With her incredible senses, she could detect the two Myrmekes a dozen or so feet away even though she was not facing them. The one she labeled One was large, strong and durable, its only notable feature being its Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles. Like attracted like, and the other, who she labeled Two, was large, strong and durable, with weird-looking Lockjaw Mandibles- something like Acidic Mandibles, if she had to guess.

At some point in her fleeing, one of her legs had simply stopped moving, causing her to stumble and hit the ground. Only a second had passed since then, and as she laboriously stood up, the two lunged.

And then, her speed practically doubled as she threw her bodyweight down, leaning to the left as she twisted right, and she sprang out of their reach, a glob of acid shooting out from between her mandibles, striking the side of Two’s head as she did.

Two had stopped to turn its head, but One didn’t. One continued charging at her, and despite the two-foot height disparity, she met it.

For the first time, she encountered the cons of the Springlegs. Her legs didn’t dig into the packed dirt, leaving trails in it as she’d expected; they flat and bouncy attachments came out from under her in their entirety, and she fell.

One’s initial attempt to grasp her head in its Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles failed as she plummeted a foot in height, and the strange situation caused it to hesitate briefly before moving to snap them down on her neck.

Her Articulated Arms forced it to take a step back instead by lunging for its eyes, but one of them was caught in its mandibles as she struggled to get up. Luckily, it made the ‘mistake’ of tearing it off rather than injecting her with venom through it.

She managed to get back to her feet, cursing her formerly-godlike Springlegs at the same time as Two showed up on the scene again. It charged past the Articulated Arms- arm, now- fending off One heedlessly, and her head was thrown back at an odd angle as they collided.

It bit into the underside of her head, where it was slightly less defended, and she felt potent acid spray precisely onto where it was clamping down, weakening the already weak armor on her underside.

She brought her Articulated Arm down instantly, aiming for its eye. It didn’t move, though, taking the blindness in one eye fearlessly.

As her Articulated Arm blinded Two and she flailed, One started moving over to her side. She tried to turn so as to ward it off, but Two held her firmly.

For a brief moment, time seemed to stop. A part of her mind she'd never recognized before came to life, and her brain worked at a speed it never had before. Adrenaline tried to obscure her thoughts, but it failed as she rapidly took in every single stimulus that her enhanced senses were presenting to her.

She suddenly moved with purpose, her entire body twisting in an incredulous way. She and Two were both flipped onto her back, but while she had a great control over her own momentum- partly because she had intended this to happen, and partly because of her experience with her Springlegs-, Two did not, and she flipped a second time while Two’s Acidic Lockjaw Mandibles were torn away from her head.

One was charging, but time felt slower as she took everything in, reacting as best she could. She threw herself downwards, using her Springlegs to bounce to the right, dodging the large Myrmeke with relative ease. She landed facing away from them both, sliding a bit due to the unstable nature of her landing and the springy nature of the Springlegs, quickly twisting to face Two, who had just gotten up. One was still recovering from its charge, and she took the brief moment of not being ganged up on to go on the initiative.

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Bouncing forward, she brought her mandibles down on Two’s head, her downward trajectory meaning that she not only struck at its eyes, blinding it entirely, but slammed its head to into the underside of its own thorax. Venom shot through the needle-like formations all over her mandibles, and while many of those needle-like formations hadn’t broken Two’s exoskeleton, several had pierced the eyes, meaning that she injected her venom extremely close to the brain.

She lunged away as One returned, not in a mindless charge this time. It approached her slowly, constantly snapping at her with its mandibles. She utilized her Articulated Arm to aim for its eyes, and its head shot up just in time to snap down on its hand.

…But with its sole form of attack suddenly occupied, she was able to charge forward and bite down on its head with her own Venomous Lockjaw Mandibles. She’d dumped every bit of her remaining venom into Two, meaning that she couldn’t do it again, but she had alternatives.

Like her acid, which was spat onto the sides of One’s face as it tore her last Articulated Arm off. Blood poured down her back, but she bit down harder as she prepared to release some more acid.

…Unfortunately, One was larger, stronger and more durable than her; the advantages of focusing its power into its most fundamental traits. It lifted its head up, and if she hadn’t released, she’d have been yanked into the air.

She bounced backwards, spitting a glob of hastily-prepared acid at its face. One had been expecting it, and twisted its head so that it splashed against the side of its face.

Behind it, Two was weakly standing up. Everything about it screamed that it was going to die any minute now, but that death was hastened by the blades of Bladewing, who’d joined the fight now that they were all heavily injured.

She’d noticed in advance, of course, and thus wasn’t surprised at all. One was, though, and it very briefly turned to glance at its fallen comrade. She’d been anticipating surprise and had already been in the process of bouncing forwards when it had turned away, and thus, she was able to bite at the underside of its still-raised head.

Bladewing had apparently only joined to kill Two, and likely to kill her and One once they were finished, as it backed away a few yards and watched.

One wasn’t defenseless even in this position, though. It pushed forward, even as she held its head in her mandibles, and tried to slam down on top of her.

Every muscle in her body strained to hold the seven-foot-tall Myrmeke. This was a huge gamble on the part of both parties; if she failed, she would die, and if she succeeded, One’s head would likely be torn off.

The gamble lasted only for a second before the winner was decided, and One’s head simply… popped off, its petiole incapable of enduring the strain. The enormous thorax of her opponent almost fell on her, but she managed to take a step back and escape it just barely.

Bladewing moved to lunge at her, but was attacked by another second stage Myrmeke from behind. They’d all been converging on the area for a while now, and even the first stage Myrmekes were beginning to surge out of the tunnels and towards the now-undefended pit, where thousands of Cores lay.

She didn’t have much time. She needed to grab the core of One and leave; she was lucky that the Flyer that had attacked Bladewing had written her off as on death’s door, and that the other second stage Myrmekes were still twenty or so seconds away, or else she’d have no chance.

Lacking Articulated Arms to dig the core out was the sole problem; there was no way she could dig the core out in twenty seconds without them. A stroke of luck came through, though, and Bladewing ended up dropping Two’s core, which it’d torn out and been about to eat.

And it was rolling right to her.

She lunged for it as Bladewing turned to fight off the Flyer attacking it, and shoved it down her gullet rapidly.

You have obtained knowledge of the Lower Path, Acidic Lockjaw.

You have obtained knowledge of the…

You have...

She blocked it all out with ease, focusing only on a single line on her Evolutionary Status.

Biomass: 402 (Articu…

She didn’t waste a single millionth of a second; not even on turning. She threw herself into the ground and angled herself backwards, using her Springlegs to soar thirty feet away. She landed easily, bouncing a few more feet even as she turned, and then she took off into the tunnels.

For short distances, she was probably one of the fastest Myrmekes in the 23rd batch, and she hadn’t taken any damage to her legs at all. Through her antennae, she could detect that Myrmekes were following her, but she was rapidly losing them all. Five minutes later, she stopped and evolved right then and there, intending on making it quick.