“Blue Pistol, retrieve the living creatures underground,” Chief ordered while holding a worn out pistol. A blue light dug into the soil inside the sphere.
Soon after, countless bugs were levitating above ground, and Chief nodded in satisfaction. There were countless earthworms, springtails, mites, and other small insects, but what intrigued him the most were the colony of peculiar three-legged bugs.
“Open the sphere,” Chief said, and the pale blue sphere holding the soil disappeared. At the same time, he felt that it was easier to breathe.
“Oh?”
SHRR…
While the soil rained down on the laboratory floors, Chief had no change in expression.
“Sigh, Blue Pistol, put the bugs inside the glass container,” Chief said, pointing the pistol toward a hollow glass cube. A moment later, blue light filled the glass cube and the panicked insects crawled about.
On the other hand, the colony of small bugs began a murder spree, whilst defending something in the middle of their swarm.
“Is it their queen? Or is it something else?” Chief wondered, watching as the earthworms and other bugs got slaughtered. The spawns would blitz their prey, cutting their bodies in half before rushing toward another bug.
“Amazing speed for insects that only have three legs. Their mandibles are a bit big for their size, and powerful too,” Chief deduced, writing down his discoveries on a piece of paper.
“Their mandibles remind me of trap-jaw ants, although these critters can bite down much faster,” Chief hummed, before quietly observing his new test subjects.
“Two… three minutes, and all the bugs inside the cube are dead, impressive,” Chief nodded, closing the folder he was writing on.
“They’re an anomaly, no doubt. They're not eating their prey, though. What're they planning to do?” Chief furrowed his brow, but shrugged soon after.
BLIP!
“Hm?” Looking down, Chief read the data on the digital tablet.
Previously, a dead spawn was recorded by the digital tablet before.
[Count: 50+]
[Contamination: 0.09]
[Threat Level (Estimated): 0.1]
[Growth Level (Estimated): 10]
[Potential Intelligence (Estimating): 0… 0…]
[Potential Intelligence (Estimated): 0.001]
“They can become an intelligent-type anomaly? Hmm,” Chief frowned, rubbing his chin, deep in thought.
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Among all the anomalies he encountered, the intelligent types are the most dangerous. They weren't rare either, quite the opposite.
“I remember Agent Rex owns a non-intelligent anomaly, but it was destroyed ten years ago,” Chief frowned. After killing Rex, he cremated both Rex’s and Dexter's on the spot after looting their bodies. He didn't even spare their underwear, as he knew quite a few anomalies in the shape of underwear.
“It’s in the past now. This swarm of bugs must be either eliminated, or controlled. The strength of anomalies are becoming too much for the agents to endure,” Chief shook his head, turning away from the glass cube.
“Nearly all the intelligent type anomalies could read English, I wonder if these bugs could do the same?”
+++-+++-+++
Helzar despaired, crawling about in anxiety.
‘They’re using magic,’ Helzar concluded after seeing the blue glow.
‘Not only that, they're using spiritual magic!’ Helzar knew an array of magic energies during his previous life, and he once considered killing monsters as a pastime.
The most effective magic against monsters was spiritual magic.
‘He didn't kill me, meaning he plans on doing something to me. Is he a human scientist?’ Helzar felt dreadful just thinking about it. He didn't know for certain, but he heard that humans would dissect their test subjects if they wanted to research them.
‘Damn, how do I survive? How do I even escape?’
Currently, he is living inside a test tube. When the scientist rudely abducted him, he was placed in a glass cube, but after he ate all the bugs, he was promptly moved into a test tube.
The test tube was connected to a small glass cube, in which the human scientist would occasionally place a few bugs in.
‘The bastard tried placing a damn tarantula once,’ Helzar cursed. ‘Not only that, I'm pretty sure he's trying to communicate with me, but what does the human want?’
The human scientist would often place strips of paper with written strange symbols that could only be letters.
