Over the following weeks, Anton saw a shift in the Shadysands Burrow that he hadn’t anticipated. He’d noticed there were more locations dug out around the area, but he thought they were abandoned. And in a sense, they were. With the meerkats not feeling comfortable enough to protect all of their own, they’d restricted their functional territory to only a small part of what they might normally control. Now they were beginning to spend more time in the further reaching areas, moving about as they pleased.
More disciples began coming to Anton, including the expected Sustained Chittering. Many of the others were members of the guard, led by the captain of the guard- one whose name equated to Deep Purr by Anton standards. It was difficult for Anton to explain the distinction between names and other words, but he was beginning to pick them out. He definitely couldn’t call himself fluent, but he was also beginning to see the overlap with the wider language vaguely shared by the awakened individuals in the region. He wondered if that had developed, or if they knew it inherently. Perhaps he might actually be able to ask Three Squeaks that now, with his greater cognitive functions.
“Do you know when and where your people learned to speak?” Anton asked. “And how you communicate with the others?”
Three Squeaks shook his head. “Everyone learns as a baby. I don’t know where it came from. Probably not even Meep knows.”
“Why would Meep be different?” Anton asked.
“He’s almost eighty seasons old, I heard.”
“Ah. He doesn’t particularly look old, but that might explain the slowness of his speech.”
“I think he’s always been that way,” Three Squeaks said. “Maybe he’s a bit slower now.” Three Squeaks actually remembered the other conversation thread, returning to it. “We speak to the others the same way they speak to us. We make sounds as much the same as possible, like you. Because that’s how speech works, right?”
“In essence, yes,” Anton admitted. “But I’ve mainly been exposed to people with the same physical capabilities for how they speak.” The void ants didn’t vocalize, and Paradise hardly made any attempts to communicate at all.
-----
Anton was working with Meep in the fields, which was to say Meep was trying to pick out which things were weeds and which were the plants they were trying to grow, with Anton’s guidance.
“This…?”
“That’s a weed. Unless you like how it tastes, I guess,” Anton said.
“Not… like… this.” Meep pushed a clawed hand into the ground and tore out the plant by the roots. “This… is… a… weed…” Meep declared confidently about the next one. Then he lowered his nose to the ground. “Roots… grew… over… seed.”
“That’s right,” Anton said. “Which means you have to remove it delicately.
“Can… feel… seed…” Meep said, pushing his claws into the ground and pulling away the weed and roots- but also most of the topsoil. “Seed… is… safe.”
“Almost,” Anton said. “But now it’s not buried properly, is it?”
Meep looked at it, looking for dirt that wasn’t already being used for other rows of plants. “Farming… is… difficult,” he said.
“Yeah it is. There are so many things you have to worry about,” Anton said. “Disease, pests…” Anton frowned. He was tracking a large cloud of something moving vaguely in their direction, and it was becoming ever more likely it would reach their particular location. “Unfortunately, there is a swarm of locusts coming here.” Anton could smash the entire swarm of billions of locusts, but that would throw off the ecosystem far too much. And protecting just their farm would provide unrealistic expectations for the future.
“Locusts… come… here…?” Meep asked. “Devour… crops…?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Anton shook his head. “It seems like they will.”
“I… must… go… tell… everyone…” Meep began plodding off. “They… will… be… so… excited…!”
Oh. Right. The meerkats could just eat the locusts, couldn’t they? “They won’t be here for a few days!” Anton said. “So don’t rush too much!”
-----
Normally, Anton would have been depressed by a swarm of locusts devouring his fields. Even if he’d only spent a single afternoon planting this particular one and only required a small amount of effort of his own, Meep had put in more effort over his time.
But as the locusts blanketed the area, the meerkats came out in bundles and began to devour them in turn. And the more canny among them targeted the members of the swarm with greater levels of natural energy- including those that had just eaten the growing crops.
The meerkats were able to react in a planned fashion because of the forewarning, and they not only caught and devoured but also had some assigned to bring extra down into the burrow for storage. They wouldn’t last long, but a few days where they didn’t have to hunt for food was a great boon. As for the damage to the locust swarm… well, their tactics worked. Ultimately, it didn’t matter if a few hundred or a few thousand of them were consumed. The swarm survived.
Ultimately, Anton thought the event was better than whatever he might have done with the crops. And he liked to see the meerkats coordinate, scooping bundles of insects into their burrows. They would have been more efficient if they had proper storage devices- bags to scoop things into, for example. Perhaps Anton could suggest the development of tools to them, though he didn’t know where to start. They would be the ones who knew what they really needed, after all. The one thing they had was Three Squeaks’ modified bow, and other than that they simply made use of their own bodies.
But even without hands, they would be able to make use of other tools soon enough, as their natural energy developed and they were more able to control things with it. And even if it was possible for Anton to scoop things up with natural energy, for anything beyond short term even Anton would want a proper bag.
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Seeing the devastation left behind as the locusts passed, Anton knew that despite the short term gains, it wouldn’t be good longer term. Because what the meerkats normally ate also overlapped in food sources with the locusts. Still, they had some time to adapt with their stores of insects. Meep’s experimental underground farm was also going well, with a few sorts of mushrooms that the meerkats could actually digest.
-----
Surveying the damage, Anton determined that the local impact to the meerkats, warthogs, and eagles would be the greatest. He wanted to see their responses. The warthogs had made peace, and while the eagles had not extended an offer of peace or friendship… he also didn’t want to condemn them for the prompting of a few foolish members. If he truly thought there was no hope for redemption, he might have killed them all to begin with. That was more merciful than thinking of them as combat practice, at least.
