Third Person POV
Thus began a tour of the factory. Thunder planned on showing the three newbies most of the building, there were certain areas they'd have to find themselves, or be taken to. Thunder couldn't help but grin when he pictured them finding those places, it's always amusing to see people's reactions to it.
The first place Thunder took them was floor where everyone's rooms were, or the dorm as he called it. The sleeping arrangements are something like this; each dorm has a bunk bed and when you are assigned a mentor you share the room with them. Once you finish your training you get your own room.
"Okay Thunder, so our room is our mentor's room, but none of us have a mentor so where do we sleep?" Thalia asked. Percy nodded in agreement, and Nico's head twitched like he was trying to nod without actually nodding.
"You get the noob room. It's a giant room with a bunch of bunks and a couple trunks for people's stuff. We don't use it a lot, not many people have been banished lately. I'm still trying to figure out if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but that's nothing to talk to you guys about. You'll have a mentor by tomorrow, so it's no big deal," Thunder explained. The four of them glanced inside briefly before moving on.
"Where do we go next?" Nico asked excitedly. Nico wasn't happy about being banished, but he had always been curious about Tartarus. There wasn't much information about Tartarus, even in his dad's library, and he'd always been disappointed about that. Now he was in Tartarus and, although that sucked, at least he could learn all about the god-forsaken place.
"Oh, we're headed to the bathrooms, which are also on this floor," Thunder replied with a smirk. Nico seemed to deflate a bit, bathrooms aren't very exciting. "The bathrooms are the two doors across from the noob room, do you see them? The guy's room is in gray, and the girl's is in purple," Thunder stated. "Now we are moving on to the training center, it's on the next floor."
"How many floors are there anyway?" Thalia asked as we headed to the stairwell.
"Six, not counting the basement and the roof. We're on the third floor right now; and our floor only has the dorms, the noob room, and the boss's office. The second floor is completely dedicated to training. The first floor has the cafeteria, infirmary, rec room, and Terry's desk," Thunder told us.
"Wait, who's Terry?" Percy asked.
"Terry is practically the boss's secretary, but she calls herself the receptionist. Anyone who wants to talk to the boss has to go through her. Wanna file a complaint? Go see Terry. She pretty much handles all the organization around here," Thunder answered. Percy was about to ask another question, but then Thunder opened the door to the training room.
The training room was very impressive, and the four of them took a moment to admire it. They couldn't see the entire room from where they were standing, because several stone walls separated different areas of the room. The areas they could see, however, had obviously had a great deal of work put into them.
"As you can see the training center is divided into six sections, each one is built to help you improve in certain areas of skill. The first section is dedicated to long-range weapons; bow and arrows, guns, spear, slings, and the like. The second section is dedicated to short-range weapons; swords, daggers, axes, maces, and so on. The third section is all about learning to make strategies. The fourth section is about strength and endurance training; that's where you go to run, do exercises, and get fit. The fifth section is for any special ability or magical object you might have. The sixth section is for learning about Greek and Roman history, monsters, and the jobs at this factory. I'd show you the individual areas, but we're running short on time," Thunder informed them. He turned around to head for the next floor, but there was something bugging the younger demigods.
"Wait, shouldn't there be a sparing ring?" Percy asked.
"Yes, there is one, you see those blood-red doors by the short-range section? That's where the sparing ring is; we do other things in there too, but your mentor can tell you about it." That comment only made Percy, Thalia, and Nico even more curious about what was over there.
"Where to next?" Thalia asked. Thunder grinned and pat his belly.
"The cafeteria!" he shouted. It was then that they realized just how hungry they were, because their stomachs growled in sync. They all hurried down the stairs to the first floor where the cafeteria awaited.
"First we'll eat, then I'll explain the process to you. Wait here while I get food for us," Thunder commanded. He returned a few minutes later with four trays, and gestured for us to follow him as he made his way to a near by table with two other people sitting at it.
"I figured I might as well introduce you three to the only other kids your age," Thunder said as they sat down.
"Their age? Please, I'm way older than them," the girl snorted. The boy rolled his eyes at her, and then grinned at Thunder.
"I'm guessing recruitment went well," he stated, looking over the three newbies.
"You bet it did! These kids are Percy, Thalia, and Nico," Thunder said proudly.
"No shit, really?" the girl asked, sitting up a bit straighter to look at them better. Percy, Thalia, and Nico shifted uneasily, not used to being scrutinized so carefully.
"Really," Nico said as he sat down, glaring at her. "And I was born in the 1930s, which means I'm probably way older than you." The boy and girl exchanged a look, then laughed.
"I like them!" the boy decided, and the girl nodded in agreement.
"Are you two gonna introduce yourselves, or what?" Thalia asked impatiently, she was getting fed up of being stared and laughed at.
"Yeah, chill dude. I'm Raven, daughter of Hermes, and the coolest person you'll ever met down here," the girl introduced herself. Raven looked around the same age as Nico, and had black hair and blue eyes.
