THIS TOOK A WHILE

CHAPTER 2 – Dream

Third-person – one week later

Gregor sat at the Hades table, he wore the signature orange shirt of Camp-half blood but the shirt was two sizes too big, under that, he wore a black long sleeve shirt to hide the scars on his arms, he had been spared a nice pair of brown boots for training in, and he wore an old pair of jeans that he had begun to grow out of. Gregor's meal was plain and simple, for the most part, A small piece of bread, some bits of jerky, and water, although on a small there was some shrimp in cream sauce, Gregor couldn't help but think of Ripred looking at them.

Gregor didn't have much of an appetite at the moment, he dreaded combat training. Gregor had avoided violence when he could since leaving the Underland, although a rager, a natural warrior who had killed and maimed, he despised violence, at least consciously. Sword and spear training would be led by Thalia, with help from Chiron, this did help Gregor to feel a little better about it, at least a somewhat familiar face would be there.

Gregor was the only current occupant of the Hades cabin, his only sibling, Nico, never sticking around at camp, and last being seen over a month before Gregor's arrival. Other campers were welcoming enough, although it seemed like they didn't know what to make of him, it didn't help that Gregor wasn't the most socially graceful of people.

*Plack!* a plate was suddenly set down, across from Gregor, a boy, with inquisitive green eyes and light brown hair now sat across from him, the boy wore the same orange shirt as most of the campers, but wore a myriad of necklaces and bracelets, he carried a large notebook, with dozens of note tabs sticking out. At his sudden arrival at the table, several campers gave him a strange look, a mix of concern, and annoyance. Before Gregor could say a word, the boy began to speak, "You're the new camper, the son of Hades, you look like him, or you look like Nico, but paler, and somehow more grim" his eyes were affixed onto Gregor, the boy had manic and jittery energy to his movement like he was on a constant caffeinated overload. "Yeah… that's me, I'm Gregor, and you are?" Gregor said tentatively, not sure how he should respond to what the boy had said but not wanting to be rude. "I am Asher, Asher Pearson, Son of Hectate," he said proudly, pointing his thumb out towards himself, Gregor began to relax, Asher's enthusiasm made Gregor think of Boots or Lizzie.

"It's good to meet you, Asher, if I remember correctly, your mom the goddess of Magic, right?"

"Yep, and a bunch of other stuff too, but she is mostly known for magic, although technically she shares a few responsibilities with other gods and goddesses, never gets credit for it though," Asher said, saying the last part under his breath

"So what brings you to my ever lonely table, that I don't think you are supposed to be sitting at," Gregor said

"don't worry It's not actually a big deal, I've sat at other tables dozens of times, nothing ever happened, got a black eye once but that was for a different reason, and as for why I came to sit here, I was intensely curious about your abilities," Asher said, leaning in as he said this

"my abilities?" Gregor said, concerned that maybe somehow asher knew about his abilities as a rager, maybe it had something to do with him being a son of Hades, maybe it was something magical, but he knew he didn't want any part of it.

"your abilities, the ones' children of Hades have, summoning ghosts, skeletons, all the dead stuff, the ones only his children have" Gregor was relieved at hearing this but he couldn't help but feel a little confused, his mind flashed to the lightning Thalia had summoned, but he hadn't even considered the idea that he could do anything like it. "You're saying I can do all that, summoning the dead and talking to ghosts, how do you know I can do that?" Gregor said, not believing what he was hearing.

"well, it's just an assumption, but I've heard the other campers talking about Nico doing it, some demigods have powers from their parents, but outside of children from the big three, it's exceptionally rare, but I haven't heard of one child of the big three without some powers like that, so I'm assuming that you can do all that"

"Your mom is the goddess of magic, can't you read from a book, chant some backwards Latin, and do the same?"

"Nope, I can do a lot, with the right materials, but anything involving the dead is off-limits to everyone that isn't a child of Hades, and also Latin?"

"they chant Latin in the movies," Gregor shrugging his shoulders

"not relevant, I want to spend some time with you and work on developing those powers"

Gregor wasn't particularly enthusiastic about any of this, for Gregor and his past, it was best to leave the dead where they lie.

"Thanks for the offer but I'm gonna have to say no to this, I'm not interested in any of that" hearing this, ashers face turned sour for a second, and then returned to a grin.
"Don't worry about it, just give it time and keep an open mind about it, also I'm taking one of these" and Asher plucked a piece of shrimp off the plate and dashed off to another table, much to the annoyance of the people at that table. Gregor thought about what Asher had told him, he thought of the ghost of Solovet following him around, giving him orders, the thought wasn't appealing to him.

