#fucking RIPPED a 3 inch piece of skin off and I kinda never recovered

[thateclecticbitch]

The autistic urge to shave off all my body hair vs the trans urge to not shave it all off.

[runlikethemotherfuckingriver]

Ok AU fanfic time where after killing Bane Gregor had to face Ripred

Bit of backstory:

Gregor didn’t suffer the chest wound in the battle, but both Ares and Bane died. Still swamped with grief, Gregor’s currently lying down clutching Ares’ claw. Also I couldn’t think of any good political reasons for Ripred’s betrayal so I just threw in 1 statement and left it at that.

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Part 1

He didn’t know how long he lay there. Holding on to the last lifeline he had left, trying to pull Ares back from wherever he was. His sword had pierced the Banes stomach, but the foul stench that surrounded the three bodies seemed insignificant. Everything seemed insignificant. There was nothing left for Gregor... no reason for him to still be alive. It just didn’t make any fucking sense. The phropech was fulfilled, the bane’s blood had been spilled. What was left?

He stayed there for what felt like an eon, but couldn’t have been more than an hour. Slowly, he became aware of his name being shouted. But what were they expecting him to do? Get up? Go back to Regalia? Still full of shock and pain and grief, he began to rise. The voice came nearer, until he could hear the raspy, deep voice of one animal he didn’t want to talk to. “Gregor”, said Ripred, keeping his distance but sounding more understanding than he ever had before. “Gregor, we need to go back”.

“Back where?” He demanded, with his back still facing the Gnawer, surprising himself with the forcefulness of his tone. “Back to Regalia? Back to the overland? No, Ripred, what we need to do is go back in fucking time, so that none of this shit ever happened. So that everyone we love is sti-“ Gregor’s voice finally cracked with pain, and shock. “still alive.”

The rat said nothing, merely inched slightly closer to Gregor.

“My sisters?”, he asked, unable to muster anything more

“Both still have light, they flew back with Nike. Oh, and that crawler.”

For some reason, Gregor felt immense relief learning of Temp’s survival. He sank back to his knees, clutched Ares’ claw tighter, then finally

Let

Him

Go

He turned towards Ripred. “I’m ready.”

He started to walk towards the rat, intending to climb onto his back, but as soon as he got in reach the rat’s tail caught him and sent him crashing towards the side of the cave.

Part 2

Gregor hit the rocks with a sickening crunch, and immediately felt a couple of ribs break. His first thought was that another rat had creeped in, but Ripred stalking towards him quickly remedied that.

“What the hell, dude? What are you doing?”, Gregor yelled at the Gnawer. Not bothering to reply, Ripred lashed his tail or once again, but as Gregor launched himself out of the way, he felt the rager sensation kicking in. It probably wouldn’t save him from whatever Ripred was doing, but at least it gave him a sense of power.

Gregor just had time to crawl out of the way when the tail spun again, catching his back and pushing him into Ares’ corpse. Blood and fur filled his mouth. Ashamed at the revulsion that filled him, his panting showed him the image of his sword, still buried deep in the Bane’s heart. He grabbed it, spun around and narrowly avoided a strike from Ripreds left arm, claws poised to tear his chests. They both retreated from one another, then began circling. Ripred looked relaxed, amused almost, whilst Gregor was on high alert for an attack.

“Why?”, Gregor managed to get out through the pain in his chest.

“What did you think would happen after this war, overlander? That we’d all go back to peace, no conflict between the species?” Ripred hissed back at him.

“Pretty much, yeah” Gregor replied, and sprung forward, swinging his sword over his head towards Ripreds skull. The rat, however, anticipated this move and slunk lazily to the right, leaving Gregor to impale his sword in the dirt. He barely had time to wrench it out before Ripred came at him, teeth and claws and all. He parried strike after strike, but the Gnawer started pushing him back. Eventually something brushed against his back, and he knew he was backed up against the Bane’s body. Gregor planned to jump up over the corpse the next chance he got, but the floor was slippy with Ares’ and the white rat’s blood, and when he stepped on a piece of flesh, his feet went out from under him and he found himself on the floor, Ripred’s tail holding him in place as he opened his jaws for Gregors throat...

