My Take on the Guardian Story

by Me010

A (in my opinion) fresh take on the "guardian of the hunt" story. Give it a read if you feel like it. Hopefully it interests you

37. Chapter 37 - Selection

Chapter 37

40 years later

Percy's training had gone well enough, he reflected. It was hard work, sure, and he was very tired most of the time, but he had learned a lot and his skills had grown exponentially. And most of all, he had been comfortable. He'd had a daily routine, which he practised. After an hour of sleep, he would go to combat, then class, shooting, and then Chaos' training to finish off. Then he would go back to his bunk, get an hour of sleep, and do it all again.

Despite the absurdly long hours of grueling work, he appreciated having a routine, regimented existence. As a child, he'd bounced around from school to school, and he knew Gabe would be waiting to visit some new horror upon him when he got home. Life had been unpredictable, and terrifying. Then, as a demigod, there was no telling what would happen at any given moment. Think you're going to have a nice, normal day at school? Nah, vampires. And that was if you were lucky enough not to be dragged off on a quest, because some God thought you kidnapped his sparker?

He wasn't bitter… Ok, maybe he was a bit. But all that only made him appreciate the relative stability he'd had, while training with Chaos. He had known what each day would bring, and he appreciated that.

That being said, he was ready to get back to the unpredicatabillity. It had been a nice change of pace, but never knowing where he would be, or what he would do with each day, was a special kind of exciting, and he had missed that.

That morning, was a pretty special occasion. It had been exactly 62 years since he had started his training with Chaos. He had finished a course that would have ordinarily taken 200 years at minimum, in just 62. He wasn't a braggart or anything, but that felt damn good.

He.

Was.

Graduating.

He was graduating.

The mere word, was enough to make him giddy. It had been a difficult 6 decades, and now it was over. He was graduating, and then he was going out into the field. He would be going on missions, and he would be with Sara.

He got out of the uncomfortable bed he slept in, on the floor that had remained purely his own, after he had been nearly killed there, years ago. He dressed in his usual clothes - workout gear - and mentally thanked Chaos for not making her army strict on uniform.

Percy traced the familiar route, down the elevator, through the halls, to the room he usually spent his mornings in. But there was no one in there. He always arrived early, but he was never the first person there. Just his luck. He was supposed to be graduating, but instead, he was lost. He had assumed that they would meet there, in the usual place, and get their orders, but apparently not.

He cast his senses throught he building, searching for his classmates, and found them all in the large gym where they did combat training. Brow furrowed and curses muttered under his breath, he set off running towards them. He just hoped he wouldn't be late. Chaos' Army put a strict emphasis on being on time, so he knew he would get his ass beat if he was late; especially if he was late to graduation.

He opened the door to the colossal gym, and instantly cringed. Not because an instructor got in his face, yelling and screaming, but because everyone in his class was standing there, wearing some kind of uniform.

'Oh, come on!' Percy thought furiously, 'No one told me about any of this bullshit!'

The uniforms everyone except Percy was wearing, were pure black, like Chaos seemed so fond of making everythingaround her, and they seemed pretty formal. Black formal shoes, with black dress pants, a black shirt, and a black tie. They all looked perfectly squared away, and were standing at attention.

Percy hurriedly made his way over to them.

"Hey, what's up with the uniforms?" he desperately questioned one of his classmates.

The guy just turned his head to look at Percy, slowly look him up and down, his lips curled distastfully. He turned away from Percy without a word, and continued staring into space, as he seemed to have been doing before Percy had oh-so-rudely interrupted him.

'Prick' Percy thought, as he turned away from the guy.

He was about to ask someone else, when the chief instructor for their class appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, on a stage that hadn't been there the previous day. Seriously, what was going on?

The instructor's eyes were scanning the ranks, and Percy did his best to resist the urge to squirm and hide. Percy was a pretty confident person, and he was sure of his abilities and skills. But there was something about that particular instructor that gave Percy the creeps. He had a way of staring at a person, that made it seem as though he was mentally going over an extensive list of ways he could kill that particular person. It was incredibly unsettling.

The instructor's eyes met Percy's, and stopped for a second before moving on. He fought a sigh of relief. He had worried that the instructor would be so angry at this fashion faux-pass, that he would enact one of those murder plans he seemed to spend so much time cultivating.

Percy looked at the rest of the instructors taking their way on the stage. He caught Sara's eye, and she winked at him before noticing his attire. She cringed. Percy watched her carefully, hoping she would give him some indication on what to do. Sara, being Sara, did not disappoint. For a split second, it looked as though a small wave of shadows went crawling up her clothes before she let the dissipate.

Grateful to her beyond words, Percy smiled and draped a small group of shadows around himself, making them hard and solid. The flowed around him, and stuck to his clothes like a second skin. They weren't perfect, and Percy couldn't make out the detail of the uniforms around him, like the tie, and the shirt buttons, but they looked ok, and they would help him blend in a little.

"Over the past 2 centuries," the chief instructor began, "I've seen you all mature from the children who came here, to the fine men and woman standing in front of me. The road you have taken, has not been easy. I have not made it easy. But each of you has risen to the challenge, and come out stronger for it."

Percy blinked. He hadn't been expecting a speech of all things. It seemed far too personal for Chaos' Army.

"How do you make a sword?" The instructor continued, rhetorically, "You put it in a fire, take it out and hit it with a hammer. Then you put it back in the fire, then you take it out and hit it some more."

Percy knew a few children of Hephaestus who would have balked at that, but he kept quiet.

"All of you gathered here, have gone through the same process. We've put you in the fire, and we've beaten you as much as you could take. And as a result, you have become swords of our own, to be used by our Lady Chaos, to strike at those who would do harm to the innocent. That is your charge, going forward. Whatever you end up doing within the Army, from this day until your last, your job is, and will forever be, the protection of those who cannot protect themselves, above all else."

The gravity of the words was starting to sink in. Percy felt a weird sense of pride.

"No matter what happens from now on, no matter where you go, or what you do, always remember your training, and feel assured that it will get you through whatever comes your way. You've been given the tools necessary for success. Now it's up to you to go and use them."

The massive room fell silent. Not a single sound could be heard as all the now-former recruits internalised the words.

"Now," the instructor continued, holding up a sheet of paper, "I will call out your name, and the branch you will go to. Once I have finished, the rest of the day will be your own. Tomorrow, you will report back here, and you will be taken to your unit for more specialised training."

Percy's eyebrow rose. Branches? Units? Further training? No one had told him anything about that. Chaos hadn't, and nor had Sara. He supposed it made enough sense, but it was a bit of a surprise. He had thought that when he graduated, he would go straight into operations. But apparently this was just the equivalent of boot camp. He sighed. Who knew how long it would be until he finished this next level of training? Honestly, he was itching to get back into the fight. But he was determined to be the best he could be, and he would complete whatever training he was sent to.

He wondered what the different branches were. In the American Military, the branches were Army, Marines, Air force, Navy, and Cost Guard. But everyone he had spoken to, had always said 'Chaos' Army' not 'Chaos' Military', so he really didn't know what to expect.

He found out before long. Hundreds of names were called, and Percy kept hearing the same branches.

It seemed there were Assassin, Enforcer, Soldier, Undercover Operative, Guerilla, Spy, Engineer, and Logistics Support.

How the hell had he not known about all this?

One of the first things Chaos had ever told him, was that she found the word 'Army' to be missleading. He could see why. This was way more expansive than anything any Army Percy knew of.

But there was one more branch that Percy heard called out a few times. And only a few times. He heard each of the others called out dozens of times each. But he had only heard the last branch 3 times so far.

Special Operations.

He didn't know exactly what that meant. He knew what it meant on Earth, but couldn't even begin to guess what meaning it held in Chaos' Army, so he didn't bother trying to figure it out.

After nearly an hour standing in place, Percy heard his own name.

"Jackson, Special Operations."

He blinked.

Ok, maybe it was worth trying to guess.

He needed to talk to Sara or Chaos. He had about a dozen questions to ask them.

Eventually, the ceremony died down, and the class dispersed, each of them off to do something different; no groups. Percy made his way over to Sara. She seemed to be beaming at him.

She hugged him when they were close enough, "Well done, Percy! Virtually no one gets in Spec Ops straight out of basic, you should be really proud!"

He smiled awkwardly, "Thanks, but I think I'd be a bit more proud if I knew what this whole thing was about?"

She looked puzzled.

"Did you never discuss this with Chaos?"

He shook his head. She sighed.

"Alright then. How about we go to that cafe where we met? We can go over it all there."

He grinned, "Sounds good. Fond memories of that place."

She smirked, "I'm sure."

He nodded, "Damn good coffee there."

She scowled.

Percy had missed talking to Sara. They hadn't had much of a chance to talk to each other since he'd been back. Their schedules were pretty much incompatible. But every now and then, she'd sneak into his room late at night, and they'd spend half an hour chatting. Not about much of anything specific. Just chatting. Sara would tell him about how annoying her new recruits - his old cohorts - were, and he would agree. Then he'd tell her how much worse his current instructors were than her. And they'd just talk about their days.

It had been slightly weird at first. He had ended things with her back on Earth because he needed to process his grief for Annabeth and his mother, so their talks felt stilted. Truth be told, Percy wasn't entirely sure why she kept coming to his room. But eventually, the awkwardness fell away, and the two just enjoyed each others' company. Even though he had been the one to end things, Percy still loved her, and not being near her for so long was like torture. Apparently she felt similarly. Enough to keep instigating their conversations.

There had been times when he felt like those talks were the only thing keeping him going. There had been times when he had seriously considered quitting and going back to Earth, but her calm, soothing tones always brought him back. He appreciated the conversations a lot, and made damn sure to tell her as much. But those half-hour chats cut into their time for sleep a lot, so they weren't a regular occurrence. Just a treat, once or twice a week.

That was why it felt almost scandalous to be talking to her in the middle of the day, out in public, when he wasn't utterly exhausted.

They walked to the cafe together in a comfortable silence. Percy was enjoying this newfound sense of freedom. Apparently that wasn't going to last as long as he had originally thought, but that was to be dealt with later. For the time being, he was with the most wonderful person he knew, walking to a cafe he adored, on a beautiful sunny day. Life was ok for the time being.

They ordered coffee, and brought them outside, taking a second to admire the stunning fountain where Percy had first laid eyes on Sara. He could picture it clear as day, even though it had been 50 years ago. Her waist-length blonde hair, the yellow T-Shirt and skirt. The book resting in her lap. The smile that had suckered him so hard. He took a moment to look over at her now. She looked exactly the same. She hadn't aged, obviously. And she was wearing the same smile now, as she watched the fountain.

She caught him looking, and her eyes flicked down to the coffee on the table.

"I always loved this place. I used to play in that fountain when I was young, before I started training."

She had a wistful look in her eye, and he wondered exactly how long ago that had been. She was a free spirit now, but he couldn't ever picture her playing around in a fountain. How long ago, had she been so innocent? So carefree? Every now and then, when she didn't think he was looking, he caught a look in her eye, like she had just seen too much. He understood the feeling, or at least he thought he did. She had been alive for much longer than him, and he couldn't fathom how much she had been through.

He reached over and took her hand, rubbing the knucles gently. She turned her hand over and squeezed his gently, before letting go and sipping her coffee.

"So," she said, clearing her throat, "You want to know about Spec Ops?"

"Yeah," he said, clearing his own throat.

"Basically, a Spec Ops Operator will do the same things as the other branches, only with even more proficiency, and not exclusively. Less than 1% of graduates get a place in Special Operations Selection right out of basic. A few people from other branches apply to try out too. There'll be about 5000-6000 of you in your selection class, where they'll assess you physically, mentally, and morally. If you pass, then you're in. Once you're in, you go to OTC, that's 'Operator Training Course'. You'll spend a few decades building up a base of knowledge in all the branches, then you'll go to the training schools for each Branch, and then you'll come back to OTC for a few more decades of specialised training. After you complete each branch's training school, you choose the 4 you like the most, and those are what you'll focus on when you get back to OTC. Those are the roles you'll act in, once you finish training, and go out on ops, so choose carefully."

"Holy, fuck!" he explaimed.

Sara smiled, "Yeah, it's not easy. I told you there would be 5000-6000 of you in selection? Between 5 and 10 of you will graduate. It's no joke. I remember my own Selection. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done."

Percy scratched his head, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.

"What can you tell me about Selection?"

"Nothing," she said seriously, "It's an important part of the process that you don't know what'll happen. It's designed to test how you respond to the unknown."

He sighed, "How long will it last?"

"Can't tell you that."

"And I start tomorrow?"

She just smiled.

"Right," he sighed again, "How do they decide who goes to which Branch anyway?"

She furrowed her brow, "You decide where you go. You fill out a form, and list your top 3 choices. How well you do in Basic, decides where you get to go. You can get transferred later on, but only if you show enough talent."

"I never filled out any form."

Her brow furrowed even deeper, "Then I guess Chaos must have done it for you."

"Well, remind me to thank her for signing me up for a few decades of torture," he said sacrastically.

Sara rolled her eyes, "I know it sounds miserable, but the work is worth it. And besides, everyone in Chaos' Army is the best of the best. Do you know how good it feels to be the best of the best of the best?"

He started smiling. He could see her point. Her totally unbiased point.

"So, tell me a bit more about what Special Operators do."

