Happy Fourth of July! Almost! I celebrated it by writing the chapter of Artemis's freedom from the sky and then had to work overtime and passed out! I hope my fellow Americans enjoyed the day off, and I hope everybody reading this enjoys their day!

PJOPJOPJO

"All those cheeseburgers and pizza finally caught up to you?" Alex nodded without surprise when Percy read the new chapter title.

Percy prodded his stomach for a moment in confusion with his pen before shrugging.

... I could see the family resemblance.

"And here I thought you liked Zoe now," Thalia smacked his shoulder.

"So you don't want to hear you've got some of your dad in you too?" Percy said.

"No! I don't!" She snapped, not even remotely joshing now.

... all I'd originally disliked, with none of the good I'd come to appreciate.

Thalia let her seething annoyance of Percy wash away just as fast, as usual. She found that a pretty good comparison of her thoughts, again, as usual. The asshole.

... Artemis said, "Do not offer, Zoe! I forbid you."

Thalia's eyes glimmered with a shared knowledge she, Zoe, and the Hunters all would have felt at that moment. How much Artemis valued them, her family away from that counsel. Enough to forcibly stop them from giving her but a moment of freedom, a chance to escape or fight Atlas at his choosing. Any of them would have offered it for their Goddess in that moment, and she would have given each of them the same response.

...the goddess bit at him, almost taking off a finger.

"I love her," Alex declared.

"You will get your heart broken," Thalia said with pride.

"Won't stop me from imagining her taking a few fingers and spitting them back in his face," Alex said gleefully.

"I've heard it's as easy as biting a carrot, is that true?" Magnus asked, trying his best not to sound jealous. He realized he'd never asked if Alex was attracted to guys or girls, or how that even worked with the whole gender fluid thing.

"No, that's a myth," Alex said with complete confidence. Magnus felt a strange jolt that wasn't fear as he decided he believed her.

"Hoo-hoo," Atlas chuckled.

"What is he, Santa Claus?" Will scoffed.

"Maybe, if Chris Cringle stole that from Krampus," Alex scoffed.

"That wouldn't work, if he's normally trapped under the sky he couldn't deliver coal," Nico said.

"Yes, that was the part that made no sense," Magnus sighed.

...I will have the Olympians take turns carrying my burden...

Percy imagined his dad under there, and felt the anger flash through him like liquid inferno. He quelled it quickly this time, but then the image of Zeus under there next made him wince. With guilt. Because the idea had some perverse appeal. Thalia was so afraid of her own dad she'd believe he'd kill her rather than let her make a choice. He'd ignored and dismissed everybody who tried to warn him of this moment. He was worse than Gabe, a power hungry moron who deserved some humility.

But Percy wasn't like Luke. Letting Kronos win for that petty satisfaction would never be more than a fleeting thought.

... Her blond hair was now streaked with gray.

"I always knew Luke was a constant stress on her life, but I never thought it would hit like that," Alex said sadly.

"You amaze me Alex," Percy told her even if he didn't disagree.

... Thalia muttered as if she read my mind. "The weight should've killed her."

"You're not hard to read Perce," Will told him in a choked up voice. It really hit him in moments like this Annabeth might never have come back to camp, lead her siblings into lunch, been there to help them win another capture the flag game.

Percy couldn't even imagine it. His brain shut off like it couldn't bare the images.

..."Why can't Artemis just let go of the sky?"

"Do you want a pancake cosmos Percy?" Nico asked. "Because that's how you break the entire universe."

"Got to say, really not thrilled to find out the fate of the world literally rests on somebody's shoulders, a job nobody wants," Percy shivered.

And guess who steps up to the challenge every time, Nico shook his head fondly as Percy absently brushed away strands of his own gray hair.

... where Ouranos and Gaia first brought forth their mighty children, the Titans.

Jason puzzled over that for a moment, he felt like Atlas was skipping an important detail for some reason, but he couldn't imagine what.

... "Unless someone else takes it from you."

"So the shackles are just there for his amusement?" Magnus asked uneasily. Wasn't Artemis being humiliated and forced into doing this enough?

"I'm sure it also has something to do with dimming her godly strength and masking her. Why Apollo couldn't find her," Thalia answered quietly. It was probably a childish wish, but one all the same. She wanted Artemis here now. Did she even know she was missing? Had she already picked a new Lieutenant after blaming some god for her vanishing and moved on? Now that she knew somebody had taken and hidden away Jason, she was weary of trusting any god too implicitly, and yet her patron had been a sort of friend, big sister even, somebody she'd always thought she could count on.

... these are the best heroes of the age, eh? Not much of a challenge."

"He clearly hasn't seen Percy in an eating contest," Thalia grinned.

