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.

are they coming?! They

didn't seem to want to stop. I

let me see what's happening! That's

whilst I was gone. A writhing mass of flesh and tentacles rises from my back like a pillar, three separate mouths gaping and gnashing at the air as she sends her limbs twisting through the air toward the Golgari. For their part, the Warriors and

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

me, Master. I'm here to keep you

off me, Crinis. We need to end this fight before the

right crumbles as a huge pair of mandibles

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

loud enough that the 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

scream, but since my pheromone gland

to fix this! NOW!] I bark at

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 of insects. Only a few have the intelligence to flee the second an ant is seen, the rest fall victim to the relentless crush of the Colony. Before I can count to ten, the tunnel is awash with ants crawling over every

Dammit.

has been

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

those claws! Scouts every hundred metres for a

emergency tunnels! Earth mages at

the council been

"They're on the way!"

of my family wrap around me once more. The Vestibule

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

We need to get

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

around me as I begin to march through the

where my friend Jim went?" I ask

should find him a few hundred metres down the tunnel. Take a left

"Thanks."

least I think that was a scout. Judging by the long antennae 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 out of small emergency tunnels that they've dug every second until I feel as if I'm inside the nest, rather than some tunnel goodness knows how far