One Last Chance

This is my (heavily edited for mature content) first story on here. I'll post a link to FF.net once I get it up so you can read the real version, but until then, enjoy this!

Part I: A Prison in the Clouds
7:23 AM, August 18th, 2009 "Percy ... I can stop him ... I know ... give me the knife!" Luke pleads with Percy, who's standing there in his armour, holding Annabeth's knife and looking uncertainly at Luke and Annabeth and the throne room of Olympus. "Please," the older boy begs, "only I can stop him." He seems to make up his decision right then and there. "No way." "Then run," says Luke. "Go!" "Stop that, boy," Kronos' voice says. Percy shakes his head. "I'm not abandoning my friends." And suddenly, a pain shoots through his body. He hears a faint "No!" from Annabeth, and then he blacks out. 8:42 PM, August 18th, 2009 "Happy Birthday. Like your new prison?" Percy blinks awake, and focuses on a form with wide shoulders, tall, flaming head, and for a moment he thinks it's Hyperion, but it can't be, because the figure is much taller... He blinks again. Hard, and focuses on the figure before sitting up. The figure has a scythe. Great. Kronos. Now Percy is looking around. His prison is completely stone, except for one side, where he can see New York. His mother is pleading, pleading with another Titan. He stands up. "Mom!" "It's just a screen, Perseus." "Mom! Paul! Can yo--" Percy breaks off as Kronos swings his scythe and hits him in the leg. Apparently, his Achilles curse has broken, because pain shoots through him. "Ow! Gods--" He shouldn't expect anything less from the Titan lord, though. He turns to face Kronos, gritting his teeth against the pain. "You're a monster." And Kronos laughs. "Monster, you call me? I must admit that I am familiar with them, but I am not a monster... unless you express the desire to have one." "Bastard." Kronos kneels down to face him, a mocking smile on his face. "You should be honored, Perseus Jackson. I'll leave you to figure out the secret for yourself." A swipe of his scythe and Kronos is gone. Swearing angrily under his breath, Percy turns to face the "screen" when he notices the golden drops of blood. Ichor. He ignores it at first, and finds a video game-like controller connected to the screen, and he finds that he can walk around the city, like an avatar. He decides to put this off, and then looks down to check his leg. The area around the wound is soaked in ichor. Blood of the immortals. Confused, he rolls his pant leg up and realizes that the ichor is coming from him. Percy is immortal. For a moment he's stunned, then he lets out an enraged yell. "No. No!" 3:37 PM, November 11, 2042 "So how're things outside the city?" Percy's question is only dull. He's not interested. He's gone around New York countless times, using his video game controller and the screen to check everything out. It never turns off. He sleeps a bit. He thinks a bit. Sometimes he screams swear words at the wall. But most of his time when he's not being visited or tortured is spent on the screen. Most of the demigods evacuated, including Annabeth Chase.

