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

they got this close, they didn't seem to want to

me see what's

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 gaping and gnashing at the air as she sends her limbs twisting through the air toward the Golgari. For their part, the Warriors

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

about me, Master. I'm

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

crumbles as a huge pair of

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

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 of the Colony members must have hit tier four whilst I was

are you doing?!" I scream, but since my pheromone gland is

fix this! NOW!] I bark at

too late the moment I was captured. Once Leeroy has made 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 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,

Dammit.

has been

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

stop those claws! Scouts every hundred metres for a

tunnels!

the council

"They're on the way!"

the tidal wave of pheromone conversations wash over my antennae, finally freed 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 this way, I

her, but she's still clinging to my abdomen, stuck to me like

We need to get

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

around me as I begin to march

Jim went?" I ask the

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

"Thanks."

further away from the site of the battle, the number of ants congregating actually increases. More and