Ok, chapter two, which also belongs to allfandomsunite.
Disclaimer: You know what, this disclaimer just goes to the rest of the story because these are really boring. I DO NOT own ANYTHING you recognize. :(
I was kind of excited and a little mad cause they were going to be reading my thoughts! And now Luxa will see how much I care and maybe, just maybe we will get our younger selves together sooner.
"Wait before you start, where were you?" My Luxa said, God, She was just so beautiful, I could stare at her all day, but I can't right now, for 1 my mom is here and 2 my younger self is here and 3 everybody else is here.
"We were about to be surrounded by gnawers." Luxa said. Both of us, I and my Luxa nodded, we had just gotten them out in time.
"I was about to go to sleep." Younger me said.
"I was with Ares about to get him medicine from Dr. Neevee." Howard said. My Luxa and I looked at each other; we had gotten them in the nick of time, just before Ares got the plague.
"Oh, Ares here is some medicine." I gave it to Howard. I still sometimes have nightmares about that day. Luxa put a hand on my shoulder, probably knowing what I was thinking of.
"We were in the kitchen." My mom said, she was probably still in shock about me.
"I was having a wonderful buffet." Ripred said sarcastically, "What do you think I was doing?" I laughed; it felt good to laugh, since sometimes I still thought about all those lives lost in the war. We were getting ready to read, my Luxa put her feet on my lap. I mean I didn't mind, it's just that it was nice to have her head on my lap instead. Our younger selves were embarrassed by that, we just gave them a smile. Howard and my mom were giving me disapproving looks, while the bats and rats were looking amused.
Third Person
"Please continue Gregor." Queen Luxa said.
"Part 1: The Plague Chapter 1
Gregor stared in the bathroom mirror for a minute, steeling himself.
Everybody looked at Gregor and the Warrior strangely and amusingly, they were both blushing.
Then slowly unrolled the scroll and held the handwritten side up to the glass. In the reflection, he read the first stanza of the poem entitled "The Prophecy of Blood."
Queen Luxa sighed unhappily; the Warrior patted her knee friendly and smiled at her. Everybody else was wondering what happened with this prophecy.
As usual, the lines made him feel sick to his stomach.
There was a knock on the door. "Boots has to go!" he heard his eight-year-old sister, Lizzie, say.
"It's me! It's me!" Boots said jumping up and down. Everybody laughed at the sight.
Gregor released the top of the scroll and it snapped into a roll. He quickly stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans and pulled his sweatshirt down to conceal it. He hadn't told anyone about this new prophecy yet and didn't intend to until it was absolutely necessary.
Grace frowned at that, he was keeping secrets from the whole family.
A few months ago, right around Christmas, he had returned home from the Underland, a dark war-torn world miles beneath New York City. It was home to giant talking rats, bats, spiders, cockroaches, and a variety of other oversized creatures. There were humans there, too – a pale-skinned, violet-eyed people who had traveled underground in the 1600s and built the stone city of Regalia. The Regalians were probably still debating whether Gregor was a traitor or a hero. On his last trip, he had refused to kill a white baby rat called the Bane.
Everybody except Boots, Lizzie and Grace tensed up at the name.
For many Underlanders, that was unforgivable, because they believed the Bane would one day be the cause of their total destruction.
'But we stopped it, thank God.' The Warrior thought.
The current queen of Regalia, Nerissa, was a frail teenager with disturbing visions of the future.
Luxa sighed, she loved her cousin dearly but she will never be able to take the responsibility of the crown.
She was the one who had slipped the scroll into Gregor's coat pocket when he was leaving. He had thought it was "The Prophecy of Bane," which he had just helped to fulfill. Instead it was this new and terrifying poem.
Everybody in the past, who was there for the quest shivered, since the actions they did would probably start a war.
"So you can reflect on it sometimes," Nerissa had said. Turned out she'd meant it literally – "The Prophecy of Blood" was written backward. You couldn't even make sense of it unless you had a mirror.
"Gregor, come on!" called Lizzie, rapping on the bathroom door again.
He opened the door to find Lizzie with their two-year-old, Boots. They were both bundled up in coats and hats, even though they hadn't been outside today.