"Or heard Thalia try to sing," Percy smirked, and no he would not elaborate if her vocals made her a credible threat by hurting their eardrums or being of siren quality.

... An immortal does not fight a mere mortal. It is beneath our dignity.

"Explains a lot about Ares actually," Percy said.

Thalia snorted and Jason chocked, but nobody else looked much better as they glanced nervously around again.

I will have Luke crush you instead."

"Pssht," Percy made a noise like a broken faucet, more bravado than he really deserved as he'd yet won a fight against Luke. He was nothing if not confident.

"So you're another coward," I said.

And impertinent. Couldn't forget that one.

Thalia sighed and kneaded her forehead where the Percy sized pain was lodged. How was he still alive again?!

Atlas's eyes glowed with hatred. With difficulty, he turned his attention to Thalia.

"Am I losing my touch!?" Percy sounded legitimately offended Atlas hadn't attacked him.

"He's supposed to be the smart Titan or something," Thalia grinned. "He turned his attention to the bigger threat."

Percy scowled and opened his mouth with what they were all sure was a very colorful retort, but he restrained himself at the last minute and turned back to the book. He wanted Annabeth free of this nightmare, then he'd show Thalia.

Thalia grinned without surprise. Percy wasn't always an impulsive idiot.

... it seems Luke was wrong about you."

"In every way that matters," Thalia agreed nastily. If he'd ever for a second deluded himself she'd run back to him and make every person on earth suffer like they had than he'd never truly known her at all.

...If I didn't hate him so much, I would've felt sorry for him.

"You are definitely a better person than I am Percy," Thalia said quietly. She hadn't let herself feel anything but contempt for him, and it wasn't until much later, alone in her newly minted tent and staring at a crown once braided into Zoe's hair had she let herself feel everything else.

"Nah," Percy tried to settle in his seat comfortably beside her. "I'm just more gullible," he finished glumly. He still felt that pang of sympathy now and hated himself for it. After all this guy had done to Annabeth and his camp, the hating his guts part really shouldn't be as equal as the sorry.

... the more I thought about it, the more I was sure I could hear Bessie mooing.

Thalia clenched her fists tight and swallowed a great mix of emotions. Relief. Jealousy. Easily the most dominant was still anger for Luke putting her in this situation, but the other two were a mingled mix so twisted together she was still unraveling it many years later. She'd never been the child of the prophecy, she'd never even heard Bessie mooing as focused as she'd been on Luke. Zeus's child was not important enough to be The Child. She wasn't important enough.

"Oh crap!" Alex snapped at Percy. "You would find the one thing you could focus on!"

Percy looked plenty put on the spot now and was pretty sure he couldn't have answered what two plus two was as his brain froze up in shock.

... Suddenly Grover's voice was inside my mind.

"Confirmed, Grover can talk to you while awake, but apparently it's only one way," Jason said with his usual interest for all things Grover. Percy was beginning to suspect the guy had a crush or something for as interested as he always was.

... He was on the verge of panic. I'm losing Bessie. Block the thoughts!

Percy snapped back attention to the book in a flash of his own panic. If Bessie vanished, would Grover drown underwater?!

...basketball players, skateboards, candy in my mom's shop. Anything but Bessie.

"Just to clarify, would hamburgers make this situation better or worse?" Magnus asked.

"I didn't have the time to ask, and my mind thought of something better," Percy chuckled all the same, but his mind had found quite a few things distracting enough from that cow serpent.

He considered, for a moment, trying it here now. He didn't know what would happen if he tried to summon Bessie to him or how it would help, but maybe he could leave with her to go find Annabeth...he dismissed the idea before the first moo could echo in his brain. He wouldn't be able to make it out with all of his friends, and he needed his memories back. He had to remember what he was heading back to first.

"Thalia, call the Ophiotaurus, you will be more powerful than the gods."

Not, 'Hi Thalia, long time no see!' Or 'Hey bestie, you're out of the tree!,' or even, 'I have missed you so deeply every day and I've risked everything for this moment where I single handedly rescue Annabeth and take care of her just like I promised while helping you finish off these losers.'

You will be more powerful than the gods. That's what he had to say to her after all these years. Was that the last bitter thought he had every day before dreaming of Kronos? Had he thought of her at all except to wish he had a powerful alley on his side...

"Luke..." Her voice was full of pain. "What happened to you?"

Everything happened to this guy, Jason thought with a kernel of his own pity. He'd been homeless and lost Thalia, been used by the gods and been told the entire time it was all for a greater purpose. His skin crawled, he didn't know why he found it so easy to sympathize with Luke, but it wasn't hard at all. Had Hermes ever visited Luke in person to tell him he valued him as head councilor? As anything to him?

... They have no right to rule the world!"

"Nobody has a right to rule, they earn it."

