Souls, Spells, and Shadows

Kronos, King of the Titans.

"WHAT THE FUCK, PERCY?" Annabeth screeched.

"I'm sorry?" Alys crossed her arms, remembered no one could see her, and uncrossed them.

"Why'd you-" she stepped closer to the coffin "Why would you do that?"

The figure in the coffin lay very small and very still in the vast expanse of gold.

He looked very much mortal and very much dead. Blonde hair, a scar on the left side of his face,

and a hole where his heart should be.

Alys stabbed him.

But the point of the blade glanced off harmlessly.

"It's-It's Luke, why-wh-what happened?" In the dim golden glow of the sarcophagus, Annabeth's face looked very pale.

There was no time to grieve. In Alys' experience, there never was.

Because the sea demons were right behind them.

"What has happened!" one of the demons screamed when he saw the lid.

"Careful!" the other demon warned. "Perhaps he stirs. We must present the gifts now. Immediately!"

The two telekhines shuffled forward and knelt, holding up the scythe on its wrapping cloth. "My lord," one said. "Your symbol of power is remade."

Silence. Nothing happened in the coffin.

"You fool," the other telekhine muttered. "He requires the half-blood first."

Ethan stepped back. "Whoa, what do you mean, he requires me?"

"Don't be a coward!" the first telekhine hissed. "He does not require your death. Only your allegiance. Pledge him your service. Renounce the gods. That is all."

Percy's hand tensed in Annabeth's, and before she could stop him, frozen in stupefaction as she was,

Percy whipped off the cap,

dropped the speaking stone,

and ran towards the demons, the coffin and certain death.

"No! No Ethan, don't do it!"

"IDIOT! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKCAKES ARE YOU DOING? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO 'JUST LOOK'!": Alys wondered for the thousandth time how Percy Jackson had managed to survive this long.

"Trespasser!" The telekhines bared their seal teeth. "The master will deal with you soon eno-AUGH!"

Alys had whipped out her gun and shot them. She was very lucky she actually hit them. Generally, her aim wasn't very good, and celestial bronze bullets were hard to come by.

"Ethan," Percy pleaded, "don't listen to them. Help me destroy it."

Alys was out of bullets.

Ethan turned toward Percy, his eye patch blending in with the shadows on his face. His expression was something like pity. "I told you not to spare me, Percy. 'An eye for an eye.' You ever hear that saying? I learned what it means the hard way—when I discovered my godly parent. I'm the child of Nemesis, Goddess of Revenge. And this is what I was made to do."

He turned toward the dais. "I renounce the gods! What have they ever done for me? I will see them destroyed. I will serve Kronos."

The building rumbled. A wisp of blue light rose from the floor at Ethan Nakamura's feet. It drifted toward the coffin and began to shimmer, like a cloud of pure energy. Then it descended on the sarcophagus.

Luke sat bolt upright.

His eyes opened, and they were no longer blue. They were golden, the same colour as the coffin. The hole in his chest was gone. He was complete. He leaped out of the coffin with ease, and where his feet touched the floor, the marble froze like craters of ice.

He looked at Ethan and the telekhines with those horrible golden eyes, as if he were a newborn baby, not sure what he was seeing. Then he looked at Percy, and a smile of recognition crept across his mouth.

"This body has been well prepared. Don't you think so, Percy Jackson?"

His voice was dry and cold and cruel, with a bone chilling undertone of something very old and ancient and powerful.

Kronos, King of Titans and God of Time, threw back his head and laughed. The scar on his face rippled.

"Luke feared you," the Titan's voice said. "His jealousy and hatred have been powerful tools. It has kept him obedient. For that I thank you."

Alys couldn't move. This was something against which she could do nothing.

For once in her life, she was absolutely powerless, and it turned her blood to ice.

She was always in control, she needed to be, she needed to have something she knew about, an anchor of familiarity, but here she was, in far,far, over her head.

For the first time in ages, she'd made a misstep.

Ethan collapsed in terror. He covered his face with his hands.

The monster that-once-was-Luke flicked his hand, and Percy flew across the room.

Kronos had already grasped the handle of his scythe.

"Ah...much better," he said. "Backbiter, Luke called it. An appropriate name. now that it is re-forged completely, it shall indeed bite back."

That's when the heroes ran.

Kronos was ten feet away when a blue plastic hairbrush hit him in the eye.

"Ow!" he yelled. For a moment it was only Luke's voice, full of surprise and pain.

The heroes were almost back to the Labyrinth entrance when Kronos howled, loud and guttural. "AFTER THEM!"

"No!" Nico yelled. He clapped his hands together, and a jagged spire of rock the size of an eighteen-wheeler erupted from the ground right in front of the fortress. The tremor it caused was so powerful the front columns of the building came crashing down. Dust billowed everywhere.

They plunged into the Labyrinth and kept running, the howl of the Titan lord shaking the entire world behind them.

............................................

Feet pounding on the cold stone ground, Alys shivered. She'd done so well making herself seem invincible. This was out of control, and Alys didn't know what to do. She was exhausted, but what had she done? Killed the telekhines, maybe, but she'd failed to kill the demigod and stop Kronos, and she'd just stood there, useless, useless, useless.

She'd built a wall of achievements to hide from the question

Without them, was she anything at all?

Well, here was the answer.

Her nails dug into the palm of her hands, drawing blood.

Pain helped to clear her head, helped her focus.

She was fine. She just had to train harder, get better, be good enough to save people. She needed to save demigods. That was what she'd been training for. She had to save them all, so-so it didn't happen again, she couldn't watch more people die.

Still under the cover of invisibility, tears poured down her face.