Chrysalis

[DAMMIT CRINIS! I can't see!]

[It's fine!]

[How is it fine?!]

[IT JUST IS!]

[No! How the heck can I fight if I can't see the enemy?! What is even happening?!]

[I'll fight for you! You don't need to do anything!]

[Are you kidding me?! There's no way you can take them all on by yourself!]

[Watch me!]

[I CAN'T!]

I'm currently entombed in a shell of Crinis after all. Not only is she covering my eyes, she's covering all of me! How is she even doing this? She sent her entire body through my shadow in a flash! So much faster than she was able to use the Shadows before. This can only mean one thing…

[You've evolved!]

[Of course, Master! Did you think I would rest before coming back to your side?]

[Well… no. I didn't.]

My Vestibule tingles with energy, causing panic to spark inside me.

[Wait, Crinis! What's the Colony doing?!]

[Oh, they're coming! They'll be here any minute.]

Through the liquid shadow flesh of Crinis' body I can sense the ongoing battle. Thuds and impacts ripple through her form as she takes damage that had been directed at me.

they coming?! They need to

to want to stop. I think

Crinis! At least let me see what's happening!

through a few changes whilst I was gone. A writhing mass of flesh and tentacles rises from my back like a pillar, three separate mouths

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

Master. I'm here to keep you

need to get off me, Crinis. We need to end this fight

to my right crumbles as a huge

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

scent reaches my antennae despite being almost totally covered by Crinis, the war cry of the dumbest ant in the history of the species floods the tunnel as a HUGE soldier bursts through the wall and dives headfirst into combat. The Golgari are dumbfounded for the smallest of windows before they move to respond. That's Leeroy?! She's big! Some

I scream, but since my pheromone gland is covered, they don't smell a thing I'm

Crinis! I need to fix this! NOW!] I bark at

her entrance, a dozen similar holes open up from all angles of the tunnel and hundreds of ants swarm out of them. The Golgari are overwhelmed in seconds, buried under an avalanche

Dammit.

has

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

stop those claws! Scouts every hundred

emergency tunnels! Earth mages at the

council been

"They're on the way!"

from Crinis' death grip, I feel the welcome buzz of my family wrap around me once more. The Vestibule is completely alive now, whispering to me the needs and desires of every ant within range. It's overwhelming at first, but when I hear the council members are coming

a little after I yelled at her, but she's still clinging to my abdomen,

We need

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

and gather around me as I begin to march through

Jim went?" I ask the ants

hundred metres down the tunnel. Take a left at the branch,"

"Thanks."

and sleek carapace design, it would be weird if they were a soldier. As time passes and I move further away from the site of the battle, the number of ants congregating actually increases. More and more of them are flooding out of the nearby tunnels and climbing