For a scary moment it sounded like Alex was agreeing with Luke, but her voice was more vehement, a challenge. She'd never begrudged Odin calling himself the All-Father. He'd done a fair few things in myth to interest her enough she didn't hate him, though he'd never done anything specifically to earn her respect. There was no such thing as one leader to her.

..."Free Annabeth. Let her go." "If you join me," Luke promised,

If. There should never have been an if. Will winced at the sense of betrayal radiating off of Percy and Thalia combined. Either Luke cared about these girls and would have done it, or he never would. The only if after that was when he'd kill the next person to get what he wanted. Luke had made the right decision in the end, and he wondered if there had been any if's left in his mind about why Percy did what he did.

... the fear in his voice sounded real. I believed that Luke was in danger.

Thalia's bow appeared in her hand again. She was tense, as if expecting a fight soon. She had no regrets about joining the hunters, but she still had her own if's. If she'd never trusted Luke to begin with, bottled up her anger more, not shared so much of herself with him, maybe it wouldn't have fed Luke's as much. If she'd never sacrificed herself and he'd had to chose all those years ago who was most important, maybe it would have been Luke's tree.

If she'd already been to late, and the reason he'd survived that fall off the cliff because this was just another lie.

... I was afraid Thalia might believe it, too.

She'd hesitated, again. She'd looked at her first friend who she'd shared so much of her life with and saw the world splintering around him, a flash of lightning mocking her.

Her dad warning her? Or cautioning her? He could have sent another eagle to knock her off the cliff. He could have sent that lighting bolt.

He could have shown up.

It was her choice though, that's what he'd given her by not doing any of that.

... a terrible and beautiful palace rising, made of fear and shadow.

Nico winced as one person came easily to his mind. That's how everybody described his dad. Had Bianca been there, would she have discovered her heritage by now? Would she have been tempted to defect from the Hunters too and join to understand the whispers of death they heard, felt how easy it was to traverse into shadows and use fear until she forgot how to get back to the mortal world?

Probably not. She probably would have been better than him and found some way to combine Artemis's blessing with their heritage and figured out a way to use it for something good.

"We will raise Mount Othrys," Luke promised, voice so strained it was hardly his.

Percy shivered for reasons beyond him. An image came like a hazy mist to mind, like the ruins had left him with their own haunted, twisted idea. Luke's eyes flashing gold, a voice not his own speaking through his mouth. Percy shook it off well enough, but it didn't fade as far back into his mind as he'd hope.

... be stronger and greater than Olympus. We are not weak."

"Nobody's been accusing him of that, he can stop showing off," Magnus frowned. Luke had been many things since the beginning, but a weak showing was never one.

He pointed toward the ocean, and my heart fell.

"First time that's happened," Jason frowned.

Percy's stunned and discouraged expression shifted just slightly into an eye roll enough he felt better reading for just a moment.

Marching up the side of the mountain, from the beach was a great army...

"There's a game of ISpy nobody can win," Alex said.

"Only you would think to play a game at a time like this," Magnus told without surprise.

"At least it wasn't who can behead the most," Thalia sighed. Better to try convincing Alex it was okay to do Where's Waldo Monster Edition on the move than deter her from charging in.

..."This is only a taste of what is to come," Luke said.

"I bet it tastes salty," Nico frowned.

"Nope, nuhu, not even touching that one," Percy groaned.

"I've never tasted the dust they turn into," Will ignored him and looked intrigued at Nico. "Or do you mean because they came off the ocean in a ship?"

"I mean Luke's essence is all over them," Nico grinned while Percy kept reading loudly over Will's quiet snicker.

... we will storm Camp Half-Blood, then Olympus. All we need is you."

"Oh, so they're never going to be able to do it. That's great," Jason sighed with relief.

Thalia grinned back, but it wasn't the celebratory hurrah where all their problems would be solved kind of smile they'd hope for.

For a terrible moment, Thalia hesitated.

Again. Thalia winced with shame, she couldn't believe how weak she'd been. Still was. She couldn't lie to herself and say she wouldn't still hesitate at these prospects, she like her father, was horrible about learning her lesson.

Percy threw a commiserating arm over her shoulder and kept reading casually. He couldn't imagine being on the opposing side of Annabeth on something like this, it rattled him to even consider the position Thalia was in. His full confidence was still in her that she'd make the hard choice. Like Annabeth had said, they were a lot alike.

... her eyes full of pain, she said "You aren't Luke. I don't know you anymore."

There was no triumphant cheer, no sense of peace. Thalia closed her eyes and still felt she hadn't said the right thing even if she knew she'd made the right choice as she leaned into Percy's side. Was there anything she could have said to make him run to her instead?

... "Please. Don't make me, Don't make him destroy you."

