The next few days were interesting, to say the least. Since our food source was much larger and more aggressive than we were used to, Mother and Father kind of arranged my siblings and I into a weird circular formation around the area they’d be digging. Both of my parents dug through the mound in the same spot as last time, since the brown crystalline substance mixed with the dirt was softened in that area.

Once the hole was opened, and the crystal termites started pouring out to defend their territory, Mother lowered her presence while Father guided their attention towards us. Sibling No.5 was on my left, with siblings No.1, 4 and 3 on my right in that order. “Why’d you have to stand beside me, sibling No.1? Ah! You’re planning on stealing my kills! I see through your plans!” I nipped at sibling No.1’s jaw in warning to not get in my way – which resulted in his biting my leg. “Ouch! That hurt, you idiot!”

After around twelve crystal termites had come out of the hole, Mother began to close it up again with great haste. As that was happening, my siblings and I encountered our first prey of the night while Father was being chased by four some distance away from us. “Ew! They look even worse when they’re bigger than when they were small! Ah! Keep those pincers away from me! Target sibling No.1 instead!” I was dodging out of the way of a pincer charge attack from a crystal termite when another one had come in from sibling No.1’s direction and was aiming for my beautiful fluffy tail.

Dealing with two crystal termites at the same time, I didn’t get to see how the rest of my family were doing as I was running aw—ahem, as I was making a tactical retreat for better manoeuvrability. Seeing a crystal pincer heading for my unmarred face, I somersaulted out of the way while kicking the other termite with my graceful hind legs. Although I had sullied my pristine fur with dirt, I didn’t have the time to care as I jumped towards the one I kicked and landed on its back. “I’m so agile!”

Taking the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot, I slashed at the back of the head before biting down hard and pulling at the flesh. Although, I didn’t really manage to make much of an impact due to the meat being so dense. “Strike while the iron is hot…? …What’s iron?” With no time to ponder what I had just thought, I switched my attention to the second crystal termite while the first one was somewhat down for the count.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to perform my well-planned action due to sibling No.1 barrel-rolling into me before using me as a launching pad to attack my crystal termite. “Hey! That was my termite! Get your own!” I barked at him with displeasure before averting my gaze towards the injured prey. Still dazed a little from my earlier multi-hit combo, “Ooh, I like the sound of that one!” I jumped back onto its back and repeatedly scratched at it with my claws.

By the time the termite’s life had ceased, I observed my surroundings to see only three of the crystal termites were still alive. Mother was fighting one with the help of sibling No.5, Father was fighting one that had at some point attempted to dig its way back into the mound, while siblings No.1, 3 and 4 were surrounding the last one. Seeing as Father was fighting on his own, I determined his situation to be my top priority, thus bounded over in great speed!

Reaching Father didn’t take very long, since I am the fastest aardwolf pup in the family. Seeing as he was about to get his leg caught in the crystal termite’s pincer, I adopted my previously successful tactic of jumping on top of it – landing dead centre on its back. This crystal termite was slightly different from the other ones I’d fought, since as soon as I touched down, it’s crystal pincers glowed and the land around us moved to cover its whole body. In the process, the moving dirt caused me to lose my balance, resulting in my fall of grace.

With both Father and I working together, the crystal termite switched tactics and hunkered down before its pincers glowed again. We both realised that glowing pincers were bad, and so began running around the crystal termite in order to not stay in the same place for too long. It appeared that our assumptions were correct, as shortly after I left a spot a thin spike of dense soil poked through the ground. “Hey! That would have skewered me! Stop struggling so much and let us kill you!” I snarled at our prey – completely disregarding the fact that the termite probably just wanted to live.

Eventually, with the combined effort of both Father and I, we successfully took out the crystal termite. Of course, I aided Father tremendously through sacrificing myself to the termite’s special attacks. With the crystal termite dead, Father padded over and licked my dirty face before digging me out of my little tomb the termite had put me in. “Ah, Father truly cares about me!” Once I was free of my earthly bindings, I gratefully wagged my tail while nuzzling Father in thanks.

Seeing as the rest of the family had dealt with their own prey, we gathered close to one another and began dismantling the corpses. I say dismantling, but it was mostly just Mother and Father tearing chunks of flesh off the corpses and then regurgitating it for my siblings and me to eat. As we happily ate our hard-earned meals I relished in the sensory overload that came as a side-effect.

Returning to the den after filling our stomachs, my siblings and I helped lick each other’s superficial wounds. After some first aid treatment from the whole family, we settled in for the dawn and went to sleep. With an idea of how to correctly hunt the crystal termites, my family enjoyed many scrumptious meals. Of course, I was always presented the best of the meat due to being especially loved by Mother and Father and was definitely not because I had swiped it from sibling No.1 when he wasn’t paying attention.