Before anything else, Anton began his own tasks in a wider area. He provided energy to any surviving plants that he could, spurring their growth so that they could return to something. Fortunately the stick bugs were outside of the devoured zone, because they would have lost both food and shelter at the same time. But the environment where they lived was different enough to not suit the locusts, though random chance might have still had them enter the forests for some distance.
Either way, Anton knew there was still much work to be done with replanting- which involved scavenging what seeds remained- but that would have to be done later. And he wanted the meerkats to be involved with their local area.
The Great Queen came to find Anton with her comments on the event. “They’re foolish,” she signed. “What do they gain from this? Their numbers will fade rapidly as they eat the most available food. Their bodies will litter the ground. And they will return to their much wiser solitary forms.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” Anton shrugged. “Because they are foolish, right? They don’t really think. Unless you saw signs of sapience among them?”
“It is the same as previously observed behavior of normal locusts,” the Great Queen said. “A shift in behavior from great numbers. They leave no benefits to their next generation, merely surviving to produce it. I am glad to have not established a nest, yet.”
“That would certainly throw off your early development,” Anton said.
“Perhaps. We could devour them,” the Great Queen said. “Our diets are not terribly limited. But we have learned to tend our surroundings for sustained growth, which would require much work to restore. Though we require those who can control energy to help us. That is why I plan to establish rapport with others first. We cannot develop natural energy on our own.”
“A difficult state, to be sure,” Anton said. “Tell me, what about your thoughts on the upper realms?”
“The energy still seems tasty,” she said. “But I will require a daughter with specific traits before I can entrust anyone with the necessary tasks, and the journey.”
“Well, we still have centuries,” Anton said. “There’s not too much of a rush.”
“No. We have no intent to swarm over every planet,” the Great Queen agreed. “Careful expansion will do better.”
-----
With the wounds on her body healing, Chikere was less likely to die. Rather, she was less likely to die to the physical limitations of her own body. She was perhaps more likely to die in battle, because she didn’t have a weapon. Her right arm was technically capable of destruction, but she felt she would operate at a significantly lower level. With a sword she felt above the level of Integration, but without she felt like a Life Transformation cultivator. Even if that wasn’t quite accurate, she still felt it.
On the other hand, she had allies. They seemed strong. Margriet and Sly were also missing their weapons, but the few times they had run into trouble that hadn’t mattered. Margriet had no trouble using her energy itself as a weapon, the waves that let Chikere travel in comfort were just as capable of capturing and drowning people on the spot. And Sly tended to… headbutt people.
“... What sort of style is that?” Chikere asked as they moved between systems once more.
“What sort?” Sly grinned. “Why, the best one of course. The Hardened Crown Sect isn’t just known for our stubbornness, you know?”
“... I feel like I know of that Sect.”
“I would hope so. Otherwise I would be ashamed to have come from them, if they didn’t leave some impression on you. I have the feeling they did something big, or I wouldn’t have been imprisoned.”
“Why are you alive?” Chikere asked.
“Wow. That’s a hard hitting question,” Sly grinned. “I’d like to say pure force of will or… something. But I’m going to assume politics. I do still have a lot of buddies in the Hardened Crown Sect up here. Or I did. None of them came to visit me in the last century…” he shrugged. “But I’d say the same thing applies to Margriet.”
“Mostly,” the woman said. “Though I have more personal responsibility for the way things ended up than you do. You weren’t even around in the lower realms when things all began.”
“Nope. First I heard of it was when I was getting tossed in a cage. I’m proud, though. We aren’t much good if we don’t do what we want!” The large man frowned, “At least I assume we did what we wanted. What happened with the Hardened Crown Sect?”
It took a few moments for Chikere to realize that she was the one being asked the question. “The Hardened Crown Sect didn’t really use swords so… I don’t remember. I think they refused to do anything.”
“Wait, we didn’t even participate in the whole rebellion?” Sly crossed his arms. “Ridiculous. Why I oughta… do nothing, I guess, because I can’t really contact them.”
“Someone can,” Chikere said. “On Xankeshan.”
“It takes forever to send a short message though,” Sly sighed. “I just want to yell at them.”
“... I’m pretty sure you can send a recording of you yelling at people,” Chikere pursed her lips. “Uzun was talking about general information transfer or something… They did a lot of work on that.”
Margriet raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you can just send messages to the lower realms? Whenever you please?”
“I can’t,” Chikere said. “I don’t have any of my stuff.”
“I mean your alliance. Also, does that mean you had something?”
“Yes.” Chikere furrowed her brow. “I hope those ‘security features’ exploded everything. Catarina and Uzun didn’t want people to copy things.” She looked where they came from. “Specifically those people. And the two of you shouldn’t tell people, I guess.”
“Catarina?” Margriet asked. “I think I met her once. Anton’s granddaughter?”
“She is the only Catarina I know,” Chikere replied.
“There are… a lot of people with that name,” Margriet answered.
“Never heard of them,” Chikere said. “I used to care about… some people. Now I just want to return to my friends and ask them what I’m supposed to be if I’m not a swordmaster.”
“I’m pretty sure you can still be a swordmaster if you just get another sword,” Sly said. “I saw you wielding those blood swords of yours…”
“You would think I could,” Chikere agreed. “But I don’t think it’s actually that easy. Because I should want to do it and I don’t.”