Jason bit his lip uneasily at that. He didn't really think Luke was much of a match for Thalia, but then, he'd bested Percy on that cruise and it still bothered him how very powerful this demigod clearly was being backed by a Titan, somehow. The phrasing of that bothered him more than anything. Had Luke stopped himself because he couldn't make himself hurt Thalia, or because Saturn had to much influence in him? How far gone was Luke? If he could even come back if he wanted to?

... it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to die fighting with friends.

"It might not be the worst, but I wouldn't call dying the best either," Will muttered quietly.

....Together, we charged. Thalia went straight for Luke.

"And it was entirely personal," Thalia told as if anybody had been in any suspense about that.

The power of her shield so great his dragonwomen bodyguards fled in a panic,

"Did they take a piece of Kronos with them?" Magnus asked without hope.

"I can't decide if I should laugh at the idea of Kronos or Luke needing bodyguards more?" Alex asked with twitching lips for whatever the answer. "And bad ones at that!"

"They were guarding the bad guys from doing anything until all the dramatic reveals were out of the way," Magnus nodded solemnly.

...  Backbiter met Thalia's shield, a ball of lightning erupted, frying the air.

Percy licked his lips nervously for several moments. He had a feeling about what he'd done back then, what his mind instantly went to. Whether that turned out to be a good thing or bad thing was really questionable. He knew he'd have liked to split off and help her, maybe the two of them together could do what one hadn't and finally subdue Luke...but that didn't feel like his fight for some reason.

... I did the stupidest thing in my life, which is saying a lot.

"Stupider than intentionally crashing a bus?" Will grinned.

"Stupider than getting turned into a guinea pig?" Nico muttered with a suppressed smirk.

"Stupider than mouthing off to Ares?" Jason was not letting that one go, and Percy winced with a bad feeling.

I attacked the Titan Lord Atlas.

There were a lot of exasperated sighs echoing in the room, but nobody was really surprised.

... His silk suit melted into full Greek battle armor.

"That is seriously rude," Alex brushed her hand over her shirt as if it had offended her.

"If anyone can pull that off it's you Alex," Percy told her with full confidence.

"And nobody's going to dare accuse you of plagiarism," Magnus said to nobody in particular.

..."Percy!" Zoe said. "Beware!"

"What was she planning on doing if not that?" Jason demanded.

"Something just as crazy," Percy promised, his eyes narrowed shrewdly and already trying to convince himself not to react to every blow he'd have to deal and dodge.

... Atlas was free to attack back directly, with all his might.

"And yet he didn't snap his fingers and turn you into a platypus, so I think you turned out all right," Will told him cheerfully.

"First the Guinea pig, then the jackalope, now this. Why is everyone trying to turn me into an animal?" Percy sighed.

"You might get into, like, five percent less trouble and Annabeth would think you're adorable," Thalia shrugged. "More adorable," she added at his startled, put out look, that quickly morphed into a blush, now of all times.

...The palace was rising, becoming real.

Jason swallowed a nasty sense of deja vu. He rubbed the back of his head and swore the room blurred out of focus for a moment trying to show him the very same. Not Atlas, but something...someone else had once thrown him into the exact same spot...

Thalia snapped her fingers in front of his nose. "Hey, pay attention! The one time Percy wants you to take notes on his awesome skill."

She got to see a twin reaction of both of them rolling their eyes at her at the same time, and she smiled gleefully.

... "Did you think simply because you challenged the war god, you could stand up to me?"

"Percy would have done that without prior experience," Nico said confidently. It was admirable, and yet for the first time Nico could admit to himself kind of foolish and not nearly as cool as he used to think it was.

...When you need it most, your sword will fail you.

Not now! Percy had been fiddling with it in his other hand just like always, tapping it against his knee, shaking it between fingers, being his generally fidgety self. Now he flung it to the ground and looked like he was trying not to step on it as his eyes flashed wildly between print and weapon in betrayal.

... I was at the feet of Artemis, still straining under the weight of the sky.

"Gods I hope that isn't a bad omen, I can't take being turned into a Jackalope right now too," Percy groaned as he face planted the pages for a few moments before forcing himself to find out what went wrong next.

"Run, boy," she told me. "You must run!"

Run where? Percy was still frowning she was calling him a boy, now of all times. She probably still saw him as Hercules, ready to steal something useful and then duck out of there and take all the glory later if it even worked out.

Thalia was fighting for her life, Zoe wasn't going anywhere, and Annabeth was up there. He was right where he needed to be.

...He raised his javelin to impale me.

Nico could see it all perfectly in his minds eye as if Percy's soul had whispered the death he'd almost had right in his ear. Percy would be scowling, that fierce look that could topple mountains and patiently rescue baby cow serpents all mingled into one cold stare, raising himself on one arm, even trying to angle himself as if to shield the actual goddess behind him.

