While traversing through the depths of the Aorta tunnels, Chase made note of Everest's exhausted posture dragging behind him. The encounter with the ferox infants was reckless and draining, although the husky made sure to correct her posture every time Chase looked at her.
"You know, you don't have to do that," Chase said, lowering his ears slightly.
Everest pretended to be surprised, "do what?" There was noticeable exhaustion in her voice.
"If you're tired, just tell me."
"I'm not though, I could go on forever, honest."
"Everest, it's better if we rest now instead of passing out later."
"I would hardly call this a safe place, though," she said, looking around the tunnels with a worried look. "All it would take is one ferox walking up on us, and that's it." She emitted a slight grunt of exertion as she moved her tired body along, "there's no good place to sleep here."
"So you do need to rest."
"I don't-" the husky tried to argue, only for her voice to cut off unexpectedly. Her mind had lost all motivation to deny it, "fine... maybe a little, but you need to as well!"
"This isn't about me," Chase deflected. "You already saved me from certain death, I'm not gonna make you trudge the rest of the way."
Coming to a quiet corner of the tunnels, the shepherd observed a clump of bloodied meat and muscle sitting along the edge of the wall, likely left behind from whatever animal was massacred here.
"This would be a good place," he said, pointing it out to his companion.
Everest immediately realized what he was implying, her entire body flattening. "Oh no, fuck that. Fuck everything about that, absolutely not."
"Okay I know it's disgusting, but hear me out-"
"Chase, I am not sleeping there."
"It's warm," Chase began listing off. "The meat smell will mask your own from any warriors passing by, the sheer size of this tunnel network will lessen the chance of anything passing by at all, and your fur is already stained red, so what's the harm?"
"You are seriously telling me to lie down in massacred gore, and actually go to sleep?!"
"There's no other option, and we may not get this chance again!" he argued, baring his teeth slightly but careful not to raise his voice too loud. "Look, what if I uh-" he looked back at the pile, turning the gears in his head. "What if... kept watch? Like I'll stay awake so nothing can creep up on us?"
Everest was still hesitant in the face of such a vile offer, but the pulling hook of fatigue was getting stronger with every step. She looked over at the breathing clump of carrion with a disdainful expression, then back at Chase with a wordless plea.
"You'll really keep watch?" she asked.
"Chase is on the case," said the shepherd, chuckling tiredly.
The husky looked back and forth for a moment, until she finally gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, I... I trust you."
Already dreading the incoming nightmares, Everest walked over to the meat pile and slowly wedged her nose into it, pushing her full head under the bloodied layers. The clump swelled as she climbed in, melting its sogging gore over its new occupant like an unholy blanket.
"Well?" Chase leaned forward at the pile, twitching his ears. "You alive in there? It's not like... digesting you or anything?"
Everest's voice came from the bloodied pile, "not funny. But unlike all the weird shit we've seen today, I think this genuinely is just a giant ball of meat. I should be fine."
"Alright, I'll be right here beside you."
"Aren't you tired too?"
"A little," Chase admitted. "But I'd rather you rest first, maybe we can take turns."
Shifting herself into the best version of comfortable she could find, Everest nestled herself under the warm layers of fleshy mass. She closed her eyes for a while, falling still as her breathing slowed, trying her hardest to forget reality and fall asleep. They remained silent for a couple minutes, until Everest broke the silence.
"Thank you for... being with me here," she muttered, voice barely audible from her cocoon.
Chase looked over from where he was sitting, "well, I kinda have to," he joked. "You did save my life."
"Well sure, but like... well this is kinda hard to say," Everest fidgeted a little. "After everything that happened, I sort of expected you to be... different."
"Different how?"
"After you did... what you said you did. The whole thing with that happened at the Lookout. With everything you told me earlier, I honestly couldn't believe you were..." her voice faded out.
"What? I was what?" Chase turned, an intrigued look on his face.
"I don't know, still being here at all? After I lost Jake and the ski lounge, essentially watching my entire life shatter to pieces, I spent a long time wondering where my life could even go. I was stuck in Archline jail for years, surrounded by dogs I'd never be friends with in a normal setting. I honestly thought..." her voice cracked slightly. "Honestly I... I was really thinking for a while about killing myself."
Chase frowned, his voice softening. "Everest..."
"Like everything I ever had was basically gone," she continued. "My owner, my life, and I hadn't heard a word from any of the PAW Patrol, so I assumed you were dead too. I had no motivation to continue on, just day after day of the same stupid routine. There were so many times I just wanted to... make it all stop hurting. You went through something incredibly similar, didn't you?"
Her words brought a haunting amount of despair, the mental image of her in such a state putting Chase in distress. "I mean... kinda, yeah. I lost half my family, and the PAW Patrol doesn't exist anymore."
"But you're still here," Everest said, quiet elation in her tone. "Everything hurts like hell but you're fighting to carry on, right?"
"If you wanna call it that," Chase sighed, lowering his saddened gaze to the floor. "If I didn't have Rocky or Marshall... I probably would've taken myself out long ago."
