Despite the constant terrors that followed them every step of the way, they were noticeably silent as Chase left the Nexus. All ferox warriors calmed their ferocious attitudes, vanishing into the Omnihives's deepest abyss to provide Chase the safest walk he'd ever been on. So that was the game now, Chase thought to himself, venom-filled malice seeping in his systems. No reason to attack him, it seemed, why harm the one thing they've been investing in all this time?
He had a brief conversation with Rocky, the captain suddenly connecting with him using Ryder's radio line. It had been a fiery conversation, as Chase was in no mood to hear anything from his old leader anymore. A deliberate choice was made to not tell his brother of the newer revelations, maybe sometime soon, but he couldn't bear to unload such information now.
"So what, I'm like... the alpha of this place now?" Chase growled, hopelessly walking through the cavern. All morale and motivation he once had was now completely diminished, his body flattened all of all energy as he milled about. Ironic, the one time he wanted something to tear him to pieces and end his suffering, only now all threats were swiftly called off from their hunt.
Genesis spoke directly in his mind, "no, no. Not yet at least, not until the messiah births from you. You are free to enjoy the absence of danger, however."
"Get out of my head, I'm not your fucking pet."
"But you are, little one. You had it all from the very beginning; the hivemind, the infection, all it took was crossing into my home to activate it all."
"I don't care!" Chase barked, no longer minding being quiet in the tunnels. "I'm not doing a word you say, and you can't make me!"
"Bold words. Unfortunately, you only have so long until your true self comes out, I anxiously await the hour."
Shaking in his breath, the shepherd whimpered at the sinking feeling in his chest. "How... long, exactly? How long do I have until it... comes out?"
"Alas, I do not know. You're the very first one, could be days, hours, or in the next five seconds."
Freezing in his step, Chase stopped as a fierce shiver went down his spine, the dog looking off at the wall expecting eyes to open at him. "Where's Everest?"
"Why are you asking me?" Genesis asked, sounding more curious than confused.
"You know this place. I mean, this world is you, after all. Can you at least... help me find her?"
"You actually don't need my help. Close your eyes."
"What, why?"
"Close your eyes, Chase."
He hesitated for a moment, fearing his own exposure only to remember nothing within the tunnels desired to kill him anymore. Following anything Genesis said sent a gross feeling up his throat, the thought of actually obeying that gigantic hell-beast went against everything he stood for.
"You aren't 'obeying' me, Chase," Genesis said suddenly. "You asked me for help and I'm telling you what to do."
"Wha-" the shepherd bristled into alarm. "How did you-"
"I can hear your thoughts; this shouldn't surprise you. Now close your eyes."
With nothing left to say back to the monstrous entity, Chase paused in his own anxiety. There was nothing he could hide from Mother Genesis, anything he knew, she'd know as well. She was likely reading his own hesitance just as fast as he thought it, was there really any point in trying to oppose her if he was already in this deep?
"Fine," he sat down and shut his eyes, letting darkness overcome his vision.
Nothing happened for a moment, leading Chase to wonder if the Lovecraftian creature was just screwing with him, holding some twisted sense of humor in tormenting its victims. Just as he was about to say something, his vision suddenly filled with melodic rays of sunshine and color, his thousand eyes opening to the world.
He saw everything, the dogtrees, the tunnels, the Nexus, rivers and lakes of cooking acid, baalcrosses burying themselves in the ground with their mouths up, waiting for passing food. He saw the red sky and all the ferox warriors gazing up at it, he even saw Rocky, Ryder, and Marshall, first moving with the scientists, then his vision skipped forward to them all fleeing at once, finally jumping ahead to just the three of them alone, the scientists gone.
"What..." Chase breathed, overwhelmed by the profound energies coursing through his mind. He opened his eyes in a flash, seeing the tunnel he was in perfectly fine, yet the hundreds of sights remained, blending all together in his vision as if he were seeing all of them at once. "What is this, what's happening!?"
"You have opened your eyes," Genesis said softly. "Or rather... the hive's. You see, there are eyes all over this realm, peeking and observing like curious children. As you are now one of us, I have linked your mind to these very organs. It's quite splendid, getting to see and hear all, isn't it?"
"This- this is too much, stop it!" the shepherd stumbled back, trying to shake his head of a high-pitched static tearing his ears. Everything was flashing at once, dozens of visions and sights cycling over one another in an epileptic frenzy. "Stop it!"
Within the thousands of skips flicking across his eyes, one single image caught his attention. One of the eyes within the aorta tunnels opened for him at just the right spot, catching a peeking sight of Everest pacing down the corridors. Through the hellfire of breaking senses of mental burden, Chase had found her, the route forward already mapping out in his head. A rising note was singing in his head, thumping pain sticking into his brain at all angles. It rose to its very peak, digging its claws into Chase's head until he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Then it all stopped.
