In the end, they had waited too long to go to Virginia. It had taken his grandma's brief recovery, and then a longer and much more painful descent into ill health before anyone could seriously talk about moving again. But by then he was already well into middle school. Gregor had learned to act normal once again, and had regained a small circle of close friends. His mom and dad would not lightly separate him from the few things that attached him to normalcy.

But even as he tried his best to be normal, to keep on the path to becoming a normal adult, there were parts of him he could not shed. Even after the gate in the laundry room was welded shut on the order of the city inspector. Even after a mysterious, immovable bronze statue appeared directly on top of the Central Park entrance, he still thought of the tempestuous time below. The Underland was completely sealed off, but the connection still remained.

For one, the memories of his friends he had left behind in the Underland. 'Left behind' was a strange term though, considering that by all accounts, they had done perfectly well without him. In the years after that last departure, he received not so much as a single message. In fact, the whole floor of their building lacked so much as a single cockroach, mouse, or rat. With no sign that anyone remembered the things he had done, Gregor grew up feeling that he was the one left behind.

The memories he could not leave behind were the ones that clung to him. Indescribable scenes of violence, of cruelty and death at massive scales. Of personal losses, comrades lost to time. Too many nights, he had clicked his tongue in the darkness of his room, hoping to sense the reflected echo of his bond, Ares. Despite his best efforts, Gregor could not discard the brief time he had spent fighting in the Underland.

Predictably, it was the fighting itself that proved a problem. Gregor's dad didn't get steady work right away, so Gregor went to public school so that the family could keep up with rent. There was nothing wrong with public school itself. In fact, he would have faced the same problems at many private schools in New York. The issue here was the fact that that he was a rager, and fighting came easy to him.

In most places, he would have been safe after his first skirmish. But Gregor wasn't normal, and the friends he made weren't either. Put simply, Gregor and his friends were nerds. And that made each one of them an easy target. His single scuffle with a bully wasn't enough to create a reputation that would keep him safe. It seemed like every day somebody new enough or dumb enough would try to pick a fight with Gregor or a friend or even a friend's friend. Each fight in defense of them usually ended in with a tackle to the ground, where Gregor's training won out.

By the eighth grade, Gregor was known mainly as a fighter, and not the polite kid who diligently did his homework and paid attention in class. The administrators running the school were willing to look past most fights, thinking that what all the kids did around there, anyway.

A month before graduation, Gregor broke their unspoken rule by being responsible for a hospital visit. In fact, this incident put several kids in the emergency room. It had started with a friend of his getting beat down for cash. When Gregor got angry, the only way to stop him was to give up, to go limp or tap out. Long story short, the group had to be forced to give up. And then Gregor was forced into juvie for the first year of high school.

His parents blamed themselves for always being out of the house, either for work or to keep Grandma company in the nursing home. Lizzie blamed herself for being too focused on her upcoming transition to middle school. Even Boots thought it was her fault because she had stopped asking to be carried around.

Gregor knew all the fault lay with him. Being a rager had first been his blessing but now it was his curse. He didn't have the chance to refine it like Ripred had suggested. With all the entrances to the Underland sealed and not so much as a peep from below, he had tried forget that part of him; the part that had grown in the darkness.

There was little the pro bono lawyer could do, even as a favor to the esteemed Mrs. Cormaci. He tried arguing Gregor's actions as justified through self-defense, but the x-ray images of shattered bones, and the witness testimony of Gregor's brutality convinced the judge that nothing less than incarceration would be suitable for Gregor's act of violence.

"The defendant has no place with the rest of these students!", the prosecutor had argued. At the time, Gregor agreed with him, although for very different reasons. But once he arrived to the facility, it wasn't as if the maze of concrete and metal bars was any better of a fit for him. It was so very cold at night there, and the treatment so much colder.

Gregor was a genuinely nice kid, a fact that even the hard-bitten staff of the facility recognized. He was there to learn, despite his apparent issues with aggression and stress. Some of the guards could also see he wasn't bad, but rules were rules. That's why his stay was extended by a few weeks after one of the more unstable teens pulled a makeshift knife on him, provoking Gregor into a rage again. The ultimate defeat there was not simply because he had to stay longer, but because his grandmother died during the first week of his extended sentence.

