It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop ~ Confucius

Party planners seriously get a bad rep. I was up to my neck in lists, names, and places that I needed to organize Hazard's party. I had confirmed with Mareth that the Arena would be clear and provide plenty of room for all of the guests, plus the two scrolls full of food Hazard requested. I groaned as I looked over all the items, especially the deserts. All of the deserts.

The true request of a teenage boy with unlimited access to a palace kitchen and had never tasted chocolate before.

I condensed my to-do list and shoved it into my pocket before starting the long walk to the isolated tunnel where Ripred continued my echolocation training. I was starting to really get it after he so insistently demanded these sessions. "Ripred!" I called into the darkness as I set the large stone back in place.

A short click before I turned around gave me the heads up I needed to know his tail was coming at my head. My hand snapped up to catch the offending limb before it could cause an achingly familiar sting. "Well, you're getting better. Finally."

I rolled my eyes, knowing he could still see it in the pitch black room. "Thanks. Is the Bane with you?" The white rat hadn't tagged along in quite a while, but anytime I asked, Ripred just waved it off. Sometimes he'd go so far to mention that the Bane had made some new friends and didn't care to hang out with 'Uncle Ripred' anymore.

"See for yourself." Ripred noisily plopped down against the wall and started gnawing on some bone he had brought along.

Lighting the oil lamp hanging from the wall next to the door provided a low radiating light into the room, allowing me to get a visual on the white rat for the first time in several weeks. "Woah." I breathed as the eight-foot mountain of fur hid nervously in the corner.

"He's not even full grown yet." Ripred mused, combing his fur nonchalantly. "We expect another two or four feet by Christmas."

I blinked around his weather forecast of the Bane's height and turned to the younger gnawer. "It's good to see you again, Bane."

"Oh no, don't call him that! He's been all about the name his mother gave him recently." Ripred snarked, clearly irritated by whatever argument grew from the contradiction of the names in the past. "Pearlpelt, isn't that sweet?"

I cocked my head in interest. I hadn't stopped to think that the Bane's mother may have given the pup a name before he was fated to be the Bane. It made sense, honestly. His fur, or pelt, was white like a pearl. I had never noticed before, and maybe it was the low light, but patches of his fur would catch the reflection of the flame and shimmer shades of pink, blue, and even green.

Although never getting a good look at the mice when we met briefly in the jungle, Luxa attested that most of them had silky white fur. Even though the only fully white bat I've met was Queen Athena, there have been more fliers that I could count that used white within their coat patterns; like Nike. Gnawers, on the other hand, have only been varying tones of grey or black. Almost immediately after his birth, it must have been painstakingly obvious who the pup was destined to be.

"It's a nice name." I shot back at the old rat's mocking. "It suits you."

"It doesn't matter what I like to be called, everyone just calls me Bane, except Ripred." The large white gnawer grumbled, inching a little further into the lamp's radius. "He makes fun of my name. Calls me Pearlpet or Pearliegirlie."

I frowned at the rat. I knew he was hard to get along with through personal experience, and that he plays the bad guy in order to teach a lesson, also from personal experience. Despite all of his faults, I had confidence Ripred could raise the potentially threatening pup to not be forced into the horrible fate he was born with. Now I was questioning that decision. Maybe, despite having a small soft spot for pups (or children), he was too brash and mean to do the job I needed him to do.

Ripred shrugged the accusation off. "It's a hard name to say! Practically a tongue twister. Go on, try to say it three times fast. Pearlpelt, Pullpet, Purput. See? It's hard."

"Pearlpelt, Pearlpelt, Pearlpelt." The Bane rattled off without hesitation, holding his adoptive father's eyes. "He can say it, just chooses not to, to humiliate me."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. This was the opposite of what I needed Ripred to do. I needed him to teach the Bane compassion maybe even trust and faith, absolutely not to fester hatred. Even just tough love to the point of creating hatred for the Bane towards himself opens a floodgate for the Bane to hate anyone with Ripred's ideas, including other gnawers that don't necessarily want war. Which could just as easily migrate to humans.