She nodded, "Alright. Like I said, we do what the other Branches do, just more of it, better, and we get more of a variety. Do you remember all the other Branches?"

"Sure. Assassin, Enforcer, Soldier, Undercover Operative, Guerilla, Spy, Engineer, and Logitstics Support, right?"

"Right. Normally, each person gets assigned to a Branch, they go to that Branch's school, learn all there is to know about that field, and then go out and do it. With Spec Ops, like I said, there's the initial Selection to see if you're good enough to get in. Then you study the fundamentals of Special Operations. After that, you go to the school for each Branch. Once you've finished them all, you choose the 4 you feel you're the best at or you like the most, and take that skillset to a whole other level. Then, when you go out into the field, your operations can be related to any of the 4 that you chose."

He nodded slowly, "Alright, I think I get it. Which 4 did you chose?"

"Assassin, Soldier, Undercover Operative, and Spy."

"And, what does the Soldier branch do? That's a wide umbrella."

"Basically, anything related to standard warfare. So, infantry, air force, demolitions, cavalry, navy, and so on. It's the broadest category there is, so a lot of traffic goes that way. There are more subsets in that one Branch, than there are in all the other Branches combined. Even their damn school has subcategories. Most people would only do 1, and that would be their job unless they transferred, but if you make it through Selection and OTC Phase 1, you have to go to all of them."

He nodded silently. It seemed like you could learn a lot of skills there. It would take a fucking long time, but he could get a lot of good out of it.

"Look, you should talk to Chaos about this. She might be able to help you out a little."

"Yeah, I'll talk to her tonight."

She raised an eyebrow and smiled a little, "Tonight's a long way away. What do you plan on doing in the mean time?"

He grinned, "You feel like celebrating? Apparently I'm going to be pretty busy over the next few decades."

She grew a grin to match his own, "My place?"

He nodded, "It'll have to be. I don't think I actually have a place anymore."

She giggled adorably, and they got up, finished their drinks, and left the cafe.

—-

A few hours later, Percy separated himself from a half-asleep Sara. She whined.

"Come baaaaack, you're nice and warm," she pouted at him.

He chuckled, "Yes, because you're so helpless and cold."

She rolled her eyes, and faster than he could blink, had thrown the blankets off of her, shot across the bed towards him, tackled him down, and held his wrists above his head, pinning his legs with her powerful thighs. He grunted at the force. Her face was inches from his, and her hair fell around them, almost like a curtain shielding them from the outside world. She had a mad smile on her face.

"You know," she said, starting to kiss his neck, "I can keep you here if I want to."

He couldn't help but grin, "That's a dangerous statement to make. Could get you in all kinds of trouble."

She pulled away from his neck, so she could look him in the eyes again, "You're worth the risk."

He grinned harder, and swung them around so he was on top of her. She pouted again, but she had let him do it, so she couldn't have been very upset.

"I told you, I just need to go talk to Chaos, and then I'll come right back, and I'll be all yours."

"Now I like the sound of that last part."

He smiled and kissed her on the tip of her nose. He got dressed, and with one last look at the most sensational woman he'd ever known, he left.

During their all-too-brief relationship, Percy had walked the route between Sara's apartment and the Training Center where Chaos' office was, quite a few times, so the journey was second nature to him. He spent the walk time trying to wipe the smile off his face. When he and Chaos had made their deal to expedite his training, it had been made under the condition that he and Sara stop seeing each other romantically. They had kept true to their word, and kept their hands off each other. Percy figured his training had technically ended, and his next round of training didn't start until tomorrow morning, so he wasn't training at the moment. Loopholes really did make the world go 'round.

But just because it was technically not against any rules, didn't mean he had to flaunt it in Chaos' face as soon as he walked in.

Little did he know how futile his efforts were.

He took the elevator up to her floor, stepped out, and gently tapped on her door. He sensed, rather than heard, her permission to come in and opened the door, immediately walking over to the desk, and dropping into one of the visitor chairs. He was always very comfortable in Chaos' office, and he saw no point in standing on ceremony.

"I wish I could be the first to offer my congratulations on making it into Special Operations, but I see Sara has already beat me to it," she said with a mischievous smirk.

He gaped, "How the hell did you know?" he demanded.

"I can smell her on you," she shrugged.

He stared at her, "That's creepy."

The smirk evolved into a grin.

"Seriously, congratulations. I know you've worked very hard for it."

"Actually, I haven't. I didn't know anything about this until I heard my name called."

"Oh, did I forget to mention that I signed you up?" she asked innocently.

"You know, I think you might have."

"Slly me. My memory ain't what it used to be, I suppose."

He shook his head at the sarcasm.

"Seriously, why did you sign me up for Spec Ops?"

Her head quirked to the side.

"Where else would you go? You're a warrior, Percy, and I know you quite well by now. You wouldn't settle for second best. I just saved you the trouble of filling out the form."

He could see her point. If he had known about the branches, he would have gone straight for Spec Ops all on his own.

"Do you really think I'm good enough?" he asked quietly.

Her smile turned into something warm and reassuring.

"Of course you are. I think if you set your mind to something, you'll see it done. Don't get me wrong, this will be the hardest thing you'll have ever done, but you'll make it through. And then I think you'll make a hell of an operative afterwards."

He smiled a little.

"Thank you. I hope you're right."

"Of course I'm right. I'm always right. Have you given any thought to which branches you'll go for."

"Not really. I want to go to all the schools and see what it's all about before I make any decisions. But I know I'll go for Soldier and Assassin. Probably Spy, too."

"Nice variety," she said, nodding agreeably.

"Yeah, I think so. I actually wanted to ask, what does the Enforcer branch do exactly?"

"Enforcers are basically the police. They investigate crimes, enforce laws, and punish those who break them. It also includes all kinds of forensics technicians.. They're the second largest Branch. It's Soldier, Enforcer, Logistics Support."

He nodded thoughtfully. That made sense to him.

"And guerillas?"

"Those who fight using unconventional warfare, and train small militias to do the same against oppressive rulers."

He soured a little. Training others didn't seem like his calling. He'd end up pulling his hair out. He would much rather do the fighting himself, but he could still see the need for a thing like that. It just wasn't for him.

"What do you think would be best for me?"

She thought for a moment.

"I agree that Soldier, Assassin, and Spy would be good fits for you," was all she said.

Percy stared at her for another few seconds, waiting for her to continue. When she made it clear that she wouldn't, he spoke up.

"And how about the 4th?"

She smiled, "No one can tell you that, except you."

He rolled his eyes and she laughed.

"It's true! This is all dependant on your personal preferences and skillset. Go to the schools and figure it out."

He sighed, "Alright, fair enough."

"Is there anything else?"

He shook his head, "No, I'll go back to Sara's. I think I should enjoy myself as much as I can, cause the next few decades are really gonna suck."

She shook her head ruefully, and went back to some papers on her desk as Percy stood up and walked to the door. He reached for the handle, and paused for a second.

"Hey, Chaos?" he said, looking over his shoulder.

She looked up at him, "Yes, Percy?"

He hesitated.

"Thank you. For everything."

She smiled at him softly, but didn't say anything.

Percy turned the handle and left Chaos' office.

—-

Percy woke up the next morning, and could instantly tell that Sara was already awake. She was holding him a little tighter than she typically did when she was sleeping. So, he started stroking her hair, and trying to steel himself for what was coming. The only thing he'd heard about this Selection course, was that it was horribly brutal.

"Don't be nervous," she said into his chest.

He couldn't help but smile.

"This selection course will be the hardest thing you've ever done. Also, don't be nervous. Geez, pick a lane."

She bit him playfully and he yelled over-dramatically. She lifted her head up, and rested her chin on his chest, looking at him mischiviously.

"Seriously though. Don't be nervous. Just go in, and give it everything you have. You're a warrior, Percy. You have all the training and talent you need, to see you through this. All you need to do is apply it."

The smile slid from his face. Despite her assurances, he was getting nervous. But he supposed she was right. So, he would do as she said, and throw everything he had at it. If that wasn't enough, then that was that. He would probably join the Soldier Branch, and learn all kinds of cool things there.

Eventually, Percy kissed Sara on the forehead, and got out of her bed. After a quick shower, he dressed in the same clothes he usually wore, and kissed Sara yet again, trying to memorize the precise texture of her lips on his, knowing he wouldn't feel it again for a very long time.

"Any last-minute advice?" he asked.

She smiled, "Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't try to think about what's going to happen next. Just focus all your energy on the current task, and dont torture yourself over what's going to happen the next day, or even the next hour. Live in the moment, and you'll be fine."

He thought hard on that, and tried to internalise it.

She didn't say goodbye to him. She never wished him luck. She just smiled softly as he turned around to walk away. And then she slapped him on the ass as he turned away. He grinned, and knew she was doing the same. He could always rely on her to lighten the mood.

He walked back to the same Training Center where he'd broken his bones, and cut his flesh for so many years. Ah, good times. The atmosphere was, of course, completely different than usual. Everyone was, for once, milling around in groups. Some of them were even talking to each other. It was downright creepy.

The groups, were formed at different parts of the room, along all the walls. Those must have been the different Branches. Finding his, was pretty easy. Each Branch had dozens, if not hundreds of people, clumped together, waiting for more people to check in. Percy's branch, Spec Ops, had 3. There were 3 people there. The Soldier Branch, in stark contrast, had hundreds of people waiting around, and presumably, more to come.

Approaching his group, Percy saw that he recognised the 3 people there. He'd fought against each of them, thousands of times over the years. They nodded at him stiffly as he joined them. Not out of any kind of liking, just a grudging respect for having made it in. He nodded back in the same way.

Unlike the other Branches, the Soldier Branch especially, they weren't chatting to each other in Spec Ops. They were just standing there, arms crossed, staring into space. The instructor that was there with them, checked a clipboard, and then went back to doing nothing. Apparently they were waiting for another person or two. Percy assumed the same posture as the other Spec Ops candidates, and let his mind wander.

Percy, by that point, was a little over 80 years old. 80 years old, and he was just graduating basic training. He couldn't fully process just how weird that was. If he was a normal human, he'd be retired by now. Percy tried not to play the 'what if?' game too often, but it crept up on him every now and then.

What would his life be, if he had been born a human? He would be married by now. He'd have kids, who would be grown up and out of the house. He and his wife would be retired, and living their lives in peace.

His thoughts shifted to the actual humans in his life. Estelle, and Paul Blofis. Paul would certainly be dead by now. There was no question about it. His stepfather was gone, resting in Elysium after a life well-spent. How about Estelle? How had she endured her father's death? His heart started to ache, as he thought about how he hadn't been there for her, whenever it had happened. She would be in her early 60s by now. Was she married? Did she have kids of her own? Was she still a cop? He would probably never know. She would be long dead before he got to go back to Earth.

He tried as hard as he could, not to think about that for the time being.

Luckily, the last member of their party showed up. Percy and the rest of them gave him the same nod as before, and he nodded back in the same way. Percy repressed a smile.

The instructor nodded, "Ok, that's everyone. Follow me."

They all followed the instructor out of the building, and to the same airport where Percy had departed from for his missions. There was a dropship waiting, which they all boarded, and it took them to the main ship and they all settled in for what felt like it would be a long trip.

And it was. Nearly 18 restless hours later, they landed. Percy got up and stretched, hearing his joints and spine crack, and resisted a groan of pleasure. They went from the main ship, to the drop ship, which landed them on the surface of a new planet. They bay doors opened, Percy stepped out, and instantly felt a massive push on his shoulders which almost sent him crashing straigh to the ground.

He looked left and right, trying to catch a look at the others, and they were all having the same reaction as him. The instructor strode past them, perfectly at ease.

"Recruits, welcome to the planet Perstompa," he told them with an almost cruel smirk, "Perstompa, is a rather unique planet. It has the strongest gravitational force of any habitable planet in the universe, at approximately 50 times what has been deemed normal. This is where the entirety of Selection will take place. Is there anyone who would like to Voluntarily Withraw, VW for short, right now?"

The 5 would-be Spec Ops Operators looked at each other. No one said anything.

The instructor's smirk widened, as if imagining all the delightful pain he could put them through.

They took a minute, and managed to get back on their feet and stand normally. The instructor led them to a small group of buildings. The buildings were all low down, a far cry from the skyscrapers in Chaos' Realm, but they wer extraordinarily long. There were 10 buildings that were identical to one another, separate from the rest. Each one looked around 1 mile long. They were a single story, and the only feature Percy could see from the outside, were the windows that spanned the wall, 5 meters between each one.

Percy, along with everyone else, was given a number, and told to go to his bunk to arrange his things. Percy didn't really have things to arrange, and he had no idea which bunk was his, but the latter issue was almost immediately cleared up, and the former wasn't worth bringing up.

The instructor who seemed to be responsible for admin, handed Percy a number on an armband. The number was 4871, and the instructor explained that for the duration of Selection, that would be the only way of identifying him. He was no longer Percy Jackson from Earth. He was 4871; nothing more, nothing less.

The issue with the bunk was cleared up with a little bit of critical thinking. There were 10 barracks buildings, and each one seemed like it could house around 1000 people. Knowing Chaos' love of precision, he figured they each housed exactly 1000 people. As number 4871, he figured he would be in the 4th barracks building, towards the end.

