Hello people and welcome back! First off, sorry for not being able to update on time, I kind of got caught up on a few things. By things, I mean a few ideas for my book struck me and I had to get them down and work out some details. So as I said, I'll try to update every three days, but often times I will not be able to do so. So, as usual all feedback is encouraged and appreciated, so give me any and all ideas! See you guys later!

See you guys in a bit,

-Tytonic

Disclaimer: I do not own any of The Underland Chronicles, only the characters I make up and the plot itself.

Return of the Myriapods

Chapter 1: A New Generation

A young princess stirred slightly underneath her soft silk sheets as a soft light flashed across her closed eyelids. While she wanted nothing more than to sleep soundly without interruption, she was well aware that her position as princess, the future queen, would not allow that. She had seen her mother go with little to no sleep at all many times, and she dreaded the day that she would be placed in the same position.

Groaning in annoyance, she forced her body to move, and pushed the sheets off of her slim body. Despite the endless darkness, she could 'see' every detail, down to the smallest crack in the wall. Personally, she has no memory of it, but supposedly the old fart, Ripred, had shoved echolocation down her throat at the tender age of five too the point where it became second nature.

Crouched down a few feet away from the bed was her best friend Ana, holding an unlit candle. With slow and sluggish movements, the princess grabbed one of her many pillows, and hurled it right into Ana's face, knocking her back onto her butt.

She received a high-pitched squeak in response. "Owww, Holly! What'd you do that for?!"

"Ana," She said with the most serious tone she could muster up, which wasn't very serious, mind you. "How many times do I have to tell you to let me sleep? Get out, before I call the guards!"

"Oh lighten up for once! You're never any fun. . . Come on, I'm bored!" Ana whined.

"Will you just shut up and get out! I was trying to sleep!" She has been told she can be very rude when woken up, but that can't be true. . . Right?

"Uhh, fine! I guess you don't care that breakfast was an hour ago then." This caught her attention. "See you later!"

It was mere seconds before Holly burst out of her room, and into the royal living room. If there were two things she loved the most, they would have to be sleep and food. Despite her slim figure, she ate so much that she could give Ripred a run for his money.

As she burst into the living room, the light was too blinding and she was forced to close her eyes. She could still echolocate, so she had no problem 'seeing'. The first thing she noticed was Ana sitting at the couch, and a tray of food beside her. She could have sworn she saw Ana mumble something. Probably something along the lines of "Works every time"; it wasn't the first time she had done this, after all.

As Holly's eyes finally adjusted to the torchlight, she got her first look at Ana that day. She had long dark red hair, so dark that it was almost black. Her eyes were also a brilliant emerald green. Overall, she was very beautiful, and Holly was kind of jealous. True, she was called beautiful all the time, but she just couldn't see it.

"Well," Ana asked. "Are you going to eat it or not?" She didn't need to be told twice.

As Holly began to eat the food, she payed no attention to neatness, and shoved the food in her mouth.

Beside her, she heard Ana say something. "Geez. I might say this every day, but it's true. For a princess, you really are a slob."

Taking a pause, Holly responded. "Oh, thanks. You know as well as I do that I don't like being a princess."

It was true, she didn't like being a princess. She hated all of the special treatment, and people acting like they were her slave. Unless they were a friend (that list had a grand total of one person: Ana) or related to her, she couldn't have an honest conversation with them. But above all else, she hated how she was given everything. She couldn't work for anything, and it was all given to her. It wasn't that her parents were spoiling her, it was that she was a princess, and she wasn't allowed to work for anything.

As she finished the final few crumbs of her food, she stood up and cracked her back, yawning simultaneously. "Okay, so what torture am I being put through today. . . Training, right?" Ana nodded in response. "Oh, that's not to bad. . . I guess I'm up for it."

Ana squealed in response, which only made Holly roll her eyes. Ana could be very childish at times. It was understandable, though, because she was almost three years younger than Holly. While Holly was thirteen, Ana was only ten.

Walking back into her room, she heard Ana's rapid footsteps behind her as she headed to her room to get ready. Holly quickly changed into her training clothing, grabbed her sword from her bedside, and strapped it to her waist.

She then wasted no time in walking to her window, and jumping out. It was the morning, so her bond Nyx was already waiting for her. She did a few flips before landing square on Nyx's back.

"Hey Nya, how's it going?" That was another thing. While she loved Nyx, she hated the actual name, and called her Nya instead. It was nice, since the young flier wouldn't tolerate anybody else calling her that.

"Good. A few male flyers came up to me again, though." She responded. It was interesting, the way she spoke. Holly spoke like an overlander due to her father and her friend (Ana) who has two overlander parents. Since she has known Nya since birth, she picked up on the way of speech as well.

