Now it is time for chapter four!
Disclaimer: If you haven't figured out by now that I DON'T own the Underland Chronicles, I will slice you up and feed you to shiners. No, wait...the cutters. They eat anything. :)
Also, thank you to the people who left such nice reviews! and Yes, I did write the prophecy myself.
"What meaning do you make of it?" asked Luxa.
"Well...it looks to me as though humans have to leave the Underland."
Luxa rolled her eyes. "That much we have discerned, Gregor. But we feel there may be some hidden meaning, for Sandwich was fond of them. Do you see any?"
Gregor read it again, and then one more time, trying to find something Sandwich was meaning by inflection, instead of just coming out and saying it. But he could find no way that the words meant anything but what they said.
"No," he replied finally. "This seems pretty clear to me. You guys have to leave."
She looked at the floor, eyes closed. "I feared as much. But I hoped that it was not so."
He could tell by her face that Luxa was scared. He would be too, if he was just told he had to pack up and move to another world, a world he knew absolutely nothing about. And by the look of the prophecy, it seemed like the bats wouldn't be able to come with their bonds. That would be a pretty terrifying experience for anyone down here. Luxa seemed to be thinking alone the same lines, because she walked over and stood next to Aurora, who wrapped her wing around the girl. Trying to distract her, Gregor asked,
"Who else knows about this prophecy?"
"Very few people, else the city would be in turmoil," she replied. "Only Nerissa, Mareth, Aurora, Temp, and myself. Oh, and Ripred knows as well."
"Ripred knows what?" came a gravelly voice from behind him. Gregor turned to see the door had been pushed open and a huge grey rat with crossing scars across his face walking into the room. "Oh, look, it's my Overland rager pal. I heard someone say you returned, but wanted to see for myself. So, you've decided to come back."
"I've wanted to for months," said Gregor. "But Mareth came up to fetch me."
"Did he?" asked Ripred, looking at Luxa. "I suppose you authorized this?"
"I did," she said, nodding.
"May I ask, oh gracious queen and faithful bond, why I was not informed?"
"I did not deem it necessary. I merely needed to speak to Gregor quickly and saw fit to send one of my most accomplished guards and trusted friends to do the job."
"And Hazard," added Gregor without thinking. "Hazard came too."
"What? Hazard? He was in the Overland?"
"Yeah. He came up with Mareth. Mareth said he was like, the translator or something. Because he could talk to the rat and the cockroach and tell them to get me. Why, what's wrong with that?"
Luxa's face had gone even paler than it already was. "I strictly forbid him to go with Mareth when he asked! He was not to accompany Mareth. Where is he now? Is he injured?"
"What? Injured? No, of course not. He and Mareth came up through the grate in my basement. They couldn't have gotten hurt down there. The most dangerous things in our building are cockroaches, and those are nothing to you guys."
"As painful as it is, I must agree," said Ripred. "There was nothing that could have harmed them in an apartment basement. Relax," he added, for Luxa's face had not gotten any less white. "Look, he's here now."
It was true. At that moment, Mareth and Hazard walked into the room. Luxa almost flung herself at the boy.
"Hazard! I told you that you were not to accompany Mareth to the Overland. You could have gotten killed. Why did you disobey me?"
The boy looked at the floor, ashamed. "I wanted to see the Overland. I'm sorry, Luxa. I was just curious." He looked up at her. "It was amazing! There were dryers and electricity and lightning and wires. You should see it yourself."
It was the wrong thing to say to Luxa, who looked like she was about to start crying again.
"Oh, go ahead," said Ripred. "It's inevitable. You might as well tell him. Tell everybody."
"Tell me what?" asked Hazard immediately, looking excited. Luxa seemed to waver between telling him and not telling him. But glancing around quickly at everyone in the room, she sighed.
"I will see the Overland myself, Hazard. We all will. We are all going to the Overland."
"What?"
"Nerissa discovered a prophecy this morning. It tells of the humans returning to the Overland when the war is over. And the war has now ended, so..." she trailed off, looking around again helplessly.
Hazard stared at her for a moment, as if not sure how to process the information.
"Just the humans?" he asked finally. "Our fliers are not coming?"
Luxa shook her head. Hazard's bright green eyes widened.
"No!" he shouted suddenly. "I'm not going back! I'm staying down here with Philia! You cannot make me leave her!" And tearing himself away from his cousin, he ran from the room.
Hazard's defiance seemed to break Luxa, and she really did start crying again. She turned to Aurora and wrapped her arms around the bat, pressing her face to her fur. Aurora wrapped her wings around the girl, and Luxa was no longer visible.
"C'mon, now," said Ripred bracingly. "It won't be that bad. I'm sure you don't have to leave today. You can probably wait a while before you go up. Prepare to leave, say goodbye and such."
Luxa did not turn around. Mareth spoke next.
