Such desperation to end a terrible day, listening in on Chase's mind groaning to rest his weary frame made Genesis chuckle. The shepherd was already sleeping like the dead, peacefully adrift in his dreams while Everest lovingly held him from behind. It was a blissful moment to forget all the horrors and artistic sadism they passed in the hours prior. All that mattered to them was each other, and Chase happily danced in his dream walking through an alternate world where the PAW Patrol had never been destroyed.
"You don't get such luxuries," Genesis said, leeching into the shepherd's mind. "Now get up."
Chase's eyes shot open as if on command, violently snatching the dog out of his dream.
"Mmph," came the shepherd's defiant grunt, getting himself comfortable again and closing his eyes.
"I said get up."
"Go away," Chase said, his voice dragging.
"You can't sleep if I don't allow it, I have more control over you than you realize."
"Ugh..." the shepherd let out an agonized groan, pleading for silence to grace his tortured mind. "What do you want?"
"Get up, I have something I want you to do."
"Can't this wait?"
"Get up. Your mother commands it."
"Fine... just please shut up." Chase absently stared into the wall for a few minutes, then gently shifted out of Everest's arms. Sitting up in bed, an immeasurable exhaustion hung through his skin, yet his mind defiantly refused to rest. Genesis had a hold on him, puppeteering his brain and denying his ability to sleep. He took a remorseful look at the husky sleeping beside him, "so what do you want?"
"Return to the Gates of Heaven," Genesis said. "You'll find they've been opened."
"Opened? By who?"
"I'll tell you later. For now, do as I say. Return to the-"
A new voice perked up, catching him by surprise as the husky suddenly awoke. "Chase...?" came Everest's soft call, upset by the empty space beside her.
"Go back to sleep," he said simply.
"Are you alright?"
"Wish I was," came the shepherd's blank sigh. "Feel like I'm going insane."
Shifting her position, Everest draped her greyish-white arm around his waist, "we all go a little mad sometimes."
"Oh trust me, I know," Chase placed his paw upon hers. "Remind me later to tell you what went down with Zuma."
"Are you still blaming yourself for all that?"
"I guess not so much anymore," the shepherd said with a shrug. "There's no real point in staying in the past... Rocky and Marshall already forgive me... sort of."
"So what's wrong?" came Everest's gentle question, muttering her sweet nothings in his ear.
Chase looked idle for a few moments, trying to ignore the annoying buzz in his brain. "I know I'm supposed to do something, but I haven't a clue what it is. I have to act now, before the messiah tears itself out of me... yet I don't know what to do. Does anything I do matter? Is anything meaningful at this point?"
"Well you can't force a plan out of yourself," Everest nuzzled him in the nape. "Take some time and be with dogs you care about."
"I don't have time, Everest. Not anymore."
"Then if I were you, I'd make every move count. You're still here now, which means you still have a chance."
The shepherd released a faint scoff, "isn't it all pointless?"
"Am I pointless to you?"
"Wha- of course not," Chase jerked to attention, turning to face his lover. "You mean the world to me; I just don't know what to do in the grand scheme of things."
Everest shrugged, looking off to the side. "I understand that, but even then; you can't shred yourself worrying about the future. Especially when there's things right in front of you that need attention."
"Attention?" he tilted his head. "What needs attention?"
The husky's face curled into a smirk, leaning into him. "Someone who wants you."
It took him a second, but her honeyed words quickly hit Chase like a truck of dynamite, prompting a flash of red under his fur. A faint burning met the tips of his ears, his heartbeat beginning to pick up. "Everest," he said with a chuckle. "All the world is burning, and you want... attention?"
"Guess we better make it count, then."
"What're you-"
The husky placed her paw on his mouth, slushing the shepherd quickly. No longer did any words need to be said to communicate the moment, flaming heat with the animals driving them both into a brand-new abyss of desire. Chase giggled at the gesture, playfully licking the bottom of her paw. The ticklish feeling sparked an electric impulse in Everest, and without thinking she gently lowered herself on her back, pulling Chase over her simultaneously. Her paws playfully kicked in the air as her partner nuzzled her neck, leaving small wet spots in his affection.
"You know, we have this..." Everest said, her voice beginning to quiver. "We have this whole room to ourselves."
"I am well aware," came the soldier's knowing grin, slowly moving down her body.
"Aaah-" came the husky's flinch, overwhelmed with a fiery sensation in her chest. She laughed blissfully at his passion, bright sunshine flowering through her veins. "You're... crazy."
Chase lifted up his head with a smirk, his eyes filled with burning desire. "We all go a little mad sometimes."
