//------------------------------// // Two Fronts // Story: Blood Thicker Than Venom // by theOwtcast //------------------------------// We’d barely landed at our camp when I noticed my communicator scarabs glowing in their bag. Almost at the same moment, Brutus came out of the mining shaft, noticed us, and stuck his head back inside. “You can stop trying! They’re here!” he yelled, presumably to Grim, and the scarabs’ glow dimmed. “What happened?” I asked Grim, who was just coming out herself. “Chrysalis just called. She wanted to talk to you, but I told her you weren’t back yet, so she told me to pass the message. Anyway, the hive’s lost contact with the entirety of Manehattan’s infiltration force. The last contact with any of them was three days ago. She sent a few infiltrators from Fillydelphia to investigate, but they haven’t reported in since, so now she wants to see if you can figure it out.” “Me? Has she forgotten that I’m supposed to be preparing for a new mission of great importance?” “She hasn’t, but she said a few days’ delay won’t make that much of a difference. Besides, if they’ve figured out a way to detect us…” “...then we’ll have to rethink the whole strategy for this,” I caught on. “But why me specifically? Bostrot and Fillydelphia are much closer to Manehattan than we are, and there have to be some skilled drones there beside those you said went missing! Why not send them?” “I didn’t ask, and she probably wouldn’t have told me anyway, but I got the impression that she trusts you better than any other drone to sort this out.” “How very flattering,” I said dryly. “Did she say how she wanted it done, or am I free to act as I see fit?” “She said to take one of the soldiers from the new team with you, and to try not to attract too much attention, but the rest is up to you.” I nodded. Compared to some other demands that I’d had to deal with over the years, this was pretty generous and straightforward. It would make my job a lot easier: the less I had to worry about adhering to her technical expectations, the better I could focus on the actual task! “Oh, and Psycho gave me the names and aliases of all infiltrators and the locations of everyling’s hideouts, as well as the names of the drones from Fillydelphia that got sent to investigate first.” She gave me a scroll. “I’ve written them down for you.” I accepted the scroll, skimmed through it, then turned to the drones I’d brought from Ponehenge. “You’ve heard what happened. Obviously I’m taking one of you with me, and the rest are staying here to prepare for the mission you were sent to before this stupid complication came up. Which of you have experience in covert investigations of this kind?” Fang and Acid stepped forward. “Okay, Fang, you’re coming along, the rest of you are staying here. I’ll brief you now so you can start working until Fang and I return, assuming we do return.” I proceeded to tell them everything I knew about the mission, then assigned roles to each of us. “Any questions?” There were none. “Then get to work! Grim is in charge until I return, and I’ll have the communicator with me in case you run into problems she can’t handle! Fang, let’s go!” We arrived in Manehattan disguised as ponies and found one of the hideouts on Grim’s list: a humble cottage in the poorer suburbs of the city, where a drone named Rampage lived as an alleged repairpony. We didn’t expect to find him there if he’d disappeared like the others, but it was close enough to where we entered the city and as good a place as any to start looking. We knocked on the door and got no reply. “If you’re looking for Handy Wrench, you won’t find him,” a pony called to us from the neighboring yard. According to Grim’s list, ‘Handy Wrench’ was Rampage’s alias for this assignment. “Do you know when he’ll be back?” “I figure he won’t. They got him in that raid the other day, you know.” Fang and I exchanged glances. “Raid?” “Seriously? Where have you two been?” “Out of town,” I improvised, guessing where this was going. “We only just came back. What happened?” “Just your luck! Some filly and her dad were looking for the kid’s lost dog and stumbled upon a changeling of all things! The whole city tried to chase him down - cops, civilians, you name it - I wasn’t there, but I heard it was just like Canterlot that time when Princess Cadance was getting married!” “I’m sure it was quite a shock, but what’s it got to do with Handy Wrench?” “I’m getting there, buddy. Anyway, the darn thing got away, but the cops weren’t giving up on finding him, so they organized a city-wide raid, and didn’t even spare people’s homes while doing it! Gave my wife quite a scare when they broke in! Not that they found anything in our house, but they struck gold there!” He pointed to Rampage’s cottage. “Turns out Handy Wrench is a changeling! Would you believe it?” We feigned shock and disbelief. “You don’t say!” “I never would have guessed!” “So what did they do to him?” I asked. “Dragged him away in chains, of course! What else were they supposed to?” I was on the verge of suggesting they should have killed him on the spot, but stopped myself. Chrysalis might decide to execute him anyway when our soldiers manage to snatch him away from ponies, but no need to give them ideas for any future incidents, even for the sake of my own disguise’s credibility! “You’re right,” I sighed instead. “Well, looks like we came here for nothing!” We left and kept walking until we got to a park and found a relatively secluded part of it where we could discuss the news. “Sir, if they raided the whole city, I don’t expect we’ll find any of our infiltrators,” Fang said when we were out of ponies’ earshot. “They must have all been taken prisoners.” “I agree. But they could have missed some for one reason or another, and I’m willing to allow for the possibility that any such drones went into hiding for a while for their own safety, and we should find them.” “Good idea. They might know which of them got noticed.” “That, and it’ll work in their favor to have it known that they’ve dodged capture when Chrysalis starts giving out punishments.” “You’re right, Sir. If they do get punished for this, it’ll likely be something mild, unlike those who got caught, assuming