Blood Thicker Than Venom

by theOwtcast

Stratagem

The news of Rascal’s capture and the discovery of the strange disguise-removing substance had been the last highlights of our mission so far. Several days after finding out that it hadn’t been Thorax who had gotten captured in Canterlot, I’d received an update from Chrysalis, saying that her drones had made contact with the imprisoned hunter for a brief moment, only long enough to confirm our timberwolf theory, but he’d been taken away again before he could offer any further insight. No drones had been able to get to him since, or even to find out his exact whereabouts, assuming he was still alive.

The zebra’s ointment had proven to be a tough shell to crack: no matter how hard they tried, neither the drones in the hive nor Chrysalis herself had been able to learn anything about it beyond its obvious effects. Not its composition, not the process of production, not even a plausible theory of its origins, and especially not how to disable its disguise-undoing effect! Chrysalis had vented about these failures once or twice over the communicator link, but though she’d done an admirable job of presenting every outward manifestation of anger, I believed much of that had been a mask hiding the fear inside her, and I couldn’t blame her; after all, I shared much of those concerns myself. How would we conduct covert missions if such a substance became widely available to ponies? How would we deceive our enemies if this cursed concoction was to be found at every step? How would we fight it if we couldn’t figure out how it worked? And while it was true that an ointment was an impractical thing to easily apply on unsuspecting victims, how long would it be until the zebra, ponies, or any other creature with knowledge of this substance discovered a form of it more suitable for use on enemies, such as a spray or a poisoned dart, maybe even a poisoned raincloud for extreme situations? Could they have figured it out already?

No further developments on either front had come up as the weeks turned into months. My teams’ work had long ago become dull routine again: teams were still reporting no news on Thorax’s whereabouts, not even a hint of a rumor, not even a trace of anything to go on! Relaying such reports to Chrysalis had been hardly a problem at first - neither of us had realistically expected the teams to find him in the course of the first few days - but it had gradually become awkward to the point that she would sometimes snap at me for such repetitiveness. Was I even trying? Was I hiding something? How had I failed to find my lousy, incompetent brother for this long? Did she have to come to my camp personally and tear it apart to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything from her? I could swear, she almost had shown up a few times!

Despite my training to endure the physical and mental strains and challenges that missions would often bring, the gravity and treacherous nature of the feat I was hoping to accomplish had eventually taken a toll on me. Often times recently, I was getting so exasperated by trying to maintain a façade of loyalty and obedience while plotting to help Thorax to safety if I could, so fed up and unable to think straight, that I’d started wandering through the woods most evenings after report-issuing hours, trying to clear my head. It had gotten to the point where I would spend hours in the darkness of the forest, flying or trotting alone, sometimes relieving my tension on a trunk of any unfortunate tree that happened to be nearby, or by grabbing a wild animal to put into a cocoon and thus turn into a lamp like the ones we had in the hive. Grim and Brutus had silently disapproved of my behavior at first, but they’d gotten used to it pretty quick, and there were times I suspected they’d barely noticed I was gone. No trouble had ever arisen in my absence, and by now I trusted their ability to keep it that way.

Not so long ago, I would have been ashamed of needing to clear my head so often. Why would a skilled and fearsome soldier, I would ask myself, need an outlet of this kind? A true warrior’s outlet should be to wreak havoc with his enemies! He most certainly wouldn’t be seen strolling through a forest! Only a wimp and a loser would do that… or so I’d believed.

Now look at me.

If anything, my nocturnal adventures allowed me some time alone to think about Thorax. Where was he? What was he doing? Had he found what he’d been looking for? Or had something found him? Lions? Flash bees? Timberwolves? Would I return to the base camp and find a team reporting they’d captured him? Would I get a chance to let him escape before he got dragged to the hive, to Chrysalis?

Was there still anything left to save?

Snap out of it, Pharynx! Of course he’s alive! He has to be, or all of this would be pointless!

But if he was alive, how come we hadn’t found a trace of him for so long? How long had it been, anyway? Three months? Four? How could anyone vanish for that long, even if they were a changeling? He had to have left some kind of trace! Something, anything! Even if he’d been killed, there had to have been some clue as to what had happened! What were we missing?

Could he have been killed along with the Everfree team back at the beginning? My heart skipped a beat upon realizing that would be a likely explanation: there had been signs of struggle at the site, after all, but how many changelings had taken part in it? Three? Or four? But if Thorax had been there, why hadn’t Rascal told the drones sent to find him in prison? If he’d had the time to tell them about timberwolves, he would have had the time to tell them Thorax was dead! That should have been a matter of higher priority to report than some stupid timberwolves!

Could Thorax have fallen victim to the same timberwolves at a different time? Had his death been masked by the deaths of the hunters sent after him?

Before long, I knew the answer.