She had never recovered from her heart problems and the Alzheimers and had passed that very winter. All the doctors and their hospital bills had done was delay the inevitable. It left nothing but a hollowness in him when he found out through a guard. For the first time in years, he thought back to the knight's mausoleum in the Cloister. Hardened, hollow stone. Untouchable, unreachable, but strong.

That was the gist of what Gregor had learned in the icy jail. He always suspected he was nowhere near normal, but this time the message stuck. The dream of a normal life had suddenly left him.

He stayed in public school after that and kept out of any further legal trouble. His father still couldn't get a good job with his fevers and fits, and his mother was still working the same difficult hours in low-paying jobs. Private school was too expensive, and none of the charter schools would make room for a kid who had a rap sheet at fifteen. So he resigned himself to do what he could at his school.

Gregor never got around to playing in the marching band. And the only times he ran track were during P.E or when he needed to tire out the rager blood. For his last three years of high school, he was either at school, at home watching his sisters, or at work (a part-time job at a moving company, thanks to Mrs. Cormaci). The time burned away in long hours at work and long hours at school. By the time he was eighteen, Gregor realized that he had blown it. It was a mere month before his graduation, and nothing had panned out for him.

The past six years since the Underland had been his chance to become a scientist, or saxophonist, or whatever innocent, soft job his parents had dreamed up for him. He could apply to college and maybe get in with his grades, but the scholarships seemed to be reserved for those who had attended good schools or had dedicated themselves to activities outside of school. Despite hours of research, nothing paid off.

Gregor was poor enough, but not dedicated enough to look good on an application. Around that time, he had started feeling like that same desperation he had felt in those final days in the Underland, before he was nearly killed by the Bane. He felt the plummeting fear as he watched his life slip away from himself.

The series of unlucky events surprised him. He had never considered himself a genius, but he thought there would have been more resources available for a student that had tried as hard as he did.

Desperation and revelation combined one day at lunch. A man in a military dress uniform had set up a table outside the cafeteria. Something about the uniform caught Gregor's attention for just a moment. It reminded him of the Underland, although none of the soldiers down there would be caught wearing something so impractical.

Where's the armor on that? Gregor could practically hear Ripred sneer in his head.

In that split moment, the man had caught Gregor looking and asked the question that would change the course of his life, yet again.

"Hey there. What's your name?"

"Gregor," he answered, caught by surprise.

"You look like you do track. How fast can you run a mile, Gregor?"

From there, the recruiter did his job. Combining a mix of light flattery, observation, and frank honesty, he convinced Gregor to walk away with a brochure and a promise to visit the Marines recruitment center in lower Manhattan.

That night, Gregor had wondered whether to talk about it at the dinner table. He had decided against it, seeing as Boots and Lizzie were there. But he wouldn't just sign up (or even think about signing up) until his parents knew about it. He had given them too many unpleasant surprises, even before his stint in juvie.

But the situation seemed right, with his sisters almost moving on to the next level of school, and his father's sickness flaring up again. Gregor could become a warrior again, get shipped off far away from New York while his family got along fine without him. Afterwards, he would go to college and get a degree in something suitably 'soft', and finally get back on track to becoming a normal person.

Once Lizzie and Boots were in their room, and his mom was back from work, he brought out the brochures the recruiters had given him. Men in combat gear posed across the cover, cradling their rifles, saluting flags, and carrying humanitarian supplies.

"Oh no. No, no no," his mom said as soon as she saw the brochure, the worry clear in every lines on her face. "Gregor, baby, haven't you had enough of all that?"

Gregor didn't understand what she meant. Then he remembered how much he had hated war after his last battle with the Bane.

His father remained silent, flipping through one of the brochures as though his mind was somewhere else. His silences had gotten more common after Gregor went to juvie and Grandma had died.

"I could understand what you did in the Underland. That was for your friends. But this?"

His mom couldn't comprehend the situation. Gregor's plan had come out of nowhere.

"There's a test I can take that determines my starting position," Gregor said, "Chances are I won't get a combat position. Some of those jobs pay better than infantry, anyhow. In the rear, with the gear."

His mom took a deep breath, her hands tracing the dingy table-cloth, like she had all those years ago when Dad had gone missing.

"The signing bonus could pay for the move down to Virginia, finally," Gregor continued. "Plus, they'll get my university paid for afterwards."

"No. Gregor," his mom refused. "This family has been taken to the breaking point too many times over problems that aren't ours. I don't want you to get hurt for no good... for someone else's reasons."

