Hey guys! I am back with chapter 14! So, I was talking to my mom, and she said that all stories already exist, it's only a matter of writing them down, and I think I agree with her. I have been meaning to send Gregor and the gang (to much Scooby-doo? Haven't watched it in years) out on their quest for like 3 chapters now, though we all see were that went! This story is really starting to take shape, and I'm surprised that it hasn't really started all to much yet, it is kind of still in the beginning, were they haven't even started their quest yet, and I don't want to make this quest like the quests in the original books, I want to make it longer, more intense, more detailed, and overall better! So I know you are all eager to pick up were I left the story with that cliffhanger, and many of you probably skipped this authors note for that reason entirely, so enough with my endless rambling, and onto the story! As usual all responses are encouraged and appreciated, so give me any and all thoughts! See you guys later!

Peace out guys,

-Tytonic

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

Gregor and the War of the Myriapods

Chapter 14: When Diplomacy Fails

Gregor hadn't expected what would come next. The arena exploded with cheers and yells, it was one of the loudest things Gregor had ever heard. He didn't expect this, but if he was surprised by this, then he was flabbergasted by the door of the arena breaking open, followed by about 20 or so Myriapods pouring into the arena.

-O-

This was bad, very bad. 20 men had barley lasted against a few Myriapods, and they had a rested, uninjured rager with them! Unlike then, there were now at least 20 Myriapods, and both Gregor and Ripred were spent from their fight, not to mention that part of Ripred's tail was missing, and he was loosing blood from it fast.

Gregor's vision began to blur up once more, though unlike during the prophecies, he was now in full control of it, and could turn it on and off with ease. He brought his sword up into a ready position, expecting everything to become a blur of claws, stingers, and weapons, but it never came. The Myriapods weren't attacking, though they all appeared ready to break into killing frenzies, it seemed they were seeking a diplomatic approach first.

One of the Myriapods stepped forward, well more like crawled. It was large, with a dark sapphire blue shell, though the tips of its mandibles were a dark red color. It looked larger then the other Myriapods, it seemed to be about another 5 feet long, putting it around 15 feet long.

The entire arena was quiet, and nobody spoke as the guards quickly evacuated the civilians, most likely at Luxa's order. Due to the uneasy silence, Gregor was able to clearly hear a deep clicking sound coming from the Myriapod. It echoed around the entire arena, making a sharply detailed image of everything from in Gregor's head (Echolocation is based on echos, so this would really do that). Following that once click, it made a series of slightly different pitched clicks. This thing was trying to communicate with the humans, though it should be obvious by the blank stares, that none of the humans could understand them.

Following a minute of uneasy silence, Gregor decided that something had to be done, so by tossing a few things around in his head, he decided on what to do.

"Luxa! Can you get Hazard down here? I think he might be able to communicate with them!" Yelled Gregor, making sure Luxa had heard.

At this point, the entire arena had been evacuated, and only Gregor's family, who had no doubt refused to leave, and the Royal family remained, plus many soldiers on fliers who were beginning to circle above, ready to dive down and attack at a moments notice. Ripred had been taken away to have his tail bandaged so the bleeding would stop before he would be allowed to return to battle. Using echolocation, Gregor could see Luxa raise her hand in a signal. One of the soldiers flying above dipped down and flew to Luxa, allowed Hazard to mount the bat, and proceeded to drop him off beside Gregor, who was still in a ready position.

"Hazard, do you think you can talk to them? If you can't I don't think anybody can." Said Gregor.

"I think I may be able to. It seems like a mix of many languages. I can hear some crawler and stinger, which I began to study after the war of time, though some of it I can't understand, but to answer your question, I think I can communicate with them." Responded Hazard.

"Well let's see what they have to say, cause I don't want to fight if we don't have to." said Gregor.

Hazard nodded and then began to let out some of the weirdest noises Gregor had ever heard, though judging by the Myriapods reaction, it seemed that these noises could be understood. The creature made some more noises as soon as Hazard had finished with his sounds.

"It seems they don't want to fight, they are not here to attack, they are only. . . looking for somebody." Said Hazard.

"Really? Well that's weird, can you try to figure out who they are looking for?" Asked Gregor.