"Luxa, this is difficult for you. It will be difficult for us all. But when the people of Regalia are notified, as they must be, they will be in complete disarray if they do not have someone to look to for guidance. You must be that someone. You are queen. You must be strong to show them that they can be strong as well. If their queen cannot cope, how will they be able to?"
Luxa did not move for several minutes, but she must have been thinking it over, because eventually she stepped back.
"You are right, of course, Mareth," she said. "We must tell them. It is inevitable. Come. Let us go." And she began to walk toward the door. Gregor ran to walk next to her, and Ripred, Mareth, and Aurora followed. While they walked down the corridor, Gregor asked,
"Hazard bonded? With a bat named Philia?"
She nodded. "They met shortly after the you left for the Overland. She also lost her parents in the war. They became friends quickly and bonded faster than any other pair I have known," she said.
In all the time Gregor had been shut up in the apartment, he had been doing some research. All of the bats in the Underland seemed to be named after some sort of Greek god or goddess or something like that. He had taken the time to almost memorize the incredibly long list he had pulled up from somewhere. He knew that Ares had been the god of war, and nobody had really liked him. Athena, who's name was given to the queen of the bat colony, had been goddess of wisdom, and the goddess Nike had been often affiliated with her. Thalia, the bat Hazard had wanted to bond with before she had been killed, was named after they Charity of Good Cheer, which Gregor thought fit the little bat perfectly. Philia was a name that he had to think about for the moment, but he smiled when he remembered who she was.
"Philia," he said. "Embodiment of Friendship."
"What?" asked Luxa curiously. Gregor realized they wouldn't know anything about Greek mythology or anything like that. He wondered how the bats did.
"Nothing. How are you going to tell people?"
She closed her eyes. "I know not. I plan to spread the word for all humans to go to the arena, and I will tell them there, but I do not know what to say to them. That they must abandon their homes, their bonds, their lives, and go to a world they know nothing of? I cannot."
Gregor understood, but he had no idea how to help her. He had never been good at talking to people or comforting them. Instead, he just reached for his hand and wound his fingers with hers. She turned to Mareth, Ripred, and Aurora and told them to spread the word about going to the arena. Gregor expected Ripred to protest being ordered around, but the rat trotted off obediently.
Luxa and Gregor walked through the palace, telling anyone they saw to go to the arena. Many of the Underlanders seemed very pleased that Gregor was there. Eventually, they made their way down to the city, which they found was deserted. Doing a quick tour, they checked for any stragglers, but apparently word had spread very quickly. At one point, Luxa just stopped and sat down in the street. Gregor sat next to her, not sure what to say.
"How will we survive this, Gregor?" she asked him. "Where will we go? We have no knowledge of the Overland."
"I know. If it was only a few of you, you could probably stay in my aparatment for a few days, but three thousand people...are you coming today?"
"No," she said. "We need time to prepare. What supplies will we need? You know this far better than anyone here."
"Um, you might want to bring a lot of food," he said. But he knew what they would need, the thing everyone needed to survive in the Overland; money. And Underlanders didn't use money. He had no idea how Luxa was going to feed and house three thousand people without any money.
"Gregor?" asked Luxa hesitantly.
"Yeah?"
"Would it be all right if, perhaps, I...came up to the Overland before my people? Just to see what we might require and what we might do when everyone is up there."
Gregor knew she wasn't really asking if she could come up, but if she could stay with him. "Yeah. You can stay in my apartment for a few days, if you need to. I'm just warning you, though, we don't have a lot of food. Hey," he added, for an idea had just occured to him. "You could bring up all the stuff from the museum, and we could sell it. I bet there are museums that would pay buckets of money for some of that old stuff.
"Does one need money in the Overland?"
"Oh yeah. It's practically a basic necessity. But if you can sell all of that stuff, you probably won't have a problem, at least until we can find you jobs or something." Gregor was getting excited now. "Heck, some of that Native American stuff is probably worth thousands! You could all go to a big hotel...I could come by every day to help you get used to the Overland, and then your adults could get jobs in like, a warehouse or store or something, a job that doesn't deal with computers or anything. It could work!"
Luxa smiled a bit at his enthusiasm. "We would be almost entirely dependant on you, Gregor. None of us knows how the Overland works."
"Well, I'm not in school any more. It's not like I have anything else to do. But you guys are going to have to leave your swords and everything. You can't have those in the Overland."
She looked shocked. "Leave our weapons? But how will we survive?"
"You don't need weapons in New York City...well, okay, you might, but not in our neighborhood, and definitely no swords. Overlanders stopped using swords about three hundred years ago."
At that moment, Aurora flew down to them from somewhere.
"Are you prepared?" she asked Luxa. "The arena is full."
Luxa nodded, although she did not look ready, and climbed on to Aurora's back. Gregor did the same, wrapping his arms around her waist as Aurora flew them to the stadium.
