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 need

seem to want to stop. I think they're

At least let me see what's

parts and lets the light in once more, blinding me momentarily after the pitch black Crinis had inflicted on me. She appears to have gone 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

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

about me, Master.

need to end

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

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

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 combat. The Golgari are dumbfounded for the smallest of windows before they move to respond. That's Leeroy?! She's

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

to fix

overwhelmed in seconds, buried under an avalanche of insects. Only a few

Dammit.

Eldest has been

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

stop those claws! Scouts every hundred metres for a kilometre in all

tunnels! Earth mages at the

council

"They're on the way!"

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

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

We need to get

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

each respond in their own way and gather around me as

where my friend Jim went?" I ask the

few hundred metres down

"Thanks."

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