Hazard once again nodded, and let out another string of random noises, though he paused a few times to think. The creature let out a string of sounds in response, though the one click. . . it seemed like it was said with great hatred, and despite the different language, it seemed like a name to Gregor.

"Well, If I understood them right, it seems like they are looking for one of their own kind, one named Xano. They say he is a traitor to his kind, and they believe that we may be housing him here in Regalia." Responded Hazard.

"Well can you tell them that we don't have him? I don't want a fight here, it would be to dangerous, not until we have an effective weapon against them." Asked Gregor.

"Well I can try, though I doubt that I can convince them of it." Said Hazard as he began another string of clicks and hisses.

The Myriapod responded, though it seemed very irritated. It crawled back to it's group, and slid into an aggressive position.

"Oh no, Gregor? They believe that I am lying. It said that it would kill everyone of us if it has to in order to find this traitor, apparently he is a very big threat to their kind." Said Hazard. Knowing it to be the best move, he raised his hand and jumped as high as he could, being caught by the same bat that had brought him down. He was flown back up to the underland equivalent of a VIP box.

Using echolocation, he could see that everybody heard Hazard, and everybody seemed to tense up. It was going to get very bloody in here very soon.

With one loud ear-splitting bloodcurdling screech, the Myriapods sprang into action. 5 humans were dead before they could register what had happened. Gregor was the closest to them, and he barely managed to get his sword into a position to block the attacks coming at him. Gregor spun around a pair of jaws coming at him, and using this vantage point, he drove the sword straight down through the weak spot in the creatures shell. Then ducking at the last second as a tail cut a few hairs off of his head, a blow that would have beheaded him had he not ducked. He proceeded to jump back up over a second tail that would have hit his shins had he not jumped.

Gregor knew that he couldn't do anything right now. There were 2 Myriapods on either side of his, going back and forth with the strikes. Gregor had to keep jumping and ducking to avoid getting hit. Knowing he couldn't do anything in a position like this, he whipped the dagger out of its sheath, and threw it straight at one of the Myriapods. The dagger went straight into the creatures neck as it spun around for another strike, it was dead instantly. Gregor jumped over another attack from the other creatures tail, and using it's short pause as it saw its comrade fall dead, he impaled it right through the neck with his sword.

After this scene, Gregor had a moment to look around and gain his bearings. There was fighting everywhere, and the Myriapods numbers were starting to dwindle. They had originally had about 20, but they now sat at around 6, though the humans, and some rats that had just arrived, were greatly struggling. Gregor looked around more, and spotted the leader of this group of Myriapods, the one Hazard had spoken to. He was like a lawnmower, mowing both humans and rats down, none even had time to react to his attacks because they were so fast. Nobody was landing a single strike on any part of him, though few people had a chance to so much as lift their claws or sword before they were dead.

This was what Gregor saw in his momentary glance, before he turned around to be faces with 3 Myriapods at the same time. It seemed every human and rat was focusing primarily on the leader, with no prevail. Gregor had just enough time to duck down as a tail slashed right at him, though it still scratched his arm, it was no more then a scrape. Gregor quickly rolled forward, thus dodging another strike, and he jumped onto the back of the one Myriapod.

Apparently they were not very smart, because the other 2 started to strike at Gregor, though no hits made contact, at least not with Gregor. Instead they hit the Myriapod that he was on, and slicing right through the shell, they killed it instantly. Realizing that this wasn't working, the one Myriapod lunged at Gregor, jaws wide. Stupid move, Gregor spun around just like he did the very first one, and impaled his sword straight through the neck. It took Gregor a full 3 seconds to pry out the sword, and yet in that time, his position compared to the last Myriapod kept him from getting struck by it. The Myriapod backed up about 5 feet when it saw Gregor pull his sword out. They stood about 10 feet from each other, waiting for the other to make a move.

This Mexican standoff was interrupted by a screech, and as Gregor turned to see what he already saw with echolocation, but didn't want to believe it. He spun just in time to see Luxa get whacked in the side of the head. She would have been killed immediately had the blade of the tail made contact, instead the side of the blade made contact, throwing her 15 feet straight into a wall, knocking her out immediately.

