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A hero’s death is their greatest failure, but for Luke his death was his greatest accomplishment. Luke didn’t deserve Elysium. A place for true heroes to go, he deserved the Fields of Punishment, or even Tartarus for the crimes he committed against the demigods. He had massacred them. His own home, he had run through with a sword and never once turned back.
Luke couldn’t bear to walk an inch further into Elysium, for he would see the faces of his friends and family and know that he caused their early demise. The familiar sight of the River Lethe greeted him.
He didn’t deserve the chance to be reborn. To be placed into the living, loving world and be unaware of the endless cycles of pain that the demigods have to through. To not know the pain and suffering that inevitably got placed upon the remaining demigods after the war. So he knelt over Lethe, contemplating his decision of another life.
The small glow the Lethe gave off made his skin look ghastly pale. His scar caught the deepest shadows in the reflection of the water. Despite there being no air to move the Lethe’s water Luke still heard the running of the river into some place far beyond Elysium. The air around the Lethe was fogged and humid, when Luke inhaled it smelled like nothing, maybe it was a symptom of being dead, or from walking circles around the Lethe, Luke didn’t know.
His neck prickled and he turned around. No reason to turn around quickly presented itself, he already died, there wasn’t anything that could kill him in the Underworld, but a habit is hard to forget.
Directly behind Luke were the Three Fates. The three ladies who thought it was funny to label someone as twisted and cruel as Luke a hero. A person who should be celebrated and be remembered. What a cruel joke.
“Luke Castellan,” The air near the Lethe turned cold when Clotho spoke his name.
“The price of forgetting is simple,” Lachesis said, “but you must right your wrongs, and then that shall be your redemption.”
“Decide Luke, sit forever staring at yourself with guilt, or finally be free from your many mistakes.” Atropos was waving food to a hungry dog.
Another thing to do for the gods. Luke thought bitterly. He schooled his expression and said, “Can you keep your promise? Swear on the Styx you’ll grant me rebirth?”
“We are not like the gods Luke, we don’t force you to do something just for our amusement." Clotho’s voice drowned out the running of the Lethe.
“We are offering an equal deal for you Luke, we will do something for you, you do something for us, and it will just be your decision to accept it or not” Lachesis said.
It was a good deal. Finally be rid of his crimes, be free of the chains that were being a demigod. Someone who could live their life oblivious of the godly world, ignorant and free.
“I will accept,” Luke said sharply, “only if you promise me that you will give me rebirth.”
FAMILY LUKE. YOU PROMISED.
Luke couldn't say anything about keeping a promise. He had broken so many, to his mother, to Thalia, to Annabeth, to himself. Did he truly deserve a kept promise when he couldn't even keep the people he cared about safe?
No. But Luke is selfish, he knew that from the moment he left his mother eternally waiting, he would make the Fates promise him something even if he couldn’t keep a basic promise to the one person he had left.
He inherited breaking promises from Hermes. The same man who promised to help his mother had been the one to curse her in such a way she became unrecognizable. He took and took and never gave any back, but Luke couldn’t have been any better. And Luke was done with broken promises, from himself, from his father, from anyone.
The Fates spoke in eerie unison, “We the Fates hereby swear by the Styx that we will grant Luke Castellan’s wish of rebirth when he completes our request.”
The lightning crack could be heard even from the Underworld.
“Right. What do you need?” Luke asked.
Luke was going to give his family something other than pain. Even if he had to kill himself twice more to complete that.
“We shall transport you to a loose tapestry. You must cut your string, for it will unravel the tapestry whole if it continues.”
“When you complete that you must find a way to get out, you can decide how that happens.”
Luke nodded and his body fell limp against the river bed. His vision tunneled in and his grasp on consciousness faded to oblivion.
He gasped awake. Pressing a hand to his chest he could feel the quick beat of his heart. The sound of air rushing in and out of his nose swept him out of his revelry of a beating heart. For one last precaution check he bit down on his tongue hard. Pain. For once Luke was glad for the pain, the Fates hadn’t tricked him into false hope after all.
