The Afterlife (HoO Fanfiction)

Percy

I was still holding Annabeth by the hand, but I knew that Ananke was only starting to torture us. Ananke seemed to have more power over the people who suffered the most in their lives. With Annabeth and me, she was served.

Since I arrived here, I had to fight the Minotaur (once again), an Empousa and a metal giant - a cruel reference to the automaton that had taken away Bianca di Angelo. That, plus flashbacks from my most traumatic experiences: losing my mother when I was twelve, losing Grover when I was thirteen, losing Annabeth during the winter of my 14th birthday, the deaths of Charles Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, Luke Castellan. Then reliving Tartarus.

These last battles had exhausted me terribly. After all these years. I had barely enough energy left to fight back. I felt that all these losses had been in vain. Ananke was right. The gods had betrayed us and I had no more will to fight.

So I fell. And I had been ready to let everything go. But Annabeth had come just in time to catch me, as I had done before for her. But this time we didn't fall together, she had brought me back and in her eyes, I had found a reason to fight.

I remembered that before turning 16, I thought that I didn't deserve to be alive. After all, I was destined to save or cause the fall of the Olympians. However, with Annabeth, I had started a family and I had to be there for them. I couldn't allow myself to give up.

Ananke didn't win yet. We had to reach our children, whatever it took.

"Annabeth, do you know where Luke and Silena are?"

"They are somewhere in the crowd if what Ananke showed me is true."

She seemed even more determined now than ever. Now that she was by my side, I felt my force coming back slowly. Together, we formed the best team and we had gone through difficult quests. I looked at Annabeth and I could see that she was thinking fast. I noticed that her arm was bleeding a lot. I ripped off the hem of my shirt and bandaged quickly her wound as she was having an ambrosia square. With pressure, the wound stopped bleeding a bit.

"You're in a crop top, Seaweed Brain," she said in a half-smile.

"If I go down, at least I'll go down with style."

She kissed me. Good luck kisses were now a tradition.

"I have a plan," she said. "Ananke thinks that we're going to attack her to get to our children. We have to play it in defensive mode. She's going to tire herself and we'll find a weak spot to flee and find Luke and Silena."

I agreed. I wasn't known for retreating and this surely would make the goddess uneasy.

Annabeth placed herself back to me and we readied our weapons, ready to counter any attack. Ananke threw at us dogs, ventis, all sorts of monsters that we already had to fight before. Despite my sore arms and Annabeth's wound, we went through every attack.

Ananke was getting more and more impatient. She seemed to be losing her forces.

Suddenly, the goddess lost her patience for good and screamed, her voice bouncing off the walls of the room.

"If you don't want to cooperate, I'll make you!"

As soon as her words left her lips, the walls around us fell in an ear-splitting crash. We could now see the theatre and all the people in attendance. My eyes instantly went to my children, who looked terrified.

Even before we could reach us, Ananke pointed her finger at them. Luke took his sister in his arms.

"If you don't renounce the gods, lightning could fall somewhere you wouldn't want to."

Immediately, I felt anger rising in me. No one could hurt my kids. Even the goddess of the inevitable couldn't think about touching the smallest hair on their heads. I tried to find water particles that could help me to make Ananke feel even a fraction of the pain she was inflicting me right now. I realized that we were surrounded by clouds.

I then raised my arms in the air, making raindrops turn around, which transformed in waves ever stronger. The water was billowing around me and was accumulating in a way for me to be brought up by the streams. The water was giving me back my strength. I was now at the same height as the goddess. Her smile filled me with even stronger hatred. As the water was still rising around me and that I was getting ready to strike, I saw Annabeth's expression change. She looked terrified and she called for me.

"Percy! Stop! You're going to destroy Mount Olympus! That's exactly what she wants!"

Annabeth's words seemed like a distant echo. The water was still unchained around me. I shouted and the water rose over Ananke's head. The storm I had created was destroying the last columns still standing. As the water was about to fall directly on Ananke, Annabeth placed herself between her and me, shaking her arms. Instantly, the tons of water fell to the ground, soaking Annabeth. I fell with her. I hadn't attacked Ananke because I was scared to hurt Annabeth, but the force of the waves had thrown her to the ground. Her image got blurry as if she had difficulty being in different places at the same time.

"Percy, that's her plan! She wants us to destroy Mount Olympus. That's the last thing left for her to do, but she can't do it alone. She cannot destroy what she's linked too, like the other gods. We can't play her game."

I realized how stupid I was. Sometimes, I forgot how powerful I was. I could have destroyed thousands of years of history in an instant. But we still had to find a way to save our children. Annabeth heard a chime. Instantly, she took out the phone that Chiron had given her. She knitted her eyebrows.

"It's morse code... It says 'help, you ok? Not me.' It's Leo."

"We had to save Luke and Silena."

Annabeth nodded. Ananke was still on the ground. I ran to the stands to take my children in my arms. In the meantime, Annabeth ran to the goddess, her sword raised over her head. I noticed that she was already wounded on her foot, which was the exact spot that Annabeth decided to attack. The goddess screamed and vanished.

Annabeth ran to my side and squeezed Luke and Silena in her arms. They were okay. Everything was okay. We heard an explosion and all the walls of the labyrinths fell. Ananke didn't have enough powers left to control effectively the Mist and to show us our worst nightmares.