Chrysalis

“Hah! I like the way you think. What do you reckon, Sloan? Fancy adding a floating fortress to our arsenal?”

The general looks a little sour, but can’t quite manage to conceal the excitement quivering through her antennae.

“It would allow us to do a lot. A mobile defensive platform. We could use it to fend off other islands that attack the mountain, or launch attacks against our enemies. I can’t deny it would be extremely useful to have, Eldest.”

“It sure would. Shame we can’t get one for the moment.”

Both Solant and Sloan droop at my words, their antennae slumping to the ground.

“Be a little realistic, you two,” I scold them. “That dragon has a stronger core than I do, and in case you don’t remember, it flies. I can get up there, but I’m not exactly graceful. There’s no guarantee that I’d be able to win and seize the island for us. Besides all of that, don’t we have enough on our plates right now without having to take and operate our own flying castle?”

“The carvers would kill us if we asked them to fortify an entire island right now,” Sloan sighs. “They still haven’t completed work on this mountain to anything like their own satisfaction. There’s whole sections which haven’t been touched since the termite occupation.”

“Right. It’s a great idea, Solant, but we need to put things in order. Finish work on the mountain, fend off the wave, then we can look toward getting into the skies.”

The little general nods as if agreeing with me, but I can tell her little brain is still ticking over. Good. She’s meant to be an independent thinker. Doing whatever the ‘Eldest’ tells them is a weakness the rest of the Colony has fallen into a little too readily for my taste.

we may as well repeat our previous exercise a couple times. We’ll rotate around the mountain, doing a different segment with each run. Just like before, I’ll flatten stuff, we

absent-mindedly, and I’m tempted to administer a thwack, but I hold myself back. Nurture

break in between

that as thoughts spark in her mind. She seems particularly interested in the monsters, taking time to study each one, poking and prodding at them as

Know thy enemy, eh?

of the mountain.

“... You’re very strong.”

already knew that, right? Nono, surely you have a

to think on them a little more, and discuss

idea, but we don’t have

Aren’t

did you think this was the only place where fighting

fighting off, the rest are swarming below ground, filling up the tunnels and caverns carved by the termites and

down there somewhere. Eventually, we’re going to see an assault by the toxic murder creatures from

the real battle is! As it should be! Tunnel fighting is what we ants were

From here, Victor has been overseeing an omni-directional war, managing

scouts rush between my legs. “What can

I turn to see a flood of reinforcements rushing down a