Wretched Hive 2: The Drooling Oasis

"You could not even bring your fellow changelings together in the Hive," Foresight chastised Babylon. "You were a Hive Prince: Chrysalis's Chosen!" He shook his head. "You have fallen too far with your foolish quest for the truth. The Truth!" He scoffed. "In the realm of liars! Ha!" The outburst calmed the boiling eyes of the drooling outcast. "There is no Truth in this wasteland. There is no killing the Drooling Oasis. You have failed completely."

Foresight sighed and his eyes stilled, as though he was drifting off into sleep. "That is the worst of the news." His head lowered and a smirk creased one side. "But the bad news is about whom you've already killed."

The eyes spurted and his head rose with fangs bared. The twisted fangs dripped with his own blood, dropping bright green into the blue that flowed from his mouth. A deep growl resonated behind the drool and flames.

"Your summoning of my corpse has splintered my soul," Foresight growled through the fluids. "My very spirit lashes out at this corrupted form. These replacements are tainted."

He shook his head. His liquid ears twitched with each wayward drop splashing into the pool of blood they all stood in. The growling tone relaxed as he continued.

"They call to me... The missing pieces." Foresight shook his head again. "But they are not mine. They are misplaced spirits torn from an ancient corpse." His voice began to quiver. "They are vengeful monsters driven by a harmonic wrath. They tear at my soul for sustenance. They seek their promised destruction."

He looked behind him. The massive mound of congealed blood still connected itself to his head with its arm. He shook his head violently. The juices spurted from his dormant eyes and a scream rang out from deep within his throat, rebounding off the walls. His hooves smashed against the ice below the waters.

His gaze settled on them as his throat quieted. He spoke plainly. "No redemption for what you have done. No redemption can fix your status. No redemption can save the ponies or the changelings from her wrath. It is already done. Mercy and Redemption go hoof in hoof, but neither trot these lands of the cursed. They shall swim in the waters of our sins, turning it to death. When the waters are pure and fertile, there will be nothing left." His throat quivered. His nose sniffed. The drool clogged his throat for a short moment. "Such is the error of our stubborn wills... That we do not cry until we are completely destroyed."

Foresight's hoof rose to his mouth, both dripping in blood. He retched. Blood flew through the holes of his hoof, hitting the pool in a disharmonic clamor. Through the splashing and sickness, Babylon and Sin could barely recognize a familiar tune.

The claw ripped itself from Foresight's neck. His body slumped into the waves and disappeared under them in silence. The Drooling Oasis opened its eyes to the pony and the changeling once again.

"Foresight never tells changelings what they need to hear," the Oasis said with a twisted smile. "Time for you two to fulfill your obligation to me."

"Who are we killing?" Sin asked excitedly while Babylon sulked in the water.

The smile grew more crooked. "They call it 'Redemption,' but it's really just a wretcher higher-up whose corruption would stain my beautiful waves." Babylon looked up as the Oasis continued. "When such a scar exists on this world, it is sadly beyond my waters to mend it." It shook its head. "Which is why you must destroy him for me."

Babylon crooked his head. "How do you expect us to recognize this 'Redemption?'"

"He was with you. One eye, broken limbs, and a broken wing... Any of that sound familiar?"

Babylon nodded. The nodding stopped suddenly as the familiar details rekindled an old memory in his mind. "Redemption sounds a lot like Carnal..."

"Who?" Sin asked.

The Drooling Oasis ignored the unicorn. "He may wear Carnal's soul as a mask. If Carnal you would come across, kill him."

"I see..." Babylon looked around the ice water cave. "So how do we get back to the desert?"

The Oasis chuckled before releasing a bellowing scream that melted the walls around them. The blood flooded the floor, engulfing Sin and Babylon in its waves. The Oasis disappeared, one with the liquids that now filled the room. Looking down, green lights sparkled from the depths. Babylon perceived nine pairs of eyes surrounding a triclopean-esque formation. Unlike triclopean wretchers, the third "eye" shined brighter than the others. Looking closer, he realized the shape was slightly off.

"A horn?" he mouthed in the lake of blood.

Sunlight cut through the water, shrouding the Oasis's eyes in glare and forcing Babylon's gaze upward. The changeling and pony swam to the surface, and the currents led their hooves back to the solid ground.

Babylon looked onward toward the direction of the wretched hive. Sin looked back toward the Oasis, whose waters slowly receded into nothingness.

The unicorn chuckled and turned toward the wretched hive, excited to get to work. The changeling shook his head and dragged himself along.

"There he is!" Sin yelled.

