So I guess Carella (that's my Muse) likes you guys for some reason. At least, she likes torturing you... you and me both, believe it or not. Moving on.

First off, as my dearest Flame reminded me, I should clear this up: Annabeth is not, to put it bluntly, sexually involved with Kronos in any way, shape, or form. I realized after writing and posting that first chapter that there may have been some very subtle implications I didn't intend to make toward the end there. Apologies for that. No worries about me writing anything of that sort. (Anyway, take a look at the rating, silly Flame.)

Secondly, I forgot to mention when I posted the prologue, and then again when I posted Chapter One, that the theme song of this fic is Ready Aim Fire by Imagine Dragons. Listen to that, and you'll have a pretty good idea of the feel I'm going for here. In fact, there may be some foreshadowing in certain lines...

Is that all? {I think so, generally.} All right then. On to the review replies.

AthenaMonaLisa: Ha ha, thank you! {See? See? My ideas DO pay off sometimes!} Yeah, yeah, shut it, Carella. Technically ALL of these are your ideas. {...I said sometimes.}

Bolle Accidentali: How do you know she's not planning to? {Or is she?} Dun dun dun! *cough* Anywho. And... yep, well, we decided a little more view into that was needed. So, we give you this chapter. Sorry-not-sorry.

mrsad7: Well, good! I'm glad! XD

Flame: I am too lazy to write your full name; you know I'm talking to you. I'm sorry, I'm not the Evil Queen; you may want to visit Maine for that. And I totally AM a heart-crushing maniacal instrument of destruction, thanks. ;3

On to the story. Word Count: 2,259

Roughly Three and a Half Months Ago...

The cell door opened with a clang, and rough hands grabbed her arms before she could react, pulling her off the tiny cot. She cried out as the Laistrygonian's hot fingers dug into her torn shoulders, but he paid her no mind, dragging her down the hall without allowing her to regain her footing. "Annabeth!" the voice of the demigod held in the cell one down from her called as she was tugged away, but he was ignored as well, and the door to the chamber at the end of the hall slammed shut behind them.

Cold steel closed around Annabeth's wrist; she fought to pull away from the second manacle, but it really was pointless to fight a Laistrygonian muscle to muscle, even had she been at her full strength – which she was not. The giant growled at her, as if he would have liked to have taken a bite out of her, before clomping out through the door. Annabeth was left on her knees, arms stretched out to either side by the shackles chained to posts in the ground, far enough apart to keep her unable to move, with little to do but wait in the uncomfortably warm room for the inevitable.

Even though she knew he was coming, his presence still sent shivers through her entire being – revulsion, fear, even a little awe at the sheer power he contained. "Well, Annabeth," he purred, golden eyes glowing as he moved around her, face constantly changing, always handsome, always devastating, always sending spikes of fear only made worse by the anticipation through her. "I received some delightful news this morning I thought you'd want to hear."

"And what, pray tell, could that be?" she spat, tension and fear wracking her body despite her attempts to appear calm.

He circled behind her so that even though she craned her neck, she could not see more than a shadow of his frame at the corner of her vision. She heard metal scrape against stone, and her pulse sped up. "Why, aren't you cheeky today," he growled, and something sharp bit into her shoulder blade, tearing open previous wounds, dragging down her back with agonizing slowness. Pain tore through her, tugging a wordless cry from her throat, and he snarled, "You've forgotten your place again, girl," tearing the blade from her flesh. Hot blood ran down her ruined back, a sensation no longer unfamiliar to her.

She fought the screams, but the third cut he made tore at her control, and her pain-wracked voice echoed down the hall. Kronos tossed the knife away, the blade clattering against the stone floor, and Annabeth flinched away as his burning touch caressed her face. "Don't you want to hear the news I have?"

"I don't... want anything... from you," she panted, earning herself a blow to the face that set her ears ringing.

"Oh, but I think you do," he snarled. "I think you want very much to hear what I have to say." Another scrape of metal against stone, heavier, this one familiar and recognizable, and very, very fear-inducing. Annabeth trembled, the knowledge of what was coming making it ever so much worse, as Kronos reappeared, circling her like a vulture, iron glowing red in his hand. He came closer, painfully slow, bringing the heated metal close to her face. She pulled away instinctively, but the shackles prevented her from moving much, and soon it was too close for comfort again. "We don't have to go through this, Annabeth. You know what I want."

