ORIGIN

Fury drove them.

Their hive was diminished: nearly a third of them crushed by a Drone's jaws. It had in part been their own fault, or at least their risk. They'd tried to choke her, to fill her mouth with her own fungus, had gotten too close and... been crushed. But enough of them had escaped, and they'd tracked down what they imagined to be the source of all of this.

The thick webs of Order's touch swathed Canis.

Legion fully intended to return to Gemini, given time, but for now they took note of a Praetor here and there, and swept forward to begin their work. It was, perhaps, foolish. There was so little they--a tiny being, and hardly a master of their magic--could do. But rage, spite, was a powerful motivator.

Their thought process was a thousand voices (hundreds too few) in unison, sharing thoughts and considering viewpoints, angles. Though individually a mite might only have taken notice of one or two dangers, or thought of only one or two new ideas to help them, as a whole they were a community of minds. Thus they were keeping all their eyes in every direction, constantly aware even as they worked magic, taking note of the shadowed crevices that might host an ambush and listening for any sign of intrusion.

Purge this. Put something else in its place. Move on.

But one of the mites had had a new idea. One that had spread like wildfire through their hivemind, and caught them in fascinated possibility.

What if we can find a fungus that eats hers? That destroys hers? It'd have to be something immune to being corrupted... Fungus didn't work like other life forms. It consumed decay. If they could make some form of mold that competed, at least, with the white stuff--consumed whatever Mother's digusting corruption might touch before it could take root--they'd have a real weapon to fight with.

They began a search, then, for any sign of something that might help.

They sensed fungus along the outer edges, but all their searching--the swarm buzzing cautiously along the ragged border of floor and walls--found only white fuzz.

They'd hoped, somehow, that perhaps the edges might have still held holdouts. Things not taken yet by Mother. But there was nothing here. Perhaps elsewhere-? They flooded inward, their swarm rising and humming softly toward the center of Canis. They were keeping diffuse: a vague cloud rather than a discernable shape. In this way perhaps Mother's drones wouldn't notice them, or notice them as soon. It helped, ironically, that Lamia had so reduced them. There was no guarantee they'd go unnoticed forever, though; there was thus a sense of urgency to their search.

For long minutes they investigated every brush of gray across their magic senses, poring over clusters of surviving mushrooms among the white fungus that seemed to have proliferated over every free inch of cave.

At last they found what they were looking for: a darker, red-brown fuzz in a large patch ringed by Mother's fungus. It probably isn't eating it. But it isn't being eaten, either, they noted. Perhaps it was too close in structure; perhaps the stuff that Mother spread simply didn't register a similar mold as prey. Or maybe it was eating Mother's stuff, or decaying it--or maybe it was toxic in some way Mother's couldn't touch.

Legion didn't know. What mattered was that it was alive, and they could use it.

The swarm landed, fluttering about the red mold. It was fuzzy, like short grass: taller than their tiny bodies, in places. But they thought that they could implant it on their mites.

It would be a bit of a sacrifice. The stuff would grow on them, require feeding, drain their energy. Given how tiny they were, it might be a big drain. But they could manage, they thought; and if not, they could always purge it.

They settled in among the red, thousands of tiny legs working to shuffle spores onto their carapaces.

But they found themselves too 'hard.' Their bodies were shelled, like insects; their backs, wings, wouldn't be enough.

It only took a moment's thought to stumble on a solution, thought up by one mite and quickly shared amongst the hive: how did we host it last time? Not--this stuff, of course. But Mother's fungus. The buzz of the swarm went simultaneously still as the Queen's memory searched this up and spread among them in images and direction: white fuzz stuffed into the joints and crevices of an insect's body. All the soft places had played host to colorless stench.

The soft hum began again as the legs shifted, like bees moving pollen, to press spores to the joints of legs and the gaps in tiny torso segments. Magic rose, settling it there, and within moments a red 'fur' began to sprout from those gaps: mold growing profusely, spread by Legion's magic.

As each mite finished its work it fell still, attuned to (and waiting on) the rest to complete their industrious labor. Several minutes later, the swarm was fully silent.

"We are ready," came the soft hum, a vocal acknowledgment, at last.

Now: to work.