Roughly an hour later, Chase gave the husky a final appreciating lick on the head before releasing her. His breath puffed heavily from the gathered heat in his disheveled fur, making fall onto his side to gather his bearings. Drained of all adrenaline, he turned onto his back and gazed up and the ceiling, memories of beautiful stars in the sky he once walked under came to his mind. His consciousness drifted so far in heavenly bliss he felt entirely invincible, all the world at his very paws. He swiftly snapped back to reality in a faint twitch and pushed himself back up on the unkempt bed, hopping down to the floor where one of the blankets had been tossed into a crumpled heap.
"Hey, where are you going?" Everest said, sitting up in her labored breathing. Her fur was a complete mess, twisted and matted into tangled clumps that would be painstaking to brush out.
"I need to go for a while."
"Like hell you are," the husky yawned, standing up. "Wherever you're going, I want in."
The thought of having her beside him brought flowering joy to his decaying soul, but he couldn't bear bringing her back to the Omnihive. He looked back at her, exposing his splayed exhaustion. "Not for this, sorry. I need to go back in there."
"Well then I'm coming with you, aren't I?"
"Everest, the warriors won't hurt me, but you don't have that immunity. You have to stay."
The husky raised an eyebrow, marching over to him on the edge of the bed. "How many times are you gonna walk away from me, Chase?" she said, voice mildly hurt.
"I'm not walking away from you this time!"
"Then why go back in? What, did you leave something in there?"
Chase audibly groaned, looking off to the side. "Genesis, where the fuck are you sending me? I need to know."
"Why are you so weak to this husky?" came the matriarch's telepathic answer. "Why are you letting yourself be driven by this imperfect insect?"
"Just tell me!" the shepherd snarled, unable to temper the hostility from his sleep deprivation. Everest was looking at him weirdly, taken aback by the strange interaction.
"The dogtree forests," came the mother's answer, irritation in her voice. "I simply want you to take a walk, and we can have a civil conversation."
"The forest," Chase looked back at his partner. "She's taking me into the dogtree forests."
"She can speak to you?" Everest said, her face spread with awe.
"You don't know the half of it... I should be able to leave quietly if I don't run into anyone in the hallways. I'm sure Dutch is sound asleep in some high-class personal bedroom of his." He said, scoffing his words at the CEO's materialistic hobbies.
Everest was hesitant to accept, frowning at his paws as she thought it over. He was horrified he potentially said the wrong thing, already scrambling for a follow-up response to make him sound less terrible.
"Alright then," she said, slight defeat in his voice. "Just... come back alive, please?"
"Don't worry," Chase took her in his arm, hugging the husky tightly. "It's not my time yet, I'll see you again."
The Archline Foundation was eerily quiet past midnight, at least the sector he was in, there were probably thousands of sleep-deprived scientists all the way across the facility pulling out their hair to get work done. He was able to easily slip back toward the Gates of Heaven, a confusingly easy feat remembering all the stops he passed through getting there. The shepherd wandered straight through the decontamination sprayers, not a drop touching his unkempt fur. He curiously stood on his back legs, peering through the glass window where the operatives executed the process. A twinge crept up his spine at the deserted room, scanning the whole area for any overnight worker left to hold down the fort, but there was simply no one.
He approached the Gates of Heaven, climbing down into the excavated dirt and stone clearing before the mighty doors to hell. It was cracked, lifted just a meter above the ground so discreetly he almost missed it.
"Who opened this?" he asked aloud, looking around the massive emptiness surrounding him. Thousands of paw prints were left in the dirt, traveling in every direction possible, yet no one was left to see him leave.
"Like I said," Genesis whispered in his mind. "I'll tell you later."
Chase wiggled his body under the massive door, disappearing into the void where the Omnihive maliciously awaited him.
Time became a passive anomaly once his paws splashed upon the fleshy ground, sliding a bit on its soaked gore. The fog above had cleared, exposing a bleeding red sky with a burning red moon. The wind swirled around him in welcoming praise, carrying the rotted stench of filth and molded meat across his nose. Yellowed eyes opened in the ground, looking over at him with shrinking pupils. They closed quickly, and a low bellowing radiated from the floor. He had only left this accursed place mere hours ago, swearing up and down he'd never look back into the depths, yet here he was again. He took a deep breath and mustered all his courage, for Everest, he told himself in his head, knowing what he had to return to. Daring Genesis to do her worst, Chase puffed out his chest and marched off to the blackened horizon, traveling to the massacred canopies of the dogtree forest.
He knew the minute he entered its shadow that he owed Rocky a drink. The Aorta Tunnels were vicious enough, but to realize the gruesome trail Rocky and Marshall walked through, it was an entirely new scene of terror. Just a forest, he told himself before entering, it's just a forest, but nothing was ever just anything in the Omnihive. The shepherd paled as he approached the dogtrees, dripping blood from the corpses strewn about their branches. There were thousands of them, endless, even; it took all his courage to keep his eyes forward and away from the disemboweled bodies in the trees. He walked under its shadow for a while, finally stopping at something that made his blood run cold.
