The feeding frenzy of the Thetas had gone well.
A little too well.
Now they stood fifteen meters tall and consumed way more food than before.
In the week that had passed since Anoona sent them out, they had ingested more than a thousand tons of biomass, and when they returned, they towered over their mother, who stood with a cocoon in hand.
And who was inside this silky ovular casing?
01, of course.
It seemed as though he hated the taste of meat so much that he developed a cocoon around himself, much to Anoona's befuddlement.
She decided to let him be and instead focused on the Theta's who now looked more antlike, although they retained their opposable thumbs and humanoid torsos.
They were now housed in a carapace that was so thick and hard, not even a rocket could pierce it.
Anoona gave them all a positive ping, and they began their work on the nest.
They dug into the earth with their powerful limbs, but they wouldn't simply discard the dirt they removed; they would eat a large amount of it and, using their now truck-sized stomachs, they would produce the same Bio-Metal that made their carapaces.
This is what they would use to build the actual structure of the nest.
Anoona watched tiredly as they worked away.
She glanced at 01's cocoon and tried to connect to him telepathically, but she failed.
She wasn't sure why, but his first thought was the last one she had ever heard from him.
For some reason, he had barred her from his mind.
Maybe this was the pride of being a Beta class.
Anonna didn't know, but she patiently awaited the day when he would emerge.
In the meantime, she sat by her hill and watched the sun soar over her diligent sons.
Their presence alone was enough to deter any predators from approaching, and 02 in particular had his sights set on the Stygian Lake itself.
Anoona's cells had sensed something lurking deep in its waters, and it was so terrifying that most fauna avoided the lakeside if they could.
02 could not bear having such a threat looming so close to where Anoona wanted to make her nest.
But now wasn't the time to recklessly attack.
Anoona was gradually growing weaker, and so she spent most of her time sitting and cradling 01.
She absolutely needed to spit all of the eggs in her stomach out, but the nest wasn't done yet, so she just held them in.
Instead of wallowing in her discomfort, she turned to designing the future classes for the children to come.
She had messed up by not specifying the development cycle for 01-15.
Her children would need to be efficient and organised like machines.
Each would have a specific purpose, and so she began designing what would be the second generation of Betas in her mind.
They would have an Ostraka greater than a hundred thousand, yes, but they would also be born with the ability to eat normal food.
01 was so dependent on her milk because she initially thought that all children needed it.
But this was the new version of Earth, and the rules were different.
All life was inherently violent and adaptive.
The new Betas would be tall, sleek, powerful and varied.
They would be the management class while also being warriors of the highest calibre.
But these warriors would need tech and eventually vehicles.
This is where the Gamma class children came in.
With an Ostraka exceeding ten thousand, they would be walking workshops and refineries.
Anoona wanted them to be incredibly resistant to extreme conditions because she didn't want anything to stand in the way of the things they could create.
Before them would come the Deltas.
These would be in charge of food distribution among her children and nurturing those who couldn't receive Anoona's direct attention.
And finally, a new generation of Thetas would come.
They would be much smaller than their gigantic brothers, but all of that would come eventually.
She held up a palm and peered beneath her skin, down to the very cells that made her up.
They were just as aware as she was, giving her a very granular sense of presence.
It was disorienting at first, but she thought of it like looking a multiple screens or displays.
Each of her cells allowed for a perspective of different things simultaneously, which made information gathering much faster, but she was still operating at a very human level and so had trouble dealing with large sets of information.
Fortunately, her cells retained all of the knowledge they gathered, allowing her to revisit it when she was ready.
.
..
More weeks passed, and the Thetas finally carved out all the earth they needed, leaving a conic hole in the ground that was as wide as a large quarry and fifty meters deep.
A now exhausted Anoona stood on the edge of the chasm with 01 still in hand, and she tiredly nodded.
[Good work, all of you.] Her thoughts came clearly, even though her body was now so weak.
Even though she had lost a significant amount of weight, this was still just her main body.
She still had millions of cells out there and was just waiting until her sons were finished.
The Thetas finally began erecting the actual structure of the throne room, and it was here that the resident of the Stygian Lake revealed itself.