They'd need to purge patches of Mother--and replace it with their own, their 'red.' Whatever it was. However it worked.

It didn't matter. What mattered was that it did work.

The mites rose into the air, noting the strange (but, to their queen, familiar) sensation of the soft fuzz that chafed slightly against their bodies. To work, then; and now they had a decision to make.

Did they start from the center of Canis, purging patches to create a purified core--or start from the outside, gradually trapping what remained of Mother at the middle of the cave before getting rid of it altogether? Something about that latter felt appealing, and so they swept back in a buzzing cloud toward the cave walls. It didn't take much searching to find patches of stench-ridden white.

They were careful not to draw too close.

Magic swept out, the swarm hovering a little ways above the ground--always ever-alert to their surroundings, just in case. They struggled, but given a few moments, had pushed the white from a swathe of rancid rock, here: the damp, bacterial-slimy sort that played ample host to fungus.

Once they'd managed to sweep the white away, they landed to inspect their work. Individual mites buzzed around, peering at the stone below. It was clean. The rock was slimy and gross, yes, but it would host their 'red' instead.

They scattered spores from their hosted fungus, leaving it like a fine, invisible dust across the surface of the stone. Then they rose back up again, in a vague cloud, and pressed for their Queen's magic.

It was with a savage sense of satisfaction (justice, retribution) that they watched the red bloom up: taking the place of what had once been white, growing in natural peaks and smooth fields of rust-hued mold.

Good.

Myriad eyes inspected their work and found it more than pleasing.

Now... to continue.

Legion did not move far. They were dedicated to somehow, alone, purging the entirety of Canis: and so they simply moved to where the white continued, and pressed their magic forth again.

Their intention had been to push the white away from a large patch of rock: to clear it, and instead move it farther along. Then, once more, they could have worked with this bare patch.

Instead, they moved it--but didn't clear it. Instead the white grew thicker, carpeting the stone further, spreading Mother's influence rather than actually getting rid of it. A torrent of swearwords--overheard from other Gembound, and not fully understood--rushed through Legion's many minds. Frustration and, more than that, urgent horror rose in them.

They had to fix this--and now, before it got any worse!

Their buzzing became a little louder, a little more urgent, as they dropped down to inspect their mistake. They took a long moment to focus, again, gathering up their magicka and staring down at the fungus.

This time, it rotted away with speed: crumpling into black wisps that the light breeze carried off, the rest of it purged off into another area of rock.

Relief flooded through them. Mistake: fixed, and then some. They just needed to take a moment to focus, which they did by landing once again in the now-bare patch: and once more, tiny legs distributed the red mold's spores across the rock.

They lifted off a moment later, already recognizing that this would be far more work than they'd realized. It would take days--no, weeks!--of consistent magic, exhausting as it was, to purge even a large fraction of Canis's infestation.

Anger twinned with determination in them, fighting off the despair. They could do this--and they would. And none of Mother's Lessers could catch them--not them, not the swarm. Undo their work-? Maybe, given time. But not catch them.

Their emotions got the better of them: their focus on the fungus failed, pushing the spores off into... nothing. Killing them, so that Legion left the rock bare of any life again. It had not only failed but backfired, wasting precious red fungus that they could have damn well used. They more they messed up like this, the more spores they were not putting to good use--and the longer they'd need to wait for the fungus to produce more.

Damn it!

Frustration surged, and they lit upon the stone, having to repeat the step of spreading spores across the rock: tedious, time-consuming, and tiring.

Once they'd finished, they rose up again, an angry hum in their wings: and they set about hovering above the spores, trying to push away their emotion to concentrate, to really focus, on their task.

This time, the wafting power seemed to take: the spores ignited with life, blooming into a thin carpet of red. Red that would keep Mother's rank rot, they hoped, at bay.

"There."

Now they would rest, for a time. The swarm rose up, flitting to a patch of bare wall high on the edge of Canis, a place where they could overlook the ground below (and above) and watch for danger. There they settled, a soft cloud of rust-brushed brown, some of the mites nearly sleeping while others kept watch. They watched the red that they had spread--two large patches of it--to safeguard it. They doubted it'd be stumbled upon so soon by Mother's forces--but then, they had no idea how many might be here.