TEST DRIVE #5 - Low Gravity Gymnasium and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

Option 01. Ten Forward: The first thing you see is a bar. A large, lively bar filled with many different faces and many different smells, sights and sounds. This is Ten Forward, the Enterprises' off-duty lounge; feel free to get acquainted with your fellow travelers and try to find somebody who's in charge: this is your new home now, after all...



Option 02. Aboard the Enterprise, The Low-Gravity Gymnasium: The gym is a large room with several alcove-like sections housing the aerobics and martial arts areas, a parrises squares area, an anbo-jyutsu court, and a separate fencing room. While there is normally a zero-gravity area as well, today all of the gym is in zero-gravity conditions.

Zero-gravity can be, well, kind of weird, because it's not like a gradual loss of the pressure holding you to the floor--you may have taken the turbolifts, just expecting to take a leisurely run, or maybe work out with a treadmill to get in some cardio, but the minute you step into the gym you're floating, as is anything you might have been holding or bringing with you.

Do you freak out, start flailing and trying to swim through the air back to where you can escape? Do you make the best of it and tough it out to get your exercise in, or do you start having fun with the sudden game of weightlessness? Pick your personal scenario and have fun with all the other weightless people.

Comments

Percy Jackson | Percy Jackson Heroes of Olypmus

[kelpface]

Option One
This isn't the first time Percy has suddenly found himself in the middle of the bar. He looks around for a guy in a crazy Hawaiian shirt and a stinking attitude. If he ever gives that description out loud again, he will be turned into a bottle nose dolphin and that really isn't how he wants to spend the rest of his life. He doesn't want to be turned into any other kind of dolphin either.

He realises this isn't some dream when people can actually see him and are staring at his bright orange 'Camp Halfblood' t-shirt. "Sorry to crash the party."


Option Two
Percy isn't good with heights. The second his feet leave the ground, he's filled with a sense of foreboding. It might have something to do with the fact that once he is in the air he is in Zeus' territory and that god might just blast him out of the air. Hopefully that doesn't apply in space. It would be really unfair if Zeus added space to his territory.

When nothing happens he turns a sort of sideways somersault.

[morphitudinous]

"It's certainly the strangest party I've ever heard of," Billy said sympathetically, lifting his head from his datapad. That bright orange is rather attention-grabbing.

"But don't worry---we're used to people arriving from across time and space by now, unfortunately. I did too."

That was meant to be comforting. He hopes his smile sells it.

[kelpface]

It sounds like one of those sci-fi conventions regular kids went to. Percy's heard about them in the seven different schools he's been to (and been kicked out of). "You aren't kidding are you?" Percy keeps a wary eye on the rest of the bar. When he arrives somewhere new, trouble usually finds him in under five minutes.

The ADHD part of his brain wondered what a drunk monster would look like.

"How'd we get here?"

[morphitudinous]

"I wish I was, but we disproved the dream hypothesis a while ago," he sighed, rubbing his wrist. "No, we're on a starship in the 24th century. And we were brought here because an omnipotent being called Q thought he'd have some fun messing with this ship's captain."

Billy never dropped the straight face. Bad sign.

[kelpface]

Percy takes it as a very bad sign, especially when no one pops up and yells 'got ya'. He rubs a hand at the back of his neck, he didn't sign up to become immortal and live for a couple of centuries, in fact he'd turn down that opportunity a few years a go.

"I don't know of any gods called Q. I take it we can't speed dial back to earth?"

[morphitudinous]

"Unfortunately, no. I believe Earth still exists and there are still humans populating it, but we can't call back to our time period. Unless you're actually from this century?"

You never could tell. Billy rubbed at his eyes.

"There's bound to be a way to reverse the trip, though. The crew's working on it, though it would go faster if we were allowed to help."

[kelpface]

"Yeah no. I'm from the twenty-first century." It's weird to need to clarify that. He glances out the window. His mum would be dead and his dad...his dad would have celebrated another couple of centuries (did the gods do cakes and card?).


"Why? Don't they trust us?" He guesses he would have a problem if someone crashed the party on board his ship.