"Need to pee!" squealed Boots, pulling her pants down around her ankles and then shuffling to the toilet.
Everybody was laughing up to this point.
"First get to the toilet, then pull down your pants," instructed Lizzie for the hundredth time.
Boots wiggled up onto the toilet seat. "I big girl now. I can go pee."
"Yes, I big girl now." Boots agreed with her future self.
"Good job," said Gregor, giving her a thumbs-up. Boots beamed back at him.
"Dad's making drop biscuits in the kitchen. The oven's on in there," said Lizzie, rubbing her hands together to warm them.
The apartment was freezing. The city had been clutched in record-breaking lows for the past few weeks, and the boiler that fed steam to the old heating pipes could not compete. People in the building had called the city, and called again. Nothing much happened.
How rude those people were, Queen Luxa was thinking, I had no idea Gregor was going through this.
"Wrap it up, Boots. Time for biscuits," said Gregor.
She pulled about a yard of toilet paper off the roll and sort of wiped herself. You could offer to help, but she'd just say, "No, I do it myself."
Everybody was laughing again, while Boots seemed to be agreeing with herself.
Gregor made sure she washed and dried her hands, then reached for the lotion so he could rub some into her chapped skin. Lizzie caught his sleeve as he was about to squeeze the bottle.
"That's shampoo!" she said in alarm. Almost everything alarmed Lizzie these days.
"So, let me get this straight," Ripred said, "You were going to put a bottle of shampoo on your sisters' hands?" he finished amusement in his voice.
The Warrior blushed, "Yeah," everybody started laughing, "But it was a mistake anyone could have made."
"Yeah, anyone who doesn't read the label on bottles," Surprisingly Lizzie said. This got everyone into another fit of laughter. When they were all calm enough Gregor continued.
"Right," said Gregor, switching bottles.
"We have jelly, Gre-go?" asked Boots hopefully as he massaged the lotion into the backs of her hands.
Gregor smiled at this new pronunciation of his name. He'd been "Ge-go" for about a year, but Boots had recently added an r.
"Boots can you pronounce my name?" the Warrior said.
Boots nodded, "Ge-go!"
"That's good can you put an r in there?"
Boots nodded more enthusiastically, "G-r-r-r Gre-go!"
"Very good Boots!" Gregor said. Everybody was smiling at that.
"Grape jelly," said Gregor. "I got it just for you. You hungry?"
"Ye-es!" said Boots, and he swung her up onto his hip.
A cloud of warmth enveloped him as he brought Boots into the kitchen. His dad was just pulling a tray of drop biscuits out of the oven. It was good to see him up, doing something even as simple as making his kids' breakfast.
Grace smiled at this, glad her husband was getting better.
More than two and a half years as a prisoner of the huge, bloodthirsty rats in the Underland had left his dad a very sick man. When Gregor returned from his second visit at Christmas, he brought back some special medicine from the Underland. It seemed to be helping. His dad's fevers were less frequent, his hands had stopped shaking, and he had regained some weight.
Gregor, Grace, and Lizzie all sighed in relief, glad that those things were happening.
He was a long way from well, but Gregor's secret hope was that if the medicine kept working, his dad might get to go back to his job as a high school science teacher in the fall.
Gregor slid Boots into the cracked, red plastic booster seat they'd had since he was a baby. She drummed her heels happily on the chair in anticipation of breakfast. It looked good, too, especially for an end-of-the-month meal. Gregor's mom got paid on the first of every month, and they were always out of money by then. But his dad served each of them two biscuits and a hardboiled egg. Boots had a cup of watery apple juice – they were trying to make last - and everyone else drank hot tea.
Grace sighed, sad that her children had to go through that. While Luxa was horrified, Gregor went through that every day at his home? It made her upset that he did. While Queen Luxa knew about it since The Warrior had told her about his life, but it still shocked her to find out about it.
His dad told them to start eating while he took a tray of food to their grandma. She spent a lot of time in bed even when the weather was milder, but this winter she'd rarely left it. They'd put an electric space heater in her room and she had lots of quilts on her bed. Still, whenever Gregor went in to see her, her hands were cold.
The Warrior sighed sadly, his family was still grieving that she had died, even though it had happened years before.
