Through her feet, she sensed a faint vibration in the ground, and could detect the smell of violent intentions amongst her kin everywhere through her antennae. Despite the smell’s flood, she picked up on one that was much stronger, closer and aimed towards her, just a yard or two behind her.
She whirled, acid already building up in her throat. The moment that the charging ant entered her sight, the acid shot out from between her mandibles and towards the face of her opponent.
It was larger than her, but not nearly to the extent of the ants that seemed to have invested everything into their size. It didn’t exhibit any particularly special features, meaning that it was moderately large and likely to be durable and strong.
The acid splashed against its face, which wasn’t as protected as most of the rest of its body. A second passed as it paused at the pain, but resumed its charge almost immediately.
That was fine; she had had enough time to charge the springs on her legs halfway. This time, she directed the springs so that she wouldn’t get as much vertical thrust, and more horizontal.
Thus, when she let go, she shot seventy feet away despite not having charged it for any longer than two or three seconds.
This amount was more than enough to escape the ant, since there were hundreds of others around it that were easier to kill than her.
It didn’t mean much when she was attacked the moment that she landed, though. A winged ant that didn’t seem to understand that it should probably be in the air, taking advantage of the thing that it had spent five of its egg days growing attacked her the instant she touched the ground, but she shoved it off of her with ease. Her mandibles slammed down on its face with enough power to destroy its compound eyes and sever an antenna, but she didn’t have time to finish it off as another, giant nine-foot ant tried to slam down on her.
It was fine, though, because she had been charging her Springlegs even as she fought off the winged ant. To the winged ant and the enormous ant, she simply vanished, but in reality, she was hurled nearly thirty feet away.
It was only thirty because she smashed into yet another giant ant’s flank, causing it to bounce a few feet away and for the chitin on her right flank, where she had struck the ant, to fracture.
More than that, though, her internals were damaged. She stood up with a clack of her mandibles, pressing her body into the ground even as she struggled to think straight.
This time, she directed it a bit more into the air. It meant that she would get less distance, but wouldn’t risk slamming into anything like last time.
Luckily, she wasn’t attacked this time and managed to fully charge her Springlegs. The giant ant she had slammed into had been devoured the instant it was knocked onto its back, acting as a distraction.
This time, with both a better method and her Springlegs fully charged, she soared an entire two hundred feet in one go, coming even closer to the edge of the shallow pit they were all trapped in.
She managed to ward off the few ants that managed to attack her in the five second period it took her Springlegs to fully charge, and soared once more, coming yet closer to the edge.
She did it twice more, and then again. Finally, she was near enough to the edge to feel confident in escaping in one last, huge leap.
Her surroundings were even more chaotic than before. By now, every a single ant- aside from those trying to flee- was trying to shred their kin. The pheromones were incredibly powerful to her antennae; hunger, hate, pain, alarm and violence were all distinctly there. The vibrations in the ground were thunderous.
It was a good thing that ants did not have ears or hearing, or else she likely would have gone deaf due to the screams of her kin; the screams of pain, screams of hate, and screams of hunger.
While she pushed into the ground, charging her Springlegs, she could not swivel. Thus, as she detected danger from behind, she could only pray to the Queen that it would be attacked by something else or something.
‘Three seconds… Four. Five.’
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She let go, and soared easily over the edge of the pit.
Or would have, had she not been caught in the legs of a winged ant.
A stinger tried to bite into her back, but she felt it slide harmlessly off her carapace. If it had been an inch to the right, where there were slight fractures in her chitin from her impact against one of the enormous ants, it would have broken through.
The winged ant could, of course, not keep the weight of two ants in the air. Thus, they rapidly plummeted towards the ground.
She braced for impact as they descended, trying to angle her fractured flank away from the winged ant’s stinger. It was all she could do; it didn’t seem capable of breaking through her chitin exoskeleton, meaning that she just had to make sure it didn’t get in there.
