Chrysalis

[Damn spider! Get down here and face me!]

The house-sized arachnid, safe in her hole in the wall ringed with poisonous strands of webbing as thick as a car waggled her fangs at me in derision and pointed one leg at the hundreds of ants standing next to me.

[Oh? You'll come out if they go away? Somehow I doubt that you eight-legged coward!]

The spider clacked her fangs and by waving her front four legs managed to convey the message that I was an invading, leg-deficient fool who couldn't be trusted and I may as well scuttle away with my stupid pets and fellow ants because she wasn't coming out to fight. I think she also insulted my mother.

[COME DOWN HERE AND SAY THAT, BUG!]

I was so mad I was hopping on the coating of stone and dirt we'd covered the webbing in, causing trickles of the material to fall into the cavernous space below.

"Eldest, why are you so upset?" Emilia asks.

"She insulted our mother!" I roar back.

The smaller generals aura turns dangerous as she stares up at the giant spider.

"Oh did she…."

ants within smellshot pass the message along and within moments all of the ants are flinging scented insults up at the spider who gleefully waggles her legs back at

Not for itssssself, but for

brought myself back under control and told the ants to stand down. It wasn't like us to lose control of our emotions. Actually, it was totally like me. It wasn't like my siblings to lose control of their emotions. This dastardly spider might be more clever than I've been

stay up there you bloated sack of schemes. Just keep this in mind, there's going to be an army of ants marching through here at some point, and if you're still around, I'll

The ants are reluctant to leave, unwilling to leave the insult unaddressed, but when I firmly turn and walk away, they follow along as I head back to base camp,

to traverse the vast web back down to the ground. It's taken a full week of campaigning to get to this point, but the expanse has been basically conquered. Obviously, we did discover the presence of a powerful spider who was laying eggs in here, but it took a long time before we were able to pin down the location of her lair. It was also quite a project to neutralise the blasted webs. Once we worked out that we could treat the webs much the same as I treated that damn slug's goo all that time ago, it was a lot of work to haul the

with our advanced tactics, the hidden super squad and my pets and I, they never had a chance. Even so, there were so many of the darn things

it, not really for me, but for

the big one?! Was it big? Was it tasty?! I

comes bouncing along the web from a separate corner of the

your side?" I ask

out! We left the spawn points alone though, just like you said. It's so empty here now, it's almost

out her army and cornered her once, if we come back with more ants, I

then. Gather everyone up and we'll head out into the tunnels. We've got a lot of ground to cover and

though! My friends have

Wait a sec…

say friends?"

her antennae in

so?

I think? I mean, do you even