"Really? Didn't you let them all know that you already like somebody?" She asked.

This was a problem for Nya. She was considered to be very beautiful among the fliers, with her jet black fur, lighting blue eyes, and gray patches. As a result, many male fliers approached her. It annoyed her to no end, and she had rejected many. She had a crush on another flier, after all. It would come as a surprise to many who do not have a bond, but fliers are very similar to humans. They have the same thoughts, emotions, and feeling after all.

Nya sighed. "Far too many times. They just don't seem to get it, though."

"Well whatever. We have training, so we get to beat some of them up. Maybe that will get it through their thick skulls." Holly responded. She could hear Nya let out a small chuckle in response.

As they approached the arena, Holly drew her sword and prepared to land. Her sword was named "Twilight", and it lived up to the name. It was a long dark rapier with a circular cross guard. The cross guard had two jewels, one on each side, both of which gleamed like a sunset. Other underlanders failed to understand, but she had been to the overland a few times, and had actually seen a sunset. This sword was one of four blades made out of slasher shell that still existed. During the war of the myriapods, many had been made, but it was soon discovered that normal steel-shell alloy only retained its strength for a year or so. However, the high carbon steel used for the royal families swords' did not break down, and remained strong.

She knew that her father, her usual mentor, had a military meeting at the time, so her other mentor, Ripred, or as she called him, old fart, would be training her today. Despite his age, he was still very sharp, and could only be beaten by her father, Gregor.

Despite this, Holly never gave up, and always tried her best to beat him. She had come close a few times, but in the end she always lost. The only reason she was even taught by he father and Ripred was due to her uncanny talent with a sword. Perhaps she had obtained it from her parents, but she was faster than most, and could almost rival a ragers speed.

Some people theorized that she was a rager, and was just hiding it, while others believe that she inherited small amounts of rager. Either way, Holly knew she was not a rager. Her fathers descriptions never fit what she experienced while fighting. While it was true that everything slowed down for her, recent advances in anatomy revealed that it was normal [1].

As Nya finally glided into the arena, she flew low enough for Holly to quickly flip off of her back, before she flew off to join the other fliers. Due to her mothers special training, Holly was also very adept in gymnastics, and could flip around with ease, unlike her father.

Holly landed with ease, and quickly slid into the sparring stance as Ripred approached her. Without a word, the old fart charged at her, hardly allowing her to sidestep his blow. She had expected this, since Ripred always starts off with that attack, in order to test his opponent. If she had attempted to strike his open back, he would have disarmed her with a single move.

She swiftly jumped as his tail swung low, in an attempt to knock her to the ground. As soon as she landed and regained her footing, she moved so that she and Ripred were once again facing each other down. In this scenario, she had two options. She could either attack, and Ripred's superior speed would be her downfall, or she could dodge his next blow, and counter. Blocking was not an option, due to her inferior strength.

In the end, Holly didn't really have a choice, and shifted into a stance which would allow her to dodge Ripred's next attack. As expected, Ripred soon surged forward at an impressive speed, giving Holly little time to react.

She had not sparred with Ripred in a a few weeks, and in that time her father had been training her to beat Ripred. While in the end it was impossible unless you were a rager, she had been coming closer and closer every time. Her father had given her a few tips on Ripred's weaknesses, and she knew that his largest flaw was his overconfidence. He was sure that he could win any fight, and in the end that cockiness would be his downfall.

And so, Holly's next move was specially designed to surprise Ripred. In the time they had been apart, she had practiced in order to perfect this move, so she could execute it fast enough.

Right as Ripred surged forward, Holly jumped as high as she could, and preformed a front flip, soaring clear over Ripred's head. In their previous fight, she had not been able to execute this move fast enough, and Ripred had barreled into her, so her sudden improvement was sure to catch him off guard.

As she finally touched down, she quickly stabbed her sword backwards, in hopes of catching Ripred's exposed back. She fully expect to hit either nothing, or to feel her sword sink deep into flesh, but what occurred surprised her. Something hit the side of her sword right before it made contact with Ripred, and pushed it off course, causing it to hit nothing but air.

As Holly whirled around, she noticed Ripred's tail whipping back and forth madly. It was clear that he had used it to block the attack, but he seemed aggravated that she had managed to catch him off guard.

In his aggravation, she wasted no time attacking. He would be slightly more reckless in his anger, and she would take full advantage of that. Holly fainted a strike to the right, using a spin to strike downward onto Ripred's head.

This attack was very predictable, but Holly was aware of that, and took advantage of it. A normal strike like this would require her to slash downwards, but instead of swinging the blade like you should, she kept it pointed upwards while she went through the motions. This caused her strike to come up short, but it put her in the perfect position to stab into Ripred, while he was positioned to block the initial slash.

