Nameless glared at the sparse swarm of I’thekik* scorpion-ant workers and false warriors arrayed before himself and his siblings.

It had been two passes of the Sister since the night he had awoken – in two senses – under her gaze; his body and mind both having struggled with the changes that had occurred and having taken nearly all of the days passed for him to gain some semblance of control over them once more.

It had been a frustrating – and at times frightening – experience, the sheer difficulty of learning how to use his limbs and senses again being magnified by the dangers surrounding him.

From deadly creatures and hostile conditions, to more… familial threats.

His eyes quickly flicked over to Mother, she spoke at him and his siblings telepathically, but he flexed his now heightened mind to place her voice into the back of his thoughts.

She had been most unpleased with his stumblings and clumsiness, following the sudden appearance of the Traits that had caused his temporary impairment.

He had felt her disappointment and, more startling, her anger and disgust towards him as he struggled to regain what had been thrown out of balance.

“I don’t know if it is because she was not expecting a need to hide such thoughts – surrounded by us cubs – if it is because of that Trait I have gained, or both…” He thought privately, carefully making sure his internal dialogue remained internal, “But, I still fear what she might have done to me if I had continued to struggle with such basic things.”

He thought it was a foolish and unreasonable fear, as even if she had felt such things towards him, he was still her son and she, his mother; after all there was no reason for her to harm him for something out of his control, something that harmed no one.

But the fear remained, and of more frustration, he felt that the very same Trait that had allowed for him to feel her emotions, agreed with that irrational fear.

He quietly huffed, manifesting the Trait in question, as well as its two companions, to read over yet another time –

Preternatural Wisdom:

Your mind now contains a wisdom beyond its years; and with that wisdom comes an identity with knowledge and perceptions far past your age and experiences.

Your mind finds itself more able to utilize and advance cognitive skills, manipulate magics, and its awakening gives you the advantage of an “aged” consciousness to temper and guide your steps forward.

Adaptive Physique:

Through harm and exposure, your body from flesh to bone, gradually alters itself to protect from recurrent sources of threat and damage.

Your mutative body increases your capacity to develop, and advance, resistant and defensive traits, as well as increases the likelihood of the occurrence of related metamorphic options.

Lesser Mana Conduits [Upgradeable]:

Often considered an essential step in mana mastery; your body has developed and integrated a vast web of mana channels – allowing for mana to flow unhindered within –throughout your form.

While the presence of a mana conduit system will increase the chance of mana based metamorphic options becoming available; your current structure consists of thin and fragile channels, only increasing the efficiency and potency of your mana by a minute amount.

– As a Stage 1 being your mana usage is limited to only intrinsic skills, while spells and affined magics remain latent, putting your channels into a state of dormancy until you progress into a Stage 2 being. –

– Preternatural Wisdom proved to be just as confusing in its details as in the changes it made in his head. Simultaneously describing the clarity of mind, and knowledge that now inhabited his thoughts, as his… and another’s.

Its benefits couldn’t be denied, the ease at which he could plan ahead and interpret information, as well as his newfound ability to essentially “silence” his mother’s voice, being perfect examples of how far the Trait had already pushed his mental capabilities. Yet, there remained a divide, of sorts, between his heightened mentality and the knowledge and… awareness that had been supplanted beside it.

It felt to him as though the Trait were damaged, or unfinished, in some way, the line between himself and the bundle of intuitions – and understandings – being too present for him to see them as anything but an uncomfortable intrusion into his mind.

His frustration and worry over the Trait overshadowed what positivity he held for it, as well as the two other Traits he had received.

“But I have more pressing things to focus on than my feelings towards the Wisdom and the other new Traits at the moment.” Nameless stretched, dissolving the illusory Traits, trying to relieve some of the anxious tension that had crawled into his muscles as he had worried away in his own head.

He turned his attention outward, looking over his siblings to their mother, feeling as her Telepathy bloomed to the forefront of his mind once more.

[While today will be your first hunt without my direct assistance, it will not be your last.] Her voice was as domineering as her presence, rumbling with a tone that ordered respect and obedience, [I will be taking you all to places like this, filled with prey, for you to fight, hunt, and learn on your own against, for the next coming weeks.]

