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.

coming?! They

didn't seem to want to

least let me see what's happening!

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

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

me, Master. I'm here

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

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

"LEEEEEEROOOOOOY!!!!"

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 of the Colony members must have

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

need to fix

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.

Eldest has

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

every hundred metres for

close the emergency tunnels! Earth mages

the council been

"They're on the way!"

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

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

Crinis, Invidia. We need to get

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

in their own way and gather around me as I begin

where my friend Jim went?" I ask

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

"Thanks."

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