He walked into the 4th barracks building, and looked around. There was a row of bunk beds along both the side walls, and there was a footlocker at the foot of each bed. Each bunk had a number stapled to the front. The first bunk on the left was 4000-4001 and the first bunk on the right was 4002-4003, and it carried on to the end. Percy walked through the massive building until he finally arrive at his bunk bed. 4870-4871. He was on the top bunk, so he climbed up, which took considerable effort all on its own, due to the stronger gravity, and assessed the situation.

There were a total of 6394 candidates on the course, and they were waiting for a few more people before they could get started. Percy took the time to arrange his bunk and his footlocker, which was attached to the end of his bunk. If this wasn't Chaos' Army, he'd be stressed about it falling off if he put too much weight in it, but he trusted her engineers to have accounted for something like that. There wasn't much for him to store or organise, so didn't take too long. The footlocker had a few sets of Army camoflauge fatigues in it, and Percy change into one. He put a pillowcase on his pillow and sheets on his bed, and then laid in it, assessing the situation.

The barracks they were in, was an extremely long room, with 2 lines of bunks up against the walls, facing each other. There were bunk beds, footlockers, and absolutely nothing else. The floor was white, the walls were white, and the ceiling was white.

Nearly 20 minutes later, the rest of the class was there. All of a sudden, a light switched on and the whole barracks was bathed in dark red light. Percy and everyone else in the barracks sat up in their bed, totally confused.

An instructor ducked his head in the door and announced, "The light means get the hell out here."

So they did. They, and all the other Selection candidates, formed up in the main courtyard, which was completely empty aside from a massive bulletin board up on a stage where the lead instructor was standing. The bulletin board had spaces stenciled out for each candidate's armband, Percy realised as he stared at it. There were 6394 spaces, and 17 of them had armbands stapled to them.

"These are the people who already quit," he announced.

Percy was stunned. None of the people who had come with him had quit, he could still see them all there. So that meant that 17 fully qualified members of Chaos' Army had performed well enough to qualify to come to selection, only to quit before it had even begun. He couldn't fathom it. Why try so hard, and then quit before it even started?

Then he had a more troubling thought. Those 17 people had finished the same training he had finished, and more after that. Then they had gone on to have successful careers in whatever branch they had gone into. And they had already quit. So what chance did he have? He'd finished basic training, and that was it. That was the height of his accomplishments. If other, more qualified people were already quitting around him, then how could he possibly make it all the way through?

"Is there anyone else who wants to VW?" the instructor continued.

Percy almost stepped forwards. Then he realised. This was what they wanted. They wanted him to feel this way. They wanted him to give up before they even began.

He was going to stay. He was going to fight it out for as long as he could. If he got to the point where he just couldn't continue, then he wouldn't. But he wasn't there yet.

The instructor's strategy did work on a few others though. 4 candidates stepped forwards, handed the instructor their number, and were told to go to a building on the other side of camp to be out-processed.

The instructor waited another minute to see if there would be anyone else. When there wasn't, he continued.

"Alright. First of all, this is a voluntary course. Each of you is here, because you applied to be. That means, you can withdraw at any point, no questions asked. All you need to do, is hand me or any of the instructors your armband, and say you want to VW. It's that easy. Then the pain stops, and you go back to wherever you came from. Now, let's go for a little run."

The little run the instructor had told them they were going on, had turned out to be around 150 miles at full speed. Percy was exhausted by the end, and some candidates were throwing up on the ground. They were told to keep going, or quit. After the run was completed, they were each handed a backpack. Each backpack, weight around 200 pounds, and they were led through a series of pushups, pullups, squats, burpees, and sprints for hours on end. It was unrelenting. They had no rest, no food, and virtually no water. The whole thing would have been bad enough ordinarily, but they had Perstompa's gravity making everything infinitely tougher. It was brutality, the likes of which Percy could never have fathomed.

When the instructors finally relented and told them all to go get some sleep, Percy glanced over at the giant bulletin board on the stage in the courtyard. The one with all the names. 17 people had quit right off the bat, and 4 had gone with them. So they had started Selection with 21 numbers on the board. Now, there were hundreds. Hundreds of people had quit, and it was only day 1. With a shuddering sigh that made every muscle in his body throb in agony, Percy stumbled to his barracks, down the long hallway between the rows of bunkbeds, somehow managed to crawl up to his bunk, and immediately passed out.

He slept like the dead for a few hours, until he was woken up by a loudspeaker blasting some kind of noise that sounded like a spoon going down a garbage disposal. He shot out of his bunk, and was on his feet before his eyes even opened. His heart rate was through the roof, and he was scanning for some kind of threat.

But there was no threat. Just an instructor.

"Outside, in formation, 5 minutes."

And then he left. They all sagged, rubbed their eyes, and yawned. Then, with a massive air of reluctance, they started getting dressed. Most of them, anyway. Percy saw a few people walking out in their underwear, taking their numbers off. They were quitting before the day even began. They had let it get to them. Their imagination was driving them crazy, torturing themselves over what was to come. Sara had been right. That was the worst thing anyone could possibly do, under the circumstances.

The rest of the week was similar to that first day. They woke up, went for an excruciatingly long run, and then they were given an hour to eat as much as they could. Then they would load up the backpacks, and run through a series of bodyweight exercises that were simply soul-crushing to even think about, for close to 10 straight hours. Then they were given another hour to eat. Then they went to bed, and the whole process repeated itself the next day. They went on like that for an entire week, and every day was pure agony. By day 4, percy was in constant pain. Nothing specific hurt anymore. It all blended together. The pain in his shoulders became indistinguishable from the pain in his biceps, which became indistinguishable from the pain in his triceps, which became indistinguishable from the pain in his forearms, which became indistinguishable from the pain in his pecs, and on and on it went. Eventually, he was just a lump of pain.

It went on like that for a week before it was all changed. That first week, had made almost 1000 people quit.

But at the end of that first week, something interesting happened. The instructors woke them up in the usual method - blasting loud, horrific noises at them - and told them they had 5 minutes to get outside in formation.

Once they were there, the lead instructor looked them all up and down, and he wasn't wearing his usual emotionless expression. Not completely. He almost looked… eager. Percy repressed a shudder, and simply stood there waiting.

"I want to congratulate you all," he started before pausing for a few seconds.

Percy's brow furrowed. Just what the hell was this guy getting at?

"You have all successfully passed the screening process," the instructor finished.

Percy went cold.

"Selection - the real Selection - begins today."

He wanted to cry. He wanted to curl up on the ground and sob like a newborn baby. If all this had simply been the screening process to see who got into the real test, then whatever was to come was going to be so much worse, it was almost too horrible to think about.

"Now, Lady Chaos will start you off."

Percy blinked. Had he heard that right?

Just then, Chaos seemed to step into existence, out of the shadows right in front of them. All of the Selection candidates instantly dropped to one knee, and bowed their heads. Percy was right there with them. More for the chance to stretch his back muscles a little bit.

Her face showed no expression, as she surveyed the class.

"Stand," she ordered softly.

Instantly, everyone stood.

"Does anyone here know the retention rate for this selection process?"

A forrest of hands went up. She pointed at a random candidate.

"Less than 1%, my lady."

Chaos nodded, "Exactly right, thank you. Less than 1% of you will pass. The rest will fail. That's a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless. Now, this certainly isn't the only path you can take, in the Army. There are several other avenues you can pursue, and be very successful in. So if you do fail, don't take it too hard. And anyway, each member of the Army is guaranteed 3 attempts, so if you don't make it this time, you can try again down the line, when you're a bit more experienced. Those of you who do pass, will be tasked with some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks imaginable. That's the job. You will be risking your life, every single day. Really think about whether that's what you want. If you decide you do, and you pass, then I'm sure you'll go on to have a fabulous career, and make a tremendous impact on the Universe. I wish you all, the best of luck."

Towards the end, she caught Percy's eye and winked surreptitiously. He smiled a little.

Then she did a weird thing. She lifted her arm, and seemed to wave slowly over each candidate's head.

Percy felt strange as she did it. And he felt very strange after it was done.

Chaos nodded to them all, and simply vanished into thin air. The lead instructor took her place.

"Lady Chaos just removed her second blessing from you all. So take good care of yourselves for the rest of Selection. If you get injured, you'll take that with you 'till the end. If you get injured too badly to continue, then you're gone."

He let that sink in for a few seconds. Percy knew Sara and Chaos hadn't exaggerated when they'd told him this would be the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he hadn't been expecting this. But he would just have to get on with it, and hope beyond hope that he didn't get injured. Or killed.

Selection, the real Selection, was a completely different animal than the first week of screening. Now, they were competing against each other. They raced an obstacle course, and the 10 slowest people were sent home. They sprinted dozens of miles, and the 10 slowest people were sent home. They were given weights, and the 10 people who could do the least reps, were sent home.

After their first day in Selection, which had lasted around 30 hours, they were allowed to go back to their barracks and get some sleep. Each of them found a little care package on their beds that night. The care package consisted of various medical supplies. Now that they weren't healing automatically, they would need to take care of themselves. There were bandages, antiseptic sprays, a suturing kit, and a few other items. Percy instantly knew why those specific items had been chosen. The moment he took off his boots, he saw the patchwork of blisters and open sores all over his feet. There were similar wounds on the insides of his thighs, under his arms, the insides of his elbows, and on his shoulders. With a deep sigh, he got to patching himself up as best as he could.

The next day, the instructors made things even harder for them. They told them that throughout that entire phase, they would carry backpacks with them everywhere they went. They were only allowed to drop the backpack when they went to sleep. Aside from that, they would never leave their shoulders, always bearing down on them. When they ran, when they lifted weights, when they ate, when they went to the bathroom, it was always right there, reminding them that there was no true rest for them unless they quit.

The backpacks were meant to simulate what they might bring with them on a mission. Any mission. They carried everything from sniper rifles, to daggers, along with collapsable tents, maps, compasses, radios, grenades and flashbangs, medkits, rations, and canteens of water. The rations and water meant that there were no more hour-long meals in the mess hall. Instead, they were given 5 minutes here or there, to eat or drink as they wished, and then they cimply carried on.

They would carry all that gear, along with a certain amount of a locally found mineral, Perstompan Stone, they called it, which Chaos' Army had determined was the densest material anywhere in the Universe. Just looking at the stuff was confusing. It was pretty unassuming. But what looked like it should have weighed a pound, weighed closer to 60. Each morning, they would find a set of written instructions stapled to the door of their barracks, telling them exactly what to pack, and how heavy their backpack needed to be. Each of them packed the requisite items, then weighed the backpacks, and added however much Perstompan Stone they needed to bring the backpack to the necessary weight. They were warned not to read anything into the instructions, and simply to follow them to the letter.

One day, around a week into this new phase of Selection, after Percy had finished running the obstacle course, he and another guy, 2569, were ordered to approach 2 instructors.

"Unpack your rucks, show us what's inside."

Percy and 2569 dropped to a knee, slung their backpacks off their shoulders, and started unpacking them for the instructors. When Percy took out his single ration pack, one of the instructors told them both to stop. They stopped, and Percy glanced over at 2569. 2569 had 3 ration packs.

"4871, repeat your instructions for today."

Percy's head swam in exhaustion, but he focused on the orders he had read on this door earlier that day, "Formation: 0600. Uniform: Boots, fatigues, 280-pound rucksack. Meals: 1 ration pack-"

"Stop. Repeat last."

"Meals: 1 ration pack."

"Did you think that meant 1 ration pack for the entire day? Like we're trying to starve you? Is that what you thought?"

Percy hesitated.

"Yes, instructor."

The instructor turned to 2569.

"2569, did you understand your orders?"

"Yes, instructor."

"Explain them to 4871."

2569 turned to Percy, "One ration pack for each meal, not the whole day. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. 3 meals, 3 ration packs."

He said the whole thing with a smug smirk. Percy instantly disliked him.

The instructor said, "Well, you're wrong, 2569. 1 ration pack means 1 ration pack. Go to outprocessing; you're finished here. 4871, continue."

2569 looked bewildered. Percy repacked his backpack and stood up. Nodding to the instructors, he carried on with his day. And he carried on, with a smile.

After several more tests, Percy and another candidate, a girl this time, were told to sprint 60 miles North, and then the 60 miles back. They had 90 minutes to do so. They both did within the allotted time, panting and sweating. They were handed rifles and shown a small simulated village, around 800 yards away.

"There are 20 hostiles in that village. You each have 10 bullets in your magazines," was all they were told by the instructor.

Instantly, simulated explosives started going off around them, and Percy and the girl took a knee, and started firing.

"3918, if you were on a mission and a teammate was wounded, what would you do?"

"Treat the teammate," the girl replied, as she shot a target.

"And if you were unable to?"

"I would complete the mission."

"You would leave your teammate to die?"

"My first job is to complete my mission. My second job is to keep my team safe. My second job does not interfere with my first job."

"4871, you're on a mission and your team is compromised by an unarmed local. An allegiance to the enemy force is suspected, but unconfirmed. Your options are to let them go, tie them up, or kill them. What do you do?"

"Tie them up."

"And if your team wants you to kill them?"

"Tie them up."

Percy shot his last target, and so did the girl a second later.

"3918, 4871, you may continue."

