Speed Demons

Part 9

Percy
I had woken up screaming last night. I had had a demigod dream, I had seen a vision of camp. Kronos' forces had taken control of Camp Half-Blood. Luke Castellan had been publicly executing all of my friends, and at the end, he had looked at me. It wasn't real, I could tell, there hadn't been any sounds, but it felt like a vision.

Everyone seemed to think I had had a nightmare. I could feel they knew because they all walked around me cautiously as if they were expecting me to snap. Some sadistic part of me told me to humour them.

I was in the docking bay, running tests on a new invention of mine, when Keith walked in. "We're going to the Blade of Marmora," he informed me, "they said only three people. So far it's me and Shiro, wanna come?" He spoke rather bluntly compared to the rest of the team. He knew that that wasn't what I wanted. Touching.

I nodded and went back to work. He left without a word.

Line Break

"I guess we're both less than human," I told Keith. We were in the cockpit of the red lion. He hummed, still deep in thought.

"Do you think they'll hate me?" He asked, "Use your powers please?"

I sighed and looked into the future. Over time I had figured out how to do it on command, and to know how to look for specific moments, but sometimes it was obvious that the Norns wanted me to see something.

"Everyone, including Coran will be cordial with you until you figure things out yourself. But," Keith winced, "Alura will give you the cold shoulder."

He sighed and focused on using the path to escape the gravitational pulls of the black holes and the star that the Marmora base was wedged between.

The image of Princess Alura appeared on a hollo-screen. "Don't worry, Princess," I said quickly. "We're on our way back, along with someone you should meet."

Line Break

"You alright?" I asked Katie as we snuck into the Galra prison. She had looked more tense than I had ever seen her. She wouldn't look me in the eyes. "I don't know where your brother is," I sighed.

Her eyes glanced in my direction. "You talked to Keith, right? About my powers? Well, there are some things that not even I know. I guess the Norns have a plan." I said bitterly, but not at her, "I hate not knowing."

She stayed silent as we made our way to the control room. Once we made it and directed Lance and Shirk to opposite sides of the prison, she looked at me. Disliking the eye contact immediately, I noticeably looked away. "I'm sorry, I should have asked you, first. It's just, I care about getting my family back so much, that I forgot that I care about what you have to say. Forgot that I care about you."

"When you've gone through what I've gone through," I started, "people tend to treat you like dirt. 'Come on Percy, you're just being a wimp!" I mocked bitterly, "But, there's one thing that I hate more."

She looked at me curiously, asking the silent question.

I answers before she even asked the question out loud. "What's worse, is when they treat you like glass. Like I'm becoming fragile, constantly about to snap." As I said this, I was acutely aware that Lance and Shiro could hear me, but I didn't care at the moment. I busied myself by hacking into the prison logs looking for any traces of Matt Holt. While the simulation was running, sentries burst through the doors.

It seemed that the Galra were learning. The sentries were much more heavily armoured than normal. I doubted my daggers would be able to cut through.

I decided to try out the new invention I had been working on. It was a revolver-sized version Lance's gun, not unlike the blasters from Star Wars. I aimed it at the head of the first guard and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. "Shit!" I cursed and hid behind the table as lasers flew over my head. "Any ideas?"