This is my first fanfiction so please go easy on it. If you like the story I'll keep chapters coming. If not keep it to yourself, please don't hate on it. If you find any errors, whether it be spelling, grammar or anything else please just let me know. I've been reading many of the fanfictions on this site but I just wanted to add my own to them.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Underland Chronicles or any of the characters, save the ones that I will be adding. Both the Underland Chronicles and the characters within belong to Suzanne Collins.

-Ssi


Iris touched down in the middle of the cave system softly. "I believe this is the place you spoke of."

Gregor took a deep breath, "It is."

"Can you see it?" Iris queried, tilting her head.

"yeah," he replied. "Echolocation... One of the few things I learned down here."

"Not many humans have taken the time to learn a skill like that," She turned her head towards Gregor as he dismounted.

"I wasn't really trained by the humans," Gregor smirked. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

Iris bowed her head slightly before Gregor turned and started walking through the narrow tunnels. The thick smell of rotten eggs filled his nostrils as he reached his senses out into the darkness. It had been years since he had roamed these tunnels but last time he had found himself in this place he didn't have echolocation to help him. Back then he had relied solely on Ares to guide him.

"How was Virginia?" asked a deep world weary voice from the darkness.

"Didn't really agree with me," Gregor smiled as he turned towards the voice. "Want to tell me why you left?"

"Didn't really agree with me," The voice mimicked as Ripred moved into the cave through an adjacent tunnel. His voice was forced as he spoke the conjunction.

"You know your friends are still out there… fighting," Gregor said gloomily.

"They are fools," he growled, "every last one of them."

"Why?"

"Can you not see it boy! Even when peace is at hand they cannot simply be happy! They must fight and whine like pups squealing over a slab of meat," he breathed deeply. "I tried to be the peacemaker… But peace is a useless task."

"So you just stopped trying?" Gregor tried hard to imagine his old mentor and friend in this current position. He just seemed so different.

"I have spent years trying, wasting my life away," Ripred responded. "Enough of my time has been wasted for those fools."

Gregor was amazed, "those fools are your friends, Ripred, and they need you as much as you need them."

Ripred snarled, "I need no one, I have lived on my own as an outcast for most of my life. I can take care of myself." His voice echoed throughout the chamber as he moved around Gregor.

Gregor paused, was Ripred scared? Scared of getting too close to people? "Maybe you did, but you have a family again that I know you care abo-" Ripred's paw struck Gregor's side bluntly knocking him off his feet. Gregor rolled back to his feet and was nose to nose with the scarred face of his old friend.

"My family is dead, boy!" He growled deeply, blowing warm breath against Gregor's face. The feeling made Gregor a tad unsettled.

"Then why did you send those rats to spy on Luxa and me in the Overland?" Gregor asked without any sign of discomfort while standing inches away from the other rager.

Ripred's eyes narrowed but he remained silent as he turned away and crept back into the depths of his cave.

"You can't pretend that that was mutual need. Whether that was for me or Luxa, you were keeping an eye on us. Doesn't sound like someone that stopped caring," he continued.

"It matters very little what I care, they will all kill each other whether I am present or not." His voice once again drifted through the darkness.

"Are you really telling me that your friend getting stabbed in her own home doesn't make you angry? Doesn't make you want revenge?" Gregor's own blood started to boil, how had Ripred become so… so… well he had always been a stubborn jerk but not like this.

His voice softened, "You may be in love with her, boy, but she has only ever been an obnoxious companion to me."

"You love her too. Not in the same way, but I know you do Ripred, and she needs you. They all need you… and so do I," Gregor finished his thought.

Ripred mulled over his words in the silence for a few moments before asking a question he had many times before, "do you have plan?"

"I know they're camped out at the Fount so that's where we'll go," Gregor felt good about the answer but heard in Ripred's voice that he had been wrong to answer with it.

"That is not a plan, That is barely a notion of a plan. And there is no 'we', I will not be joining you." Ripred's comment knocked the grin of Gregor's face, who had thought he was starting to win him over.

"Then what's your plan? Sit around here in the dead lands and start rotting in your own pity?"

"It is solace, not pity. Now leave, Gregor. the Fount is a fair ways away and you will want to make the first move if you have any chance of not getting yourself killed."

"You cannot let this madness spread, or like the Peacemaker, your love shall fall dead," Gregor repeated the words that had been echoing in his mind for the last week. "Sandwich had a hidden prophecy… thats what it said."

Ripred said nothing in response but stopped moving away.

"I know you think he was a crazy old man, and yeah he kind of was but he predicted everything and in this prophecy he referred to me by name. Not an Overlander, not the Warrior, by name..." Gregor breathed deeply, "I can't lose her and I need your help."

Ripred's voice was quiet but Gregor heard him word for word. "You may have been a cruddy pupil but if you are anywhere near the rager you were, last we met… you wont need the help of an old gnawer."

Gregor stared blankly into the darkened cave as Ripred vanished into the dark past Gregor's echolocation. Gregor knew that if he tried to follow Ripred, he wouldn't be able to find him.

Gregor wasn't sure which was more likely, Ripred turning his back on everyone, or Ripred practically complementing him.

The old warrior pivoted on his heel and turned back towards the tunnel he had entered from and slowly made his way back to Iris. "Should I assume whatever you had planned did not go so well?"

"Did you really hear that from over here?" Gregor sounded surprised.

"No," Iris responded simply, "you just look peeved."

"Ah, yeah. I'm doing great," the sarcasm was obvious in his voice. "Looks like we're back to being on our own."

Gregor didn't know what else to say so he remained silent in the dark tunnels of the dead lands. It seemed that Iris was on a similar train of thought because she too was deadly quiet.

"I don't know what to do?" Gregor's voice echoed through the cave dully.

"Do you still wish to go to the Fount?" Iris asked.

Gregor took a moment to comprise his thoughts, "Yes…" he said solemnly, "but I'm not sure how, I thought with… my- my friend, that we would be able to. But honestly, without him I don't think I can fight them all alone."

It was a moment before Iris responded, "You are not alone."

"I can't ask you to fight Iris," Gregor said immediately. "I am grateful for your help but once we get close I must ask you to return to Regalia."

"Would you not be more deadly in the air?" She questioned.

"It doesn't matter how deadly I would be," Gregor's heart ached. "I could only fight with one like that. Ares was a friend and a partner, I couldn't fight with another like that and without a rider you would likely be killed. I'm sorry but once we get close you cannot stay." Gregor said somewhat forcefully.

"I understand…" her voice gave him a sting of remorse but he knew it was for the best.

"Can I ask you one favor however?" Gregor felt his voice sounded much younger and less torn.

"Anything."

"When you get back to Regalia- Can you… that is do you think you can tell her…" Gregor tried to find the right words. "Can you tell her, I-" But there were no words.

"I shall tell her, Gregor." Iris answered, not needed to be told who or what.

Gregor felt a sad smile creep among his lips. He wasn't sure if he would be able to leave his next fight intact. But, he new for certain if this was to be his end, he would share that fate with Vellac. That red haired traitor had signed his own death wish the moment he had stabbed… her.


This code is a bit different from the last few... It isn't just the tree of transmission and it isn't code of claw... If you wish to read it you'll have to crack the code itself. If you do solve the code I ask that you not release it in the reviews section, if you'd like to answer the code or ask questions about it please message me privately or post your answer as a review using the same code so as we keep it secret from those who have yet to crack it. Grab a pencil and paper!

The keyword is... / \ . / \ . / . \ / . / / . / / . | \ | ...

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I hope you enjoy the chapter. As always please rate and review. Any and all feedback is welcome.

-Ssi'ruuk