The rest of the day continued with grueling and seemingly unending physical activity. They ran and lifted and ducked and crawled, and they did it all with 280 pounds on their back. They all staggered back to their bunks that night, completely exhausted. Nearly 500 more had quit since the start of the new phase of Selection, meaning there were around 1500 people gone altogether. The hardest part, Percy thought, was the fact that they were under complete scrutiny at all times. Each and every move they made was observed, questioned, analysed, and criticised. Some people just couldn't take the pressure. Or else they failed to meet the standards.

They started the next day in groups of 30, in a room full of desks and chairs, and were instructed to sit down randomly. When they all had done so, absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, a bag was emptied in front of them. Percy picked through the items spilled on his table, and recognised them. They were handgun parts. They had been taught to assemble and disassemble all kinds of weapons at basic training, so he wasn't too worried. But he knew there had to be some kind of twist.

One of the instructors brandished some kind of mask.

"This is a sensory deprivation mask. You will each put one on, and assemble the weapons in front of you. You must use each and every part, and produce 5 guns. You have 30 minutes, starting from the time you put the masks on."

They were each given a mask, and they put them on together. Percy started the timer in his head.

The mask worked very well, just like he knew it would. It completely sealed him off from the outside world. He couldn't hear, see, taste, or smell anything. Not a thing. He could only feel what he put his hands on.

Precisely 30 minutes later, Percy felt a hand on his shoulder. He took the mask off his face, and let his eyes adjust to the light before looking around to see how everyone else did. He saw one guy looking around, bewildered. Percy knew exactly why he was so confused. He had been too. Until he had figured it out. Clearly this guy hadn't.

"5826, is something wrong?" one of the instructors asked.

"Well, it's just that you told us to use all the parts, and to make 5 guns. But I made 5 guns, and I still have parts leftover."

"Did you make a mistake during assembly?" the instructor asked.

"I- I don't think so…" 5826 said, uncertain.

"Don't think. Tell me definitively. Yes or no?"

"I… I must have."

"So is that a yes?"

"Yes. I made a mistake."

The instructor paused for a second.

"Well, that's a shame."

Then the same instructor turned to look at Percy.

"4871, what were the instructions you received?"

"Sir, my instructions were to use all parts and assemble 5 guns."

"And what did you do?"

"Sir, I used all the parts, and assembled 7 guns."

"Why 7?"

"Because we were told to use all the parts."

"You were also told to make 5 guns."

"Sir, I did. Then I made 2 more."

Percy felt like he couldn't breath. It had been a gamble, he knew that. But was it going to pay off?

"4871, 5627, 1902, 3714, 2419, 612, 3102, you may continue. Everyone else, go to out-processing."

Percy let out a breath, and got up. As he and the others left the classroom, he saw a few other people streaming out from other classes, some pleased, most dejected. Naturally, none of them were given the chance to celebrate for long. Immediately, they got new orders and carried on with their day.

(Let me know if you understood what those last 3 parts were in reference to, xD)

One day, the instructors had seemed giddier than usual. They gleefully informed the recruits at the start of the day, that they were going to be doing something they called The Sickener that day. The Sickener, was a series of physical activities, that would never end until a certain amount of people quit. They'd go on for days if they had to.

In this instance, the instructors told them that they'd keep going, until 100 people quit on them.

It ended up taking close to 40 hours, and true to it's name, The Sickener made everyone sick to their stomachs. Percy himself had thrown up 6 times by the time it was over. But it was over eventually. As it always had, and always would, The Sickener won. It may have taken 40 hours, but 100 people had VWd and handed in their armbands.

—-

A whole month went by, and nothing even resembling a routine had taken shape. The instructors had mastered the art of unpredictability. The candidates never knew what to expect from any given day. Everything was completely different from one day to the next. The times they'd start, the times they'd eat, and when they'd finish. Totally random. Sometimes, the instructors would send them to bed, and wake them up an hour later, alarms blaring, screaming at them to get outside and start doing burpees. So even when they were supposed to be resting, they were half-expecting an instructor to wake them up and get them out at any moment. It was psychological torture all on its own. That being said, there were a few commonalities from day to day. Time for meals and rest was always few and far between. That never changed. Each and every activity was mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. That never changed either. Sara had been right. This was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

What made it worse, was that he had no idea when it would finish. He didn't have anything to count down towards. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Just continuous, unrelenting pain. And to exemplify that, some of the instructors pretended to let something slip about their upcoming training.

One day, another of the candidates, 215, had just finished running the obstacle course, and stopped to catch his breath. Apparently, two instructors were talking in low tones close enough that he could hear them. From what Percy understood, they were talking about some kind of upcoming event. A test of some kind. Apparently, the instructors had gone into incredible detail about what that event would include, because everyone Percy spoke to, was spouting off as if they knew what was coming. They didn't, of course. The instructors in question, had let themselves be overheard because they were hoping for the exact reaction they got. All anyone could talk about, was what this event would be like. How bad it would be. Several people were quitting out of pure dread.

The event finally started, when they were all asleep. There were only around 2500 of them left at that point, and they had been moved from their original bunks to make it easier for them all to gather around. Instead of being spread throughout the massive barracks, they were clustered together. The first 2 were full, and the 3rd was half full. Percy was in the 3rd one. A few instructors let themselves into their barracks, only an hour after they had finally been allowed to sleep after a particularly grueling day.

When they were all in position, they opened fire with their machine guns. Naturally, they were loaded with blanks. But they sounded real enough to the recruits.

Percy rolled off his bed, years of fighting in wars and battles and the decades of training he'd already had from Chaos' Army putting him at alert instantly. It took a few seconds for his rational mind to kick in and say 'hey, I'm obviously not under attack, so what's going on here?'. But unfortunately, during that time, his instincts were governing his actions, so he found an attacker and flung himself across the room at him. The instructor who Percy flung himself at was facing away, and he basically rugby tackled him to the ground. He wrestled his gun from him, and started used the stock to beat him down before reversing the gun and shooting him in the face. Again, the gun was full of blanks so nothing happened, but Percy knew what would happen if he pulled the trigger on a normal gun, and his mind filled in the blanks.

He got up to move on the next person, when a bullhorn sounded.

"Candidates! Form up outside!" an instructor called.

They all rushed out and gathered in a loose, disorganised formation, still bedraggled and exhausted.

An instructor walked down the line, looking over each of them. When he reached Percy, he glanced down at the gun he was still holding. Percy felt his cheeks redden under his gaze, but said nothing. Just then, the instructor Percy had disarmed and beaten came stumbling out of the barracks, clutching his bloody face, swearing under his breath. His eyes locked on to Percy's and he marched over, snatched the fake gun, and stalked off. The instructor who had been inspecting them paused for a second, smiled, and carried on without a word.

Once each and every candidate had been inspected, the lead instructor took a position in front of them all.

"I want to congratulate all 2436 of you for making it this far. We understand that this is no easy feat, and you've all done very well. But unfortunately, this will be as far as some of you will ever make it. We are about to enter Hell Month. This part of Selection will be one if the hardest things we'll ask you to do here, and most of you won't make it through. But those that do, will be one step closer to your goal. Now, your orders are on the bulletin board."

Percy went over to the bulleting to check his orders, but found that his mind was somewhere else. The instructor had said there were 2436 of them left. He was sure there had been more of them when they'd gone to bed. That's when he took a look around, and spotted a few other candidates being led to the out-processing building by an instructor. They looked lost and confused. If he had to guess, Percy would say that the gunfire, bullhorn, exhaustion, and sleep deprivation, had confused them so much, they'd gone running off. He honestly couldn't blame them. But he also knew they couldn't stay. If you were woken up in the middle of the night, suddenly and with no context, then you could react in one of 3 ways. Run, fight, or hunker down and try to understand. Percy had fought, they had run, the rest had tried to comprehend what was going on, and hidden. That's when he knew he was going to make it through. No matter what was coming, he was going to make it, because he had the warrior instinct ingrained in his mind after so many years of war and danger. This was where he was supposed to be, and this was what he was supposed to do. And he would do it, no matter how hard it was, or how much he wanted to quit.

Hell Month was, aptly, hellish. Constant, 24-hour per day strenuous physical exercise. They ran, lifted weights, climbed mountains, and, much to Percy's relief, swam oceans. No sleep whatsoever, virtually no meals, and basically no rest at all. The only time Percy considered restful, was the sporadic meals. The candidates were left alone for an hour to shove as many calories down their throats as possible, and then the brutality began anew.

At the start of Hell Month, Percy found himself trying to anticipate what would happen next. He spent precious energy trying to guess what the instructors had in store for them. He was always wrong. As the days went by, Percy stopped trying to anticipate, and simply let everything wash over him. He accepted that he had no control over his situation, and simply resolved to do whatever was asked of him, to the best of his abilities. And he started using meals as benchmarks. Before Hell Month, he had focused on getting through each individual day. But now that they were getting no sleep, there was nothing like that to focus on. So, he would focus all his energy on making it through to the next meal. Then, he'd focus on making it to the next one, and then the one after that.

The 2436 candidates that had began, were whittled down to just 596 by the end.

Hell Month ended when the lead instructor pronounced them as finished. They had just completed their 30th day, feeling more physically and mentally exhausted than ever in their lives. None of them knew how long they had been going, or how much they had left. In fact, they'd started to hallucinate nearly a week prior, and any concept of time and space had gone out the window. So, when they were told that they'd successfully completed Hell Month, they couldn't quite understand what that even meant. This was only made worse by the instructors, who had played a little joke on them earlier that day by telling them they still had a week to go. The candidates, barely remembering their own names, had believed them.

The completion of Hell Month was celebrated with a multi-liter bottle of coffee which was so strong, they may as well have injected pure caffeine into his veins, and, of all things, a pizza.

That was basically the extent of the celebration. The instructors may have said a few words to them, but nothing any of them would remember. There was no big party, no hugs from friends, no nothing. The 596 candidates were given their coffee and their pizza, and then they would go to bed.

When Percy was given his bottle and pizza, he just looked at them, confused.

"Do I have time to finish all this before the next evolution?" he asked.

'Evolution' was the term they used for any given physical activity.

An instructor, a female one, smiled at him, "4871, there isn't another evolution. You're done."

Percy was so, utterly exhausted, that he almost asked what the hell a 4871 was, but he caught himself at the last moment. He eyed her suspiciously, expecting her to slap the coffee out of his hand the moment he took a sip. But she took a few steps back to give him a little room, and he sat down on a bench, guarding his meal carefully, and eating and drinking as quickly as possible, paranoid that it would be taken from him. But he was left alone, and eventually he finished up. He felt so much better than he had. But the large meal was making him sleepy. Very sleepy. He walked over to the lead instructor.

"What's next, sir?"

The instructor smiled, "Nothing. Go to Barracks 1, and get some sleep."

Utterly confused, Percy stumbled off to the first barracks building and let himself in. The room was completely bare. The only feature inside, was a few mattresses on the floor. It was later explained to him, that they were on the floor so that the candidates, by now accustomed to little/no sleep, wouldn't roll off their beds in the middle of the night. Percy collapsed onto an empty mattress, resting his head on the softest, most comfortable pillow he had ever felt, and instantly began snoring.

---

Whenever Percy woke up, and he really didn't know when that was, he stumbled out of Barracks 1, and saw the instructions stuck to the door. They told him to go to the mess hall, and he had until 13:45 to eat or drink whatever he wanted. Checking the time, Percy saw it was only 12:03, so he had plenty of time to load up on calories.

Sitting in the mess, Percy took stock of himself. He was a wreck; he knew that much. The whole process had physically wrecked him, and Hell Month had just about pushed him over the edge. He had massive blisters and intense chaffing all over his body. One of the instructors favorite torment, had been to tell the candidates to go submerge themselves in ice-cold water, and then cover every millimeter of their bodies in sand. Not only was it very uncomfortable, but it irritated the skin severely. After a solid month of it, Percy felt like he'd bathed in acid. His entire body felt raw and exposed. He imagined this was what it felt like to be skinned alive. And the worst part was, he knew there was more to come.

Percy knew there was no way in hell that had been the end. It simply wasn't possible. Sara had told him that 5-10 of them would graduate, and there were 596 of them left. There had to be something else going on. There was surely some kind of next step. But he had an hour and 40 minutes until he needed to worry about that, so, remembering Sara's advice just before he left, he didn't get ahead of himself, and simply focused on what was going on.

He made the most of his time, eating about as much as he could find, and drinking enough coffee to make a small city bounce like bunnies for a month. Looking around the enormous room, Percy saw the other 595 candidates doing basically the same thing. They had their heads down, rubbing their eyes, shoving forkfuls of whatever into their mouths between yawns.

Finally, 13:45 came around, and the lead instructor walked into the mess hall. Instantly, everyone stood and watched him carefully.

"Everyone outside, in the courtyard, now," he called.

Without a second's hesitation, the remaining 596 candidates dropped whatever they were holding, and sprinted out to the courtyard where they stood in a loose formation.

"Congratulations, all of you. You've made it through the first phase of training. The rest of the day is your own, and tomorrow we enter Walking Week. During that week, we will prepare you for the next phase of Selection. Dismissed."

Percy and everyone else fell away, and he went straight back to his bunk, crawled into his bed, and laid there for a while. He wanted to rest as much as he could before the pain started.

He had no idea what this Walking Week was, but he figured it couldn't be too bad after what he had just been through. There was no way. And anyway, Walking Week sounded so much friendlier than Hell Month. It was bound to be easier.