It was a slippery slope, to say the least.

"Try to ignore him." I attempted to give him advice and ease the tension between the two larger than life rats. "It's not a perfect system, but it's what I do."

The Bane shook his head. "It's different for you, you're a rager. I wish I was a rage, or at least full grown. Everything would be different then."

Ripred yawned at the idle threat. "And please, tell us what would change when you're full grown."

"Well first off, I'd be king." The Bane shot back. Immediately my stomach clenched with unease at the conviction and malice in his voice as he spoke to Ripred. One wrong act could shift that from just Ripred to humans and then we'd be in trouble. The whole argument to kill the Bane was to prevent him from rising to power. Sandwich's prophecy warned specifically about his potential to be evil and bring about a war that we may not win.

Ripred, however, seemed highly unaffected by the Bane's plans. "Who's been telling you that? Twirltongue?" He droned.

The Bane hesitated, almost like an Omega would to an Alpha, glancing at the ground and shifting his feet. "Maybe."

"She's very persuasive, isn't she? I wouldn't put too much stock in what Twirltongue says." Ripred rolled his eyes. "She once convinced me I was well liked."

His second comment interested me for a moment because it reminded me of something from after the Prophecy of Grey. Ripred thought by coming on the quest, by helping defeat King Gorger, by asserting his ideas in the crazy gnawer's place, he could gain a following large enough to become King. Maybe the first reason he considered joining the quest came from Twirltongue planting ideas in his head the same way she was now with the Bane. Someone like that who could insert their thoughts into an influencer's mind and make them not only act on it but truly believe in it was more dangerous than the raging, full-grown Bane of prophecy.

"My other friends, too." The Bane continued to argue.

"Your friends." Ripred griped with distaste. "Anyone can be your friend if they bring you a few fish. Then they put ideas in your head. How you're so strong and brave, that you'll be king one day. You gulp down those lies just like the fish. You're no king, you're a big white fool. You have no idea who your real allies or enemies are."

"You're my enemy!" The Bane snapped, rearing his large teeth. "You are every gnawer's enemy when you make deals with pathetic humans, fliers, and nibblers instead of thinking of ways to kill them off! Twirltongue says you turned on Gorger because you thought you could lead us, as if any decent gnawer would ever follow you! You're nothing but a joke to the rest of us. I should-"

"You should what?" Ripred finally put some effort into his response, his voice low and challenging the Bane to do anything. "Kill me? You're always welcome to try, Pearliegirlie."

Amazingly, that's exactly what the Bane decided to do. He growled before letting out a roar, attacking Ripred. I was impressed while also discouraged by the Bane's willingness to go toe to toe with the old gnawer. I've seen him in action and even after years and years of training of all kinds, I would never attempt the same. He was just too deadly, too knowledgeable, too experienced.

The Bane swiped vigorously at Ripred and I jumped to be close to the stairs in case I had to retreat into the palace. I didn't have a sword, and even with just my hand to hand skills, I wasn't eight feet tall or be able to hold my ground against either of them without a weapon.

Despite his anger fueled attack, the Bane couldn't touch Ripred. The elder gnawer simply knocked him down with additionally frustrating ease of effort that only further spurred the Bane on. He had to be either incredibly brave or stupid to take on the rager. Or worse, deluded about his own power, and that was the most frightening option.

"All right, this has been fun. Time to settle down." Ripred crossed his arms as the Bane took a little longer to get back to his feet except the Bane didn't back down, yelling out once more before lunging at him again. Ripred easily deflected the attack, throwing the Bane into the solid stone wall with a thud that even made my head hurt. It was enough to stun him for more than a few seconds this time. "You can never stop until you hurt yourself, can you?"

I cringed for him as he rubbed the spot that had made contact with the wall. It hurt enough for the Bane to finally give up, hunching over and running his paws over his eyes. I was a little surprised to see him start to cry outright. Not sniffle, not just water, but full on body shaking sobs. "Great, here comes the flood." Ripred rolled his eyes again, collapsing back into his previous spot.

