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

seem to want to

least let me see what's

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 Shapers are firing a literal barrage of strikes her way, the

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

worry about me, Master. I'm here to

We need to end this

wall to my right crumbles as a huge pair of mandibles break

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

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?!

doing?!" I scream, but since my pheromone gland is covered, they don't smell a

need to fix this! NOW!] I bark at

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

Dammit.

has been

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

those claws! Scouts every hundred

to close the emergency tunnels! Earth mages at

council

"They're on the way!"

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

yelled at her, but she's still clinging to my abdomen, stuck to me like putty from

Invidia. We

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

in their own way and gather around

where my friend Jim went?" I ask the

hundred metres down the tunnel. Take a left at the

"Thanks."

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