Percy's POV

Then the blade slides home, the point pushing out of her back. There was no sound, everything was muted but the agonized, bloodcurdling scream that ripped itself from her throat. That scream will haunt me for as long as I live.

Rage. Rage unlike anything I've ever known swept through me, turning everything red. Water exploded everywhere, surrounding me and lashing out at my enemies. Pushing everything away from Annabeth, my Annabeth. I was there, dropping to my knees,gathering her broken, bloody, body in my arms "Annabeth" I whispered. Begged. "Please Annabeth open your eyes" Her eyes didn't open. "I love you Wise Girl-" I choked "everything's going to be fine" But even as I said it I knew it was a lie. "You're not leaving me" A tear dripped onto her cheek, her skin that was once so very beautiful was turning pale.

"Please" I whispered, pulling her to my chest. "Please" I breathed out, my soul shattering as I held my one reason, my one reason to live. Her eyes opened, those mesmerizingly beautiful silver eyes gazed up at me with child like faith and questioning. Like a little girl asking why she fell off the swing. "Why didn't you save me Percy?" She asked, her voice broken and cracked but intent. "you promised you would keep me safe" It wasn't an accession, it was a question, and that made it so much worse. Her chest fluttered, her heart beat slowed.

All I wanted in that moment was to take her place, to end her pain, to take her somewhere safe. Somewhere far, far away. "As-as l-long as we're together Percy" The way she whispered my name, so full of love and adoration that I didn't deserve from someone so perfect, broke my heart. Over and over again with every beat of her dying one. "You promised" Her eyes, eyes that I love so much, always so full of life. Slid shut. "No!" I yelled, begging this to be a dream, for it to end, for my life to end, there was nothing left. "No Annabeth I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry" It should've been me it should've been me.

Her chest stopped moving, I could feel the beat of her heart growing fainter. "No" It wasn't even a whisper, it was a prayer. I once thought I would never again beg the gods for anything, but I was wrong. "Please" It wasn't supposed to end this way, fate owed me more than this, owed her so much more. The beat of her heart, the beat that had always been steady always been there, went horribly still. Heart breaking, soul shattering agony tore though me, tearing me apart from the inside, a part of me died with her, all that was good and right in me. Everything that kept me from going over the edge.

The scream that ripped itself from my throat as she dissolved into dust was a raging battle cry. Full of pain and loss, pleading and begging, full of endless, tortured agony, and a blackness that threatened to swallow me whole . And promise. A promise to make them pay for what they had done to her. I stood raising Riptide over my head, with another roaring battle cry I plunged the blade into the ground and the world cracked beneath my feet. The sky swirled with inky black clouds, blotting out the sun and plunging the valley into darkness. Lightning struck the ground around me, wind tore and my hair, rain pounded down in frozen sheets and thunder boomed. A chasm opened in the earth before me, spreading wider and longer, pulling chunks of rock down into the endless black, taking most of the monsters along.

The ground shook, rocks broke and the volcano erupted, a tidal wave of water slammed into the mountains, breaking the peaks of bits and pulling them down into the valley with it, water flooded the valley. Washing over my feet to run over the edge of the pit into the growing pool of lava, filling the air with a loud hiss and clouds of steam as I moved the plates of the earth. Putting in all my pain, furry and loss, blood thundered in my ears echoing the rumbling in the sky. But it wasn't enough, it wasn't enough to drown out the pain, I roared again, throwing everything I had into the earthquake. The chasm shot forward, there was a sound like a gunshot magnified a million times, the biggest mountain, where the rest of that accursed army stood, cracked. Right down the middle, ripping it in half, molten lava swirled in the chasm, shooting up from the cracks in the earth. And even from here, over the noise of the world shaking I heard it. The beautiful sound of their horrified screams as they fell to their deaths.

