Percy was dead. It was that simple. He'd fallen into the River Styx and dissolved. That should've been the end of it. I should be celebrating victory and the death of my enemy. That's pretty much what Kronos had done when I told him. But instead, I was sitting by the hearth, with Percy's smiling face stuck in my head.

I reached for some more fuel for the fire. My hand fell on an old chunk of the throne of Poseidon. My vision blacked out. Somewhere in the darkness, I heard someone call my name. I couldn't tell by the voice who it was. Through the dim light, I saw a figure stumbling hopelessly in the darkness. I heard the voice call out my name again.

I looked to my left at Luke, who was standing next to me. He nodded his head in approval, as if telling me it was alright to follow the voice. I followed it. The voice called my name again, more desperately this time. I was close now.

I saw the dark figure with greater detail this time. Through the darkness I could just make out dark, messy hair, but when the figure turned to look at me, my world flipped upside down. Sea green eyes shone through the darkness.

The figure whispered my name. Then it was gone.

"Percy!" I shouted.

Darkness surrounded me, I couldn't see anything, and I couldn't even hear or feel anything. A single, commanding voice filled my head. Choose Annabeth, he won't wait forever.

My vision came back, and I was still in the throne room by the hearth. I looked at the piece of throne I was holding. I decided ton put it away and use a piece of Zeus's throne instead. Luke walked into the throne room, doing his best to walk without falling.

On the bright side, he was getting better at it. He told Kronos something I couldn't hear.

"WHAT?" Kronos roared.

I struggled to stop trembling. I watched as Luke looked up at Kronos, his hand clutching his ribs.

"It's the gods sir," Luke repeated. "They've escaped from Tartarus."

"How is this possible?" Kronos demanded. "How could Kampê have failed?"

"Well..." Luke looked at me. My eyes widened. Oh no. I thought. No no, no, no, no!

"They were broken out by an intruder," Luke explained. "The intruder overpowered Kampê and...got the gods to the elevator. But they tripped the silent alarm. They've just exited the pit."

"I see," Kronos seethed. "And who exactly is this intruder?"

Luke gulped and mumbled something I couldn't hear. Kronos didn't hear it either.

"Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon," Luke repeated.

Surprisingly, Kronos stayed quiet. I'd expected him to disintegrate Luke on the spot but–

I was pulled out into the middle of Kronos's throne room by an unseen force. I fell to my knees and Luke rushed to my side. Before he could ask me if I was okay, however, Kronos lifted me into the air and started choking me Darth Vader-style. I clutched my throat, even though I knew that wouldn't do anything.

"It's funny daughter of Athena," Kronos said, "I seem to recall you telling me Jackson was DEAD!"

I couldn't breathe, much less form words for a response. But I could still think, and I knew something was up. When I'd fought Percy, he'd barely been able to throw a punch. He couldn't have beaten Kampê, and the gods were too weak to have done it either.

Kronos started choking Luke the same way he was choking me. "Both of you," Kronos ordered. "If Jackson isn't dead in by the summer solstice in seven days, I will send you both to the Fields of Punishment to rot. Do I make my self clear?"

We nodded, on the verge of losing consciousness. Kronos walked over and, grabbing each of us, hurled us against a wall. I heard one of Luke's bones break.

"Good," Kronos said. "Now get out of my sight."

I crawled over to Luke and slung his arm over my shoulder. Together, we stood up and limped out of the throne room. When we reached the steps that lead back to Earth, Luke shrugged off of me.

"I'm not a toddler Annabeth," he joked. "I can walk."

He took about three steps, but then he almost fell. He righted himself and looked back at me. "See?"

I just shook my head and kissed him on the cheek. We walked back down to Earth to go find Percy and... kill him.

The six of us crouched behind a crumbled wall while a Telkhine passed by. Don't get me wrong I could've killed it or even used my new god powers to zap it to ashes. But I knew I couldn't kill it without making noise, and that would just have the rest of the Titan army on us. And as for not using the god powers? I didn't want to risk speeding up the degeneration unless I needed to.

When I was sure the Telkhine was gone, I signaled for the gods to follow me as I stealthily walked to the next source of cover, which happened to be the skeleton of a dragon. The thing was, it still had chunks of meat on it. Which meant two things: one, it had died recently, and two, the smell of rotting flesh filled our nostrils while we hid there.

"This is taking too long," Demeter complained.

"Shh!" everyone else whispered.

Apparently, monsters have an easier time hearing whispers than complaints, because I heard something say, "What was that?"

I peeked around the giant rib I was hiding behind. An empousa flanked by two dracaenae, each of which held a hell hound's leash.

Oh typical. I thought.

"Stay here," I whispered to the gods.

Hades wiped some blood of his forehead. "You don't have to tell us twice."

I jumped out and soared up and over the monsters without them even noticing me. Landing silently, I sunk up on the dracaenae on the left. Concentrating, I reactivated the god powers. Using the power of Hades, I encased the dracaenae in shadow before stabbing it in the throat with my knife. It screamed, but the sound didn't carry through the darkness I'd created.

I shadow traveled to the other dracaenae and, just for kicks, used Aphrodite's power to make it fall in love with the hellhound. While they were uh, busy (Eww), I slashed at the empousa. However, just before my blade hit, the other hellhound lunged at me, snarling.

I threw a punch so powerful it sent the hound flying through the sky. I sheathed my knife and extended my hand in the direction of the empousa.

"MOOOO!"

My first thought was: Well that was fast. I killed him what, twenty minutes ago? But when I saw the stampede of cows running at the empousa my thoughts changed to something like: What the fuck?

The cows quickly trampled the empousa and when the herd cleared, I saw a huge mound of cow crap where the empousa had been. Double eww.

I blasted the last hellhound and dracaenae to bits with a burst of godly energy, not even wanting to look at them.

"That wasn't so hard," I said.

The gods/demigods cowered in a huddle. If it was possible, Hades looked even paler. They all looked like they'd just seen the scariest thing in existence.

"Uh," I stammered. "Guys? Everything...okay?"

Ares cowered behind Aphrodite and pointed behind me. Confused, I turned around, and then I almost fainted.

In front of me were not one, but three Lydian drakons. If it weren't for my god powers, I'd have been frozen to the spot. That being said, with my god powers, the drakons' stares didn't faze me. Even so, I knew this could be a hard fight. I unsheathed my knife. Here we go...