I couldn't bring myself to leave an AN at the end of my last chapter. Mostly because I figured that after you guys read it, you wouldn't want to read my opinion on it. I will tell you that while I was writing my parts in that chapter (and this chapter also) that I was practically in tears. Kayla was too. So don't think I'm cruel and heartless, because I promise you, I'm not. You'll figure that out by the end of this chapter =)
Chapter 10! Enjoy =)
Chapter 10: The Hero's Not Supposed to Die
Annabeth
"No!" Annabeth cried. "No! Percy, please! Don't leave me." She broke down into a fit of body shaking sobs.
Percy… she thought. Percy can't be gone. It's not possible.
But as she looked down at the motionless body in her arms, all hope faded. Percy was gone. His clothes were wet; his black hair dripping with water. Annabeth reached up and gently touched the gray streak in his hair.
Percy, the boy she had met when they were twelve years old and one of the first things she ever told him was that he drooled in his sleep.
The hopeless Seaweed Brain that never knew what was going on, but still somehow managed to save the day.
The person that Annabeth had almost died with, and died for, countless times.
The Hero of Olympus, who had turned down immortality for her.
Annabeth's one and only love.
Her best friend.
Percy.
He was dead. And she had killed him.
Halley
The others stood back near the door, giving Annabeth and Percy some space. Letting them have one last moment together.
Not one eye was dry. While Leo and Jason tried unsuccessfully to hold their tears back, putting on their "brave faces", the girls let the tears flow freely.
Halley watched as Percy drew his last breath, and Annabeth fell apart. It was all too familiar. Halley choked back her own sobs and buried her face in Leo's shirt. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back.
"Percy was the hero," she whispered. "The hero's not supposed to die."
After all the fights Halley had fought, all the battles she'd been in, all the wars she'd seen. All that she had went through to be standing here now, watching one of her friends lying dead in his girlfriend's arms. It was just too much. Halley had had it with the wars. She had seen too many of her friends die; had seen too much of the pain their death had left on their friends. She had felt that pain too much herself. The hurt never got better; you just had to learn to live with it there. But Halley knew that learning to live with an empty space in your life was not easy.
"Why does this have to happen?" she asked. Her voice was muffled by Leo's shirt, so no one heard her but him. "Why do people have to die?"
"It's part of life," Leo whispered to her. "It has to happen eventually. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with."
Halley looked up at him and for a moment saw him as a scared little eight-year-old, orphaned and homeless. She laid her head back down on his chest. "It's not fair," she muttered. "They don't ask to die."
Leo ran his fingers through her tangled brown hair. "They don't usually, but it's out of their power. When it's their time..."
"Still," Halley said, hiding her face again, so her voice was muffled when she said "It wasn't Dakota's or… or Caleb's time." She started crying again.
"It never is anyone's time," Leo said quietly.
Piper
Piper couldn't even begin to comprehend what was happening. Her brain was numb, asleep, and she didn't care if it ever woke up.
Percy was dead. Halley and Annabeth, two of the strongest and most together girls Piper had ever met, had both fallen apart; their resolve lost. Leo's mouth was shut (for the most part) and for once, he wasn't bouncing around and fiddling with gears and other mechanic pieces. He was stock still, with the exception of his hand rubbing Halley's back.
Reyna was standing quietly, clutching her bow tightly in her hand. Her head was lowered; her face was a mix of anger and regret. She glanced up at Percy and Annabeth, and pain filled her expression. Reyna moved her lips, like she was talking. Piper couldn't make out what she had said, but by the way Reyna looked, she had a pretty good idea that Reyna felt guilty for some reason.
Piper looked up to where Jason was standing behind her. The way he had acted earlier… the way he had attacked Annabeth after she stabbed Percy. He hadn't even heard when Piper had tried to stop him. It was like he had been… possessed. Yeah, that was it. He had been possessed by anger and was in shock. He had acted out of that, and hadn't thought. Once he put his head back together, Jason had realized that he needed to help Annabeth instead of fight her.
Still, Piper was worried about him. She was worried about all of them. Percy's death had changed the group. As insane as Percy had been at times, it seemed that when he died, the group's sanity died with him.
Nico
"Hurry guys!" Thalia called.
Nico groaned. He knew why she was telling them to hurry, but apparently, Thalia and Grover had forgotten that Nico wasn't a Hunter or half goat. He was having some trouble keeping up.