My anger finally bubbled to the surface and I stood with clenched fists. "Ripred! This isn't necessary. Why can't you be supportive, or at least lay off a little!"

"Because he hates me!" The Bane howled between his blubbering. "He's always hated me! He makes me come with him, leave my friends! He's treated me as his prisoner my whole life."

I frowned because some of those times he was forced to tag along were times Ripred brought him to my echolocation sessions. Did he really not remember the chocolate? The small action that I thought was building a bridge between him and me; a connection he could use to influence him when he struggled to understand the relationship between gnawers and humans.

I guess not, and it kind of broke my heart.

"Were you fed? Did you get the plague? No. After I agreed to spare your life and raise you from a pup?" Ripred returned, his voice neutral for the most place except the small raise of volume as he increasingly becoming angrier. "Yet here you are complaining I made your life hell."

"You didn't raise me." The Bane sniffled. "Razor did. He's the one that cared for me."

"Yes, he cared for you, and how did you repay him? Tell the Warrior here before he starts to feel too sorry for you. Go on, tell him!" Ripred's shouting only caused the Bane to retreat further, pulling his tail between his legs like a scared dog. He cuddled it between his paws and suckled on it, not unlike a child would to their thumb.

Ripred, now all riled up, continued. "Razor treated him like his own pup. Went hungry so the Bane could eat. Protected him, tried to teach him to survive, but where is Razor now you ask? Dead. Why? I'm glad you asked, Warrior." I narrowed my eyes at the old gnawer as he flicked his paws around in dramatic fashion to go along with his rant. "Pearlpelt here killed him. Over a crawler carcass."

"I didn't mean to." The Bane whimpered around his tail, avoiding any eye contact with either of us. "I didn't think it would kill him…"

Ripred gave a short laugh. "For you to knock him off a cliff? Tell me if I'm wrong, Warrior, but that tends to be the usual result."

"I didn't think he'd go over the cliff." The Bane repeated, retreating further into himself as he mumbled around his tail, almost refusing to remove it in order to explain. "I didn't hit him that hard…"

"Oh, there's more. Then he tried to eat his body to conceal the evidence." Ripred crossed his arms and leaned against the wall again, casting an 'I told you so' look in my direction as if he had just finished making his point to an invisible jury. "Soaked in Razor's blood, chewing on his liver. That's how we found him."

"No, no, no, no," Bane muttered on repeat. He appeared to begin to gnaw on his tail as the stress of the memory resurfaced, drawing blood.

Although gruesome, I felt my chest compress for the Bane. He did sound sorry, and it did seem that he liked Razor. A food famine the likes the gnawers faced in lue of Solovet's aggressive demand of land after the Prophecy of Grey War couldn't have been easy to live through, especially for a gnawer with the growing needs of the Bane. Still...to kill someone he perceivably cared for over a nearly inedible bug…

"Yes, yes, yes, yes. Just last week you blinded Clawsin in one eye and ripped off Ratriff's foreleg. Why? You can't even tell me why, so now I have to drag you with me because no one else can bear to put up with you! Stop sucking on your tail!" Ripred suddenly burst out in frustration during his rant. "Some King indeed! Do you really think anyone will take orders from someone who sucks on his tail?"

Bane straightened slightly at the accusation. "Maybe they already do." He hissed back. "You don't know anything. They do!" In a mad state, riled up by Ripred's teasing and attacks, the Bane bolted out of the cave. He disappeared quickly despite his fur's dramatic contrast to the dark walls surrounding him.

"Wait where I told you to wait!" Ripred shouted at his retreating form. There was no reply aside from the growingly faint scraping of the Bane's claws. "If he can find it that is. He'll get lost if he blinks." He sighed, his demeanor immediately shifting as the younger gnawer got further away.

There was silence between us for a long stretch as I tried to absorb the encounter. I sat on the small ledge in front of the door, running my hands through my untrimmed hair and over my face. Ripred collapsed near me, just under the lamp. "Well, he's out of earshot now. What do you think?"

