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Chapter 679 - The Siege pt 25
🕑 Added 2020-12-28 05:25:31 +0000 UTCBrendant dashed into the depths of the next, the emergency pheromone trails screaming against her antennae with every step. The brood was in danger! The Queens were under assault! Every nerve in her body was on fire with desperate rage. There wasn't a single ant in the Colony who wouldn't put their life down to protect the brood, including the Eldest, and now they flooded from every inch of the nest toward the breach.
She burst into the egg-laying chamber to find a scene of utter chaos. Without any plan or strategy, the ants were racing forward to throw themselves upon the enemy any way they could. Brood Tenders raced up the walls and dropped down on the golgari from above, biting and tearing with their feeble jaws until they were dispatched by the stone people in short order. That didn't stop others from repeating the action and already the piles of dead and dying ants being dragged out by exhausted medics were growing into hills.
A member of the Council and graduate of the Eldest's own training program, Brendant knew she needed to be calm, needed to take control of the situation and establish some order, only then would the chances of a successful defense be maximized. She knew that. But when she saw the Queen, covered in wounds, thrashing and biting in the midst of the battle, she lost it. Her reasoning fled, replaced by her instinct and the next thing she knew she was face to face with the golgari her mandibles cracked as she bit again and again.
What had happened?! Where was the Queen!?
She pulled back a moment and lifted her head, desperately seeking her mother amidst the heaving bodies still locked in battle. There! She was there! Somehow, someone had managed to get her to retreat. In glimpses caught through the legs and segments of ants that crawled over the top of each other to grabble with the invaders, she saw the Queen being tended to by healers as she stood, wounded heavily and dripping ichor on the floor.
"Hey-hey! You awake now Brendy?" A scent managed to cut through the chaos long enough for Brendant to catch the meaning.
Vibrant?
"You gotta do better than that Brendy!" her sister chided, "can't go losing your temper just because Mother had to fight. Not like she didn't want to anyway."
Suddenly she was there at her side, the massive and absurdly quick soldier who talked just as fast as she moved.
"Hi-hi! You look a little beat up, let me getcha!"
Those massive mandibles reached out to grasp hold of her thorax and before she knew what was happening, Brendant was being dragged away from the fighting.
"Hey! Vibrant, let me go! I can still fight."
"Hummmm," Vibrant released a meaningless, musical scent as she continued to haul her wayward sibling out of the fight before dumping her in front of a small team of medics and generals. "Got her out of there finally!" Vibrant cheered, "get her fixed up alright? She couldn't bite a cheese wheel with her mandibles like that! What have you been doing Brendy? Trying to chomp their swords in half?"
Bewildered and confused, the soldier could barely process the rapid fire words coming out of Vibrant as the healers stepped forward, applying magic and regeneration fluid to her many injuries. Her carapace began to tickle as it started to stretch and flex, the damaged sections stitching shut at a visible pace.
"Vibrant?" she finally muttered, "when did you get here?"
"Pretty fast! We got word over at the gate so me and my team raced over here to help out. Everyone was pretty mad so we ran-ran super fast, I don't think I've ever run like that before. Good thing other did such a good job holding the breach, but the time the we got here, they stony people hadn't gotten far at all!"
"What about the brood?" Brendant was desperate, "what about the young?"
This chamber was directly connected to the chambers above where the eggs where kept before hatching, and then above those where the myriad rooms reserved for the larvae. For a brief moment, even the irrepressible Vibrant was at a loss for words and she knew something was wrong.
"Tell me," she said.
Vibrant sighed, a scent rarely detected in her vicinity.
"We weren't fast enough," she said softly, "several groups of golgari were able to invade the upper chambers, they're still fighting up there."
A crushing feeling of despair and rage seized Brendant's heart as she thought of the young lives lost, but after a few seconds, the anger won.
"Come on, let's scour these scum from our home!" she declared.
"No-no you don't!" Vibrant said, tapping the wounded soldier on her still mending carapace. "You're in no shape to still fight. Me though? I'm still good to go!"
With a savage clack of her mandibles, the speedy soldier was gone, back into the thick of the fray and where she went, her loyal troops followed. Filled with righteous anger and the need for speed, though ploughed into the fight, leaping over the backs of their own allies to ensure they crashed into the golgari lines at full speed.
"FOR THE COLONY!" Vibrant roared and her followers echoed her cry as they impacted the front lines like a thunderclap.
The resurgence of Vibrant and her allies gave the Colony the little bit of breathing room they needed. Once Brendant stabilised her condition, she kept a cool head and began to organise the defense, a job that sorely needed doing. Gradually, the Brood Tenders were taken out of the battle, replaced by soldiers. Mage and scout support arrived and began to pepper the enemy from range. The medics were given more space to work and proper paths established from the transport of the wounded.
The battle still raged, but the Colony were starting to hold the line.
Comments
Zeit Haere
Rip the worm.
Titaniumtac
I read pt 25 before 24 on accident, reading the comments like. Well it could have been, but we have no real proof. Then the sad pt 24 read, I want no redemption arc...
Zeit Haere
Part 24 what? When I typed this?
Edgar Delibo Jr.
Jim is now dead to me
focuspokus
I swear to god I’m gonna be pissed if he gets a redemption arc.
ManguKing
=( now we don't have a gauge for hownsteong the queen is. So sad. There better not be any forgiveness for Jim
Variation
ahh these type of stressful cliff hangers have me feeling sick in the pit of my stomach, hope you don't linger on them too long lmao, am just impatient for the fighting to end now.
Grim TheCat
Sadistic
Edgar maya
OMG, you have m biting my nails here! It’s like a cliff hanger in Naruto then 8 weeks of filler episodes
Dan K
How could you Jim?!?! I say they make a giant paved road in the middle of the desert and chain him there and only give him enough water to barely stay alive as he lives out the rest of his existence as a barely alive dehydrated husk of a worm!!!!
Melancholyforus
Yes war is war but trying to exinct a whole species demands a very harsh response because logically if you let this sorta behavior go free and unpunished your telling the world you don’t mind being slaughtered and genocided
TheRaptorOfHermes
Nooo not queen mother and the babies. Jim and the golgari must pay. For the Colony!
Grant
I can't believe Jim would help the golgari kill children, ants mind you, but children regardless. No quarter given would be my reply. After this war is over, I would go to golgari city and destroy every trace of it. Make it so they had never existed. They wanted a war of annihilation, I say grant their wish.
iced_molassas
Would be rather neat if Anthony ended up killing Jim in front of Sarah without her knowing what he did just for Anthony to break it to her in that fashion
GR15AJKE
Yeah, unlike Morellia, who only left the Colony but didn’t actively give any advantage to the Legion, Jim is just... Well anyway, hopefully he will die, but sadly I don’t know if Anthony would do it, not to mention Sarah
cris
Jim cannot be forgiven. The colony would never forgive having the brood killed like this.
Amelgar
Kinda interested what he's planning for this end game. Kill off the Colony so Sarah doesn't have to fight. And then...? Go Native? Hole up with the Golgari again?
Maradrax
And this makes me more interested in Jim's ultimate fate, for I doubt the colony will forgive such an act. Or at least they shouldn't.
Durzo
I thought the worm might be forgiven eventually but this is too much. Banishment is too good for him. Only positive is that the queen got her mandibles on some action.
Tyrunex
Does Anthony know yet? If he knows and can´t get away because of the legion, may Gandalf bless their poor souls,
The-Nowhere-Man
Right... Worm meat is now on the menu, it might be a bit yellow but I'm sure the colony won't mind. Also the Golgari are dicks and someone needs to take a chisel & sledgehammer to their kneecaps
