Prometheus stared at the man before him for several long, agonizing seconds. The Titan's golden eyes studied Harry, as if waiting for the mortal to answer him, but still nothing.
Then, slowly, Prometheus forced a polite, diplomatic smile onto his face. He deliberately turned away from Harry, as if trying to forget he was there in the first place.
"To business then," the Titan said, his voice regaining its smooth, cultivated warmth. He shifted his attention to the gathered demigods, specifically the boy with the sea-green eyes.
He gave a small, courtly bow toward Percy Jackson. "Let me properly introduce myself, as my previous introduction was interrupted by… other matters. I am Prometheus."
Percy blinked, shifting his weight. "The fire-stealer guy? The one who got chained to a rock with the vultures eating his liver every day?"
Harry burst out laughing. It was a loud, uncontrollable bark of amusement that echoed across the valley, startling a flock of birds from the nearby woods. Gods, this kid really didn't have a filter for his brain and mouth.
Prometheus's expression twitched. A faint, silver scar along his jawline seemed to throb. "I don't think it's a good idea to bring up all the old memories, Percy," Harry said through his chuckles, wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eye.
The Titan absently touched his face, his jaw tightening. "Please… do not mention the vultures. But yes, I did steal fire from the gods and give it to your ancestors. I gave humanity the spark of civilization, the warmth of the hearth, and the light of progress. And in return, the 'ever-merciful Zeus' had me chained to a rock and tortured for all of eternity."
The way he spat out Zeus's name made the temperature on the hill drop ten degrees. The air felt brittle with resentment.
"Then… how are you...." Percy asked, looking genuinely curious.
"How am I free? Hercules did that. Aeons ago. He broke my chains and slew the brid," Prometheus said, his composure returning. He straightened his tuxedo, looking every bit the refined gentleman. "So you see, I have a soft spot for heroes. Some of you can be quite civilized when you aren't being used as bludgeons by your parents. Hercules understood the value of a grand gesture."
"Hercules? Civilized?" Harry snorted loudly, leaning back against a gnarled oak tree. "What a joke."
Prometheus slowly turned his head toward him, his golden eyes cooling to the color of frozen honey as he stared at Harry with a confused look. "And what, exactly, is wrong with the son of Zeus? Was he not the greatest demigod? He is the blueprint for everything your kind aspires to be, isn't he?. He even went on to achieve godhood."
"Please. Hercules was nothing special," Harry said, waving a dismissive hand. "The dude's entire life was nothing more than a divine puppet show. He was a jerk, an asshole, and a puppet who spent his whole life as a muppet for the Olympians. He spent his days cleaning stables and strangling pets just because a goddess had a temper tantrum. His entire life was just a joke for the gods and nothing but a series of chores."
The demigods stared at Harry in stunned silence. Percy, on the other hand, seemed to nod unconsciously. He had seen visions of the ancient demigod's life when he had been on his quest with Zoe.
"Hell, a lot of his achievements weren't even purely his," Harry continued casually, his emerald eyes glinting with a predatory light. "He had help at every turn, Athena, Iolaus, even the gods he eventually served. But not once did he truly acknowledge the people who bled in the dirt beside him. How many do you think helped him, and all forgotten without their names ever known"
Prometheus just shrugged, choosing not to engage with the man on the topic. He turned back to Percy, his expression softening into something almost friendly.
"Look, Perseus. Right now, you demigods don't really have any advantage here. Your position is weak. You have traitors in your midst, and you know you can't stop another full-scale assault from us. Typhon is tearing through the gods as we speak, so why don't you do the right thing? Surrender. You can't win. Why die for the gods who never even cared for you?"
"We'll see," Percy replied, his jaw set.
The Titan sighed, his face looking pained, almost sympathetic. "Perseus, I am the Titan of Forethought. I know what is going to happen before it even happens. I already know Kronos will win."
"Youre Also the Titan of crafty counsel," Grover spoke up, his hooves trotting nervously in the dirt. "Emphasis on the crafty."
Prometheus shrugged lightly. "True enough, satyr. But remember, I supported the gods in the last war. I told Kronos then that he would fight and he would lose. And did he not? I know how to pick the winning side. And what does it say this time… that I am backing Kronos? That I am putting my bets on the King of Time?"
The demigods looked grim. If the guy who can see the future thinks you're going to lose, it's hard to find the motivation to keep fighting.
"It says you're angry at Zeus and want revenge," Harry interjected, his voice lazy. "You supported the gods last time, and not one of them stood by you when Zeus decided to make you a bird-feeder. He didn't even release you himself, it was his half-mortal brat that did. He then went around sleeping with the same 'mortals' he punished you for helping, enjoying the civilization you sacrificed to create. He's living in the house you built while keeping you out in the rain."