It had been Grover that had come up with the idea to go find the others. He had gotten this feeling via empathy-link that Percy was in trouble. Thalia had sweet talked Artemis into transporting them to Olympus. Unfortunately, Artemis had only transported to the foot of the mountain. The three had to climb up the mountain by themselves.
Suddenly, Nico felt that buzzing in the back of his head, the same felling he got when someone died. For some reason, this feeling was stronger than one he had ever felt before, even when Bianca had died. He knew immediately who it was. Nico stopped dead in his tracks. "Thalia!" he called out.
Thalia grumbled and turned around to face him. "Nico, we don't have time for this! We need to get to the others!" She would have continued to rant, but Grover stopped her.
"Thalia," Grover whispered, gently touching her arm.
Thalia looked at Nico. The expression on his face said everything. "Oh," she said quietly. "Oh no." She and Grover walked up to Nico.
"We're too late," Nico said. His voice was a mix between anger and sadness.
"Dang-it!" Thalia said. She looked up at the sky, like she wanted to cuss out her dad. "Why does this have to happen?" she cried out, her voice already choked with tears. "They don't deserve it! Why?" Thalia stabbed her spear into the ground. Nico and Grover back away instinctually. Neither of them was really feeling like being electrocuted, and the air around Thalia was starting to act like a mini lightning storm.
"We still need to go there," Grover said. "They need us there now more than ever. Well… at least they need you two."
"They need you too, Grover," Thalia said. "Maybe not for help with fighting, but definitely for moral support. Oh, gods, Annabeth's going to be so torn up."
Nico didn't want to point it out, but Thalia was starting to act pretty torn up too. "I know how we can get there," Nico said. "I just need to call Mrs. O'Leary."
Nico dug a whistle out of his pocket while Thalia and Grover stood and stared at him like he had gone crazy. Nico's whistle was Stygian ice, and one use, but Nico had met a guy in the Underworld that made them pretty cheap. He blew the whistle and waited. Thalia and Nico didn't hear it, but Grover covered his ears and yelled at Nico.
In about two seconds flat, Mrs. O'Leary appeared. "Hop on you two," Nico said.
Warily, Grover and Thalia climbed on to the hellhound's back. "Take them to the top," Nico whispered into Mrs. O'Leary's ear. She barked and sprinted off to the shadows.
Nico waited a few seconds then set off on his own. He was headed to the same place the others were.
Jason
It was Reyna's idea to go outside. She told Annabeth and then herded the rest of them out. Once outside, they all slumped down onto the steps, all of them quiet.
Halley finally asked "What now?"
They all thought for a few minutes. With Percy gone, and Annabeth so distraught, they were lacking two of their best fighters.
Jason stood. He looked around at the group. They were all sporting various bruises, cuts, and scratches. They all were covered in dirt. The tear streaks on the girls' cheeks were obvious. He could see their bloodshot eyes, the dark circles underneath them. Jason couldn't see his own face, but he figured there wasn't much of a difference.
He turned and looked out across the commons area. The temples here were designed in the same way the cabins at Camp Half Blood were, the same way the thrones of the gods were positioned.
Out past the end temples lay the barren landscape of Mount Olympus. Fog and Mist shrouded Jason's vision, so it was hard for him to see what lay farther on. Not that he needed to. He knew exactly what was waiting for them out there.
"Porphyrion is still out there," Jason said to the others. "He'll be coming to find us, because we're the only thing standing in his way. And since their latest plan to raise Gaea failed because of us, he'll probably be madder than ever."
"Great," Leo said while the others digested what Jason had said. "I've always wanted to be on the king of the Giant's bad side!"
"You've never been on his good side," Piper muttered.
"And you're point is...?" Leo said arching his eyebrows.
Piper just grumbled something inaudible and went back to drawing pictures in the dirt with her knife.
"So you think he'll come here?" Reyna asked.
Jason nodded. "I think he'll come to wherever we are. So we should probably stay out of places where mortals are. We don't want to risk them getting hurt."
The others nodded in agreement. Piper asked "So where do we go? Or should we stay here?"
Everyone thought on this. They didn't know what to do. It wasn't like they had any specific place to be. And none of them were exactly eager to run out and meet Porphyrion in battle.
Halley was the first to speak up "I don't know about you guys," she said, "but I don't think that we should try and hide from him. He's going to find us eventually anyway, so why should we prolong it? I vote we stay here and rest while we can. Wait for him to come to us, and then fight him with all we've got."
"That makes sense," Reyna said. "But were forgetting one thing: the gods aren't here. They're still fighting the other Giant's in Sparta. And without them, well never be able to beat Porphyrion."
