Anoona had been asleep for about two years, and in the time that had passed, her children had managed to push back the Horde several hundreds of kilometres in all directions. While some unfortunately died in the process, losses were kept to a minimum.
Anoona's assimilation of the old order was also underway, with all the flora and fauna around the Stygian Crater taking a new form.
The tubes and fields of flesh were replaced with dark, rigid, and tubular structures that went in and out of the ground in a cast network of what were essentially connected buildings that were made of Carbonic Gel.
They were also designed to have walkable surfaces, allowing work to be done within and without.
Leading the assault to the far north was General Thunder, who now brandished the infamous spear, Mheni, which was essentially a portable lightning rod that allowed him to channel the charged particles in the clouds above and send them wherever he wanted.
It worked by having Thunder focus his Noetic Power onto the spearhead, which he charged positively by draining it of its electrons.
This would then inevitably call down a bolt of lightning, which he would direct at his enemies at the cost of the spearhead, which needed to be replaced every third shot.
He had killed hundreds of thousands of Beta Class threats with and without it, but a single ping from his mother told him that it was time to return home.
So, he began his two-hundred-kilometre journey.
A trip which was made short by the system of underground trams that operated using maglev technology.
Technology which had been developed completely independently by Anoona's children.
They designed sleek trams that travelled through tubes that were magnetically charged in a manner that allowed the tram would float weightlessly inside due to its own electrical/magnetic configuration.
The tram could then accelerate up to speeds of five hundred kilometres per hour, which meant that Thunder was back home in the Stygian Lake in a matter of minutes.
In truth, this advancement wasn't entirely independent.
Anoona had made sure to give her children access to the database her own cellular network held, and since her cells stored all of her memories from the old world, her children were able to learn of electricity, maglev and waste management, which was, funnily enough, Anoona's old profession.
Thunder stood on the hill where his mother was born, a hill which had been closed off and restricted.
He wondered what the world looked like through his mother's eyes.
What the old world looked like.
He and his siblings were a pragmatic bunch, so he saw no value in dwelling too long on the past, but it was definitely nice to wonder.
He made his way into the Hive and was greeted in the Sorting Bay by his sister and fellow Beta Class, Black Ivory – 1748.
She was a little shorter than he and was part of the percentage of Betas that flaunted their wings at all times.
Hers were ink black, hence her name, but what she was renowned for was her habit of using Black Gamma gasters and using them as bombs.
She preferred them to regular explosives since they were "economic", in her words.
"Can I come with?" She asked while batting her long eyelashes, only to wince as Thunder took a deep breath.
"Not yet, dear sister! Mother will grace you with her presence soon enough, so keep up the good work!" He bellowed with a grin, making Ivory roll her eyes.
"But seriously. She'll come to see you soon enough. Consider yourself lucky since it's practically impossible for Thetas to get her attention." His grin turned into a soft smile.
Ivory nodded before suddenly kicking him in the butt with enough force to send the giant tumbling forward.
"Alright, but you might wanna pipe down since she just woke up!" She huffed only for the air to scream as Thunder suddenly appeared behind her in an instant.
"Who's the one making a racket?" He whispered through a grin, but Ivory would not be intimidated.
She eyed a few black gasters that were stacked on top of each other nearby, which made Thunder's eyes widen.
"Don't even think about it—"
Ivory bolted towards them only to be caught by Thunder, causing the two to loudly crash into the ground.
"Oi! Are you guys serious?" Earth Splitter 21 899 Beta Class snapped, making Thunder and Ivory freeze.
Splitter was younger than the two but headed most strategic meetings.
He also wielded the Earth Splitter itself.
A sword that was one hundred meters long and made of fine, soft Carbonic fibres that, when wielded by Splitter, hardened to form an edge that was one atom wide in thickness and could cut open mountains.
He wasn't stronger than his two bickering siblings, but if they invoked his anger, he would hamper their assault efforts on the Horde by cleaving the earth in the paths their troops had to take.
Thunder let out a sigh before helping Ivory up.
"Sorry." They both apologised.
"You should be. Now go see how mom's feeling, and you, aren't you supposed to be in the field?" Splitter raised a brow.
"I came to stock up on more black gasters, teehee."
Thunder shook his head at his sister's supposed "economic" use of resources before continuing down to the entrance of the Throne Room, where his fellow senior siblings awaited.
"You're late." Sabhuku scolded, making Thunder lightly scratch the back of his head.
"It was Ivory's fault." He chuckled ashamedly, making the others sigh.
Rusteater was the one who led them into the Throne Room, which was now lined with innumerable silky threads that were all connected to the back of Anoona's neck. Threads that were made of specialised Anoona cells that fine-tuned her control over her Noetic Powers.
01's cocoon was buried beneath the mass of threads, but he didn't seem to mind.
As for Anoona, while her appearance had remained mostly the same over the past two years, her cells were much more complex, being autonomous organisms in their own right, bound by their singular Noetic identity as Anoona, whose Bio-Signal was now five million Ostraka, which meant she had a Noetic Presence of 35ML.
Her every slumbering breath sent out Noetic ripples across the entire planet, and the time was ripe.
She opened her eyes, and a wave of relief enveloped the hearts of all her children.