He swallowed, a small tang of blood going down with his spit. The trees mocked him as he pushed himself up. He slid his dagger into his cargo pocket and picked up the celestial bronze sword that thankfully wasn’t Backbiter. The familiar surroundings of the southern woods greeted him like an old friend. An old friend he had murdered with his own scarred hands.
He gripped the celestial bronze sword and started following the arrows etched into the tree bark. He and… Lee… had made those together when a Hermes camper had gotten lost trying to find a stray arrow.
The smell of flowers and plants swamped the forest. Based on the feeling of the sun beating down his back Luke guessed it was around mid-july.
The chitter of animals that should have been there were gone. Only the rustle of the plants under Luke’s feet and the sound of the branches swaying with the breeze gave Luke signs that he wasn’t going deaf at the ripe age of twenty-three.
Luke couldn’t place where the sword came from nor why it was familiar. It wasn’t the cursed abomination that was Backbiter. Kronos’ ominous presence had followed him wherever he brought the sword. The cursed nature of the sword should’ve been the first clue that working with Kronos was a horrid idea. Though Luke should have already thought about that when he ate his own kids.
But Luke blamed his nineteen year old stupidness for that decision.
Luke assumed that the nature spirits were watching him. He stepped into their home carrying the face of someone who should be far younger, and holding a sword with the stance of a warrior. It wasn’t like they could do anything; Pan wasn’t around to be found, and Mr.D could careless about what happens to the demigods.
The woods thinned and sixty-something feet away was the first sighting of camp Luke got in over four years. The chipper attitude of the camp was a sore thumb jabbing into Luke’s back. The thumb being the people he had gotten killed.
Luke sat atop a moderately high tree branch, if he fell wrong he could really hurt himself. A pang echoed through his guilt-ridden heart as Luke saw Lee Fletcher guiding the younger versions of his siblings. Along with Lee was a face he hated. His own face. Despite his younger self being maybe eighteen at most, he had no qualms over killing him. Betrayal or not, Luke wanted nothing more than to kill his younger self as painfully as possible.
Seeing his younger self, still scrawny and barely an adult, it lit up a maniac grin across his face. Luke was a good swordsman even at the age of eighteen but Luke had experiences in an all out war he would win.
Luke watched himself smile and play with his younger siblings. Despite the emotions not being a fake mask Luke was still collaborating with Kronos at that point. Even if the reason was good, the outcome was nothing but horrendous.
Luke hated anything to do with Kronos. Kronos had used him and he had let him. Let him turn into a cruel monster from the pits of hell. And Luke would never forgive anything associated with it, even himself.
But the after effects of being possessed by Kronos were useful in this instance. The Titan of Time had corrupted his normal blue eye into an ugly gold shade. Thankfully he retained his regular eye color in his right eye.
As the younger version of himself ushered the Hermes cabin– his gut twisted seeing Connor, Travis, and Chris so young and innocent– he threw a rock at himself. It hit the side of young Luke’s head with a thunk and young Luke whipped around.
Luke knew from the way his younger self had straightened his spine and stood straight up that he had surprised or better yet terrified him. A golden-eyed man wasn’t the best sign when you were currently working under Kronos. His younger self probably thought that he was in trouble or another round of nightly torture would commence.
“Hey Connor? Travis?” The two boys looked towards his brother, so naive to the fact that said brother would hurt them in ways they didn't think possible, “you run along to… our dad… I’ll just be a minute."
The disdain for Hermes was laughable when Luke thought about how corrupt with power he had gotten.
Luke gestured to a nearby clearing and hopped off his tree branch and onto the forest floor. He sat nearby rock as he waited for his younger self to follow the obvious footprints in the dirt. When his younger self finally reached the clearing where they were about to duel to the death Luke hopped down.
“Awfully fake of you hm?” Luke let fake sweetness drip through his voice.
“What do you– you're not Kronos?” Younger Luke drew his sword and that made his job a whole lot easier.