I gave a long sigh. "He's a mess, Ripred." My shoulders fell with the weight of the situation. We failed. War was coming and there was nothing we could do to stop it. The one chance we had just ran down the tunnel. "How did you let it get that bad?"

The rat recalled. "How did I let him get like that? That big ball of crazy is not my fault!"

"Ripred, I put him in your care to avoid exactly what I just saw. He hates humans, he hates you, and he wants to kill all of us. How do you explain that? You were responsible for him!" I stood and started pacing. "I put everything on the line to save him, risked my reputation with the Regalians to allow him to live on under your care. All to avoid war, but now that's all he wants. Something went wrong somewhere, Ripred."

"I thought I could!" The rat shot back. "I thought I could teach him to be something other than the war-driven beast he was fated to be, but I got to him too late."

"Too late? He was hardly two months old when we found him, Ripred. How much more time do you need?"

He immediately shook his head. "His father had already left his mark. Snare, you remember. You watched him and the Bane's mother fight to the death." I blinked, remembering Goldshard fighting a gray rat in the labyrinth who she called Snare. It never occurred to me that it was the Bane's father and their disagreement was fueled by their pup. There was definitely nothing paternal about that one. "He was a vile creature by anyone's account. Why Goldshard ever agreed to be his mate is a mystery to me. I warned her against it, but no, she didn't listen. Didn't you wonder where the rest of the Bane's litter was?"

I stopped. "No, actually." Now that I gave it a second, most animals other than humans gave birth to multiples in their litters on most occasions. It did seem a little odd that he was the only one there, even gnawers didn't kick their pups out of the nest at that age.

"Snare killed them right in front of Goldshard and the Bane. He didn't want them competing for the Bane's milk." Ripred leaned further into the wall, clearly as troubled by the image as I was. "Totally unnecessary. Any number of families would have taken those pups."

I found the parallel to adoption in the human culture strange. Gnawers, rats, were still animals, and the conscious thought to take on another's children was hard for me to associate with them. "That's awful."

"He remembers it, too. All of it. That Snare beat him, that his parents killed each other. You would have thought he was too young but you merely need to mention Snare's name and watch him tremble."

"Do you think he'll manage to be King? Like that?" I asked honestly.

"He will find followers because he's the Bane. No arguing that. He's got the white coat, the size, and enough hatred brewing inside him to wipe out the Underland as we know it. Most rats will overlook the fact that he's unbalanced and he'll tell them exactly what they want to hear." Ripred shook his head, He looks almost disappointed like he actually cared. "They've been starved for too long. So many have died from the plague, especially pups. If it'll get them revenge, the gnawers won't care what state he's in."

A chill ran up my spine. He wasn't the baby I spared anymore. He was a gloomy, hostile, spiteful, pathetic war machine on the verge of breaking. "Maybe if Goldshard had lived, maybe he would have been alright." The tragic image of the small pup nuzzling his dead mother, desperate for her to respond, flashed through my mind.

"We'll never know. He's a dangerous mess, and we let him live." The gnawer hunched forward. "You couldn't kill a pup and I knew killing him would forever shut the door on peace. You were right; no one would follow me if I had killed him, but I think they needed to see the far extreme." He paused to look down the tunnel where the Bane had disappeared down. "Like a crazy gnawer of prophecy in order to realize my ideas for peace aren't as ridiculous as they thought."

I ran my hand over my face. "You're trying to tell me that letting the Bane start a war is the best option?"

"Nothing else to be done, now is there? Unless we don't wait and get it over with." Ripred stood, brushing himself off.

"What? Not wait for what?" The gnawer lazily pruned his fur like he was purposefully ignoring me. "Ripred, what are you thinking?"

"Haven't you been listening? We have to kill him, Warrior."

I totally thought I posted on Tuesday not Monday but as promised, another update! Yay! I also have made a lot of process with more chapters, I'm getting back into the grove of this story so I'm excited for everyone to read it :) Leave a review and let me know if you like it so far, thank you so much 3

Yours,

Artemis.