Gregor and Nibbler's Plight

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If you see,

o0o

In this story, it doesn't represent a time break, merely a moment of contemplation.

Hi! Ciao! Bonjour! Welcome back to another installment into the Nibbler's Plight. First of all, YES i changed how fast the Bane grew. I know it might seem odd for some things to change and others not to, but i felt it was appropriate. Because i usually listen to music while writing, I figured it'd be cool to tell you what song I'm listening to at the time of writing this. At this second I'm listening to, Peer Pressure by James Bay, featuring Julia Michaels. Otherwise, I would like to give a special thanks to Bryson King, for the help he's been so far, giving me ideas and letting me run them by him and such. Also, don't forget to check out the quote at the end! And thank you all! For anything, and everything you do for this story. Whether it's just reading it, Favoriting, Following or Reviewing on it. Thank you and,

God Bless.

Without Further Delay, I Present To You,

Gregor and the Nibbler's Plight Customized,


Part 2


Reunions Can Be... Catastrophic.


"And we're expecting another two or four feet by Christmas." said Ripred, while Gregor stared wide-eyed at the giant white fur-ball in front of him.

"Like snow," Gregor mumbled. "In the overland, we're expecting another few feet on a big mountain."

Ripred cleared his throat. "You've met, let me reintroduce you." Ripred pointed to Gregor with his tail. "This is Gregor, the King of Regalia, the warrior who refused to kill you when he had a chance." Then Ripred gestured to the Bane. "And this is the rat we call the Bane, although his mother gave him a much sweeter name— Pearlpelt." Because his pelt, his coat, was white as a pearl. It did have a strange iridescent quality, like a pearl, too. When patches of it caught the light, Gregor saw glimpses of color, pink and blue and green.

"Hello, Pearlpelt," said Gregor, lowering his sword. It wouldn't help to be holding the rat at sword-point. Said rat shifted uneasily but didn't answer. "What is it, that you like to be called. The Bane, Pearlpelt?"

"It doesn't matter what I like to be called. Everyone just calls me Bane or the Bane except Ripred. He makes fun of my name," said the Bane. "Calls me Pearlpet or Pearliegirlie." Ripred just shrugged.

"It's a hard name to say, Pearlpelt. Practically a tongue twister. Try to say it three times fast. Go on. Pearlpelt, Pullpet, Purput. See? It's impossible."

"Pearlpelt, Pearlpelt, Pearlpelt." said Gregor idly. "He used to call me Whiny Warrior when i was younger. Granted, I was pretty whining, for a time, but still." Gregor shook his head. "It's like a special skill of his. Ignore him, that's what I do."

"It's different for you. You're a rager," said the Bane. "I wish I was a rager. Or at least full-grown. Things would be different then."

"And tell us, please, how things will change when you're full-grown," yawned Ripred.

"I'll be king, for one thing," shot back the Bane. Gregor felt a stab of uneasiness at the words.

"You should not anticipate becoming King," said Gregor. "It has more cons than pros in some aspects."

"Who is it that told you that, anyways?" said Ripred, "Twirltongue?"

The Bane shifted again. "Perhaps."

"I cannot speak for your choices," said Gregor, "But I would not put much stalk into what the Gnawer Twirltongue says. From what I've heard, she once convinced Ripred he was well liked. She is notoriously very persuasive, no?"

"And my other friends." the Bane insisted.

"Your friends," said Ripred with loathing. "Anyone can be your friend if they give you a few fish. And they whisper their little words in your ears— how you're so strong and so brave— how one day you'll be king— and you greedily gulp down the fish and the lies... you big white fool. You have no idea who your real enemies are."

"You're my enemy, I know that!" spat out the Bane. "You're every Gnawer's enemy. Making deals with wretched humans and fliers and nibblers, when you should be thinking of ways to kill them off! Twirltongue told me how you turned on Gorger because you thought you could lead us. As if any decent Gnawer would ever follow you. To the rest of us, you're nothing but a joke! I should, I should —"

"Calm down," said Gregor firmly. He leaned against the wall, withe his sword blade resting on the stone floor of the cave. Gregor had his hand folding across the skyward facing hilt. "You should not wish for Ripred as your enemy. I learned that young. You may know who your friends and enemies are, but you may not know who they should be. A good 'King' should know where to pick his battles."

Of course, Ripred had to goad the rat on. 'Can't have the rat being civil, OH-NO.' thought Gregor.

"You should what? Kill me? You know you're always welcome to try, Pearliegirlie," said Ripred.