Earlier that day, at training grounds

After lunch was combat training, today they were focusing on sword and shield drills today, with light sparring scheduled for later on. Thalia had arrived earlier in the day to begin setting everything up, she had gathered several weighted training swords, setting them up on the far side of the training grounds, she had put up several dummies for the drills she had planned, these dummies had their own armor and weapons.

A few dozen of these had been propped up In rows of 3, separated a few feet apart. Thalia checked the time after she had finished setting everything up, she still had an hour and a half till it was time for training.

Thalia decided to warm up with one of the wooden swords. She began to swing at a dummy, smashing into the dummies side, she didn't have a particular target or goal with this, just to sweat and get her heartbeat up, to try and get the adrenaline pumping through her body. Thalia was still frustrated with her current situation, she was frustrated with her "suspension" from the huntresses, but more so frustrated with herself and how her mistakes had been hurt the people around her. She was their lieutenant, and her choices left them hurt. She slammed the sword even harder into the dummy, smashing into the shield, the sword shattered into splinters.

"good power, but you're using the wrong weapon if you want to smash through that," Chiron said, he seemed to have been there for a while.

"I might recommend a hammer or an axe, better weapons for what you're trying to do, more cathartic," Chiron said, glancing down at what remained of the wooden weapon.

"Right, I wasn't thinking about it, just picked up what was around, I just needed to get some stuff out," Thalia said, tossing the remains of the training blade off to the side.

"You need not explain, I've trained thousands of demigods in my time, I've seen more things smashed and destroyed than you could imagine, honestly, I'm thankful you decided to take it out on a dummy, rather than anything important" he gave her a reassuring smile

"Yeah, at least there's that," Thalia said as she cleaned up the largest of the wooden splinters. There was a brief moment of silence, Chiron didn't know what to say, and Thalia just didn't want to talk.

"there's a lot of excitement in the camp for you leading the training session today, many new campers excited to train under you," Chiron said

"Good for them, maybe I can teach them something," Thalia said

"I'm sure you will, I hope you realize how much of an inspiration you are too many of them"

"you're wrong about that, Percy is an inspiration, Annabeth is an inspiration, I'm not, I'm the one who got kicked out of the huntresses because I failed," Thalia said frustrated

"you don't give yourself the credit you deserve, because of you, this camp was and still Is protected"
"was it me, or was it some tree my father put up," Thalia said exasperated with the conversation

"it was your sacrifice, you gave your life to save others, that's what inspires them, no matter what happens, your sacrifice will always serve as an inspiration to them, and that tree will stand in honor of that for generations to come," Chiron stated

Thalia was silent after hearing this, after a moment she went back to preparing for the training.

Later that day

After a brief time, campers began to file in, and the training started. Thalia led a warm-up, which consisted of a few laps around the training grounds, stretching, and then hitting the dummies with the weighted swords. Most of the campers did fine, but the least experienced struggled, most flailed their swords into the dummies, every movement forceful and rough, lacking any grace or speed, comparatively Gregor stood out. Although not masterful, Gregor did seem to do better than he should have, at least from the perspective of the other campers, his blade whistled through the air and rapped against the dummy, making audible pops when it landed. "just keep cool, don't overdo it" Gregor thought to himself, he tried to focus on the dummy in front of him, he didn't want to think about everyone around him, he didn't want to think about any impression he was making in the training session, not his birth father, not even the Underland, just the dummy in front of him.

Thalia looked over them all, not really paying any attention to them but instead lost in her own head. she thought back to what Chiron had said, and back to her own failures. she wondered how she could ever be the person everyone thought she was, how could she ever be the leader and inspiration they thought she was. How many people she had failed and let down. Thalia thought of the huntresses and Artemis, how she let them down, she thought of Luke and wondered if she could have done anything to help him back to the light, she thought of her brother. "Alright, stop!" Thalia yelled out, everyone came to a sudden stop and looked over to her, 25 pairs of eyes now focused on her, waiting for what she had to say. "Joanna, I need your help with this" Thalia called to over one of the more experienced demigods in the camp. "In front of me, blade ready" Thalia ordered, the girl followed the order without hesitation, getting in front of Thalia and getting into a battle stance. "Now we're gonna work on parry and counter, first, Joanna is going to lunge forward and slash diagonally at me" Thalia got ready for the attack, Joanna seemed hesitant but after a second lunged forward and swung the training blade diagonally at Thalia, who parried the blade down, creating a large opening for an attack, "now after this, I'm going to swing the blade up towards her neck" and Thalia brought the blade up stopping at the girl's neck. "Now we're going to do this at full speed" Thalia then leaned over and whispered to the girl "don't worry about anyone getting hurt, just trust me". Thalia and the girl got back into their battle stances and then started. Joanna lunged forward and slashed diagonally only to get parried by Thalia, who in the same motion swung the blade towards Joanna's neck and stopped just short of its target. "Now I want all of you to take turns with your partner, I want the more experienced of you to pair up with less experienced, help them, don't rough them up, if I see you roughing them up, you'll be sparring with me later, and I won't be taking it easy on you," Thalia said this and then everyone began grouping up.

