"No!" I yelled as I pushed past all the familiar people surrounding me. They glanced at me but I kept my eyes to the front of the crowd.
I kept pushing past them and then finally I broke threw and I reached out to the front gates that were glowing when it meant someone new was entering our little peaceful forever. Just then someone grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me away inches away from touching the gate.
I spun around to face my opponent. She had blond long hair that was curled nicely around her beautiful face, her grey eyes narrowed at me thoughtfully and I could never fight her, even when I was mortal. She had saved me and gave me a chance to make it to Elysium in the first place.
"Annabeth what are you doing?" I asked the woman who was so ageless now but I remembered a time when she was smaller and more venerable.
"No Luke, you can't stop what is happening." She said with so much wisdom that she had always had. "It is inevitable. No matter how much you hate it."
"Yeah, plus you should be happy like the rest of us." A man with black hair and green eyes said next to her, his arms held out indicating everyone standing behind him. "Not everyone makes it here."
Friends who should have been my enemies but had forgiven me for everything I had done to them stood behind him. Beckendorf had his arms rapped around Silena who were both smiling at me. Rachel Elizabeth Dare had a paint brush in her hand like she had just stopped what she was doing and came out to greet who was coming in to Elysium which of course like everyone here that's exactly what she had done. My eyes passed over everyone who I knew in my life who had made it there, of course there were people who I hadn't known before when I had gotten here but I knew them too like I had know them when I was alive. Even Nico was here smiling as he walked up to the front of the crowd standing on Percy's other side.
There were also people who I wished were here but they hadn't made it. I had barely made it here; sometimes I wished I hadn't made it here but when it's a perfect afterlife who could complain? I could.
"Percy, Annabeth, Nico… You know what would have to happen for her to make it here. She would have to die." I said pleading with all of them.
"Death is death Luke, you know that all to well. Even immortals die eventually." Nico said putting a hand on my shoulder like he was my best friend.
"That doesn't make it right!" I yelled pulling at my hair, it hurt but not the way I wanted it to. If you wanted no pain in a perfect afterlife you got none even if you tried to stab yourself. But I had chosen pain because I didn't want to be numb the rest of my afterlife. I always enjoyed pain because it meant I was all here, as Kronos had taken me over slowly there was always a numb feeling, from his first whisper like a breeze to him taking over my body and I fought against he numb feeling to get myself back. That stabbing wound had been the first real pain I had felt in along time and I was glad because it meant I was myself again.
"She should still be out there, alive and fighting. She should live forever like she had chosen. She should be helping the newest hero's with saving the world. She shouldn't be down here with us." I said using my hands to emphasize how distraught I was.
"You're not the only one who misses her Luke." Annabeth said. "She was my best friend from the beginning, even when I had grown up and had kids," She grabbed Percy's hand in hers for reassurance. "And then grew old. Don't you remember how we watched her cry over my death?"
I remember as I waited like the rest of the people here in Elysium, like they were now, and I watched as Annabeth came threw the doors. Her old withered self shinning with gold in till she was younger but still ageless. Her white hair turning blond with a gold shine to it, her faded grey eyes revitalized to a pure shinning grey, her body become strong and her skin smoothing out with no imperfections.
How I greeted her and she held me in her arms like she did when she was scared when she was little. I showed her around in till we reached the orb in the middle of our lush land. She was entranced with it as she walked barefoot since there were no need to wear shoes. She touched it and like water it rippled and then it showed us our loved ones as they said there last goodbyes to Annabeth's body and burned her shroud remembering everything she had done for them. But one of them had wept more then the others, had dropped everything the minute she had heard and rushed to see Annabeth's lifeless body.
"Or mine?" Percy said.
I remembered how Annabeth had waited what only seamed like an hour yet a thousand years for Percy to come threw the gates and his old self become young and ageless like Annabeth. How people cheered for they knew that he disserved this afterlife more then anyone else here. How Annabeth had tackled him like she use to do when they were dating at camp half-blood before they had gotten married and she didn't need to show him she was his because he always would be hers. How she had taken him to the orb and we watched there children, Chiron, the Olympian gods, and the whole Greek world burn his shroud and bid him fair well for his great services to them. How in the back stood one person even after everyone had left, how she walked up to the hearth and seamed to remember Percy more then anyone else. How he was more then just a hero, more then just Poseidon's son and then she fell and cried unable to be strong when she was nothing but at any other time.
