//------------------------------//
// Consequences 
// Story: With Wretched Fangs 
// by Shadow Beast 
//------------------------------//

Vertigo stepped out of the armory with new armor: a helmet capable of shifting shapes with her and marked with the royal crest. The new saddle worked in the same manner, and offered greater protection. She felt heavier with it all on. Looking down she saw the wretcher picking up the discarded book. She shuffled down the steps to investigate a fleeting suspicion.

"So you can read?" she asked the heartless body double.

Foresight's eyes didn't leave the book. "Yes, I'm literate. That fool smeared all the pages... With incompetence."

"So you can read them now that you don't have to pretend to be an assassin."

Foresight looked up from the book. "Exactly."

Vertigo crooked her head. "Is Mercy still in there?"

Foresight licked his fangs, flinching on the sharper, semi-deformed bits. His tongue collected most of the green liquid before receding into his mouth. He spat the juices out onto the floor. "He's dead." His hoof stamped the spot a couple times.

"When did that happen?" Vertigo said, trying to ignore Foresight's stamping.

"The moment you tried to kill us." He turned back to the book. "Not much I can do, when the time is far too short, to save a fool's life."

"So you absorbed Mercy himself, then let him control your mind for you. But when your skills were needed, you snapped back into control too quickly to save his mind from being forgotten."

Foresight looked up from the book again. "Please stop doing that. You're ruining the fun."

Vertigo laughed. "Who do you think brought that book in? It was a long day and I decided to read something before returning home with a fresh victim."

Foresight sighed, and smiled. "So you can understand poetry..."

"Haiku," she corrected.

“Nice armor,” he said, changing the subject. 

“Nice teeth.”

“Others may see past it, eventually healing. Time is a cure-all.” His tongue prodded the sharp, unnatural edges. He winked his right eye a couple times, before rubbing it with his hoof. 

Vertigo crooked her head. “Get something in your eye?”

Foresight groaned in slight pain. “A bad memory. Or a horrid prediction. Hard to say, really.”

“You sure you’re not going to miss me?” Vertigo asked with a half-smile. 

Foresight shook his head. “I do not know you.”

A frown creased her snout and she turned away from the wretcher. “Then enjoy staying here in the Hive.”

“May you never return here. I do not know you.” 

Vertigo shook her head and turned back toward him. “Is there anyway to bring Mercy back?”

Foresight squinted, then smiled, then burst out laughing. He turned from her, laughing. He trotted away, laughing.

“He won’t last more than two days,” a changeling said from behind her. 

Vertigo turned and glared, but quickly changed to a half-smile. "Oh, Compass. Didn't see you there."

Compass was a simple changeling with a simple job. It maintained gender neutrality and spoke in the common accent of those within the Hive. But this simplicity betrayed the fact that this changeling had great influence on the future of the Hive. All young changelings went under its gaze, from which Compass would derive their ideal jobs. If anything changes, the Queen has final say.

"I try to stay out of the more insane assassins' way." It smiled. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You captured a complete psychopath, and he doesn't want to kill you." 

"I don't think he likes killing," Vertigo replied, her eyes now following the wretcher down the stairs.

"He has an unfamiliar scent, but a very familiar arrangement of emotions." Compass took a couple sniffs of the air. "He's a cold-blooded murderer. I can tell. When young ones hatch from their cocoons, and they have that scent, I immediately mark them as assassins and move on."

Vertigo turned back toward him. "And are they always--" 

"Every test given to them by the Hive executioners assure us all that they're killers," Compass finished. 

Vertigo looked back down to find the wretcher gone.

"I've been traveling, in a perfect solitude, the world for some time," a familiar voice spoke from behind the two changelings. They both turned to see Foresight standing there, his straight face betrayed the darkness of his words. "Each death by my hooves, was in exchange for better life. Almost all of them."

"You would forsake Dredge?" Vertigo asked him.

"Dredge?" Compass asked, confused.

"I had warned him well. My path is a path for one. Others will vanish."

"So he wasn't even part of your plan from the start."

"And neither are you."

Vertigo chuckled. "You don't scare me, coward. You hide more than you eat. You're lucky the Queen even took you back."

Foresight cracked a smile. "Now She sends you out. She separates two wretchers. One suffers, one's gone."

Vertigo stamped her hoof, glaring at the changeling. "I'm not a wretcher."

"Then I don't know you. But you don't care about that. You care for the worse." Foresight turned from the two changelings and trotted away. His voice continued into the darkness below, vanishing after one last haiku: "Incomplete visions. Secrets behind wretched eyes. Behind wretched fangs..."

"Cute," Vertigo said outside of earshot of Foresight.

"He's still a killer," Compass said. "But he does seem a bit slow."

"You may know your killers from your soldiers, but I know my backstabbers from my killers." She sniffed the air. "I can tell when they lie, and when they plead the truth."

"Ooh," Compass replied sarcastically. "Because what assassins think is so worthwhile to hear."

"It's a difference between losing a whole squad or just a couple at most."

"Because their lives are so worth keeping," Compass continued.

Vertigo scoffed. She trotted away from the changeling and back down the stairs to follow Foresight. She bounded off of the steps to land a couple paces in front of him. 

"You actually lied to me."

"Really, you're surprised?" Foresight crooked his head. "You expect the truth from me?"

"I could feel it. You looked me in the eyes and said that time can heal anything. But behind your face I could tell you didn't really believe that."

"So that is a lie. How shameful of me." Foresight smiled. "But are you so sure I'm wrong? Does time not fix things?"

"It doesn't matter. You don't believe you're right. Which means there may still be time to save my friend."

Foresight shook his head. "Hope and Mercy: Opposites and enemies; bottom of the cliff."

"What?" Vertigo asked, confused.