And then, to Gregor's amazement, the Bane let out a roar and attacked Ripred. There were very few rats with the guts to do this. Ripred was just too deadly. The Bane might be a few feet taller and a few pounds heavier than Ripred, but how could he possibly think he could take the older rat on? Gregor took a few judicious steps back toward the stairs to avoid the teeth and claws. The Bane was fighting furiously, but he couldn't even touch Ripred, who was knocking him around the cave without any apparent effort. Still, watching them go at it, Gregor felt his first flicker of fear of the Bane. It wasn't his size or what any prophecy had said about him; it was his willingness to battle Ripred. He was either very brave or very stupid or just very deluded about his own power. Any one of those qualities was frightening in an animal that people thought might one day be responsible for destroying the Underland.

"All right, all right, settle down," said Ripred. "I'm getting bored, and when I'm bored, I'm dangerous."

Ignorantly, the Bane lunged for him again.

"I wouldn't do that—" Gregor paused when Ripred deflected the Bane into a wall, bashing his head into the gray rock.

"You can't ever stop until you hurt yourself." said Ripred.

Apparently crashing his head into a stone wall had hurt, because the Bane gave up. He sat hunched over, running his paws over his eyes. Then to Gregor's surprise, he began to cry. Not just sniffles, but deep, body-shaking sobs.

"Oh, wonderful. Here comes the flood," said Ripred.

Seeing the Bane cry was somehow awful. All traces of the giant attack rat were gone. He seemed like an over-sized, bullied child.

"Why do you provoke him Ripred?" Gregor queried.

"Because he hates me!" wept the Bane. "He's always hated me. He made me come with him. He made me leave my friends. I've spent my whole life as his prisoner."

"Is that what they tell you? Those wonderful friends of yours?" said Ripred. "And did they also tell you I spared your life and raised you from a pup? Were you fed? Did you get the plague? Are you here now to complain about me?"

"You didn't raise me," said the Bane. "Razor did. He's the one who cared for me."

"Yes, he's the one who cared for you, and how did you repay him? Tell the king here, before he starts feeling too sorry for you. Go on; tell him!" shouted Ripred. But Pearlpelt didn't continue. Instead, he captured his long pink tail and began to suck on it.

"Oh, boo hoo hoo, the poor little abused Bane. But Razor treated him as his own pup. Went hungry so he could eat, protected him, tried to teach him to survive. And where is Razor now? Dead. And why? Because Pearlpelt here killed him over a crawler carcass," said Ripred.

"I didn't mean to," whimpered the Bane. "I was hungry. I didn't think it would kill Razor."

"For you to knock him off a cliff? Well, that is the usual result," said Ripred.

"I didn't think he'd go over the cliff. I didn't hit him that hard," said Bane, his words garbled by his tail.

"And then you tried to eat his body to conceal the evidence." Ripred turned to Gregor in disgust. "That's how we found him. Soaked in Razor's blood, chewing on his liver." Gregor felt his stomach acids swirl in revulsion. He looked at the Bane in calculated alarm.

"No, no, no, no," said the Bane. Along with sucking, he began to gnaw on his tail, drawing blood.

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

"Maybe they already do," the Bane hissed back at him. "You don't know anything! Maybe they do!" And with that, the white rat bolted out of the cave and disappeared.

"You wait where I told you to wait!" Ripred hollered after him. But there was no reply but the faint scraping of the Bane's claws as he ran away. "If he can find it," the rat sighed. "He gets lost if he blinks." Ripred sunk into the wall a few feet from Gregor and gave him a few minutes before he spoke. "Well, you've seen him. What do you think?"

It took Gregor a while to answer. In a few minutes he had experienced shock at seeing the Bane, discomfort at his kingly ambitions, fear at his boldness, pity at his obvious emotional instability, and revulsion at his murder of his caretaker. "He's a mess," said Gregor finally "A dangerous mess."

"Yes, and we let him live," said Ripred. "You because you couldn't kill a pup. Me because I thought killing him would forever shut the door on any hope of peace. When you said no one would follow me if I killed him, you were right."

Suddenly, Gregor realized he didn't know Ripred's plan. He knew so many things about the rat others did not, but not this. Last he knew, Ripred wanted to overthrow King Gorgor. That was done and done. What now?

"Do you want to be king yourself, Ripred?" Gregor asked.

"Not really," the rat almost sighed. "But I want the warring to end for good. And do you think the Bane is the one to put a stop to it?"

"No," said Gregor.

"Well, he wants that crown and there's no reason to think he won't get it. So what do you think we should do?" asked Ripred. Gregor sighed and lent against the wall again.

"I do not know." he said.

The rat's voice was filled with urgency as he leaned in toward Gregor. "I thought maybe you were right. That I could teach him to be something other than what he was fated to be. But I got him too late. His father had already left his mark." Gregor's eyebrows knit together. The Banes father? He scoured his memories to his best ability.

