Chrysalis

I can already hear the fighting. The sounds of clashing steel and snapping mandibles tug at my claws and I have to force myself to resist charging blindly into the fray like a shinier, much smarter Leeroy. Keeping myself so still has never been so hard before. Then again, the only member of my family that I know was exposed to danger in my previous life was myself. In Pangera, I have thousands of siblings exposed to terrible danger almost every day. It's enough to drive a person nuts.

The Vestibule makes my situation even worse, but if I focus then I can filter out their whispers.

We have a plan and I'm going to stick to it. When the fighting gets hot here at the gate, I'm going to be right in the thick of it, which is where I want to be. At the front gate, the lead force of a few thousand is busy putting the Legion through their paces using all of the same tricks and tactics that we spent on them the first time around. River of acid, magic barrage, the works. They'll have to fight their way through all of it a second time before they even get through the first gate. By the time they reach me here, I'm hoping that they'll be all tuckered out and want to quit and go home.

More likely they'll be mad as hell and wanting to carve me into itty bitty pieces but at the very least they'll have worked to get here. The ants and humans on this side of the picture need every edge we can get.

"How confident are you, Eldest?" Advant asks.

The powerful soldier stands next to me in the dark, her antennae twitching in a rarely seen sign of nerves.

"We're going to win," I tell her with certainty, "we're ants. What can they possibly do against us?"

"They've managed to bottle us up in our nest and destroy the outer gate."

"Bah. Just a flesh wound."

"You nearly got cut in half."

just a flesh

in half is just a

perfectly fine now aren't

A beat.

get cut in half but we'll

saying

…

"I think so too."

I truly believe that we will win. My family has been incredible from the moment I found them in

BOOM!

tunnel as the gates buckle on their hinges. A moment later, a flood of ants begins to pour through the gap between the two doors, a gap that rapidly widens as more of my siblings push it open as they retreat.

to work their magic. The air is tense now as we watch and wait for the enemy to show their faces. It takes longer than I expect, they must be being cautious in the extreme. Understandable, considering this is their big push. If they fail on this assault, they probably won't be able to muster another before

minutes, I see the gate buckle as armoured figures appear and begin to force them open, teams bracing their shoulders against the metal and pushing with raw physical strength. The gate Titus cut into is in particularly bad shape. That mad man managed to cut through the damn thing from a hundred metres away. I hope

we have come to know them for. Our side watches it all happen, unwilling to be baited into a fight other than the one we've prepared for. These buggers are crafty. They looked all disorganised as they were moving

you holding up

a rare showing of charity toward the crazy, one-armed human I reach out to him with my mind and initiate a conversation. Inwardly, I brace myself for what may come of it. If he doesn't shout at me, I'll take it as a

well, Great One. My brethren and I eagerly await the coming contest. We hope that in a few hours, the Colony will

but the words are

what sort of destiny you have in

curious to learn what he thinks this rapidly swelling pile