“Ow… my head…”
I paused building a healing cocoon momentarily to cast a glance at Carapace, who was beginning to stir himself awake from the unconsciousness I’d caused him.
“Hey! Get over here and help me build this thing!” I commanded.
He got up and wobbled over.
“What… what happened?”
“An ursa attacked your team earlier tonight. I don’t know what you were doing around here in the middle of the night, but it’s a good thing I went for a walk after reporting to Chrysalis, otherwise you’d probably all be dead now. Don’t you remember any of it?”
“No, I don’t think I even know why we came here. What happened to Vermin?”
“The ursa stomped him. I think he’s dying- will you start with that cocoon already?!”
He did. We worked in silence for a few minutes, then Jackal woke up and I told him the same thing I’d told Carapace.
“But how did you defeat the ursa all by yourself when the three of us couldn’t?”
“I turned into a bigger ursa, and one twice as cranky, of course,” I shot back. “And there were two of you by then, fighting in your own forms. How in the name of eggshells did you expect to defeat the darn thing like that, anyway? Have you forgotten how to fight in disguise?”
Their eyes avoided mine.
“I don’t know what happened, Sir,” Carapace finally said, ”but I guess we must have been careless. We might have endangered our mission, and whatever punishment you think is necessary, we accept it.”
“I’ll take your injuries as punishment enough for now,” I told him. After what I’d done, I couldn’t punish them for it, even to maintain my lie’s credibility! “But I will reconsider that decision if Vermin doesn’t make it despite the healing cocoon!”
They nodded in agreement.
“Sir?” Jackal asked as we were completing the cocoon and enclosing Vermin in it. “What happened to the ursa?”
“It ran away.” I’d debated with myself whether to tell them that it had come out of that cave and that I’d trapped it back inside upon defeating it, but opted against it lest I give them a reason to go in to take a look at the alleged beast. “I didn’t bother chasing it when the three of you were injured. But we better not stick around too long; I don’t know how badly I managed to hurt it, and it could be back if this is part of its territory.”
“You think there’s another entrance to that cave and it lives in it? Or used to at some point?”
Great. Just what I needed! Get curious about the cave again, why don’t you? How many times will I have to feign incidents before you stop trying or, more likely, get suspicious and find out what’s really inside?
As for any more entrances, I hadn’t seen any, but knowing that I hadn’t really bothered to search for potential other exits, I made a mental note to return and take a closer look at a more convenient time, soon if possible, and conceal or block off any I manage to find.
“Possibly, but I think it’s too risky to investigate in our condition. We’d better return to the camps!”
We left the site in silence, the two of them carrying the cocoon with their teammate, me pretending to be on the lookout for any more beasts and actually trying to spot any witnesses of my charade that may still be lingering about. I didn’t see any, so either I was safe, or they were really good at remaining hidden.
I escorted them to their camp and ordered them to stay put until further notice, then headed for my own camp, still trying to spot any tails I might have picked up, thinking about Carapace and Jackal. Had they believed my story? Had my venom erased their memories of the incident like I’d hoped it would? Or had they simply pretended? They probably didn’t remember anything after all, I kept telling myself; they would have confronted me right then and there if something I’d told them hadn’t rung true! They wouldn’t have let my supposed superior rank stand in their way! But could some small fragment of their real memories have remained, something they weren’t yet aware of, but the significance of which they could realize at a later time? Could I convince them that that real fragment of memory had actually been a dream or something along the lines of a wishful-thinking-induced hallucination, which was a pretty rare thing but not unheard of? Only time would tell, but for now, I seemed to be in the clear, at least as far as they were concerned.
“What happened to you?” Grim asked as soon as I was back at the camp.
“Ursa,” I said, not bothering to elaborate. She was about to hear the details pretty soon anyway. “Has anything happened here?”
“No, Sir, we’ve been safe.”
“Good. Now move over, I’ve got to talk to Chrysalis!”
“Isn’t it a little late in the night for that?”
“Do I look like I care?”
But when I activated the communicator, Locust was the one who responded. He looked like I’d woken him up, and I realized I must have; Chrysalis couldn’t sit at the communicators day and night waiting for any unscheduled reports from me, so Locust must have been ordered to cover that during the nights, or at least during this particular night, depending on how Psycho had organized the drones assigned to the communication hub for the time being.
“What?” he asked groggily, then snapped to attention when he realized who he was talking to.
“Get me Chrysalis,” I commanded.
“I can’t! I’m under explicit orders not to disturb her until morning!”
“Even in emergencies?”
“Well, I suppose she would forgive me if I came to tell her the hive was under attack, but anything less than that, I’d probably go to Psycho if it’s important enough.”
“Then get me him, you idiot!”
It took him a few minutes, but eventually Psycho was there.
“Tell me you caught him,” he grumbled.
“No. We had an ursa attack,” I said and relayed my fabricated story and some of the injuries I’d caused to myself and the others. “We’re going to need a drone to replace Vermin, and preferrably another drone to carry him to the hive. I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep a cocooned changeling here, even if it is away from pony settlements.”
He frowned.
“What about you and the rest of Vermin’s team?”
“I can keep doing my duty, and I’m sure Carapace and Jackal can too.”
“Fine, I’ll tell Chrysalis in the morning. She might want to hear it from you directly, so don’t stray too far from the communicator.”
With that, he ended the link.
In the morning, the communicator lit up as Psycho had predicted.
“What’s this about an ursa attack?” Chrysalis asked as soon as her face appeared in the magical bubble.
I repeated the story again, hoping she would be convinced. She listened without interrupting.
“Why didn’t you go after this ursa?” she asked when I was done.
“We didn’t come here to hunt ursas, Your Highness. I saw it as a higher priority to make sure my team was alive and safe.”
“Too bad you weren’t around when the Everfree team could have used a little help!”
She was still mad at me for that?
“With all due respect, Your Highness, how could I have known they were going to be attacked? And even if they had called for help as soon as the attack started, what could I have done from hours away?”
“Ugh, fine. Psycho will select a replacement for Vermin. Now try to not have any more teams killed before we capture Thorax!”
“I’ve been doing that all along, but some things are simply beyond my power!”
“That wasn’t your attitude when you were First Commander! Watch it, or you might become a useless maggot like your brother!”
“Maybe I’ve just learned to stop overestimating my abilities,” I muttered loud enough for her to hear it but not so loud to make it obvious that I’d wanted her to hear it. I didn’t think I was overestimating my abilities, but she needed to hear some kind of an explanation for why things weren’t going the way she wanted them to go, so better this than the truth.
“Maybe I’ve been overestimating them too,” she growled and walked away, leaving the link open.
“You think you’ll be able to keep looking for Thorax while you’re injured like that?” Just as I was about to end the connection, Psycho stepped forward so I could see him. How long had he been there? And how many other reports had he been allowed to listen to? “Until the replacement hunter arrives, I mean?”
“We’re fine, Psycho,” I repeated with a hint of annoyance. I may have feigned a loss of self-confidence to Chrysalis, but I wasn’t going to let him think we were incapable of completing our mission, and more importantly, I didn’t want to give up my post here to someling who would go digging in that cave and find Thorax!
“You sure you don’t want replacements of your own?”
Why was he so insistent all of a sudden?
“I said we’re fine!”
“Fine! Have it your way!”
With that, he ended the connection.