Thalia winced, the guilt gnawing at her like the lightning was corroding her slowly from the inside out. She'd been so invested, too invested in besting Luke she wouldn't have even noticed her friend had died until it was to late. She didn't know what had saved him from this moment, because it wasn't her.

...a volley of silver arrows sprouted from the armpit chink in Atlas's armor.

Percy was weighing that in his mind on the best way to get his life saved ever. It was tied with Annabeth trying to wrestle a gorgon while Grover threw tin cans around.

Ah well, who needed a winner anyways. Any time his life was saved was number one, the embarrassment of that victory was just cake.

...I couldn't beat Atlas, but there was someone who might stand a chance.

"I don't like how you chained that thought," Jason told him with a twisted up face like Percy was coming for him next.

"I mean," Magnus scratched uncomfortably at his ear as he once again wondered how on Earth Percy was alive apparently fixing to attempt to do something a goddess was struggling to do. "At least he didn't skip a link and think of summoning worse?" Better to incorporate the prophecy?...but he couldn't think of any worse options than this either.

"The sky," I told the goddess. "Give it to me."

"Never, a sentence, I thought I'd hear," Will said with vibrant awe. There was something very different about Connor telling these as mythic stories over the campfire, and something else entirely hearing the words actually coming out of Percy's mouth. No showiness, no great gasp from an audience. He said the words with the same quiet tartness in his voice as if telling Clarisse to give up the posturing for the night, they just wanted to go to bed without one more duel. He'd just told Artemis what to do and was sitting here to tell the tale!

... Her forehead was beaded with metallic sweat. "It will crush you!"

Percy's mind was still sort of on pancakes and hoped his would come out with blue chocolate chips in them or something before they unflattened him as he squared his shoulders and read.

..."I'll die anyway," I said. I didn't wait for her answer.

Alex had to smile at anyone who flat ignored what a goddess or god told them to do while they stubbornly insisted they were perfectly capable of making their own choices. Percy might be a doof, but he was an admirable doof.

... braced myself on one knee, holding up my hands, and touched the cold, heavy clouds.

A memory struck Percy, sharp and fast like someone pegged him in the forehead with a rock. Visiting Rockefeller center and seeing the statue of Atlas in this exact position. He didn't know if it was a rare trip with his mom, just out to get away from Gabe, or some school trip or what, but he remembered craning his neck to see as high up as he could into that lifeless face.

And thinking what an idiot that guy was. That position looked so uncomfortable to be holding something. 

For a moment, Artemis and I bore the weight together...I breathed deeply. I can do this.

"Self motivation for the win," Thalia muttered, her only scrap of hope this had worked was the fact that he was sitting beside her. She fought off the urge to cut off that chunk of grey hair, it would only grow back.

... I tried many times to explain what it felt like. I couldn't.

"Was the pain equal, or more than, being a disappointment?" Alex asked steadily.

Percy cast his mind around for a moment, considering. Even trying to think of how to describe it now escaped him, his muscles wanted to tremble and collapse him right out of this chair at just the memory of what he'd once been through. "I'm actually pretty proud of the fact I didn't die doing it, so, less, I guess."

Every muscle in my body turned to fire...  the sky's weight crushing me.

Percy had been Nico's whole world from the moment he laid eyes on him, until he'd found out his sister was gone. Even after that, in those dark nights of the Labyrinth, he'd spend countless hours wondering what Percy would be doing now to help if he cared, what would Percy say to lighten this mood and what cool move combo would he do to fight off the monster that had just chased him down another endless corridor, those skilled hands offering to hold his hand or patch him up.

The yearning never buried deep enough inside him still amazed at the son of Poseidon being able to do everything.

Fight back! Grover's voice said inside my head. Don't give up.

He wasn't even over there being smug and bragging about it, Will marveled. He was smiling and touching the side of his head where he seemed to imagine his empathy link with Grover connected him, his first friend always there to encourage him.

I concentrated on breathing. I could keep the sky aloft a few more seconds.

Percy's mind, as always, flickered to Annabeth first. She'd managed this for gods knew how long, she would definitely be in the blast zone if he failed this. He just kept breathing through the pain then and reading about it now, his goal always just to get back to her side.

...Bianca had given her life so we could get here. If she could do that, I could hold the sky.

Percy gave Nico another of those looks. A flash a guilt, a question in his eyes, a hope that Percy was so clearly transcribing an apology and a plea to be understood he hadn't wanted that for her.

It was still missing something, like a key ingredient Nico couldn't put his finger on why he still grew more anxious by the moment what Percy so clearly wanted to say to him when this was all over.

... jabbing with his javelin, laughing insanely as he fought.

Jason could hear that laugh in his ears with a cold clarity he didn't like. He swallowed a nasty feeling that told him to be grateful he couldn't have nightmares anymore than dreams.

