Chrysalis

“Eldest! What are you doing up here?” Leeroy complained.

“Hah. Thought you had a nice final stand setup here, did you? You thought you’d run far enough from the rest of the Colony that we wouldn’t be able to catch up and keep you alive? You should know better by now, Leeroy.”

“But don’t you need to rush deeper into the nest, Eldest?” she asks, hope still alive in her scent. “We can hold this position… against overwhelming odds, even! Yes! We can stay here, battling to control the mouth of the nest to protect you… until we fall one by one, tragically!”

Wow, she worked that up in her head quickly.

“No chance, Leeroy. I came up here strictly to keep you and all your followers alive. None of you are going to die while I’m here,” I tell her firmly.

“Dammit.”

“This sucks!”

“Ruining everything…”

“I was feeling good about today…”

“Hey! Shut up over there! You think I can’t hear you? Don’t make me walk over there!”

“Would you kill us if you did?”

“What? No!”

“Dammit...”

this battle, you’ve

it's easy to see that the

along with literally tens of thousands of them all around us, climbing up the walls, and there are for

this then

can’t understand their lack of gusto. It’s not a

Let me at ‘em!

right over the top of the armoured soldier in front of me, throwing myself into the waiting jaws of the frothing termite horde like a billionaire

brain power to spare, I pour all of my mental energy into compressing the mana as tight as possible before I release it and it’s pleasing to see

and crushing as I raise my

Eat acid you suckers!

for that, but I won’t get the chance this soon in the fight. I’ll have to get a

up close and personal termite

am here to answer the call! Unrestrained, I unleash all of my pent-up rage upon the enemy, channelling the intent of my entire family into my mandibles as

to smash ten termites at once. In the distance I can see the rest of the Colony pushing forward, grinding down the enemy and rolling

so wide, the wide path and high ceiling only narrow deeper in as the opening

their shot, but with a hundred thousand members of the Colony in the

heal them. In fact, the more I fight, the

sifting through the impressions I get from my siblings through the Vestibule and I can tell that the battle is one sided so far. Against the might of this many

in its strongest form, you wood chomping morons! Did you really think

Muahahahahahaha!