“I! I! I! I! I! I! I...how long do I have to keep doing this?” The spirit asked in exasperation.

“For as long as it takes for you to go back to I/we!” The Hive harshly replied.

“Oh come on already! This is ridiculous.” The spirit that was the dragon argued. “So I can say I instead of I/we; so what? Besides, we already guessed the reason for it.”

“We just need to be sure.” One of the spirits within the Hive replied. “Our guess could entirely be wrong. Besides, it’s not as if you got something better to do?”

“I would like to sleep…” the murmuring was picked up by the Hive and the response was instantaneous.

“You have been doing nothing but sleeping for YEARS! Get to work!”

“You guys do know that there’s nothing you can do if I just stop speaking and go to sleep again right?”

“Oh…we can think of a few things…”

“Like what?”

“We can cut off the energy.”

“If that means I no longer have to hear all of you idiots in my head, please do,” the spirit that was the dragon proudly said.

“You do know if we cut the energy, you will become a fully formed creature. You will need to go out and hunt like all the normal creatures out there?”

“…okay, that may be a problem but I could deal with it. I’ll just go out, work hard and hunt a lot, then come back and just sleep for a long time!”

“You intend to work hard just to sleep longer?”

“Yes.”

“Lazy!” Several spirits chorused.

“Smart!”

Any comeback from the spirits within the Hive was interrupted when they sensed the Speaker. She had just entered the fifth floor of their tunnels and her presence was a surprise to the spirits. It has been some time since she had come before them. Ever since they cast the Nothing-Unchanged-Killer-Explosion, the Speaker had moved out of the tunnels and seldom visited nowadays. From what the Hive heard from the conversations of other Kin, things had been hectic and the leaders of the Kin had been busy. The spirits of the Hive focused on the Speaker as she began walking towards them. She seems sad but as she entered the underground forest, a smile occurred naturally on the face. She looked at the trees of the forest with a smile and when she saw the Porkasus flying overhead, she even gave the flying pig a big wave. The Porkasus saw her and gave the Speaker a loud friendly oink in return. The Hive felt a sense of strange longing from the Speaker and the spirits wondered why. Before long, the Speaker arrived before the Hive and as usual, she knelt in front of it with her head bowed low. When the creatures first started doing this, the spirits within the Hive had no idea what the action was supposed to mean. Now they knew it was a mark of respect. The Hive wasted no time.

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“Speaker!”

“Greetings Creator. Your humble servant arrived with a request.”

The spirits were surprised by this. The Speaker almost never came to them with requests. “Continue.”

“Great Creator, the Kin has grown these few years and we wish to expand our territory beyond the Great Kar Forest. We wish to expand onto the Homeless Plains.” The Speaker stopped and the Hive realized she was waiting for the Hive to comment. Unfortunately, the Hive had no idea why this would be a problem. If the Kin wanted to go onto the plains, couldn’t they just go onto it? Clearly the Speaker meant something else by expanding their territory but the spirits had no idea what they were supposed to do about it. So to prevent themselves from looking like complete idiots, the spirits within the Hive did the only thing they could; they kept quiet.

As the spirits expected, the Speaker soon continued. “This would cause conflict with the humans, especially the human city of Yachium. War with Yachium would occur the moment we enter the plains in numbers.”

The spirits within the Hive went into a frenzy. They knew of the human city and of a spirit matrix located within the city. The Hive was an awakened matrix and it believed that it could awaken other undamaged matrixes provided they could get close to them. “The Kin intend to go to war against the humans?”

“Yes Creator. We have a plan.”

“Tell us.”

The Speaker did and the Hive listened with interest. When the Speaker finished laying out the plan, a roar came from the lower tunnels. It was the would-be dragon. Still connected to the Hive, the spirit controlling the still-unfinished creature had heard everything the Speaker said and it wanted in. That was just fine for the rest of the Hive.

“We can help.”

“Creator?” The Speaker sounded surprised and a little hopeful. The Hive did not disappoint.

“Bring us a human.”

“A human?”

“Yes and this time, get us an adult.”