Harry stepped forward, "So it's only natural. Even if the chances of losing were ninety-nine percent, you'd still pick Kronos's side simply because watching Zeus burn is worth the risk. It's spite. Am I wrong?"
The Titan was silent for a few seconds. Then, a slow, eerie smile spread across his face. "You are not wrong about the spite. But you should also know this, if the chance of losing was a hundred percent, I would not be here. I am not a martyr. I am a survivor. The Titans have a real chance of winning this time because Olympus has grown fat and lazy on its own myths. That is why I am here. to offer you a way out before the sun sets on Olympus forever. Why be the last defenders of a falling house?"
"So why the truce and the talk?" Annabeth asked, her grey eyes scanning the Titan's map for any tactical weakness." If you truly believe that you're going to win, then why try to get us to surrender"
"Because I wanted to see if you would truly fight for ungrateful masters," Prometheus said. He snapped his fingers, and a glowing holographic map of Manhattan appeared in the air between them. Red lines snaked through the streets like veins of fire. "This is Manhattan. We have armies here, here, and here. We outnumber you twenty to one. We have the sea, the land, and the sky closing in. The stage is set. You cannot win."
Percy glared at the Titan, his hand tight on Riptide. "We won't lose. I won't let it happen. I've heard 'impossible' before, and it usually ends with me still standing."
The Titan started to respond, but Harry was no longer listening. His head shifted to the right, his eyes narrowing as he stared toward the distant, dense woods of the North Shore.
'Divinity.' A god was near, and they were hiding. Without a word of warning to the group, Harry vanished in a blur of motion, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust as he sprinted toward the forest.
He found himself standing before a hidden cleft in the earth, an entrance to the Labyrinth.
And inside, he sensed Divinity.
He remembered Pan had been the god that was in the Labyrinth, but he was dead, which left.....a smile formed on his face.
"Janus," Harry muttered, his eyes lighting up.
The god of doorways, beginnings, and endings. A god with two faces who always lived in the "between." A god of choices. A god whose power would serve Harry well.
Without hesitation, Harry plunged into the Labyrinth.
The maze tried to play its games. Walls shifted, passages that looked a mile long shortened to inches in a blink. It tried to trap him, but Harry, in the end, was a campione and was somewhat immune to it.
For three hours, he played a frantic game of cat-and-mouse through the shifting corridors. Every time he turned a corner and felt the god's presence, the air would shimmer, and the divinity would flare up a mile away.
It seems like the god had sensed him, and the god was terrified for some reason without even knowing why, and was running away from him.
"Tsk." Harry clicked his tongue. "He sure runs fast."
"Here, Janus, Janus, Janus," Harry called out, his voice echoing eerily through the shifting stone corridors, amplified by the maze's own geometry. He whistled, the sound bouncing off the walls like a physical thing. "Come on out, two-face. I just want to talk. Here, Janus, Janus, Janus." Harry called out like he was calling a cat.
Divinity flared for a brief moment in what Harry could only guess was outrage before vanishing entirely, retreating into the deeper, darker sections of the maze. Harry sighed, shaking his head. "Coward. All these gods, and not a spine among them," he muttered.
He followed his own senses back out, the Labyrinth's magic failing to ensnare him. By the time he stepped back into the sunlight of Camp Half-Blood, the hill was nearly empty.
A few younger campers remained, looking terrified as they packed supplies. Harry had approached them, asking what had happened. "The battle!" one of them, a small kid looking like 7 or 8, shouted, his voice cracking, like he was trying not to cry. "It's started! They're fighting in Manhattan right now! Percy and the others had already left for the city!"
Harry paused, the wind ruffling his hair. The frown that had been etched on his face from the failed hunt for Janus slowly melted away. A wide grin spread across his face, one that made the nearby campers flinch and move away as if he were a monster himself.
Finally, he had been waiting for this from the moment he realized what point in time he'd come to the Percy Jackson world.
He had already chosen his target from that moment. Hyperion. The Titan of the East. The Lord of Light. The titan was the one he knew for sure that he would cross paths with if he stuck around, and he'd get the chance to battle him.
Without a word, Harry stepped forward into the empty air. In a flash of emerald light, he was gone.
He reappeared thousands of feet in the air, suspended over the burning, silent skyline of Manhattan. Below him, the city was a graveyard of movement. The mortals were slumped over steering wheels and on sidewalks, trapped in Morpheus's sleep.
Only the demigods and the monsters moved, tiny sparks of violence in the concrete canyons. Smoke rose in pillars from around the city, and the sounds of clashing bronze and monstrous roars drifted.
Harry cracked his neck before his senses locked onto something bright. He could feel the sun's power, similar to what he could do with his sun authority, radiating from the center of the park.
Guess that was Hyperion.
"Oh, Hyperion…" Harry whispered, his voice carried away by the rushing wind. "You should curse your luck today. Because today, the sun sets for good for you."
He dived.
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