Returning to consciousness turned into a dreadful event for me. I only had a moment to understand that I had entered the body of a drone and that I had access to all of its memories before my world exploded in pain. What started as a moment of wonder as I encountered what it felt like to live in the body of a swarm drone quickly turned into a moment of pain and suffering. I hadn’t been able to visually see anything for that brief moment that I entered its body, everything was just a dim haze around me, making me think that I was covered with a thin layer of dirt, so I was unable to observe the attack that took place.

Pain, a raging inferno of fiery pain, cascaded through my mind and body in an instant. It felt like I had fallen into a bonfire, and someone was holding me in the flames.

It felt like something was trying to burn me up and to erase me completely.

“What is happening?!? Someone, please help me!” I managed to mentally cry through the pain, hoping against hope that Invicta or Nurse would hear my thoughts and be able to undo the hell that was consuming me.

No one answered or came to my aid. The pain continued and even seemed to be steadily growing stronger the longer it continued. I thrashed against the inner workings of the mind and body that I had entered. It felt like the bonfire had turned into a bed of lava and that I would surely die soon.

Out of desperation, I tried to move the drone’s body, perhaps if I could crawl, I could dig my way out of this inferno. It was a struggle, as though there was a barrier between my ability to use the body that I was inside. I pushed hard, straining and trying everything I could to gain even a sliver of control. All I needed to do was to crawl out of this fire.

Something gave just a little bit in the instant that I pushed with all of my willpower, like the tiniest crack in a wall forming under strain. I felt, in that moment, a flicker of relief from the fire that was threatening to consume me. This relief was what drove me to push even harder, forcing my will against whatever was blocking me until it broke, finally letting me have control of this body’s six limbs and for my mind to fully take over. The feeling of time shifted, giving me a sense of lightheadedness that quickly went away.

It was then that I learned what had happened as I pulled my limbs away from my head, feeling six barbed stingers as they were drawn out of my skull. The drone had done this to itself, effectively committing a swarm version of Seppuku on its skull the moment that it became aware that I had entered its mind.

I was a foreign entity, not its original Monarch Queen or the Hive Mother.

With the stingers pulled out I was shocked to find that the pain instantly vanished. Not only that but I could feel the puncture holes seal themselves up in the same instant, as though it had never happened in the first place.

This body had phenomenal healing abilities.

I lay there, shuddering, for a while regardless. Just because the pain had suddenly vanished didn’t mean that the memory of the trauma had gone anywhere. I could feel the singers as they slid back inside the forearms of my limbs, already working to regenerate their stored toxins in anticipation of the next victim. It was a good thing that swarm venom wasn't fatal to the swarm, only debilitating in order to be able to keep any male swarm caught under constant duress until they were delivered to the Hive Mother.

“Hey, drone, what the heck man? Why did you try to kill us both?” I mentally asked, insulted that it hadn’t even tried to learn that I was a Monarch and that I was part of the swarm.

I didn’t get an answer or even feel any stirring of thoughts by the drone.

The body felt strangely empty.

“Hello?”

No one answered me.

Troubled, I went looking through its mind to see if I could learn anything about what had just happened and how I could undo being inside this foreign body altogether. I needed to get back to my own body.

What I learned from replaying its last memories was not good news at all. For one thing, it had been Queenless and disconnected from the Hive Mother for quite a while. It had dug itself into the mud at the base of the tree where its Queen had died and was simply trying to exist until the Hive Mother sent it commands and directions. Drones were not prone to worry and were completely focused on following the commands of their swarm hierarchy. It didn’t even realize that it was highly odd that the Hive Mother had not even tried to guide it back to the swarm.

It had simply returned to its basic commands while it waited, to hide and harvest and store #!&^^ for its Hive Mother to absorb since its original Queen was dead.

This was where I came into the picture. It had been absorbing the minuscule trace amounts of #!&^^ energy that the low-grade mud gave off when suddenly it had felt my mind enter its own.

“But that is not possible,” I said to myself as I reviewed its memory. The swarm drone had sent thousands of genetic authentication requests in the brief instant that I had invaded its mind.

Digging deeper into its memories I discovered the shocking and disturbing reality of the existence of the swarm and the beings that inhabited this dimension.

Why hadn’t Nurse told me all of these things? I should have asked, there was just so much to learn.

Our two dimensions were nearly polar opposites as far as concepts are concerned. In my dimension, space extended forever with the occasional scattering of solar systems and galaxies. It was full of void with the occasional sun and planet.

In contrast, Nurse’s dimension was just the opposite. It was full of infinite land with one main Void.