His vision came to as a blurred mess, a garbled shape of black and tan in front of his eyes. All the noise and images had ceased, bringing at last a state of calm to his senses. His mind slowly calibrated, focusing the picture into the dog standing in front of him. It was another German shepherd, having walked out of the darkness and staring into him with curious eyes. Her fur was entirely clean, not a single drop of blood having stained her coat.
"Chase?" she asked.
The soldier instantly jumped into his flight instinct, spiking his fur at the sudden presence.
"Wait, wait!" the shepherd put her paw up, wincing at his explosive movement. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm not-"
Chase scampered backward into an attack stance, although so drunk in his own panic he fell backward, collapsing into the wet floor. He landed on his side, letting out a small wince as he recollected himself. Pushing himself up, Chase watched the new face as she approached.
"It's okay! It's okay, you're fine!" she said with flattened ears, struggling to defuse the soldier. "Nothing can hurt you here!"
"Nothing... here?" Chase echoed, immensely tense from the encounter. He held his stance for a solid couple of seconds, waiting for an incoming attack that never came.
"Right, nothing," she nodded, relaxing slightly. "You fainted."
"I did?" the shepherd said, looking around his new surroundings. The tightened walls of the tunnels were gone, stretching out for vast distances obscured by fog. The whole world had gone blank around him, the only remnant of the Omnihive being the meaty floor he stood above. Spirits of somber melodies roamed the air, formless yet whistling hopeless notes that echoed in the infinite plane. Chase's eyes deceived him, seeing only one other dog before him yet the twinge creeping up his spine whispered a different truth, for surrounded by millions were they. Distant lights roamed in the distance like humble balloons released into angelic freedom, floating to a destination no one knew the answer to.
"None of this is real, it's just a vision," the tan shepherd said. "At least not entirely. You connected with the Omnihive's being for the first time, like Genesis said. But... what she neglected to tell you; it's a lot for the brain to take, especially for a simple dog like yourself. You fainted from the mental overload, but you should wake up soon."
Chase sat down with an unsure look, "then... what am I doing here?"
"Well technically you're dreaming. I mean, your mind has to go somewhere when you're unconscious. Dreaming while part of the hivemind is a pretty surreal experience, you get used to it eventually. Anyone can just... appear here, if they willed it hard enough."
"Ugh, how much more of this cursed place is there?" he twisted his expression, slightly baring his teeth. It was like an out-of-body experience to see himself fully conscious in this dream-like state. Usually most were not aware of their own dreams until they woke up, yet Chase felt completely awake as if he had never fallen asleep at all. "So, who are you then? Another one of Genesis's mind-jacked victims?"
"Unfortunately," she sighed, walking up to him. "My name is Audrey... we've met before."
"Have we?" Chase tilted his head, narrowing his eyes in skepticism. "I can't seem to remember you, were you one of our extended PAW Patrol members?"
"No," Audrey said flatly. "I was... a little more than that to you," she winced at her own words, as if saying them at all was causing great pain. "I... was part of the attack on the Lookout."
"You were?" the shepherd raised an eyebrow.
"Yep, matter of fact, I was directly responsible for it," Audrey sighed. "I'm... so sorry for what went down."
"You-" Chase stuttered, initially not understanding her statement. This one shepherd, the sole culprit behind the slaughter of his friends and family? In what world did that make any sense? It was Dutch who released the monster to begin with, the one who started everything, the one who took the creature and placed it into...
The first host. Chase's eyes widened, realizing exactly who he was talking to.
"You're Feroxmalis," he breathed, awestruck and churning with rage at the same time.
"Was," Audrey corrected him. "But yes... I was its template in the beginning, the body it was originally placed in." She backed up slightly upon seeing Chase's brewing hostility, even if she knew neither of them could physically hurt each other here. "Look I... I just wanted to talk to you."
He was going to say something cold to her, fueled by the stowed rage of meeting a dog who technically ruined his whole life. His ears were already flattened and fur spiking, claws baring to say something hate-filled.
"I didn't want to hurt you," she said, reading the look on his face. "I didn't want to hurt anyone to begin with, they put that parasite into my body... I had no control over myself by the next day. I... I'm not a killer, Chase, I've never wanted to be anything like that in my life."
"Hmph," Chase looked away, relaxing a little but still on edge. "Then what changed? Dutch put that thing in you, and you just turned?"