"Snare, you mean? Was he his father?" said Gregor.

"Snare." Ripred confirmed with a nod. "You met him, did you not? You witnessed him and the Bane's mother fight to the death," said Ripred.

"Yes—" said Gregor. He recollected seeing the two rats fight to the death in the labyrinth. It had been horribly gruesome.

"Snare was a vile creature by anyone's account. Why Goldshard ever agreed to be his mate is a mystery. I warned her against it. She didn't listen. But she regretted it. Didn't you wonder where the rest of the Bane's litter was?" asked Ripred.

"No," said Gregor. But now that he thought about it, it was strange that the Bane had been the only pup.

"Snare killed them. Right in front of Goldshard and the Bane. He didn't want them competing for the Bane's milk," said Ripred. "It was totally unnecessary. Any number of families would have taken those pups."

Gregor sighed in exasperation. "I try to be fair towards the Gnawers, I really do, but sometimes—"

"Yes, I understand. Some just don't deserve it." Well, Gregor didn't know if he agreed with that, but he wasn't going to comment. "The Bane remembers it, too. And that Snare beat him. And that his parents killed each other," said Ripred. "You would have thought he'd been too little, but you need only mention Snare's name if you want to watch him tremble."

"If he becomes king. What do you think?" said Gregor.

"He will find followers because he's the Bane. He's got the white coat, and 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, because he'll be telling them exactly what they want to hear. They've been starved too long, and then so many died from the plague; especially the pups. No, the Gnawers won't care who he is or what he does if he brings them revenge," said Ripred.

A chill had been rising up Gregor's spine as Ripred spoke. Gregor tried to connect the giant white rat — sullen, vicious, violent, pathetic — with the baby he had spared. Remembered the Bane nuzzling his dead mother, trying to get her to respond. "Maybe if Goldshard had lived," said Gregor, "maybe he would have been okay. I wish we would have thought to just dye him black and stunt his growth."

Ripred snorted. "Yes, but sadly she did not, and we did not." He shook his head and sunk back against the cave wall. "Razor took good care of him, though. And whatever conclusions you may draw from today's little drama, I was not unkind to him as a pup." Ripred's eyes burned into the darkness. His claws agitatedly groomed the fur on his chest, smoothing it down around the edges of the big scar he'd received on the journey to save Gregor's father. Ripred's shoulders hunched as if some heavy burden rested upon them. He looked miserable.

Gregor thought about what Mrs. Cormaci said about everyone needing some joy in their life. He held out the bag of macaroni salad. "Here."

Ripred took the bag and stuck his snout into it. After a few bites, he balled up the paper sack and ate that, too. The food seemed to shift his mood. His muscles relaxed, and he made a sound of resignation. "Hrm. Well, I guess there's nothing else to be done. Waiting won't make it easier. We may as well get it over with."

Gregor had a feeling he knew what the rat meant. "And, what is that?" he asked hesitantly.

Ripred rolled his eyes. "You know what. We must kill him. The sooner the better."

Gregor was curious about what the large rat was thinking. "I already had the chance to do that, remember?" he said conversationally. "I didn't."

"Things were different then," said Ripred.

Gregor's brain could not process what Ripred was saying this quickly. He tried to stall. "If you want him dead so bad, why don't you just kill him yourself?"

"Because of the prophecy," said Ripred.

Prophecy? As far as Gregor knew, there was no prophecy. In fact, one of the few things that had made his life easier of late was that there had been no prophecy hanging over his head. No warning from Bartholomew of Sandwich, the founder of Regalia, who had carved a roomful of dire prophecies in the palace hundreds of years ago. Although, Gregor hadn't thought about there being more mentioning him. Luxa would have told him, right?

"I haven't heard of any prophecy," said Gregor. Maybe this was just another of Ripred's half-truths.

"Well, have you visited the prophecy room anytime recently? No? Trust me it's there." said Ripred. "It's called 'the Prophecy of Time'."

Gregor sat rather abruptly on the ground. He put his head in his hands and heaved a large sigh. "Luxa promised that she would have told me. When we had just fulfilled the Prophecy of Gray." he whispered. "She promised me that there were no other than the two following, that mentioned me."

Ripred looked intensely uncomfortable. "Well, it's my interpretation, that it says you kill the Bane."


Hello again! I hope you enjoyed this read. Also, let me know if you like the faster update times, but smaller chapters, or longer update times but bigger chapters. It's all up to you guys. The quote today is from me so... it's probably not as good as all the others. Have a good day!


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Progression for the sake of progression is pointless. Progression for the sake of progression that sprouts something better than progression isn't. You just need to figure out which form of progression is worth your time.

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