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…."

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 us. The rage is rising to a fever pitch when another

creature wantsssss death. Not for itssssself,

wasn't like us to lose control of our emotions. Actually, it was totally like

this in mind, there's going to be an army of ants marching through here at some point, and

spider matriarch before turning around and leading our strike force away. The ants are reluctant to leave, unwilling to leave the insult unaddressed, but

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

Gweheheheh. With hundreds of cooperative ants working together 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 in this huge expanse that they took a whole week to wipe out! I've been biting

in experience and Biomass has been worth it, not really for me,

back! How'd you go with the big one?! Was it big? Was it tasty?!

comes bouncing along the web

anything on your side?" I ask

points alone though, just like you said. It's so

ground for the Colony. Unless I miss my guess, the fat spider will move out and into a different territory. We've wiped out her army and cornered her once, if we come back with more ants, I don't care what

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

of levels though! My friends have never been

Wait a sec…

say friends?" I ask

tilts her antennae

so? Is that

I mean, do you even