Chrysalis

The rare core sat on the ground in front of me and I knew it was time to pay the piper. As much as I'd derived a strange sense of joy forcing the hatchlings to absorb a special core, this process seriously hurts. I've already maxed out my core AND absorbed a special core. If I absorb this rare core, will I really be able to take it?

Or will my core just detonate and rip me apart from the inside?

Hoo boy.

Here we go.

Taking a deep breath I gingerly reach down with my antennae and touch them to the cold surface of the core.

[Compatible Rare core detected. Would you like reinforce your core or reconstitute the monster?]

I sure as heck don't want to create one of those crocs as one of my pets, I have to many bad memories of them to even consider it.

Nothing for it. Gimme dat core juice!

As soon as I give my mental assent, the densely packed energies contained within the gem-like sphere begin to flow into me, swirling throughout my body before settling in my core core, adding their strength to my own.

And it hurts immediately.

I'd gotten used to the vaguely stretched feeling of my maxed out core to the point where it didn't really bother me. I'm not sure if that was just because I'd become accustomed to the pain or if my body had adjusted to the extended core size. Ultimately it doesn't matter, as the vast energies within the rare core pour into me and my core starts to grow, the pain is instant and intense.

My body was not meant to hold a core of this size!

Damn that stings! Holy Moly! With a capital M!

This must be what it feels like to have a swollen stomach that is not a stomach but actually a stone formed of condensed mystical energies. The pain isn't even localised around my core! Unlike before, it is radiating outwards, zapping along my nerves to the ends of my limbs and rebounding off my extremities to come back to my centre even worse than before.

How delightful!

doesn't occur to me. I don't need this in my life. I've suffered plenty in

to be all powerful, lord of all he surveys sort of monster. I don't especially crave individual power, I'm not

I grit my mandibles

was watching the twenty hatchlings be so stoic and selfless in their attitudes. Perhaps it was the acceptance of the Queen

the reason, I hold

and

agony and

a thousand pieces, but I hold on. As strange as it sounds, I felt clarity in those moments. As if the pain radiating out from my core as

feel clean. I

than this. I have a family now, something I've never really had before. I won't allow them to suffer.

core needs to be used and I'm the best one to use it. For whatever reason, there is no member of the colony as advanced

so I hold

nothing in my universe except for the pain and the ball of packed energy resting on the dirt before me. The transfer of energy is glacially slow, or at least it feels that way. This core must hold more than ten times as much energy as a

More pain. I endure.

my thoughts fade away to nothing and my

HAH!

I'm up!

DANG it still hurts!

agony. Yeeouch! It's like every cell in body hit the gym with an enthusiasm they were not able

And my core.

Holy moly, the core.

swallowed a rock that carried a grudge, it sits in the centre of my body and it just doesn't fit. I'm too damn full! Worst of all, I can still see the rare core on the ground in front of me. I

in right now. I really feel as if I'm on the edge of some serious damage here. I hope that after some time has passed the tightness and pain will fade to

motion sends new signals of hurt rocketing through my nerves, I roll the core to one corner and bury it with the rest of the