Tracks; a line of bloody footprints certainly a few sizes above his own. Chase's heart dropped, backing away slightly, not realizing what he was about to walk into. His body stopped against a wet surface, making him jump with such intensity it seemed he had been electrocuted. Fur standing on end, Chase whipped around to face his obstacle.
A ferox warrior towered over him, staring down at the dog with the torn eye sockets of its mask. Chase froze, eyes spreading with wordless terror realizing the entire animal had snuck up on him. The warrior stood still as if it were scanning him, its red tail floating behind it. It had no eyes or pupils visible behind the skin it wore, none of them ever did, not a single shine of life in the black void of a ferox warrior's eyes. Its dog mask was -what Chase felt was the ultimate kick in the shins from Genesis- that of a husky, likely peeled from its victim's body. The black and white furry face the creature wore seemed like a personal insult, a deliberate mocking for him to writhe under.
The warrior began to circle him, its degloved paws squishing in the bodily sludge coating the festering flesh floor. Chase swore he could see his own reflection in the soaking wet gore that crafted the creature's visceral body. How did they even function with bodies like that? Their exposed organs pumped and churned, hastily attached to its scrawny skeleton with bloody muscle and wire-like intestine. A shiver went through his body as its spearheaded tail crossed his vision, sparking haunted memories of the old attack on the Lookout.
"Can you... understand me?" Chase dared himself to say.
His words made the warrior prick its ears, a sadistic imitation knowing the creature was actually just puppeteering the mask to give the illusion. There weren't dogs, no matter how hard they pretended to be them.
He took a step forward, "can you hear the words I'm-"
The warrior bristled the intestine that wrapped its body together, curling its lips in a snarl and haunching its body. A warning growl left its bloodied maw, washing over the horrified dog.
"Wait, not like-" Chase said, stuttering over himself. "I wasn't trying to be... I'm sorry."
Hissing with ferocity, the feral creature strafed behind him and jabbed its muzzle into his back, roughly shoving Chase forward. He almost yelped at the sudden contact; ears tightly flattened on his head. It was a wordless command to move, to start walking, and Chase hastily obeyed with his frantic heartbeat. They began their fearful march through the forest, a walk more akin to a hostage situation as the warrior led him behind. Chase's paws were shaking with every step, his nerves tensing with every passing moment the warrior stared into the back of his head. Was he being captured? Led to a horrible death? They walked for what felt like hours, every sudden turn signaled by the warrior whipping its tail in his air, producing a splitting crack sound that sent horrid flinches through Chase every single time.
He was forced to push his nose through hanging flaps of flesh blocking his way, nudging his way through the dense crime scene the forest called its foliage. The heavy flaps of strung-out flesh emitted faint screeches at the touch, every instinct telling Chase to flee the scene with every burst of speed he had, but the ferox warrior escorted him behind like a lurking predator, keeping him on the path.
Slipping past the last obstacle, Chase walked out into a red clearing where the dogtrees slightly parted, allowing the red sky with its bloody sun to be seen from below. The unbelievable stench of raw meat and sickening, milky fluid pierced his nose, making the shepherd cringe in notable disgust. Against his better judgement, he turned back to the ferox warrior with a questioning look, hoping to get any kind of answer from what he figured was a vastly intelligent creature. To his astonishment, the warrior had walked off without warning, wandering away as if it lost interest.
Ears pricked and body on high alert, Chase went tense at dozens of sudden noises rustling through the trees, a fit of snarls and growls all layering over one another as the twisted angels descended. They were almost perfectly camouflaged with the bloody foliage, gripping the claws into the trees and climbing down from the gore nests. Ferox warriors, several of them, landed gracefully and approached him.
"Woah," came Chase's flinch, realizing with petrified terror he was surrounded. "Woah woah woah, wait!"
Some of them watched him, a few hung back and ignored him, and one cautiously leaned in to sniff him. Monstrous, disgusting animals impossible to distinguish from one another if it wasn't for their masks. Why in the hell did they do that anyway, Chase had pondered the question for years. Why in the bloody hell did these things collect dog faces and wear them as masks? What was the gain, what was the purpose? Was it all just for sick pleasure? No dog breed was safe from their headwear, Chase recognized an Alaskan malamute worn by the one sniffing him, a foxhound's face stretched upon another warrior that hung behind, and the one staring into his soul from afar was wearing the stolen face of a Chinook.
They lost interest in him quickly, departing from his vicinity to mill about their own interests. Chase didn't dare relax even the slightest muscle, darting his gaze in all directions to make any possible sense of his predicament. He twitched sharply when a ferox warrior wearing the face of a Rottweiler pushed through the matted bushes, approaching Chase with a clump of bloodied meat in its mouth. Frozen still, yet pricked with curiosity, Chase watched it walk up, dropping the meat at his paws.
