Jeff had never felt as good as she did now. In fact she was barely even able to think or feel previously, only going through life like an robot whilst following hormonal instructions from her queen.

The commands left no room for thought or decisions, so day in and day out she simply followed the scent-orders to go out and forage for the hive.

That was until that life was over.

It had started just like any normal day she had lived repetitively.

Wake up in the hive, grab some food, build extensions or make repairs and then head out.

Her and her brood-sisters departed in lock-step and had gone out on a usual foraging patrol. There was no communication or interaction between the five sister unit, there simply wasn’t the need to do so. Whatever needed doing was simply relayed through hormonal scents from the relay-leader that was in turn passed down from their mother. The mother’s orders were absolute and they couldn’t question it.

So off they went along the beaten path, to find something edible to bring back for the hive.

Jeff and her sisters had actually performed quite well on the given task as they had acquired quite the sizable haul on their very first trip. The unit had to circumvent a fallen branch upon their usual path and by happenstance they then stumbled upon a fruiting berry bush.

So with the berry’s in basic hands, her and her sisters completed the first foray without a hitch.

They then left the hive along their assigned path before traveling towards their terminus node. Then following the scent/protocol, the unit deviated by a couple of degrees clockwise before heading out again.

The second foray was markedly less successful, with the unit only able to retrieve two tubers after having to painstakingly dig it up using their tool-arms. Then to make matters worse they had to leave behind one of the tubers after coming into conflict with a cave slime.

They returned as per instructions. They then set out again as per the queen’s commands.

Back to the terminus before deviating slightly a few more degrees from the last trip and off they went.

The journey was carried out as usual, in total silence with the unit straining their senses to the utmost. It was the only way they could even go about the place and do anything considering that her kind lived at the bottom of the one-way street called predation.

Sure they had a slightly venomous blood that tasted sour, but if you were already in a situations where your blood was getting tasted by a predator, by general consensus it was not a good situation for you to be in anyways.

It did work as a deterrent in most cases even if it meant that some of her kind had to die to serve as a warning.

But sadly this defence mechanic relied on the predator in question having learnt from personal or shared experience beforehand so that they know to avoid Jeff and her sisters.

It was definitely not something that the young Owlmite that attacked her unit was aware of.

In fact it hadn’t even attacked them for food. It was just a simple fact of life that a creature whom was higher on the food-chain would kill off others that was lower than itself if the two were competitors.

Owlmites were omnivores that were bigger and stronger than Jeff and nearly any of her kind, with the Queen being the only exception. But then again it wasn’t a sure-fire thing that she could fight one off due to her sedentary lifestyle.

Maybe a few levels or an evolution would change that dynamic, but the chances of that ever happening was slim at best when you were on the lowest rung amongst the fodder in the local ecosystem.

The young Owlmite then proceeded to massacre most of her unit and then when it was aware that there was no resistance to be had, it proceeded to turn the slaughter into a game.

It had thrown her and the last member of her brood around the clearing and pulverising them with Dirt bullets whenever they had sought to escape. All the while it had made sure to never use enough force to kill.

The only mistake it had made was to peck at the other survivor before tearing into her abdomen to give her flesh a taste and unwittingly ingesting the poison.

Then within a few scant moments the aggressor was left another hapless victim as the venom in the blood paralysed its muscles.

But at this point, Jeff’s rudimentary memory blanked out due to her own blood loss. She only remembered vaguely succumbing to the sweet succour of surrendering to death. Just giving up to the pain and the darkness and felt so freeing.

But then the greater green being came along to halt her death.

She was of being that radiated a corona of mana and power in her sight and meagre mana-sense. To her olfactory senses she smelt of something tangy from deep within the Delmar that reminded Jeff of something warm. But healing Jeff was only the beginning.

Following this were blindingly painful flashes where every fibre of her being was torn asunder before she was remade. It was pain beyond comprehension of the mind, it was one that bordered into the territory of the soul.

But as quickly as it had started the procedure was over in a scant few seconds.

Jeff was left feeling a blankness whilst the only thing in her mind was the being.

The green one was beyond anything she had ever met, be it foe or kin. It was a being of a whole order of magnitude higher than she was, one that levels and evolutions could not gap.

It did not ask and it did not coerce. It simply made her more than what she was and then, simply asked her to just be.

There were no new perceivable aspects to herself that she could see with her multi-faucet eyes. But she could feel it, she felt more somehow. Obviously there was the feeling of newfound strength within her frame that she was keen to test out.

But that was nothing to compared to being given the faculties to carry out free will.

Whereas before she was just a simple automata which served her role as a hive-drone just fine, now she was aware.

She was smart enough to think for herself.

But even so, the gift was a double-edged sword that came with its own set of problems. For it was indeed quiet the daunting for a being that had lived its whole life following the absolute orders of another to finally be free.

Not that the queen mother meant anything to Jeff anymore, not now that she was serving a god.

So she had left the clearing where her god conversed with another being. One of skin and bones who’s smell was vaguely familiar to her from the time before.

But Jeff didn’t care for the scraggly being as she needed time alone.

Time to herself to brood upon her newfound thoughts.

Then she would lay eggs.

Because even with her newfound strength and mental faculties, Jeff was just one step up from the bottom rung of the ladder.