She turned her head, her short and roughly cut hair swaying with the motion, looking down on him and his siblings with a single piercing orange eye, [Use this time well, while I am still here to protect you, as with the next pass of the Sister I will be releasing all of you to progress to your second Stage on your own.]

[So go,] She commanded over their telepathic link, looking down into the dried basin the I’thekik skittered about within, [And let me see how much you have learned by my side… and how much further you all have to grow.]

At the cutting of their link, Nameless watched as two of his siblings burst from their number and down the embankment in a scree of soil and plants.

Fang and Shiver were the largest and most aggressive of his siblings respectively, making his sisters’ immediate leap to throw themselves into conflict as unsurprising as the tussling the two had amongst themselves, as they competed to reach the insects first.

Three more of his siblings followed in their stead; the Twins, prancing down the slope with their usual halfhearted flair, and Greye, who’s prodigious strength led to him more bumbling and tumbling his way down than anything else.

With five of his siblings already making their way, Nameless began to take his first steps down as well. As he carefully chose a path down, he looked to his right and caught his two remaining siblings, also beginning to navigate down the slope with him.

Shade and Quiet were the most methodical and cerebral of his siblings; Shade having an instinctual cunning and open fondness for sneaking about and ambushing his siblings, while Quiet was – as his name for her reflected – reserved and solitary, having an obvious inquisitiveness and intelligence that towered above himself and the rest of his kin.

“Though maybe not anymore…” He mused as he continued to carefully choose where to place his paws. Compared to his siblings the only traits that had made Nameless stand out had been his eyes and fur, but now…. With his actions and decisions moving more beyond instinct, and into conscionable thought – like the care he put into his trail down to confront the I’thekik – he now held an advantage over the rest of his siblings, the brilliant Quiet included.

He could plan out how he wanted to push his Skills to grow, how he wanted himself to grow, rather than just fall back on the basics of what his instincts had ingrained in him.

“If [Wisdom] hadn’t changed my thinking I would have been running in besides the Twins and Greye, rather than taking my time on the approach.” Glancing between his paws and the basin, Nameless evaluated the swarm of insects below, “I would have jumped in to fight where the swarm was thickest and likely only walked away wounded and with a clawful of Levels, rather than having used this opportunity to learn and walk away with something truly useful.”

Experience.

Nameless watched as Shiver and Fang crashed through the final length of brush to land at the outskirts of the basin, their loud appearance drawing an immediate and hostile reaction from the swarm.

False warriors rapidly turned to throw themselves in the way of his sisters, the bulk of the I’thekik swarm releasing a hollow and grating hiss at the arrival of the Sphinx, whose momentum and enthusiasm threatened to send them into the bulk of the less combative workers without some form of obstruction.

The first of the false warriors to meet his sisters were easily smashed through or batted aside, too few in number to truly halt the two larger Sphinx. However, as they closed on the workers, the two soon found themselves surrounded by a frenzied mass of chitin, stingers, pincers, and mandibles; all single-mindedly focused on doing harm to the sisters in any manner they could.

Fang and Shiver were bogged down, but otherwise unbothered by their position, “It looks like they are enjoying themselves actually.” Their faces alight with a predatory glee, his sisters began to lay into the insects around them, crushing some under paw and shredding others with fangs and claws in a whirlwind of violence.

The I’thekik were maddened, heedless of their own injuries or the wounded and dead at their feet, they poured over themselves, desperate to get at any exposed part of the sisters.

More than a few were successful.

Scorpion-ant mandibles and claws latched onto legs and other patches of hide, worrying at the flesh underneath, and stingers punched forward at Fang and Shiver from every direction, trying to find purchase anywhere they could to deliver the venom within.

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While each injury caused was negligible, every landed sting or cut made eliciting barely any reaction from his sisters, the sheer volume of attacks against them risked quickly putting them in dire straights the longer they fought…

That is, if not for him and the rest of his siblings being on the way.

Greye slammed into the I’thekik at Fang and Shiver’s backs in a spray of yellow ichor and broken bodies, his prodigious strength cutting an effortless swathe through the distracted false warriors as he moved to take some of the pressure off his sisters.