Where, in my dimension, you could travel forever through space, in Nurse’s dimension it was the opposite. There were neverending tunnels and expanses ever leading deeper into forever.

Where ours was full of darkness, save the occasional sun, theirs was lit up from the energy emitted by the very ground.

The closest thing that I could imagine that resembled this universe was the image of a Mandelbrot set. It was surrounded by emptiness if you went upwards toward the edge, or the Void, as the swarm considered it. If you went deeper or downwards it extended forever, just as our space did, just with land, plants, and increasing danger.

Where our dimension saw life beginning on pockets of favorable globes of land or in nebulas able to sustain life, here everything was spawned from the Void and tried to work its way downwards. That is if it could survive.

Mortality and decay ruled in our dimension while immortality and energy drove this one.

Yes, everything was immortal here and that made life as cheap as the energy expelled from the very matter of the dimension was fuel for growth and development.

Life was cheap here, to the point that the drones harvested #!&^^ energy, only to be consumed by their Queen or Hive Mother so that they could become stronger.

It was a gruesome thing to understand. In order to become stronger in this dimension, you needed to absorb and use the #!&^^ energy to strengthen and modify your body in various ways. The Hive Mother had developed and spent a lot of her harvested #!&^^ energy to turn her swarm into a harvesting killing machine. It made sense why they called themselves the swarm of death, both from a figurative and literal standpoint. They existed to consume other creatures and, in turn, to be consumed by their Hive Mother.

The Hive Mother had needed to create her swarm in this way once she outgrew her ability to pull enough energy from the weak environment near Void. She, just like every other creature in this dimension, had to go deeper to find the higher density and more plentiful energy sources. Going deeper led to other larger and more powerful creatures though. Each more savage and deadly than the last. They had to kill each other in order to survive and to gain even more energy.

The Hive Mother had developed a way around this. She had genetically programmed her swarm to store and to deliver their lives and energy to her awaiting maw, thus allowing her to burrow and move into deeper territory without having to continually fight the roaming deadly creatures.

This strategy had ended up proving to be a two-sided sword, leading her to need to create Queens, each with their own swarm, in order to grow even more. It was an ever-expanding pyramid of death that allowed her to continue to grow and not stagnate. The swarm would feed the Queens and the fattened Queens would feed the Hive Mother, over and over again. Nurses were slightly outside of this loop, being allowed to upgrade themselves for the sake of camouflage and to invest in anything that would help their Monarch. Drones were required to keep around 30% of their reserves in store for when they returned to their Queen or the Hive Mother. The rest could be used in any manner required to spread the dominion of the swarm.

Over-consuming, or storing, like what this drone had been doing, was how it had had enough energy to burn for it to enter the swarm's version of quick time when it had felt me enter its mind. Had it been a physical attack it probably would have developed more armor or spikes until it had figured out the best way to kill its opponent. They had to choose how they spent their energy very carefully, lest they overextend and become a meal to something else before they could recover.

Storing took time and it depended entirely on how strong the energy available was. This drone was tiny, barely half the size of the smallest bit of mud, so hiding and storing was an easy thing if it had enough time. Yes, this made it fast and able to survive once its abdomen was full, but it was essentially the weakest and tiniest creature until it upgraded itself, which depended on the will of the Hive Mother. If it did upgrade itself, it would lose its speed until it could store up energy again and the process would repeat itself, always at the mercy of other creatures who fought for the same right to advance.

All of this information made me realize several things.

My swarm was broken but in a good way. It was always able to store and was always capable to remain in a frenzied state. It could constantly replicate without the need to sacrifice itself to its Monarch as food.

In a way, because they weren’t getting depleted by a Queen consuming them, they were constantly expanding and spreading in our universe, just like their original Queen had wanted. At least in this dimension, they had a self-governing mechanic in place that didn't allow them to spread beyond control. They had a purpose here, to forever make the Hive Mother stronger and to spread her influence to deeper levels. In mine... I was the only limit in place.

More reason for me to get back as quickly as I could.

It also answered the nagging question as to how the creature that had attacked Magus the 1st’s Core had been so fast. It had been steroided out of its mind with power and the ability to grow in such a short amount of time after it had gotten its first taste of the rich energy that the Tela's cr had been pumping out. Magus's digging, making the layers around the sun thinner, was like a fishing lure sinking closer to a hungry trout.

The speed though, just like how this body had healed itself so quickly, was not of my universe. It was the hardest part to wrap my mind around.

A disturbing rustling noise derailed my train of research into the drone's memories and made me freeze. I hadn't failed to get the memo that anything and everything here wanted to eat me or use me in one way or another. The noise grew louder and kind of sounded like someone driving past with their subwoofers set to eleven.

