"Percy we were talking about the prophecy" Annabeth said seemingly pretty confused.
"That..makes sense" Percy simply answered. Quickly gathering his thoughts he looked at everyone again.
"So..the prophecy goes ..
A truth stays unoutspoken,
A flaw gets forcefully broken.
A being of power betrays,
They will wreak havoc all over the place.
Ten people should push the End,
To safe their dearest friend.
Should the traitor not be found and saved,
There will no future path for earth be paved.
Honestly, focusing on only the betrayal won't do us any good. Rather than be scared and paranoid we should just be preparing. The questions I have right now would be:
Who has to be saved, who are the ten people, and what flaw gets broken that has a severe influence on this new, what seems to be, battle? Also, obviously End gets named in the prophecy, so he seems to play a part, even though Im not happy about it." Percy stated, quite proud of how quickly he thought of all that. His dark green eyes scanned the room and were met by the astonished eyes of his friends and the Gods.
"..you know, Percy is right, it won't do us any good to speculate further, since anyways we're getting nowhere. I think we should just do our best to prepare for the unknown. Which means get stronger and prepared for everything" Luke answerd after a while.
"Fighting blind wont do us any good!" Annabeth said while hitting the table.
"Well then we're just gonna have to learn how to see in the dark!" Luke answered raising his voice, looking a bit more stressed.
"Look..." he sighed. "We can speculate all we want, but we wont get any answers like this..The only powerful 'beings' we can think of right now are Chaos and End and both seem unlikely to betray us. The Gods aren't on our suspicion list either since we know they wouldn't help Kronos, considering their daddy issues."
""Hey-"" the Gods exclaimed but Luke ignored them.
"There's no other people on our List so thats a dead end. We should just-"
"What about the prince?" End exclaimed making everyone look at him in surprise. He was standing in a corner, looking a bit bored.
Percys heart skipped a beat. He didn't expect to be named here.
"The prince? You mean Prince Flang?" Silena asked quite surprised.
"Its not quite known, but besides my beloved brother and me there's also him in the most-powerful-being team. I've never met him but my spies did say he's around my or Chaos' level of power" He simply answered while shrugging.
"But..I mean he is the Prince..He's Chaos' son, do you really think he'd go against his fathers wishes and meddle in a random planets problems?" Castor suddenly spoke up. Everyone was a bit surprised because they hadn't thought of that possibility before. Even more so Percy, now that he was suddenly on the suspicious-people list. Although he also felt the tiniest bit relieved that End really didn't seem to know that he was Flang.
"I mean, he is adopted after all, and he's a big questionmark. No one is allowed to talk about his appearance and very few have even seen it. He went from planet to planet, carrying out missions no one knows what were about, and he does seem to have a temper -seeing as he has accidentally made some planets implode" End said.
"Although they seem to have been uninhabited, but thats beside the point"
"How the hades do you know so much?" Percy stated a bit too coldly, maybe feeling a bit offended because End just said he had a temper.
"Spies" End answered. "I was looking for you you know, but gathering additional info along the way just seemed like the obvious thing to do. I also was hoping I'd find some dirt on my brother."
Percy was actually quite shocked End had gathered so much information, and was also surprised End had managed to sneak spies into the army.
"Wait Prince Flang is adopted?" Jason now chimed in, curious about the new information.
"..yeah, its not know to many but apparently Chaos picked him up somewhere and adopted him. Thats at least what people gossip" Calypso answered.
"We thought he'd just been kept hidden until he was grown up enough" Zeus said, just as surprised by the news as everyone else looked.
"It couldn't be the prince." Percy tried to defend himself.
"How do you know?" Athena said in a slightly mocking tone, not convinced.
"I- " the more he thought the more Percy couldn't come up with a good reason besides the Prince literally standing in front of them and fighting on their side. But, you know, saying that would prooobably expose him. So he just stayed silent. He really didn't want to tell them yet.
Especially End.
"Also-" End started and Percy wished he could just shut him up. Punching him to stop him from talking seemed like such a good idea, but Percy held back like the gentleman he was. Also, it'd probably just create more problems for him.
"I heard from my spies that he has been meddling with earth before" Percys eyes widened slightly. How the hell did he know that?? The fact that he had his father get his friends from earth back then had been top secret. He'd say not even 10 people knew of it.
"Wait, he has??" Poseidon now spoke, quite surprised.
"Apparently." End said shrugging.
"Why are you giving us all this information suddenly" Silena now said, looking at End suspiciously.
"The faster you people win this stupid war, the faster I get to kidnap Percy on a vacation" he stated matter of factly. Percy just raised and eyebrow and Poseidon would've killed End if looks could kill.
"1. I dont remember being invited or agreeing to it.
2. That is so not the problem you should be focusing on right now.
3. I prefer somewhere with an ocean view, also make sure there's blue food" Percy answered.
Everyone but End just looked at him judging. He raised his hands in defence
"Hey If I'm gonna get kidnapped and held against my will, it might as well be somewhere I like, and with good food."
"Noted" End just said, and again, if Hades hadn't pushed Poseidon down to sit by the shoulder, there would have been a death.
"Anyways..it makes sense, even though I dont want to say it, the prince seems quite suspicious if all that is true.. so we'll add him to our list." Luke said sighing. Great now Im on a suspicious people list..and even worse Im the only one on it! Percy thought.
"What do you say we leave it at that, I dont think we'll get much further today" Bianca said. "We'll go rest, let it all sink in and maybe we'll think of better stuff tomorrow?"
Everyone nodded. "Good idea" Chiron said in agreement looking as exhausted from this conversation as everyone else.
And it'll get me time to talk with dad and maybe even get some information from him.. Percy thought.
"Well then let's all get going, we'll meet here again tomorrow afternoon." Zeus said and everyone nodded.
Everyone sitting stood up and Poseidon took, to everyones surprise, a few steps towards Percy, who was utterly confused. Awkwardly and without talking he grabbed Percys hand, who to his own surprise didn't do anything against it, and placed riptide and a small Dori plushy in his hand before turning around and disappearing together with the other Gods.
"...that was weird.." Nico said and most people nodded. Percy just stared at his hand in utter confusion, feeling weird. Especially looking at riptide.
~~~timeskip yay~~~
"..End?"
"Yes Percy?"
"You know planet 'Far far far away'?"
"Yes" he raised his eyebrow slightly confused but also happy Percy was talking to him of his own accord and seemingly not mad or irritated. That was progress.
The two of them were the only ones left outside since everyone else had gone to sleep.
"Im really really really craving the local fruit -what was it called again, ah right the Reaquat. I think it only grows there, in that volcanic region surrounded by so much smoke you can barely breathe and guarded by all those monsters.. Would you mind getting one for me? I'll..I'll owe you something" Percy said slyly, not quite being able to look End in the eyes.
Quicker than Percy could react End had grabbed Percys hand and given it a quick peck.
"I'll be back as soon as possible, so you won't have to miss me too much. Remember that you'll owe me" he said, giving him a wink before he disappeared.
That'll take him 6 hours at most.. Percy thought, deciding to tactically ignore the slight blush that had appeared on his face.
He took a deep breath, and looked at the sky, which was full of stars. After a few quiet seconds he turned around, walking straight into the forest.
Time to talk with dad..