A day passed. Cavern 3 was long since firmly within her grasp, and utilizing the absurd number of first Stage Cores in it, she created a powerful group of twenty-seven Myrmekes. Each one wore a special identifier in the form of a marking created from the viscous green blood of the many Myrmekes they’d slaughtered. The marking was rather simple, being a crude depiction of an ant that she’d taken an hour or two to learn to make using her Articulated Arms.
Zero was confident enough in her nameless group, having twenty third Stage Myrmekes working together, to wander off in search of suitable prey.
A second day passed, meaning that Zero was twice as old as she had been upon creating her group. Casualties had been incurred in those days. Three, Seven and Twenty had all died, prompting her to have to figure out how the names worked now that they had died. Did they continue on without a Three, Seven and Twenty, or did another Myrmeke take their number? She eventually decided to have newly-recruited Myrmekes- the group was indeed actively trying to recruit Myrmekes- take the numbers, but with something to distinguish them from the old Three, Seven and Twenty.
Eventually, she decided that the numbers’ replacements would be called Three-One, Seven-One, and so on.
Of course, none of this was likely to matter. The number of Myrmekes left in Batch 23 had to be coming close to the 10,000 number.
With her frequent ventures out to prey on third Stage Myrmekes, they actually weren’t very useful to her, but she was still happy with them. Their mere existence reduced the guilt she felt, and if it ever came down to it, having so many third Stage Myrmekes under her command was incredibly useful.
Perhaps her favorite part of their existence was that they had the numbers necessary to scout out the tunnels. Thus, they’d discovered the locations of Cavern 2, Cavern 4, and Cavern 5. Cavern 4 was in a similar situation as hers, but with only a small trio of fourth Stage Myrmekes, and Caverns 2 and 5 were still in a state of chaos.
Cavern 4 was the important one to her. She wanted to hit the fifth Stage before Batch 23 was accepted into the hive, and to do that, she would need help. Her strength was tremendous amongst fourth Stage Myrmekes, to the point that she hunted even them with relative ease, but taking on three at once alone was beyond her.
Thus, she had been slowly readying the group for the last hours. The remaining second Stage Myrmekes amongst them had been disallowed from Evolution as a punishment or due to trust issues, but they were finally not only allowed to, but made to. The moment that they reached the third Stage, she gathered her entire force and they started the trek towards Cavern 4.
It was quite the distance away, and so the trip would take four hours. Due to the small size of the tunnels, they were forced to travel in three groups, rallied around Zero, One and Nine. One and Nine were her seconds-in-command, being the smartest amongst them aside from Zero herself.
The caravan looked quite funny. Zero was only four feet tall and six and a half long, deliberately staying small for the sake of mobility. Thus, she looked like an actual ant before Twenty One, who was so large that her back and sides rubbed against the sides of the tunnel. She was at the very back.
∑
Everything was in place. The trio of fourth Stage Myrmekes within seemed to recognize that something was up, but it didn’t matter. They were surrounded. Twenty three had died and Eight was heavily injured whilst getting into position, as they were suddenly all spread out in order to surround them.
It was unfortunate, but necessary. They were doubtlessly only going to be the first of many to suffer that same fate.
They had no means of communicating over such vast distances; the plan had been made back at Cavern 3. The signal to start was simple.
Zero stepped out of a tunnel, approaching the fourth Stage trio fearlessly. Her size prompted only one to stand at first, but that wasn’t what she wanted. Fighting three at once was too much for her, but tying three down while her group brought them down with her was more than in her power, and she very much so wanted all three of them to have their attention on her, so that her subordinates weren’t slaughtered like fodder.
So, she stomped down with one of her legs, releasing a wave of pheromones promising violence. The compressed dirt beneath her cracked. Finally, they seemed to recognize what the glowing exoskeleton meant, and they all stood, moving to confront her.
Out of the three, each one held a drastically different role. One was large and relatively featureless, with only a venomous Scorpion Stinger, weird-looking Lockjaw Mandibles and Articulated Arms. She decided to call that one Trapper, as it was relatively clear that it intended to hold things down and either stab them with its Scorpion Stinger or let its teamates beat it down.
Another was only slightly larger than herself, with Poisoncloud Wings, Bladed Springlegs, which had to be a conflict, and a venomous stinger. It also probably had the ability to spit powerful acid, judging by the slight bulge where the gland was held. She decided to call this one Harasser, as it was built for exactly that purpose.
The last one was in-between; six or so feet tall and eight or nine long, with Springlegs, Acidic Lockjaws and likely the ability to spit acid on its own, with weaker wings likely only meant for hovering in the air for short periods of time and a venomous-looking regular stinger. She called this one Protean, as it seemed to be a jack of all trades.
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That was a scarily well-rounded composition that signalled forethought and intellect comparable to One or Nine’s. It still would not be enough to kill her in a short amount of time, though, because she was relatively confident in even being able to outmaneuver Harasser, and easily being able to avoid Trapper or Protean.
Harasser came at her far faster than the other two. It was clear what their plan was as the other two tried to flank her, and she was fine with letting them have her way even if she was more than capable of outmaneuvering them. Harasser’s goal was clearly to keep her in place while the other two got into position, and she let it do so, only moving just enough to dodge its attacks. It was very fast and nimble in the air, and it cut at her back with its bladed legs and stung at her with its long stinger. With a bit of sidestepping and forcing it away with her Articulated Arms, she was able to avoid taking any damage whatsoever until it got fed up with its uselessness and spat a glob of acid at her legs. She yanked the two in its radius up with stunning speed, and it splashed harmlessly against the compressed dirt.