"But... you haven't," the husky pushed her head out slightly, exposing her blue eyes. "And now we don't have to be alone, because we're still here." She smiled at him, helpless to control the shining awe glowing from her.
Idly flicking his vision up, Chase found himself unwillingly gazing into her eyes. There was something mesmerizing about them, like a night sky of stars flickering with memories of good times. Even with her whole coat slathered in gore, Everest's eyes never changed, always remaining a brilliant blue.
"Go- go to sleep already," Chase looked away, playfully pulling a layer of meat over her to break the trance. An uncomfortable heat was rising in his fur, and it certainly wasn't coming from the tunnel's inner conditions.
"Fine, I will," the husky giggled. "Keep watch for me, big guy."
Everest nestled herself down, eventually falling completely silent as she drifted away in slumber. Right away Chase adhered to his core principles of a loyal dog, sitting up straight and firm to guard his objective. Faint glimmers of joy danced inside him, Everest's voice annoyingly playing on repeat in his mind. The urge to protect had never been stronger; after all the years of escorting and defending as a soldier, the sleeping husky brought forward the fiercest rush of courage he had ever felt before. Not a single thing was getting to her, at least not without a bloodbath happening in between.
Stay awake you idiot, Chase snapped to himself in his thoughts. There weren't any military goggles to obscure his eyes this time, and this certainly wasn't a position to drift off. He stood still for a long time, calmly listening to the gentle churning of the Omnihive around him. It was remarkable no ferox warriors had passed by yet, and he didn't plan to tempt fate any time soon.
How far in the hive were they anyway? Chase narrowed his eyes as he thought back to their recent travels, trying to draw out a path in his head. How much more did they have to go until they reached the nexus?
"Not far," came an angelic whisper in his ears.
He stiffened to attention, alerted and looking around with searching vision. "Who said that?" No response, surely the exhaustion was making him hear things, that had to have been the answer. He shook his head of its fuzziness, annoyed at his slipping mentality. "Ugh... I'm going crazy down here."
"Crazy?" The voice said, almost offended at the use of the word. "Little one, what you see and hear is very real."
Chase completely spiked with alarm, jumping up with visible fear splayed across his face. He frantically looked in all directions, searching for the mystery speaker anywhere his eyes could see. There was no one, just him and the peacefully sleeping Everest.
"Who is that," he demanded with a shaking voice, backing into the wall as a fierce shiver went down his spine. "Who- who's talking to me?!"
A churning static entered his mind, muffling his thoughts until he couldn't hear himself think. The noise made him grimace, disorienting him so severely he nearly collapsed onto the fleshy ground. "Get... who is-" his voice became strained. "Get out of my head!"
"That is not something I will allow, Chase," the voice said flatly, devoid of emotion. "I'm so overjoyed we are reunited."
"Stop talking, just shut up!" he gripped his head, panicking on the ground. "Who are you, how are you doing this!?"
"You should already know."
"Know what!?"
"Come see me and I'll tell you, you're not far from the Nexus," the voice said. "Take the forward path and stick to the left, you'll know when you see it."
"The... the what?" Chase cracked, unable to believe he was hearing things.
"You heard me. I'll see you soon, Chase. Mommy loves you."
The voice fell silent, leaving him alone in a terrified mess of shaking. He gripped his head so tightly it was sending a squeezing pain through his skull, ears still ringing with the echoes of the disembodied voice. Where the blistering hell had that come from? He wasn't dreaming, he wasn't insane, he couldn't be insane. It was a trick, he fearfully told himself, just another one of the Omnihive's twisted games, that's all it was. It was nothing but a sensory illusion, a hallucination to fuck with his mind. Without warning, images began to flash in his mind, overriding any other thought he could've had in the moment. He couldn't shake it from his head, no matter how hard he tried to think of something else.
A picture of a four-legged creature invaded his mind, first forming a blurry shape in the static of his memories. He assumed it was just another PTSD-laced image of Feroxmalis coming back to haunt him, as it certainly appeared to resemble the vicious creature. As the shape took form, however, it became apparent that it was something completely different.
Something worse.
The image in his head was unfocused, but there was a flood of red and pink as the body took form. A body of solid gore, yet perfectly constructed in design with normal proportions, unlike the stringy, mangled bodies that made up the ferox warriors. Something was moving on its back, like a swarm of wriggling snakes trying to escape the larger horror connected to them. He struggled to focus on its dark head, waiting for its facial features to form, but the image refused to develop any further. It was nothing but a blank, featureless mask lined with jagged edges, the armored face of creature well above anny horror within this cursed realm.
The Omnihive pulsed around him, an odd vibration coursing through the network tunnels. It was like a pulse, a contorting shiver coursing down the hive's body. Chase tensed up, his senses on alert as the pulse passed by in a flash. Two brief, layered twitches passed through the tunnel network, a low vibration coursing through the inner veins. It paused, then was followed by three more at once. The shepherd stumbled with uncertainty, looking around as another pulse passed by, the same frequency, but single and alone.