And what had the lead instructor meant by 'we will prepare you for the next phase of Selection.'? There hadn't been anything like that for the previous phase. They had just said, 'Ok, here's this super heavy thing, carry it with you while you do 1000 pushups'. That was all the preparation they had really needed.

Percy took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He was getting ahead of himself. That would all happen tomorrow. He would find out what Walking Week was, and why he needed preparation for the next phase, tomorrow. There was no point worrying about it now. Sara had told him to take things as they came, and that approach had worked for him pretty well so far. So, he would continue that way.

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep for a few hours. And that was how he spent the rest of his day. He drifted in and out of sleep, taking occasional trips to the mess hall to stuff calories down his throat, between naps.

---

Walking Week began bright and early in the courtyard.

"There are maps and compasses at that station over there. Everyone go get one of each," the lead instructor said from the stage.

596 recruits ran to the indicated table and picked up a map and a compass each. The compass was a basic thing. Magnets showing North, and bearings stenciled around the face. Basic stuff. The map, however, was a huge mess of a thing. It was like 8 A4 pieces of paper stapled together to make one huge sheet. There was no key on it, so he wasn't sure what the scale was, but he could just about make out the camp they were in, and that told him it was very zoomed out. That fact, combined with the enormity of the map, told him that they'd be walking for a loooong time.

An instructor then went over the basics of map-reading, a skill which Percy was already quite proficient in due to his demigod origins. Then they went over navigating with a map and compass. Once they had the theory down, an instructor told the recruits to follow him, and he led them into the nearby woods.

They spent the rest of the day in there, as the instructor led them all around, showing them how to make their way between rendezvous, or RV, points. He showed them how to navigate unsteady terrain, and how to measure distance by counting their steps. He showed them how to store their water canteens so that they could drink while they walked to save time. He told them that they jogged downhill, walked uphill, and they'd rest by walking on level ground.

Overall, it was pretty interesting stuff. Percy was glad they were being shown it. He had been over the very basics at Camp Half-Blood, and he'd picked up on a few things with the Hunters, but he knew this would be the next steps up. Becoming great at anything, meant mastering the basics. And Chaos' Army, Spec Ops especially, seemed to be great at just about everything. That was the point. He would listen to any advice they would give him.

When Percy went to bed that night, he felt pretty good about Walking Week. Something about the calm, rational explanations from the instructor had made him feel like it was possible. Like he was right there, and all he had to do was reach out and take what he wanted.

The next day, Percy got orders to report to the courtyard in regular fatigues, and no backpack. Just his map and compass. He arrived, and an instructor waved him over.

"You're here," the instructor told him, pointing at the map, "Your job is to get here," he continued, pointing at another point on the map.

Percy looked at the two points. They were pretty damn far apart. But then, Percy had no idea what the scale of this map was.

"You're from Earth, right? You can always tell."

Percy nodded.

"You understand the metric system?"

Percy nodded again.

"Ok. Each centimeter on the map, is around 14 kilometers on the ground."

Percy's stomach dropped.

"Off you go. You have 30 hours." the instructor said.

He nodded dumbly, and left the instructor.

He did some mental math, looking at the map. There were about 6 inches between where he was, and his destination. That meant he was going to travel a little over 210 kilometers, or 130 miles.

There was no way in hell he was going to rush. Even though he had a time limit, he knew that the worst thing he could possibly do, is rush. He would run through his energy reserves immediately, and he was really going to need those. So, even though he had a time limit, he set off at something resembling a casual pace. He was in the minority. Most of the others took off running.

The compass Percy had been given, had a lanyard, so he wrapped the chain around his neck and let it dangle against his chest, so that he wouldn't have to hold it. He took a quick glance at the map, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. He was going straight North until the terrain changed. When it did, he would take the map back out and figure out his next move.

The hike went pretty well. It was tiring, sure, but he didn't have any weight on his back, and there were no instructors breathing down his neck, which was a pretty weird feeling. He had gotten used to being constantly watched since he had arrived for Selection, that it felt strange to be on his own. And he really was, on his own. There was no one anywhere near him. Another thing he had gotten used to, was being surrounded by his fellow candidates. They hadn't exactly been encouraging each other and pushing onwards together, but there had been something reassuring about looking to the left or right, and seeing someone in the same situation as him, struggling just like he was, but putting their head down and getting on with it. It gave him a kind of strength. But there was none of that now. He was alone. He would pass or fail on his own merit, and there would be no one around to push him onwards, or indeed, drag him back.

The terrain of the hike changed every so often, and the instructor had shown them how to navigate it the previous day. He still didn't have Chaos' second blessing, so he needed to be careful. If he broke his ankle or something like that, it wouldn't heal. That would be disastrous. So, he made sure each step was solid.

26 hours later, Percy stumbled into a clearing. He was doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He had just climbed a mountain that had been far too wide to go around, and that had sapped him of any energy he'd had left. There was sweat dripping down his face, back, and chest. He was so thirsty. And he was starving. Even though he hadn't been carrying anything, he felt like he had a multi-ton weight on his back, because of the more severe gravity. Everything was aching and cramped, but especially his neck, shoulders, and back. But that was still better than he had felt in quite some time.

One of the instructors was sitting on a box, waiting. He didn't seem remotely surprised that Percy had emerged from the bushes ahead of him. He just regarded him casually.

"Water and food over there. Take 5 minutes, and then come see me."

Percy almost lunged towards the indicated sustenance. He needed it so desperately.

5 minutes later, Percy felt a little bit better. He was still staving, but he wasn't thirsty anymore and he'd benefited from the sitting down time. He went back over to the instructor, who gestured for him to hand over the map.

"Show me where you are," he said.

Percy pointed.

The instructor nodded, "Right. Now, you're going there," he said pointing at another destination.

That one was probably around 180 kilometers, which was around 110 miles.

"You have 25 hours."

Percy sagged. He'd hoped that would be it.

The instructor noticed, but he didn't say anything. He just watched him with the same casual air as before. It was as if nothing Percy could have ever done, would have been a surprise. It was really annoying.

Percy carried on walking, counting steps to approximate distance covered, hating each one. The terrain on that leg of the journey was a little bit better, and the distance was appreciably shorter, so he was thankful for that. But he had literally just finished the last leg of his journey, so each and every step was harder. And his time frame for that one was shorter, so he picked up the pace a little bit.

23 hours later, Percy nearly collapsed into another little camp, where another instructor was sitting on a bolder, completely causally.

The instructor nodded at him, "There's food and water over there, 4871."

He made his way over to the food and water, and consumed as much as he could in the 5-minute time limit.

But there was no 5-minute time limit. The instructor had just said that there was food and water over there, he didn't say anything about time.

When Percy had consumed enough food and water to satisfy a small nation's army, he just sat back against a rock that wasn't too pointy.

Nearly 20 minutes later, another guy came stumbling into camp, was told about the food and water, and started tucking in. 10 minutes after that, a woman came along, and repeated the process. 4 more people came along over the next half-hour. Then a truck showed up at the little campsite and took them all back to camp.

As they got off the truck, they were told to go back to their quarters, and get some sleep. They did, eagerly. They hadn't lost anyone that day, and that was something of a morale booster. But Percy knew for a fact, that wouldn't last. The instructors were still taking it kind of easy on them after Hell Month, letting their bodies recover a little bit before they put the hurt on them again.

The next day went similarly. There were 3 legs on their journey, instead of 2. Each of them was extremely long, and spanning arduous terrain. Percy had been going for nearly 70 hours straight, only drinking and eating for 5 minutes whenever they came to a rest stop. Just like last time, they were loaded onto trucks, driven back to the barracks, and they passed out. Percy purposefully didn't look at the bulletin board with the quitters. He knew for a fact that there would be more of them after today, and he didn't even want to think about it.

The rest of the week went a bit like that. The instructors were still the masters of unpredictability, so they threw the candidates a few curveballs here and there. They seemed to thrive on allowing the candidates to notice a pattern beginning to form. For instance, Day 1 of Walk Week, was spent being instructed on the basics of land navigation and map reading, and so on. Day 2, was land navigating with 2 legs on their journey. Day 3 had 3 legs. Day 4, had 4 legs. So, when most of the candidates mistakenly assumed that they would do 5 legs on Day 5, the instructors seemed to delight in making them do 7. Then on Day 6, they did 3, but each was longer.

But Day 7 was the one that truly stood out. Percy had been sure that they would do something 'special' for the end of Walking Week, and he hadn't been disappointed. Or rather, he had, but he had been right too.

On Day 7, they were allowed to bring water with them, and even a little bit of food. A lot of the candidates were excited by that. Percy was not. He knew they would only give them food and water for the journey, if that journey was extremely long. He was right.

The instructor told them that this would be their first test. 800 miles, in in 120 hours. No rest stops along the way.

Nearly 20 people quit on the spot. Those who didn't, simply picked up their water, food, map, and compass, and got on with it.

The journey took Percy around 115 hours. When he came stumbling into the clearing, too exhausted to even speak clearly, the instructor just gestured to one side, and Percy went and sat down. There were 3 other people there. Each of them looked like they had been buried and a week ago and dug back up again. He was sure he did too. That had been awful.

And this was still Walking Week.

The instructors took them home that night, and Percy hadn't been able to help himself. He glanced over at the bulletin board. As he had thought, there were a lot more numbers there than there had been at the beginning of the week. They had entered Walking Week with 596 candidates, and there were around 450 of them left. Almost 150 candidates who had survived Hell Month, had quit - or been dropped from - Walking Week. What the fuck?

The next day, the orders on the door told Percy and the other candidates to get out to the courtyard. Once they were there, the lead instructor told them to go to their bunks, and pack anything they might want to take with them for a while, into a backpack, and then come back out to the courtyard 5 minutes later.

Percy, with absolutely no idea what the hell was going on, grabbed a backpack and stuffed all the medical supplies, his map, compass, and spare uniforms in it, and hightailed his way back to the courtyard.

Once the 5 minutes were up, the candidates were loaded up on a convoy of trucks, 30 candidates per truck, and they started driving away from the camp. Percy didn't know what was going on, since so far they had started their hikes and marches from the camp.

Suddenly, the convoy split up, each truck heading in a different direction. Percy was starting to get nervous. This was all completely new. They had never left the camp for any meaningful stretch of time before. But Percy remembered Sara's words to him before he left, and took a deep breath. He didn't need to get ahead of himself. He just had to see what happened, and deal with whatever came his way. If he had no control over a situation, there was no point getting worked up about it.

Nearly 2 hours later, they unloaded, and immediately got to work. Just like before, they were given maps and compasses, but no food or water. The distance between legs was a lot longer, and they had far less time. The difference between Walking Week and the regular phase, was extremely noticeable. The pressure was up. Not that you would notice, if you judged it on the expressions from the instructors.

They were different. Literally. They were different people.

If Percy had to guess, he would say that the different phases of Selection, had different instructors. Probably to stop personal discrimination, or maybe to keep the candidates from getting too familiar with the faces.

In the previous phase, they'd routinely had instructors in their faces, screaming and shouting. But these ones were the silent type. Percy could tell. They were going to say what they needed to, using the absolute bare minimum of words possible. They were like machines.

Percy's first day after Walk Week had been tough. He had covered around 500 miles in total, and his legs ached like a motherfucker. But the instructors had a surprise in store for him when they'd driven him and a few others away from their last RV. They didn't take them back to camp. They had taken them to the spot where they'd set off from.

"This is where you'll sleep," an instructor informed them casually.

"Out in the open?"

The instructor shrugged, "If you want. But I'd recommend you assemble a tent."

Percy looked over to his right and saw a table full of collapsible tents and blushed a little in embarrassment.

He assembled his tent, found his footlocker, and brought it inside. This tent wasn't like the one he'd had when he'd been staying with Artemis and her Hunt. This was a regular tent. It was pretty cramped inside, especially for someone of Percy's size, and the 'floor' wasn't very padded, so it basically felt like sleeping on the ground. Gone was the small comfort of a decent bed to sleep in for a few hours a night.

After another week of basically running hundreds and hundreds of miles a day, from objective to objective, they made things even harder. Now, they were carrying weight as they did it. Serious weight. Weight that made the backpacks from the first phase look like children's accessories.

Each backpack was full to the brim with Perstompan Stone, with just a few ration packs and a couple liters of water added on. All told, the backpacks weighed around 400 pounds each, and just having it on you back made it feel like it was tearing your shoulders off.

Never let it be said that the instructors are incapable of mercy though. The first week with the obscenely heavy backpacks, they did less distance, and they had more time. But then they started upping the pressure again.

It went on like that for nearly a month. By the end, Percy was running at a full-on sprint from RV to RV. He never really got used to the 400 pounds on his back, but he learned to live with it. When looking back on that part of his life in later years, Percy would have absolutely no idea how the hell he had managed to do it, but he had.

And for some reason, they kept rotating people in and out of camps. There were 30 people per camp, but the faces kept changing. Not just in the candidates, but the instructors too. People just kept coming and going. Percy included. One night as he had been sleeping, an instructor had burst into his tent.

"Get your shit, you're moving."

Percy had freaked out, worried they were kicking him out, but complied nonetheless. The instructor put him on a truck, and drove him for nearly an hour before leaving him at a different camp. He'd unloaded his footlocker, built another tent, and gone back to sleep for another hour or so. The rest of the candidates had been befuddled at his sudden apparition, and he'd just shrugged. No one was allowed to confer with each other in any way during Selection, as they had been told quite early on.