"Not to mention two of our best fighters are... unavailable," Leo muttered.
"We can't let that stop us!" Piper said, standing up next to Jason. "How do you think they would react? Besides, we still have Annabeth. She just needs to pull herself together."
Annabeth
With the others outside, the Poseidon temple felt even colder and emptier than ever. The same way Annabeth's heart felt.
She couldn't feel anything. Not even the cold wetness of the pool. Her legs were soaked from her kneeling beside Percy. She didn't notice though. She had barely even heard Reyna telling her that they were going outside. Annabeth was numb to the world.
She did hear the others walk out the door. When the door closed, Annabeth gently laid Percy down on the ground beside her. She then pulled her knees up to her chin and buried her face in them. More choking sobs came.
"Oh Percy," Annabeth whispered, still crying. "Why? Why'd you let me do it?"
She was sitting silently with her head down, her tears gone, and her sobs turned to shaky breaths, when she felt a gentle hand touch her shoulder. Annabeth startled and turned to see Thalia standing there. Grover and Nico were standing behind her. Annabeth hadn't even heard them come in. With Thalia and Nico it wasn't that surprising, since Thalia was a Hunter and Nico walked like a ghost. But Grover wasn't wearing fake feet; he just had his hooves, so he wouldn't have been able to walk without making noise.
Thalia and Grover's eyes were brimmed with tears, and Nico's face was grim. He almost looked like he was wincing.
"Hi guys," Annabeth said quietly.
"Annabeth," Thalia said quietly, kneeling down beside her friend. She looked at Percy's lifeless body lying beside Annabeth. More tears formed in her eyes. "How... how did this happen?"
Annabeth felt her tears coming back, which was odd because she had been almost sure that she was out of tears. "He did it to save us," she said. "Piper, Leo, Halley and I had been captured, and they were going to try and use our powers to raise Gaea, since it hadn't worked with Hera, and they couldn't capture all of the children of the Big Three."
"They were trying to capture us?" Nico asked.
Annabeth nodded. "Your powers combined would've been enough to raise Gaia. But they couldn't get hold of you two. They would've caught Percy and Jason, had their plan worked."
"If they had captured all seven of you," Grover said, "they might've raised Gaia. Jason and Percy, plus the other five of your powers would've been enough to replace Thalia and Nico; maybe... it might've worked." Grover's face shifted from sad to terrified.
"So how did Percy save you guys?" Thalia wanted to know.
"Gaea's demigod agent, Aiden, told us that if Percy would sacrifice himself, that he'd let us go. He must've known Percy's fatal flaw... he knew Percy would agree to it." Annabeth wiped a few tears from her eyes.
"And he knew that he wouldn't be able to kill Percy, because of the curse of Achilles," Nico said. "Percy was the only one who could've killed himself."
"But he didn't," Annabeth said quietly.
"Then who did?" Thalia asked.
Annabeth looked up at her. "I did."
The looks on the other three faces were a mix between disbelief, horror, and plain out confusion.
"You...?" Grover asked
"Why?" Thalia cut in. "And how? You didn't know his Achilles spot," she paused and looked at Annabeth skeptically, "did you?"
Annabeth didn't say anything. She just hung her head sadly.
"Blah-ha-ha," Grover bleated. "You did!"
"How did you learn that?" Nico asked. "I didn't even know, and I was there when he swam in the Styx!"
"After I took that knife for him during the Titan war," Annabeth explained. "He told me that he would've died had I not taken it for him."
"Ethan knew too?" Grover asked. "Right?"
"We think so," Annabeth said sadly. "He was the one that almost stabbed him, and did stab me." She winced and rubbed her arm in memory of the old wound.
Thalia must've noticed because she quickly changed the subject, not that her next topic was any better. "So why did you, Annabeth? I mean sure, all of us have probably wanted to kill Percy at least once, except maybe Grover. But you were the last person I ever expected to kill him. I figured I would before you did." She was trying hard to put humor in her words, but it wasn't working.
"Gaea said I had too," Annabeth said. "They want us destroyed. They said they wouldn't except his death in place of our freedom if I wasn't the one who killed him. He asked me to do it… to kill him with my knife."
"You killed him with your knife?" Thalia asked in shock. "The same knife Luke gave you? The same one that killed him?"
Annabeth couldn't answer. Instead she just pulled her knife out of its sheath and looked at it. Blood still tainted its metal. In one angry movement, Annabeth turned and threw it.
It hit a fountain in the corner; one they had thought was broken. But when the knife hit it, it cut off its spout, and water spurted out with a spray.