Gregor could see the leader making it's way over to finished Luxa off, and Gregor knew he had only one shot at saving her. Spinning around he threw his sword, and it went straight in the mouth of the lunging Myriapod he had a standoff with, and killed it immediately. Had he not thrown it, it would have completed its lunge Gregor would have a pair of mandibles in his neck.

Gregor spun back around and sprinted at the leader, knowing that if he got there, he would only have a second to kill it. He then realized that he had no weapon, he had lost both his sword and his dagger. As he was running, he could see that the Myriapod was over Luxa now, and ready to Plunge his mandibles into her neck. Gregor could see a long gash down the side of Luxa's leg, and he knew that if she didn't get medical attention very soon, she would bleed to death.

Gregor, using echolocation, could tell that the last Myriapod, save the leader, had been killed, and he was the only one close enough to get to Luxa in time. He could feel the eyes of almost every soldier on him,and he could tell that they to knew he was the only hope for the young queen.

Just as the Myriapod was about to strike into Luxa, Gregor realized something. He did have a weapon, he had Ares claw. Ares was looking out for him. Gregor ran and jumped as high as he could, and a couple feet off the ground, he crashed into the side of the leader. The force was enough to throw off the attack at Luxa, and make it hit the ground just inches to the right. Before Gregor could know what he was doing, he had completely lost himself in the rager. It was a different rager sensation though, he felt more powerful, he felt like a spectator in a body, he had no control whatsoever, like he was being forced to move. He would have to talk to Ripred about it later, it was so much different from normal rager, Ripred would have to know what it was. Gregor could still tell that he was stabbing the Myriapod in the neck over and over again with Ares claw. Once Gregor was sure it was dead, he felt the new rager feeling retract, and then turn back into normal rager, to were he shut it off completely, the threat was now gone.

Gregor could see the Myriapod, it looked like somebody had run a chainsaw into it's neck, and stopped cutting halfway. Gregor wasn't concerned with this in the slightest, his attention was on the unconscious young queen. Gregor ran and slid to his knees at Luxa's side. She looked fine, aside from the major amount of blood she was loosing from the gash she had on her left leg. Gregor knew there was almost nothing he could do to help, so he ripped his shirt off, and wrapped it around her leg. It would keep the blood in, at least until she could get to a hospital.

Gregor picked up Luxa effortlessly, he knew that it was bad that she was this light, she had lost a lot of blood. Gregor rushed her over to were the medics were just landing, and he loaded her onto the stretcher, fully aware of every eye in the arena on him, though he didn't care.

Gregor went over to the side of the arena and slumped down against it, onto the ground. He was so tired. With Ares bloody Claw still in his hand, he felt his eyes slowly slid shut, and suddenly, everything was black.

Luxa's Point of View

Luxa felt herself come to consciousness, and she tried to open her eyes. It was an effort, but she managed to open her eyes fully to see the room she was in. She was in silky white cloths, very basic. She was lying on a medical bed, and she could feel stitches going down the side of her left leg.

Everything was still a blur in her eyesight, so she tried to sit up. When she finally got enough energy to push herself up, she felt a gentle hand on her chest lightly push her back down, accompanied by a familiar soothing voice.

"No Luxa, you need to rest, your still to weak to do much." Said Gregor.

"Gregor?" Asked Luxa in a raspy voice, she was very thirsty.

As is he could read her thoughts, she felt Gregor hold a cup of water up to her lips, and she could smell food somewhere in the room. This made her realize that she was also very hungry. She drank the entire cup, and two more after that before she was satisfied.

"What happened to me?" Asked Luxa, her voice returning to normal.

"The Myriapod put a deep gash on your left leg, as you can probably feel. You lost to much blood to stay conscious." Responded Gregor.

"Yes, what Gregor says is true. He saved your life, if it weren't for him you would have lethal poison in you, and two holes in your neck. You also lost to much blood to survive on." Said a voice that Luxa recognized as Howard.

"Well then how am I alive?" Asked Luxa, confused.

"Your lucky we are the same blood type." Said Gregor as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a patch that you get after a shot.