As he spoke, his voice changed, and her eyes flicked against her will from the hot iron to his face, which was still for once, not wanting to see it and at the same time unable to stop herself from looking.

Luke's face.

This was not a new trick either, but it shook her every time somehow. A small sob escaped her before she could stop it. "Stop it," she pleaded. "Luke is dead. Stop."

"But Annabeth," Luke – Kronos – said, adopting a look of hurt, "don't you remember? How the first time I met you, you were just a little girl with a mortal hammer, trying to fight a world bigger than you could have imagined? Don't you remember what we promised each other?"

"Stop it!" she begged. "Stop!"

"Family, Annabeth..."

"STOP!" Annabeth screamed, unable to take it any longer. "Luke is gone! He's dead! DEAD! He's not COMING back! Stop it!"

"Yes," Kronos said, Luke's face falling to pieces in the maelstrom of Kronos' being. "He is dead... because of you."

"Stop," she sobbed, tears running down her cheeks. "It's not... it wasn't my fault..."

"Oh, really?" he challenged, leaning close. "You could have stopped him. You could have talked him out of it. You could have saved him. But you didn't. You let him die. You killed him."

"No," she whispered, but she struggled to fight his words. They were her own fears, after all – her own worst thoughts.

"You can't make it worse," he reasoned. "You're already a murderer... but you could make a difference now. The old gods were weak, and corrupted. In this new age, you could make a difference. Join me, Annabeth," he said, and it was again Luke's voice.

She shook, knowing what the consequences of her words would be, but she said them anyway. "No, Kronos. I will never join you."

"So be it, Annabeth," he snarled, and heat seared against her cheek.

Down the hall, the boy half-blood shivered as screams tore the air. He huddled in the corner, trying to ignore the sounds of her torment, but in the end unable to. Helpless to help her, he sat and endured, hoping that her screams would not drive him to madness.

Again the searing iron pressed against her skin, her cheeks, her shoulders. Again the offer was made. Again she refused. Again the iron. A cycle she could not escape, could not fight, the only way to keep from submitting a list of words she ran in her head.

Charles Beckendorf. Michael Yew.

Pain, poisoning her mind.

Silena Beauregard. Ethan Nakamura.

All thought washing away, every sensation but the pain fading, but she clung desperately to the list of words – the list of names, of people, of friends killed by Kronos and his allies.

Lee Fletcher. Castor. Daedalus.

And of the living...

Percy. For Percy.

At some point, Annabeth stopped feeling the individual burns. Her entire body ached in sympathy, trying to cope with the pain and failing miserably. Her cheeks and shoulders throbbed, striped with burns. She couldn't stop shaking, and cried out when Kronos grabbed her jaw in one hand, forcing her to look up at him, pain flaring at the harsh, burning touch. "Oh, Annabeth," he sighed, tilting his head and mocking concern. "I nearly forgot to tell you... my forces have finally found Perseus Jackson." He chuckled. "Or, rather, what's left of him. It's not much, but... it's enough."

No.

No, he could not be dead. Not Percy, not after everything. He had the Achilles curse, some small part of her brain that was somehow still functioning almost normally reminded her. "Ly... lying," she gasped, throat raw from screaming.

"Oh, you don't believe me?" He moved to the table behind her and showed her a thin bronze object. A pen. A ballpoint pen. He pulled off the cap with a flourish, and the familiar blade expanded, the name clear as day. Anaklusmos. Riptide. The sword that would never leave Percy's side, unless...

"Your precious hero is dead," Kronos said.

Annabeth's world collapsed, imploding, the weight falling completely onto her, crushing the air from her lungs as if the sky had fallen on her again. "No," she cried, voice breaking. "P-percy..."

"Don't you see?" he purred. "There's no point. No one is left to come save you. You might as well save yourself... all you have to do is say it."

She shivered, curling inward as much as she could, bound as she was. She couldn't... couldn't give in... not after all he had done...

They're dead, some voice whispered in her head. There's nothing I can do for them. But there's no reason I should die too. There would be no Elysium for me; the Underworld is shut down completely. My soul would wander the earth for eternity. But alive... alive, I can maybe do something to stop it. Maybe, some day in the future, I'll be able to bring down the Titans. I can't do that if I'm dead.

Could she really do this?

"Come on, Annabeth," he hissed, and she trembled at the sound of her own name. "Just say it... a few little words, that's all."