Gregor partnered with a son of Ares a little older than him, he had tan skin, slicked-back hair, his orange shirt had the sleeves cut off and he wore bright orange shorts that Gregor thought might be a little too short. "Alright I'm Roy, you stick with me and we're gonna be cool, all cool?" Roy said, drawing each syllable out, "Right, let's just take it slow alright?" Gregor replied tentatively, Roy just gave him a double thumbs up and got ready to start. The initial drills were very slow and awkward for Gregor, it wasn't a matter of not being able to do what he needed to do but more keeping control of himself, the dummy was easy, focus on it and hit the right spots and don't get overzealous, this felt impossible for him. Gregor would go through the drill but he felt robotic in his movements, each movement felt like it had to be winded up and only moved at any decent speed once already in motion, although Roy was supportive enough and offered advice "you're so tense my man, you should come with me for some Yoga by the lake, we'll loosen you up and get you a good tan while we're at it, plus we got a bunch of boys and girls who attend so maybe you'll meet someone you like"

"Thanks, I might check it out sometime," Gregor said, he smiled a little bit saying this, he felt maybe he could be a part of something here.

After 20 minutes of nonstop drilling, Thalia finally yelled out "five-minute break, get some water and rest, but after we're done, we'll be sparring." Chiron had been watching the training session quietly, off on the side, during the break, he approached Thalia "You're doing well teaching them, sticking to the fundamentals was smart of you, so many new campers, its good for them to learn this"

"Thanks, I'm glad I can help just this little bit," Thalia said looking off.

Thalia switched everyone's partners around, Gregor was now partnered with a younger son of Athena, he had red hair, trimmed down into a buzzcut, his camp shirt was tucked into blue jeans, he was much shorter than Gregor, and his face seemed to fixed into a permanent grimace. "Hey, I'm Gregor, it's nice to meet you" Gregor held his hand out, offering a handshake to the other boy "I don't care" the boy responded, not looking Gregor in the eye, this annoyed Gregor, although he was cautious not to get too angry about it, "it's just sparring," Gregor told himself and got ready to spar with the kid. The kid blitzed Gregor, overwhelming Gregor and putting him on the backfoot. Gregor blocked and dodged every attack but struggled to get any offense going, never finding an opportunity to launch a counter-attack, although a big part of that is because of Gregor's hesitation.

"He's not doing well, is he?" Thalia said, watching the sparring match between Gregor and the son of Athena

"Casper certainly isn't giving him any breaks, but I wouldn't say Gregor is doing poorly, if anything, he is doing very well" Chiron replied, watching the sparring match very closely

"I don't see it," Thalia said

"Gregor is dodging most of the attacks and blocking when he can't. Caspers offense isn't doing anything for him" Thalia took a closer look at their sparring match, she noticed exactly what Chiron saw, Gregor blocked or dodged every attack, but she also noticed that despite so many opportunities to go on the offense, Gregor never attacked.

"Is he playing with him?" Thalia said in disbelief

"is he? I would expect a bit more showmanship if that were the case"

"So he's just scared, he doesn't want to attack because of fear"

"Perhaps, maybe he is just scared of Casper, but you must admit, he has an unusually good defense for someone so supposedly new to this"

"so what are you trying to say?"

"Nothing, I think he is scared, very scared in fact, I just don't believe he's scared of Casper" Chiron walked off to watch another sparring match.

Short time later

After training had ended, Gregor went and found a quiet spot away from everyone to rest and cool off. "really Is just one of those days" Gregor thought to himself. He thought it might have been okay, but after sparring he just wanted to lay on the ground and forget the whole day. Maybe it wouldn't have been so exhausting but most of his energy was spent staying on the defense and not letting his rager side, go. It was like working against his muscles and senses, don't let the sword swing, don't acknowledge the weak points, ignore any desire to cause harm, it exhausted Gregor endlessly. His hands shook relentlessly, he felt heavy, he wanted to stand up return to camp but he couldn't quite find the energy. "tired?" a voice asked from behind. Thalia had found him, and she held a small cup in her hands

"Just a little bit, I'll be hitting my second wind any time now," Gregor said and then took a deep breath.

"I'm sure you will, but just in case it takes too long, drink this" She handed Gregor the cup, it was filled with a golden liquid that Gregor didn't recognize

"don't know if I trust this" Gregor said, sniffing at the contents of the cup

"Just drink it, you'll feel better," Thalia said indignantly, Gregor began to drink from the cup, it had a bitter, metallic taste to it, not all too unpleasant though. Immediately Gregor felt rejuvenated, he all of a sudden felt like going for a run.