"Jel-ly, jel-ly, jel-ly," said Boots in a singsong voice.
Boots continued the chant.
Gregor broke open her biscuits and put a big spoonful on each. She took a huge bite of one immediately, smearing purple all over her face.
"Hey, eat it, don't wear it, okay?" said Gregor and Boots got a fit of the giggles. You had to laugh when Boots laughed; she had such a goofy, hiccuppy little-kid laugh, it was contagious.
Boots started laughing and everyone couldn't help but join in, even the rats and the bats. When everyone stopped Gregor continued reading.
Gregor and Lizzie had to hurry through breakfast so they wouldn't be late for school.
"Brush your teeth," reminded their dad as they rose from the table.
"I will, if I can get in the bathroom," said Lizzie, grinning at Gregor.
"Why wouldn't I be able to use the bathroom?" Lizzie asked.
"Just continue reading and you'll see." Said the Warrior blushing, since he knew he was the cause.
It was a family joke now. How much time he spent in the bathroom. There was only one bathroom in the apartment, and since Gregor had taken to locking himself in to read the prophecy, everybody had noticed. His mom kept teasing him about trying to look good for some girl at school, and he pretended she was right by doing his best to act embarrassed.
Grace frowned, again, sad that he was keeping a prophecy from her and the family.
The truth was, he was thinking about a girl, but she didn't go to is school. And he wasn't worried about what she thought of his hair. He was wondering if she was even alive.
"I think we all know who this is." Ripred teased.
"Really, than whom?" Luxa asked.
"Why I think you'll find out yourself, your majesty." The last part in a mocking voice, everybody smiled at that.
Luxa.
"Well, looks like my guess was correct." Ripred stated, while Gregor and Luxa were blushing.
Howard was frowning, he didn't really like his cousins' and Gregor's relationship. Grace was thinking the exact same thing, except she wanted them to forget the Underland.
She was the same age as him, eleven, and she already was the queen of Regalia.
'Really, I was?' Luxa asked herself.
Or at least, she had been queen until a few months ago. Against the Regalian council wishes, she had secretly flown after Gregor to help him on the mission to kill the Bane. She had saved Boot's life by taking on a pack of rats in a maze and allowing his baby sister to escape on a devoted cockroach.
"Thanks Temp," Gregor and The Warrior said at the same time, they started blushing while everybody was laughing. When everybody was done laughing, Gregor started again.
But where was Luxa now? Wandering lost in the Dead Land? A prisoner of the rats? Dead? Or had she by some miracle made it home?
I wonder what's happened to me.
And there was Luxa's bat, Aurora. And Temp, the cockroach who had run with Boots. And Twitchtip, a rat whose nose was so keen she could detect color.
Luxa and Aurora were worried for each other, Ripred was worried for Twitchtip, and even though he didn't show it except for a twitch of his tail when she was mentioned. Gregor and Ares were worried for everybody and Howard was worried for Luxa and Aurora.
All his friends. All missing in action. All weaving through his dreams at night and preoccupying his thoughts when he was awake.
Gregor had told the Underlanders to let him know what happened. They were supposed to leave him a message in the grate in his laundry room, which was the gateway to the Underland.
Grace shook her head, probably knowing that she wouldn't allow him to go there anymore without someone.
Why hadn't they? What was going on?
Not knowing about Luxa and the others . . . trying to decipher the mysterious prophecy on his own . . . the combination of these things was driving Gregor crazy. It was a huge effort to pay attention in class, to act normal around his friends, to hide his worries from his family, because any hint any hint that he was planning to return to the Underland would throw them into a panic.
Grace was upset that he had to hide his worries and feeling from them just because they might pack up, although it was probably true. Lizzie tried comforting her mom while The Warrior kept seeing Ripred steal glances at Lizzie, he just smiled.
He was constantly distracted, not hearing people when they spoke, forgetting things. Like now.
"Gregor, your backpack!" said his dad as he and Lizzie headed out the door. "Think you might need it today."
Lizzie shook her head at that.
"Thanks, dad." said Gregor, avoiding his father's eyes, not wanting to see the concern there.
He and Lizzie took the stairs down to the lobby and braced themselves before stepping out into the street. A bitter blast of wind went right through his clothes as if they weren't even there. He could see tears spilling out of Lizzie's eyes; they always watered in the wind.