One day, around 2 weeks in, Percy had taken a pretty rough fall. He had misjudged a slope, and the soil had come loose under his feet. He'd slipped and rolled nearly a hundred yards before he caught a rock and stopped himself. Taking a quick assessment of himself, he noticed 2 things. First, he noticed that he'd torn large portions of skin off the hand he'd used to grab the rock. The second thing he noticed, was that his femur was sticking out of his leg.

It hadn't even hurt. Not really. Not at first. When he saw the bone, and his mind processed the information his eyes were providing it, the pain started in full force. He tipped his head back and screamed. His mind was blank with pain. He couldn't think for the life of him. Suddenly, an instructor appeared over him.

"You ok there, 4871?"

Percy shook his head, tears threatening to spill.

"My leg is fucked."

The instructor peered down and nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, that seems like an accurate assessment. What are you going to do about it?"

"What do you mean, 'what am I going to do about it?"

He shrugged, "The way I see it, you've got 2 options. Carry on, or quit. It's up to you."

Percy was about to say the words. He was about to say he quit. But that almost seemed harder than carrying on. It wasn't something he could explain or describe. But the words "I want to Voluntarily Withdraw" just didn't seem to come out of his mouth. His tongue wouldn't make the shapes, and his vocal chords wouldn't make the noises.

He got up on a shaky leg and tried putting his weight on the bad leg. It wasn't working. No way, no how.

"Can't you give me something for this?" he pleaded with the instructor.

"You have everything you're going to get."

Percy took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind.

If he had access to anything he wanted, what would he do? He'd splint the leg, wrap it, pick up some crutches, and carry on.

He still had his demigod powers. Those couldn't be removed. Period. They were ingrained in his DNA. And with some water, and enough time, he could heal the leg. But he had no water. The nearest source of water, was the next checkpoint, where he'd have 5 minutes to douse his leg and carry on. But how was he going to get there? He couldn't put any weight on the leg at all.

Chaos' third blessing.

Concentrating, he used the shadows to shove the bone back into place. It was excruciatingly painful. Once it was in, he used more shadows to wrap around his entire leg, like cling film. He wrapped them as tight as he could, hoping the leg would go numb and dull the pain a little bit. It didn't. Finally, he made crutches out of yet more shadows, and he was ready to hobble on.

"If you're not going to quit, then hurry up. You're behind schedule."

Percy grit his teeth and picked up the pace as much as he could. He made it to the rendezvous point within 2 minutes of the allotted time, poured as much water over his leg as he could in the time he had, and it did it's job well enough. It didn't heal it entirely, not even close, but it let him put at least a little weight on the leg. He repeated the process at the next checkpoint, then one after that, and carried on until it was fully healed nearly 3 days later.

But that portion of Selection was nearly done. They had one final test, to see who would be moving on to the next phase. That test began as the sun rose. They loaded up their backpacks with 500 pounds of the dense mineral, and some water and rations.

Then they had to go report in to the instructor.

"You'll be going that way," the instructor said gesturing due North, "Ok?"

"Ok," Percy said uncertainly. They usually told him more than this.

"Alright. Off you go."

Percy almost chocked on air.

"H- How far?"

"As far as you get in the time you have," the instructor said simply.

Percy stared at him.

"How much time do I have?"

The instructor just shook his head, like 'no no no. Not telling' and that was basically the end of the conversation.

Percy knew arguing would be a waste of time. Time, which was apparently in short supply. He needed to get a move on.

He knew that there would be a minimum distance he'd need to reach in order to pass. But he had no idea what that distance was, or how long he had to get there.

Percy decided on a half-run/half-speed-walk approach. He'd run a few miles, then speed-walk a few miles, and continue alternating. He tried to plan his rest stops, because he knew there was no way he could walk the entire time without fatiguing. He figured he'd rest for 10 minutes, every 10 hours. That made enough sense. It would give him enough rest, without detracting from his time too much.

But as he was approaching the first stop, he got in his own head.

"What if I don't make it far enough? What if I miss the minimum distance by 10 minutes worth of walking? I'll skip this one, and take the next one. Yeah, that makes sense."

So, he walked on. 10 hours later, he hesitated over taking a small break. He got in his own head again. Just like before, he skipped it, vowing to rest at the next 10-hour mark. He skipped that one too. In fact, he only saw the pattern emerge as he skipped the 5th rest stop in a row. He decided to just carry on. If he got too tired, he'd sit down for a while.

Percy ended up walking/running for 300 hours without a single break. He thought about quitting, basically every 10 minutes. It was one of the worse experiences of his life. But, and he really would never understand how exactly, he stopped himself from quitting. Over the 300 hours, Percy kept cycling through various mantras in his head to keep him going. First, was what Sara had said to him. Her words of affirmation and encouragement filled him with the strength he needed to keep going. For some time least. Then, Chaos' words repeated in his head. He heard her telling him that he was a warrior, and he would never settle for second best. He heard her telling him that she knew he could make it through, and find success as a Spec Ops Operator. And when that lost its potency, he told himself, 'Just look at the instructors. If they can do it, so can I. If they can do it, so can I. If they can do it, so can I.'. And that eventually lost its potency too, and Percy cycled back around to Sara.

By the time he'd reached the end, he couldn't even calculate how far he'd gotten in his 300 hours. It might have been a hallucination, but the instructors had seemed vaguely impressed when they'd picked him up off the forest floor, and loaded him into a truck to be driven back to camp. The original camp. That was when Percy knew he'd made it. He'd passed the phase.

Mercifully, they were given the next day off, which Percy spent in his bed, resting as much as he possibly could. He'd developed about a hundred blisters on his feet from the constant walking, and he was missing half of his toenails, so he kept his feet submerged in a small bucket of water he'd been given. He couldn't say for sure, but Sara would later claim that the instructors on his course had told her that he'd spent that entire day with a goofy, delirious grin on his face. She would tease him about it mercilessly, and Percy would never know for sure if it was true, or if she had just made it up.

The next day, Percy got up and went outside. He checked the orders on the door and saw that he had the day to himself. Counting his blessings, he went to the mess hall and ate everything in sight. An hour later he stumbled out on sore feet and made a quick detour to the courtyard. He looked up at the bulletin board. There were 52 candidates left. 400 people had quit or been dropped, in the month since he'd last checked it. But he was still there. That was absurd to him. If asked, Percy would have said that most of the other 400 were tougher than him, in various ways. Some were faster, some had more endurance, some were stronger. But they were gone and he was here. How had that even happened?

Percy went back to bed and slept as much as he could. He used his powers to keep a sliver of water stuck to his body like a second skin, and he could feel it healing his cuts and sores and blisters. And most importantly, it soothed his aching muscles, which had never hurt that bad in his life, except, maybe, from the time the Giants had almost beat him to death.

He woke up the next morning and checked the barracks door for orders. Formation at 12:00 hours, in the courtyard. Checking a nearby clock, Percy saw it was 11:20. He started getting ready, putting on his cleanest fatigues, attempting to comb his hair, and arriving early.

The lead instructor for that phase showed up at 12:00 exactly, at examined the surviving candidates.

"You've all passed this phase of Selection. The rest of the day is yours. Form up tomorrow, back here, at 08:00 for the next phase."

And with that, he turned around and walked away. No congratulations, no praise. Just a series of factual statements, and not even all that many of those. But Percy didn't care in the least. He had passed this phase. He'd passed the phase that 550 candidates who had survived Hell Month, had failed. He'd passed the phase that 5800 other candidates had never even reached. They were gone, and he was here.

And he would make damn sure that he was still here at the very end.

—-

The next day, Percy was in fatigues, standing in the courtyard, waiting for something to happen. It was 07:56, so he still had a few minutes to go, but he had wanted to be early, and he had been. That had turned out to be a mistake. The anticipation was getting to him. After everything they had already done, what else could there possibly be? What other facet of their character or physical status could be left to measure? What the hell were they going to do to them?

For the billionth time since he'd started Selection almost 4 months prior, he heard Sara's words in his head. One step at a time. Right.

The instructor, another new one, arrived on time.

"Candidates," he announced, "You are now entering the 3rd Phase of Selection. In this phase, your tactical acumen, and decision-making skills under pressure, will be intensely evaluated. The rest of the Phase 3 instructors and myself will be watching every move you make. Every round you fire, and every second you hesitate, will be judged. You have the rest of the day to yourselves. Try to recover from Stress Phase as much as you can, because starting tomorrow, there will be no quarter given. Fall out."

Percy and his 51 fellow candidates dispersed from the courtyard and went their different ways. A few of them went to the barracks and a few of them went to the mess hall. But it was clear that none of them would be doing any work. Each and every one of them was planning on recuperating, just as the instructor had said.

In hindsight, Percy would see the genius in informing the candidates of what was to come. He knew for a fact that a lot of other candidates were worrying themselves sick over what they had been told by the instructor. They were going over Standard Operating Procedures, or SOPs, in their heads, fussing over getting every detail squared away. They were seriously overthinking. Percy, in stark contrast, just kicked his feet up and cleared his mind. He let his body recover. He knew everything he needed to know in order to succeed, he would just need to show them he could pull it off. And the best chance he had to do so, would be to let his body and, more importantly, his mind, rest and recover.

Worrying would change nothing. Fix nothing. Fretting about something you can't control, is to waste energy. Concentrate on what you can change, and dedicate all your resources, physical and mental, to achieving the task at hand.

3rd Phase began the next day, and true to the instructor's words, Percy could feel the pressure as though it was a physical force, bearing down on him. That being said, it actually wasn't very laborious in terms of the physical brutality. There were no endless pushups, no back-breaking backpacks, and no multi-day treks. As they had been told, the upcoming phase was focused on their tactics. It was stressful mentally, more than physically.

Like with virtually everything in Selection, the instructors demonstrated it before having the candidates do anything. Even the simplest things, like strapping on their tactical gear. Hell, they even showed them how to load their magazines. Everything in Selection was done in such a way that no one could complain about it being unfair if they didn't make it. That was the cold, hard truth. If someone failed, it was because they failed. They couldn't say that any other candidate had some kind of advantage, or any preferential treatment. Everyone was shown how to do everything. You either learned, or you didn't.

Because of that, Percy figured they would have some time before the real pressure was applied, where the candidates would be shown what was expected of them. A bit like Walking Week. And in some ways, he'd been right.

The first 3 days, were classroom-bound. They were taught about the various weapons that Chaos' Army used, from handguns to sniper rifles. The candidates were shown how to care for the weapons, what some likely causes of malfunctions were, and how to clear them. They also went over the basics of Close Quarters Battle, or CQB as it was colloquially known. That was some interesting stuff. And it was seriously complex. Percy had done some CQB and room clearing at Basic, but not on this level. And back then, it had felt like mayhem. No one really knew what they were doing, and just went where they felt like going. But the way the instructors were showing it, it looked like ballet. Each movement, every step, was highly choreographed, and well-practiced, so when they were clearing a room, each person knew where their comrades would be, down to the millimeter.

The instructors also showed them the basics of classic Spec Ops mission types. Patrolling behind enemy lines, reconnaissance of enemy positions, assessment of enemy forces and disposition, and Direct Action, DA, strikes against fortified enemy positions. Some of the stuff made total sense, and Percy could have figured out intuitively. For example, when patrolling behind enemy lines, not a single item could be left behind. What came in, must come back out. Failure to adhere to a rule like that, could lead to discovery, and great risk. Some of the stuff, Percy never could have figured out in a million years, but made total sense. Like an operator dangling off the side of a cliff, perfectly camouflaged to look like nothing more than rock, and remaining stock-still for several days in order to grab a few photos of an enemy position. Doing such a thing just hadn't seemed possible to Percy, but the instructors were adamant that it had been done before, and strongly hinted that it had been done by someone in that very room.

As Percy had expected, they were shown each practice once. They were explained each drill and procedure, once. And then they were expected to do it.

Some of it was honestly kind of fun. Patrolling through the forest in full camouflage, wary of each footstep, and every sound he made, while carrying a backpack filled only with tools one might need for a mission, definitely got his adrenaline going. It was just cool.

Jumping out of a helicopter on the other hand, was less so. Percy was a long, long, long way away from Zeus and any influence he could possibly have. But still, being in the air got his adrenaline going, in all the wrong ways. And what was worse, jumping out of a helicopter to rappel down a rope at ridiculous speeds, while carrying around 100 pounds of gear and equipment, was just insane. And it was only made worse by then immediately sprinting towards his objective, a mock-house set up around 100 meters away, kicking in the door, and clearing the building of any simulated threats, with 5 other candidates right on his heels, and an instructor watching the whole time.

Percy had thrown up in his mouth twice, from the sheer stress of it all. He'd had no option but to simply swallow it down again, both times. It had been highly unpleasant, but it was better than letting an instructor see him be vulnerable.

But aside from that small hiccup, the training mission had gone relatively well. Though there had been a slight incident when clearing rooms.

Percy and the other 5 candidates were clearing a hallway. The hallway itself, was clear. But there were a few doors along the left side. So, Percy and another guy went up along with left wall, and the other 3 candidates were parallel to them on the right wall. The situation was textbook. It was something the instructors had been over with them, just the previous day.

