The Silver Ring (PJO)

Chapter 39

"You can schedule a war?" I asked incredulously.

"Apparently," Omega muttered. 

"She marched into the castle and insisted to meet me," Chaos said.

"I suppose there was lots of drama," I said dejectedly. "And she came when I was recuperating."

Chaos nodded sheepishly.

I threw my hands up in exasperation. "Why do I miss all the fun?"

But secretly, I was glad that I didn't have to run into Void again. Just the thought of her made my insides squirm with a myriad of emotions—and none of them good. My latest—and only—encounter with her was still running through my brain, and I didn't know how she would react if I ran into her in a hallway—which the chances were, regarding my luck, very high.

"Yeah, well, we have a bigger problem," Omega said gravely, making all the attention turn to him. "As it is, we have barely enough weapons for our current force. If we draft our eligible population—approximately half a million more soldiers—we'll be half a million short. Even if we canvass for swords throughout the city—for a fair price—we'll barely get an eighth of a million. And nobody in his world has the power to create things, except you"—he pointed towards Chaos—"but Void is restricting your power. I see no way out of this situation."

There was silence for a bit. Given the tone of his voice, it was obvious that Omega had pondered this issue in abundance before bringing it to our attention—only because he had the sense that would be a deciding factor in the war.

Half a million soldiers would be a significant increase to the force—and they wouldn't be untrained. I had seen the trials one needed to pass to get into the army; a mixture of obstacles, spars, and power training a primordial would have to try significantly hard to proceed through them.

Plus, being a Chaos soldier wasn't just for one's I-fought-for-my-country pride. It was the most coveted job on the planet: Who didn't want to fight alongside the Creator?

An idea clicked into my brain as Chaos opened his mouth to respond. "Would stealing from the other side be considered morally wrong?"

"As long as it's not from the people of Planet Void," Jessica jumped in, understanding my thought. "An army is in charge of guarding their resources—if someone successfully steals from them, they declare war. But since we're already in a war, it would be counted as trying to weaken their side—something Void has already tried to do to us."

"They wouldn't miss half a million weapons," Omega admitted. "After all, they sacrificed thousands of them with their plan."

"What happened to them?" I asked curiously, having a brain blank for a second.

Everybody looked at me incredulously.

That was all I needed for my missing thoughts to crash into the front part of my brain like I was being run over by a semi. "Nevermind," I said, feeling my fash flush with embarrassment. "Must've hit my head or something."

"Or something," Chaos commented.

"In fact," I said, smirking at him, "I suspect I would feel exactly like this if I had been beaten up by Eon earlier today."

"What's your plan?" Chaos asked me quickly as End looked at him suspiciously.

"He wants to steal weapons from Void," Omega explained since I was trying as hard as I could not to laugh at Chaos' panicked expression. "It would help immensely—since Void won't have enough weapons to draft a significant amount of people, while also allowing us to draft people freely."