Chrysalis

Turns out food gets scarce during a siege. I know for a fact that the Colony created a massive stockpile in preparation for this. Like, a mountain of Biomass, packed up and ready to go. Problem is that almost all of that is going to be delivered to the Queens in order to ensure that the Colony's brood production doesn't flinch from the daily maximum even during a period when we can't easily hunt. I get it. I do. The brood comes before all, obviously. We're ants after all. But dammit, I'm hungry!

I feel a nudge at the edge of my attention and I turn to see Tiny staring at me with wide, pitiful eyes.

I slowly shift my head side to side and two huge tears begin to well up within the ape's eyes.

[I know buddy. It's going to be rough for a little while, but we can survive. We're going to get through this together.]

Tiny reaches out to me with one shaking hand and places it against my carapace as if trying to draw strength through it.

[In times like this, we can only depend on each other. We've been together through the times of plenty, we can fight it out together in the lean times as well. If you don't believe in yourself, Tiny, believe in the me who believes in you. There is power in you yet. Your race is not yet run. Conquer the hunger!]

*Chomp*

What… What was that?

I look up at Tiny once again to find his hand has now grasped my leg which he has raised up to his mouth.

just try

Silence.

as he begins to sweat through his fur, [if you are attempting to eat me right now, I'm going to hand

He does.

can't believe I have to say this, but from this point forward you are ordered

Stupid ape!

how are your

AH!

in the slightest! And

get the message. Imagine the Colony finding out that one of my

doing making your final preparations. The council meets in a few hours and we need you to

is at the gates! How many of these damn meetings are they planning

give me some time to finish

"Of course, Eldest."

to rush through the mutation process. If I get it done quickly enough, I can vanish somewhere before the meeting starts. They're the council, dammit! I don't even technically have a seat, at least, that's my view and I'm sticking to it. Alright now, how much Biomass do I

body part is going to get the upgrade this time? I can probably afford two here. Personally, I think it's time for legs. Legs are needed! My legs are absorbing all the mana I need. Especially down here in the second strata. Only heavy duty spell slinging can drain me. Especially

carapace is hard and tough to deal with, but if you take off an ant’s legs, what the heck are they going to do to you? Even insects on Earth know this much. When ants fight each other, they're always going for the legs, with a few notable exceptions. With my potent reflexes and foresight, I'm almost always able to move my legs out of harm's way, but sometimes it just isn't possible. During the grand melee after Tiny smashed the Legion shield I had absolutely no room to dodge and had to rely on natural toughness. Which is why I'm going straight to Hardened Rapid Absorption Legs +25! Which is going to

my musculature. So far I've poured all of my mutations into increasing the speed at which my muscles can fire, which has given me the superhuman reflexes of a radioactive spider, but I'm not certain that I want to keep pushing down this road exclusively. My reflexes are already super fast, especially when connected to my limited pre-cognition. My nervous system can probably carry the load of increasing my reflexes further, what I need from my muscles is more power! I need some OOMPH! Tiny's mutations focus almost exclusively on