Nathan had a dream that night.
He stood at the epicentre of a large tornado. Or was it a hurricane? He could roughly remember being pelted by sheets of heavy rain and winds that seemed fast enough to rip through steel. The world was spinning round and round, time seemed to turn into liquid and it was difficult to see anything past the water droplets.
But somewhere in the distance, he could roughly heard three old ladies arguing incessantly. There was the sound of the clicking of scissors and even more cries of surprise from the three ladies.
"Cu... it..! Do someth..."
"Don't lo... me.."
"Wh... won't it...ork... snip it!"
Suddenly, one of the ladies said something. He failed to catch what, as he did with everything else, but as she did, he heard thunder boom somewhere in the distance. The wind then swept him off his feet and sent him air bound. As he rose above the clouds, he saw the stars glinting high in the sky and the curvature of the Earth.
Somewhere along the way, he saw a mountain. No... it was a volcano. Smoke rose from it in waves and he heard the clang of metal striking metal from inside there. But at the same time, somewhere deep below a faint breathing, akin to the rumbling of the earth could be heard.
He tried to look deeper in through his vantage point in the sky, but as gravity took hold of him, he went down; and the soil came up to meet him.
Nathan woke up with a start. The first thing he noticed was that he was drenched in sweat. The next thing he noticed was the weight on his chest. Reuben was nestled close to him, a blanket wrapped warmly around them. They had slept on the couch.
On the table opposite them, Freddy lazed around, his eyes drifting open and closing the next second.
"What a weird ass dream..." He muttered. His senses were already dialed up thanks to the presence of Freddy, but he was positive it wasn't a mare's doing. It would be a pretty crazy coincidence if a mare had managed to hone in on him of all people in such a big city.
What the hell, am I getting prophetic dreams now? Was that an omen? I hope not... All things considered, the fact that he had that dream probably meant trouble. Big trouble...
Don't demigods have such dreams? I remember Percy having some in the Lighting Thief. Why am I now getting such dreams? Is it because I'm more mystically aligned now that I've grown stronger?
With furrowed brows, Nathan made to experiment. He got Reuben off him and went to the other room. He pulled out the axe, feeling the faint chilling radiating off the metal and touched the blade with the tip of his finger.
"Ouch..." He muttered. On his finger was a small cut, alongside a lingering chill that wouldn't go away. "Yep. I've stepped further into the mystical world than before. I might be somewhere along the lines of the demigods?"
Nathan felt his heart growing more and more tumultuous. He really didn't like that he had that dream.
Eventually, he sighed.
"The best I can do is prepare. I'll try and start with the Method today. Then I'll invest all of my points into things." Nodding to himself, he decided to leave such problems for the future him and decided to gear up further.
But before that, he walked over to the landline and made a call. A call to his editor.
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"Who's gonna tell him?"
"I'm not doing it."
"What?! It's your turn you bastard!"
"I said I'm not doing it!"
"Sssshut the fuck up you two! Things are stressful enough as issss!"
The sound of arguing rang out into the hallway. Flames danced in braziers lined across the wall and as the group walked ahead, their forms cast crooked shadows onto the floor.
They themselves were not so normal. Monsters.
Two of them stood 7 feet tall with misshapen yellow teeth and tattoos all over their arms and chest. The third was a dracaena and the fourth an undead with half of his brains missing.
The dracaena scowled at the two giants and looked ahead into the hallway. They were underground, and far ahead, the sounds of whispering and footsteps could be heard.
"I'll be the one to talk!" The snake woman shook her head.
They moved further in without saying anything. There didn't seem to be any desire to take up the task in any of them. Even the undead stayed quiet... well, it wasn't capable of much talk in the first place but if it did, it surely would have been just as quiet as now.
Eventually the hallway opened up into a larger area. The ceiling extended 30 meters high and various webs tangled into a mesh. Shadows on eight legs crawled amid them. Below the webs, various catwalks and metal bridges ran through the air making a pattern. Upon them walked all kinds of monsters. Undead, Laestrygonians, Cynocephali, Snakes, Scorpions, Centaurs and others.
But on the ground, a group of kids, none of them older than 13 walked with a dead look in their eyes. Their clothes were torn up in many places and on their wrists, a cannula was inserted. They were a dozen in number and were walking out of another tunnel that led somewhere.
The monsters didn't give the kids a glance, though their noses twitched as they passed them.
The tunnel led them to what looked to be a mix between a hospital ward and a science lab. Wires as thick as an elephant's leg when grouped together hung from the ceiling, wrapped together with metal plates. Tables and shelves held many many alchemical mixtures and a large tube, large enough to hold grown men and even a giant was kept in the corner.
The monsters paused for a moment and all of them took huge gulps of saliva. In front of them, right before a table stood a man dressed in a white coat. He was working on a group of vials filled with blood. Gold rimmed glasses lined his face, covering his dark brown eyes. A scar ran down his left temple to his left earlobe and his black hair was cut short.
The monsters stood at the entrance, not daring to move.
"Enter, and speak." His voice, although soft and sweet, seemed to carry a tangible pull. All of them moved in and kneeled.
The Dracaena at the forefront spoke in a shaky voice.
"G-greetings, lord. O-our troops found one missing d-demigod in the Labyrinth. He is currently in the holding cells."
"Only one?"
The dracaena stiffened up before speaking again.
"n-no. The other one... um.. our troops were intercepted."
The man stopped. His hands which were combining the blood into another mixture golden in colour through a distillation tube stopped.
"Intercepted? Explain."
"It has been reported to be a man... he killed the majority of our scouts... then he was seen moving northward across the state highway before we lost him."
Tension filled the air. Sweat began to pour out of the skin of the giants and the undead began to breathe in a rasping and hoarse voice.
Huuuuuuuu~
The glass vial trembled slightly in the man's hand before he breathed softly and put it down into a stand.
Huuuuuuuuu~~
"Quit breathing."
Crack! Squelch!
A sickening crack echoed in the air and the undead's throat tightened into a small point. His head rolled off his shoulder, dropping to the ground. After a second, the body followed.
"Oh." He said in a disappointed tone. "Wake up."
The body twitched before it stood back up. The hands picked up the head and placed it back on the neck before the revived undead went back to kneeling.
The man looked at the Dracaena again who was regretting all it's life choices until this moment.
"Tell me more about this... man."
"He.. he was wielding an axe."
"Axe? Is it him again?" Hearing the pointed tone, all them shook their head with wild fervour.
"No, sir! He had armor on him!"
"Interesting." He narrowed his eyes. "And the demigod was with him?"
"Yes sir!"
"Find him then." He turned around and went back to his tinkering with chemicals. "And bring me the demigod. The Crucible will need more soon. The current number isn't holding up."
He looked back.
"Go."
The monsters found stood up and ran outside with all their might, yelling commands to the other monsters as they went.
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A/N: I was unable to upload the promised chapter because me and my bro are starting college. Living away from home hasn't exactly been easy, there's this constant sense of loneliness and I'm still acclimating to my surroundings. I realize this may soon become routine but that was the reason I missed the chapter upload.
I would be lying to say that I'm looking forward to the year, especially with how the last 4 days have been, but I hope I can keep writing.
Anyways, since you people got the fic to 3rd rank and I missed a chapter upload, so you will get 2 chapters on the rest day; which may be Wednesday or Saturday. You decide.
Also, drop some ideas you want to see him make. I already planned the breathing method so please stop spamming that lol.