Author's Note

This one's a talking chapter so I'll understand if you don't want to read it but if you do like i always say remember to bash me on it so I can get better and as always thanks.

Learning

'Almost done just gotta-,' "Heyyyy, Joseph"
'Goddammit,' I turn to my boss Marson as he approaches me with his carefree demeanor. I sigh as I resign myself to another long day "what is it boss?" Marson puts his arm around my shoulder "Aww don't be like that Jo-Jo I just need to ask you a teeny eeny favor"

I raise an eyebrow "And that is?"

"All I need you to do is just check over some work that I didnt feel like dealing with today see a small favor."

"What if I don't want to, like you said, 'its a favor' right?"

"Mmh, true, but I mean I could also dock your pay since kinda like you said I don't have to pay you right?"

I scowled at him, me and him both know that this isn't the first time he's threatened my pay knowing damn well I'm barely scraping by as is, 'whatever its not like I have a choice.' "Fine, I'll do it."

Marson gives me a big grin and slaps my back "thanks again Jo-Jo I knew i could count on you, catch you later" He starts walking away acting like he just won the lottery meanwhile I'm stuck here acting like his personal assistant. Whatever, one day I'm gonna leave this place and then we'll see how his precious business does without me.

As I slowly start to come to I notice that I'm in some sort of murky liquid as I could barely make out my surroundings. 'What is- where am I.' As I'm busy figuring out where I am I start to hear two muffled voices right in front of me, then, next thing I know I'm falling out out of the liquid onto the floor.

"Joseph, are you ok!?" I look up at the figure talking although I can't make him out at first until my eyes focus and I realize who it is "Thor-*cough* *cough*Thorax?"

Thorax gave me a small wave as he greets me. "Hey," I look around noticing a huge amount of pod looking containers.

"Where are we?" I ask

"Oh were in the recovery chamber" Thorax said

"Recoverey chamber?" I ask confused

Thorax nodded "Whenever a changeling gets badly hurt their brought here so that way most of their injuries can be healed up."

'Interesting.' "Wait, if thats the case then, who brought me here?" I ask

"Oh I did." My eyes widens. "Really? Well In that case, thank you Thorax."

He smiled sheepishly "O-oh its no problem."

I froze for a second as I remembered the fight. "Hey Thorax did we uuh, did we win?" I ask

Thorax smiles as he looks at me "We did, and it was thanks to you that we did."

I was a bit confused "What do you mean?"

Thorax figeted a bit "well I mean if it wasn't for you beating Pharynx I don't think we would have won that match at all."

I frowned at that "just because I managed to beat Pharnyx doesn't mean it was all because of me we won in fact I should probably be thanking you."

Thorax looked a bit suprised "Me?, what did I do?"

"Well I don't know if you remember but there were TWO of them we had to fight and while I did take care of Pharynx I also passed out afterwards and If we won thats means it was cause of you not me." I explained

Thorax seemed surprised at me trying to include him in our victory. "I-" he shook his head "thank you Joseph, that means alot to me"

He opened and closed his mouth again seeming like he wanted to say something.
"Is something wrong?"
Thorax shook his head "No, nothings wrong but, umm, I wanted to ask you something."

"Yes?" I ask

Thorax fidgeted "back during the test you called me your friend di-did you really mean that?" As he asked that he looked up to me with the biggest puppy eyes I've ever seen in my life.

'Oh, you precious thing.' I walked up and put my hand on his shoulder "Yes Thorax, I did, and I do consider you my friend, I hope you do too."

Thorax looked up at me shocked at what I had said and then next thing I'm know he's wrapped me up in a hug.
"Thank you, for wanting to be my friend."

I smiled as I hugged him back "no need to thank me Thorax, like I said before what are friends for?"

We stood there for a while letting Thorax bask in his first official friendship though it had to end as he begins to pulI away. " I almost forgot, Queen Chrysalis has requested for us to meet her In the throne room."

Confused, I asked "Us? what for?"

Thorax looked at me like I was dumb "Um about what Queen Chrysalis said earlier remember? About our roles in the hive?"

"Oh, oh yeah my bad I completely forget about all that."

Thorax reassured me "Well Its ok since, you know, you did just wake up after passing out."

I chuckled "Alright lets start moving i think we wasted enough time here already don't want to make the Queen mad do we?"

Thorax eyes widened "Oh gosh, your right we should get a move on."

I decided to follow Thorax out the recovery room since he apparently had been to Chrysalis's 'Throne room' a couple of minutes earlier before coming to check on me. Since we haven't really had much time to just hang out I then decided to start some small talk.

"Sooo what role would you want to pick" I ask

"Learner" Thorax replied without any hesitation

"Oh, well, that was quick" I say surprised

Thorax shrugged " I think out of all of them Learner would be the one I think suits me the most."

"Hmm, well if you don't mind tell me,what does a 'Learner' do?" I ask

Thorax adopted a thoughtful look on his face. "Well as far as I know a Learner's role in the hive is to learn everything about the Hives and Changelings history and then if deemed ready, they are then to go with an trusted escort to the outside world to then observe how different creatures techniques and contraptions work, take note of them and come back to find ways to incorporate it into the Hive."

"And what if they can't incorporate it into the Hive?" I ask

"Then if I remember correctly if all the knowledge they've gained isn't at all substantial enough they're banished from the hive until they find something that they know the hive is either in dire need of or something that can generally improve the hive that has not already been found." Thorax explains

"Yeesh, sounds rough, and your sure this is the role you want?" I ask a bit worried

"I'm not worried about getting banished from the hive, I hope I never do, but if dealing with the possibility that may happen means I get to have the chance to be able to see what outside the hive has to offer then I think to me thats worth the risk." Thorax responds back

I was pleasantly surprised on how ambitious Thorax was turning out to be. 'Well I mean he did leave his own kind behind to try and co-exist with others on the show so I guess it shouldn't be too surprising.' I thought

"What about you?" Thorax asks

I look down at Thorax."Me?" I ask

"Yeah which role are you going to pick?" Thorax questions

"Umm I don't know, I didnt know anything about roles until Queen Chrysalis said anything about it." I say honestly

Thorax looked sheepish "O-oh yeah, right, I um forgot that wasn't exactly common knowledge to the regular ling."

"You know, now that you mention it how do you know about roles?" I ask

"Well before our test Pharynx would sometimes tell me about some of the stuff certain roles had to deal with when he talked to other lings working in those roles."

"He would mostly talk about roles that dealt with fighting but I never liked them that much so I always payed more attention to the roles that dealt with leaving the hive, though he always got mad at me when I didn't pay attention to the more fighting focused roles." Thorax explains

As Thorax finished talking we came up to two 10 ft tall doors with two of the most toughest changelings I've seen so far standing at each far side of the door with dark purple armor covering most of their body with a beetle like trail covering the armors outside area, while their helmets had tusk like spikes sticking out of the front with a hole at the top for their horns to fit through.

Finished looking at their armor we had approached the doors causing the guards to go and open them for us allowing us to walk in as they closed the doors behind us.