Foresight chuckled. "I'm sure he's waiting. Neither of us have the time, to see your logic."

"I'm not sure I understand, actually."

Foresight smiled at Vertigo. She kept her face straight, but noticed that this particular smile was almost unfamiliar. It was a smile toward a friend, signifying a form of trust. He was confusing her to have a form of assurance. An assurance that she wouldn't try to kill him again. She smiled back. Behind her smile, his words echoed in her head: "Bottom of the cliff." She turned from Foresight and flew up to the top of the Hive. 

After trotting to the edge of the cliff that marked the entrance, Vertigo looked down toward the bottom. The ashes of the fallen wretcher remained there, despite the ever prevalent winds of the badlands. She jumped down, opening her wings to land gently near the pile of black ashes. 

"I guess this is what he wants..." She thought to herself as her magic pulled the ashes from the ground. Within her aura, she could see the ashes almost writhing. It was as though the dragon had not turned to ash, but instead into a black sludge. A fluctuation of her magic grip caused a small amount to fall near her hoof. She picked it up. It stuck to her hoof as a sticky wad of sludge. A sniff of it revealed an unexpected aroma: Love. The changeling's remains smelt of love. Vertigo could feel drool pooling in the sides of her mouth. "Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't mind," she thought, bringing her hoof closer to her mouth. Her eyes scanned the area for others before her tongue finally went to her hoof. Scooping the sludge into her mouth, she savored the taste of love before swallowing it. The morsel made her feel better and stronger. Yet, her stomach hungered for more. She looked back up at the large blob of food in her magical grip. She licked her lips. 

Vertigo stuffed the remains into her mouth. Swallowing with very little chewing. Her head buzzed with new energy, and she felt more filled than ever before. But as the remains were digested, a strange feeling tickled the back of her neck: the feeling of being watched. She turned around and scanned the area again for others. The eyes of her former assassin stared back.

Vertigo's eyes grew wide. "Foresight?! How long have you been standing..." Vertigo's eyes began to squint as she crooked her head. "Wait, why are you wearing Mercy's form again?"

"I guess these two assassins really did look alike," Dredge's voice spoke from the changeling's mouth. Vertigo's eyes widened again. "Probably a case of poor memory, though."

"How are you...?"

"Sshhh..." Dredge had a hoof to his lips. "No need to speak. Just think loud thoughts."

How the hay am I supposed to do that? she thought.

"Exactly like that," he replied. "You see, Vertigo, you killed me. But my body... It doesn't like letting go. It doesn't like... Not feeding."

Vertigo could feel her pulse elevate as she gulped. "So I... You're..."

"Oh, calm down!" the zombie assassin screeched. Its face flickered in a strange light. For a moment, Vertigo couldn't tell if Dredge was in disguise or not. "I'm not going to kill you." Now she couldn't tell if Dredge or the assassin was speaking. "I might scare you. I might tickle..."

"How are you doing that?!" Vertigo backed away.

"Please, Vertigo," they pleaded. "You need to calm down. Your perception will thank you."

She took a few deep breaths.

"Better. Just... Keep doing that," mostly Dredge said. "So... You ate me." The figure nodded. "Understandable. Wretcher remains tend to give off a good amount of love stored from victims." The changeling stopped to look around. "I'll be honest, I had no idea it'd feel this weird." He shrugged. "I'm not even me, and it kinda hurts."

Vertigo just stared, trying to keep her breaths at a reasonable tempo. 

"Right. Should've probably started with that..." Dredge smiled a half, the assassin smiled the other half. "I am still Dredge, but until your body completely breaks me down, I get to appear as this weird half-Dredge, half-memory-based-illusion thing." Vertigo's mouth went to speak, but Dredge put up the assassin's hoof. "I'm in your head, just think loudly."

Vertigo cleared her mind, taking more deep breaths.

"You know, if you had done this as soon as I died, I might just have enough strength to rock that little skull of yours; take over your body completely and make it mine. But you stagnated us."

Vertigo slowly smiled. 

"Instead, we will fulfill our side of the bargain. Wretcher powers will be yours."

Vertigo felt her body, mostly her horn, tickle and get subtly shake under the hollow changeling's powers. Then, with a feeling of warmth, it stopped.

Know anything about the Griffin Kingdom?

"Aw, yes. The land that gave us Foresight." The figure let out an icy chuckle. It cut itself off as it noticed Vertigo's cringe. "Sorry... We don't know much about it. Foresight mentioned taking up a job there once..." It shook its heads. "Sorry, we're fading too quickly."

Vertigo lowered her head. Her eyes closed, trying to focus. I'm sorry.

As the Moon rose over the horizon, Vertigo was alone. But there was a short glimpse into the mind of Dredge. She looked over it again and again... 

Foresight was always his name. Midnight was just an alias, a failed plan to get into the Hive. A part of the bigger plan for gaining immortality. He appeared from the Griffin lands, tired and ragged, without wings. His eye could not disguise itself naturally. We helped him. He refined our spells and methods. We worked together to perfect the Wretcher legacy. Two things required: A breeder for the ticks, and a black and red horn for the bells. He knows where to find one, and we have a good hunch about the other. Sounds simple enough.

Vertigo looked to the northeast, toward the Griffin Kingdom miles away. Her mind buzzed with energy and ideas, and many questions. A brief answer to two of them flashed behind her eyes. She looked back at the Hive, smiled, then galloped off into the night. Alone, she would face the Griffins and learn the truth.

From the entrance, Foresight watched her disappear into the night. Two assassins appeared at either side. "'The smart one is here.' Such kind words from beyond us. 'Please, can we keep her?'" he chuckled. The confused assassins hissed. They jumped at him, but he was faster. "What? No love for poetry?" 

He laughed, and licked his wretched fangs.