We flew. The air here was clean and unburdened by poisonous gasses. It tasted terrible. The route we flew was familiar as if the invasion had happened yesterday and not almost a month ago. I could see rents in the ground from where the pack of behemoths had trampled in their blood thirsty rage to be the first to Canterlot. We followed the trail, myself accompanied by my two colleagues and fifty warriors. All in told this was the greatest expenditure we could afford for any length of time.
It had been a month so the trail was grown over or in some cases had disappeared entirely. But we had their scent by now and it was easy enough to know where our behemoths had gone.
We flew low into a massive swamp. Trees lay strewn about as if a giant hatchling had been playing with them and there were great rents in the ground. As we continued on a stench like that I had never smelled before came up from the ground and caused me to gag. And then we saw it.
Lying in the mud and muck was the corpse of a massive hydra, worse, around the body lay at least two dozen of our massive, wingless behemoths, all of them dead. I landed in the mud and immediately sunk up to mid-shin. I slowly moved through the mud up to the behemoth’s massive head.
“Check them all,” I commanded. “One may still be alive. I knelt down by the behemoth’s massive head and poked it with my foreleg. One eye slowly opened up and rolled crazily until it rested on me. The pupil went wide with recognition. The beasts chest rose and with a huge sigh of exertion the head lifted from the mud and raise itself above me. I could hear as Horus and Kronus landed behind me.
“There all dead.” Horus stated. I shook my head.
“Your brood is all dead Horus.” I looked up into the eyes of the one behemoth we still had left. “Tell the troops to begin dragging all of these bodies back to the hive and bring the hydra as well, I’ll keep at least one head as a trophy.” I stood and stepped back. The one living behemoth slowly began to extricate his limbs from the ground. With huge sucking sounds he rolled his massive body over and pushed to a standing position.
“Horus,” I repeated. “Your brood is all dead, but this one, he’s all mine.” The behemoth reared his head back and bellowed. The force from the battle cry caused more than one warrior to fall from the sky bewildered. I let myself smile; this was going to be one interesting day.
As the underlings began to drag the corpses back to the hive I walked alongside the behemoth. I entered his mind as we walked and searched through his memories.
I went back as far as I could. The behemoth’s mind was an odd thing to sort out, they didn’t think like I did and the memories came haphazardly and in random order. Eventually I pieced together how things happened.
When the behemoths had been ambushed instincts took over, chemical orders had been sent through the air but due to the overwhelming threat the hydra presented they had been overruled violently with the need to kill the largest threat in sight. The memories were quite clear as I looked at the carnage through the behemoth’s eyes.
The hydra’s heads swung down and smashed into the bodies of the massive changelings smashing some into pulp. I could hear bones break as I watched the memories go by.
The fight lasted only about ten minutes as the behemoths and the hydra smashed into each other, snapping bones and tearing flesh from each other. Fight finally ended when one of the last two behemoths managed to force its horn up through the ribcage of the hydra and spear the beast’s heart with its massive horn.
I pulled my mind from the behemoth’s consciousness and stared up at the beast. He had four broken ribs, his left shoulder had been dislocated and then relocated incorrectly and both of his knees had been brutally battered to the point of near uselessness. All in told it would probably take him six months to fully recover. I looked ahead as I strolled along. He might take a while to heal, but he would be the alpha now and that, that would make for an interesting pack lead.
Now that we had retrieved the bodies I needed to sit with the other Praetorians again and set in motion the events for the funeral and the tournament, the Blood Rite.
We arrived back at the hive without incident. I escorted the behemoth to the contamination chamber. In the hive there are only so many of us who are important enough to be healed, behemoths are counted amongst that group. Unfortunately we did not have bubbled big enough to fit one of the monsters so the contamination chamber had been dug out. It was essentially a giant secluded pool filled with the same neon green slime that I had found myself suspended in.
I watched the behemoth slowly lower its massive frame into the liquid. The only benefit of the pool is that the behemoths can come and go, so this healing wouldn’t interfere with the funeral at all.
I sighed. The funeral would be interesting this time. I’d never been in charge of one before, nor had I ever overseen the Blood Rite, but Horus wouldn’t be able to do it anymore.
“I know what you’re thinking.” The old Praetorian said behind me.
“Speak of the devil.” I said under my breath. I turned to see my predecessor standing there staring at me.
“We need to talk.” Horus stated. I nodded and together we took off into the air. As we flew I spoke.
“Are you sure this needs to be done?” I asked him. Horus nodded.
“We’re in too fragile a state and we need a queen within a few weeks, not a few years.”
“Are you sure that this will do that for us?” I asked Horus. “I cannot run this hive on my own for years with the whelp asking me all of the questions when I myself still don’t know everything.”
