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

got this close, they didn't seem to want to stop. I think

let me see what's happening!

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 she

[Crinis! Are you alright?!]

about me, Master. I'm here to keep

need to end this

crumbles as a huge pair of mandibles break through the

"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 combat. The Golgari are dumbfounded for the smallest of windows before they move

since my pheromone

off, Crinis! I need to fix

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

Dammit.

has been

"West tunnel, clear!"

"East tunnel, clear!"

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

to close the emergency tunnels! Earth mages

the council been

"They're on the way!"

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

she's still clinging to my abdomen, stuck

Crinis, Invidia. We

[Yes, Master!]

[Harrrr.]

[Yesssss.]

around me as I begin to march through the

tell me where my friend Jim went?" I ask the

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

"Thanks."

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.