"Incursion area one located. Relic located. Requesting boost in research priority for this relic. Taking samples." Came a voice through the thin layer of mud above my head. It was speaking Tela! I started to work at the layer above my head, intent on getting to the surface and grabbing the attention of whoever was speaking when an intense struggle broke out above me. It appeared that the Tela had either gotten the attention of something huge or had intentionally picked something huge as a sample to collect. A shriek and the sounds of ropes snapping and branches breaking made me begin to think that digging deeper was a better option. Several branches thudded to the ground as various odd sounds filled the air outside. I couldn't make out what was happening through all the fighting sounds and odd buzzing that was taking place.

The fight, sample taking, or whatever lasted about a minute before things seem to settle down and only the thrumming of the craft could be heard. The smaller buzzing noises had faded away and I couldn't hear anything from the creature anymore.

"Subject number two of incursion event secured." the voice said, making me think that it was an AI communicating through open channels to someone. That didn't make any sense to me unless the Tela at the other end ran with video and sound open all the time. Why would they do that? Didn't they have VR here?

"Good, see if you can pick up any of its spread. Also, sweep the area for any of subject number one's spread as well. Subject one may have been digested long ago but I need to know how it managed to activate the relic." Came an answering reply. I tried to send a signal with my helm to the operator, only to remember that I didn't have it on since I was in the foreign body of a drone. Out of frustration I jammed my limbs into a crevice between two of the mud grains above me and pried them a little apart, letting me have a view of the sky to see what was happening above me.

What I saw confused me.

There was ground above me off in the distance with tiny alien creatures roaming around. They appeared to be walking normally and not like ants climbing on the ceiling. Gravity worked differently here it seemed. The ground was ground regardless of what orientation it was. The things that needed to be climbed were the plants and animals, stuff that didn't generate energy.

Above, or rather, between the land was a large mechanical drone. It looked advanced and seemed to have Tela characteristics, what with the eyestalk cameras and overlaying armored plates. It looked odd somehow though as if it was an earlier version of something and not the refined and sleek cr-based technology that I was used to seeing around the Tela. It held itself aloft with six thrumming pancakes that made all the racket. It was hexagonal, reminiscent of the mining prison module that Magus had thrown me into the sun inside.

Below the noisy Tela craft, there was a large sac suspended under its center. The sac seemed to be made of fibrous strands of steel-cabled silk. Whatever kind of creature that was being held inside, it didn't appreciate the cramped confines and it kept trying to tear its way through the material, using sharp claws and all of its considerable strength to try to escape.

It almost escaped too! There was a shredding sound as two long and deadly-looking limbs jammed their way through a corner of the silken material. The sight of the limbs made me jerk in fear. I remembered those limbs perfectly! They belonged to the spiderlike creature that had chased and eaten the swarm Queen that had infected me. I wanted to shout to the operator that the creature was about to escape but this body was unable to talk. The drone didn't breathe so unless I wanted to rub my legs together or throw rocks in the face of the operator, no one would see or hear me.

I needn't have worried though because the UFO drone simply did something which seemed to suck the life and energy right out of the escaping monster. A couple of tiny drones flew into view quickly and carefully worked at tucking the limbs back inside the sac before flying off again. They, it seemed, were the reason for the earlier buzzing noise. The sac rapidly repaired itself, as though an attempt hadn't even been made.

"Bathe the area again, we don't want anything to escape or to harm the pod." came a different voice, seemingly from farther off than the main operator.

"Will do, those bigger ones sometimes have a reserve that needs to be dealt with anyways. Also, the pod is requesting a boost for this location on the list." The operator replied before the main craft turned in place.

"Granted. This is the second time that this relic has been activated and I need to know how and why. It seems that someone back home is doing research into lost relics, and they are using aliens as test subjects. Remember that recording from a couple of months back when it first happened? At least this time we had enough markers set up in this sector so that we could triangulate where it came from."

"Yeah, I remember. Couldn't make heads or tails of it. Why would they let a bipedal alien anywhere near Personal Live Matrixes?"

"Indeed."

"So, where are they? Where is our traveler? You received a data dump and a notice of transmittal of Tela through the network."

"I don't know. The transmittal just ends. We didn't catch it. That means that the thief probably died if they didn't have a backup."

"Thief? What do you mean?"

"Well, whoever sent the data dump somehow managed to steal a copy of my helm, down to the source code. They were using it to record data about Leva before trying to come here to join us."

"Leva?"

"Indeed. It is puzzling."