The way it was supposed to work, made a lot of sense. What ended up happening, did not.

As it should have gone, Percy would have opened each door, but stayed out of the doorway, so that the candidates along the right wall could see through the door, and take down any threats in there. If there were areas where the candidates couldn't get an angle from where they were, Percy and the man behind him would go into the room, and clear it that way. Then, when Percy and the other guy were done, they'd get back in position, and carry on to the next door, where they would repeat the procedure.

The way it happened, Percy opened the first door, and the guy right behind him leaned forwards, and took 3 shots into the room with the barrel of his rifle mere centimeters from Percy's face. He stared at the guy in shock for a second before shoving the barrel away.

"Next time, you shoot!" he hissed at the guy on the right wall, who should have taken the shots.

They were about to continue down the hall, when they heard a sharp whistle.

"352, what the hell were you thinking, shooting over your partners shoulder like that?!" an instructor demanded, "Sorry I didn't stop him, 4871. When I saw him take those shots, I swallowed my whistle."

(slightly obscure reference there, but let me know if you get it)

The drill was well and truly over, and Percy never saw 352 again. The instructors weren't screwing around when they said each move would be scrutinized. A mistake like that was fatal.

3rd Phase went on for a few more weeks, and the various skills and procedures they practiced, got more and more intense. And the instructors were relentless. Nothing was safe. There was an angle to every decision the candidates made, from the most innocuous detail, to the most major decision. Sometimes, the instructors even got in the recruits faces, questioning them as if they did something wrong, when they had actually done it right, just to see if the recruit buckled.

But it was nearly over. Percy and the 10 other candidates that were left standing, were about to embark on the final test of 3rd Phase. It was a simulated mission, where they would be dropped from a dropship at the very edge of Perstompa's atmosphere, with orders to report in on an enemy base, and they would be advised from there. Each candidate would complete the mission solo, to make sure it was fair. There would be no 'yeah, I failed, but only because my teammate sucks!'

The interesting thing was that the candidates were given full control over how to go about it. They only had 2 restrictions. The operation had to be conducted under darkness, and they had to infill by HALO, High-Altitude Low-Opening, jumping. The justification for the first, was obvious. The reasoning behind the second, which seemed almost tailor-made to make Percy shit himself, was less clear. The instructors explained it though. Apparently, even though Special Operations missions were typically planned by the same people who would execute them, you never knew when some higher-ranking officer would come in and make decisions. So, while Percy and anyone else who could expect to graduate, would be given a fair amount of freedom on operations, they would have to show that they could work under certain restrictions and limitations all the same.

So, there he was, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 feet in the air, waiting to jump out of this tin box. He had no parachute on his back, which made him appreciably lighter than most people who did that sort of thing. But the rest of his gear made up for it.

He'd been allowed to pack his own kit, and he'd thought long and hard over it. The stated mission objective, was to infill and collect intelligence on enemy movements, positions, numbers, and disposition, then wait for further orders. But Percy had a sneaking suspicion that he'd need to do a fair amount of shooting on this mission, regardless of what the mission statement said. So, he'd just packed for an assault and he'd just have to deal with the extra weight involved.

He'd packed grenades, smoke bombs, and flashbangs. He was carrying a Chaos' Army standard-issue assault rifle, with plenty of spare magazines strapped to the webbing on his chest. There was even a breaching charge strapped to his back. He'd left his standard issue sidearm at camp, instead favoring a lower-power, smaller-caliber version. When attached with a suppressor, the gun would be very quiet, so he had the stealth option accessible to him if it was feasible.

Percy stood in the dropship, bathed in red light, waiting for the jump master to give him the signal to jump out. He would freely admit that he was sweating like he was on death row. His palms were uncomfortably moist, and his knees felt like they would give out at any moment. That would be pretty embarrassing, so he was holding onto a metal bar fixed to the wall, just in case he dropped.

The jump master held up a single finger. The universal sign for '1 minute until you go hurtling out of this thing, ready or not'. It wasn't what Percy would call a comforting sign, but it was what it was.

Percy took a deep breath through the oxygen mask affixed to his face; a necessity at that altitude. They had done plenty of regular parachuting at plenty of other points during 3rd phase; to the point that Percy actually felt somewhat comfortable doing it. But a HALO jump was different. With regular parachuting, you'd jump at regular heights, wait a few seconds, and then open your chute and glide the rest of the way down. But with HALO jumping, you jumped from insane heights, and waited for what seemed like an eternity before finally opening your chute close enough to the ground, that any enemy forces wouldn't see you with their eyes, or catch you on radar. It was a tense feeling, and the restraint required to not open the chute as soon as the ground started to look too close, was immense.

The jump master held his thumb and index finger a few centimeters apart, with the rest of his fingers splayed. That meant 'Now it's 30 seconds, asshole'. Percy nodded and closed his eyes.

He counted to 15 in his head, and then started shuffling forwards, his backpack and gear strapped to his legs. There were a few awful seconds, when he was right in front of the bay doors, and he honestly considered just backing out of the whole thing. It would be so easy. All he would have to do, is put his hand up and say the words, 'I want to voluntarily withdraw' and then this whole nightmare would be over.

The cabin depressurised, and the bay doors opened. The rushing wind hit Percy in the face like a brick and he fought to stay upright. A glance at the jump master to his right told him the asshole was really enjoying this. He had probably seen millions of candidates in Percy's current state, scared shitless at what laid ahead. Or maybe they had all been a lot braver than Percy was. He didn't really want to think about that.

The red lights in the cabin suddenly turned green, and the jump master started wildly gesturing out the doors with his hand in the shape of a knife. The universal sign of, 'Go go go, get the hell out of my aircraft'. So, Percy get the hell out of the man's aircraft.

The immediate silence was somewhat stunning. The inside of a dropship was a hell of a lot quieter than most planes Percy had been on in his life, and certainly less noisy than any helicopter he had ever seen, but there was still some appreciable noise in there. So the pure silence outside, was something special.

Then the wind started howling in his ears, and the freezing cold hit him. Percy wasn't particularly eager to find out exactly how cold it was at heights like that, but it was cold enough that he knew he'd become a popsicle if he stayed up there for too long. A Persicle, perhaps. Suddenly, the idea of not opening his chute became a lot more tolerable. He'd wait until it was a bit warmer.

He was in the air for what seemed like hours, but he knew it was actually around a minute. Finally, the ground looked close enough to start slowing himself down. Using his shadow powers, he fashioned a large canopy of flexible darkness, and felt his speed immediately lessen. It was like being pulled, very suddenly and very harshly, from behind. Percy tried to repress the grunt as he was jerked backwards, fully aware of the fact that instructors would be watching and listening to everything.

When looking at a map of his target and its surrounding terrain, Percy had concluded that he would land in the thick forest around 500 meters from his objective. Ordinarily, that was a very bad idea for parachutists. The canopy could, and likely would, get caught up in the branches and tear, which would be a very bad thing for the person betting their life on the things. But since Percy's parachute was made of shadows and was under his complete control, he didn't have to worry about anything like that. As long as he was careful, and quick enough, he could manipulate the chute to avoid every snagging branch. And even if he did hit a few, it's not like the shadows would tear.

The dense forest would provide him the perfect cover to gather himself and prepare all his equipment for the mission ahead. As long as he didn't mess up severely, this would be perfect.

The landing was textbook. It was rough and uncomfortable, and his knees took a rougher impact than he might have hoped, but it was still perfect. Not a single person had seen him, he was sure of that. And all of his equipment of intact. He started unstrapping his gear from his legs and equipped it all properly. All in all, the weight wasn't too bad. Around 100 pounds, plus his rifle loaded with simunitions. And his objective was only half a kilometer away. After 2nd Phase, this was nothing.

Percy ran 400 meters through the forest, navigating with his compass, and found himself at the edge of the forest, with a perfect view of the target. The target was a compound, a little like the ones Percy and his Squad had taken down on Earth. But this one was far more modern, and clearly not made by monsters. The perimeter was fenced off, and there were guard towers and floodlights searching the inner grounds and surrounding area. It looked a bit like an airport under military occupation.

Keeping as low as he could, laying in the prone position, Percy got his backpack off his shoulders and took out a digital camera connected to a terminal back at the simulated Tactical Operations Center, or TOC for short. Immediately, he started taking pictures of the various defenses and security measures, and they were immediately visible back in the TOC.

"4871, this is TOC. You need to get a better angle on the tall building, along the North perimeter fence. We need a visual of the inside."

Percy's brow furrowed in confusion, but he'd been taught the proper response to an order over the radio.

"Copy. Moving now."

But he wasn't moving now. He needed to get his bearings first. He was looking at the compound from the West, looking East. The building they were talking about, a 5-story with a lot of glass, was along the North wall, near the North-Eastern corner.

The best angle he was going to get, would be head on. So, he would need to get to the South side, close to the Eastern perimeter.

But, naturally, there was a problem with that.

The problem was that the forest he had used for cover, ended a long way away from the place he needed to get to. He'd be out in the open, where the guard towers and floodlights would easily pick up on him if he wasn't very careful.

But orders were orders. And he wasn't about to quit just because he couldn't figure out how to cross an open field without being seen.

So, Percy crept backwards, careful not to move to quickly and draw attention to himself, and only stood back up again when he was hidden by the trees. He strapped the backpack to his shoulders, and set off at a sprint, eager to make the most of his concealment while he still had it. He wasn't sure how he was going to cross the wide-open field without being seen, but he knew it was going to take a long time, and the clock was ticking away.

When the forest tapered off, and his concealment vanished, Percy dropped his backpack and prepared himself to bellycrawl. He'd thought about simply shadow traveling, but he didn't want to risk the sudden appearance or disappearance being spotted, so that was out of the question.

The terrain may not have been offering him the same level of concealment as the thick trees, but there was some relatively tall grass. If he kept low enough and moved slowly enough, he just might get away with bellycrawling the whole way there, dragging his backpack behind him, his face as deep in the mud as he could get it.

Only it wasn't mud. If it had rained some time in the last few days, it might have been. But no. It was hard-packed dirt, with plenty of rocks embedded in it. This was going to get very uncomfortable, very quickly.

The distance between him and his destination, was around 250-300 meters. It took him 2 hours to get there. He was moving as slowly as humanly possible. Being as big as Percy was a decisive advantage in a great many ways, but it wasn't great for sneaking around. The sooner he got Chaos' 4th blessing, the better. She'd told him it might be a very long wait. The sooner, the better.

But until then, he'd be lugging his 6'7 frame around wherever he went. Including operations such as this one.

Finally, after the seemingly endless crawl that had left him with dozens of cuts and scrapes along his right cheek, he reached the position he thought would have the best view of his target building. And it did. It had pretty good sightlines.

As slowly as he could, he got the camera back out of his backpack, and started snapping photos. As he had suspected, a few seconds later he heard a voice in his earpiece.

"4871, we've identified the male on the 5th floor as an HVT (High Value Target). Your mission objective just changed. Eliminate the HVT. Don't allow any witnesses. And remember, you are not to be identified or captured, and there can be nothing linking Chaos' Army to this operation. Do you copy?"

"4871 copies all," Percy whispered back.

For fucks sake.

Percy knew exactly who they were talking about. He could sense the guy from where he was. There was only 1 male on the 5th floor, and Percy marked him mentally. This was the guy who was going to end up dead.

He took a second to examine his options. The simplest way, would be to shadow travel straight into the building, slit the guy's throat, and then shadow travel back to the forest, where he could use the trees as cover and make his way to his exfill.

And he decided that was exactly what he'd do. Sometimes the simplest plan, really was the best.

So, concentrating on the view he had through the window, Percy shadow traveled straight into the building, right behind the target.

Suddenly, he was inside, instantly feeling much warmer than he previously had. He was still in the prone position, so he rose slowly, keeping his senses tuned for danger. His HVT was right in front of him, looking quite comfortable sitting on a couch, a drink in his hand.

Percy let the rifle drop on its sling, and drew the almost-silent pistol and his knife. Taking 3 quick, quiet steps towards the HVT, Percy pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of the guy's head, and simultaneously brought his knife around so the tip was pressed gently against the spot where the chin met the neck.

"You're dead," Percy whispered in his ear.

This was all still a simulation. He couldn't actually kill anyone, and he knew that the simulated HVT would be an instructor, so he was reluctant to shoot him with simunitions, which were obviously much less threatening than real bullets, but still hurt quite a lot.

"Agreed," the HVT said drily.

Immediately, Percy removed the weapons, depositing the knife back in its sheath on his right hip, but keeping the pistol in his hand.

"TOC, this is 4871. HVT is down, I repeat, HVT is down."

A second later he heard the now-familiar voice.

"Copy that, 4871. Move to exfill."

With a sigh of relief, Percy holstered the pistol. Just before he left, he happened to look down on the ground, and saw that he had brought some dirt with him when he'd shadow travelled into the room. Drawing some moisture out of the air, Percy used it to clean up the mess, and then shadow travelled away. Yes, he may have just committed simulated murder, but he still cleaned up after himself. He wasn't a savage.

Now back in the place where he'd landed, Percy started hightailing it due South. His exfill point would be 4 kilometers away, and he knew from intense experience that he could make that in just a few minutes. Maybe less, now that he had far less weight to drag around than he ever had during 2nd Phase. But now wasn't the time to go trying to set records. There would be time for that once he'd passed Selection.