“Don’t worry,” Horus assured me. “The hive will live on, I can assure you, but we need a new queen, without one we are doomed to fail.”
The two of us flew on in silence. I landed on the balcony outside of my chamber and looked up at Horus.
“So when is this going to happen then?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Tomorrow,” Horus answered. “Bing the whelp as well, he’ll need to see this.” With that the Master Praetorian flew off leaving me with even more questions that he couldn’t answer.
I entered my chamber and looked around. It was sparse, with a large cushion and a large depression filled with water for bathing. I looked down at my mud soaked legs and decided to clean myself. I relaxed in the warm water and reflected on the coming events.
This would be my fourth witnessed Blood Rite coming and the first I would not compete in. This would also be my second witnessed Gene Sacrifice. I didn’t dwell on the ceremonies that were coming up I just focused on cleaning myself.
I finished with my cleansing and rose up out of my bath. I walked to my cushion and fell onto it and allowed sleep to claim me.
I came to the next day and rose from my bed. Today is the day I had hoped to never see again.
I walked out onto my balcony and took to the air. I slowly made my way over to the hatchery to watch death work its magic.
I entered the hatchery and landed softly on the squishy floor. I moved slowly amongst the combed walls. I peered within one and at the egg held within. I could make out the black larva wriggling within the amniotic fluid that fed it. It was amazing to see new life in its earliest stages around the hive. I turned and continued my sad walk.
Soon enough I came upon the one chamber that only four of us knew about. The fourth being who was supposed to know about this place was the queen. It was the chamber where we made new queens, where old ones come when they died.
Today we were not passing just a queen. We were going to pass Horus. As I walked into the chamber it looked just the same, above hung the one lone egg sac that held the embryo that was our growing queen and underneath was a pool of viscous, nutritious amniotic fluid that fed slowly into the egg of our new queen, queen Crucia. I saw Horus standing at the edge of the pool staring down into the bubbling contents of hatchling food. Next to him stood Kronus who had been told what was to happened today. I could hear Horus speaking to the young one.
“Today begins the Blood Rite, Kronus. Today is a day for warriors and soldiers alike to fight to honor our dead queen. I will not be there, I will be dead before either of you walk from this chamber.” He looked up at the dangling egg. “All for her,” he sighed. “All for the hive.” The old one smiled and slowly walked his way into the center of the pool. I watched, just as I had watched all those years ago when I had been in Kronus’ position and Follox had walked himself into the center of that pool, and I knew that Kronus would probably watch me do it as well.
The process was quicker than any other acid I’d ever seen work. Horus began to lose inches as he stood in the middle of the pool, being slowly eaten up to feed to new queen. This would give the queen a super boost and quicken her growth process and shorten her time in the sac from a year to a few months. I didn’t say anything to the ancient as his head was enveloped by the goop and taken forever.
I looked up at the egg as it the embryo within stirred at the introduction of a new food source.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go bury the queen.” With that the two remaining praetorians walked out of the secret birthing chamber and out through the avenues of new changeling life that sprouted from our very walls.
We both stood over the main thoroughfare of the hive that leads from the main entrance to the vey center spire. I watched as our one surviving behemoth, the new alpha, marched its massive way between the lined road way. I had said that the hive never stops, I had forgotten this one day, the day where we mourn the loss of our mother. The hive will stop for her, for all of the mother’s that Horus and I had seen. I had seen a great many of the younger praetorians taken in battle and those were sad affairs themselves, but nothing compared to seeing what I saw.
It was an odd thing, to experience emotion. I watched the behemoth with that massive palanquin on its back carry the latest of our mothers to the base of the spire. At the bottom four overseers waited reverently. When the behemoth arrived they each took a limb and carried the queen to the hatchery. From there it was my job to take her to the very pool where I watched Horus consumed to feed the new queen. Chrysalis was to serve the same purpose, but instead of nutrients it would be knowledge that the new queen would get from my beloved Chrysalis.
I looked to Kronus.
“You know, this next brood will be yours.” I stated quietly. The younger one looked at me.
“But.” He trailed off. I smirked.
“I’m the master now, Kronus. That means the duty falls on you.” I looked out over the assembled masses of our weakened hive. Even in our diminished numbers we still looked formidable.
“Now we’ll just see if you have anything in your body worth passing on to the next generation.” Kronus smiled at me.
I looked out over the legacy the Horus and I had created. If you looked long enough you could begin to pick out which ones belonged to me and which ones belonged to Horus. The old one had left me with one bit of knowledge at least. It doesn’t matter how many you make, it all depends on how you fight.