The scythe carves a line in the marble, sparks flying in every direction as Luke stalks toward him. Only it's not Luke anymore and it hasn't been for a long time. As far as he's concerned it's been Kronos the whole time, just biding his time. The Titan's standing over him, grinning from ear to ear in his puppet's body. Golden eyes that sparkle with the joy of murder. It's a handsome face, really. Tanned, perfectly symmetrical with a scar that adds a sense of danger.

Gods, how he fucking hates that face.

As Kronos fists his tattered shirt, dragging him to one of the many columns in the throne room, he thinks that there may have been a point in time when he'd idolized his oppressor. But that had to have been so long ago- his first life. He remembers so little of that in the first place that he dismisses it immediately. It's better to believe he'd always known, that he'd always hated him.

Annabeth's lifeless eyes meet his own as his head slams against the marble. He allows a small grimace. She's not always here. Most of the time they never meet in the first place. It was a mistake to try and recruit the campers. They're too young, too brash, too stupid. He's sorry that she's dead, but not as much as he should be.

He'd stare at her lifeless eyes for eternity if it meant that Kronos would die.

He groans as the scythe enters thigh, the blood splattering out like a fountain. Some gets in his eye and while it burns he hears the throaty laugh of The Titan Lord.

"Did you really think that you would kill me?" Kronos says, sounding as if he was scolding a small child.

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't say that yes, he thought this might've been the one. So much had gone right and he'd allowed himself to consider, for only a small moment, the possibility of victory. Not as to what he would do if he won, but to just imagine it. The look on the Titan's face as the last remnants of life left. That was all he'd allowed.

What a fucking waste.

Kronos tuts mockingly, dragging the scythe backwards. The bones give little resistance as his right leg is split in two. Short breaths leave his lungs, the only satisfaction he'd give the Titan. It was nothing new. He'd felt it all before.

"I'm really quite curious." Kronos says casually, squatting down. "So much confidence. So much skill. So much power. I confess, I almost felt worried for a moment." The voice is rough, hitting his ears like nails on a chalkboard. It's layered, as if multiple people are speaking in unison. "You really thought you could kill me. And you almost made me believe you." The Titan smiles again, the madness and hysteria cutting him more than the scythe ever could. "And then I remembered, I don't even know who you are."

The Titan stands, bringing the scythe to the very edge of his neck. It's cold and it barely knicks him, but he bleeds all the same. "Any last words?" Kronos says nonchalantly, looking at him like an ant beneath his boot.

He says nothing, only glaring back into the golden vortexes that haunt him every night. He's finished, he knows that. All he has left is his hatred, and gods, does it burn. He tries to pour every ounce of it into his eyes.

The Titan sees it, his scared lip curling with disgust. It's the only satisfaction he gets. "So be it." Kronos says, bringing the scythe back behind his shoulder.

He'd been so close.

He feels the scythe connect.

And everything goes white.

He awakes with a gasp like he always does, only he immediately notices that something's wrong. He's sitting up for one, and he's in a car.

"Percy, did you pack spare underwear?"

Something was very wrong.

He flicks his eyes to his right. Thalia Grace has one earbud in, gazing disinterestedly out the window. It had been more than a dozen lifetimes since he'd seen her, he'd made a point to avoid her ever since she'd tracked him down with the rest of Artemis' hunt. That had been a particular agonizing and frustrating death, especially as it had been in the form of a fox. Her presence does nothing but aggravate his anxiety. She's not supposed to be here.

"Percy? Honey?"

His eyes trail to the left. Annabeth is much younger and very much alive, a book on architecture in her hands. The pages flip rapidly as her gray eyes trail down the pages with inhuman speed. She's not supposed to be here either. His chest feels tight, his skin burns. He's angry. Gods, he's so angry.

A hand slaps his knee and it takes everything he has in him not to snap its wrist. His mother looks at him with an emotion he no longer recognizes. Her head is constantly alternating between the road and him. Each time she looks back at him, her eyes crinkle more and more.

"Percy." She says softly. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine." He says on instinct. It's stilted, human interaction having been the least of his concerns for a millenia. He thinks a millenia anyway, but he truly has no idea how long it's been since this all started. He knows he's older than old and that his memory is starting to come to a breaking point.

"Okay." She rubs his knee gently, making him shift uncomfortably. It's warm and makes his skin crawl, to say nothing of how both his elbows rub against the girls beside him.

His first thought is to uncap Anaklusmos and slit his own throat. It's never happened like this before. Every time he dies, he goes back to the same place, the same time. September 29, 2004. His second week at Yancy, making it easy to sneak out and easier to do so unnoticed. He can't remember the last time he'd seen his mother and he doesn't know why that makes him even angrier.

Before he can even finish the thought of suicide, the car comes to a stop. "We're here!" His mother says, turning around fully. She looks like him, or rather he looks like her. It comes as a shock and he's not sure why.

"Thanks, Mrs. Jackson." Thalia says, flashing a perfect smile that makes his blood boil. He's unable to think of anything but how wrong this is. He's lost years, years of training and preparation and doing anything but this.

