She woke up.

Her awakening was not slow. The moment she regained consciousness, she was immediately aware of where her legs were (uncomfortably angled), what she was surrounded by (inky darkness), and how she felt (slightly crushed).

Pulling her legs together, she stood up and felt the long object on top of her slide away a fraction, revealing fractured chinks of light shining through gaps. Her mandibles twitched. Where was she? Where was the Dungeon? The last thing she could recall was a fat creature swooping her into a bag. She'd been full on several houseflies at the time and hadn't really been able to react all that well. So she'd taken a nap.

She berated herself. The Dungeon had told her several times that she was supposed to defend the room, and she'd failed. She'd done an excellent job of defending it against houseflies, bluebottles, and even a mouse, but once a true threat had breached the door, she'd failed miserably.

She couldn't breathe, not in the same way the Dungeon could, but she sighed regardless. Time to find out where she was, and how she could return to the Dungeon. Raising a leg, she batted the object on top of her away, and crawled to a better vantage point.

It wasn't a great view. Her eyesight had been terrible before the Dungeon found her and did whatever he did to her, and now she slightly wished he hadn't improved it. She was standing nearly at the very peak of a literal mountain of garbage, shreds of paper, plastic, and metal scattered in a range of sharp hills. Tall, thin looming objects stood higher than she could believe, columns of lights streaming from their yellow eyes as they grabbed and shoved at the trash, moving it around. Far above her was the sky, a great gap filled with glittering sparks. Her eyes reflected the dim light as she looked around anxiously.

She had absolutely no idea where she was.

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Shaking herself off, she stretched every leg, and then dove into her inner limb. This one was relatively new, an extension of her body that had been added when the Dungeon found her. It felt... strange. Like a giant housefly she could take bites of but never finish because when she checked back on it later it was always full.

Reaching into it, she pulled out some of its insides and let it infuse her insides. The feeling spread out slowly, like when a young child had dumped a glass of water on her, but on the inside and not uncomfortable or painful. Once the feeling reached her eyes, the world went dark...

...and then ignited, brief infernos dying to embers and glowing gently, great sheets of fire sweeping across the sky and wavering uncertainly. She would have been startled if she hadn't already done this before, and even as she watched, the flames died down. All except one.

In the far distance, there was a column of blue fire, deepening and swirling in its intensity as it reached ever higher towards the void above, trying to seize it and pull it down and succeeding. She was used to this sight. It was what the Dungeon looked like to her limb-enhanced vision, and it had blinded her when she had first seen it.

Cutting off the inner limb, she waited for the flames to go away, reality slowing tugging its way into her view and revealing once again the mountains of trash she was surrounded by.

Once again, she sighed, doing the best she could. She had a long journey ahead of her.

A sudden cry startled her, and she looked up, squinting. A feathered denizen of the sky was heading straight for her, claws outstretched and beak gaping. She wasn't unduly concerned. In the Dungeon's room, there had always been a clear barrier preventing such creatures from attacking her.

Mild concern creeped over her as the bird got closer, and she wondered, why is the barrier not stopping it?

The answer hit her just before the bird did - she wasn't in the Dungeon's room anymore.

Raising a leg in panic, she whacked the bird in the side of the head, and it practically vanished in a poof of feathers. A faint impact made its way to the delicate hairs on her legs, alerting her to the sound of its demise.

Lifting the same leg again, she waved it around briefly, eyes wide in surprise. Whatever the Dungeon had done to her, she was no longer prey.

She was predator.

And her name was Thesis.