But Luke couldn’t just kill himself that quickly. He needed to make it bite, to make it hurt, to know how much pain he had caused his only family.
“Lying to our siblings like that. I know all about your plan… little me,” Young Luke’s eyes widened and Luke threw his head back and laughed, the sound coming out bitter.
“If you're me, then don't we have the same goals?” Young Luke asked, “why are you talking like you didn’t do the exact same thing. Did the gods change at all? Or are you some other god trying to mess with me?
Luke had at one point shared his younger self’s view on the right way to get the gods to change. But that had done more bad than good. Hell, Luke didn’t even know if it had done any good. But Luke would admit, he had some hope in Percy, even if he had none in the gods.
Percy, despite all the things Luke had put him through and said to him, he still believed in the kid. He knew the kid didn’t like how the gods went about things but he still fought for family. His loyalty stood with Camp Half-Blood.
And Luke wished he could have done that too.
“Our little secret plan didn’t do shit to help the demigods.” Luke’s face split into a feral grin, “and when I’m done with you Travis isn’t going to see you in a long time.”
With that he launched into a slash for the throat. The two swords met with a clang as his younger self barely parried in time. Luke didn’t give his younger self a moment of rest. He lunged for the right shoulder with a force that promised no mercy. Their swords came together in a familiar song.
Luke slowly whittled his younger self down. Sweat coated young Luke’s brow and forehead. Small red gashes littered his young self’s body along with many tears where Luke’s sword had snagged the fabric of the shirt.
The summer heat was doing no good for either of them. Luke was far more used to fighting in such conditions than his younger self. Sweat, grass, and copper wafted through the air and an occasional bead of sweat hit Luke’s tongue.
Luke made a stab for his young self’s mid section. Young Luke jumped back but instead of landing on the smooth forest ground his foot made contact with a stray log and his ankle jerked and he fell.
Luke felt like a hungry hell hound when he pounced on his younger self. Chucking his sword to the side, too inefficient for such a close situation. He pulled out the dagger from his cargo, the bronze gleamed in the sunlight, last time it wouldn’t be covered in gore.
“Why?” Young Luke croaked.
His eyes were crossing from the concussion he most definitely had. That fall got his head slamming into the dirt fast.
“Because of what we did.”
He left out the part where the Fates had offered him a chance of rebirth. His young self didn’t need to know that.
Young Luke attempted to bite the hand that held the dagger. Luke gave him points for doing anything to live. When his younger self finally realized he couldn’t bite him he elected to spit a gross mix of blood and spit on his palm.
The sounds of frantic running and shouting disrupted the scuffle that went on between the Lukes. The campers and a few others made their way over the hill, their bright orange T-shirts standing out from the forest like oil in water.
His younger self attempted to say something of value but Luke wasn’t going to give him a chance to spew his guts out for forgiveness or cruelty. He shoved an arm over his young self’s throat. Young Luke’s breaths came out as choked coughs as he clawed at Luke’s arms, the sweat on his palms rubbing against Luke’s arm.
Luke turned his attention to the group of people that decided to see him brutally murder someone. In the front were four familiar faces. Chiron, Lee, Mr.D and Hermes.
Luke’s eye twitched and his fists clenched tighter, knuckles beginning to turn white. He turned to face his young self again, the group of people were less important than killing himself.
“How does that feel?” Luke snarled.
His scar always made him look evil, but he definitely looked like a monster now.
“What on earth?” “Luke!”
Luke felt weightless. Did he die again? Did he fail at his one chance of rebirth? Was he so weak he couldn’t even complete such a simple task as killing himself? What would happen now?
Those thoughts couldn’t last long as his hearing, vision, feeling in his limbs, were flooded with pain. His back contorted in pain, the sharp edges of the bark digging through his shirt and into his back. While Luke enjoyed feeling alive he didn’t enjoy the pain. Blood thumped in his ear and bile scarped its way up his throat and it took every inch of self control to not throw it and his soul up.