"Or even mine?" Nico said.
I remembered how Nico had walked through the gates with a confused look on his face like he had never thought he would reach the afterlife since he had always been able to thwart death. How he grew into a smiley ageless person, no shadow always looming over him or weighing him down. How he had greeted Percy with a high-five, had hugged Annabeth and gave her a funny kiss on the hand, how he had hugged me and found Rachel who had been here even before Annabeth, how he grabbed her and swirled her around like they were best friends, how he acted like a normal happy guy that was celebrating how we had all made it here.
Annabeth had taken Nico over to the orb and we watched how people honored his death, honored the son of Hades. How his sibling after him made his shroud and burned it with the rest of Olympus, they were proud he had given them a fighting chance. How after the shroud burning a lone figure walked over to the hearth and dropped a necklaces with a lightning bolt a seashell and a bone into it and the fire burned growing and changing colors as two of the original three was gone and the lone figure was alone. She cried for once since Percy's death, and they were lonely tears.
"Or mine? Or mine? Or even mine?" Voices all around the crowd said. I caught some of there faces and all of them had smiles even though they should have been as upset as me. They all knew her yet they were happy she would be joining us, joining the dead when she was never supposed to die in the first time.
I shook with rage, sadness and nervousness. I didn't know if I could do this when those gates opened this time. She was the last of all of us, and I never thought I would see the day. After all I had promised I would come back threw rebirth since I had thought it would take several more lives to make up for my betrayal but it wasn't necessary. And I watched threw the orb alone as people busied away around me with there perfect afterlife.
I watched how she had stayed the same threw years and years of immortality. How her clothes changed, her hair changed, everything changed as western civilization changed. But she was still the same person since I had known her, knew her better then anyone else before Kronos ruined everything. And every second I watched her threw the orb wishing I could be there with her like I had promised I would be. I watched as she looked at every Hermes boy with a wanting, wishing I had been reborn and I would be that kid, but I never was and I still cursed myself for not going back and just taking Elysium.
When the judges had said I would be passed to Elysium before I could say I wanted rebirth I laughed hysterically not thinking about who I was hurting by just going straight threw and breaking my promise, again. But then I realized why they had let me go to Elysium because it was my bittersweet punishment. Annabeth had slapped me for lying to her when I had died but she quickly got over It like Percy and everyone else who joined us. But she didn't know because she would have to die to know I wasn't returning to her.
And then as I watched the orb what only seamed like minutes ago. I watched as she went into battle like she had been in so many times before. But this time something broke in her, her strength she had always had since the first time I had met her had run out. She stopped fighting, and then I watched as she stepped in front of the immortal who was trying to kill everyone on earth like Kronos, like Gaia and so many others who had tried but failed through out the long years. Electricity hummed in her and with a smile she touched the immortal and both of them writhed in pain as a white light passed over them. When it faded she was gone with the immortal and the demigods and gods stared in awe at her last sacrifice. Artemis ran to where she had been standing and she cried out to the sky, a cry of a mother loosing her child. Zeus had to pry her away so they could talk about the victory of yet another end of the world war. I fell from my chair clutching at where my heart would beat if I was alive and needed it. Then I ran knowing what was next.
The gates began to open slowly and every one was silent, even me. This was it. This was the moment that I had been waiting for, it had to be. Annabeth took my hand in hers and I looked at her finding reassurance. Percy put a hand on my shoulder giving me strength. And Nico gave me an excited smile and thumbs up which fit him oddly well, it gave me hope. My punishment was over, I was finally getting my happily ever after.
The gates opened fully and a figure stood there shinning. Thalia stood there no older then the last time I had seen her with my own two eyes before she kicked me off that cliff. Her hair was longer with the ages that passed, every huntress eventually grew out her hair, usually after everything they had at first known faded and changed. Her silver clothes shimmered and they changed to a simple chiton that all of us were given when we entered. And with her clothes she grew older but still ageless, an age that she had never seen on earth. Her hair seamed to change, shorten into what she had always preferred when I had lived on earth. And then she stopped shinning and she held the same gold light we all had being in Elysium. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She looked at herself like she couldn't believe it; she examined her hands and then her hair. Then her eyes fell on her welcoming comity, she connected with everyone she had known in the group. Her eyes fell on Annabeth and then Percy and then lastly me.
She stared at me with those blue electric eyes of hers and so many things passed through them but I couldn't read them. Then she moved forward as the gates fell behind her closed. I rushed forward feeling everything I had before gone, only happiness which I had been waiting for so long.
