IT'S FINALLY OVER! :O
This is the last chapter! I hope you enjoyed the story, and I hope the ending is sufficiently good.
As for The Curse of Achilles, I thought I stated that was removed.
–scratches head-
Thanks especially to Abigail Thalia La Rue, whose kind words inspired this last chapter, I think.
I'm not going for cliché, but if that's how it comes out, I'm sorry.
**In keeping with the style of Rick Riordan, I gave Pollux a name that is fitting of his heritage. Since his father is the God of Wine, I chose 'Hunter' because of the Hunter Valley, which is a large, wine-making region of New South Wales. You may have heard of the Barossa Valley; I thought 'Barossa' sounded a little too (pardon the pun) fruity, thus 'Hunter' was chosen.
The entire valley had been flattened by Dempsey. The magical borders were blown apart, though they were restored fairly easily by the Golden Fleece. Peleus had been killed guarding it, and the dragon's death wasn't the only one. Many, many demigods had died over the course of the last week. People like Will Solace, Giac Letterman, Pollux Hunter—Dionysus' last living child—and many, many other demigods. And, of course, Annabeth Chase, and Percy Jackson.
Jakob was helping with the wounded, clearing away rubble, anything, anything at all to avoid having to think about what happened. Four people he knew and cared about at camp were dead. He didn't know why they were dead, and he wasn't, and he didn't care. All he wanted was to keep the terrible ache in his chest at bay by not thinking about it.
However, when work stopped for the next night, he didn't have a choice. Hundreds of sleeping bags had been lain out, under the stars, courtesy of the gods. The demigods and assorted mythical creatures who had survived were curled up in them, having already eaten dinner. It was peaceful, but Jakob couldn't sleep.
Why? he asked the heavens. Why them, and not me?
Alas, the heavens didn't answer, and it was closer to sunrise than sunset when he finally drifted off to sleep. And in his sleep, he was treated to a cinematic view of how his life came to be.
Mount Olympus. Two years ago.
It was dark on Mount Olympus, the snow falling steadily. The hill was lit by lights, but most of the ethereal beings that inhabited the place were inside the darkened buildings, off the streets.
Two individuals, however, who were not asleep were crossing the bridge from the elevator that took them from the lobby of the Empire State Building. They stepped onto the brick walkway on the mountain top as the elevator shot down from the heavens, back into New York.
"Why are we here again?" the taller one, the male, asked.
"Because my mother instructed us to come," said the girl at his side, in a long cloak; it was cold on Olympus.
"Oh, right."
They walked up the hill towards a darkened temple, off of the main pavement. The male frowned as they came to a stop in front of it.
"Are you sure it was here?" he asked.
"I'm… pretty sure," she said, trying the door. It swung open, and the two entered.
The room was columned, roofless. There were images of owls and spears everywhere, and in the middle, a brazier, smoking gently. At the far end was a huge stone throne, empty of anything.
They two stepped up to brazier, and the female brought a bunch of grapes, fat and red, out of her coat. She dropped them in the fire.
"I see that you came." The voice, from the end of the room, made them both jump. In the throne, where there had originally been nothing except air, was now a woman with grey eyes and hair much like the girl's.
Fitting, for the girl was her daughter.
"Mother," Annabeth said, bowing at the foot of the throne. The male—Percy—did the same.
"Rise." The word was an instruction. They did.
"What is it that you wish, Mother," asked Annabeth.
"My child, troubled times are brewing. I know it has only been eight months since the Titan Uprising, but something else is to come. I wish to inform you, because, as usual, my father won't do anything about it. He prefers to pretend it doesn't exist until it's almost too late."
There was a rumble of thunder overhead.
"So…what was the prophesy? It was a prophesy, wasn't it?"
"It was. However, I am forbidden to tell you what it is. However, I can tell you to be on your guard, and to prepare for what's coming."
"That's it?" Annabeth's voice was incredulous.
Athena regarded her daughter with searching eyes. "That is it."
Annabeth made a noise of disgust, but Athena ignored it.
"Now," she said. "I need to speak to Perseus, alone. Please go wait outside, Annabeth. We will be done in a couple of minutes."
"Go," Percy said, kissing Annabeth on the cheek. "I won't be long."
Annabeth nodded, and walked out of the temple. The sound of the door shutting reverberated around the walls.
"What do you want to talk to be about, Lady Athena?" Percy asked.
Athena pursed her lips. "I don't need to speak to you at all. That's not what I want." She snapped her fingers, and Percy collapsed to the floor, still.
Athena waved her finger, and a trail of dark blue erupted from Percy's midsection, trailing through the air like a ribbon. Athena bought this in front of her, and combined it with another ribbon, this one of silver. The two combined ribbons flashed a startling gold, rippled once, and then vanished.
The process was over in about a minute. Athena snapped her fingers again, and Percy woke up.
"Who—why am I lying on the floor?" he asked Athena, standing up and brushing himself off.
"That doesn't matter. You may go now," she said, waving her hand dismissively.
Percy, extremely confused, just nodded, and walked out of the temple, rejoining Annabeth. And then, bombarded with a barrage of questions he didn't have any answers to, he set off down the hill, back towards modern civilisation.
And Athena, for her part, had what she wanted. She had combined the DNA of a god and the son of a God; birthed from this was an exceedingly powerful demigod that was needed to help stop Dempsey from—two years later—trying to release Ouranos, and taking over the world.
What she didn't foresee—couldn't have, was the Annabeth soul corrupted Dempsey. And it did so for the simple reason that Dempsey had ingested two souls instead of one. The greater whole—Annabeth—and a smaller part; her unborn child, at just eleven weeks old when she was absorbed. This tiny consciousness was enough to tip the scales in the demigods' favour. In the end, the unborn child—Jakob—wasn't needed.