Percy was dead. Her last hope had been that the son of the Big Three would still be able to stop the Titans. Now that hope was gone. Her eyes moved to Riptide, and her decision was sealed.

"All right," she whispered hoarsely, barely audible.

Kronos snapped his fingers, and the shackles fell away from her wrists, leaving her unsupported, to collapse to the floor in a heap. The Titan snatched her left wrist and pulled it away from her, turning her arm so that the underside faced toward the ceiling. She screamed in agony as fire burned into her flesh. Don't understand... agreed... no more...

But this pain faded after only a second, leaving a throbbing ache in her forearm, but no more of the fire-pain. Annabeth spared a glance at her forearm, but looked away quickly, unable to stand the sight of her own steaming, smoking skin. She caught no more than a glimpse of the marks burned into her. The word branded occurred to her, and she realized that this had been maybe her worst decision in a very long time.

It no longer mattered. It was done, and there was no turning back. She was past the point of no return. Now all she could do was try to keep herself and as many others as she could alive.

"Take her upstairs," Kronos ordered the Laistrygonian. "She's agreed to our... terms." He narrowed his eyes at her wounds. Such disfigurements would have to be dealt with later.

When the door closed behind the nearly unconscious girl, dragged away by the giant, the Titan examined the sword in his hand and snorted scornfully, tossing it onto the table carelessly. "It really is quite amazing, what a meager glamour can do."

Present Day

These dreams were really starting to annoy Rachel.

She literally fell into it this time, just popped out of the air about three feet above the ground and dropped right onto the pavement. "Ouch," she complained mildly, climbing to her feet. But it hadn't really hurt much. Dreams never did, even these ones.

She was standing in the middle of a city, or whatever was left of it, anyway. She knew immediately, despite the destruction, that it was not New York. Skyscrapers were toppled around her like a giant child's building blocks, scattered on the ground when their mother called them away to dinner. The streets were cracked. Cars were burning. And people were fighting in the streets – people with purple T-shirts and golden armor on, with swords and spears and big rectangular shields. Demigods, but not from Camp Half-Blood. A girl a bit older than Rachel, who seemed to be their leader, was shouting something, but Rachel sensed she wouldn't have understood it even if she had been able to hear. As the redhead watched calmly, a spear flew from the enemy army, aimed to impale the girl, but she somehow caught it on her sword and turned it away, to bury itself in the ground at her horse's side. Not a horse – a pegasus, spreading wings the color of peanut butter.

However, it was quickly apparent that the demigods were going to be overrun. More and more monsters kept coming, and mortal Rachel, in all her Sighted glory, could see every hideous, nasty bit of the carnage. The girl leader was torn off her horse's back. The pegasus screamed in rage, but collapsed out of sight, hit by a stray arrow. Demigods fell left, right, and center.

One girl, however, managed to escape to the outer edge of the fighting somehow. She put her fingers to her lips and whistled, a sound that carried all the way to Rachel even over the chaos of the war. By the time she had defeated the next monster to challenge her, a cloud of dust and smoke rose, and a horse appeared out of it – immortal, magical, Rachel could see it even though no one else would have known it on sight. The girl jumped up onto her horse's back, and with a guilty look back at the few demigods still alive, she fled, vanishing in seconds.

Rachel awoke with a start. She rubbed her temples, then looked up at the sky after making a quick check around her to make sure she was alone. "Her again. You want me to find her, don't you? She's... she's important somehow," she whispered, half to herself. The mortal girl, blessed and cursed with Sight, got to her feet, shouldering the backpack that contained what few belongings she still possessed.

She knew nothing but this: the girl she had seen in her dreams was important. She would be a key player in the downfall of the Titans.

Rachel set off again, hoping not to encounter any particularly nasty monsters.

Yes, well, no one ever said I was a nice person.

The reason no scars (other than, of course, the ones on her forearm... which shall be explained later, I promise... muahahaha) have been mentioned thus far in the story shall be explained in a later chapter. I have no idea how much later. I write this as I go.

I'm not convinced with the turning, myself. I'll probably go back and rewrite the whole second half of that scene at some point, to be perfectly honest. Your thoughts?

Oh - anyone catch the Phantom reference? Besides you, Flame. I totally didn't start singing while I was writing...

Aside from that: the boy demigod shall also be detailed later. Feel free to share theories.

See you all next time.