOP IT! HELP ME, FATHER!"

"PERCY!" I screamed, but I was still too far away. "PERCY!"

Nobody responded. Nobody could hear me, but I could hear everybody.

For a moment it was silent. Then Percy let loose a bloodcurdling scream, the ground trembled under my feet, and I blacked out.

When I came around, everything was in rubbles. I was unscathed, except for my head, which was bleeding from a wound. The broken fragments of what had been a stalactite lay on the ground beside me. The floor was littered with plenty of them.

I struggled to my feet and searched for a way to move the rubble to get to Percy. I worked for what seemed like forever until my hands were bloodied, but it was useless. The cavern had been completely destroyed.

There was no sign of either Percy or the telkhines. I was alone in the dark, with the mark of Daedalus glowing behind me, haunting me, tempting me to be a dutiful hero. To hell with duty, I thought angrily.

The great silence was unnerving, and the sinking feeling I'd managed to keep at bay finally engulfed me. Something inside me broke.

Destroy with a hero's final breath, the Oracle had said.

I sank to the ground, curled into a ball, and finally allowed myself to weep.

Words/sentences written in bold were lifted straight from the text. The rest are the brainchildren of my imagination :)

DISCLAIMER: I am not Rick Riordan. I'm just some college undergrad who has just recently (like, yesterday) decided to write fanfiction (again!) to deal with boredom brought on by having a mandatory summer term (dagnabbit!).