Sh*t hits the fan the fan in a certain way, doesn't it? This would have been posted yesterday, if not for a massive influx of homework, and relationship issues. I believe readers in similar situations know which one is more difficult. Anyways, I'm not terribly proud of the battle scene. I saw it inside my head too… god I hate this sometimes. It is BEYOND frustrating when I can't describe something I see in my head! That's when I go to school, and just run until I collapse. This happens to be the day my school track is closed! *flips table and curses like a sailor* Sorry, this isn't what you are here for, so I will stop and go beat the crap out of a punching bag, a chair, or the unsuspecting cute bunny outside my window. Enjoy!
Gregor followed the gray rat down the tunnel, the methodical sound of steps the only noise. After about five minutes of walking, Gregor's anxiety couldn't take it anymore. "Hey, um, Ripred,…" Gregor began.
"We're almost there, if that's what you were going to ask." Ripred said, interrupting. Gregor nodded in understanding. "Oh, okay."
The steps took their place again.
Finally, after two minutes that felt like an hour, they reached the end of the tunnel. It opened up to a rather large cavern. Unlike the uneven, rocky ground that Gregor and Ripred just walked on, the ground here was smoothed out, with a thin layer of dirt covering the stone. This place reminded Gregor of the arena in Regalia, though it was not nearly big enough to compare.
"This place is perfect!" Gregor said. "How did you know where this was?" Ripred looked at the ceiling, the eye Gregor could see in contempt at a memory.
"I'll tell you if you win." Gregor smiled deviously. He couldn't remember the last time he fought Ripred as hard as he could. There was no doubt it would be hard, but the adrenaline rush that would accompany it would be worthwhile.
"If you say so." Gregor said simply, getting in his stance. Ripred looked over, almost lazily, out of the corner of his eye.
"You should have taken that opportunity to attack me, boy." Ripred said, unmoving.
"We'll see who will need to be sly to win, Ripred."
Thus the battle of Titans began.
They met in the middle, sword to claw. Gregor found himself regretting not bringing a dagger along. With it, he could block the oncoming claw of Ripred, who saw an opening. Gregor spun out of view, turning himself so he could see Ripred's back. It was not a smart idea to turn your back to Ripred.
Ripred, instead of spinning to face Gregor, flung his tail at the human's face, causing Gregor to move slightly out of reach. After the wind stopped moving by Gregor's ear, he stabbed a direct strike at Ripred's face. The rat merely brushed aside the blade with a claw, and thrust an uppercut with the other one. It was such close range that Gregor couldn't dodge it completely, and he got a small scratch on his chest. Grunting he jumped backwards.
"You really meant all out?" Gregor asked, touching the blood with his fingers. He remembered something from this old movie he saw with his dad, where a fighter got cut with a claw by a one handed man, and licked his own blood off his fingers. Gregor moved the iron tasting substance to his lips. Keeping himself from gagging, Gregor kept his eyes level with Ripred's.
"I'm only at fifty percent." The last syllable came out of his mouth when he sprinted towards Ripred, low to the point where his back was horizontal. Gregor let the Rager sensation fill him with adrenaline to the brim, where he could maintain control. Slashing upward to the left, Gregor distracted Ripred enough to land a full powered kick to the ribs. Ripred huffed, losing some air, but gnashed his teeth, and roared. Slashes from Ripred's claws came down at angles, pushing Gregor back at their pace. Just when Gregor was about to counterattack, Ripred whipped his tail around to Gregor's left side. Gregor moved to block, but Ripred immediately spun the other way, and kicked Gregor's feet out from under him, and dove for the win. Gregor rolled without damage due to the help of his sword, and regained his footing.
"If you're at one hundred and ten percent, you couldn't beat me." Ripred said. Gregor smiled. "We'll see about that."
The flurry of swords and claws continued. Ripred punctured Gregor's arm. Gregor's sword grazed one of Ripred's paws. They were fighting well beyond their limits, both gasping for air.
"This is going to last forever, isn't it?" Gregor asked. Ripred smirked in agreement.
"Unless you want to surrender." Gregor spit on the ground next to him, summing up all of his remaining energy.
"Never."
As if agreed before hand, the two strongest ran towards each other, putting everything they had in to one last blow. The final moment seemed to happen to both parties; time moving as if drowning in amber, the feeling of the blood moving throughout their entire bodies, the electricity from their brains, and the pulses from their hearts. Gregor watched in slow motion as his sword came down at the rat's neck, and how Ripred's claw was pointed towards his chin.
"All out, huh?" Gregor thought, snorting. "Of course it would end like this."
But he was wrong.
Gregor knew so when he saw Ripred's claws reaching towards the sword. His other paw was still moving towards Gregor's chin.
"I am not going to lose!" Gregor screamed inside his head. Gritting his teeth, he forced his body to go into overdrive, moving his sword faster, while moving his head to the right, giving him barely enough room to avoid a good blow from Ripred.
It was then the moment came back to real time.
Gregor's sword encountered Ripred's claw, causing a spark to come between the two. Ripred's claw slid by Gregor's chin, causing blood to drip from the open wound.
"My sword didn't make it?" Gregor thought, shocked from his failure. Ripred used this moment of hesitation from his opponent to spin, giving momentum to his tail which rammed into Gregor's chest, throwing him five feet backwards into the ground.
He had lost.