Barely a minute into his sprint, he heard the voice in his earpiece.

"4871, this is TOC. You copy?"

"4871 copies. Send your traffic."

"Enemy forces just found their HVT. They're out looking for you. Exfil is aborted, move to E&E."

Percy felt his insides go cold.

'What. The. Fuck!?'

Was this part of the test? Or was this their way of telling him he'd failed? What the fuck?

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. No, no, this had to be part of the test. There was no way they simply would have found the HVT. And even if they had, there weren't nearly enough of them to search the entire area. Not thoroughly. Not quickly. No, if this was real, then his exfill wouldn't have been called off. He could still have made it, with time to spare. This was part of it. It had to be.

E&E, meant Escape & Evade. Standard Operating Procedure, would be to E&E the enemy forces hunting him as he made his way back to a certain other pre-arranged location, where he would be picked up at a certain time. Percy racked his brains. He was having a bit of trouble remembering where, exactly, the pick-up location had been set.

Another deep breath. Another attempt to calm the rising panic.

He remembered it. The pick-up point the instructors had chosen, was a cave around 200 kilometers away, where he'd be picked up in 5 days. That was doable. Totally doable.

And that's when he heard the voices behind him. The enemy hunting force. Coming straight for him. Of course. Why wouldn't they be?

Percy took off at a sprint, trying desperately to keep the hunters firmly behind him, without making too much noise. But the hunters were fast. Very fast.

They were instructors. Spec Ops Operators. Oh shit. Oh fuck.

There was no way Percy was going to outrun them. That simply wasn't going to happen. So, he'd have to hide. Looking around for something to use, Percy saw that there was virtually nothing. Just trees, leaves, and dirt. Nothing he could hide behind, or beneath.

Dirt. Beneath.

'Ohhh, this is a bad fucking idea!'

Taking advantage of the plentiful darkness, Percy made a giant scooper, almost like the claw of a JCB, dug up a giant patch of dirt, and held it floating above the ground. Percy took off his backpack and dropped it down the whole he had just made before jumping down with it. He laid down, the backpack on his chest, and took a deep breath. He created a little slab of shadows a few inches above his head, and dropped the dirt on top of it. Effectively, he had buried himself alive, nothing separating him from the dirt above him than a thin layer of shadow, holding up the weight.

Yep. This was a bad idea. But it might work. He would only need to stay down there long enough to let the hunter force overtake him. Then he'd let them put the distance between them, and reemerge.

He'd ended up staying down there for a lot longer than he'd initially expected. Around half an hour, if he had to guess. There was no way to say for sure. Because of Chaos' first blessing, Percy could hold his breath for a quite a while. Maybe 10 minutes if he really concentrated on keeping his heart rate low. And as a sniper, he could drop his heartrate to the low 20s on command, so that wasn't going to be a problem.

Once he couldn't even hear the hunter force anymore, he scooped the dirt back up, and crawled out of the hole. He was filthy, and suddenly exhausted, but he was alive and out of enemy hands. That was all that mattered.

Percy hoisted his backpack up on his shoulders, and took off at a jog.

He arrived at the cave 3 days later, exhausted and starving. Even though the cave had been just 200 kilometers away when he'd started, his journey had been a hell of a lot longer than that. Every now and then, he'd sense a party of hunters, and detour around them. Sometimes there would be settlements, like little villages, with some kind of local indigenous population. Percy assumed they were part of the test, and as such, couldn't go to them for help. They could be hostile, as part of the simulation. He'd been forced to detour around them too.

The other aspect of his journey that made it hellish, was the fact that he had no food. He'd packed for a recce mission, and he'd suspected it would turn into an assault, so he'd packed for that too. At no stage in the planning process had Percy accounted for the idea that this would turn into a multi-day operation. He really should have. He'd ended up scrounging for whatever edible berries he could find. This was just ridiculous.

Percy was 6'7 and 300 pounds. Guys like him, did not get by on a diet of berries.

So, by the time he'd reached the cave, he was ravenous. He'd tried hunting, but there was nothing anywhere near the cave, and he was hesitant to stray too far away from it. There was no real practical reason for it. Just psychological. He'd spent 3 days struggling to reach his destination. He wasn't going to leave now, in a - probably vain - attempt to find something to eat. He'd get by for another 2 days.

When he gave up on hunting in the nearby area, Percy reluctantly gathered more berries and brought them back to his cave, where he devoured them all. Then, with nothing else to do, he fell asleep. It was the only sleep he'd had since his operation had begun. So, even though he was lying on the cold, hard, stony ground, with his head leaning against a less-pointy-looking rock, he was glad for the rest.

2 or 3 hours later, Percy woke up, even hungrier than before, and decided to power through his urges and go looking for something he could kill and eat. Leaving his heavy kit hidden in his cave, Percy snuck out and went searching for some kind of animal. Nearly 3 hours later, he had found and killed something that looked a little bit like a deer. He dragged it back to his cave, and cooked it over a fire which he monitored carefully, to make sure it didn't become too visible.

The deer-like meat, wasn't very good. For obvious reasons, there was no seasoning, and Percy was an amateur chef at the best of times. But regardless of all that, it was some of the best food Percy had ever tasted. It was so damn good, he devoured the entire creature, in one sitting.

He didn't do very much for the rest of the day. Then he got another hour of sleep, picked up his backpack, and left his cave to wait for his pickup. He waited at the nearest flat surface he could find, because he assumed he would be picked up by a helicopter, and knew it would struggle to land on a rocky slope. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 hours later, a pure-black helicopter landed in front of him, and he revealed himself from where he had been hiding under some fallen branches.

"4871, this is D-A-V-6-4-8. We're here to bring you home."

Percy nodded and climbed onboard.

The flight lasted around an hour, and Percy loved every second. He might have been worried because of the altitude, but he was too tired, and far too comfortable on the soft seats, to really give a damn just then.

The helicopter touched down, and Percy climbed off.

"Report in to the parade ground," the pilot called over to him.

Percy nodded and set off that way.

Percy was sure he had done it. He had to have, right? He'd sent the photos, eliminated the HVT, escaped and evaded the enemy hunter force for 5 days, and made it to his pick-up location with time to spare. He hadn't been identified in any way, and he hadn't done anything that could possibly be traced back to Chaos' Army. Surely, this was mission success.

But that was the thing about Selection. None of the candidates could ever be sure about anything. Everything was one big question mark.

Percy made it to the courtyard, and saw the lead instructor of 3rd Phase standing there, waiting for him.

"Sir, 4871 reporting," Percy said smartly. He had learned very early on that everything would go a lot smoother if he just kept his mouth in check, and gave the instructors the respect they were due.

"Come with me."

And he turned and walked into one of the nearby buildings, leading Percy into a room that looked a little bit like an interrogation room. One plain table in the middle, two chairs on either side. Mirrored glass along one wall, where several more instructors were no doubt watching them from.

The instructor gestured to the seat that faced away from the door, and then sat opposite. Percy sat down, and was surprised to be given a mug of coffee.

"Figured you might need this," the instructor said.

The tone was pleasant enough, but his face was impassive.

"Thank you, sir."

Percy took a sip. It was good stuff. Stuff his body seemed to need more than oxygen.

"So, how do you feel about your mission?" the instructor asked.

Percy took another sip to stall for time as he thought of an answer.

"In what way, sir?" he asked, deciding he needed more context.

The instructor just shrugged and watched him.

Percy thought for another minute before replying.

"I achieved mission success. I wasn't captured, and nothing I did could, in any way, implicate Chaos' Army. And I made my rendezvous on time. I think it went as it should have."

The instructor nodded.

"Personally, I think it went very well."

Percy couldn't help but drop his jaw in pure shock. That was the first time any instructor had said anything nice to him. Except, technically, Sara.

"Really?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, I think so. We were watching the entire time, of course, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed with your performance. I thought wiping the mud off the floor with your aquakinesis was especially good. Your little trick with hiding under the dirt was certainly a gamble, but it paid off nicely. During E&E, you managed to keep yourself fed, and you didn't take any reckless risks that would have gotten you caught. You planned the mission well, and you kept a cool head every time things took an unexpected turn. Truth be told, I wasn't expecting you to make it, being as young as you are, but you really impressed me."

Percy held his breath.

Now, the instructor smiled, "Congratulations, Percy, you've passed this phase, and Selection as a whole."

Percy couldn't help it. The praise, the use of his real name, which he hadn't heard in months, and then the fact that he had passed the most difficult selection process he could ever have conceived of. He broke into tears. Right there, right in front of the instructor. He just put his face in his hands, and cried like a baby.

The instructor let him cry for a while before telling him, "Why don't you go to your new barracks and get some sleep? If I remember when I passed Selection, that was what I needed more than anything."

Wiping his tears, suddenly embarrassed by the outburst, Percy nodded and stood shakily.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Come on, I'll show you the way."

The instructor led him to a barracks building separate from the ones he'd been housed in throughout the rest of Selection. This one was a lot nicer. For starters, it wasn't just a bunch of beds and footlockers stretched out in a line. This one had rooms. The instructor led Percy to a room with the number '1' stenciled into the door, and opened it for him.

"This is your room. It'll be yours until the end of OTC, so I hope you like it. OTC starts next week from today at 10:00 hours, and your time is your own until then. So, make yourself comfortable."

That wasn't going to be a problem. The room wasn't terribly big. Maybe 500 square feet. But it had a double bed that looked softer than he could comprehend, given his current headspace. Percy sensed a kitchen in the next room over to the left, and a bathroom to the right. Just then, Percy wanted to take a warm shower, and crawl into his new bed and sleep for a while.

The instructor, probably still recalling how he had felt in Percy's shoes, patted him on the back, and walked away.

And then there was silence.

It was such a strange feeling. Percy was alone. He couldn't remember the last time he had been alone. Truly, alone. And under no scrutiny. During 2nd Phase, he had been alone plenty of times, but he had always known that he was being watched and assessed throughout everything, so he never feltalone. Then during his final test, he'd been on the run, alone, but just like with 2nd Phase, he had that constant feeling of being carefully watched. And as it had turned out, he'd been right.

But now; now he was actually alone. There was no one watching him. No one was grading him on anything.

Trying to shake off the odd feeling, Percy went for a shower, and really scrubbed himself. There was a body scrub which he applied generously. There was dirt under his nails, between his toes, in his hair in the creases of his elbows and knees, and even in his mouth. He wanted rid of it.

The best part of his shower, was the warm water. He kept it as hot as he could bear, and loved every moment of the scalding liquid dripping down his body. It was a special kind of relief.

After nearly an hour in the shower, Percy reluctantly turned off the water, and dried himself off on a wonderfully soft towel. He wasn't actually sure if the towel was all that soft, or if it was just his perception of it, but he didn't care.

Once he was dry, Percy dressed himself in the amazingly soft clothes that had been left for him. After nothing but military fatigues for months on end, it was amazing to wear something like pyjamas. Something designed for comfort, rather than utility.

Then he gave some thought to his next move. Did he want to sleep for a while, or go to the mess and get something to eat? He wrestled with the decision for a while before deciding he'd get some sleep, and then eat. His stomach had shrunk considerably during his 5-day mission, and the deer on day 4 had satisfied him enough.

He laid down on the incredibly comfortable bed, and felt like he was going to sink straight through it. It was glorious. He closed his eyes, and was asleep within moments.

---

Percy slept for 5 straight hours, the longest spell of uninterrupted sleep he'd had in decades, except for when he'd completed Hell Month. He woke up, took another shower just for the hell of it, and went straight for the barracks, where he ate until his stomach was bursting. Unfortunately, that wasn't very much. His stomach was a lot smaller now than it had been.

Looking around the mess hall, Percy saw only 3 other people there. He had a feeling that this was it. They were the only ones. How many had started Selection? 6394 candidates. And 6390 of them had quit, or been kicked off. That was unreal.

The other 3 candidates, were 2 men and a woman. Percy noticed they all looked a little bit like him. Broken down and exhausted, hunched over their plates. But with a glint in their eye that said 'I've just done something so damn special, you can't even imagine'. They were all smaller than Percy. One of the guys was pretty small, at around 5'8, and the other one was much bigger, at 6'4 and built like a weightlifter. The woman was around 5'6. They all had similar body types though. They had such little fat, that someone would need an electron microscope to find it. They were all hard muscle, but lithe, except for the big guy. And they all looked like they had recently lost some weight. The 5-day E&E being the likely culprit.

Percy thought about going over and introducing himself, and maybe striking up a conversation. But he didn't. He'd see how he felt later in the week. But for the moment, he wanted to go back to his room, and enjoy his new-found sense of solitude.

A/N: So… bit of a long one, huh? But I couldn't quite help myself. I wanted to get the whole of Selection into this one chapter. Bit of BUDS/SFAS in 1st Phase, then Delta/SAS/SBS in 2nd Phase, and Green Team for the 3rd. Variety is the spice of life, right? Anyway, as a whole, this chapter is 24,250 words. Oh damn, now it's 24,257. This is getting out of hand now. Anyway, hope you enjoyed. Not sure when the next one, OTC, will start, but probably not for a while. I certainly won't be doing any kind of day-to-day on that one. There'll be some fairly substantial time skips in there, especially over the different schools from each Branch. But that's for later. Stay safe.