The pod swept in a circle, bringing with it a flat beam of green light that swept across my tiny hole in an instant. I crumpled, feeling all of my stored energy vanish in a flash. So that is how they managed to survive here. They had some weapon that allowed them to subdue and negate the natives of this dimension's most powerful weapon, their absorption of #!&^^ energy. They had something to drain away the stored energy that every being used here.

I lay on the floor of my tiny hiding spot as the small buzzing sound swept past several times outside. My energy level was slowly returning, probably because I was so tiny and surrounded on all sides. I could have moved in just a few moments but chose to remain still until I had gathered enough energy to work out what I should do. I didn't want to get too close to the hole again and to get blasted in the face by the beam.

I knew who the third voice belonged to. His talk about his helm had given it away. I had found where the Last Engineer had vanished to. That meant that the second voice was probably none other than the Last Tunneler if I had to guess. They both had worked together before and the Last Engineer had even been the one to design her gloves for her. I could be mistaken, just the fact that they both had gone missing seemed to line up with who they both were.

But what did that mean for me? I was an infinitesimally tiny swarm drone without any tech or basic means of talking.

I wanted to get out there and to see if I could hitch a ride on one of the mini drones but I didn't want to be taken as a test subject. Without the ability to communicate... I would probably end up in pieces in a jar. Plus, there was that beam to worry about.

"Any spread from subject one?" The Last Engineer asked.

"None. Subject two's spread seems to have devoured them all." Q'tell answered. Yes, I remembered her name for some reason. My memory was working exceptionally well.

"Regrettable. I wonder if this thief had anything to do with the disturbance over in sector 9^Vv4?"

"Could be, it happened rather soon after the first incursion."

I didn't know what they were talking about but I could hear that their voices were moving. It seemed that they were doing a last-minute inspection of the relic before the loud thrumming sound began to fade off into the distance.

I had to get a view of which way they were going!

I jumped up and jammed my head into the gap to spy on the leaving craft. I marked its trajectory in my mind before taking the time to take in everything around me.

"Toto, I have got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." I mentally muttered to myself as I looked around.

The tree that the drone had buried itself next to resembled rough coral from deep in the ocean rather than the branch-laden trees that I had grown up with. There were other trees scattered around nearby that seemed to follow a path further to the right. It was almost as though the trees all followed the rest of the programming of the denizens of this dimension, they sought to delve deeper away from the Void. My tree, or rather the one that I had been hiding in the roots of, was now broken and badly damaged. The plants didn't seem to have the same rapid recovery as the living things. In fact, it seemed to benefit from getting damaged, I noted as I saw tiny spores taking flight and heading into deeper territories, sprouting from the most badly damaged trunks higher up.

It did seem to be repairing itself, however slowly. I couldn't see any other creature around me from my low vantage point. The smaller pods seemed to have sucked up all of the "spread" in this area around the relic. With that thought, I pushed myself through the hole just a little bit further in order to take a peek at the relic.

What I saw was a little bit of a disappointment.

I didn’t know what I had thought that I would see but it wasn’t a large and sad-looking gray dinner plate with several golfball-sized holes marring its surface. There were no words or cool designs, just holes in a flat disk that was probably as thick as a deck of cards. The round plate was mounted by the thinnest of rods onto a stone base. The little support rod looked like all it would take would be for the tiniest of breezes or intense stares to snap it in half and for the platter of several holes to come crashing down.

It didn’t fall no matter how intently I stared at it so I guessed that it was more durable than it looked.

The holes seemed to tug at my mind for some reason but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why at the moment. Perhaps it would come back to me in time.

The next thing, since I was sticking my head out far enough, to catch my vision was the Void.

It was dark. Darker than the blackest night sky. It sucked at light, or at least it felt that way with my vision. If you stared at it too long it almost made you feel as though it was getting closer, or that everything around you could just accidentally fall into it, like a pool of tar.

I looked away, looking instead at the surrounding land and finding that the Void was actually just a tiny circle off in the distance, almost like a moon holding itself in place.

It was only when you looked directly at it that it seemed to grow and take up your vision.

“How deep was I inside this dimension?” I wondered as I looked into the drone's memories.

“Oh, no…” I muttered as the answer came to me.

At this depth, the creatures had all developed advanced methods of dealing with other invasive life forms. If I had any dreams of surviving then I would need to do the opposite of all other lifeforms here. I would need to head back up to the Void where everything was on my level, basically dunces at fighting, and to learn how to survive before I even considered delving deeper.

“No time like the present,” I muttered in my mind as I shoved and wiggled my way out of the hole that I had been buried inside. If I wanted to live then I would have to move fast before the strong natives decided to lay claim to this newly deserted scrap of land.

I scurried over the boulders of mud and tree roots all the while hoping that someone was out there looking for me.