Chrysalis

Electrical energy crackled over head as the ants continued to battle mindlessly on the wall. With a crack like the sound of a whip, the first strike fell directly on the Queen. Conserving her energy, the Queen was holding her section of the wall with ease when she was struck. The bolt landed on her abdomen and electricity pierced her carapace and roiled through her insides.

The smell of burnt flesh rose as the Queen's enormous frame began to smoke. The ants close by were driven to the edge of madness by the attack on their mother, but were helpless to retaliate against the clouds overhead! The Queen herself remained calm. Her antennae glowed softly with light as she channelled healing magic from her Healing Mana gland to repair her wounds.

She hadn't suffered much damage from the strike, not even close to critical damage. During her evolution she'd toughened herself a considerable amount, a decision that paid dividends now. The healing mana washed through her body, restoring damaged muscle and repairing her organs in moments.

But the lightning continued to fall.

*Boom!* *Boom! *Boom!*

The skies overhead crackled with an immense amount of energy and each bolt struck unerringly down on the giant figure that towered over the rest. It was clear the Kaarmodo had identified the Queen as a threat and was trying to weaken her, if not destroy her!

The Queen endured. Bolt after bolt fell from the sky, driving the ants into a frenzy. Their mother was under assault! How could they stand it?! The Queen focused on healing herself and ensuring that none of her children were caught in the discharge. Even whilst enduring the pain and concentrating on her healing mana, she was still able to keep her section of wall clear with repeated snaps of her giant mandibles.

"Mother!" screamed Victor, who had rushed to the front when she noticed the gathering clouds. "Mother! You must retreat!"

The Queen shook her antennae in denial.

"I can still fight," she insisted as she crunched more monsters with her jaws. "My children are fighting, and so shall I!"

"You're starting to smoke! You can't tell me you aren't taking damage!" Victor cried, trying to make her scent detected over the roiling pheromones being released all around.

me than the children,"

mother. Fighting was not the solution here. The Queen

the Eldest, trusted them. How much longer

you stay here taking this damage, they might just charge over the

*BOOM!*

Queen. The mother of the colony threw her head back, frozen in pain

screamed Victor, overcome with

her from this path. In fact, she was glad. Every bolt of lightning that fell on her was mana and effort that was expended on her and not on her children. She would be the

feet under her and lifted her head to snap out once more with her deadly mandibles. She tried to push the voices away and focus. She had much work

directly in front of the Queen, her back to the

and back to safety with one leg before

was covered

to curse, perhaps the Queen would have indulged herself

the second wall toward the nest. As she retreated, the storm

of the Queen fading from the frontline, the battle returned to a more controlled type of frenzy. Generals were able to organise and arrange their soldiers, scouts shook off their rage and returned to their work as runners. Over the next few minutes, the colony was

but it appeared as if her children would not allow it. When she was threatened by the lightning,

that filled her heart, but broke it at the same time. She did not want her children to die for her, she wanted to fight and

Queen looked back to the second wall, several hundred metres away,

more down into the darkness. She would recharge her core, heal

for long, but for the time being the battle was back in control. The Queen and the Eldest were the trump cards of the colony, they couldn't not be played too early. If the Queen had

have been