"The hell is that?" he wondered aloud, trying to pinpoint the identity of the vibrations.
Four new pulses traveled by, rapid and much quicker than the previous ones. They shot by like the bullets, followed by another twitch, also quick but alone. Before he could focus on anything else, three more pulses rapidly shot by, but the middle one slower and more drawn out.
"What the-" Chase backed up against the wall, waiting for something to happen. He stood alone in silence; the mysterious vibrations had stopped. A faint growl left his muzzle, the whole damn hive was playing pranks on him, putting him and Everest through hell probably for its own amusement.
With a faint pained yell, he shook the static from his mind, relieved as the mindless noise finally quieted. His paws were shaking on the floor with his static heartbeat, leaving the shepherd a mess of heavy breathing and tear-soaked eyes. That couldn't have been real, he thought to himself, please for all that is holy, don't let that have been real. Gripping his composure as tightly as he could, he looked back over to where Everest slept, expecting some horrible scene to shock his heart.
Nothing. The meat clump still gently rose and fell as she breathed inside it, peacefully sleeping the horrors away. Relief flooded the shepherd and eased his fears down, although a sting lingered in the back of his mind. It had been real, every single word whispered to him was real. He needed to get his head in the game, no more aimless distractions. Quickly taking his place next to Everest's nest, he resumed his guard position with slight labored breathing. He remained there for a long time; every few minutes the static would briefly return, fading in for a second before quickly vanishing.
Everest finally awoke a while later, stirring from her frozen dreams. She gradually came to; although with confusion as she felt something pressing up against her, only to quickly remember she slept inside a ball of gore. Twitching her sore limbs, the husky reached out and gripped the sides of her den, pulling herself free with a sickening wheeze. The clump deflated like a worn balloon as she left, although a deep red color was nearly sanitized directly into her fur. That would take ages to get out, or likely wouldn't come out at all.
"Mmf-" she grunted, arching her back and stretching her legs. It wasn't nearly enough to be a good night's sleep, but it pushed away just enough fatigue to continue on. "Well... that's a core memory now," she said, looking over at her partner. "Chase? You're up."
Sitting nearby, Chase was slightly slouched in his posture, like he was struggling to even keep himself standing. His expression was filled with wordless agony, sorrowful eyes and a hopeless gaze on nothing.
"Chase?" Everest came to him, yawning slightly. "You alright?
"Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered. "Just... things."
"Then sleep, you'll feel better afterward. It's not actually that bad if you get used to the wetness."
"Ugh," his face twisted at her wording. "Of all the ways to describe it, you chose that?"
"Well what do you want me to call it? A beef ball? Blood clump? I've seen plenty of horror movies, I can go on."
Chase gently pushed her aside, a playful gesture disguised as an annoyed reaction. He walked over to the clump of gore and sniffed it a few times, recoiling with disgust at the rotting stench. "Okay, but you're keeping watch, wake me up if you smell something coming."
"Of course," Everest puffed out her red-soaked chest. "Ice or snow, I'm ready to go."
"There is literally no snow anywhere down here," Chase said, a small laugh slipping out. He wedged his nose under the meat clump, and it swelled up again as he entered inside it.
"Oh, and by the way," the shepherd said again, speaking up from inside his nest. "We're actually really close to the Nexus."
Everest turned with a puzzled look, tilting her head. "We are? How do you know?"
There was a noticeable pause before Chase spoke again. "I just... had a feeling."
"Well... if you're sure, then I guess we'll be there before we know it." The husky said, initially confused on how he came to such a conclusion.
Chase's tail disappeared under his cocoon, the shepherd falling silent and getting himself comfortable. She took her new position very seriously, even if huskies weren't naturally used as guard dogs Everest was willing to break the stereotype. Staying point and on high alert, she ignored the low rumble in her empty stomach. Was it even possible to find food in a place like this? Attempting to eat any piece of the Omnihive was likely fatal, even if its meaty mass would theoretically fill a belly. Surely they would find something along the way, after all, what did ferox warriors eat? Victims, Everest realized the answer to her own question with a ghastly expression. They ate victims, that was for sure.
Putting a paw to her chest, she clicked her radio collar. "Dutch, Chase says we're right on top of the nexus. Whatever it is they're protecting, we should have it soon."
She waited for a while, expecting the condescending words of the executive to hit her at any moment. Only silent static came through on the other end, he was probably sleeping.
"Heh, I guess even powerful CEOs get tuckered out every once and a while," she said with a giggle. "Hell, we might be done by the time you wake up, how's that for results? Up yours, Malinois."
While Chase slept his darkened thoughts away, Everest loyally stood beside him to keep an eye out for danger. She had no qualms of sticking close for such a long period of time, in fact, she was happy to. For someone like Chase, she'd dive straight into the Omnihive's abyss, like their very bond was enough to make them completely untouchable.