"I'm Raff, son of Apollo. It's nice to meet you guys," the boy said. Raff also looked around the same age as Nico, and had light brown hair and piercing green eyes.
"Raff and Thunder are weird names, is it some sort of child of Apollo thing?" Percy asked curiously. Thunder laughed.
"Nah, Raff is short for Raphael, and I changed my name to Thunder when I got down here," he explained.
"Oh, I was hoping for something more exciting, but that's okay," Percy said glumly. Thalia rolled her eyes, and Nico just shook his head and chuckled.
"So are you guys really the only other kids our age down here?" Thalia asked.
"Maybe, there might be a few other kids who are stuck in their teens down here. I dunno, I haven't met every single demigod down here," Raven answered.
"So time really doesn't move here?" Nico asked.
"I wouldn't say that for sure, I think it just moves extremely slowly," Raff replied thoughtfully.
"Wait, so can you die?" Percy asked in confusion.
"No, Tartarus is meant to be a torturous place. If you died then it would be a moot point," Thunder answered gravely.
"A couple years back one of our men got his head chopped off. It didn't kill him, so he had to be agony for a year or two while his head had reconnected to his body," Raven said. Raff made a face.
"I remember that, I had to help stitch him up." Thunder nodded.
"It wasn't a pretty sight, that's for sure."
"Well, we'd love to stay but we have border control. We'll see you guys around," Raff said as he and Raven stood up. Raff waved goodbye and they left. Percy, Thalia, and Nico quickly finished eating, so Thunder could continue to explain how stuff works.
"When you get your mentor tomorrow they'll give you a watch, and the watch is pretty much like a portable planner. This watch holds all your records. The watch keeps track of how long and when you're working; it also records how many points you earn while working. Points are like our version of money. Which brings me to my other point, if you don't work you don't eat. You need to work for two hours before you can have your first meal, to get your second meal you have to work five hours, and to get your thrid meal you have to work four hours. The lunch servers will scan your watch to make sure you did your fair share of work.
The next thing is points, points are our money. How many points you get is determined by how long you work, how hard you work, how difficult your job is, and what rank you are. Points are used to buy anything else you need; clothes, weapons, and stuff. You can see what there is to buy in the rec room, that's where we're going next," Thunder explained. They were impressed by the idea of the watch, but couldn't help but wonder how the factory had gotten a magical object like that.
The rec room was a pretty cool room, and many members hung out in it on their days off. Most people hung out there when they had the chance because it was just a cool place. The rec room had some couches and a library of sorts, and it was never empty which made it one of the most comforting places to be.
"Okay, this is the rec room. People usually come in here to chill and relax on their day off, after all some of the jobs can be pretty stressful. There is a jukebox in the corner, but no one really uses it. The store is in the back, come on, I'll show you guys how you buy stuff," Thunder headed toward the back of the rec room where a bored member was leaning against the counter.
"This is where most points go to use; you can get clothes, shoes, and weapons here for sure. Anything else they have is a maybe, it's hard to get stuff down here so if they have something good you better buy it before someone else does. Books and candy and cheap things you can buy too, although it's easier to just donate any book you find to the library that way everyone can share information," Thunder told us. Thalia looked confused about something.
"How do you find books down here? It's not like books just fall into Tartarus," she said in confusion.
"Monsters usually have something from the mortal world on them, kill the monster and you get the item. You know Tartarus is always changing, so sometimes openings to Tartarus appear in the mortal world. That's how some monsters escape, and that's how something from the mortal world ends up down here," Thunder explained.
"If we can't die how come we can kill monsters?" Nico asked. "Tartarus is meant to be a place for monsters to heal, if they can die here then shouldn't we be able to die as well?"
"If didn't phrase that correctly, if you strike a killing blow on a monster down here then it will disintegrate and pop up somewhere else in Tartarus so it can heal," Thunder replied.
"That's a bummer, it'd be nice if we could just destroy it for good," Percy muttered.
"I have another question, you said one of the factors in how much money you made was your rank. What are the ranks?" Nico questioned.
"There are ten ranks here, apprentices are on rank ten, new members are on rank nine, and you work your way up from there. If you work hard, and do amazing on your missions you're more likely to get promoted. Also, the only people who can train the newbies are anyone on rank one, two, or three. I'm rank two with about eight other people, there are twelve people on rank three, and the boss is the only one on rank one," Thunder told them.
"How many people are down here anyway?" Percy wondered aloud.
"Only the gods know, but in this particular factory there are around a hundred people," Thunder answered. The three younger demigods were surprised, they hadn't even known the gods would banish people to Tartarus before that day, Now they were finding out that tons of other people had been banished before them? It was a lot to take in.
"The gods sure have been busy," Thalia muttered. Thunder laughed again.
"You guys are the first ones to be banished in the past decade. Although, they have been banishing people for a couple hundred years, so I would assume that there are a lot of people down here."