The winged ant’s mandibles bit down on her petiole- the neck-. Pain shot through her, but while the petiole of a normal ant was thin, unarmored and weak, hers was not. Chitin still covered it, and while it was thinner than her thorax or head, it wasn’t like it was easy to sever her head.
The flying ant kicked off of her just before they slammed into the ground. She took no damage, landing on her Springlegs, and she made a leap in Springleg technique just then.
Using the force of the landing allowed her to reduce the time it took to charge her Springlegs by a second or two, depending on how well she did it. Since she hadn’t intended to do it to begin with, it had barely saved her even one, but that was still great.
The flying ant landed right behind her, but before it could bite at her stinger, she launched herself a hundred feet away, having charged her Springlegs three quarters of the way.
As she sprung towards the tunnels at the edges of the cavern, the horde of potent pheromones grew more and more bearable, until she could only barely detect the horrible slaughter happening not far away.
Finally, she landed a few dozen feet away from the tunnels and escaped inside. An overwhelming feeling of relief at the relative safety overtook her, and rather quickly, the adrenaline wore off.
She finally realized that her Springlegs came with limitations.
Fractures ran through the flexible metallic chitin that made up the springs of her Springlegs, even though she had dedicated significantly more of her growth period to them than was necessary, making them stronger than they would have been.
It would be best to avoid using them for a while, she decided.
Suddenly, text appeared in her mind again.
You have escaped Cavern 3 of Batch 23’s Grounds, one of the prerequisites to learning how to further your evolution.
In order to evolve to the second stage, you must expend 112 Biomass, which is roughly equivalent to 5-6 stage 1 Lower Myrmeke Pupae.
You were the 98th Lower Myrmeke Pupae to escape from Cavern 3 of Batch 23’s Grounds. Lower Queen Andromeda has taken note of you, and evolved your Myrmidon Control System, granting you access to features that are ordinarily only granted to Stage 2 Pupae.
‘Features?’ She wondered, thinking in the text’s language for the first time. Surprisingly, though, this prompted the text to speak:
Features: ‘Evolutionary Status’ and ‘Kill Declaration’.
Since thinking at the text in its own language seemed to prompt it to do things, and it wasn’t doing anything on its own yet, she mentally recited the features in question. It only responded to the former, though.
Nameless Lower Myrmeke Pupae
Greater Path: Soldier
Lower Path: Acidic Springjaw
First Stage
Acid: Slightly stronger than average
Durability: Mediocre
Lockjaw Mandibles: Stronger than average
Size: Slightly below average
Springlegs: Stronger than average
Strength: Mediocre
Biomass: 0
Commendations: “Intelligent.” – Lower Queen Andromeda. (Mutation)
Beseech Lower Queen Andromeda for a name?
She clacked her mandibles loudly at the text in her mind. How was this useful to her? All it did was compare her to the average strength of a Lower First Stage Pupae.
The only thing of note was the string of text as the very end. She thought affirmatively at the question, and the text disappeared for a brief moment.
Lower Queen Andromeda has declined your request for a name. Reason: Unworthy.
‘Cretin,’ was an adequate translation for what she thought upon receiving the message. She didn’t even know why it was important to be named, but she still didn’t like being unworthy of it.
Don’t.
The text was straight and to the point, carrying authority that scared her. Her blood felt hot in her body, and she suddenly figured out what the text was.
It was a system built into the bodies of the ants to make sure that they followed instruction. ‘Myrmidon Control System’ was more right than she ever could have imagined, and it was terrifying. She felt that, if she made a mistake as grievous as this one again, it would kill her on the spot.
The text and its pressure disappeared after only a few seconds, and she quickly picked herself up off the ground, where she had fallen to in her panic. There was no time to waste- not now.
Before the Myrmidon Control System’s explanation, she had intended to sprint into the tunnels and avoid combat for as long as she could, but she now knew that the consumption of her kin was a necessary process to evolving a second time. There were a lot of ants in Batch 23, meaning that this would probably go on for a while. If they evolved to the second stage before her, she would probably have no chance against them. Thus, if she wanted to live, she needed to kill.