Thalia/Nico
"Oops," Thalia said.
"Sorry guys," Annabeth muttered.
"No," Nico said, a thoughtful look on his face. "It's okay. It's actually given me an idea."
He walked over towards the fountain, and examined it.
"What are you doing, Nico?" Thalia asked. "What idea?"
"I need to send an Iris-Message, but there isn't any light to create a rainbow."
"Oh, I can help with that," Thalia said with a mischievous grin. She pulled out her spear and pointed it at the ceiling above the fountain. With a thundering crash, lightning shot out of the end of her spear, blowing a hole in the ceiling.
"Cake," Thalia said while she put her spear away.
As soon as the dust settled, sunlight filtered into the room. They looked up at the hole, which was about five feet in diameter.
"Bit overkill, don't you think?" Grover asked Thalia. "Not to mention you just blasted a hole in the roof of Poseidon's temple. Don't think he'll be happy about that."
"He'll be fine with it," Nico said. "Besides, that's who I'm sending a message to."
While the others looked at him in shock, Nico pulled a drachma out of his pocket and tossed into the fountain. "Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering. Show me Lord Poseidon, um…" Nico paused while trying to think of where Poseidon might be. "Uh, wherever he is."
The image shimmered and shifted to reveal Poseidon standing in full battle armor, right beside Zeus and Hades. Nico, Thalia, and Grover gulped.
"Uh, Nico?" Thalia whispered. "We're you expecting our dads to be with him."
Nico shook his head and took a deep breath before calling out "Excuse me, sirs."
All three gods turned to look at him. Hades spoke first. "Nico?"
"Thalia?" Zeus chimed in.
"What are you doing in my temple?" Poseidon finished.
"Long story," Thalia answered. "We don't really have time for it. The only reason we called was because… well… we need some help." She looked at Nico for assistance.
"What kind of help?" Hades asked, his eyebrows arching.
"Well, sirs," Nico said. "I don't know if you know this already, but Percy's dead." He tried not to wince as he said that. Even as the son of Hades, the death of a friend was still hard to deal with. Almost harder, because he could actually talk with them.
The gods' expressions all read different things. Hades' said "well duh, I knew that", Zeus' looked almost smug; as if he was happy that Percy was dead. Thalia really hoped that he wasn't. Poseidon's was as expected: the "oh-my-gods-my-son-is-dead, what-the-Hades, how-when…" etc.
"Dead?" was what Poseidon said aloud. "How?"
Thalia and Nico exchanged glances.
"I don't think we have time to explain, sir," Thalia said. "But the thing is: we kind of need Percy with us. Not only is he an amazing fighter, and a leader, but he also played an important role in keeping the seven together. They've fallen apart without him."
"And what do you expect us to do about it?" Hades asked, though Thalia and Nico both knew that he had a pretty good idea of what they wanted.
"Father," Nico said, "I think that you know what we want. Percy might've turned it down last summer, but it's not his decision to make anymore. We need Percy. We can't face Porphyrion without him." Nico used the same tone he had used last summer when he was trying to persuade his father to help in the Titan war. It had worked then; hopefully it would work now.
"You want us to bring Jackson back?" Zeus said. "And make him immortal as well? What makes you think that we would be willing to do that?"
"Perhaps not you, Dad," Thalia said, "But to be honest, we weren't messaging you and Lord Hades. We just wanted to talk to Lord Poseidon."
Poseidon's eyebrows rose. He said "And you believe that I would be willing to bring Percy back, and make him immortal?"
"We were kind of hoping that, sir," Grover stuttered.
"Lord Poseidon, you must know how much we need Percy," Thalia said. "He's saved all of our lives more than once."
"He's one of the best fighters I've ever seen," Nico said. "Even better than some of the children of Ares."
"Probably because he actually has a half-way set of morals," Thalia muttered. "At least as much as a demigod can."
That's when Annabeth walked up into the view of the Iris message. "Please, sir. I was the main reason Percy didn't chose immortality last summer. But now I'm going to let him. I don't want him dead. Percy doesn't deserve that. Not after all he's done."
The gods were silent for a moment. Poseidon finally said "Perhaps what you kids say is true. We will discuss this more, but you must leave now. Go outside to your other friends. With or without Percy, you will have to fight Porphyrion."
"But what about the gods?" Thalia asked. "We can't beat Pyphorion without a god's help!"