While it was a very simple technique, very few people seemed to know of it and how effective it was. The entire move was preformed too fast for any observers to determine how it was preformed. If done wrong, it would be very simple to block, and would lead to your defeat.

Out of all of Holly's tricks, this was likely the best chance she had at victory. It was next to impossible to block if you were not expecting it, even for a rager, so she expected to at least graze the old fart before he slipped away.

But alas, something completely unexpected happened. Right before the blade made contact, something wrapped around her wrist and twisted it into an unnatural position, forcing her to drop her sword in pain. She instantly knew something wrong with her wrist, but she didn't care. She couldn't just give up.

As she tried to grab her sword again, something wrapped around her neck and threw her back a few feet onto the ground. She was surprised for a moments, but realized that it had been Ripred's tail that had grabbed both her wrist and her neck. She as so stupid! How could she have forgotten about her greatest disadvantage? While she only had one sword, Ripred had claws on both hands, and a tail.

Pushing herself back onto her feat, she grabbed her sword again, and brushed the dirt off of her clothing. She felt very disappointed that she had failed, when she had practiced so hard for this moment.

"Congratulations, shrimp. You might have been able to kill a fly with those moves." It was just like him to make such a comment when he had almost lost.

"Shut up, we're going again." She responded.

Ripred snorted as he slid into position.

As Holly slid into a sparring stance as well, she felt her wrist ache under the weight of her sword, which was surprising, because her sword weighed hardly a pound [2].

She was still a little shaken up from her loss, so she didn't think when she struck. She surged forward, attempting to run him through, but hit nothing but air as Ripred slid to the side. She hadn't thought before attacking, and her move had left her wide open.

She spun as quickly as possible, attempting to block the oncoming blow, but when the claws hit her sword, a sharp pain shot into her right wrist, forcing her to drop her sword once more, and clutch it with her other hand.

That was Holly's largest weakness; she had absolutely no pain tolerance. She could trip and fall and she would still feel the pain hours later [3]. Luckily, she was fast enough to evade the enemies attacks while fighting.

As a result, it felt like somebody had cut her hand off, and she clutched it in pain. While Ripred was a selfish jerk, at least he understood when somebody couldn't continue.

"Great, now your hurt." He snorted. "Head to the hospital, shrimp, it's probably sprained."

Holly gave no response, and whistled loudly, calling for Nya. It was mere seconds before Nya flew by, catching Holly as she jumped.

"What happened, Holly? Are you okay?" She asked.

"I think I sprained my wrist. Even if I didn't, I can't hold my sword now, so I'm not gonna stick around, I have better uses of my time." Holly Responded.

"Oh, do you now? Does it have to do with a b-" Nya teased, before getting cut off.

"Shut up! Yes, it does, okay? You know that, so don't go blabbing it out! There would be huge problems if anybody found out. . ."

"Well, your parents know."

"That's different! They won't leak it, okay? It would be bad if somebody went public with it. . ." Holly explained.

Their conversation continued on like this, with Nya teasing Holly, until they reached the hospital. Since she was the princess, she got swarmed by doctors the second she landed, all checking if she was alright.

It took around half an hour, due to the doctors overreacting, and telling her dad that she got hurt. Of course, he rushed straight to the hospital, leaving his meeting half-way, to check on her. He then scolded the doctors for leading him to think that she was seriously injured, when in reality she had only sprained her wrist.

Soon after Holly was released from the hospital, she made her way to her room. What Nya had said was completely true. . . She did have somebody to meet.

Sorry this took so long. It would have been out two days ago but it was difficult to write. Not only that, but I actually wrote this chapter twice to get it right. So, I have figured something out, people. I do not know how long this story will be, but I am certain that it will not be as long as War of the Myriapods. Sorry about that, but it would only reduce the quality if I attempted to stretch it out too much. I do not know how long each chapter will be either, but I expect each to be around 2500-3000 each. So, as usual all feedback is encouraged and appreciated, so give me any and all ideas! See you guys later!

1- This is true. The brain detects that the situation in urgent, and it slows down in order to take in more information.

2- This is not unrealistic at all. A rapier can easily be a single pound, since they are built for speed.

3- It's completely possible to have such a low pain tolerance. A girl in my school as like that; something that would only tickle me brought her to the ground in pain. Literally.

Question: One of the genres is romance. Anybody care to take a whack at why? And don't be blunt, I want you to be VERY specific. Just saying that Holly will fall in love doesn't count as an answer. That much is obvious, I want you to guess who she falls for, and describe that person.

Until next time,

-Tytonic