Everyone shivered involuntary.
"Let's hustle, Liz. Least it will be warm at school," said Gregor.
They hurried through the streets, as fast as the icy sidewalks would let them. Fortunately, Lizzie's elementary school was only a couple of blocks away. She was small for her age, "delicate" his mom called. "One good strong wind would blow you away," his grandma would say when she hugged Lizzie. And today Gregor wondered if she might be right.
Lizzie had been looking at her mom questioningly, when she looked at Gregor who was blushing.
"You'll pick me up after school, right? You'll be here?" asked Lizzie at the door.
"Of course," said Gregor. She gave him a reproachful look. He'd forgotten twice in the last month, and she'd had to sit in the office and wait for someone to come get her. "I'll be here."
"Greeeeat, first it was the shampoo and now it's leaving your sister at school." Ripred said sarcastically while everybody was laughing except Gregor who was blushing. When everybody had calmed down he started to read again.
Gregor plowed back into the wind with almost a sense of relief.
Everybody looked at him weirdly.
Even though his teeth were chattering, at least he could have a few minutes without anybody interrupting him. Immediately, his thoughts turned to the Underland and what might be happening there now, somewhere far beneath his feet. It was just a matter before Gregor would be called back down – he knew that.
Gregor sighed, knowing that his family wouldn't be able to deal with that kind of thing. Grace was still a little upset that he was hiding his feelings and that he still wanted to go back down, even after what id did to her family.
That's why he spent so much time in the bathroom, studying the new prophecy, trying to understand its frightening words, desperate to prepare for his next challenge in any way he could. The Underlanders were depending on him.
But the Underlanders! At first, he'd made excuses for their silence, but now he was just mad. Not only was there no word about Luxa or his missing friends, Gregor also had no clue what happened to Ares, the big black bat whom he trusted above anyone in the Underland.
Ares smiled at this while the Warrior just looked down sadly, remembering what happened.
Ares and Gregor were bonds, sworn to protect each other to the death. The journey to track down and kill the Bane had been dreadful, but if one good thing had come of it, it was that the relationship between Gregor and Ares had become unshakable.
Ares smiled at that glad that Gregor felt the same way as he did.
Unfortunately, Ares was an outcast among the humans and bats. He had let his first bond, Henry; fall to his death to save Gregor's life. Even though Henry was a traitor and Ares had done the right thing, the Underlanders hated him.
That was so true and he hated the looks people and bats always gave him.
They also blamed the bat for not killing the Bane although, technically, that had been Gregor's job. Gregor had a bad feeling that wherever Ares was, he was suffering.
"And I was right, but I didn't know how much," The Warrior murmured to himself. Queen Luxa heard him and gave him a sad smie.
As he pulled open the door to his school, Gregor tried to replace thoughts of the Underland with his math assignment. Every Friday, they had a quiz first thing. Then there was half-court basketball in gym, some kind of sugar crystal experiment in science, and finally lunch. Gregor's stomach was always growling at least a full hour before he reached the cafeteria. Between the cold, trying to make the groceries stretch at home, and just growing, he was hungry all the time.
"Well, now you won't have to worry about that." Queen Luxa joked, but he could hear the worry hidden in it.
He smiled, "Yeah."
"Wait, what do you mean?" Grace asked.
"You'll just have to find out." Was all The Warrior replied. When he wasn't going to say anymore, Gregor started reading again.
He got free school lunch and he ate everything on his tray, even if he didn't like it. Fortunately, Friday was pizza day, and he loved pizza.
"Here, take mine," said his friend Angelina, plunking down her slice of pizza on his plate."I'm too nervous to eat, anyway." The school play opened that night and she had the lead.
Gregor chuckled, only Angelina would be worried, even if everybody said she would be great.
"Hey how are Angelina and Larry?" Gregor asked.
"Oh, there, fine." The warrior said but he didn't sound sure, like as if he hadn't seen the in a while, but Gregor didn't detect that.
"Oh, that's good," he continued reading.
"Want to run your lines again?" asked Gregor.
Her script was in his hand in a flash.
"Are you sure you don't mind? I come in right here."