One night on the brink of winter, my wandering took me along one of the many routes I’d taken at some point since developing the habit. As the trees had lost their foliage over time, the nuances of the terrain had become clearly visible in the moonlight, and I could make out more details now than the first time, when the moon had still been obscured by the dense canopy. I knew there was a cave in the area, its entrance blocked off with piled-up rocks for as long as I’d been aware of its existence. I would sometimes pass by the mouth of the cave, wondering what beast might have lived in it, if any. None were using it now, obviously, but my fighter’s instinct longed to know what I might have faced if I’d arrived at a different time, when the cave had still been accessible.

Tonight, however, something was happening there. I could hear voices and sounds of punching before I’d come close enough to see the source of the commotion. The voices I recognized as those of the other Foal Mountain team: Carapace, Jackal, and Vermin; they sounded fiendishly delighted about something. But why the punches? It didn’t sound like they were in trouble! They weren’t arguing, either! Had they come across a pony they wanted to feed on? But what would a pony be doing here, especially at this hour, and why hadn’t they incapacitated him quickly like they normally did with the prey were feeding on during the mission?

Getting a bad feeling about this, I decided to sneak up on them and see what was happening.

Still out of their sight, I looked around for any unwanted witnesses, and having found none, I transformed into a bat with working eyes, then went to fly over the area that the noise was coming from.

I found them right in front of the mouth of the cave.

Some of the rocks that had once blocked the entrance were now lying about as if something had thrown them in a fit of rage. Among them, a few steps from the newly-opened entrance, the three changeling hunters were gathered in a circle, kicking viciously at the form curled up defensively on the ground, cheering and hissing excitedly as they delivered each punch.

As soon as I heard the yelps and whimpers of their victim, I knew who he was.

How had they found him? Had he been in the cave? But how had he gotten in? And when? And what had made them go look inside now if they hadn’t for all this time they’d been here?

Had they seen me? No, it didn’t look like they had. They were too busy to notice things! And with no other creature around to see what was about to happen…

I retreated to the place I’d been at when I’d first heard them, where I knew I would be out of their sight. They probably wouldn’t have noticed anything anyway, being in such a state they were in, and I doubted they’d remember much anyway after what I intended to do, but one could never be too careful!

I unleashed a flash of my magic; the bat became an ursa, and I walked briskly but silently back to the cave, where the punching and kicking was still in full swing. When I was close enough to see them, I launched into a full gallop, headbutting the whole group a good distance away, careful not to accidentally hit or step on their whimpering victim.

Ignoring him for the moment, I checked my surroundings and approached the pile of soldiers. Jackal and Carapace were knocked out cold, but Vermin was still moving. I stomped him so he would join the other two in oblivion. Then, after a moment to make sure I was safe to do what needed to be done, I turned to Thorax.

Even in the dark, I could see blood running down his carapace from a dozen if not more gashes; his wings were torn up, one leg bent at an unnatural angle, he may have been missing a few teeth, including part of one fang, and his eyes were swollen shut. But he was alive and conscious, trying to lift his head off the ground, looking at me with one sort-of-still-open eye as if expecting to get chewed up and swallowed any second.

I dropped my disguise.

“Seriously? I still have to keep saving you?” I exclaimed. One would think he’d have figured out how to stay safe in this land if our hunting teams had failed to track him down when he’d been right under our snouts all along!

“What are you doing here?” he rasped weakly.

“What does it look like?” I snapped back. “Now shut up or we’ll both be in trouble!”

Before he could prolong the conversation, I stooped down and sank my fangs in him.

He flinched as my venom found its way into his bloodstream, and moments later, he was unconscious. Leaving him there momentarily, I returned to the three hunters and repeated the process on each of them. It may have been unnecessary with them unconscious already, but if the venom managed to erase their recent memories like it was known to often do… I wanted any advantage and failsafe I could get!

I dragged Thorax into the cave. Considering his condition, I’d intended to put him into a healing cocoon and hide him, but when I got inside, I already found a broken one hanging from the ceiling and a pool of healing slime on the ground. I almost laughed with relief at this point! So that was why we couldn’t find him! He’d gotten badly injured at some point, probably in the Everfree Forest! He’d wandered off to a less dangerous area, found a secluded spot in this cave, as safe from being discovered as he could get under the circumstances, and cocooned himself! And to think I’d been wandering right past him all along and asking myself if I’d ever see him alive again!

How had Carapace and his team failed to find him for so long? It had been their task to search the area as best as they could, even if I’d merely pretended to want the teams to find Thorax so they wouldn’t accuse me of treason! If I’d noticed the cave at nighttime, they would have had to see it in broad daylight! Had they, like me, assumed there might have been a potentially dangerous animal in the area and opted to keep their distance? Had they deemed the cave unworthy of their effort due to the blocked-off entrance? In any other circumstances, I would have punished them severely for such a stupid oversight… but as it was, I could only be thankful they hadn’t gone in. Thorax had merely picked the wrong moment to break out of his cocoon! Would he ever know how insanely lucky he’d been that I just happened to be in the area?