Yet another Sphinx in their midst caused the I’thekik to fall into even greater a frenzy, their jarring hiss reaching a frantic pitch as the mass of insects adjusted to yet another threat with even some of the workers now throwing themselves into the fray.

As the insects redoubled their efforts to bring harm to his siblings, and he closed in on the last length before entering the basin proper, Nameless looked to his other remaining siblings.

The Twins had disappointingly chosen to go after some isolated workers – instead of joining the main conflict – playfully batting the insects around between them, Shade looked to be angling himself towards the main mound of I’thekik, though based on his nature it was near certain that he be harrying at the edges of the aggravated mass rather than joining his siblings at its center, and Quiet…

Nameless subtly smiled, fangs flashing in what light broke through the scraggly canopy above, “I think she has the same plan in mind as myself…”

Quiet was moving in a parallel to himself, aiming for where some wounded I’thekik had been tossed to and a couple claws worth of false warriors continued to act as sentries over the rest of the basin.

“Though I wonder if it is to push her skills as I am?” He spared only a quick final glance, and thought, towards his cunning sister as he reached the end of the brush, his focus landing on an isolated scorpion-ant he had caught sight of on the way down.

The insect had been wounded and flung away early in the initial clash, a rear leg broken and bent over its back, its left pincer shattered, and the mandible on the same side hanging loosely from its head.

It was perfect.

Nameless carefully slid down the sheer bank, transitioning from dry brush forest to sunbaked clay river basin, delicate bole crumbling under his paws.

He spared only cursory attention to his surroundings, eyes locked on his prey as he closed on the wounded false warrior.

His heart thundered in his chest, his muscles itched and squirmed under his hide in anticipation. Excitement threatened to increase his pace, but he harshly clamped down on his emotions to keep his stride steady and mind composed.

There would be another time to just let himself enjoy the thrill of a hunt.

As Nameless closed, the wounded I’thekik finally took notice of him. Even pupil-less he could feel as its two reflective compound eyes focused on him, evaluating him as an approaching threat.

Its stinger tipped tail rose from behind it, the scorpion-ant releasing that same scraping and piercing hiss that had come to fill the basin, and – even with one mandible unusable – it twitched its jaws at him in an effort to scare him off.

It failed.

Once within striking distance the insect’s hiss somehow reached an even higher pitch, causing Nameless’s ears to flatten against his head and forcing a growl of displeasure out from his throat.

He took another step closer when, with barely a twitch, the false warrior’s stinger snapped forward. As much as Nameless had been focusing on his movements, with the sudden attack, his instincts took hold.

He dropped to his stomach, the stinger cutting through the air where his throat had been and tensed his legs. Snapping upwards on his hind legs, he caught the still extended tail in his jaws, roughly yanking the I’thekik off the ground as he stretched to his full length.

The insect ineffectually snapped at him, aimlessly swinging from where it hung from his jaws. Nameless growled, shifting to place the false warrior under himself, and allowed himself to be drawn back to all fours.

The I’thekik hit the ground first in a puff of clay dust, still hissing, and trying to use its renewed purchase to get at Nameless’s underbelly… when the Sphinx’s forepaws arrived.

In a spatter of viscous yellow ichor, dark wet organs, and shards of carapace; Nameless’s paws punched straight through the insect’s exoskeleton, pinning its broken body against the dried riverbed.

Its hiss abruptly cut off at the terminal wound, however – whether through a similar instinct as his own or some undying rage – the insect’s death throes had its body continue to fight; its tail violently twitching in his jaws to try and bury itself into his flesh, its legs desperately scraping rents into the ground in an effort to remove itself from his claws.

He was forced to move his body slightly as the I’thekik continued to writhe under him, trying to avoid any foolish wounds from any enemy already dead.

“As much as I managed to kill the I’thekik successfully, I do not believe there was a moment where I really thought through what I was doing there…” Mouth still firmly clamped around the twitching scorpion-ant’s tail, Nameless surveilled his surroundings as he evaluated his actions.