Acid was usually something any Myrmeke that had it tried to conserve, but Harasser fought hard to fly in front of her and spit acid in her face. These attempts failed, but they always ended on her somewhere; luckily, the acid didn’t seem terribly potent, only barely eating away shallow divots in her exoskeleton.
After a few seconds of this, Trapper and Protean were finally in position to either side of her, and rushed in. Zero exploded with speed and power suddenly, exploidng past Harasser and towards the side of Trapper. Her Springlegs retracted, allowing her to effortlessly land solidly on the ground as she rapidly scurried behind the Twenty One-dwarfing creature.
She lacked means to easily deal with such an enormous creature’s main body, so she aimed for the legs. Her Articulated Arms’ hands barely managed to fit them into their hands, digging their claws into Trapper’s hind two legs as they yanked with all her might. At the same time, she shot acid at another one of the long limbs, and just before Trapper’s legs were torn entirely off, her antennae detected danger. She let go, releasing her Springlegs and bouncing back in a brief instant, barely dodging Harasser’s body-slam.
Trapper kept his hind legs, but she knew that they would be only barely useable throughout the fight. That was enough.
Finally, with the trio’s full attention on her, her subordinates had stepped into the cavern and were charging towards the fight. She’d been avoiding damage till now, but keeping their attention on her would make damage mandatory.
She emitted a wave of pheromones promising violence, forcing their attention on to her. The wave was like the scream of a banshee to their antennae, and made her almost impossible to ignore.
Trapper was whirling around to meet her, and Protean was still trying to get to her through Trapper. Harasser hadn’t yet gotten back in the air, on the ground recovering from its bodyslam, an easy target in the process.
She closed the distance in an instant with her powerful legs, slamming into it with considerable force. It was only barely not knocked onto its side as it struggled to get away. One of her Articulated Arms pinned it against her face as the other tore at its wings and her mandibles tried to get through exoskeleton. Cracks had formed around it by the time that Trapper and Protean were upon her simultaneously, and as she retreated, Trapper tore one of her Articulated Arms off using its own. Red blood covered her back.
That was fine; she was meant to be taking damage and keeping their attention. She darted in almost immediately afterwards despite the damage, weaving through Trapper’s arms and mandibles to get to Protean-
Zero was suddenly grabbed out of the air, with powerful pressure descending on her thorax from every direction. That section of her mind awoke instantly, sensing that her life was in mortal danger, and yet it still took a moment to process what had happened.
‘Slingshot feeding,’ Zero recalled. She hadn’t killed anything with those, and so she hadn’t known how to identify them… Trapper’s weird-looking mandibles had been because of Slingshot Feeding. The evolution allowed Trapper to detach its mandibles and shoot them forward, catching its prey from a distance.
Recognizing the threat wasn’t enough to neutralize it. There didn’t seem to be a way to get out of it; she thrashed in the ways that seemed most perfect to her superstate mind, but Trapper must have sunk an absurd amount of Biomass into its mandibles, because they were incredibly powerful.
Harasser was unable to get back into the air due to her damage to its wing and couldn’t reach her from the ground, but Protean was more than capable of attacking her from inside Trapper’s jaws. The Myrmeke bit down on one of her legs, tearing it off with relative ease. Blood covered its face, her underbelly and the ground as she thrashed.
Her remaining Articulated Arm was the only thing capable of saving her now. It grabbed a fistfull of Trapper’s compound eye, tearing it out and going back in. Trapper somehow stalwartly endured the loss of its eye, holding her pointed downward so that Protean could attack her. It was a good thing that it couldn’t attack her with its Scorpion Stinger due to it.
Her exoskeleton cracked all over suddenly, and the pressure on her actual flesh and muscle increased tenfold as her body began to fall apart. With a bit of anger, she activated Rapid Regeneration.
Biomass: 3398
Biomass: 3012
Her Biomass plummeted as her body bulged within Trapper’s shut mandibles. The force of her reknitting body overwhelming the resistance of Trapper’s locked mandibles, forcing them open. She almost still didn’t manage to get out, but her body was so slick with her own blood that she slipped out and fell back onto the ground. Protean had been holding another one of her legs in its mandibles when she fell, and it tore it off as she did. It didn’t matter, because Rapid Regeneration was still going.
Biomass: 3012
Biomass: 2910
She hit the ground and rolled, out of Protean and Trapper’s reach and into Harrasser’s many bladed legs. They tore at her body, lopping off an antenna and her just-regrown arm. She forced her way past the Myrmeke, enduring the losses as she let Rapid Regeneration keep her alive.
Biomass: 2910
Biomass: 2798
‘Where the hell are they?!’ Zero wondered, but the answer came fast. Her mind was processing everything so fast that time felt slower; everything that had happened since they came charging had only taken five or six seconds at most. Still, they should be finally supporting her any moment now…
A hail of acid descended on the mosh-pile of Myrmekes she’d just escaped, and while only some of it was potent enough to deal any damage, much of it landed on the face. Even if the acid wasn’t potent enough to hurt their compound eyes or maws, which most of it was, it was still more than enough to blind.