Babylon lifted his head in time to see a single blue eye disappear into the wretched hive. They chased after it, only to be greeted by two wretcher soldiers. Both were missing their left foreleg and green blood dripped from almost every hole in their bodies. Their jaws were held agape with a labored breath.

A watery claw crashed down and pulled the guards away. Their wretched screams clawed their echoes through Babylon's mind. Sin continued into the cavern with a smile.

There was no sign of Redemption inside, but his voice echoed from much deeper within. Sin charged after the sound. Babylon noted the blue waters carefully sliding along the walls of the cave.

Babylon listened carefully to the echo as the two moved deeper. It was a rallying call. "It's sent two now! Two pure minds who are now tainted by that monster's vengeful darkness! Now, my siblings, we must take action! Don't let them get close to the One! The Perfect One must survive their onslaught! I know it defies our beliefs, but these two must be stopped by any cost! I know you are hungry... I know you thirst. Our own oasis being taken over by this vengeance has cost more souls than it was ever meant to store! Some of you may resent me for introducing the Outcast... For letting her into our waters of life. It was never meant to be this way! Not even the Perfect One could console the Nine! And now they are fueling a terrible quest for unholy revenge! Siblings! This must stop here!"

Sin and Babylon turned a corner to find Redemption and five other wretchers glaring at them from the other side of a long stretch of cavern.

"Redemption's darkness is much too strong," the Oasis whispered into Babylon's ear. "Until he is dead, I can't save any of the others."

"I know what it is you seek!" Redemption yelled at them. "The blood on your hooves is evidence enough of your intentions." He shook his head. "But the Perfect One will remain out of your reach." He smiled. "Yours and the Oasis's."

Sin laughed and stepped toward the six wretchers. "We're not here for some 'Perfect One.'" He grimaced at them. "We're here for you!"

"Then take me," Redemption growled. His horn began to glow. "Take all of us."

A bolt of green magic surged into one of the other wretchers, killing it on impact. Redemption grinned as another blast from his horn reduced another sibling to a bubbling puddle of blood.

"Tried to starve us!" he screamed as another wretcher collapsed from his power. "No better than Chrysalis..." he growled as another wretcher, shaking, stepped away from the charred and oozing remains of its friends.

A final bolt sealed its fate. "But we wretchers are exalted. Immortal!" He stepped forward into the first puddle. "We are born by the blood, and we surge through the veins of countless worlds. For blood, like life, is inextinguishable."

Redemption bent down and drank the puddle. His head began to twitch and convulse. With a burst of green flame, both eyes opened bright blue. Another couple drinks restored his limbs. Then a fourth repaired his wing and fang. He beckoned the fifth toward him; it shook as it reached a hoof out to Babylon.

"The Oasis has tainted you with fear and hate," Redemption explained to the two intruders. He gestured to the shaking wretcher. "But our... 'water' is clean of such depravity. As the Perfect One would, I may forgive you and cleanse you of this atrocity."

"It actually chose me because I was fearless!" Sin boasted with a malicious grin.

The wretcher crooked his head. "And she asked you to kill just me?" Sin nodded. Redemption scratched his chin. "Then she is scared of me..."

"I grow tired of this..." the Drooling Oasis growled quietly into Babylon's ear. "Tell the one you know that the 'nine soldiers...'" Her voice trailed off as the liquids on the walls convulsed and a faint light glowed. "Tell 'it' that 'they' are... Alive." The waters receded, still faintly glowing from invisible sunlight.

Babylon thought for a short moment, trying to decipher the command. Finally he sighed, and began trotting past Sin toward the wretchers.

"Prove to me that this 'wretchedness' is immortality," Babylon told Redemption.

He beamed. "Take a bite from our friend and let it prove it to yourself!"

"I want to speak to Carnal." Babylon smirked. "If he's still alive in there, then I'll take a bite," he plainly bargained.

The shaking wretcher smiled and turned to Redemption.

Redemption sighed before letting his body convulse for a brief moment. The mouth drooled at Babylon as the eyes stared through him completely. As it spoke, Redemption's healthy throat retched out a broken voice:

"Do you want to hear a story? It's the only--"

"The other nine are alive!" Babylon yelled at Carnal mid sentence.

Redemption screamed and convulsed. Its head suddenly smashed into the other's neck, horn first. The wretcher collapsed into a fading scream and a bubbling mess. He slurped the remains with a feral look in his eye. As the last couple drops fell from his horn, Redemption glared at the changeling. His patience and meal were both exhausted.

"You almost killed him, you monster!" Redemption snapped. "For centuries I had ground the knowledge of the Nine out of his head! Do you have any idea the damage you have caused?!"

"So wretchers aren't immortal?" Babylon asked with a smirk.