Like he didn't know. Gregor and their friend Larry had been running lines with Angelina every day for six weeks. Usually Gregor did it, though. The cold, dry winter aggravated Larry's asthma, so reading out loud made him cough. He'd been in the hospital last week with a bad attack and was still looking kind of wiped out.
Gregor hoped Larry was okay. The Warrior felt kind of guilty for forgetting about his human friends, 'maybe I'll visit them when we have finished reading'
"It doesn't matter, you won't remember a thing," said Larry, who was drawing something that looked like a fly's eyeball on his napkin. He didn't look up.
"Don't say that!" gasped Angelina.
"You'll be rotten, just like you were in that last play," said Larry.
"Yeah, we could barely sit through that," Gregor agreed. Angelina had been wonderful in that last play. They all knew it. She tried not to look pleased.
"What were you again? Some kind of bug, right?" said Gregor.
She had been the fairy godmother in a version of Cinderella set in the city.
"Can we start now?" said Angelina. "So I don't totally humiliate myself tonight?"
Gregor ran lines with her. He didn't mind really. It distracted him from darker thoughts.
"Keep your head in the Overland," he told himself. "Or you'll just make yourself nuts."
Grace was stilled upset that Gregor was keeping these feelings all bottled up.
And he did a pretty good job of it for the rest of the day. He got through his classes and took Lizzie home and went over to Larry's apartment.
"Well, at least you didn't leave your sister at school." Ripred teased.
Larry's mom ordered out Chinese food for a special treat and they went and saw the play. It was fun and Angelina was the best thing in it. When he got home, Gregor gave his sisters a pocketful of fortune cookies he'd saved from dinner. Boots had never seen fortune cookies and kept trying to eat them, paper and all.
Everybody chuckled at her antics while Boots played on Temps back. Grace was a little scared when she had gone near Temp but when she saw the roach let Boots approach him and let her climb on her back. She let her do it but not without keeping an eye on them.
They went to bed earlier than usual because it was just too cold to do anything else. Gregor piled not only his blankets but his coat and a couple of towels on top of him. His mom and dad came into say good night. That made him feel secure. For so many years his dad had been absent or too ill to come in. To have both parents tuck him in seemed like a real luxury.
Gregor smiled, he had missed his dad being back to normal, it was going to be great that he will be able to do that. Luxa, however, wished she had that luxury but then remembered she hd her grandfather, Vikus.
So he was doing all right, keeping his head in the Overland, until his dad leaned down to hug him good night and whispered in a voice his mom couldn't hear, "No mail."
He and his dad had worked out a system. Gregor's mom had put the laundry room off-limits last summer. You couldn't blame her. In the last few years, first her husband, then Gregor and Boots had fallen through a grate in the laundry room wall that led to the Underland. Their disappearance was agonizing. Now his mom had kept the family going both emotionally and financially through all this . . . well, Gregor couldn't say. She had been amazing.
The Warrior and Gregor looked at their mom and smiled, they both really did think she was amazing.
So it seemed a small enough thing to let her have her way about the laundry room.
Grace's started frowning, 'What are those two up to?'
The tricky thing was . . . that made checking the grate that led to the Underworld impossible for Gregor. But his dad knew how anxious he was for news of Luxa and the others, so once a day he would make brief visit to the laundry room and see if a message had been left for his son. They didn't tell his mom; she would have just been upset.
"I'm so sorry, mom." The Warrior said to Grace.
Grace was taken back; it felt weird for this young man to call her 'mom', but it somehow felt right.
"It's ok," she replied with a smile.
It was different for her. She had never been to the Underland. In her mind, everyone who lived there was somehow connected to the abduction of her husband and children. But Gregor and his dad both had friends down there.
"And Boots and Lizzie and your mom, all have friends down there." Queen Luxa mumbled under her breath, the Warrior smiled.
So there was no mail. No word again. No answers. Gregor stared into the dark for hours, and when he finally fell asleep, his dreams were troubled.
Gregor and the Warrior frowned, Gregor because he never really liked troubled dreams and the Warrior cause sometimes he would still have troubled dreams although they were mostly about the war.