"Mom," Gregor began, "I'm eighteen now. Legally, I make my own decisions. I just wanted you to know what I was thinking. I haven't even been to an actual recruiting station yet!"

There was something nostalgic in this argument, after years of silent support from Gregor.

"Gregor has a point, Grace," his father said, breaking his silence. "I can't say I approve, but it's his decision to make."

"Fine. But Gregor, I want you to answer my question: Does this have anything to do with your... problem?" her voice was hushed when she asked. She knew that his ability to go berserk was a sensitive topic.

"You said you don't need to see anybody about, and the school counselors said you never showed any signs of anything serious. But... Gregor, baby, do you..."

"Do you want to hurt other people?" his father cut in. "She wants to know if you have a compulsive need to do harm. I know you've tried not to fight since the 'accident', but she needs to hear the truth from you."

Both of their eyes were on him, their tones fully serious now. Sure, he could make his own decisions. But if they felt his decisions were being made for the wrong reasons, they wouldn't be so accepting.

"Mom, I don't want to hurt anybody," Gregor pleaded, "You have to believe me. I was only thinking about this for the money, and the tuition."

Neither his father nor his mother had seen him in the depth of a rager trance. They hadn't seen him as a spinning circle of death, nor witnessed the scores of bodies he had left behind the last time he went to war. All they knew is that he had broken a few of his classmate's limbs in a bad fight, and that he had vicious scars across his body. They had heard the witness testimony in court, too. Nobody had been permanently damaged from that fight, but at the same time, second-hand accounts of Gregor's actions were enough to start his mother sobbing in the court room.

Grace checked her wristwatch, then sighed. She would have to be up in just a few hours.

"We'll talk more about this later, Gregor. But I should let you know, I always wanted different for you."

And with that, she walked off to the layered quilts in the other room that had been her bed for untold years.

"Looking at this," his father said, gesturing at the cramped apartment, "I wouldn't blame you for wanting to escape. That's what I was trying to do when I wanted us to move to Virginia. Get away from our troubles."

"But I guess the troubles got us away first," Gregor thought, his mind on the air vent - replaced with a solid metal plate and double-welded. He also thought of the statue of the Warrior some Underlander must have added in secret years ago, a massive sculpted form that kept the Central Park entrance closed. The parental urge to get down to Virginia had calmed down after his family confirmed none of the entrances in New York worked and the Underland wouldn't be snatching their children any time soon.

His father also went to bed, but Gregor's mind was too busy with the questions his parents had asked him. When he was just twelve, it was a lot easier to write off his rager instincts as a necessary reaction to serious situations. But every time he got into a fight in the Overland and came back home with tousled hair or ripped clothes, his parents looked at each other with worry. The Underlanders might understand a rager, but he would be nothing but unstable in the eyes of his own people.

Did he like to hurt people? No. But when he was fighting, when his vision started blurring, when time stopped making sense and instead he could feel the pure essence of a battle: there was something that felt good. Thinking back on the wounds he had caused could still make him nauseous. But thinking about himself as a force of danger somewhat lifted his spirits. Sometimes he fantasized about wearing the black suit of armor again, as if he could become some kind of superhero straight out of the comic books. But then he remembered what had happened to his Ares, his bond-brother. That's when he remembered none of this was a joke.

Gregor walked to the laundry room. It hadn't been off limits for years, since the grate clearly wasn't budging. None of the machines were running right then, so it actually was kind of quiet, even at the end of the hall on a Friday night. This was where it had all began, with a fall. It was about seven years ago, give or take a few months. He didn't remember everything from back then, but he remembered enough to keep some part of him tied up in the darkness far below.

If his visit to the laundry room had taken place during the time of their prophecies, there would be a message waiting for him right then. Maybe a bat flying up and dropping a scroll, or one of the smaller Overland rats tapping out a code on their walls

Maybe even Queen Luxa herself, rising from the vent, finally corporeal, and not just another daydream. Her deep purple eyes more entrancing than when they had been children together, when they had first fallen in love. In his mind's eye, he could trace out an imaginary outline of her matured form in front of him: elegant, her face in shadow but the message from the rest of her easy to read. She would come to him, eager and- no. That's not how he dreamed of her.