"so you really do just have the worlds best sports drink out here," Gregor said

"I suppose so, it can also help you recover from injuries, so doubly useful, although from what I saw during sparring, you wouldn't need that part"

"you obviously weren't paying attention, that kid was out for blood," Gregor said rubbing his shoulder as if he had an injury
"well he failed to get any, I'm pretty sure there's not even a scratch on you, which considering you're so new to all this is really impressive, assuming you're new to fighting" Gregor's eyes glanced away for a second, and then he responded, "yeah, I'm new to it all, just got lucky I guess". Part of him wanted to open and explain, he hoped that maybe she could understand and help him understand, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. After a brief moment of silence, Gregor stood up and said "Hey, sorry to cut this short but I heard about some yoga session, I think it might help me relax after the events of today so I'm gonna go" and walked off.

Later that night

Gregor laid in bed in the Hades Cabin. The outside of the cabin didn't do the inside any justice. The interior of the Cabin had been decorated by the best the underworld, elaborate carvings decorated an obsidian wall, depicting Hades and his domain. Candlesticks lit up the cabin, all sitting in silver candleholders, a large hearth sat in the middle of the room, next to it were several pots which contained dust that could be used to change the color of the fire, on the side were four beds in total, a low amount by the standard of other cabins but too many for the Hades Cabin. Each bed had purple silk covers accompanied by feather pillows. Despite being mostly abandoned for over a month the cabin was spotless, not a speck of dust anywhere in the cabin. Gregor laid in bed and thought about the days' events, no matter where he went, he felt out of place, no matter what he did, he felt like the Underland wouldn't let him go, that the rager part of him wouldn't let him go.

The walls have been broken and they pour through, armors of different colors flying different banners surge through. He's armored, on the ground, his flier is somewhere else, he hopes she's okay. He stands next to an old enemy, now friend, a gnawer, he never caught their name. The enemy moves forward, charging at him, he's terrified of them, but he remains in position, sword ready in defiance of what he faces. The first enemy reaches him, his armor is red, decorated with the insignia of a place very far away, they carry an axe, they bring the ax up and it smashes through his helm, embedding it in his head. He's killed instantly.

Everything is dark now, all around him people are screaming, and slowly their voices are lost in the dark. He's crouched, hiding in a corner, he thinks about his family who he left to die, he's a coward. He begins to cry and pray for it all to end, his prayers were answers when a spear gores him, he dies choking on his blood.

The air is filled with black smoke, he's overlooking a stone city deep underground, the city is in complete darkness, the palace is the only place still lit. Feelings of remorse and great sadness cloud his mind, tears stream down his face, his grip tightens over the sword on his hip, slowly the sadness is replaced with a burning rage. Bodies are scattered around him an old grey rat, several silver-haired people, three men, and a young woman. "How could you do this?" He asked, his voice trembling. "It was all for the best, this was all for the best," a voice said behind him, a shadowy figure with an intense aura, it caused him to feel fear beyond anything he could ever imagine. "But none of this matters right now, all that matters is your arrival, so wake up Gregor, WAKE UP!" Gregor woke up, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding, he didn't remember falling asleep but he must have. The dream was real, or it felt real, like a memory. Gregor needed answers, he needed to know If the Underland had anything to do with the Greek gods, and what this dream could mean. So he decided to finally go and tell Chiron everything, about the Underland and his abilities as a rager.

Gregor approached the big house, trying to figure out what exactly he was going to say, what could he even say. How could he ever explain what the Underland and his role within in it. Gregor thought about just forgetting his dream, leaving it behind, and just forgetting the Underland but he knew he never could. The Underland will always call to him, it will always bring him home. He knocked three times against the door of the big house, only a minute later Chiron answered Groggy-eyed and wearing a bathrobe.

"Gregor, what are you doing up this hour"

"I had to ask you a question, and hopefully get some answers"

"Then I hope I have the answers you seek"

Gregor took a deep breath and said "Have you ever heard of an underground world"

"The underworld, the realm of your father?"

"No, different, not full of dead people but it does have giant animals and purple-eyed people" Chirons looked surprised hearing this, he looked around and then began ushering Gregor in "Come in, I must wake Dionysus and you will tell us everything you know".

SO remember how in chapter 1 I said I wanted to do a chapter a week, yeah that's not ever happening. But despite how long I took, I am a lot happier with this chapter than the first one, this felt a little less rushed, I'm still not perfectly happy with this but I am happier with it overall. I am abandoning first person btw, I hated writing in it, I wanted to try and challenge myself but that was stupid and I'm never doing it again, probably, maybe one day.