I opened my arms waiting for her to come into them, I had waited longer then I had been down here for her to come into them. But she didn't. Instead she reared back her fist and punched me right in the nose.
She punched me so hard I went flying back into the crowd who had decided they wouldn't catch me and let me fall on the stone road. I was so shocked I just held my nose that was throbbing, it should have been gushing blood but again I wasn't alive, I looked up to her as she walked slowly to my side looking down at me with anger across her beautiful face.
Percy rushed forward like he was ready to stop her if she tried to attack me, but I would just let her because I disserved it. Annabeth stepped forward and said "There's no need for violence." She sounded like her mother who was always one for the best logic.
Thalia ignored her grabbed my camp half-blood t-shirt and thrusted me up to my feet to face her. She had her teeth gritted, her eyes flashing, her strength straining from hitting me again but she spoke calmly. "You moron, I could kill you right now if you weren't already dead. What the Hades were you thinking when joining Kronos? Did you think I would forget after two-thousand years, because I haven't."
Guilt crushed down on me again. I don't know what I was thinking. He was so convincing, so persuasive. "I was thinking you were one of my reasons." I said almost nose to nose with her as she held me painfully by the shirt to her.
She groaned frustrated and angry. "You stupid, little Hermes's boy and your gods awful smooth talk-"I closed my eyes ready for the next assault. "God's I missed you." I opened my eyes realizing her last words weren't angry. She looked at me with a longing that had just been quenched.
"I've missed you for so long that-"I started feeling relieved that she did miss me after all the grief I had caused her through out the years.
"Oh just shut up." She kissed me, still holding on to my shirt. I had been waiting for that for so long it was ridicules, I had almost given up thinking I would never get it. Happiness spread across me and I began to smile which ruined our kiss but her tears also ruined it so I wasn't my entire fault. Then she pulled away and her arms wrapped around my neck, she was trembling.
I held on to her as she began to cry. The last time she had cried was at her brother's funeral, she burned his shroud and almost fell into the fire from grief knowing that he was officially dead, the last of her age, the original age she had tried to grow up with. He was somewhere here in the crowd around us watching, probably with Piper, Leo, Reyna and the other seven who had saved us the second time from a world apocalypse. He had died and entered a hero here what seamed like nothing to me but it had been almost two thousand years for her.
"How could you leave me like that? I was waiting; I was always waiting for you to come back." She sobbed into my shirt and I pressed her into my chest more smoothing down her familiar choppy hair.
"I'm sorry. They tricked me. They made me believe I didn't need to go threw three rebirths to get here, and I agreed not thinking in till I was here and everyone got here but you and I waited and waited, it was my punishment because I didn't want you to be here with me because that would mean you would be dead with me but I also wanted you here with me so much I thought I would die a second time. Please forgive me."
"I've always forgiven you stupid lovable idiot." She looked at me and smiled wiping away a tear. "So this is eternity? Looks boring." She looked around at the perfect buildings that were growing bigger and bigger as Annabeth couldn't help but design them that way. People started to go back to what they were doing before, which was basically what ever they wanted to do leaving us alone.
"Now that you're here, it won't be anymore." I said in her ear and she smiled at me. "You and your spiky hair Thals will bring this ageless place into the… um what year is it now?" I asked forgetting since it had been a long time since I had been on earth.
"Three thousand, six hundred and seventy two AD." She said it like she practiced it all the time. A long whistle sounded from me and she laughed. "Damn, I almost beat Zoë in her long employment."
"Yeah, you can talk to her about it later." I said with my arm around her waist and hers around my shoulders as she leaned into me like it was natural which it was.
"What?" She looked at me with shock. It was so odd to see her so old since she wasn't almost sixteen anymore but she wasn't an old woman either, she was an ageless woman of my dreams.
"She's here in Elysium with us. Artemis put her in the sky and part of her soul came down here and she made it here easily with flying colors. She's in the crowd probably with Phoebe and the rest of the use to be huntresses enjoying there time not hating men." I recalled Zoë and her second Phoebe who had showed up a few hundred years after Zoë did. I could recall everyone here like perfect memory.
"Oh my gods." Tears welled in her eyes again. "I miss Phoebe so much. She was the best second anyone could have. She kept me from killing myself after all of your deaths."
"It was that bad huh?" I said it quietly and she leaned into me heavily.