Part 3

Gregor knew at that point that it was finally time for him to go, for the prophecy to be finished, but his ragged breaths felt movement above him, and Twirltongue’s headless body slipped off her boulder pile and onto Ripred’s back, stunning him. Gregor used the split second of confusion to escape from underneath the tail, and took advantage of the disorientated rat to aim his sword at the Ripred’s neck joint. Once again, however, the gnawer easily sidestepped Gregor’s attack, clutched the weapon in his fangs, and snapped Sandwhich’s legendary sword in too. Without anything else to do, Gregor ran.

He could hear Ripred’s laugh behind him, the mocking tone that seemed to convey all of Gregor’s current fears. He knew the rat was faster, stronger and smarter than he was. But he wasn’t trying to outrun him. When he reached the end of the plateau, his idea was confirmed. The rock fell down into an huge abyss, and at the bottom were the bodies of countless gnawers, fliers and humans. Except, they weren’t exactly bodies... which is where Gregors plan kicked in. He knew the fall wouldn’t kill Ripred, but he hoped what lay at the bottom would. First, though, he had get the rat off the cliff. Plastering a layer of fear on his face (Which wasn’t very hard, considering the circumstances) he turned around, just to find himself face to face with Ripred’s crimson eyes. Eye, actually. It seemed someone - or something - had clawed it out during the battle. It wouldn’t affect the gnawer’s ability to see, he mainly used echolocation for that, but Gregor hoped that it was at least hurting him. Ripred’s was panting heavily, his disgusting breath being blown into Gregor’s face. They stood pile that, facing each other down, for a few seconds, until Gregor did something neither of them expected. He grabbed hold of the rats ears and pulled himself up onto Ripred’s back, kicking his remaining eye in the process. Half blinded, the gnawer couldn’t reach up to pull Gregor off, so he started to spin. As Gregor soon found out, that technique also works in attacking anyone within the circle. He was soon finding it hard to hold on, especially since the only option was to grab chunks of fur, but after spotting a jutting out rock, he knew exactly what to do. On the next circle, he shot his leg out and let it trail behind him until it hit the rock at full speed, and broke with a deafening crack.

Just before it hit, Gregor wrapped his arms around Ripred’s throat, and held on as hard as possible. The force of the leg hitting the rock did exactly what he expected; it stopped the rat in his tracks. Unfortunately, it also snapped his tibia, the bone just above his ankle. Just before he went flying off the rat’s back, Gregor caught a glimpse of shiny red bone coming out through his skin, and a torn muscle providing a clear look into the inside of his leg. He hit the ground with a thud, breaking a few more ribs. His whole body burned with agony, but this was the only chance he would get to kill Ripred. The rat was still recovering from his spin, but teetering dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. With as much strength as he could muster, Gregor launched himself forward with his right leg and slammed into the big rat’s body, pushing him off the plateau. The rat fell without a sound, but the force of him hitting the floor created a thunderous crunch. Gregor slowly pulled himself over to the edge, and looked down. As expected, Ripred was still alive. As he peered down, the rat looked up at him. Even from this distance, Gregor understood exactly what the rat was conveying. It reminded him of the first time he’d looked into Ripred’s eyes, and of the knowledge and danger lay within there. This look was similar, except for the insanity that also lived there this time. Soon, the rat got to his feet, but as he started to crawl over to a cliff in order to climb back up, Gregor noticed a swarm of blackness that rose up from a few hundred metres away. He wanted to look away, but he owed it to the rat to look upon Ripred as he finally met his death. The swarm of mites completely encased the rat, and eventually he met the same fate as Pandora. He didn’t even have time to scream. Gregor took one final look at his skeleton, one carcass among many, then began to crawl his way back towards Ares.

It took him an hour to reach the bodies of the Bane, Ares and Twirltongue. He collapsed right next to his bond, the black bat’s beautiful wings torn and ripped. Without looking at Ares’ throat, Twirltongue’s head or his own leg, Gregor clasped Ares’ claw in his hand, and finally lay down to rest...

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Ok from here same thing kinda happens, shiners find him and take him back, Lizzie is devastated that Ripred is dead, so he never tells her about his betrayal etc. The treaty happens, but Lapblood stands in for the rats instead, and her level-headedness leads the other species to continue to delegate her after Lizzie’s idea. Gregor doesn’t tell many people about the truth, only a couple of Underlanders really know what happened (Vikus, Luxa, Howard, Aurora, Nike, Euripides, Lapblood and Temp) Everything after that is the same.

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Phew what did you think? I quite enjoyed writing that.

(Now plz give me notes)