"When were you banished?" Nico asked curiously. Thunder frowned, and started to count on his fingers.
"Let's see, it was thirty-five years ago, so the year was 1979. I can't even imagine what the world's like now, it must be crazy up there. Anything interesting happen?" Thunder asked curiously. He used to miss the mortal world a lot, but after being in Tartarus so long it his missing it became a detached curiosity. He wasn't sure he'd be able to adjust if he ever had the chance to go back.
Percy shrugged. "Well, we got a black president, there was a terrorist attack on America, some country had a civil war, a lot of stuff was invented, and I dunno what else to say," he answered. Thunder chuckled.
"Whoever said history repeats itself was telling the truth. I've asked a couple newbies what's going on up there, and they all said something similar." Nico rolled his eyes.
"Percy left out the big thing. Kronos attacked Olympus and tried to destroy the gods again."
"Oh, I know about that. We learned as much from the monsters down here. The tour's over now, I'll see you three in the morning. Goodnight," Thunder said as he walked out of the rec room. Percy, Thalia, and Nico quickly followed him, they wanted to make sure they remembered how to get back to their bunks.
PERCY
I was awoken to a loud banging, which was kind of annoying. I didn't get much sleep because Nico seemed to have a million questions about Tartarus and kept getting up to go ask Thunder about this or that. It was nice to see him excited about something, but I wanted my sleep. It felt like Nico left the room a million times. We finally got him to leave Thunder alone after he yelled at him, I yelled at him, and Thalia yelled at him.
I groaned and rolled out of the bed, which resulted in me falling seven feet and landing on my face. I guess I forgot I was on the top bunk. While I was getting up Thalia opened the door to a very pissed off Thunder.
"Mornin' Thunder," I greeted groggily. He nodded to me.
"Is Nico up yet?" he asked. I shook my head. Nico was still laying in bed, dead to the world. Thunder grinned and held up a blow horn for us to see.
"A friend lent this to me, this is payback for keeping us up half the night," Thunder told Thalia and me. He walked up to Nico, placed the horn next to his ear, and pushed the button. Nico jolted up which only made him smack his head on the top of the bunk.
"Ow! What the Hades was that for? You could have made me go deaf with that thing," Nico yelled. Thunder just laughed.
"I was teaching you a valuable life lesson; never keep people up when they're trying to sleep," he responded with a smirk.
"When do we get our mentors?" Thalia asked impatiently.
"Soon, but first you guys need to change. Percy you need to ditch the camp shirt, and Thalia being dressed as a hunter probably isn't a good idea," Thunder informed us. He tossed me a black shirt proclaiming some band called Black Flag, and he tossed Thalia a black jacket to replace her silver one.
"I think your pants are okay Thalia, and Nico is fine except for the necklace," he said as he took another glance at our clothes. I held up my camp shirt and necklace.
"Where should I trash this?" I asked. I had conflicted feelings about throwing away my old clothes, I was sad to see them go due to all the good memories, but I wanted nothing to do with camp because of all the grief they gave me.
"Don't trash it now, we'll burn it later. Now, we have to go meet your mentors in the cafeteria," Thunder told me and then he walked out the door.
When we got down to the cafeteria it was packed, but Thunder lead us through the crowd to a table that had only two people at it. One of the people was Raven and the other was someone we haven't met yet.
"Yo, Paris and Helen are finally reunited," Raven joked as Thunder kissed other lady at the table. Really? Was Thunder's name actually Paris? I could see why he'd want to change it.
"Seriously? Your real name is Paris?" Thalia asked. Thunder chuckled and shook his head, while the lady blushed.
"No, birdie over there," He pointed to Raven, who made a face. "Just likes to call us that because we're dating," He explained.
"So who's the lady?" I asked.
"This is Aina, and yes, she's my girlfriend," Thunder answered. Aina had medium length, straight blonde hair and blue-green eyes.
"Okay, so are you gonna tell us whose mentor is who? I'd like to get started," Nico said grumpily.
"I'm Thalia's mentor," The Aina said. Thalia grinned at her.
"Hey, I'm Thalia. It's nice to meet you," Thalia greeted as she took a seat next to her new mentor.
"I'mma be Nico's mentor," Raven piped up next. Nico plopped down in the seat next to her. I looked around, there was no one left. Who was going to be my mentor?
"Wait, who's my mentor?" I asked in confusion. Everyone else laughed.
"Gee Percy, who do you think it's gonna be?" Thalia asked. I glared at her, then realized I had forgotten about Thunder. So he's my mentor, I guess that's cool. I made a face at Thalia.
"It's Thunder, I get it."
"Great, we'll see you guys later. Percy has some training to do now," Thunder said. He kissed Aina again before leading me up to the training room where he started working on my strength and endurance. Thunder sure wasn't kidding when he said we had to be on a whole other level of skill in Tartarus.