“One subconscious action folding into another; from my dodging the initial strike, to snapping the I’thekik up in my jaws and slamming down on top of it, I barely spared a thought from one move to the next…” He thought, eyes landing on a trio of false warriors that seemed to be coming his way, “It was effective, but much like the I’thekik’s own attacks, if I lean too heavily into that instinctive way of acting, I risk becoming predictable.”

“It will not be a quick process.” Nameless removed his paws from the insect’s corpse, each coming away with a sucking *squelch*, the limbs covered in strings of sticky yellow blood and tissue caking the fur against his skin, “But if I want to see those new Traits of mine to their full potential and be able to fight – and survive – against more than just some simple insects, it will be a process I have to start now.”

He put the corpse to his back in a few steps and rested slightly back on his haunches as the three I’thekik picked up their pace. There was no doubt in his mind that he could win, even outnumbered three-to-one, against the closing insects, but he wondered if he could do it without taking a wound…

“Well,” He bore his fangs and growled, body tensing in preparation, “Only one manner to find out.”

The I’thekik approached side-by-side with an unsettling unity, hissing and posturing aggressively as they scuttled to clash with him.

He felt a subtle twitch through his body as the urge to throw himself directly at the insects coursed through him, their taunts and hisses aggravating him, but he halted the instinct ruthlessly, focusing on how he wanted to engage.

If the only threat to him had been pincers and mandibles he might have entertained just that – charging in directly and smashing straight through the scorpion-ants without hesitation – but their stingers gave him pause. Unlike his siblings, fighting against the main mass of I’thekik, he didn’t have the luxury of others covering for his wounds, and while he could brush off gashes and bruises… venom was a different matter.

His eyes squinted in concentration, the insects’ hissing growing louder as they scuttled closer and closer, countless different plans spreading out in front of him like roots searching for water. He could see numerous paths for him ahead unfold, a fragile web of actions and reactions – from him and the I’thekik both – spinning out within the confines of his head.

Nameless could feel his thinking shift with a suddenness, instincts and conscious thought beginning to fold into each other as something else appeared. His plans grew in clarity and confidence, the visions before him unfurling with ease, until a singular method bloomed into focus… beside a surprising realization.

“A Skill?” He tamped down on the instant desire to check; the feeling percolating in his soul, like the growing warmth of the dawning of day, more than enough evidence for him to know that something had occurred within him.

Nameless snarled and adjusted his posture; front paws extended fully down in front of him, body resting on his hind legs, chest forward… “The distractions can wait.”

Snapping his wings out and forward, the muscles in his limbs screaming at the motion, Nameless created a cloud of sand and clay dust that enveloped the three charging insects. Quickly pulling his wings back to his sides tightly, he followed in the wake of the cloud, leaping towards where he expected the rightmost scorpion-ant to be in a swirl of dust.

Nameless’s leap took him two full lengths away from where he had sat, his passage clearing the air for a moment before the inevitable landing kicked up another plume of debris.

But that moment of unobstructed view was enough for him.

Slamming into the ground – nearly on top of his prey – Nameless snapped at the startled I’thekik with a lunge, aiming for its tail.

Faster than the insect could react, he was upon it, jaws slamming shut on its lowered tail with an audible *crunch*, forcing a piercing screech from the maw of the creature. With fangs buried in the scorpion-ant’s carapace, Nameless twisted, swinging the insect around him before forcing his mouth closed, cracking through what remained of its exterior and shearing through the meat within.

With the tail and body separated in a spray of ichor, the insect was sent careening through the air, no longer held in the jaws of the young Sphinx… only to crash violently into another of the false warriors, its momentum sending both tumbling in a burst of yet more dust and a cacophony of grating chitin and discordant hisses.

Nameless didn’t dwell on the success of tangling the two I’thekik up, immediately charging towards the third instead.

The I’thekik didn’t hesitate to answer his charge with its own, skittering towards him stinger poised to strike, mandibles and pincers clacking against the air.

With the distance between them eaten away in seconds, the false warrior struck first, stabbing its stinger forward with unerring accuracy towards Nameless’s heart.

