Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter thirty-one

The other titan, Kiros, made a disgruntled noise as he complained about the assignment from the other, clearly discontent with being stuck having to play babysitter to a titan who couldn't give up his burden unless another was willing to take it. It really did seem like a foolish assignment, but I wasn't going to give the enemy forces any tips on how to hurt us more.

From beneath the loud sounds of a swirling sky, I could just barely hear the third titan screaming out to the golden titan and the Lord of constellations. The former general was ranting about how he was the greatest warrior that they had, how one of the others should take his burden so that he may fight. Honestly it sounded like a child's temper tantrum, a sentiment that the golden titan must have shared with me since he told the cursed titan to quiet.

"As for you," the glowing titan started, turning to the night sky titan, "Kiros, do your duty."

The titan's voice was harsh, cold and commanding enough to not need for it to be raised for the point to get across. Honestly, watching the trio the way that I was, I couldn't help but wonder if Atlas and the Lord of constellations had taken lessons in survival skills from me as they continued to question the already angered titan that obviously had a higher ranking than them.

"And if you need more warriors?" The titan dressed like the night sky asked, continuing despite the other's temperament. "Our nephew will not do you much good in a fight if it comes to that."

It was a decent question, something that all leaders must know before going into battle. If you don't have a way of getting reinforcements when they are needed, then the fight is all but lost from the beginning since in large scale wars, reinforcements are historically almost always called in at some point.

But the other titan only laughed as if the thought of needing more warriors was as foolish as letting the other titan out from beneath his curse.

"Don't worry about him," the golden titan said in a voice much too harsh to be of any reassurance to anyone in the room. "Besides, the gods can barely handle our first little challenge. They have no idea how many others we have in store. Mark my words, in a few days time, Olympus will be in ruins, and we will meet here again to celebrate the dawn of the sixth age!"

The titan erupted into flames at the end of his hubristic speech, blazing like a bonfire with the bucket of gasoline tossed into it.

So it's not that he doesn't have reinforcements, they have plenty, but they're just using them strategically to play the board master in the twisted game that the titan lord of time has designed for us.

Jokes on them, I never lose a game.

The night titan grumbled as the scene shifted, pulling away from the two remaining titans to one of the tall Greek columns just outside the pavilion. Hidden in the shadows behind the column was a small teen quietly spying on the scene that I'd just seen only moments ago. The shadows seemed to curl protectively around the boy, licking at his skin like they wanted to pull him into them.

The teen looked at me, straight at me as if he knew that I was there, a grave expression coloring his face. "I have a plan, Jackson," the boy whispered, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough that the giants wouldn't know that he was there. "It's crazy, I'll be the first to admit that, but based on this, we don't have time for anything sane."

It sounded like the younger boy wanted to drag me along on some kind of suicide mission, something dangerous enough that he didn't believe that I would easily agree to go along with it as willingly as he needs me to. I could feel that there was some type of ulterior motive to whatever the other teen had in store for me, but at the root of it, his intentions were pure. Something that you rarely find so earnestly in the mafia where everyone is almost always blunt in saying that they were going to use you.