"Wha- what do I do with this?" he said nervously, looking up at the horrific creature.
The warrior stared down at him expectantly.
"I- I don't know what you want me to do!"
Curling its lips in a low snarl, the ferox held out its clawed paw and tapped the meat twice, an attempt at communicating Chase couldn't catch.
Genesis seemed to read his confusion, "it brought you a meal, Chase, and it's rude to deny a feeding hand."
"A... meal?" came Chase's wince, looking down at the gore likely torn off some sorry animal.
"They know what you are, and they want to help. Their future depends on it."
"I'm... I'm not hungry," the shepherd said, hesitantly backing up. The warrior responded immediately, flattening its ears with an offended growl. Chase looked feverishly at its spearing tail, glistening claws, the worm-like tentacles composing its body, and the entire maw of gnashing teeth, knowing he had to make a difficult decision. Flashing the animal a nervous chuckle, he sheepishly opened his mouth, lowering his head to the clump. He could already smell the wet stench bifurcating his senses, even spotting leftover pieces of fur in the blood. Dear God he couldn't do this, he couldn't do this, by no means could he possibly do this.
"Heh... eh..." came his uncomfortable noises, hovering his teeth over the gore. His body physically defied moving any further, but the warrior was growing impatient. His stomach tossed and churned, threatening to vomit before he even took a bite. Don't do it, don't do it, he screamed in his mind, don't do it, for the love of God don't do it.
"Eat," Genesis said, sternly ordering him.
Jumping from the screaming in his ears, Chase flinched and lashed his teeth into the clump of meat, metallic-tasting liquid spurting all over his tongue. His jaw dug into the carrion with a sickened grimace, trying to tug the piece of, pulling against its toughness. The entire display could've tricked anyone into thinking Chase had gone feral, blood staining his whole muzzle while tearing his bite from the clump.
"Mmfgh-" came his cringed bellow, twitching with revulsion. "Mmmf... ulgh." A hot bitterness splashed in his mouth with every chew, grinding down the putrid meat into glistening red pulp. With a mouth full of what could only be described as hot vomit, Chase swallowed it down with a loud groan, and quickly the ferox warrior relaxed. He felt the whole thing going sliding down his throat, splashing into his stomach and staining his inner walls red the whole way down.
Like a hidden cancer, a low chirp echoed in his stomach, sounded by a tiny, excited creature happily taking its first, proper meal.
"Can you taste it?" Genesis said seductively in his ears. "The drive? The aggression? The passion?"
"I'm going to throw up," Chase gagged.
"Like the warrior gifting the meat to you, this is 'my' gift, Chase," came her echoed voice. "The gift of power, the gift of becoming something better. Do you know what I plan to do with you?"
"Let me explode into a creature of nightmares?"
"Perhaps, but don't assume your death will arrive with it. Every ferox warrior has a consciousness, every last one," she said. "But the messiah doesn't have one yet with its undeveloped brain, all it knows is to eat. It still lacks... awareness, a void that I need to fill by giving it a mind. And I want to give it yours."
Chase put a paw to his stomach, groaning at the putrid taste lingering on his tongue. "My... mind?"
"Chase, when I said you were going to be a ferox messiah, I didn't just mean it would be born inside you. You will 'be' the messiah, your body will be destroyed in the transformation, but I will carry your mind over to continue on in its body. That's my gift to you, you will be a perfect creature, a flawless design above all others, and you will know power like you've never seen."
"I... I'm going to be the messiah?"
"Yes, Chase. You should be excited, for very soon you will be free from your organic limitations."
"N-no! I can't do that," the shepherd said, his voice straining from the stomach pains. "My... family..."
"Your family is here, why do you think I brought you all the way out here? The warriors are expecting your transformation, they'll feed and house you in your final hours. They will be your servants, bending to your every will, and you won't be needing those dogs you call family anymore. They will be taken care of shortly."
Chase's face widened with horror, "wha- what? What do you mean?"
"Your friends, Rocky and the lot, they had an encounter with a baalcross, and a couple dozen ferox infants. They fought valiantly... but they missed one," she let out a dark chuckle. "Through my many eyes, I instructed a lone infant to branch out, stowing away in a certain backpack and slipping through the cracks..."
"What!?" the shepherd stopped in his tracks, a blaring alarm rising in his body.
"It has already begun, Chase. They infected someone, someone who knew how to open the Gates of Heaven. My beautiful rapture, after all these years, is finally beginning."
"No! I have to warn them!" Chase put a paw to his neck, instinctively trying to feel for a radio collar, but there was none. He couldn't just stand here, panic was violently coursing through him, but what could he possibly do? Cataclysm was coming to the Archline Foundation, and he was miles away completely helpless to do anything. There was no one to ask for help from, no one to lean on, nothing but the warriors casually putting together a pile of food, and the howling laughter of Mother Genesis echoing in his ears.