Luke had a mission to get done. And he would do it. He’s fallen hundreds of feet into stalagmites and lived, traversed the labyrinth and lived, stolen objects of power and lived. So he could survive a hit to the back. No matter how much godly strength got put into it.
“Get away from my son!” Hermes shrieked.
Luke wanted to strangle him. Why did Hermes care so much about someone he left to rot on the streets? Why did he care about Luke giving him the ‘honor’ of a quest? Why couldn’t he just care about his other kids, the ones who aren’t old enough to understand that their father doesn't care about them. The ones who sit and wait in their small spot on the floor waiting for a single sign from their parents.
Hearing Hermes' voice gave Luke the strength to get up and finish the job. Perhaps if he killed himself then Hermes would have nothing to do but care for his own children and claim then. That would be a reward even greater than rebirth.
Luke’s limbs screamed in pain as he stood up. The blood rushing in his ears almost drowned out the sound of his thoughts. But Luke wouldn’t die without getting his godless life.
He knew he looked like a monster. From the pairs of shocked, angered, or terrified eyes of his siblings and friends, it was an obvious conclusion. Looking into the eyes of the soon to be dead demigods pushed his body to stand straight up. At the very least he had to repay them, the fallen never got another chance to stand up so he was going to make sure his younger self never got up again.
Somehow after Luke had gotten thrown into a tree he had still kept the dagger in his hand. But now he wasn’t close enough to gut himself and his sword was somewhere chucked on the ground. It wasn’t the hardest situation he’s ever been in. Facing Ladon and carrying out the two dead bodies of his friends was a harder one, but this ranked pretty high on his list of shit situations.
But now he had three immortal beings standing in front of his younger body. All he needed was an opening. Easier said than done with the gods because nothing could ever be easy with them. He so desperately wanted to kill himself in the way he deserved, not just a stupid stab to the armpit but a strike so deep it came out the other side.
Luke evened his breathing out. He needed to have his body in check before he went for the finishing blow. He needed to make sure he didn’;t pass out from the pain emitting from his back, legs, arms, every part of his body. Luke bent his knees so that if he had the opportunity he could launch himself forward.
He waited for when the three immortals finally realized who or what they were looking at. Not just a weird crazy demigod but the byproduct of their neglect. The byproduct of Kronos’ possession. That there wasn’t one but two Lukes.
Recognition flashed in their eyes and their limbs dropped slightly. Just enough for Luke to spring into action. He pushed Lee out of the way, making the son of Apollo fall onto his butt with a thud. The small cuts along his younger self were already healing, either from Lee’s magic or from ambrosia, either way it didn’t matter.
He grabbed his younger self’s leg pulling him out of reach and landed on top of him. He pinned young Luke to the ground with his hand. Luke had startled out of the realm of unconsciousness when he got dragged across the forest floor. Branches and leaves scraping into his back and arms.
Luke had to act quickly. If he got pulled off then he would have failed again. And he never liked failure.
Luke was grateful everyone was slow. He had enough time to pull his arm back, the dagger in his hand gleamed in the small streaks of sunlight through the tree canopy, giving it an orange glow.
The head of his younger self gave way to the dagger. Luke felt the muscle, bone, flesh and brain matter break under the daggers sharp edge. Blood poured from the stab, a fountain of red. Crimson pools stained his younger self’s skin as it poured down his face. The dagger squelched as brain matter coated it.
Luke in one final cruel act, twisted the blade. Celestial bronze, meant to protect a demigod from the treachery of monsters, had killed one right in front of their parents and siblings.
A monster wielding celestial bronze was nothing any god or demigod had expected.
Luke tore the dagger out of his head and small strips of flesh ripped from the blade. Luke, so accustomed by the sight, didn't even bat an eye while the other demigods and immortals looked ready to heave the contents of their lunch into the forest. Brain matter splatter on the ground with a wet squelch as it dripped off the dagger.
Copper tang wafted throughout the air, the smell not as intense as it had been during the Battle of Manhattan. The sound of flesh and brain matter falling to the ground and slinking off the bronze blade filled the eerie silence in the woods. Red stained the dirt ground as Luke let himself ease back.