"Thanks, Sally." Annabeth says, closing the book and throwing it into her backpack. She opens the car door, sliding out quickly. The relief of the absence of physical contact ends as soon as it begins. He stares down at his mother's hand, once more resting on his knee.

"Percy, I want you to please be careful. I know Annabeth's here, but I'm still worried." He snaps up to meet her eyes, the insinuation burning in his gut. Annabeth takes care of him? Keeps him out of trouble? The look in his eyes causes her to flinch and as soon as she takes her hand off his knee, he escapes out of the car.

She waves to them sadly, the look on her face only making his mood sour even more. They had no idea. This life was already a failure, he'd lost too much time and he's struck with the sudden urge to drown the entire boarding school.

"Your mom is seriously cool, Percy." Thalia says. He grunts absentmindedly, looking closer at the sign for the boarding school that still might be drowned. Westover Hall. He vaguely remembers it as Hades' children's school. A useless piece of information occluding his mind, taking space, taking memories. They were inconsequential in every life, the girl always dying one way or another and the boy cowed by fear into The Underworld. In one life, he'd tried to gather them all together, thinking that the children of The Big Three could overcome Kronos together.

He and Thalia had killed each other before they'd even reached Hades' children.

Thalia opens the large front door, the high pitched squeak breaking him from his musings. He follows the demigods inside, not even knowing why he does so. Because it's so different from every other life, he rationalizes to himself. It's a good lie, but a lie all the same. He can bear pain well, but he's distinctly uncomfortable with the thought of suicide.

A slit throat was a nauseating way to die.

"Excuse me." A haughty voice catches them in the entrance hall. A blonde woman blocks their way. Unintelligent eyes hidden with glasses that don't match the shape of her face. Perfectly mortal and perfectly unremarkable. "What are you children doing in here?"

Thalia steps forward, snapping her fingers. "We're students here, remember? Thalia, Annabeth and Percy." A self satisfied smile on her lips as the woman blinks rapidly, her eyes becoming even more dull.

"O-of course. Percy, Thalia, Annabeth. What are you all doing out here? The dance is in the gymnasium."

Annabeth's mouth opens before she's interrupted. "Is there a problem here, Mrs. Gottschalk?" A man comes to a stand at the woman's shoulder. Heterochromatic eyes, unnatural shades of both blue and brown, immediately give him away as a Manticore. Completely obvious to anyone that looks. Thalia's grin only widens.

"Dr- Dr. Thorn! I was just directing them to the gymnasium-"

"Guys! You made it!"

Grover runs down the hallway to their right, stopping in his tracks as he notices the adults standing in front of them.

"Made it?" The manticore asks, his lip curling ever so slightly. "These students live here, Mr. Underwood." The beast can't hide his smile, undoubtedly imagining the feast he would have later that night.

"O-of course, sir! They made… the punch! Great- great punch, guys. Ten out of ten punch." The satyr stumbles through his words with a lack of grace that only he could ever manage. Grover is perhaps the most recognizable face to him. Each life he wakes up, makes it through one school day with the satyr breathing down his neck, and tells him the exact same lie to sneak out into the night.

His appearance here is only a further reminder of how wrong this all is, feeling his knuckles turn white as he clenches his fists.

"The punch is wonderful." The teacher says dreamily.

"Lead them back to the gymnasium, Mr. Underwood. They seem to have… lost their way." Thorn says before turning on his heel. Eyes aside, his unnecessarily dramatic tone would have given him away in a moment.

"What've we got, Grover?" Annabeth asks as they follow the Satyr. She likes to take charge, though her skills as a leader leave much to be desired. He'd seen it first hand in his last life, brilliant at making strategies, terrible at making people listen.

"Two. Powerful scents, a brother and a sister." Grover says, stopping outside of the gym. It's not much of a dance, just small groups of teenagers gathered around a basketball court with balloons and snacks.

"Monster?" Thalia asks.

"You just met him." Grover grimaces. "Dr. Thorn. And now he knows you're here."

He brings them closer to the gym, pointing toward a section of the bleachers. A pale boy is talking excitedly, moving his arms around rapidly. His sister nods her head every few seconds, her mind obviously elsewhere.

They were young. When had he forgotten that? He harbored a particular dislike for the campers as they had years to understand and comprehend the Greek world, to train and hone their skills. These were children and they'd been thrust into chaos, with war brimming on the horizon.

He felt… sorry for them. Sorry that their lives were always cut short before they'd even begun.

"We need to blend in. Keep an eye on them." Annabeth says, her eyes narrowing. "Grover, dance with me." She grabs the satyr by the collar, his yelp having no effect on her as she drags him into the gym.

"Guess that leaves you and me." Thalia says, hiding her displeasure poorly. He knows how prideful she is, how threatening power is to her. He wonders if they'd ever moved past that- in any life. Certainly none of the ones that he can remember. "Hey, you never asked me about what I did to the teacher." She has a look in her eyes that he's seen on her father before, the need to cement how much better she is.

"No." He says, keeping his eyes on the children. He's not sure when they became a priority, but all of sudden they're at the forefront of his mind. Thorn's standing in the corner to his right, doing a terrible job of looking bored.