... a tiger, a gazelle, a bear, a falcon. Or perhaps that was just my fevered brain.

"Revenge," Alex hissed with satisfaction in a deep, raspy voice that mocked those dracaena a little to well.

"That's not even in the top ten of things to surprise me in this world anymore, you don't have to blame a fever pain," Magnus promised him.

... "Yield! You never could beat me, Luke." He bared his teeth. "Well see, my old friend."

Thalia still felt sick to her stomach every time she heard that. Luke saying it with such a malicious edge, a cocky confidence as familiar to her as the sword he'd been using was foreign. Hearing Percy say that, spitting it out and clearly frustrated Luke was getting to her. It felt wrong on every level.

... My shoulders would've screamed with agony if they could.

"Now that's fever dream worthy," Magnus made an 'uck' face at the next Greek myth that probably had body parts talking. 

...She was leading Atlas back toward me.

Jason leaned forward in his seat, a hunger clear in his eyes to see a Goddesses strategy at play and full confidence it would come true. Thalia looked pretty smug herself, it was an insane plan worthy of Percy.

Get ready, she spoke in my mind. My response was something like Agggghh-owww.

"You get credit at all for still making noise," Will said bracingly. "Better than static," he even gave him a thumbs up, and Percy couldn't help a light snicker instead of recreating that noise now as vivid as the memory really was. If he wasn't in the ocean, every part of his body would probably be a charley-horse right now.

..."You fight well for a girl." Atlas laughed. "But you are no match for me."

"All of that going on in this book," Alex still gave a roll of her eyes, though it somehow didn't surprise her coming from a Titan. Tethy's was the only one she'd met so far, and she seemed no more competent than any of the others.

...Zoe leaped between them and shot an arrow, where it lodged like a unicorn's horn.

"No," Thalia echoed in here, a quiet whisper among the halfhearted snickers at the mental image. If Thalia hadn't known this was a trick of Artemis, she would have done the exact same thing. The Fates had ordained it so any way this happened, Zoe was not going to make it off this mountain top.

...He sent her flying into the black rocks.

The collective wince that went around the room didn't feel like enough to emphasize the impact. Percy had been half out of his mind with pain and he still didn't feel like it was enough to understand what had just happened in that moment. The Prophecy had come to fruition.

...Artemis seemed to be wounded. She didn't get up.

Alex looked on in interest at Artemis playing possum. A trick only the arrogant tended to fall for, so it wasn't the most dastardly even if she didn't like it herself.

...I let myself be pushed out of the way and rolled for all I was worth.

"That's some lawyery legal loophole going on," Jason almost looked like he wanted to burst into applause. "Technically, he did take the sky from Percy, and it wasn't not involuntary."

"I'm sure he'd be impressed if he wasn't inventing swear words on the spot," Nico smirked.

'See, this is why the Titan's failed,' Will was very hard pressed to keep to himself as he smiled. 'The crooked one was in a box! Even their general fell for such a mortal fallacy. They were going for all brute force, and no Son of Hades to bring a rousing tidal wave of victory.'

...struggling to get out from under the crushing weight of the sky.

"And we were this close to a Titan pancake," Percy sighed.

"And, you know, everything else," Nico added.

"Yeah, yeah, eggs and bacon and all that, the universe scrambled and only having the fat of a few million extra pounds," Percy nodded. He was tapping his pen against his stomach again.

Thalia couldn't help but laugh in surprise, of course Percy would be getting hungry now that the worst of the problems were out of the way. Nico found it very Percy he would equate all this to food without the same kind of amusement and a little more exasperation.

 ...He bellowed so hard it shook the mountain. 

"Where he stays," Thalia said viciously. This Titan had taken two Hunter's on this quest and the goddess herself to start it all. If anyone was ever foolish enough to release him again, she'd stick an arrow where they couldn't pull it out, and then deal with the Titan.

I tried to stand and fell back again, dazed from pain. My body felt like it was burning up.

Will's hands twitched. Percy needed fluids, and while there wasn't enough ambrosia and nectar on Olympus to heal Percy's idiocy of taking this on in the first place, it was still a good place to start helping him get his strength back.

He gave himself a mental smack quick enough. Once again, this had long since happened, and all he could have done was point out the obvious. He probably couldn't have done anything for Zoe either but point out it was to late.

... Thalia put her spear to his throat. For a moment, there was silence.

Percy took an uneasy breath. He didn't mean to, he really wasn't trying to draw out the pain on Thalia's face or the uneasy question on the others if Thalia was about to murder someone. He just needed to catch his dang breath as he stretched his legs and spine around to convince himself he wasn't a pretzel after remembering that trauma. Now onto the next one.