If the other versions of the campers he killed, or hurt, or did some sort of psychological trauma to them managed to capture him, he wouldn’t deny their right. Letting his father or Mr.D get to him was a different story. It wasn’t their right to mutilate him and rip off as many limbs as they saw fit, that right was only reserved to the demigods. The family he killed.
Luke shoved himself off his dead body, the lifeless body falling limp without support. The blue eyes that most Hermes kids shared stared up unseeing and devoid of light. Luke’s heart beat at an alarming rate. Either from the fight or from glee at killing himself, he couldn’t tell. His mouth tasted like dirt, sweat, and hints of bloody strawberries. While Luke normally hated the taste of strawberries from his own blood it tasted better than sand.
Luke’s arms and legs cried out in protest as he stood up and dusted his jorts off. His muscles were most definitely sore or bruised, maybe even worse. The pain of being alive and whole was an unexplainable injury to someone who had spent at least three weeks in the ghostly confines of Elysium.
Looking into the disgusted eyes of the campers stirred up feelings of bitter recognition. He was a monster. One born from the pit and dragged up into the waking world. A monster that had struck up a deal with the titan of time for safety and ended up hurting the very people he had sworn to protect. Luke didn’t know when the last time anyone looked at him with a feeling other than betrayal.
Luke stepped back. Simultaneously, Lee, Travis, Connor, and Hermes all knelt by the body he had just brutally murdered. They cradled the body with their hands. Travis and Connor were sobbing, their tears mixed with the blood-soaked earth. Their sobs and cries were a sound that made Luke’s heart twist even after four years of war.
Luke could tell that Lee held some sort of emotion in. Whether it be disgust, from the sight of a body that looked far less human that before, or grief for one of the oldest campers, a big brother to all of the camp. Lee forced all the strength he had into his healing abilities. Golden light emitted from Lee’s hand and curled their way up Luke’s dead body trying to fix at least one of the many injuries that were inflicted in the Luke on Luke duel.
Luke in the meantime twirled his dagger. It was the utter opposite of the bloody battle that happened between him and his younger self. Blood stained his shirt but he was going to die again anyways, no point in being clean. While the crying campers, Chiron, and Hermes huddled over Luke’s dead body Mr.D staring straight at him, an undecipherable look on his face.
Luke grinned, his lips cracked with the effort but that tiny drop of pain was nothing to the sea of pain Luke faced during his time with Kronos and beyond.
Luke may have felt bad at putting such grief onto his fellow demigods but he was all for antagonizing his father. Luke clapped his hands and said, “That’s done.”
A dozen heads whipped towards him. All angry at him.
“Why? Why do you look like him! You monster!” Travis held Connor as he screamed.
“Not the first time I was told that,” Luke said, his voice softer and kinder when speaking to his younger sibling, “but that needed to happen.”
Chiron swiftly moved in front of all the demigods, thankfully blocking them from Hermes oncoming wrath. Maybe that’s where I got my fatal flaw from? Luke mused before he got grabbed by his collar.
“What are you doing with my son’s face?”
Luke was disgusted at being claimed as Hermes' son. He barely considered himself May Castellan’s son so he wasn’t Hermes’ by any measure.
“Take a guess father,” Luke spat.
While in the grasp of his father Luke stretched. It appeared uncaring and lazy but all Luke was trying to get momentum. And with one last cruel smirk towards Hermes, Luke plunged the dagger into the back of his throat, the other end poking out minutely. It ripped through his veins. Strawberry scented blood stained the skin and clothes of Hermes. The anger faded from his eyes as he realized that his son died twice. Both times by killing himself.
Cruel pleasure flooded through Luke’s veins as he could finally give his father a taste of the grief he had felt over the years. Finally let his father feel the death of loved ones so closely to his chest. How it feels when a child dies in your arms and you can't do anything about it.
Everyone had always said his fatal flaw was wrath.