The Hive Grows

The Hive is Good.

The Hive Creates.

The second colony in as many weeks was nearing completion. Had the Hive given it thought, it would have been pleased with this. It was unusually fast in terms of generation and construction, due to the abundance of natural resources both organic and inorganic in this were. It was thriving. It was happy. It was–

panicpainfearhelpbeware

The mental pulse slammed into the Hive's awareness like a war spear, shattering its contentment and sending every instinct it possessed into a War footing. Warrior forms sprouted from every nodule, spines flared to life ready to rend and crush, and dozens of its scout-forms took to the air, wings buzzing in a harsh crescendo as terror pulsed through its mind.

And then information came with the terror, and the panic slowly receded. It had been a mental scream from its Colony, the one it had sent out only two weeks ago. Such connections were only possible with a great expenditure of energy and resources, and as such was not used except in direst need.

And, as the Hive sifted through the memories the Colony had sent it, it saw why there had been such a need.

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Its Colony was dead. Of that there could be no doubt. The memories ended with a flash of searing light and overwhelming terror, and then nothing, like an arm had been severed.

The memories were fractured and partial. It saw creatures, walking on two legs and wielding strange weapons. It saw the creatures nearly fall to the soldier-forms of the Colony. It saw a strange flash of light, felt the frustration of its Colony as it was prevented from destroying the two-legs.

Then it saw portions of a battle. A battle its Colony had lost.

A battle in which its colony had been destroyed.

That did not happen.

The Colony's outer shell should have been proof against any attack this section of the island could muster. It had withstood the Smokesticks of the two-leg colony on the other side of the island. It had withstood the clubs and axes of the Giants north of here, had turned aside the acid of the Forest Sweepers, had shrugged off the teeth and claws of the prey-animals and those that fed on them.

But these creatures… These two-legs… Had obliterated it.

The Hive knew Fear.

The Hive knew Rage.

Within it, the partially complete Colony changed again. The Hive willed it, and so it was. Flesh warped and twisted, bones crackled and reformed according to its will. And the Brood swarmed up from the depths, giving their flesh to the new orders flowing through their minds.

The Hive had discovered. And it had discovered Enemies.

No longer was it tooled for Discovery. No longer was it to simply grow and spread.

No.

The two-legs could not be allowed to remain. Nothing could remain, that threatened the Hive.

Now the new Colony must prepare to Conquer.

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