All she wanted to do was soar through the air. She could feel that burning desire inside her even before she'd formed her cocoon. To leap! To dive! To swoosh and glide!
It wasn't even a want, it was a need. A biological urge that refused to be denied! In her worst moments, the young Champion found being on the ground almost physically painful, her many-lensed eyes staring upward at the empty space overhead as she yearned to be free of the prison that chained her.
Her sister thought she was a moron.
Unlike the first Champion's desperate and well-defined vision for her future, the second found it all rather tiresome. She was, however, drawn to the healer caste. After all, everyone around her seemed to be an idiot that made constant mistakes. Fixing them up and sending them on their way seemed like a reasonable way to spend her time.
As much as possible, the two Champions trained with their siblings from the same clutch of eggs, a group of twenty that had been together from before they had even hatched. However, their training differed from the others in certain key aspects. First, their evolutions were different. While their sisters were provided maxed cores, the others didn't receive special cores, like the Champions did.
At first, it hadn't seemed like a big deal. At tier two, they were smaller and had weaker attributes than their siblings, which kept the competition and training challenging. Once they reached tier three, however… the differences had quickly become apparent.
Although they hadn't said as much, the two Champions were somewhat despondent to grow apart from their sisters, yet they were comforted by their constant companion and mentor: Demetant.
"You were born different from the rest of us," she said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. "It would be foolish of the Colony to try and treat you the same."
"Are we really that different from the others?" the second Champion asked. Then she turned to look at her sister, hopping on the spot and straining to remain in the air. "Am I really that different from the others?" she rephrased. "This one just seems less intelligent, and I feel perfectly normal."
"Hey! I'm just as smart as you are!"
"Stop jumping if you're going to talk to me."
This was a trick the second Champion had learned early. Her sister understood that it was a bit rude to keep jumping about the place while talking, but wasn't really capable of stopping…. In the face of this reasonable request, she would, of course, just abandon the conversation, leaving her sibling in peace.
"You are different," Demetant told the non-leaping Champion gently. "You'll do things for the Colony that nobody else has. Even if you don't feel differently, what makes you special isn't the special cores we feed you, or the way you are taught, it's how you think. Every Champion has a particular way of viewing the world. A strong opinion on what they think is correct. Even if you don't know exactly how that might look for you now, you eventually will. I guarantee it."
"Can that really be something as simple as just wanting to be a flying ant?" the second Champion asked, envying her sister's simple-minded focus. "It doesn't seem all that… revolutionary."
"It doesn't have to be," Demetant laughed. "We already have members of the family who have grown wings. That isn't new at all."
"We have?" the first Champion declared excitedly. "Can I meet them? Can I meet them now?!"
"In time, little one," Demetant assured her. "We have already arranged for them to come and see you. We will also travel to meet the other Champions and the Eldest, but first you have to graduate from the antcademy."
"Nooooo," the first Champion groaned, bouncing away. "That's going to take aaaaages."
"So, there's literally nothing new about flying ants?" the second Champion remarked, confused. "Then what's the point of it?"
"Does there need to be a point?" the first Champion asked, still bouncing. "I just want to fly!"
"And that's fine. That passion, that determination, is what being a Champion is really about," Demetant said. "Every Champion in the Colony has that sort of focus. Vibrant wants to move fast and help fight. She's hardly the only ant in the Colony who wants those things, but her focus and passion have pushed her far outside what other ants would consider acceptable.
"Brilliant wants to know… everything. She's well outside the bounds of normal thinking for the family. Solant is a general unlike any other; her obsession with victory and outside-the-box thinking has achieved what no one else could. We are only just beginning to see what Merchant is capable of, but it is transformative."
The second Champion lowered her head.
"It feels like a lot of pressure," she grumbled. "I don't feel like transforming the family."
"Well," Demetant said, "you haven't met many of them yet, to be fair."
The second Champion looked up at her teacher, surprised.
"Am I really going to find them that disagreeable?" she asked.
"Well… most healers tend to find them a bit annoying, at the least."
The second Champion's antennae waggled as she considered this.
"Well… that's comforting. Will I be able to meet many healers soon?"
"Of course. They'll be involved in your training quite soon. You'll be doing more and more specific caste training now that you've reached the third tier."
"And when do I get wings?" the first Champion demanded, hopping closer once more.
"Probably with your next evolution, if I were to guess," Demetant laughed. "The winged evolutions aren't very well mapped by the Colony, so you'll be breaking some new ground eventually, but at tier four and five, we should have a reasonable amount of information for you."
With a start, Demetant realised just how much time had passed.
"Oh, I think you're due for torpor, little ones. Go and get some rest, and don't dilly-dally. You don't know what happens when you skip sleep and you're far too young to find out."
"Is it really that bad?" the second Champion asked.
"Oh," Demetant shuddered. "It's awful."