Hours passed until suddenly, there was a disturbance in the rubble, it was Luxa. Luxa felt like a weak and dying child, there were cuts on her face, arm and legs, she slowly pushed small rocks around her away and surfaced. She stood up slowly and saw parts of the tunnel collapse. She saw smoke and fire coming from the tunnel entrance and decided to get closer, she stumbled over rocks and pebbles and saw crawlers, spinners, cutters, and gnawers running towards the tunnels nearby, a few of them came her way and she asked a spinner what happened, the spinner relied "Regalia is gone." She clasped her hand over her mouth as she saw through the smoke a city in ruins. She fell down to her knees but suddenly something clicked in her head and she screamed "BOOTS, LIZZIE, MARETH, AURORA
Then suddenly something clicked in her head causing her to scream inside her head, 'BOOTS, LIZZIE, MARETH AND THE REST WHERE ARE THEY?"
She frantically searched around the rubble, moving bits and pieces around trying to find a body part and hoping they were alive, "Lizzie? Boots? Mareth? are you guys alive?" She then saw a rat riding on a bat, it was Ripred and Aurora. "Luxa are you ok?" Aurora asked, she replied "I'm fine but we need to find the others fast." "The palace is still in place, as well as our hospital but our investigators and scientists are working to find out what caused this." Aurora added quickly.
Ripped snorted "Of course she's not fine, she's just saying to look like a hero but the hospital is almost full."
Luxa was about to argue back when she realized an arm poking out of the rubbles, she quickly said to the others "quickly guys, help me."
Aurora and Ripred got work as they moved boulders and small bits and pieces of rocks away and gasped. It was boots, her entire body was covered in series of cuts, bruises and sharp small rocks stuck into her leg.
Luxa sent Boots back to the hospital with Aurora and told her to come back for them. She then searched for the rest, she soon found Mareth and a very weak Lizzie, the rest of the guards were weak and at least 2 were dead, as well as their bats. She decided to wait and in about 5 minutes she managed to get everyone on the bat. As she made their way back she looked down and saw fire, dead bodies and many other severely injured creatures. As they neared the city's gates and walls she saw that Regalia isn't completely destroyed, it's just that it seemed like the fire exploded and the entire platform holding up the city collapsed bringing the city down. She saw that buildings were damaged but still standing up as well as the walls but because of this collapse it allowed creatures to enter the city. She watched creatures take refuge and break into the houses but soon she neared the palace. The palace looked higher than usual, and then it got to her, the palace is on a stone platform, that's why her ancestors chose to build the palace on it, it wasn't on weak ground. It could be seen that the paths leading to the palace's entrance from the city was brought down at least 4 stories.
Aurora soared up as they closed in on the High Hall, she saw that even though the palace was on a stone platform, parts of it crumbled and probably from the vibrations of the explosion. They landed and were greeted by maids as they rushed to help the weak, they seemed to know the routine already.
Luxa started shouting "Bring them to the emergency section and if there's no room bring them to the science laboratory, there's bound to be medication there."
The maids nodded as they carried Lizzie, Boots and Mareth and loaded them onto a stretcher. Luxa was being escorted to the laboratory by the royal guards and once she got there she saw Vikus being treated to a couple of wounds. When Vikus saw Luxa he got up and walked over to her as she sat down, he sat down next to her and said "Are you okay?" Luxa was getting pretty annoyed at everyone was saying "Are you okay" even though they clearly can see she just got buried in rubbles. She managed to keep her cool and asked Vikus, "What happened to you? How did you get those wounds" she pointed to the ones with bandages around them.
He explained "You see, I was on the High Hall's balcony watching the city when I saw a giant flame burst outside the city walls, then I saw the whole city collapse like a domino, the nearest to the outside walls collapsed first and then it came to the palace, as it came to the palace it started rumbling and then the whole place shook, that's when the pillars around the balcony started shaking and a part of it broke off and hit me in the wound. It was nothing like I saw before though, remember when Gregor's dad came? You were pretty young back then but he introduced and showed us to a new source of energy."
Once he finished explaining Luxa was ready to go just before receiving some medicine, she went over to Boots and talked to her "Hey Boots, feeling better?" "Yup couldn't be better."