"We cannot help you, daughter," Zeus said. As Thalia opened her mouth to protest, he added "Give Jason this message," Zeus waved his hand and all of a sudden a papyrus envelope appeared in the air in front of Thalia. She reached up and took it. It was stamped with the seal of Zeus (an eagle clutching a lightning bolt) and was postmarked by Hermes Express.
"Jason will understand its message," Zeus continued. "You and he will both have to fight harder than you've ever fought in this battle. All of the heroes will."
Thalia nodded, and then turned to the others. "We should go now. Porphyrion's not gonna wait for us."
So together the four of them left them temple, the Iris message behind them still shimmering in the sun.
Halley
Halley couldn't wash away the feeling of guilt that she had. They should've prevented Percy's death, but they hadn't. Now she felt like his death was her fault, same as Dakota. Two heroes she could've saved, but hadn't.
Finally Halley couldn't take it anymore. She looked at Reyna and whispered "We need to tell them."
Reyna nodded and said "I agree, but I don't want to. They might get upset that we hadn't said anything about it sooner."
"That's what we have Jason for," Halley said, as she stood. Reyna stood with her.
"Guys," Halley said, getting the other three's attention. "We have something to say. Mostly Reyna, but I'm in on it too."
Reyna shot Halley a hateful glare, and then turned toward the others. "I should have told you earlier, but I knew that Percy was going to be killed by Annabeth."
"What?" Piper asked in alarm. Leo kept his face as emotionless as possible. He had already known, of course.
Jason had a look of alarm on his face too, but his read "you sure you should tell them?" not "why didn't you tell us?"
"That vision I had early on in the trip," Reyna said, pointing this statement towards Piper, "The one with the knife. You and Annabeth both asked if I saw who was holding it, and I had. I also saw who she was stabbing. I just couldn't bring myself to tell you guys."
"So the people in your vision," Piper said, "That was Annabeth and Percy?"
Reyna nodded as tears filled her eyes.
Piper looked from Halley to Jason. "You said you were in on it too," she told them. "How?"
"Reyna told me and Jason. She wasn't going to, but we kind of forced her," Halley replied.
Piper turned to Jason. "You knew?" she asked.
Jason nodded. "Reyna swore us to secrecy. I couldn't tell you."
"I made them swear on the Styx, even though that's not what Romans usually swear on."
(I'm not sure about what the Romans swore on, so this part is a bit original.)
"No," Halley said. "You made us swear on the Styx, and the Roman Empire." To Leo and Piper she said "That's about as serious as you can get with swearing on something. Unless if you swear on those two, plus Eternal Rome… did we swear on that?"
"I don't know," Jason said. "I just remember swearing not to tell."
"You're a lot of help," Halley said sarcastically.
They all laughed. Once it had calmed down some, Piper asked "So why didn't you tell us?"
"Knowledge isn't always a good thing," Reyna said. "I didn't want everyone to know because someone might try to change it. It was hard enough for the three of us to know."
They all fell quiet. They stayed like that for a few minutes, each probably thinking of what they could've done to stop Percy's death. All of a sudden there was a loud thunder crash and a bolt of lightning shot through the roof of the temple.
"What the heck?" Leo asked.
Everyone turned towards Jason.
"Wasn't me," he said holding his hands up defensively.
"Must've been Thalia," Reyna said.
The others nodded in agreement.
"Why would she blow a hole in the roof?" Halley asked after an awkward pause. It was actually more like an awkward five minutes. They had all gone back into that silence they had been in before Thalia's interruption, except this time they were all wondering what Jason's crazy sister was up to.
"Good question," Jason said. "I'll go see what's up."
But right as he reached for the door handle, the door swung open. Jason jumped back in surprise as Annabeth, Thalia, Nico and Grover came out the door.
"Oh, hey guys," he said. Then he turned to Thalia. "Why did you blow a hole through the roof?"
Thalia smirked and said "We needed to send an Iris message, but there wasn't enough light in there to create a rainbow. So I made a way for light to get in." She beamed proudly.
"Why did you need to send an Iris message?" Reyna asked. "Who did you send it…" she was cut off when the ground started to shake violently and a huge explosion sounded behind her.
Mixed Pov
Everyone fell to the ground, making sure to cover their heads. The four that had just come out of the temple were the only ones facing the direction the explosion had come from. The other five slowly turned around to look… and then immediately wished they hadn't.
"The mountain…" Thalia said, speechlessly.
"… It just…" Halley put in.
"Exploded," Jason, Annabeth and Reyna said simultaneously.
"Cool," Leo murmured.
"No, not cool," Piper said, her voice filled with worry. "Look at that." She pointed in the direction of the explosion.