After about a minute of coughing to regain oxygen in his lungs, Gregor sat up on the ground. He saw Ripred still standing in the center of the circular shaped cave, looking at a point on the wall with a lost expression.
Gregor summoned his will to get up, and walked over to Ripred. He had a slight limp from overexertion, but he shrugged it off. The rat didn't even take notice that Gregor was near him, still staring at the spot in the wall.
"Ripred?" Gregor asked. No response. Gregor waved his hand in front of Ripred's face. Ripred curled back his lips. "Yes?"
"I want you to tell me why you know this place." Gregor said.
"And why you keep staring at the wall over there." Ripred looked at the boy, but anger was not present in his eyes; it was pain, sadness, and despair.
"When I was born, things were very different from what they are now. Rats and humans were mortal enemies, spouting hate and accusations of evil at one another. War was always looming over us, waiting for the last straw to be pulled out from under us. Around thirty years ago, when Luxa's parents were just children, and Solovet's brother was King, that final straw was pulled, and my father was killed. The war ended two weeks after his death.
"Of course, this made no difference to me, I was just a young pup at the time, it was very little that I saw my father anyway, as he was a General in our King's army. But my brothers knew well; and they were irreparably damaged by this. They often cursed they humans, and I never quite understood why until a few months later, when my brain was matured enough to understand the full significance of my father's death."
Gregor almost interjected until he remembered that all of the other species in the Underland matured exponentially faster than humans.
"Even though her mate had been murdered by the humans, my mother never spoke a bad word towards the humans. At least, not one when I was around, as far as I know. I really took to my mother, and her serenity. She was always at ease, much unlike my brothers and the rest of my kind. The fact that she did not despise humans like the rest of the rats was very appealing to me, as a pup. Personally, I believe that she became that way after seeing the spite in my brother's at her husband's death, and refused to raise me the same way.
"It may have been because of this, but my brother's hated me, for my easiness towards humans, and my want for peace. I was not secretive about my ideas around my brothers, though at many times they wished I was. They often harassed me for having no father to teach me to hunt, and how to survive in the Underland. That was when the idea of teaching me to fight came around."
Gregor gulped. He had never known anything of Ripred's childhood, and very little of his past. But with what Ripred just said, Gregor had an overwhelming sense of foreboding about what was to happen next.
"No one, not even I, knew about my characteristic as a Rager. So when my brothers mistakenly tried to teach me to fight, I did what comes natural to me: I killed them. All of them. I remember the look of terror that broke through my mother's sullen eyes when she ran into the cavern we were in. The first thing that went was her composure; then her mind. She called me names, like 'abhorred' and 'evil'. I felt myself move towards her when I killed her; the sensation was still going from when I killed my brothers. I have this memory of where I am tearing her apart, and where she fell to the ground, right there." Ripred said, pointing to the wall where he had been staring down since they had gotten to this arena like place.
"After that, I was alone with this ability to kill with amazing ease. I wandered around the Dead Land for years before I decided to come back. Apparently, word of my 'evil' had spread far and wide, throughout the rat land. I never had purpose physical contact with another rat, and it was always silent where I went. It slowly drove me insane.
"After a few months, I left, just for the sake of not being stared down by my peers. I traveled to the area of the Cutters, when I had given up. I was constantly in misery and began to have thoughts about leaving it all behind… giving up my 'abhorred' existence. I threw myself into ten cutters. Twenty ants. Fifty. One hundred. Two hundred. I cut through them with ease and without restraint. I must have killed over fifty thousand before I gave up, over the course of about two years.
"Even then, my control that I had gradually ascertained throughout my battles wasn't truly enough to make me content. So I started fighting other rats as well; in this cave. After another year, I had finally gotten a mediocre hold on my power, which I then used to fight as a vigilante alongside the army. After twenty years, my mother and brothers still grated at me, until I met my wife. You know how that ended."
Gregor could just stare at the rat. The long, tragic history, and his perpetual isolation from those of his own kind reminded Gregor of his feelings, at least on a far more moderate side.
"Ripred, I…" Ripred responded sigh, and a paw to wave it all off. Picking something up from the side of the wall, Ripred held up the wineskin high and drank from it. Drinking about half, Ripred threw the wineskin to Gregor. "Here, you earned it." He said.
Gregor wasn't paying attention, so he fumbled with the wineskin after realizing it had been thrown to him. Slipping out of his hands and towards the ground, Gregor dove for it. He missed, and the water gushed out of the wineskin, forming a small puddle. No, that wasn't right.
The water was draining, because Gregor could hear the water falling about ten feet, due to the splashing sound it made when it hit the stone beneath it. Gregor watched the water as it moved down the stone into a rugged wall, and heard the dropping sounds hit the ground below it.
Suddenly, a crazy idea hit Gregor. "No way…!" He said under his breath. "Ripred!" Gregor called softly. "Ripred! Ripred!" Gregor repeated, much louder this time. The rat turned around, surprised at the boy's jubilance. "What is it?" The rat asked.
Gregor put a broad smile on his face. "I think I found the Lost City!"
Sorry for posting so late, I literally finished just now. Well, I hope you enjoyed the fight scene, and the insight on Ripred's past. Sorry this isn't really a midweek chapter you guys. This was written over the course of two days, and I added the end of the fight and the rest tonight, so you can see the progress, if you will, of the chapter. PLEASE REVIEW! You guys did amazing with the last chapter, and I really appreciate it! I hope this is worth your while!