Ready for the attack, Nameless hopped to the insect’s right, narrowly avoiding the stinger by adding a beat of his wings to give him just the slightest bit of extra lift to pull away.

Dust thrown up once more, visibility dropped, obscuring the vision of both creatures in a haze of red.

Nameless scrambled, an uneven landing leaving him unsteady and off balance, lurching towards the I’thekik as he barely caught it pivoting towards him; stinger pulled back and once more hanging above, waiting to be used.

His left paw landed on the pincer of the same side, cracking through the chitin and pinning the limb against the ground under his bulk, halting the insect’s capacity to turn further. His other worked in tandem with his maw, holding down its lower abdomen – with enough pressure to create a web of seeping cracks throughout its exoskeleton – as he buried his teeth into the space just below the bulbous head of the I’thekik’s tail.

Flexing his jaws the stinger fell away, severed from the rest of the tail. Nameless leaned further on his front paws; his left pushing further into the pincer, causing discoloured meat and ichor to swell out around the paw, and his right cracking through the insects back with a sharp *pop*, flinging fragments of chitin and globs of yellowed blood from the gaping wound.

The I’thekik twitched and spasmed under him, its tail battering at the side of his head ineffectually now devoid of its stinger, causing Nameless to growl.

He quickly removed his right paw from the creature’s body and shifted about his left.

The I’thekik’s struggle increased in ferocity as Nameless held his paw above the insect’s head, just out of reach of its still viable pincer and gnashing mandibles. An errant thought crossed his mind in this position, that his paw resembled these I’thekiks’ own stingers, but as he let his paw fall and crush the insects head, so too did he crush the thought, focus turning to more pressing matters.

“Two more.” The other I’thekik were already on approach, seen through gaps in the settling cloud, the wounded one just a step behind its otherwise uninjured companion.

He repositioned, removing his left paw from the dead scorpion-ant’s pincer and tilting his body slightly to the same side… and waited.

The two insects rapidly closed on him, fury obvious even through features completely lacking in such signs, but he continued waiting, watching for just the right moment…

Closer, the dust settled around him completely.

Closer, he could almost see the savage anticipation gleaming from the insect’s compound eyes.

“Now!” The instant the I’thekik grew too close to react, Nameless hurled their deceased companion’s corpse at the leading false warrior with an audible snarl of exertion.

Taken completely by surprise, the uninjured I’thekik crashed directly into the corpse, sending it careening once more away in a bundle of tangled limbs and screeching exoskeletons.

Nameless followed the corpse like its own shadow, sprinting towards the other I’thekik to dispose of it as quickly as he could.

The wounded insect stuttered in confusion, its movement coming to an unsteady halt for an instant, almost saving it from Nameless’s paw as it cut downward.

Almost.

Nearly missing due to the I’thekik’s unsuspected hesitation, Nameless’s claws barely dug through the scorpion-ant’s head, exposing its internals through gaping rents oozing ichor and brain matter. Killed instantly, its body slumped to the ground with an audible *thump*, limps twitching and scraping at the clay soil in its final throes.

Nameless turned, his second kill in this fight disregarded, focusing his attention on the last of the false warriors arrayed against him in preparation of one last fight…

And paused.

The I’thekik had been turned on its back and caught under the corpse Nameless had tossed at it. Desperately struggling under the dead weight, uselessly pushing with its legs and tail in an effort to haul the corpse off of it.

But it was not to be.

Nameless loomed over the trapped insect, his appearance causing it to frantically writhe in place, mandibles snapping at him as its hiss reached a fang rattling tone.

Heedless of its distress he rose on his hindlegs, shadow falling over the creature, and placed his paws together… before slamming them down through its head.

Blood splattered over his chest and neck, adding to the viscous coating that already covered much of the front half of his body, but Nameless gave no mind to the discomfort of the filth that stuck to his fur and hide.

He removed his limbs with a jerk and walked a couple paces away from the aftermath of his small conflict, before laying down onto the ground with a tired huff.

“Hmm…” He thought, looking out towards his siblings as he panted, his body awakening to the fatigue of his efforts, “I would say that went surprisingly well.”

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*I'thekik - (Ee-theh-kik)