Just when Luxa was about to ask Boots another question the scientist doctor asked Luxa to come with her, Luxa followed the doctor to a room where they kept Lizzie.
The doctor started explaining to Luxa, "Queen Luxa, when we brought her down, she started coughing blood and so we decided to do a check on vital organs because strangely she had no cuts and bruises, we found out that her internal organs have been damaged by a crushing force for a few seconds and caused internal bleeding."
Luxa replied "Isn't there anything you can do?"
"Of course there is, we'll need to carefully open her up and stitch up her vital organs or better yet replace them with the donor organs we got from previous wars just incase a soldier needed one replace, we will need permission from you though."
"Permission granted," and with that she left the room and headed to her bedroom to find maids cleaning up the mess the quake made in her bedroom. When the maids saw her they quickly bowed before being sent away but Luxa kept one maid with her.
"Whats your name?" She asked.
"It's Aires"
"Wow that name is similar to the bat Ares Gregor had." "Gregor….."
"Your highness?" Aires started asking seeing that her queen had started sobbing, "are you ok?"
With that Luxa burst into tears and hugged Aires so tightly , but Aires didn't mind because she usually tended the Queen's bedroom and usually heard conversations between her and Gregor.
"There there your highness, all you need to focus on is finding the heart of the underland."
"What if I don't? What if I never find it and Gregor never comes alive again?"
"Don't say what if, you should at least try first, for now your highness I must go and tend to the other rooms."
"Of course you do, but please help me find this box first," Luxa replied, Aires however knew what box she was talking about and said "oh your highness I kept it in a safe place in this room, I'll go retrieve it," and with that Aires went, found and gave the box to Luxa and left, she closed the door behind and said "your highness you have no idea how much trouble we are in if you don't find the heart of the underland, time to report back to the general."
Inside the room, Luxa sat on her bed carefully opening the box and placing the lid down next to it, she carefully took the photos out and looked at them. The first one was with Gregor where they were dancing together, happily, and alive. She couldn't keep her tears in anymore and cried and cried and cried. "What's going to happen now, " she cried saying. She kept on crying and crying when suddenly she heard a voice, it was henry. "Hi Luxa," "HENRY GET OUT," "No Luxa, right now you have a quest to go on, even though I betrayed you, you still have to save the Underland."
"BUT I CAN'T" she screamed.
"Would Gregor be proud to hear those words come from your mouth? No I don't think so, bye sis."
He left her, deep in her thoughts as she kept replaying the words "Would Gregor be proud,"
She knew he wouldn't be proud and decided that she would depart in 2 days after resting and preparing, she slumped and laid down on her bed and drifted off to sleep.
Meanwhile, Boots and Lizzie were greeted by their parents who also were found wounded by maids attending the room, Gregor's dad was injured by a rock falling on his toe almost smashing it while Grace had a broken arm. Howard did not attend to them because seeing that their injuries are minor he decided to let the doctors handle them. Once Gregor's dad and mom got treated they immediately went to see Boots and Lizzie. Grace gasped when she Boots but wondered what happened to Lizzie and why doesn't she have any scratches but soon she found out about the internal bleeding.
Gregor's dad decided to start up a conversation and said "So Boots, are you still sure you can still find the Heart of the Underland?"
"Well dad, I must, the princess in the prophecy is me and I intend to save Gregor."
"Lizzie why are you going anyways?"
"Well, well, I'm great at puzzles and maybe we need to crack the code and such."
"She's also the reason I'm going."
Everyone looked at where the voice originated and saw Ripred standing there. Ripred quickly added, "after today's events the council decided we must bring some extra people along just in case you need help, a doctor will be going with you as well as a maid to help you with your business."
"Anyways," Ripred continued, "I heard Lizzie has some operation she has to do," "Yes she does," Howard replied, "I will have to bring her to the operation room now to stitch up and replace her organs depending on how damaged they are and if we have any donors."
Gregor's mom said "It's ok Lizzie, everything will be ok, I will be with you always."
Lizzie nodded and said "I know mom, I'll be fine too."
Lizzie's operation went well and everything was in place, everything went well, until in a secure guarded room Gregor's body started to move and float, the guards there cried in panic as gregor moved through the door and into the hallways, up into the high halls and shouted out "DEATH IS UPON US, LET THE WAVES BEGIN."