...Her face bruised and streaked with dirt. "Don't kill him!"

"Not the words I expected to come out of her mouth," Alex admitted.

"I don't know what I expected her to say, but it wasn't that," Magnus agreed. Anything from running over and tackling Percy or running past Thalia and kicking Luke in the sack would have made more sense than that.

"He's a traitor," Thalia said. "A traitor!"

The way she'd screamed that had made her whole chest hurt, like the very air had fought her going in and out to say it, and yet some piece of her had finally felt at peace for admitting it to herself. Saying it out loud.

The ugly scowl on Jason's face promised Luke would be lucky if he just got a spear in the guts for all he'd done. The pain in Thalia alone would have guided him to a non-peaceful answer no matter what Rey- the thought stopped short like his brain hit the breaks on him and flung his mind into his skull full force. He shook his head to clear the annoying buzz, but the lingering pain and awful taste in his mouth like he'd been so close only amplified his urge to do something now. 

Alex looked interested in what the outcome was, while Magnus was clearly bracing himself for this book to hit blood and gore levels.

Will brushed at his own beaded necklace for solace. Luke had hurt their home again and again. Luke had always let anybody who asked hold his necklace with so many beads on them, it felt heavy to all. The mark he'd left still made Will hopeful, even posthumously, that not everybody would look on Luke's death with such acceptance of inevitability.

...Artemis had run off toward the black rocks where Zoe had fallen.

"That's fair, I accept that," Percy muttered as he flipped the page.

Nico shook his head without surprise. Any other person would have been mildly offended he'd just tried to save both of their keisters and Artemis hadn't even tried to heal him in thanks first before running off. Surely she could sense the life draining out of her Lieutenant. Percy wasn't resenting Artemis a moment of every second she'd have left with Zoe.

..."We'll bring Luke back to Olympus. He'll be useful."

Thalia still winced upon hearing that. It's exactly what Luke had said to keep Annabeth alive for his own selfish reasons of hoping they'd change their mind and understand him. What other choice did that leave Thalia? She'd had an opportunity to end it, and she'd let it pass.

"Is that what you want, Thalia?" Luke sneered. "To please your dad?"

"Is he trying to get stabbed?" Alex asked, almost grudgingly impressed he had the moxie to say that to her in that position.

"He taunts enough people, I almost assume it's a life goal," Jason sounded like he was agreeing even if he was just as confused at this guy pushing his luck.

Thalia hesitated, and Luke made a desperate grab for her spear.

Thalia could still see it perfectly clear in her mind. Like a glitch in the universe.

...Thalia kicked Luke away. He lost his balance, terror on his face, and then he fell.

There was no Hollywood effect for her. No slow motion for her to deliberate. One moment he was there, the next her battle hardened reflexes they'd learned together on the streets had sent him spiraling. There was no fracture of time fast enough to cover that moment.

... The army was staring at Luke's broken form on the rocks.

Thalia still saw him like that when she closed her eyes. Alone in her tent.

She had set out on this quest to save him and Annabeth. Fighting him up there, seeing the state Annabeth had been in under his care, had sent her into a frenzy of spear thrusts. She had done this to him, caused his death.

It hadn't stuck, whatever piece of soul Kronos had lodged in him still resurrected him to another day, but as far as she was concerned, this had been the last bit of Luke to exist. Her Luke. Her first everything.

The scrawny little boy who stole a bag of jerky from right under a cops nose, and then sensed her watching. Grinned at her as he casually walked off without anyone noticing.

Who had come to her rescue when she'd found herself cornered the next block over by a hellhound by sacrificing the jerky, a distraction that lasted long enough for her to summon a bolt of electricity to finish the job and pass out.

He'd been sitting casually next to her in the rain while she was rolled into a stinky, dripping box when she'd woken up like nothing had happened and offered her some more jerky while introducing himself.

That's who she killed on her sixteenth birthday.

Percy put his arm cautiously around her, expecting her to brush him off and tell him to keep reading. Instead, she leaned into his arm and exhaled sharply, throwing her arm around him too with her eyes still gently closed like she was trying to preserve something in stone by concentration alone.

...Despite how much I hated him, I wanted to believe he was still alive.

No matter how much time passed or what she ultimately felt he deserved which she still wrestled with, she didn't want to remember him like that! It was everything wrong with the world the gods would not fix. A lonely halfblooded. So she kept her eyes closed and pretend it was just the salty water that made a tear escape.

... We ran for the rocks, ignoring the curses and threats of Atlas as we passed.

"Yes, ignore the Titan who's been a threat half this trip and was vanquished in half a page," Magnus muttered. It felt good he was getting more used to this.

... I'd almost forgotten her scrape with Ladon the dragon.

It was really saying something about the calamity of Percy's life that the dragon attack of last chapter had quickly been climaxed over by all that had just happened.