They were gone, all of them, but it didn't matter. I couldn't escape the pain, the loss, from where I was kneeling on the ground I could see Jason. Running toward me as fast as he could through the minefield of exploding rocks and boiling hot geysers. Frank was right behind him, so was Hazel and Piper, but I didn't want them, I didn't want anyone. Winds stronger than anything the son of Jupiter could hope to summon blasted them back, but also cushioned their fall. Some small, somewhat human part of me still cared for their wellbeing. I let out yet another roar as I kneeled in the eye of the storm, trying to let out all the unending rage and pain that was trapped inside me, the storm swelled.

But then I saw them. Thalia, slowly making her way through the storm, Grover and Tyson close behind. And as much as I wanted to shut them out, blast them away with a thought, I couldn't . I closed my eyes, seeing Annabeth's face, so full of love and trust that it killed me, I failed, I failed her. Strong hands gripped my shoulders, fingers digging in, shaking me; I looked up, Thalia. "Percy!" She screamed over the storm, tears of grief shining on her face. "Percy stop" I looked into her eyes, I saw pain, raw and unmasked in them, for Annabeth. For the sister she had lost, for her family, that was finally, completely, broken.

She wrapped her arms around me, and put her lips close to my ear. "Percy please" She whispered, "please stop"

I shot strait up, covered in a cold sweat, wide eyes darting around I spotted Annabeth. Relief, stronger than I've ever felt before swept the fear away, pushing it into a dark corner of my mind for latter, but for now.

I wrapped my arms around my Wise Girl, crushing her thin, strong body to my chest. Pulling her legs up to her chest so I could hold her, my arms creating a barrier around her, my Annabeth, hiding her from all the evil in the world. She woke the moment I touched her, and knowing without asking that I'd suffered from a nightmare, wrapped her arms around my neck. Burring her face in my shoulder, Thalia gazed at us, a small, sad smile on her face, then joined us. Pressing against Annabeth and wrapping her arms around my shoulders. We sat in silence for a long while, holding each other like our lives depended on it, and they just might.

Chris's POV

"Find them" Clarisse whispered to me, "find out who made it into camp, who got Amy all the way to the border" She was perched on the countertop in the kitchen of the beach cabin, tense and ready to spring. It must be killing her to stay here, where she can't take out her anger and worry and hatred. "I will" I promised her, "but that isn't our only problem" I pushed myself off the table, crossing the room to stand in front of her. She sighed, "I know, I know" She rubbed her temples, closing her eyes. As if trying to block out the world.

"There are Egyptian monsters heading for camp, so no matter what someone will die, If Percy, Annabeth and Thalia don't come back soon Amy will die, if she dies there will be war between the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, if that happens there will be more casualties, again" Her voice cracks on the last word. "There will be pain and loss and betrayal, again" She opens her hard eyes, so brown their almost black, I love them. "There will be more scars that time will never heal, again" Her voice brakes for the first time since the Titan war.

And that broke my heart, his viscous, raging, powerful, unbreakable, unbeatable war princess is crying. I put my arms around her, her head falls on my shoulder as she sobs quietly, "when does it end" She asked me, I hated myself for not having an answer. "When does all the suffering end" She isn't talking to me anymore. Just begging, begging the gods, the fates, the world, to stop to just stop and let her rest.

"I'm so tired" She whispered to no one, "I'm just so, so, so tired" Heart breaking sobs racked her body, "I miss her Chris, I miss her" Her tears ran down my back, I held her tighter. "She was a hero Clarisse, she died a hero, you will see her again you will I promise" This seemed to calm her a little, but I didn't know did I. None of us can make a promise like that, because what if her last act of heroism wasn't enough, what if it's never enough to justify. Does the good really outweigh the bad, everything we do now, is it enough to wipe out everything we did to get here.

Piper's POV

The camp was in chaos, well, that was how it looked from my point of view, everyone running around at all hours of the day. Warships being armed, scouts being sent out, new armor was rolling out of the forge, traps set along the border and archers posts where going up all around the woods. So well hidden that once they where there I couldn't even see them, much less the Apollo campers and Hunters that kept watch in them all day and night.