"Don't be rude just because you don't know all the tricks yet. I'm sure you'll learn them in a couple years." Her seemingly kind words are betrayed by the tone of her voice, a certain arrogance bleeding out without much thought. "No need to be jealous, Percy."

He takes a deep breath, flaring his nostrils as he notices Thorn begin to move towards the children. "No need to be like your father, Thalia." He says mockingly, moving into the gym and blending into the crowd before she has any time to respond. He moves towards the children, uncaring of how low he'd gone with his words. For all their similarities, Thalia hated to be compared to Zeus. She'd almost certainly try to make him pay for that.

He was looking forward to that confrontation.

Thorn's stands by the bleachers, gesturing in the direction of the door. Before the children can even stand, he uncaps Anaklusmos, driving it through the creature's neck. Pulling clockwise, the head falls for a moment before it and the body dissipates into golden dust.

"Children." He says, noticing how their faces are so soft, so unmarked by battle and pain. "We need to leave."

The boy leaps up in an instant, reverence painted on his face. "Whoa! What did you do? Is that a sword? Why'd he turn into dust? Who are you?"

His sister stands as well, immediately grabbing her brother's hand protectively. A small amount of.. something wells up at the gesture. Something positive, though he misplaced the feeling sometime ago. "What the hell was that?" The girl asks, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"That was a manticore. And we must leave lest more come." He says, unaware if any more monsters would appear or not. The children couldn't stay here, it wasn't safe- and something about that just seemed so unacceptable. He stretches his hand out to the boy, unaware of what invisible force is making him willingly touch another being.

The boy looks up to his sister for a moment with wide, pleading eyes. After a moment, she nods and the boy grabs his hand.

He pulls them gently down the bleachers. The boy's hands are soft, uncalloused. He'd never picked up a weapon in his life and that thought both thrills and terrifies him. He's acting on pure emotion now, emotions that both confuse and scare him.

"Who are you?" The boy says softly as he leads them out of the gym. He feels an itch in the back of his mind telling him that this wasn't over. That something else was supposed to happen here.

"Perseus." He says, long having outgrown the need for a nickname. He supposes he just got tired of correcting everyone at some point and it stuck. 'Percy' was much more foreign now. "And your names?" He doesn't remember, something stabbing him in the chest as he asks.

"Nico." The boy says. Recognition flashes in his mind. Of course. How could he have forgotten? Then the girl must be-

"Bianca." The girl says. Nico and Bianca. How long had it been since he'd seen them? How long had it been since he'd forgotten how young they were? How long had it been since he'd forgotten their names?

"A pleasure to meet you." He says quietly, unable to recognize where the pain was coming from when his body was completely fine. He opens a random door on his left. A side exit. Perfect.

"Are- are you the real Perseus? Like from the myths?" Nico asks as he brings them outside. A snort leaves him before he can even fully comprehend the question. He'd certainly never been asked that before.

"No, child. Only named after him." He feels his lips curl into an ugly imitation of a smile. Nico was a curious boy, full of energy. It would be nice if he kept his innocence, kept his toothy smile. He brings them to a cliff, the tide crashing below.

The moon seems especially bright tonight.

He sits down onto the grass, gesturing for the children to do the same. Grover would track their scent soon enough, bringing the demigods with them.

"Are you okay?" Bianca asks, her dark eyes trailing across him.

He stares at her in confusion. "Yes. Why?"

Her eyes crinkle with worry, searching his gaze for something- something she found lacking apparently. "You don't look okay." She says softly. "You look, you sound… old."

He looks at her in astonishment. How could she tell? Nobody had ever said that to him, not in any of his lives. He'd have remembered it for sure. This child… her compassion, her intelligence.

It was touching.

"I… I-" He finds himself at a loss of words, unsure of what to say to her. "I'm very tired." He says, not lying but not telling the whole truth. He doesn't want to lie to them, but they were so young. Too young. He feels the familiar prick of tears at the corners of his eyes.

Oh gods, they were so young.

"Yeah." Bianca says quietly as she scoots closer to him. "I can see that." She takes his hand, giving him a small squeeze. His heart breaks for her kindness that surely wouldn't survive long.

And then he remembers her fate.

This little girl, this sweet child, dies. Again and again. He's heard it in passing in every single life. Sometimes it's from Zeus, sometimes from a rogue monster.

A sudden warmth covers his other arm. He looks to his side and sees Nico hugging his arm, burying his small head into his side. This boy lives through it. Again and again.

The tears run down his face freely now. He knows he could will them away with a thought.

He doesn't.

"You will be safe." He says. The children both seem to understand he isn't really talking to them.

It's a promise to himself.

A hand clasps his shoulder. He snaps his head to his right. A girl stands above him, seemingly no older than Bianca.

He recognizes Artemis in an instant.

She searches his eyes for a moment, her face totally expressionless. Her auburn hair- more red than brown- is tied in an elaborate braid. Her skin glows majestically in the moonlight.

"Perseus Jackson." She says. "We need to talk."

He knew he'd forgotten something.