I do not own TUC or any of the characters you recognize. I do own Zeb or any other characters.

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I didn’t mean to be here. I was just wandering, and I ended up over here. I was in NYC, and I was just wondering what to do, when I realized I had walked straight to Central Park. There was the giant rock that when pushed aside led to the Underland. I don’t know if it was a good idea to go down there. I was just sitting there on a park bench opposite it. It seemed to call to me. Zeb, Zeb, come down here. We want you here. You can see Henry and Luxa. Come on Zeb. I was scared, but still curious to see what my best friends are like now after three years.

I should explain. You see, three years ago I lived in an apartment here in New York City. I was at Central Park and I took off. My parents lost sight of me as I left them. I stopped here, at this boulder. It suddenly opened and I ended up in the Underland. I won’t go into descriptive details.

Anyway, here I was, in the same place I was three years ago. I couldn’t take it anymore!! So I acted on impulse. I pushed the boulder and jumped into the opening. I plunged into darkness.

I crawled around the stone floor, forgetting all about my echolocation. I hadn’t had time to practice it. So as I felt around, feeling stupid, I bumped into something hard and fuzzy. Uh-oh. Looking up, all I saw was a big mass, but I could always recognize that big mass anywhere. Ripred.

“What are you doing here?” he growled, his tail whipping around and picking me up by my ankle.

“Ripred! It’s you!” I cried, relieved.

“Yes, now what do you want before I rip you to shreds!” he growled, even fiercer.

“Ripred, if you don’t remember me by sight or voice or smell, I hope this’ll jog your memory. Ripred, I was mad at you, so I said: ‘Well at least I wasn’t born bald and wrinkly like an old man.’,” I said. I really didn’t want to be ripped to shreds. That would be bad. Really bad.

“Zeb? Zeb, it’s you!” he had lost his fierce growl and put me down. “It has been so long since I’ve seen you. Come on. Let us get to Regalia. There is much things and people to see.” He winked at me and grabbed my wrist and pulled me along. Wow, he was in a much better mood than when I last saw him. Usually he was growling at everyone, even brave Henry and fearless Luxa seemed to be scared of him and weren’t spared. I shrugged it off as I stumbled after him.

Suddenly there was a bright light, and I was momentarily blinded until I heard the flapping of bats wings. There in front of me was a large bat, the size of a car or a King size bed. The bat had tan stripes on its copper colored fur.

“Come, Zeb. This is Georgian. He will take us to Regalia. There is someone who will be very glad to see you.” With that, Ripred grabbed me and slung me up onto Georgian’s back. Ripred too climbed on, and Georgian took off into the air.

“Ripred, you’re in a way better mood than since we last met. You ok, dude?” I asked.

“Yes, I am fine. Just, someone has made me happy. That is really all,” he replied, lost in thought. “Princess Luxa is still there. So with Vikus and Solovet.”

“Luxa. Luxa’s still there! Really?” I smiled, remembering me old friend (best friend, to be honest, along with Henry). She was probably 13 now, like me. Henry probably was around 14. My smile grew wider. “What about Henry, Ripred? Is Henry still there?”

No answer.

“Ripred, what happened to Henry?”

Still no answer.

My smile disappeared completely. What happened to Henry?

“Ripred, what about Henry are ya’ not telling me?”

This time he did answer, but it was in a gruff voice. “Henry… Well I shouldn’t tell you. You’ll learn about it from Luxa. She has an alliance with the mice now. She also found the warrior mentioned in the prophecies.”

“But you don’t believe in the prophecies. You said so yourself, when everyone thought I was the warrior,” I replied.

“ Yes, well, he has got us through all the prophecies. He isn’t dead. Have you been working on your echolocation?” he asked, trying to stay away from the previous subject.

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?” I asked. Ripred turned around to look at me. “What’s up with that?” I asked, nodding to his second scar. They both made an X across his face.

Ripred smiled, and gave me a short answer. “Long story, Zeb.”

After an hour or two, us three touched down into the arena of Regalia. It was actually quite messy and broken. Workers everywhere were trying to rebuild it; patching holes in the ground, rebuilding the walls, cleaning up blood.

“What happened here?” I asked, mesmerized by the aftermath of some chaos.

“War is what happened here. Rats, the Bane, even Diggers were on their side. Well, follow me, and we will find Luxa.” Ripred started walking towards the huge castle. Even after all these years, I still recognized it. Its huge towers, the high windows, even the rushing river. Only that this too was being rebuilt. We were raised up the elevator (I still call it that!) and went through to the Code Room.

