Chrysalis

“We’re under attack!” Victor roared!

The generals looked confused. They were fighting a wave… of course they were under attack!

“Not like that!” she groused. “There’s trouble inside the fortress!”

Messengers had gone missing. Reports weren’t coming back. Entire hospitals had gone dark. Several shifts hadn’t reported to the front over the last hour. It all pointed to one thing.

“There’s an enemy inside the nest,” Victor declared, a grim light gleaming in her eyes. “We need to rally the troops and find out what’s going on. If we can reach the Eldest and bring them into the battle, then there’s no opponent we can’t beat.”

The hundreds of ants clustered around her in the command post appeared shaken, but determined. How the fortress could have been infiltrated without the Colony knowing, it was almost unthinkable. Through the layers of fortified walls, the enchantments, the endless patrols, the hundreds and thousands of ants, the mages on constant alert!

But that didn’t matter now. No matter how’d they’d gotten in, if Victor said they were under attack, then they were.

“Quickly, to me!” she ordered.

The ants rallied bravely and rushed from the chamber, forming into ranks as naturally as breathing.

“Send runners to the walls, let them know what’s happening. They need to hold at all costs!”

Several scouts dashed away.

In the corridors, they found Advant, leading a charge of her own.

“Sister, what’s going on?” demanded the big soldier. “There’s something very wrong inside the nest!”

together. “Come with me,

from the

guardians have reported to the walls!” they reported. “The three of them are spread

news,” Victor said, relieved. “Tell the troops to fall back and join us here. If the guardians can give us some breathing room, we can right the situation inside

“I’ll take these ants and go ahead, you gather

“Sounds good.”

the ranks organised

Soon, the troops from the walls began to trickle in. A few hundred at first, but then in their thousands. Weary, injured, and still recovering from their heroics on the walls, they were

them organised and moving was no small task, but it was exactly this kind of situation that

chamber and establish an emergency hospital there. I want an assessment checkpoint set up for every ant to move through as they come from

shockingly short amount of time, she had divided the fighting fit ants into four columns

going back to before their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to construct their nests with a main, vertical shaft connecting all

had decided that having a single shaft that gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and had instead broken it into segments. Although each segment was

taking control of as much of the central shaft as possible was the first priority on Victor’s plan of

Forward, into the breach!” she called, leading her troops from the front and straight down

by Advant and her troops were thick in the air, they’d already been here and gone ahead. She had to catch

the vertical tunnel. Normally, the veritable heart of the fortress, filled with ants rushing up and down, now it

to the nest, whoever had

down the wide tunnel that led to the next segment of the shaft. When they reached it, Victor knew immediately that something was very wrong. Instead of the huge, arterial path that connected the depths of the nest to

Inside was simply… darkness.

shifted, occasionally sending wisps or tendrils into the air that curled in on themselves before they dissipated like smoke, or fell back down to merge

of the second

was hesitant. The Eldest was further down, and if she could connect with the troops fighting in the depths, they’d have the numbers necessary to storm the rest of