...We might've met our doom right there, but I heard a strange buzzing noise.

Will made a sharp noise as he repressed a whistle. A warning. Hearing even Thalia, the queen of escaping her problems freeze up gave him a kick with no where to go.

The amount of times he'd lost a patient and been forced to move onto the next one with no time to process until much later gave him an edge he wouldn't have expected in that moment.

Just as the army of monsters came over the hill, a Sopwith Camel swooped out of the sky.

"Somebody dropped a camel out of the sky?" Percy looked blearily down at the words like he might need glasses.

"No, way." Jason's brain was sagging under the weight of what he might have just heard as Percy shook his head to finish. Was it actually possible...a mortal had found their way up there?!

... peppering the ground with bullet holes, scattering group of monsters.

"And Annabeth's been saying she has no family resemblance with her dad," Magnus's grin made him look drunk. "Look at Uncle Fredrick swooping over the cliff to save the day too!"

"That, is so cool!" Alex cheered. "You think he'd let me drive!"

Magnus's heart did a little loop-d-loop in his chest at the idea of Alex behind the wheel of that thing instead.

..."A brave man," Artemis said with grudging approval.

Percy did look just the tiniest bit miffed he couldn't have gotten that compliment. He'd call it a life goal and something to work towards. Maybe if he and Annabeth ever got married someday Artemis would consider it. Oh crap, wait, then he'd have to talk to this guy first and get his approval- no wait, what?!

Nobody really understood the weird blush in Percy's face as he hastily kept reading, and mutually decided they didn't want to know.

...the machine gun's volley blew them into sulfurous yellow powder.

"I'm now over here wondering if Annabeth might have another future halfsibling," Will started snickering. "If this didn't get some gods attention, I don't know what will!" Then he finished with an even louder laugh for punning his own name.

"Any daughters of his would be welcomed into the hunt without question," Thalia agreed with amusement for how impressed Annabeth had looked at her dad, let alone Artemis. A very rare thing in itself, and even more still on a mortal man. This had truly been a day of note.

"That's, my dad!" Annabeth said in amazement.

Magnus was leaning so far forward in his seat it looked like he was preparing for launch. He didn't know if Annabeth and her dad would work out their differences, but here was a proof beyond compare this mortal half of his family cared enough not to just sit at home and hope everything worked out. Maybe it really wouldn't be the worst idea to go check in on them when he got out of here...

We didn't have time to admire his flying.

"There's the tragedy of this book," Nico muttered darkly for himself. He still liked watching mortal things fly through the sky, it was a strange fascination of his he connected to before his time in the Hotel, a part of his mind that somehow connected to a memory he no longer had he often assumed.

... a silver chariot drawn by a beautiful deer.

"Was the deer silver too?" Magnus asked in surprise. This was getting hilariously uncanny if it was a stag.

"Yeah, she was," Percy might have been out of his mind with pain and hobbling like all his bones were fused together to get there, but he still smiled in delight at the breathtaking animal.

Magnus's smile was a touch bitter now. Only Alex could guess how the metaphor came full circle, like a symbol of Percy's mom in the motherly Goddess had come around to drive him back down the mountain this time.

..."Like Santa Claus's sleigh," I murmured, still dazed with pain.

"She insists she named her Prancer before that song became popular, but I have my doubts," Thalia relaxed back into her seat again, falling into a more casual lean back as she touched her nose and gave a smirk for the room again.

..."Indeed, where do you think that legend came from?"

"Artemis inspired Santa, yeah sure, after Percy wrestled with his evil twin I refuse to be surprised about this anymore," Magnus sighed, back to rubbing at his forehead again as yet another insane part of these stories was drilled into his brain.

"Talk about getting lost in translation," Alex snorted in surprise. She much preferred the Norse depiction of Skadi still, but she wasn't here to cause trouble debating who stole what from whom in the different depictions.

... a silver flying chariot pulled by deer, escorted by a Sopwith Camel.

Jason brushed his hair down in agitation, swearing it was standing on end as static filled as his brain felt. There was no way possible he should ever have caught a glimpse of that in any memory he didn't have. His brain was short circuiting.

... bellowing curses against the gods as he struggled under the weight of the sky.

Percy let out a great sigh as he finished. Annabeth was safe.

But not everything was as it should be.

Zoe had but a few breaths left in her. If Artemis was going to save her, she would have already...and Bianca. Gods, it was no wonder if Hunters hated him for generations. He still had no clue how Nico wasn't trying to actively hack his head off yet...

Annabeth was safe...

But was she going to join the Hunters?

PJOPJOPJOPJO

And just as a promise of all of these hints of Jason's past the last few chapters, those are all going to get more fleshed out with actual memories...later. I will not tell when, but it is coming.