‘It should be human language. Unfortunately, I never bothered learning it,’ Helzar sighed. As he was about to concoct another plan, he saw the human scientist walking toward his test tube.
‘What’s he doing?’
Without saying a word, the scientist opened the lid of the glass cube, placing a piece of paper inside, putting the lid back on, before silently leaving.
‘What’s on the paper this time?’
Helzar, curious, commanded his spawns to read what was written on the paper. Currently, his spawns only numbered fifty.
‘It’s a picture?’
On the paper, there was a picture of Helzar's spawns eating a worm. Next to it, there was a picture of Helzar's spawn eating a human, but it had a big “X” over it.
‘He doesn't want me to eat humans?’ Helzar scoffed. ‘When I get out, the first thing I'd do is… get to safety, the second thing would be to eat that human scientist!’
Helzar madlly clacked his mandibles together, prompting his spawns to do the same. It sounded as though it was raining inside the test tube.
‘However… for the sake of survival, I'll consider working with you for now.’
After that, the scientist returned with two pictures, and two unidentifiable pieces of meat. The scientist placed some meat on one of the pictures, while putting the rest on the other picture.
‘Hah, he placed the meat on top of a worm picture and a human picture. He doesn't want me to eat the meat on the human picture? Fine,’ Helzar sneered. He could now guess what the scientist wanted to do.
‘He wants to use the swarm for himself, I don't know if he's crazy for trying to do so after meeting an alien, or if he's brave for even trying.’
+++-+++-+++
Time flew by quickly. Very quickly.
While living inside a test tube was uneventful, suffocating, and frankly depressing, Helzar was quick to get used to it. He was a crouching tiger, waiting for the right opportunity.
‘The scientist is confident in killing me even if my swarm grows to thousands,’ Helzar knew that. He saw the scientist use a magic-infused weapon before, and he saw the scientist use it over and over again with no consequences.
‘That thing reeks of spiritual energy. It'll kill me in an instant,’ Helzar sighed. ‘If only I can use magic as well, everything will be a piece of cake.’
Sadly, Helzar found something about his body that he didn't like. He was incompatible with magic.
‘The scientist tried infusing me with magic using his weapon. It failed, but thankfully, there weren't any severe consequences. My body simply rejected the magic energy.’
It's been a week since he was captured, yet his swarm was only two hundred in numbers, and barely at that too.
‘He feeds me various insects and even fruits, but he only does it once a day. After today, most of my spawns will die from “old age.” Even after recycling them, my swarm will no longer be in the two hundreds,’ Helzar shook his head.
If he was still out in the wild, he was confident that his swarm would already be in the thousands!
‘Oh, the scientist is here,’ Helzar would raise his middle finger if he could. Instead, he could only raise one of his legs.
‘I wonder what he's muttering about… such a shame I don't understand human language,’ Helzar lamented, listening to the ramblings of the mad scientist.
The scientist’s voice was getting louder and louder as he neared Helzar, but the latter could do nothing but listen without understanding.
+++-+++-+++
“Agent Swarm, time for another experiment,” Chief said, before picking up the test tube containing “Agent Swarm.”
‘The queen of the swarm showed some intelligence, and she can command all her minions. Furthermore, the Swarm's growth is unparalleled, although I have yet to see an egg,’ Chief thought. After he entered another room, there was a massive glass tank in the middle of it.
The glass tank was a massive vivarium housing various creatures, and its size could easily hold two newborns while acting like a cradle.
The soil in the vivarium was bioactive, full of tiny insects to help decompose any decaying matter. There were small prey and predators in the tank too, but the “apex predator” inside the tank weren't the various snakes, spiders, and water critters.
Chief stared at the bright red insects patrolling various areas within the vivarium
“Agent Swarm, it's time for you to meet another anomaly,” Chief walked closer to the vivarium and placed the test tube inside.
In the vivarium, the apex predators are the giant colony of Solenopsis Invicta, otherwise known as Fire Ants. However, these fire ants are infused with magic.