He's glad for this. He's visited every so often by a Titan, maybe once a week. It's hard to keep track of time. Prometheus visits every so often. The first time didn't really seem like anything. He had no weapon. He had a box of donuts, a pie, a Nintendo DS and two games, a knife, a Sharpie, and a six-pack of root beer. Food, drink, and entertainment. Thank the gods. But the Titan of forethought had a way with words that hurt worse than weapons. That first time, his last words? "I'm surprised you didn't ask about Annabeth Chase." "All the demigods have sheltered in Calgary," Prometheus says. "Annabeth," Percy blurts out. "How is she?" "She ... misses you," Prometheus says. Somehow Percy can tell that he's holding the bad news in. "Tell me," he says quietly. "Are you sure?" Percy stands up angrily. "What the f--k do you think?" he snaps at the Titan. "Luke found her," says Prometheus. "And?" queries Percy. "Stabbed herself in the heart with a sword," Prometheus says. "Anaklusmos." There's a long pause. Then Percy shoves at the much stronger Titan and roars, "Get out! Get the f--k out!" And after he's gone, Percy takes the picture of Annabeth Prometheus was so thoughtful to give him, and stares at it for a while. For the first time in years and years, he cries silently, the tears leaking down his cheeks. And right now, he wants to die. 6:30 AM, August 18, 2392 The day New York was deserted completely, all monsters and humans and demigods out of it, was Percy's three hundredth birthday. The demigods had gone first. The humans tried living there, but eventually they all moved away. Monsters stayed for a while longer, feeding on the bodies that didn't manage to survive. But then they left, too. The screen flashed bright blue with the date, and went dead for the first time in three hundred years. I'm three hundred years old today, realized Percy, and no one's here to celebrate it, and I still look sixteen. "Happy birthday," says a voice next to him. He turns to see Luke. He's looking well. But Percy does not care that it's his birthday, or it's Luke, or that he should have been long dead by now. He stands up. "Traitor!" he roars. "F--king traitor, coward, son of a bitch, piece of s--t, asshole, motherf--king c--t--" He breaks off as he realizes that Luke's expression is remaining indifferent. "You can call me that," Luke says. He sits down. "Why the hell are you here?" demands Percy, still suspicious. No weapon. Thank the gods. But the Titans got bored of torturing him about a hundred or so years ago, and he'd had no visitors since then. He'd gone insane, practically, mumbling about random nonsense, and then he'd look at Annabeth's picture and calm down. "Bored," is Luke's answer. "Oh, you're bored," Percy says sarcastically. "I suppose you haven't been sitting in a dungeon for the last three-f--king-hundred years, with the last one-f--king-hundred fucking alone, and I have no idea what the f--k is going on with this world, and do you know how f--king disgusting it is watching monsters eat people?" "Oh, come on, Percy," Luke says. "It couldn't have been that bad." Percy's stone hard glare is enough to make Luke put that in another way. "I mean, there's worse things." "Well, worse than being sliced open every other week?" Luke looks slightly thoughtful, then he says, "No, not really. And you're not in a dungeon." "Show me." Luke shrugs. Then waves his hand. Immediately, sky appears - bright blue sky. "You're not in a dungeon," he repeats. "You're in the sky." "I could tell," Percy says, half sarcastically. "What happens if I jump?" "You die." "I guess I shouldn't try, then," Percy says ruefully. "I'll leave this open." "Shit, no." Percy looks out the door nervously. He'd always been scared of heights. "Your call," Luke says. "Fine, leave it open." "See you." "Not." Luke grimaces, then disappears. 7:30 AM, August 18th, 2392 "I found you!" A girl's triumphant yell awakes Percy from the nap he'd been taking. "Holy shit!" he yells, seeing a girl staring straight into his face. She backs away. "Sorry if I scared you," Percy mumbles at the same time the girl says. He stands up, stretching. "Ugh," he mutters. "I need a bed. I need a freaking bed." Then he looks at the girl. She's about sixteen, with blond hair and bright green eyes. "I can get you a bed." "Thank the gods," Percy mutters. Then he sighs. "Who are you?" "Jenna Leigh Wood," she says. "You're going to get me out of here, right, Jenna?" asks Percy. She looks at him, green meeting green. "Sure." Percy immediately looks happier. He takes the picture of Annabeth and the Nintendo DS and the butterknife that Prometheus gave him so long ago. Jenna regards it with a look of disgust on her face. "You won't get anywhere with that," she says. "Well," Percy begins to explain, tucking the picture into his jeans pocket, and the game into his jacket, "I used to have this really awesome sword, but I don't know where it is." "Does it have anything to do with a pen?" "You know about it?" Percy asks incredulously. "Well, yeah. But until we find it ... " She takes a backpack off her shoulder and digs around to find a dagger. "That should do." "Not my sword, but better than nothing," he says. "Okay, hero," Jenna says with a smile, "are you ready to save the world?"