"Not... instantly," she laid down on her stomach, inviting a calming aura into her presence. "I had a small grace period after I was injected. They just sorta left me chained to an operating table, it was... a very bad night. Eventually I started losing feeling in my limbs, until I couldn't move at all." Her voice was mournful, like she was speaking of an entire family lost to history. "One minute, I was crying for help, only able to move my eyes and mouth... and then, everything stopped. I could still see and hear... but I wasn't myself anymore."
Chase felt himself ease up slowly, until he walked over and sat beside her. "Did Dutch capture you too?"
"No, I was willing," Audrey looked away, a flash of shame on her face. "I was a stray at the time, doing what I could to get by. Every day was a nightmare... being surrounded by things wanting to kill me and take what little I had. I've... had to do really degrading things to get by," she winced, a twinge of disgust visible on her. "Things I'll never forget, no matter how hard I try. If you lived a life like that, you'd let Dutch take you too. He'd been picking up strays by the dozen, I assume for his experiments. Suppose I got lucky, being the host for his greatest bioweapon yet."
"You- uh... Feroxmalis burned alive," Chase said, remembering the final moments of the twisted monster. "How are you still here?"
"I ask myself that too; even with my body gone, it seems my consciousness remains alive through the hivemind," she looked up at the foggy sky, trying to count the stars she couldn't see. "If there really is an afterlife... I hope I get to see it one day."
"Genesis kept you alive," the shepherd put together.
"We were all kept alive," Audrey grumbled. "Everyone that was used, everyone that was assimilated into the monsters... they're trapped here, unable to die. All we can do is look out the eyes of the warriors, watching them defile the world we once lived in."
"All of you?" Chase questioned, an idea coming to him. "Are Zuma and Rubble here?"
"Who?"
"Friends of mine, that uh... you killed. Are they here?"
"Probably," Audrey shrugged. "It's a pretty big ocean of souls, all locked away in this collective consciousness. You could probably come across them within your mind... but you'll be searching for a while. A lot of people and dogs were killed by these things. There's just... there's no reasoning with Mother Genesis," she lowered his head, sorrow in her voice. "Once you're in, you're in. You can't get out; you can't escape this... fucking nightmare. We're connected to her right down to the very brainwaves in our minds, and we just..." she trailed off, a faint sob choking her face.
"We just can't do anything," she cracked, bowing her head. "Except watch."
"Well... it's about to get worse," Chase sighed, resignation in his tone. "The ferox messiah is within me, and once it's born, all hell will break loose."
"No," Audrey said firmly, hardening her tear-streaked eyes. "You can't give up, you're the big change we've all been waiting for, you can't give up now!"
"Big change? I'm infected just like the rest of you were."
"Maybe so," she admitted. "But it hasn't awakened yet, and every ferox warrior in this damn place will refuse to target you, because in their eyes, you're their big chance. They won't hurt you! You have a chance!"
"For what, though?" Chase said dejectedly. "I did what I could, but my fate was sealed the moment I stepped into this place. There's nothing I can do..."
Audrey jumped directly into his face, barking with desperation. "Yes there is! You're immune, dammit! No one knows when the messiah comes, but right now, you could literally walk to the end of the Omnihive and back and nothing will try to hurt you! You can't waste this opportunity!"
Her voice broke slightly, "do you have... any idea... how much we've suffered here? Thousands of us; workers, strays, innocent people and their animals, and what about Zuma and Rubble? They're in here too... somewhere, at least! Every day it's been the same, for years, but now we finally have something different! A dog who's immune to the Omnihive! Maybe you don't have much time, but why not take a chance?" She pleaded with him, staring directly into his inconclusive gaze. "Chase... you have to help us... you could be only chance we'll ever get..."
They were silent for a long while, Chase watching the ghostly shepherd before him silently break down into faint sobs.
"Chase," she said, voice barely coming through her hollowed weeping. "Free us," came her whispered plea, looking up into his eyes of her only hope. "...please."
He awoke from the dream with her voice echoing in his ears, the shepherd returning to reality within the depths of the aorta tunnels. Just as quickly as she faded into Chase's mind, Audrey vanished from his sight within the blink of an eye. Enough distractions, Everest was waiting for him, even if he was now invisible to the predatory eyes of the ferox warriors, she certainly wasn't. At least he knew her location now, the entire route mapped in his head in a swift thought, and the shepherd sped off on his journey back.
"Audrey has little faith in what she is one with," Genesis whispered in his mind. "Her reluctance to embrace my gift is the reason I have not given her a new ferox warrior to live in. May she wander in the endless fog, until she comes to her senses."
"You saw all that?" Chase replied to her voice.