“Maybe not...” Redemption admitted. He grinned at the changeling, his twisted fangs dripping in bright green blood. “But we’re a Hell of a lot harder to kill than you...”

It lunged toward the changeling and dug his fangs into the foreleg of his enemy. Sin charged into the monster’s flank, ripping his friend free. A hole that dwarfed the natural deformities scarred Babylon’s leg. Breathing to cope with the pain, the changeling turned to Sin and nodded. With a green flash, the unicorn found himself looking into his own eyes. They turned toward Redemption.

“You think a skin will save you?!” he chastised. The wretcher licked his fangs. “I’ve got your taste. I’ve got your scent!”

One Sin nudged the other forward.

“I don’t think so!” left Sin yelled back. Right Sin rolled his eyes.

“This is going to be really, really easy!” Redemption snarled. He charged the one on the right.

“Well, of course it won’t be that easy!” right Sin said, his horn glowing green. With a flash the two unicorns disappeared.

Redemption turned to find the identical pair behind him now, both looking equally confused about what spell put them there.

One whispered into the other’s ear.

Redemption charged the whisperer. The whisperer charged back. The wretcher leaped onto the unicorn, tearing into the raw foreleg again. The unicorn laughed.

The taste was strange. Redemption’s fangs were stuck. The other unicorn stood over him with a smirk. He put a hoof to the wretcher’s horn, suppressing any magic and pushing his head up slightly.

“Hey, man! That really hurts!” the real Sin complained, the fangs still embedded in his bloody foreleg.

“Just give me a second.” He said to the unicorn, almost mocking their shared predicament.

“What are you even doing?!”

“Well, feisty-fangs over here decided to brag about how he saved Carnal...” the false Sin explained with a glowing horn. “I’m going to see just how much he managed to save in there...”

“NO!” the helpless wretcher screamed through the blood. “No, this can’t happen! Advantage said--”

Babylon actually took a step back to let the wretcher explain. But Redemption stared into the darkness beyond. The two heads of his queen watched him struggle. They closed their eyes.

“Hurry up, he’s ripping my leg open with all this talking!” Sin demanded.

Redemption didn’t flinch as the magic overtook his head. Babylon used his royal magic to sift through the thoroughly chewed up memories of those swallowed by Redemption. Finally, he found “Carnal.” He smiled as the mind was put in charge. Ice cold claws ripped the hoof from the drooling changeling’s maw. Sin cringed in pain.

Waters flowed around Babylon's hooves. The Drooling Oasis rose from the ground and picked up Redemption with its oozing claws. The green, glowing bubbles on her snout inspected the body carefully.

The Oasis turned toward Advantage. "What is this?"

“Apparently, there was nothing left of Carnal after our treatment,” Babylon explained. He removed his “skin” and helped the real Sin back up onto three hooves.

The jaws of the Oasis curled up into a sinister grin, then her ice claw crushed Redemption's body into a huge puddle of goop. The waters grew thicker and stronger as her snout dipped into Redemption’s blood. She feasted upon the souls Redemption had kept.

"Hey!" the bleeding Sin yelled at the Oasis. "What about our deal?"

"Kill whom you will, my desert mirage..." The Oasis chuckled with her mouth full. "Good luck getting home!"

“Fuck that! I want my arm healed!”

With a hiss, a wave crashed into the unicorn and changeling. The tide pulled them away from their victory and threw them from the pit. It abandoned them in the dark wasteland. All around them was dry sand, and the moon was their only company. Babylon helped Sin up again, wincing at the sand in his open wound.

Large hooves interrupted the wretched siren’s meal. The two heads of Advantage looked over the gorging waters with disdain.

"They did as we hoped," male Advantage said to the distracted Oasis. The two heads winced.

"And what was--”

The Oasis turned to find Advantage's horns aglow. At first, their magic tickled her oceanic body. Slowly she felt the corruption spread, ripping her body apart.

"How... Did?" The Drooling Oasis's jaw failed to speak. The drool dwindled into a fine, green slime. The eyes calmed to a slow simmer, tears of green rolled down the sides of the sinking face.

"Carnal had to go somewhere," female Advantage eagerly explained before both heads winced again.
"Then we returned him!"

The Nine roared in the Oasis's head. "Stop!" she pleaded to them. "Help!" she pleaded to the two-headed wretcher. The waves muffled her cries to sparse bubbles on the surface.

Nine glowing, green orbs ripped the snout apart from the inside. The claws lost their form, falling into the pool that glowed brighter and brighter. Advantage watched the lake of blood slowly revert to green. They intervened only to scoop the pony flesh from it. The four sets of scraps fell to the ground bloodless, and boneless.