I filled up his old cocoon and put him back inside it, then rearranged the rocks to close the cave again. He would need time to heal, and if this setup had kept him safe so far, it could do it a little longer, only this time, I knew where he was and could keep an eye on him until he was ready to get out again. Where life would take him from that point on, I couldn’t predict, but at least I was in the position to make sure he got there, even if I couldn’t follow. He would just have to learn to take better care of himself, even if it meant never dropping his disguise for the rest of his life!

But this was all months in the future, and I had a more immediate task to attend to.

I returned to the three unconscious drones. Taking the form of an ursa again, I proceeded to inflict injuries on them, one by one. I paid special attention to slash up the parts of their carapaces where I’d bitten them; no use fabricating a story if physical evidence wouldn’t support it!

I didn’t like doing that, especially to Vermin, who had been left severely injured by my stomping him, worse than the other two. All my life I’d worked to protect the hive and its drones from harm; though injuries were often unavoidable in training drills, I had no problem with them as long as the experience would teach the injured drone how to avoid getting the same injury in real combat. Even the combat wounds weren’t really a problem for me as long as the soldier had earned them honorably and protected the hive in the process! But this, a massacre of unconscious drones for the sake of covering up a lie, even if they would recover? On any other day, I would have demanded the worst punishment one could think of for a drone who had deliberately wounded his or her teammates in order to save a traitor! And here I was, not only doing that very thing, but expecting to get away with it! How could the hive possibly benefit from my actions? And Vermin may not even survive! Was Thorax’s life really more valuable than Vermin’s?

Every drone in the hive would say it wasn’t. Chrysalis would say the same, and even more, she’d say that Thorax’s life wasn’t worth anything! But me? Thorax was my brother, the only surviving family I had!

I had never realized it meant that much to me.

I had considered the hive my family… but Thorax had been part of the hive, and though one would never have thought it by looking at us, we shared the same blood, just the two of us among the millions of changeling drones.

Yes, I finally dared to admit it to myself, I would do anything to keep Thorax safe.

Even if it meant killing another changeling.

Even if it meant crossing the threshold I’d never thought I’d cross and betraying the Queen… betraying the hive.

And I’d just crossed that threshold.

I’d crossed the threshold I’d vowed to never cross and there was no going back, even if I’d wanted to keep my options open at the beginning of this mission.

Even if I returned to the hive victoriously in Chrysalis’ eyes, I couldn’t reclaim my old life. I couldn’t truly be First Commander again, not after what I’d just done, not after the epiphany I’d just had! I couldn’t ever again look Chrysalis in the eye and swear honestly that I would serve her with my life and my death!

I could lie to her, of course. I could tell her what she wanted to hear like I’d been doing all along since the first day of Thorax’s absence. But the duty of a First Commander demanded honor and loyalty, and I’d squandered that, turned my back to that honor for the sake of saving my brother!

My brother, the traitor.

Now I was the traitor too, even if the hive didn’t know it.

If I could have done things differently, protected Thorax any other way, I would have. But I couldn’t have, not under the circumstances.

I was done with faking injuries on my subordinates’ unconscious bodies. I would put Vermin in a healing cocoon later, when Jackal and Carapace began to wake up, and I expected that they would in a few minutes.

There was just one thing left to do before they did.

Still in disguise, I swung my paw at myself over and over, leaving deep gashes wherever my claws pierced the skin. I punched myself repeatedly, hard enough to leave bruises, almost hard enough to knock myself out. I threw myself at the ground and into the trees, creating more injuries on myself and signs of struggle on the alleged battlefield. The wounds would carry over to my own form, and I was going to need them if anyling were to believe the story I intended to tell!

Maybe the physical pain could serve as a makeshift punishment for my actions.

Author's Note:

Those of you who have read Walk Where There Is No Path, you thought a certain chapter was a dream, didn't you? Nope!

Comments

[Teraunce]

I kinda didn't but glad for the confirmation.

[Black--Soul]

There can never be something as strong as love. What else let you give up everything you have and value? Pharanx is very heroic. As is custom for true heros. Never ever will anyone know about it. The world keep turning and the Changelings can still live on thanks to actions like this. Giving himself for the sake of others.

[Luckysweep]

Very interesting to see how the dream and the reality line up and how they differ.
Thorax was taken out of the pod and beaten, but there was no hive, no queen, and no execution by his brother.
It’s also interesting how Pharynx didn’t even have to think before he began enacting his plan. He is a loyal guy. I just hope he comes to realize he was loyal to the right thing.

[Green-Venom]

Yes , I finally dared to admit it to myself, I would do anything to keep Thorax safe.

This is heartwarming in such a strange way…

[redmar]

Thorax himself suspected it may not have been all a dream. The parts after he saw Pharynx were just a dream though.

[HerrHauptmann]

I did suspect this since I read the prequel, I was kinda hoping for it to be so.