"How many times must I say this to you? We are one, what you witness, I will as well. Her reluctance to embrace my gift is the reason I have not given her a new ferox warrior to live in. May she wander in the endless fog until she comes to her senses, your dream was only that: a dream. Stick to my word, and you will flourish."
"Yeah... sure," came the shepherd's uneased words, quietly reflecting as he walked.
Everest decided to huddle down in a shadowy corner of the tunnels over openly wandering through danger. Her feverish anxiety only increased every lasting moment she didn't hear back from her partner, leaving her in a stew of paranoia pacing in circles around the egregious corridors. She had mistaken Chase for a threat when he approached from afar, tensing up her body and facing the approaching shadow with bared teeth, then relaxing with flooded relief upon seeing him.
"There you are," she said, grinning ear to ear as she hugged him with one arm. "I thought something killed you down there."
"Oh don't worry, I'm untouchable," Chase muttered, although hugged her back warmly. "Literally..." The husky's elation to see him again brought a sickened twist to his stomach, knowing full well the horrible truth waiting inside him.
"Did you find what we needed?"
"I did; this entire realm is being run by a giant creature in the Nexus," he explained, gently pulling apart from her hold. "Mother Genesis, that's what she calls herself."
"It told you its name?"
"It was a weird experience, she's completely different compared to everything else we've seen down here. She's... intelligent, almost on a human level."
"And so, what, she just let you walk out of there?" Everest asked, listening intently.
"Yep," Chase sighed, lowering his head with a cloud of guilt above him. "You could say that. She uh... didn't want to hurt me. There were... other plans, in the midst."
"Well that's one question answered, we'll have to tell Dutch about our findings."
"I already know," the Malinois' unamused voice came through on their collars. "Not what I was hoping for, but we can improvise."
"You've been listening in, I see," Chase had barely enough energy to get annoyed at the CEO's presence. "How sensitive are the microphones on these things, and how many times did you just tune in without telling us?"
"As many times as I needed, I heard your conversation with Rocky as well, don't do that again," Dutch growled through the radio line. "I've heard everything, anyway you're cleared to return through the Gates of Heaven."
"Wait, you've heard everything?" the soldier raised an eyebrow curiously.
"That's what I said, Chase."
"No, but like, what were you hearing, exactly?" Chase pressed, intrigued on how much of his interactions with Genesis were picked up on.
"I heard you entering the Nexus... you had a weird breakdown right in the middle of it, that was strange of you," Dutch said, sounding slightly puzzled for once. "You talked to yourself all the way back to Everest."
"Oh," came the shepherd's single word response, his face lit up in amazement. All this time, Genesis had been speaking to him directly in the mind, her words never physically entering the air for someone else to hear. He knew completely nothing of the bigger picture, an advantage he needed to use to the fullest extent. "Well... sorry I asked."
"Just get back here," the executive hissed, annoyed at the interrogating. "I've called back the other team as well... at least you found somewhat of a success. They failed their entire mission."
Good, Chase thought in his mind, each and every little setback for the Archline Foundation bought them more time. The world would've probably ended long ago if they had everything they wanted right at their doorstep. The collar clicked offline for now, but Chase knew a silent radio didn't necessarily mean Dutch was away. He could be listening at any moment, eavesdropping on his living tools cast away into a world of suffering.
"Well, I for one am excited to go home," Everest nudged her collar annoyingly.
"I wouldn't call Archline jail a home."
"Yeah well, I can't believe I'm about to say this," the husky said, looking around the red-dripping, pulsating flesh tunnel. "but I'd take jail over this any day."
"I don't know about that," Chase said, walking forward with a chuckling joke. "I just might've gotten used to this hellish place."
"Hardy har har, now move it," came Everest's impatient shove. "I'm starving, and I'd like to get back before something eats us instead."
But they weren't, Chase knew, the ferox warriors had completely fallen back, at least for him they did. If one good thing came out of the ferox messiah sleeping inside his shell, it was the warding off of all other threats hesitant to damage their soon-to-be leader. As long as he stuck close to her, no harm would dare to approach them. He was tempted to tell Everest that nothing was waiting to ambush them, and he was sure of it, seeing her careful measures and creeping movements that only wasted their time. But one question would lead to another, and although Rocky respected his wishes to not pry, no way in hell would Everest do the same. She'd want answers and wouldn't budge until she got them, forcing Chase to ultimately bite his tongue and stand off to the side while she kept watch for danger that was never coming.
Throughout their trip back, his mind ran wild with what Rocky had said to him. The Omnihive wasn't invincible, as the mix had persisted, and the only reason ferox warriors weren't dying was because they didn't have the firepower to kill them. If the hive could be damaged, killed even, then Genesis could too.