She turned her sleepy eyes to Thunder and asked.
"Is everything ready?" She whispered, her voice softly filling the Hive.
"Yes. All friendly structures have been reinforced and cleansed of the old order. Our troops are also all within their designated lines, and all siblings have been prepared for any drastic environmental changes." Thunder reported making Anoona nod.
As always, she knew what he was thinking, but she loved hearing him speak.
"Alright. I have gathered the strength I need, calculated the extent of what needs to be done. Now, say hello, my babies, to our new world."
A wave pulsed from the centre of Anoona's mind, then whispered forth at the same moment that the Earth sent out its own.
Thunder and the others looked around as the world shook, the Earth's wave forced all of the flesh, all of the life that lined the surface, to squeeze inwards, towards the Stygian Crater, resulting in innumerable earthquakes, landslides and floods as the shape of the world changed again.
Anoona's response came swiftly.
As she slept, her scouting cells had travelled across the world.
Multiplying and rooting themselves deep in the surface.
In this moment, as the world was shaken, each of those cells began to secrete the very thing that had facilitated Anoona's survival and ascension.
That sludge that ate away at everything that wasn't Anoona or her children.
Plumes of steam rose from across the entire planet as the flesh of the old world was eaten and digested, making way for new life.
Entire forests, lakes, swamps, heck, even the oceans.
Anything that wasn't connected to Anoona's Noetic network.
This obviously led to changes in the atmosphere with temperatures rising steeply.
Fortunately, as Thunder said, preparations had been made and almost all of her children either made cocoons to hibernate or were able to withstand the changes, Thunder being among the ones that remained awake.
He watched as his mother and the old order, Mother Nature herself, clashed.
Old rotted flesh pulled literal mountains down onto Anoona's cells, which fought back by consuming anything that pulsed with life, and this war raged on for an additional century because, even as the last earthquakes rocked the world, Anoona didn't want to stop until everything that wasn't her child was dead.
However…
The last fragment of the old order sent out a ping that spared it from assimilation.
Hidden in a crack at the bottom of a valley in the aftermath of the war of worlds was a child.
A little humanoid infant that was the last of the old order.
She was… cute.
In the hundred years that had passed, the air had been cleaned, along with the oceans that were now blue again, and the temperatures were moderate.
This favourable environment allowed the child to survive, even though she had soft skin, four short arms and a pair of soft-soled feet. She had no hair and, even though her two eyes were closed, Anoona could see that the child's eyes were extremely complex, being a compound of arrays in her irises.
Actually, every part of her was just as complex.
Her skin may have been soft, but the parts of her that touched the cold, hard ground had hardened, and her body was regulating her heat incredibly well.
Her cells, while not as complex as Anoona's, were robust and gave her a Bio-Signal of 890000Ø.
The little girl had been birthed by the last remnants of the old order and tucked away in a crevice, but since Anoona could detect all Bio-Signals across the globe, she easily found it. But its soft Noetic cry stopped Anoona from killing it.
[You… will be the last. I will send for you. Come to me and lend all that you are to the new world.]
Anoona opened her long-closed eyes to find that she was completely buried in the silky threads she had created.
She tore off the ones that were stuck to the back of her neck and let out an extended sigh, breaking the silence of the sleeping Hive.
She then stumbled onto her feet and walked through the haze of silk to reach 01's cocoon.
"How much longer will you sleep, you lazy boy?" She softly cooed, and this actually got a reaction from 01, who now occupied 90% of the space in the four-meter-long hardened pod.
He moved just a little to let Anoona know that he was still there, and that was enough for her.
She took slow steps out of the room and made her way up to the nursery, which was almost empty now.
Nearly all nineteen billion of her children had hatched and were now peacefully sleeping again.
Surprisingly, the armoury was also almost empty, and Anoona knew this was because about a third of the Thetas had equipped plates of armour onto their bodies. They also now brandished weapons which were fused to their bodies as they hibernated.
These were the foot soldiers of Thunder's army, and no expense was spared in making sure they were just as capable as their more powerful siblings.
Everyone in the Nursery was also asleep. Comfortably wrapped in silky cocoons like a certain sleepy head.
The air in the Repository was cool for once, and there wasn't any traffic in the Sorting Bay.
Anoona stepped out of the Hive and, for the first time since she awoke, she took a deep breath of clean air as she emerged into the new, new world.
Her world.
And it was glorious!
Monolithic spires reached into the clouds, processing the air and twisted in and out of the ground were the cities of her Earth.
Gardens of plant life that carried her genes grew, and flying organisms chirped by across clear skies. These two were her constructs.
The air was crisp and cool as winter was on its way, and the ground wasn't sticky!
Instead, it was made of a dull grey grass, which was the new shade of most fauna since plants were now closer to animals than anything. Feeding on each other just as much as sunlight, which finally reached the surface unimpeded as the sun rose.
Anoona made her way to the hill that birthed her to see that it had been changed by her assimilation, but the hole from which she emerged was still there and, dozing off by the side, was Thunder.
He was covered in a layer of moss, but other than that, he hadn't changed all that much.
He opened his four, cyan eyes as Anoona approached and warmly smiled.
"Good morning, Mom."
"Morning, my dear."