It breached the distant surface of the lake, revealing itself to be a hydra of sorts; only reach of its heads was like that of a shark.
Each head had countless metallic teeth that snapped at whatever was nearby.
With ten heads in total, it swam towards the shore and ate entire chunks of the fleshy jungle as the sun illuminated the rest of its bulbous body.
Its massive fins held it up as it ate, but one of its heads seemed to be looking at Anoona and her children, even from the distance.
[Identity: Leviathan
Class: γ (gamma)
Bio-Signal: 50 000/50 000Ø
Epidermal Integrity: 100%
Noetic Presence: 0.35 (ML)]
02 and his brothers glared at the creature below.
The secondborn stepped forward and stood on the edge of the ridge that led to the lakeside.
[Mother, may I?] He deeply rumbled.
"Go. Show me what you are capable of." Anoona allowed, and 02 immediately broke into a charge with a speed that belied his size.
The leviathan turned all of its heads to the approaching giant and roared.
Its dark blue, opalescent scales glimmered as it further dragged itself out of the water.
02 eventually reached it, and the ten-headed creature sent one of its heads to bite 02m only for the Theta to dash to the side, avoiding the attack and launching his own.
He punched the head so hard that its jaw slammed shut, causing several of its teeth to pierce through its own head.
The nine other heads roared in pain as it retreated into the water, but 02 didn't relent.
His mother and brothers watched as he leapt onto the air and grabbed one of the creature's necks, dragging it down to the shore, where he punched it as well, shattering the skull beneath.
Anoona's cells quickly analysed the Leviathan and saw that its heart and brain weren't in any of its heads.
They were instead in the centre of its large body, but 02 couldn't risk recklessly attacking its core.
If even one of its remaining heads managed to grab him, the others would move in to rip him to shreds, and so he carefully avoided each one, dashing as far back as he needed to.
The creature eventually let out an infuriated roar before swimming back into the lake.
02 couldn't have it roaming freely, and so he ran after it.
If it was for the sake of his mother's safety, he was willing to dive headfirst into the abyss, and so, using his Noetically enhanced muscles, he swam towards where the leviathan had retreated and waited, keeping himself suspended in the murky waters.
Having the advantage underwater, the creature sent forth four of its heads, but 02 just needed the first one, which he grabbed by its gnarly jaws and pulled in, making the other heads bite its neck.
They tried tearing themselves free, but this gave 02 just enough time to punch one of the three other heads.
There were no other signs of life in the lake, meaning that the Leviathan had eaten them all at some point.
This also meant that it had never known competition and that this was the first time it had ever encountered something that could threaten its life.
Anoona was once the same.
Like the lake, when she was in his tower in the old world, she truly believed that nothing could ever get her.
But she was quickly learning that death and change would come for everyone and everything.
Instead of believing herself to be some sort of untouchable existence, she was determined to exist within the tides of the causal current.
Her end would come, but not before she gave her second chance all she had.
Which is why she watched closely as 02 battled the leviathan beneath the waters.
If Anoona wasn't going to make it far into this new vision of life, then at the very least, she had to equip her children with the means to survive.
That's why, when one of the Leviathan's heads finally managed to grab a hold of the Theta, she didn't immediately react.
Of course, it pained her to watch as several of her son's legs were torn from his body, but this world operated on a new set of rules.
It wasn't just survival of the fittest.
The fastest to adapt would be the victor.
And so, 02 forcefully stopped his bleeding using his Noetic energy and finally made his way to its core, now that seven of its ten heads were limp.
The remaining heads rushed in to bite him, but he swam past the main body, letting them crash into each other.
He then swam up to the body and, after gathering all the energy he had in his body, punched the bulbous structure, rapturing all of the Leviathan's internal organs.
02 then swam up with its body in tow and dragged it all the way back to the quarry, where he laid its gigantic corpse in front of his brothers so that they could eat.
[Well done.] Anoona applauded, and although 02 didn't outwardly respond, Anoona could feel the determination that coursed through his veins.
Like a bright fire that burned brightly next to hers, it was enough to remind her that not only was he not alone, he now had several children who were just as willing to rage against the new violence.
These weren't her worker ants anymore, not cogs in the machine that she wanted to build.
They were her sons.