"You did that?" Asked Luxa, shocked.

"Of coarse I did, I couldn't let you die." Responded Gregor.

"Thank you, so, how long was I unconscious?" Asked Luxa.

"Around 3 days, your body took a long time to accept the new blood." Responded Howard.

"3 Days? What has happened while I was unconscious?" Asked Luxa curiously.

"Well my mom is absolutely pissed that I had to fight, and she cried for 5 hours straight when she realized that what Ripred said about me being a rager was true. That I am a natural born killer. My mom said that I am never allowed to touch a sword again. I think everybody knows that's not going to happen." Responded Gregor.

"Okay, wait! What about the meeting?" Asked Luxa frantically.

"That has been rescheduled for after lunch tomorrow, it's about midday right now." Responded Gregor once again.

"Okay, good, I didn't want to miss it." Sighed Luxa with relief.

"I must go now, eat Luxa, I need to tend to other patients." Interrupted Howard as he walked out of the room.

"Umm. . . Thank you Gregor, for everything." Said Luxa.

"No, thank you. You gave me something to actually fight for. To actually care for." Said Gregor as he leaned down and kissed the completely flushed girl.

"I Love you" Whispered Gregor into Luxa's ear once he pulled away.

"I love you to. . . but. . . you know that it cannot be. . . I am engaged, I am to marry on my birthday, that is in a few weeks." Said Luxa, clear sorrow in her voice and expression.

"I could not live with that. . . just tell me one thing." Said Gregor.

"What is it?" Asked Luxa.

"Tell me that you don't truly love him." Responded Gregor.

"I am being forced into a loveless marriage. I do not love him. I have argued it over with the council many times, but now they will not hear of the matter, they only call the guards to take me out of the room. I have no choice in the matter." Said Luxa, everything of her showing sorrow.

"Thank you Luxa, I promise I will try to save you from this loveless marriage, though I cannot guarantee success." Said Gregor.

"Just try." Whispered Luxa quietly.

-O-

He was running through the cave, his only chance of escape. He whipped his tail around and stabbed it through a guard as he bolted out the exit of the cave, he was free. Free, finally free.

He ran and ran and ran. He could sense the pack of pursuers on his tail. He would not be able to outrun them, he would have to outsmart them.

It was probably about an hour when he could feel their breath on his back, he had gotten to the canyon's edge just in time. He knew he had once chance. He came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the cliff, and went translucent.

They had no clue what had happened, but in a literal flash he was behind them, and in another flash, they were falling off the cliff.

He knew that he was lucky on that one. It wasn't often that he could manage to control his abilities like that. That was way to close for comfort.

"I am an official traitor to my kind. I must find the humans, and I must join them, fight alongside them. My kind must not win this war, for the sake of all life, they must not.

That's just about a wrap on it guys! I like how I did the end, I am sure most of you can guess who's Point of View it is from, well if you payed attention you will. One word, Symphyla. Only I know what it means, but with good old internet anybody can find out! I never expected to do what I'm going to do, and it will either be really good or really bad, but if I have any confidence in myself as a writer (which I don't) I would know that I could make it work. Two more words, Flasher, and Slasher. Tell me what you guys think each word means, and you will find out in the next chapter! So as usual, all responses are encouraged and appreciated, see you guys later!

Peace peeps,

-Tytonic

*CLICKCLICKCLICK*

*POOF*

Tytonic- Thoughts on chapter?

Gregor- Yes, what was with that rager thing I had?

Tytonic- Ask Ripred, I don't feel like explaining it.

Luxa- What rager thing? Is something wrong Gregor?

Gregor- No, just when I was fighting, something, different happened. . . I can't explain it.

Luxa- You need to talk about it?

Gregor- No, I just need to ask Ripred about it.

Tytonic- Well thoughts? Neither of you answered me really.

Gregor- It was good, but you absolutely terrified me in that fight!

Luxa- Good, but the pain was terrible! I can't even remember most of the fight now.

Tytonic- Well, I have to go now, kind of pressed on time here so see ya later!

Gregor and Luxa- Bye!

*CLICKCLICKCLICK*

*POOF*

R&R little ones,

-Tytonic