The dream was always of her under a starry sky, even though his city was lousy for stargazing. He dreamed of the way she looked in those last moments before the split: equal parts sad and brave - equal parts tender and resolute. More than a third of their lifetime had passed since that last kiss, since the time they had their last glimpses of each others' worlds. She was no doubt a Queen in her own right by now, the proven leader of an entire race below ground. Who knows what they would think of Gregor the Overlander now, a poor kid with a criminal conviction under his belt and a severe lack of future prospects.

Part of him wanted to stick his head by the grate and yell out for someone, anyone, to come up and give his life meaning again. He was once the Warrior, the very executor of Sandwich's prophecies. But now he was just another young man on the cusp of a lonely, harsh adulthood.

"How pathethic." he moped to himself, picking at a bundle of lint someone had left lying around.

"Eighteen years old, and my 'good old days' are from my preteen years." Gregor scoffed to himself. He hadn't even hit puberty back then, and he had been feet shorter too. He even lacked the moderate muscles he had gained in the years since, working as a mover. If it wasn't for his power as a rager and the backing of the prophecy, Gregor had a feeling he would have been ignored, just like any other silly twelve year old at wartime.

Actually, now that he thought about it, there was a word for what the Underlanders forced upon him.

"I was a child soldier," Gregor breathed to himself.

If he thought about it, child soldiers in the Overland were kids from poor backgrounds in strange lands, armed with someone else's weapons and easily manipulated by adults.

In a sense, he had fit that bill perfectly, himself.

They take a kid at a young age, show him a few pieces of cryptic writing, convince him that's his role, and then push him so far into a corner that he comes out messed up. That's what happened when he got the Rat King Gorger killed in a near-suicide attack. Then they use their child soldier just like a pawn against the other side's child-soldier, killing everything that -

He was interrupted by Mrs. Cormaci peeking her head around the corner.

"Gregor? I thought I heard somebody mumbling to themselves."

She stopped, and inspected him closely.

"What are you doing here, anyway? I don't hear any machines going."

Gregor subconsciously glanced at the grate while trying to come up with an answer.

"Oh," she said. "You're thinking about them again."

Mrs. Cormaci had only a few encounters with the Underlanders, but she had an uncanny knack for telling how Gregor felt about them.

"I've told you plenty about Mr. Cormaci, right?" she asked.

Gregor nodded. He could remember him just a little bit, as a man with an occasionally generous attitude. He had also been a veteran. She had told Gregor that he suffered nightmares after he returned from war.

"I told you about the dreams he would get, but what he got worse than that was the talking."

"The talking?" Gregor had never heard about that.

"Yes. Sometimes he couldn't get to sleep. So he would just talk things to the pillow and to me."

"What sort of things?"

"Just little things about war, mostly. Like a friend he had made back there, or some guy he promised to meet again but never did. But sometimes, he told the stories."

"The stories?" Gregor didn't know about that.

"Not boasting stories, though. Just matter-of-fact. He was a sergeant when they were fighting on the islands. The smaller islands weren't important enough to send a lot of people, but they still needed them cleared."

"He wasn't in Italy?"

Mrs. Cormaci smiled. " He wouldn't go for the Army and fight in the old country, so he enlisted in the Marines, and managed not to die long enough to become a sergeant. He says that's when things started getting worse for him."

"Why?"

"Well, when you command someone, he said you take their life as your responsibility. He always said it was just more likely to lose someone to a bad decision than to keep making enough good decisions to keep them alive. It hurt him bad when he thought about it. When he thought about the things he did, the things he saw."

"What did he do?"

Mrs. Cormacci thought for a second. "He said he was a 'raider'. He would always tell me about these intense, very stressful situations. They used things like fire, explosives, ambushes. But he would also talk about feeling like he made a difference. And how he didn't feel that anymore back at home."

Mrs. Cormaci had a moral to the story, but Gregor's mind was already far away. He could faintly remember that feeling of strength again, the way that his blood had rushed in more than anger, in righteous fury. He was content to ignore the true meaning behind what Cormaci told him. It was the feeling that he had latched onto. The feeling of being part of something, of making a difference, embodying force.

Gregor made his mind about the recruitment right there in the laundry room, but continued listening to Mrs. Cormaci just to be polite.

(Author's Note:
This is a prelude to Gregor's return to the Underland, explaining how he has changed and the experiences that have affected him.
Chapter titles describe the phase of the story.
This fic is already written, for the most part. It will be released in batches every week.
I hope you enjoy this fanfiction, written in an epic scope)