“I remember this place. This was where Henry, Luxa, and I were taught the codes. Hasn’t changed much.” I noted that it was messy though. Not chaotic messy, just messy. Like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. Scraps of paper were littered all over the floor, trying to be swept up and ordered. There were many Underland creatures. Bats and spiders; cockroaches and mice; humans and Ripred. There was one little girl trying to read out all of the scratches and letters on the scraps. Ripred went to her and spoke to me,

"This is Lizzie. She was one of the workers of the Code Teams trying to solve the Code of Claw. She actually solved it." Ripred looked at Lizzie and smiled at her. I bet she was the one making him happy.

"Hey, Lizzie. How... Um, How old are you?" I asked. If she was eight, then I'm stupid. She figured out this seriously hard code, and she was younger than me.

"Eight. Ripred, who is this?" She asked Ripred, then turned to look at me.

"This is Zeb. He came here to the Underland a few years ago, before your brother came here. He was friends with Luxa and Henry. I knew him, too." Ripred stood back up. He looked at Lizzie for another second, almost lovingly, then his face hardened again and turned back to me. "Come. I'll take you too Luxa.

I didn't know that Ripred was... I can't even bring myself to think it. Ripred was never nice to anyone. Never. Whenever I did one thing wrong or clumsy (and I do that a lot), he would whack me in the back of the head with his tail and make fun of me. And the worst part of it was that he did it casually. Then one day, he pushed me too far and I practically called him Benjamin Button.

Ripred led me to a room with a closed door. The prophecy room.

"Luxa is usually in here. If she's not, check the museum or the hospital. You know where I will be." And with that, Ripred walked away for me to confront the confusion of a girl's feelings.

As Ripred said, Luxa was in the prophecy room, looking at all of the carvings covering the wall. She actually did look quite nice as I had imagined. I felt a pang somewhere in my stomache, but I brushed it away as merely missing memories. So I walked in, wondering what to do. I s\didn't know what to say after all these years. Hi, Hello, what the heck? STUPID STUPID ZEB, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING?! SPEAK YOU STUPID FOOL! IT'S JUST LUXA! YOUR BEST FRIEND!!! OH MY GOD, IT DOESN't MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!!!

"Um... Hi Luxa." Wow. You idiot.

"Zeb?" she asked, looking at me, cogs working in her brain. Then out of no where she ran over and almost knocked me down in a big hug. "Zeb! Wow, it is so good to see you! Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you were somewhere in the Overland. Where was that?" She was truly excited to see me.

"Um, yeah, well I really didn't mean to be here. Force of habit I guess." Luxa pulled away and smiled at me, and again, I got that pang in my stomache. Geez I missed this place.

"Where are you living now in the Overland? I mean, you said that when you left you would moved to a different place, a different state."

"Yeah, I am livin' in a different state, I'm livin' in Lousiana. My mom really missed New York, so we came here on vacation. I just wandered over here, really," I said, kinda uncomfortable with the whole talking about me moving to a new place, etc. But she didn't seem to mind. So I decided to question her. "How have you been down here?"

"Oh. I have been okay. But Regalia has not. We have seen a lot of war the past year or so. It's a hard thing to talk about, to be honest. Especially what happened to the mice." She dropped her eyes on the ground and her posture drooped. I stuck out a hand and put it on her shoulder, like I used to do. She looked back at me and smiled. I smiled back, kinda uncomfortable again.

"Where's Henry? I saw Ripred again and he wouldn't answer my question. What happened to Henry, Luxa?" I was scared about the answer. If Ripred wouldn't tell me, then why would Luxa?

"Henry...Henry, he's...Henry is dead. He's dead." She didn't drop her gaze this time, but her posture drooped again.

"Dead?" it was little more than a squeak. "How did-" I cleared my throat and tried to sound normal. "How did he die?"

"Zeb. Come sit down and I'll telll you everything." She sat down in the corner and waited for me to come too.

I sat down next to her. "Ok. Spill."

She told me everything. Even who Gregor was.

"Gregor killed Henry?"

"No, Zeb! No he didn't! Henry was confused! King Gorger took over him, and confused his mind! It wasn't Gregor at all!"

She tried to make me think otherwise. But I wouldn't. And I should have listened to her. But I didn't. Henry was confused because of Gergor. Gregor took Ares from him.

And I hated Gregor.

Ok, I know it's not very good, but give me some slack! I couldn't get the ending right, though. I'd love some help on the ending of this chapter. Oh well. Please review!