we can get them out of pony prisons and drag them to the hive.” “What do you mean, ‘assuming we can’? Our soldiers won’t give up until they do, no matter what it takes!” Fang said nothing. “Sir, I’ve been thinking,” he broke the silence after a while. “And what brilliant conclusion did you come to?” “I wouldn’t exactly call it brilliant. But suppose Thorax is still alive; do you think he might have come here? For all we know, he could have gotten captured with the others!” That caught my attention. Indeed it was possible, and the thought had crossed my mind, and if it had happened, I didn’t think there was anything I could do to help him… other than, maybe, try to keep Chrysalis from finding out so she wouldn’t send a swarm for him. Despite my utter despise of ponies, I still thought Thorax would be better off at their mercy than at Chrysalis’! But what if he was still out there, roaming free? If that was the case, our actions here could have a bearing on his fate; for all I knew, we could even run into him if he was in the area! I had to keep Fang’s mind off him! But could I? I decided to play along for now and see how determined he was to capture my brother, then plan accordingly. “And how do you propose we find out?” “That’s the thing, Sir; I have a couple of ideas but they are either risky or have a low chance of success. Assuming he did come here, he would have had plenty of time to establish a false identity for himself, so his story would be similar to the one we heard about Rampage, except that he isn’t on our list and we don’t know where to go looking for him. And the city is too big to question every single pony on the off-chance we’ll find one who’ll know of a hideout that the list doesn’t cover and could qualify as his.” “So we do nothing?” “Maybe not. If we can find out how many changelings got arrested…” “...and the number is one higher than our count of missing drones, we could deduce that they’ve got him.” “Exactly. Unless any other changelings are unaccounted for other than the captured infiltrators and the drones sent to investigate first?” “More traitors?” I hissed at him. “You really think more drones would be that stupid?” “No, Sir!” he corrected himself quickly. “I’m sure everyling else is loyal to the Queen!” “Hm.” We walked in silence some more. “Do you really think they knocked down every door in the city?” “What?” “The cops involved in the raid. Wouldn’t it have been too much of a task to go on a blind hunt in a city of this size? And they seem to have captured all of our drones!” “What are you suggesting?” “Couldn’t they have had help, as in, a source of information where to look specifically?” I gave him a blank stare. Was he trying to say what I thought he was? “Couldn’t have Thorax revealed our infiltrators to them?” he asked. “That’s ridiculous! Thorax wouldn’t know where any of them are! Even I didn’t until I saw that list! And why wait seven months to do it?” “He might have thought Chrysalis wouldn’t connect it to him if he allowed some time to pass after his escape. Or maybe it took the cops that long to organize the raid and the changeling sighting was just a coincidence or a show for the public with which they intended to gain the populace’s cooperation.” Creative thinking, I had to admit, but I doubted Thorax would have done any of that. Even if he had somehow found out about the location of one or two hideouts, he couldn’t have known about every single one of them, and he certainly wouldn’t have had the guts to sell them out! What would it gain him, anyway? At best, it would only win him some marginally useful points in pony eyes, and he had to be aware that Chrysalis would investigate the disappearance of so many infiltrators! “Why would he do it at all?” I retorted. “He’s a traitor! What more do you need?” So that was that? He was a traitor, therefore everything that ever went wrong for us was his fault? I would have laughed at that logic even if Thorax wasn’t my brother! But Fang was obviously too far gone to be reasoned with on the matter; I had to find a different approach if I wanted to keep him away from Thorax. “Okay, so what would you do if you were in charge?” “It’s evening already, and since there’s too many names and places to visit them all if we’re going to get the same story everywhere, I’d sneak into the police station and review the raid logs, see how many changelings they’ve captured. We should be able to find out that much even if something goes wrong and we have to get out quickly. If we have the chance, we can read the logs in detail and see where the arrests happened; some of them had to be at the hideouts and we can cross them out. Then we only have to check the remaining hideouts if we still see the need. It could be even less work if we find that any of them revealed their true names to the ponies, whether due to stupidity, cowardice, or by succumbing to interrogation.” I couldn’t deny that the strategy made some sense. But sneaking into enemy defense headquarters was always risky business, and even the best plans sometimes failed! I knew I could fight my way out of it no matter what a bunch of pony cops tried, but could the same be said for Fang? Despite him drooling venom at the thought of capturing Thorax, I didn’t want him to join the Manehattan infiltrators in prison, and not just because of what Chrysalis might do to either of us! I knew I might end up having to pull another stunt to keep the news of Thorax’s whereabouts a secret if it turned out he’d been captured along with the others, but that didn’t mean I had to like it! If nothing else, finding out who got captured directly from the ponies involved might ease my mind about Thorax, at least until the next episode. Also, I might have actually come up with a strategy similar to Fang’s if I were alone and free to act as I needed to, and would have relished outsmarting the ponies on their own guarded turf, but having to keep a close eye on a soldier I’d had no excuse to leave behind and couldn’t afford to let roam unsupervised in a city that could be Thorax’s new home soured the whole ordeal as much as the possibility of finding my brother’s name on the list of prisoners. Reluctantly, I agreed to raid the police station.