Jakob's mother, the one who carried him for nine months, was unimportant. What was important was that Athena ended up with a baby, nine months later. And then, by her own design, she made him grow to the age of sixteen in one year, formatted his memory so that he couldn't remember anything previously, and then sent him to Sydney Airport, where the Mist was enough to convince him—and everyone else—of his back story.
In short, despite being alive for only a year and a half, Jakob Cilliani—his biological mother's last name—was ready to save the world from an imminent threat.
Jakob woke, sweating in the sleeping bag. It was almost dawn, the sky on the horizon a faint glow. And he knew he couldn't stay.
Wiping sweat off of his brow, he dragged himself upright, and set off, up the hill, knowing nothing except that he couldn't stay, couldn't face all these people after all those deaths, and the realisation that he shouldn't even exist. He needed to go away, far away. And so, he did.
Percy, meanwhile, was standing in front of the judges in the Underworld. He was an important case, and Hades himself was chairing the court. On the jury sat King Midas, Shakespeare and Charles Darwin.
"Hello, boy," Midas hissed when Percy was summoned forth. "I hope we make your stay in the Underworld… enjoyable."
"Midas, quiet. We will not let personal prejudices get in the way," Darwin admonished, before looking towards Hades. "Will we?"
Hades looked imperiously down at the teenager, who stared steadily back up.
"We will not." Hades' voice reverberated around chamber, making the withered trees shiver and buffeting some of the weaker security ghouls so they floated backward.
"Court is in session," he said, and the ghoul sitting on a bench beside him started to tap away on a laptop.
They argued for a couple of hours; Midas against, Darwin for, and Shakespeare impartial. They were in agreement that he did not deserve to go to the Fields of Punishment (Though Midas was not easily swayed), nor Asphodel. It was eventually agreed to be Elysium, with Shakespeare and Darwin voting for, and Midas against. However, this was when Hades leaned forward, clasping his hands and looking down his nose at the figure before him.
"How old are you, boy?" Hades asked. His voice was quiet, but there was an unmistakable air of authority in it, one that nobody dared to ignore.
"I'd have been twenty in a couple of months," Percy said, speaking for the first time throughout the entire exchange.
Hades sat back. "So young," he said, still regarding Percy.
"I don't like you, boy," Hades said, plainly, and there was no emotion in his voice; just a statement of fact. "You are the living memento of the promise that my brothers broke, a promise they forced me into, only to opt out whenever they felt like it. Still, even I can see when something is fair or not. And your death is not. Therefore, I am going to grant you something I haven't done in two thousand years. I am going to give you your life back. I am going to allow you to walk among the living again, unhindered by the dead."
"I don't want it."
"What?" Hades' voice was quiet; the calm before a storm that wipes out large portions of the world.
"I don't want to be among the living."
"Why not."
"Because Annabeth isn't there," Percy said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "And I don't want to live in a world where she doesn't exist."
"So, allow me to get this straight…" Hades leaned back and glared at Percy. "You do not want my gift, the gift that I last bestowed on a biblical figure two thousand years ago who spent three days in the Underworld, because of some girl?"
"That's right, yeah."
Hades inclined his neck. "You don't know then?"
"Probably not?" Percy said, allowing some hope to creep into his tone.
"Ah," Hades said. "When that boy consumed Athena's daughter's soul, it was corrupted somehow—I'm sure she'll know. At any rate, it cause the other souls inside him to spill out. That is why he was so weak, at the end; the souls were all that were keeping him going. Without them to sustain him, he crumbled to dust."
"And the souls?" asked Percy, hardly daring to hope.
"Most of them have past their natural time on Earth, and so have returned to their rightful place; the Underworld," Hades continued. "However, two souls, one of the child of Poseidon, and the other of Athena, were returned to their rightful bodies. My brother's child is now fifty years old, physically. His soul—and his body—have been restored to the point at which he entered Dempsey; fifteen years old. As for the child of Athena… well, I think you know."
"So, she's alive?" Percy asked. "Annabeth, she exists again?"
"Yes. And so, I ask you again. Will you take my gift?" he asked, and Percy realised that this was the longest he'd ever spoken with a God.
"Absolutely, Lord Hades," Percy said, beaming. "Nothing would make me happier."
"Very well," he said, nodding to the ghoul that was typing away on the laptop. She finished typing, and closed the lid, and both ghoul and computer melted into black mist, whisping out of the roofless courtroom.
"You have done well," Hades said, half to himself. "Better than anyone would have expected…"
He snapped his fingers, and the air began to ripple. Then Percy was sucked through a dark tunnel, and opened his mouth to try and take a breath in the oppressive darkness, which pressed in on all sides—
He hit the ground, hard, knocking the wind out of him. He lay there for a couple of seconds, fight for his breath back, before sitting up, and looking around.
He was lying on soft green grass, at the bottom of a hill. There were bit of debris spread around, and the sky was a deep, forget-me-not blue. He was definitely out of the Underworld, where the roof was a horrid, craggy brown, cloaked with mist.
He sat out, and then got to his feet, climbing the hill. He already knew where he was, of course. The bottom of Camp Half-Blood, on the outside.
He got to the top of the hill, and looked down. There was a massive crowd of people below him, all congregated in one spot surrounding Chiron, and her. She had ragged clothing, stormy eyes, and wild blond hair. And she was very much alive.
Percy took off running down the hill, and she spotted him, shoving her way through the crowd of people towards him.
They met midway, crashing into each other, a melee of flinging limbs and wild smiles. He crushed her into his chest, and kissed her, forcefully in the mouth.
The others fell silent, moved by the scene. And, in the barrier line, another person with untidy black hair watched the scene too, a faint smile on his face.
Then he turned and walked away.
Fin.