I snap my mandibles eagerly. I've just finished a hunting spree, and this time I ate all of the spiders.

Strange to be the predator of a creature that normally hunts me...

[Joule?]

[Yes, (target host)?]

[...why do you call me that?]

[Well, you don't have a name. What else should I call you?]

I don't really care right now.

[How much energy do I have?]

She processes for a moment.

[Earlier, Noah made a good point. I hadn't configured myself to your level, but I've optimized since then. In other words, your void is doing nicely. We're not using too much energy to perform Void Bite, and we're absorbing quite a lot more energy than before.]

I wait for a moment. [So if I turned it into size and muscle, would it be a bigger difference than last time?]

[Definitely. Although...]

She pauses. It's never a good sign.

[What is it?]

[Are you sure you want to use it on getting bigger? As your void absorbs energy, you'll get bigger naturally, and without all of the pain you experienced earlier. If you instead invested the energy into concentrating your void, you probably won't feel a thing, and you'll improve as a whole.]

Now that is helpful information.

[Let's do that. I'd really rather not go through that whole thing again. Ever, if possible.]

She laughs. [I don't blame you. Anyway, let's just go ahead and...]

She trails off, and right when I'm about to ask what the problem is, she quietly says, [Oh, crap.]

I don't understand the words, but I get the sentiment behind it. [What's the problem?]

Her voice is getting strained quickly. [I exist in your - urgh - void, so if we're improving your - OW! - void, then I'm going to improve wiiiIIIIITHHHHAAAAAAAGHHH-]

I cut the connection off. I can be sympathetic when she comes back. Until then, I'd rather not hear the agony I was experiencing, with sound included.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It's been a pretty long time. I tentatively ask, [Joule? Are you done?]

When her response finally comes, she sounds exhausted. [I'm sorry I said 'I told you so' when you went through that earlier. It was really insensitive.]

Now I can empathize. I had in fact been thinking of that particular incident.

[You're all right. How do you feel?]

She sighs into my head. [Not great, honestly. Imagine if you were inflated and then squeezed.]

That sounds extremely unpleasant.

[On the other hand, we can do this now.]

My mandibles light up with a Void Bite, except this time the veil is much thicker around my mouth.

[That's impressive.]

[We're actually using less energy, too.]

I just remembered something.

[Shouldn't you have gone into passive mode?]

[That was a mistake earlier. When you told me to use all of the energy on size and muscle mass, I used all of it. I didn't have anything to run on, so I turned off temporarily until you gave more energy.]

[I suppose that makes sense. Is there anything else you can do?]

An ant comes into view. It's a light shade of blue and seems to be transparent.

[I built myself a construct!]

My mandibles clack with excitement. Walking forward, I extend an antenna to say hello, and it passes through the ghost ant. My happiness disappears.

[What's going on?]

She responds with some embarrassment. [Well... I don't have very much practice engineering with void, so all I can really do is make false constructs. I can still use them, they just won't be solid.]

That's useless.

[If we keep upgrading the void, I'm sure I can make them solid. Eventually, I think I can even exist as one. Just...]

I wait for her to finish.

[Yes?]

[If it's not too selfish of me, can we wait until we've got more energy? As in, significantly more? I really don't want to go through that again.]

[That's okay.]