They all turned to see red liquid slowly flowing towards them.
"Lava," Grover muttered in a shaky voice.
"Not good," Nico said.
"We need to get out of here," Jason said. He turned to Thalia. "Do you think that you could...?"
Thalia's face paled. "I'm not sure Jason. I've never tried. Are you sure don't know where Blackjack is Grover?"
When Grover didn't respond she asked again, this time her tone was more worried. "Grover?" Thalia turned to see Grover leaning against the column, looking like he was about to hurl enchiladas.
Annabeth noticed too. "You okay, Grover?"
Grover groaned and shook his head. When he spoke, his words were strained, like it was taking a lot of effort. "This weird feeling... just hit me. I don't know... what... it is... but its... not good."
He groaned again and collapsed to his knees. Annabeth and Thalia both ran to his side.
"Grover!" Annabeth said. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Grover said through clenched teeth. "I... unless..." he stop and winced. His breathing was sharp, and he doubled over in pain.
"Grover!" Thalia called. She looked up at Annabeth. "What do you think it is?"
Annabeth's brow furrowed and she pursued her lips. "I'm not sure. I've never seen him like this; not even after an all you can eat burrito fest. I don't know what it could be. Unless..." she paused and thought harder.
"Unless what?" Thalia urged. "Do you have an idea or something?"
Annabeth nodded grimly. "There's only one reason I can thank of," she said. "Grover and Percy had an empathy link. That must be it." Her bloodshot eyes started brimming with tears again.
"Wait," Reyna said. "An empathy link? But that means..."
"Grover's dying," the Grace siblings both said.
"We can't move him," Annabeth said. "And I'm not going to leave him. Percy wouldn't have, so I won't either."
"Annabeth you have to come," Halley said. "We can't leave you too."
"She's right, Annabeth," Thalia said. "And if you think that for one minute I would leave both you and goatboy to die, then your Athena brains must not be working. If you're staying, then so am I."
"Me too," Jason said. "Can't let you girls be all heroic without me."
"I second that," Leo said.
The others all spoke up, each saying that they would stay.
"The greatest heroes of the century..." Halley muttered, turning to face the quickly approaching flood of lava.
"All died heroically, being burnt to death by lava," Leo said. "Gods, I hate irony."
"You can't do anything against it, can you?" Halley asked him.
"I doubt it," Leo said. "But that doesn't really matter. I just hope that I can die with you guys. It would really stink to not die, and be alone when Porphyrion comes."
"You'd join us soon enough, Leo," Piper said. "If that happened."
"Glad you have faith in my fighting abilities," Leo muttered.
"No one can stop this," Reyna said. "The only thing that beats lava…"
"Is water," Annabeth said.
"Which we unfortunately don't have," Nico said.
Thalia leaned over and whispered to Annabeth "Do you think Poseidon will pull through?"
"I think he would want to," Annabeth responded, "But he'd have to get through Zeus and Hades first."
"That won't be easy," Nico said, having overheard the two girls. "My dad isn't a real big fan of Percy."
"Mine either," Thalia said. She looked up at the lava. "Guess we'll get to see Percy in Elysium."
"I doubt that the Giants will leave Elysium the way it is," Annabeth said. "Who knows what they'll do."
"I'd rather not think about that," Thalia muttered.
Grover moaned again, and said "I'm going to miss you guys. I won't be in Elysium. I'll just wind up being some kind of lonely bush here on the steps… until I get scorched by lava." He coughed and groaned.
"Save your energy, goatboy," Thalia told him. "Leave the sappy goodbye speeches to us."
A weak smile crossed Grover's face. "Right," he said with a cough.
"This is horrible," Annabeth said. "We're all going to die because of me."
"What do you mean, Annabeth?" Thalia asked sharply. "That's insane."
"Oh, really?" Annabeth shot back, raising her eyebrows. "Just think Thalia. I killed Percy, which consequently killed Grover. Then the stupid mountain erupted and the rest of us are going to be burned to death because I killed the one person who could've stopped it."
"That's true," Thalia said thoughtfully. "But we all decided to stay here and die. That's our choice; our fault. Not yours."
Annabeth opened her mouth to argue when all of sudden, a loud roar filled the air. But it wasn't any normal animal roar. No, this sound was the roar of the sea; a very angry sea.
You guys can probably guess what's going to happen, but I'm not telling just in case you can't =). Like I mentioned earlier, I was crying while I wrote these last two chapters (or reading the parts Kayla wrote).