Percy Jackson and the Dark Elites

XXXI

Percy

He knew he shouldn't be ashamed of something as stupid and common as rehabilitation, but his record of how long he withstood the air from outside was incredible. 

It wasn't a secret that Percy was one of the strongest in Chaos' army. But any doubts were crushed by his five-year reign as a resistor of the drug.

The gods and their tools, and it hadn't been long since they resorted to something as cruel and desperate as a biological weapon.

As low as it was, it had severely slowed down their war effort.

Percy had been doing everything he could to fight in the war down on the surface. But he came up here constantly, trying to make sure that he breathed as much fresh air as possible. He had left the Brazil compound and gone to Coda to retrieve a stolen weapon. Turns out, Coda was a hotspot for the drug. 

Now he floated weightlessly at the outer station rehabilitation center.

Percy counted up another number as his head passed the ceiling above him. Bored and sick of counting, he decided to work on his precision.

He stretched his hand out to the bar and pulled himself effortlessly to the side. He reached into his bag and pulled out a few nuts and bolts. Percy pushed himself back with a flick of his wrist and he was spinning again.

He held the bolt in the palm of his hand, then willed it to float, it obliged, but the bones in his fingers scraped painfully against each other.

He willed the metal nut to fly within his fingers in a weaving fashion. As Percy spun around, he found himself having to compensate and move the nut with him as well. His hand jerked back with a painful twist and the nut flew slowly away to the door.

About twenty feet away from him he noticed it stop, then quickly fall in a sharp right to the floor. The door nearby slid open. Charlie walked in with his uniform half on and kicked the bolt across the room.

"I thought I'd find you here." He said with a disappointed voice. "If you really wanted to break the rules, you should've gone somewhere else."

Percy grunted. "First place you looked?"

"Uh-huh." Charlie walked forward and grabbed onto the ladder Percy had set out to get into the middle of the room, he climbed as high as he could without getting sucked into the vortex.

"Come down." He sighed as he watched Percy spin a little quicker.

"Fix the gravity." He shot back, oddly wanting to be sassy.

"I've tried. But Outer Station is just a big bubble. All the gravity circulates around this room, I can't direct it to the floor, then pockets just appear everywhere."

"Figures." He responded numbly. He grabbed a safety railing near him and stared at the bolt on the floor.

Charlie picked it up. "What, did rehabilitation hurt your ego?"

Percy didn't clarify.

"Please, I know you want to help Gamma right now, but we all have to do this. I have done it so many times it's insane. You thinking you're weak, for giving in once... Is insulting to me."

"Okay..." He pulled himself onto the ladder and Charlie helped him flip onto the ground.

The gravity was as uncomfortable as a plane taking off, his stomach lurched into his throat and he fell to the ground.

"I guess I just got used to it." he mumbled, depressed and on the floor.

"I know. Five years... It's one heck of a streak."