01

[the_ghostking]

"Doesn't look much like a party to me," says a voice nearby, his identity momentarily masked behind floppy unkempt hair and a dark leather bomber jacket that fits two sizes too big for this familiar pasty-skinned kid.

Percy should recognize him, of course.

Especially when he hops off his perch and approaches, arms crossed.

"'Bout time you got here."

[kelpface]

It's spooky how Nico always manages to get places before him. Percy is mostly used to it, its like ghosts send the guy text messages about events that are going to happen. And it does come in very handy.

"Hey, how long have you kept you waiting this time?" Idly he wonders if Nico's been waiting for the length of time it takes Grover to catch up with a Naaid.

01

[architekt]

"He's not here," Annabeth says, so relieved to see Percy that she doesn't even bother to hide that fact through the sudden release of tension in her shoulders and the smile that plays upon her lips, reaching her eyes.

She knows he's thinking of Mr D, because that had been her first thought when she was winked here too, only a few days before him.

(Which started the cabin fever and the worry and the frantic attempt at figuring some way off this ship.)

"You're late, Seaweedbrain."

[kelpface]

Annabeth is a much prettier sight than Mr D, but she could just as intimidating when she's kept waiting. Percy waits a split second to see if she will drop kick him, or tackle him before he comes forward and slides an arm around her shoulder.

"Sorry, I missed the meeting about Demigods going into space." It sounds like a title to a really bad action film. His eyes run over her, checking that she's okay because if anyone's tried to hurt her...

[architekt]

That's it?

They're separated with absolutely no clue where the other person is, and all he can do is slide an arm around her shoulder like they're ... common acquaintances or something?

Annabeth practically rolls her eyes, and does consider hitting him for good measure, before she's wrapping her arms around him instead.

"It was kind of an impromptu meeting," she mumbles into his shirt.

[kelpface]

Give Percy a room full of monsters and he will work out a way to handle them, he's less good at handling his girlfriend - he's got a bad habit of putting his foot in his mouth. "Did Gaia call it?" he said as he dipped his head and rested his head on top of hers. His arms tightened around her at the thought. When were they going to catch a break?

He couldn't resist placing a kiss on her hair. "Because I want to drop kick her into space right about now."

[architekt]

Well, he's learning and that's kind of the point. Annabeth can forgive him for his blunders because he's just so earnest about them.

"Mm." For a moment, Annabeth simply stays where she is, breathing Percy in, relishing in his warmth and this one moment of calm before the inevitable storm they're going to have to deal with.

Ah, the life of a demigod. There truly is no rest for them.

"There's a lot I want to do to Gaia right now, drop-kicking her being the gentlest of the options running in my head," she says, breaking away from him. She'll keep her hand in his though, unless Percy has an issue with that.

"Surprisingly, though? This has nothing to do with her. Or any of the other gods, Greek or Roman."

[kelpface]

Percy is never going to complain about any affection Annabeth shows him, he doesn't have some boys hangups about a girl touching him in public. It would be embarrassing to admit, but as long as he and Annabeth were touching, they could get through anything.

"I've got a mean drop kick." Percy frowns at the new information. "Then who is? Have we stumbled into another monster food chain big enough to rival McDonalds?"

[architekt]

Annabeth would never admit it aloud, at least not to anyone else except for Percy Jackson himself, but she feels the same way. So long as they were somehow connected to each other, even if it's sitting close enough that she can feel his solidity next to her, then she knew they could and would be able to get through anything.

Ah, young love.

"Well, I don't know about monsters." Annabeth laughs at the joke. "But aliens? If you could believe it? Some alien with god-like abilities thought it'd be hilarious to pull a prank of universal proportions on the captain of this ship."

She shrugs.

"I think it's safe to say that no one finds this funny at all."

[kelpface]

Percy thinks that nothing should surprise him anymore, if he believes in the Greek gods, which he has no choice but to (thanks dad), then aliens and Santa Claus were both plausible. "Does this mean we need to start wearing those tin foil hats?" He remembers a kid at his third school who always wore one and it is easier to joke while he works things out.

"So all we need to do is beat this new bad guy and we can go home?" Home, Percy's stomach wrenched, hopefully they would still have a home to go back to.