Anger, urgency and boldness had always been my weakest points. As I grew up and stronger through those early days on the tree, I steadily learned from my mistakes. Anger? Held it down. I suppressed and locked it deep inside of me. Urgency? I promised myself to always calm down and think no matter what situation that I was met with. Instead, I decided to make plans and assess every situation. Be prepared and listen to my intuitions and feelings.
Boldness? I'm still working on that one... hey my personality is hard to change okay?
No matter what feelings I felt. Beit sadness, grief... frustration or anger. I always managed to control myself and as I did, I learned from my mistakes and I looked past them.
But that sense of control was instantly taken away from me.
It was the trial. The first trial. The first trial took everything away from me. All the mental fortitude that I had gained from all my experiences. Everything other than my physical traits was taken from me.
And it was replaced by two things. My emotions and my memories that I had locked away deep inside my mind and tried to forget about.
Anger. Nothing could hold back my anger as I charged forward. I couldn't hold it back... no, I didn't want to hold to hold back anymore as I let it course through my body. Frustration and anger. I was always frustrated with myself. I was frustrated that I wasn't good enough - that I was no strong enough to protect the feeble lives of my siblings.
All I felt was guilt, frustration, and anger.
It was my fault.
It wasn't like I didn't think about it before alright? I ate our entire birth leaf to initiate our migration. Could I have prepared better? Yes. Could we have collected pieces of leave and transported the pieces with us as we travelled? Yes.
It's my fault that you had all died so young.
I began to feel a pressure building inside of me. It was uncomfortable. I wanted to scream out loud and I did. I wanted to let it out my frustration and anger and feelings on to something... on to someone... onto some being... and I did.
They were before me. Thousands of them stood before me. The Ants. The same as they were that fateful day, their tiny segmented bodies and dark hair covered legs overlapped one another as they stared at me. As I got closer, I recognized the familiar sight that I had seen all too often. They closed their mandibles as if I was some type of prey item. To them, I looked like food and for some of them, the real versions of them, my siblings were their food.
My anger grew.
I knew deep inside that they weren't real, that nothing was actually real, but still I slid straight at them as my eyes filled with my emotion and I was seeing red.
Chittering in the shadows the ants opened their mandibles ahead of me as I madly slid towards them. 'Keep taunting you insects.' I thought in my head unironically.
Seconds away, I tilted my body. I knew that I was going to feel it. The sweet release that comes with destruction - the release of the pressure that was building up inside me.
Slam.
My giant shell mashed against their tiny bodies.
Who do you think won? Of course, it was me. Duh.
...
Dust blasted in the air as I burst their bodies into a satisfying powder. It wasn't enough. I wasn't satisfied at all. Turning around I knocked my shell from side to side and dispersed tens of bodies as I did. You would think that my rage would decrease as I crushed the plebs beneath me, but my urge to destroy them only grew larger with every tiny body that burst.
Yes. I was in the middle of their bodies now. The ants, or what were the embodiments of ants, burst as crushed them.
They, however, didn't just let me ruthlessly attack them. Thousands of legs moved as they swarmed my body within seconds. Soon I felt their tiny bites all over my body. Closing their mandibles together they tugged at my exposed foot from all directions.
Even more brazenly, some of them began to struggle and inch themselves into my shell.
'Is this what they felt like?' I thought as I felt my body being dragged.
Shaking my shell, I managed to knock some of them off as I laughed maniacally.
The trial might have stopped my skills and broken the barrier that restrained my emotions, but it couldn't stop my stomach.
Opening my mouth wide, I began to devour them by the dozens.
Minutes passed and it was over. No matter how they tried, my skin was just too tough and I was just too big. Although they could lift me up and cover me all over, I made short work of them. Unlike my other skills that seemed to be blocked, my bottomless stomach was part of me and wasn't a skill.
I'm sure the task wouldn't have been harder for any other being that took my place, but it was just... too easy. A little too easy.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the first trial. No, one more enemy replaced the thousands that I had easily dispatched. And it was the true test of the first trial.
It was myself.
...