He woke late the following morning and had to rush to get to Mrs. Cormaci's apartment by ten. He went over every Saturday to help her out. There had been times in the fall when Gregor had felt like she was making up work for him to do because she knew his family was hurting for money.
The Warrior nodded, even though that was true, it felt as if he hadn't really earned that money.
"We should have her join in sometime." The Warrior whispered to Queen Luxa. She nodded in agreement, she had only met Mrs. Cormaci once and it had just been brief.
But with the weather so bad, Mrs. Cormaci actually did need his help. The cold made her joints ache and she had trouble navigating the icy sidewalks. She talked a lot about falling and breaking a hip. Gregor was glad he was really earning money now.
Today she had a big list of errands for him to run – the dry cleaners, the greengrocer's, the bakery, the post office, and the hardware store. As always, she fed him first. "Did you eat?" she asked. He hadn't but he didn't even have time to answer. "Never mind, in this cold you can stand eating twice." She placed a big seaming bowl of oatmeal on the table, loaded with raisins and brown sugar. She poured him orange juice and buttered several slices of toast.
Grace was glad Mrs. Cormaci was there for Gregor.
When he had finished, Gregor felt ready to face any weather, which was good, since it was ten below not even counting the wind-chill factor. Following the list, he ran from place to place, grateful to have to wait in lines so he had a chance to thaw out. After he had dropped his purchases on Mrs. Cormaci's kitchen table, he was rewarded with a large cup of hot chocolate. Then they both bundled back up to go to the two places where Gregor could not run her errands, the bank and the liquor store. Once they got outside, was on edge. She clung to Gregor's arm tightly as they confronted patches of ice, pedestrians half-blinded by scarves, and swerving taxicabs. They had a chance to warm up at the bank, since Mrs. Cormaci didn't trust automatic bank machines, and they had to stand in line for a teller. Then they went to the liquor store, so she could pick out a bottle of red wine for her friends Eileen's birthday. But by the time they had made their way back home, Mrs. Cormaci's fingers were so numb that she dropped the wine in the hall outside her apartment just as Gregor got the door open.
Grace tensed and hoped that he didn't get glass in him.
The bottle broke on the tile, and the wine splattered all over the throw rug inside the entrance.
"That's it, Eileen's getting candy," said Mrs. Cormaci. "I've got a nice box of chocolates creams, never been opened. Someone gave it to me for Christmas. I hope it wasn't Eileen."
Everybody chuckled at that. 'Yes,' Queen Luxa thought, 'I would really like to have a conversation with her.'
She made Gregor stand back while she cleaned up the glass, then gathered up the throw rug and handed it to him. "Come on. We better get this down to the laundry room before the stain sets."
Grace hoped that Gregor would come up with an excuse, but since he seemed so desperate to get word from the Underland, she highly doubted he would come up with one.
The laundry room! While she collected detergent and stain remover from the closet, Gregor tried to think of an excuse for why he couldn't accompany her. He could hardly say, "Oh, my I can't go down there because my mom is afraid a giant rat will jump out and drag me miles underground and eat me."
Everybody was chuckling by the end of that.
"Well, when you put it like that . . ." Luxa said leaving her sentence unfinished.
If you thought about it, there was almost no good reason a person couldn't go to the laundry room. So he went.
Grace groaned, 'Of course he went, he really misses that place.'
Mrs. Cormaci sprayed the throw rug with stain remover and stuffed it into the washer. Her fingers, still stiff from the cold, fumbled as she picked the quarters from her change purse. She dropped one to the cement floor, and it rolled across the room, clanking to a stoop against the last dryer. Gregor went to retrieve it for her. As he bent down to get the coin, something caught his eye, and he bumped his head on the side of the dryer.
Gregor blinked, to make sure he hadn't imagined it. He hadn't. There, wedged between the frame of the grate and the wall, was a scroll.
Gregor looked up, "Who wants to read next?"
Before anybody could speak Ripred stood up and stretched, "I say, let's eat."
The Warrior rolled his eyes, "Of course YOU would want to eat." He mumbled.
Ripred turned on him and narrowed his eyes, "What was that?"
The Warrior whistled 'innocently', "Nothing, nothing."
"Let's go and eat something." Queen Luxa said before things could get out of hand.
Everybody got up and followed her into another room.