From the center of the lake flew the fallen Oasis, that changeling with such a passion for music and water. A strange gem shined from her forehead, replacing the horn. Strange fins adapted for water covered her exoskeleton. Her face was still scarred from their last interaction.

"Help!" she screamed in a harmonic key.

Green slime splattered the ground at Advantage's feet. More dripped from the sea-changeling's snout. The wretcher queen stared at the strange substance. Distracted, they did nothing about the nine hungry eel-like mouths that emerged from the waters. Advantage prodded the substance.

Tears and blood dripped down the changeling's cheek as the mouths moved to rip her apart. More slime spurted from her mouth as the changeling was seized by the Nine.

Advantage licked it off of their faces. It wasn't purely blood, but it was still good. They looked up to find nine mouths snapping towards them. Advantage smiled unafraid. The mouths stopped short of their snouts, then retreated to the waters.

Advantage used their magic to stir the waters around. Bubbles formed at the surface close to them. Advantage's female jaw bit them, finding something underneath. With swing of the neck, a changeling was thrown to the dry ground. He checked to make sure he was as fully intact as he felt before galloping away.

"Carnal!" nine voices yelled in a clamor.

"There are still others," Advantage said. Wince.
"Now is the time to let go." Wince.
"Not the time for songs."

A changeling hoof reached from the waters and pulled its fully restored face out. His green eyes took in the surroundings before he galloped off after Carnal.

Foresight stopped Carnal from leaving the cave with a hoof around his neck.

"There are still two out there!" Carnal yelled as they struggled.

Foresight shook his head. "They're not yours to worry about. I will see that they leave this wasteland alive." He patted Carnal on the back.

"But they're all I can remember..." the changeling admitted. "Why am I even alive?"

"Advantage saved you," Foresight explained. "The thing that ate us also ate your memories, but that means you have a chance to start fresh. Take it." Foresight galloped to the cave exit, then looked back. "Look after yourself, Carnal." He galloped into the darkness of night.

Carnal trotted back to Advantage for answers. As more wretchers were revived, the nine mouths grew more and more restless. Finally, about twenty wretchers stood around nine mouths stemming from the broken, dragon-shaped monster. Each mouth hissed and snapped at whatever came near. The beast underneath whimpered as her gaze darted around.

"What... What is that thing?" Carnal asked Advantage.

A royal hoof crushed the mouths into a large puddle of blood.

"It's adorable," Advantage replied as the waters continued to drown the creature underneath. Its labored breaths popped and died around Advantage's hoof. The female snout popped out of the wince with a smile. "I think we'll name her 'Bubbles.'"

"Sleep now, Bubbles. Sleep..."

Outside the Hive...

Babylon helped Sin along so they might outrun the watch of guards of the Queen’s Hive above. With any luck, whatever perimeter guard She replaced Foresight with wouldn’t see them.

Then a changeling hoof touched his back.

Babylon jumped away from the changeling. Sin smiled at it.

“Hey, Foresight.”

Foresight’s mutual smile faded when he saw the red dripping down his leg. “What happened to you?”

“What happened to him?!” Babylon said, unsure of his eyes. “Didn’t your head explode and your body get ‘ripped apart’ by the Oasis?!”

Foresight healed the bite wound with his healing spell. “Sorry if this hurts, haven’t had a lot of practice with ponies.” He looked up toward Babylon. “Until recently...”

“Well?”

“I got better,” he shrugged. “My teeth aren’t wretched anymore, and my eyes and even my legs feel better than ever!”

“What?!” he persisted in pure disbelief.

“We come from a strange and scary hive, Babylon,” he said in an exhausted stupor.

“And the Oasis?” Babylon asked, still confused.

“That reminds me...” Foresight chuckled to himself. “You followed my clues about how the mental juices react violently to repressed memories! Good for you.”

Babylon crooked his head, his jaw open but every thought dying inside his throat. He swallowed, shook it off, and just tried again. “And the Oasis?”

“What little is left of that monster belongs to Advantage now,” Foresight explained, turning from the two and back toward the Hive. “And if I don’t want to be beaten into a puddle myself, I’d better get back before they see I’m gone.”

“What about us?” Sin asked, still rubbing his newly healed foreleg.

Foresight threw his hoof in their direction. “Just keep going that way until you hit the town. Shouldn’t be a problem at night, when everything except the most ferocious monsters sleep.”

“Was that supposed to help?” Babylon asked.

“Oh, you sure did,” the tired changeling chuckled as it flew off. “You sure did.”

The two turned and walked in the light of the moon. A familiar tune echoed from the top of the Hive.

Foresight hit a flat note, snarled, and tore a larger hole in his foreleg before starting over again.