"Yeah, it was." I almost had to strain to hear her. "The first couple years after joining are always the hardest because you watch as everyone who use to be your age or younger grow up and have kids of there own. Then when they start dying you start wanting to die with them, knowing a part of your soul was dying with them. Then after the last important death you become sort of numb, just going on with life and doing your duty to earth not caring or ever getting attached afraid if you do you'll die a little again when they die. This is why Chiron and I were close after all of you were gone. We both trained our family but just to watch them eventually die. Not even my original sisters in the hunt survived till now, Phoebe was the last to die and I was left training new girls who eventually died within the first years or first couple centuries. It was so depressing and I felt the need to kill myself everyday. But I knew there was always a chance that you were coming back but you never did, did you?" Her spectacular blue eyes were shinning.
"No." I felt horrible as I listened to her.
She nodded against me. "Yeah and I think I realized that through the last great Prophecy number five."
"There were five Prophecies?" I asked her not realizing it even though I had watched her for hundreds of years through the orb.
"Yeah, Two with Percy and there was peace for a long time, a really long time then the Third came along and practically killed everything on earth. Human life restarted as the gods took back what was there's, Phoebe and I with a few other girls survived and carried on. Humans rebuilt from the ashes and created something that was better then before and that lasted for a while in till the fourth came along but a boy like Percy stopped it before it could even happen. Then the fifth came along and nobody knew what to make of the Prophecy. Well not in till I understood it and saved everyone at my death." She shrugged like it wasn't that big of a deal but it was a huge deal.
"So you're like a war hero, like Percy and the seven?" I asked her and she smiled sadly.
"Yeah I guess I am. It only makes sense. Through one immortal Lie, Olympus will parish fast, The Immortal one shall die, when the first sacrifice becomes the last."
"That's the fifth prophecy?" I asked her taking in the words trying to understand them but not.
"Yeah, simple but the hardest damn thing ever. Like when searching for something that can only be found when you're not searching for it." She laughed trying to lighten the mood.
"What's it mean since I know you figured it out."
"The first line- Through one immortal lie, that's the lie that the Olympians made when saying they would remember there children and wouldn't ignore them anymore. The second- Olympus will parish, how obvious could you get? The third- The immortal one shall die, the immortal one being Kronos who had come back for the official last time of his stupid immortal life-"
"Wait hold on? Are you telling me that the first prophecy is coming true again?" I eyed her knowing the horror of being Kronos's pawn, his once most trusted pawn.
"Yeah mostly except he knew his mistakes and fixed them. Also I stopped him with the last line." She looked at me to see if I would interrupt her again. "The fourth and last line- When the first sacrifice becomes the last, everyone thought through the first prophecy that it was your sacrifice you made but I realized at the last moment it wasn't. It was my sacrifice. I was the first in the prophecy, and I had sacrificed myself up on that hill, it was the same with this one. The first sacrifice becomes the last. And here I am with you in the afterlife."
"Oh my gods." I said dumbfound at her.
"What?" She asked me truly confused.
"I think I'm in love with you all over again." I said looking at her and not believing all that she's gone through.
"Well it's good to know you still love me even after so many years." She said sarcastically to me.
"I've loved you ever since we were kids Thalia and I'll love you in till hell freezes over." She looked up at me not believing me now.
"Please don't promise me that because you're terrible at keeping them." She looked up at me with those luminous eyes framed by hair that was only attractive on her.
"Okay I don't promise Thalia Grace," I got down on one knee like I was purposing to her. "That I will love you forever and beyond."
She laughed and sat down on my knee. "And I don't promise Luke Castellan that I will never give up on you and your stupid face." I was about to say 'Hey!' when she kissed me and this was more productive.
I leaned into her and we eventually toppled over on to the lush green grass. We continued to kiss like that and it could have been a few minutes or centuries. It didn't matter because I had her back in my arms and she was here to stay this time. I was finally having my happy ending.
Eventually we broke apart and looked at each other in till I spoke. "So now that your not a huntress you can finally enjoy the magical ness of physical lov-"
She leaned into me and kissed me once to shut me up when she pulled away she smiled and said "You may be my first for everything but you need to start with the first date before we get there smart one."
I laughed and she joined me. Not a care in the afterlife. We enjoyed Elysium together with everyone else finally. I had her and she had me and it was perfect like it was designed.
And that's how it all ended with the first sacrifice becoming the last.