Chrysalis

The moment this Wallace guy revealed the locations of the gates, the Colony sprang into action. I could hear orders being snapped out as ants began to gather in teams, flooding away towards the fort on the outskirts of the city. Even my heart skipped a beat. This could be a major blunder! We'd anticipated the gates would be here, in the centre, and so they were, but we didn't foresee that there'd be more around the edge of the city! Almost all our forces are concentrated here for the final push! If those gates open and those Legion nutters come pouring out…

"One of us should go," I tell Mother, "those Legion soldiers are no joke, as I recall."

Though I was super weak back then. I have no idea what their relative strength would be now, realistically.

"Which of us should it be?" she asks me. "I'm willing to go where I'm most needed."

I hesitate. I need to stay here to help communicate, but I'm worried that the fort will prove to be the more dangerous of the options.

"Go to the fort," I tell her reluctantly, "as soon as I'm done here, I'll head up there as well, just in case. Make sure you take a few members of the council up there with you. If it turns serious, we'd rather have more firepower than we need than not enough."

The Queen's antennae twitch.

"What about you, child? Will you be alright here?"

I suspect she thinks I'm taking on too much here.

"Not to worry," I assure her, "I alone would be enough."

and rushes to join the flow of ants marching into the distance as I focus back onto the

as possible,] I urge Beyn, [no delays, we get in

smack this thing down fast enough, then maybe I'll be able to make it over to that fort in the event something nasty starts up over there. I think Beyn can sense my impatience as my mental communication becomes more

gate within the next two minutes or we'll

the wall. The people

reception would be anything less than celebratory, but I can understand what the captain is worried about. If a riot breaks out inside, where I imagine people are

can't control themselves then

ultimatum. Rather than sweat, flinch, or any of the other behaviours I would expect, he looks as if he's about to laugh before he turns back toward the walls. We give him a single minute to let the

unbearable. The Colony and I stand around, impatient as the seconds tick

you really think they'll let us

will if they know what's

the wise is slipping into our brains? Something to chew over later. Just to be careful, I task my sub-brains with whipping up another construct and preparing some gravity

together amongst truly elaborate buildings, terrified of the monsters that they find in their midst. The ants outside the wall move closer, increasing the pressure on those manning the parapet, pushing the whole situation closer to the brink of disaster. One idiot doing the wrong thing is all it's going to take for this to turn

stride into the square, the faces of the assembled humans, with a few golgari and possibly others mixed in, are a mixture of hatred, fear and disgust. Thankfully, a great deal of that emotion is deflected toward Beyn and his robed followers. Nice save, crazy people! Taking all the heat for us! I appreciate your sacrifice. Several large buildings loom within the square but the Captain wastes

in, we don't find a horde of enemy soldiers pouring through active gates, but rather three large archways, unpowered and dormant. Enchantments and runes built into the gates appear to be collecting mana and storing it, which leads me to believe that the gates need to be charged before being opened. Handy for us, they appear to have been

a jiffy, the ants move in, study everything they see and break the gates down into segments, shearing the stone with clean bites so it can be reassembled and studied back at the nest. Mission accomplished;

that's when

six or seven years old. Mature enough to know that us monsters had done something bad, but not enough to realise what provoking us might mean. I could see his face amongst the crowd, screwed up in anger and frustration, much like many of those around him. Unlike those adults, this child had the courage, or lack of

it's common sense for someone who'd been human, like me, to

of my family who lack my level