But worst of all was the dead, haunted look in some of the campers eyes. About twenty five of them, they did all their tasks with horrible efficiency, hardly speaking, never laughing or smiling, just working. Endlessly, like machines, every time I tried to comfort them, tell them that we would win, that everything was going to be ok, they just shook their heads and kept going. Training working training eating working training sleeping. That was all they did, never, not once sitting still for longer than a minute, like that had to distract themselves from the pain or it would swallow them whole.

I leaped across the small stream, fallowing now well worn trail to bunker nine, I needed to see Nyssa, Jason was helping preparations somewhere. I need to talk to someone. Bunker nine was crawling with her brothers and sisters, pulling out old weapons and blueprints that might help, trying to make it all work. "Nyssa!" I yelled over the noise of hammers, drill and other things that I don' t know the name of. "Where are you?"

"What do you want" Her voice asked behind me, hard and angry. I whirled around "what is wrong with you" I asked, my anger growing. "What is wrong with the campers that won't speak, the ones like you, your all so angry and depressed" Nyssa raised an eyebrow, her hands on her hips, clad in a black tank top and army green cargo pants. A blood red bandanna was in her dark hair, her even darker eyes glaring at me with an evil, twisted twinkle in them, she was the picture of intimidating. Almost as much as Annabeth. "Why won't anyone tell me" I finished in a whisper, not proud to admit that she scared me.

But she just smiled, a broken, sad, haunted smile and shook her head, turning back to her work. "I've suffered to you know, I know what pain feels like" She ignored me, like I was a fly buzzing around her head. "Tell me now" I commanded, my voice practically dripping charmspeak. She stiffened, a smirk spread across my face, got her. She cocked her head to the side, as if listening to a whispering voice carried to her by the wind. She tipped her head back and laughed, a cruel, harsh sound that turned my blood to ice.

Fast as a thought she was on me, shoving me against the wall, the tip of her dagger poised over my heart, her forearm pushing against my throat, pinning me. Her eyes held a crazed, animal look in them that drove shards of fear through my heart. "You dare, little daughter of Aphrodite, to charmspeak me" Her voice was a whisper, quite and calm, and that made it that much more terrifying, I was completely at her mercy.

"You have no idea how dangerous that is child" My face burned, "I am not a child!" She tilted her head, "you might as well be, but..." She paused, "Leo cares for you like a sister" She pressed a little harder. "Cared" I spat out, tears threatening to spill over, "he's dead" I gasped, trying to suck in a deep breath. "Don't you think that hurts me to" Nyssa said quietly. "You want to know what is wrong with me child" Her eyes where as hard as stone. "I'm tired child, I'm tired, I fought in the Titan war, I lost brothers, sisters friends, someone I loved" She pressed even harder, I fought to breath.

"But I stayed child, I stayed and fought in the war against Gea, and once again, I lost brothers, sisters, friends and someone I cared for, and now there is yet another enemy , another war on the horizon, and I'm tired, little daughter of Aphrodite, tired of pain and loss and suffering, and I want it toend"

Not once did her voice raise higher than a whisper. "I hear their screams child, I hear them begging me to save them, every single night, you think you know pain," The knife twists, poking a small hole through my camp t-shirt. "There are some scars that time does not heal child, that, is what is wrong with me"

Just as fast as she was there she was gone, I fell, gasping like a fish, my face burning with humiliation. Nyssa went right back to work like nothing happened, my face burned with shame as I sprinted out the door and fled through the woods.

Percy's POV

As we trekked across volcanic rock, spotted with pockets of fire and lava I thought about my dream. Holding Annabeth's hand, something was bothering me about it, something other than her death, that future isn't fixed yet, I can stop it I can save her. But when I held her I was so, so sure that she was all I had left in the world, my one reason to live.

But what didn't come to my mind while I was dreaming was my mother, my dad, Amy, Nyssa, Will, Travis and Conner and so many friends at camp that should have entered my mind. Others I could live for, so why, when I held her dying body, did I think that there was no one left.