Chrysalis

"Move quickly! Push! Don't leave a single termite alive!" Advant blasted her surroundings with pheromones, not that the ants needed much motivating.

They'd been bottled up by the enemy for too long, unable to be aggressive as the termites frustrated them with seemingly endless hit and run attacks against their walls. Now, thanks to the Eldest, they were able to charge forward to their hearts' content. In fact, the largest problem the leadership was having during the offensive was holding their forces back.

Ahead of her, a clash was taking place as tens of thousands of ants rushed into battle. It was difficult to see what was happening as the soldiers of the Colony piled on top of each other at the front, creating a wall of carapace and eager mandibles that swarmed over the termite defenders, ripping and tearing. She might have felt sorry for a different enemy. This position had already been bombarded with acid and magic, softening the resistance for the final charge of soldiers, scouts and generals, but termites deserved no less than this.

To think they would attempt to slay the Eldest. The presumption of it was more than insulting!

Every ant felt fire burning in their core, flooding their limbs with strength. They knew that the Eldest, the most powerful and revered member of their family, was fighting against impossible odds in order to create this opportunity. They wouldn't let it go to waste! The harder they fought, and the faster they advanced, the sooner they could come to the rescue of the mighty ant.

"Mages forward!" she ordered and she could scent the order being relayed down the line.

She watched the fight with a critical eye, relaying orders to the generals and taking reports as they came back from the thick of the fighting.

"WHOO! This is a blast and a half, isn't it?" Propellant roared as she rushed forward ahead of her mage battalion. "Did you see us light them up? Haven't seen that much flame since we left the third! What now? What do we burn?"

The eagerness of the council member's voice was more than a little distasteful to Advant, as was the wild and manic look in her compound eyes.

"Calm yourself," she snapped, "I need you on sensing and recon, not burning. Get to it as fast as you can."

The fire mage lost some of her energy.

"Not burning?" Her disappointment was total. She flicked her antennae miserably before she sighed. "Alright, fine. We get this done then we can move on and burn more stuff."

"What are we burning, senior?" the mage battalion demanded as they arrived.

"Nothing," Propellant scowled. "Recon and sensing! Get to it, quickly!"

The mages grumbled but followed orders with alacrity, jumping to their task. Taking a lot of ground from a crafty enemy carried a great deal of risk, something which the Colony was deeply aware of. False tunnels, traps, fake trails, large pockets of enemies hidden in temporary caverns, ready to emerge behind Colony lines. The ka'armodo could have left any number of traps behind in their retreat and it was the job of the scouts and mages to work together to minimise the risks. That meant using their advanced mana senses to cover as much ground as they could, trying to find anything out of the ordinary.

With the mages dealt with, Advant turned back to the battle with a critical eye, but soon found Propellant on her left watching alongside.

"Surely they can finish them off faster than this?" the mage asked. "After the hell we rained down on them?"

Advant shifted irritably.

"Going face to face with the soul devouring termites is no simple thing," she informed her mage counterpart, "something that you wouldn't know much about, Propellant. Show a little respect to your siblings on the front lines."

"Oh, I wouldn't dare dismiss the efforts of the soldiers," Propellant waved an antenna, despite knowing full well that she frequently did just that. "I'm simply concerned that we won't reach the Eldest in time."

"We are all worried about the Eldest," Advant snapped before she calmed herself.

At that moment, the fighting appeared to die down and word soon came back that the enemy had been defeated and subsequently consumed. Teams of healers rushed forward to administer to the wounded as the ants sorted themselves into their separate battalions. All along the field of battle, the soldiers, generals and scouts rested while they cleaned their antennae, dragging them through the fine hairs in their elbows.

"The battle's over," she observed, "that means we can march to the next site as soon as your team is done."

"They work quickly," the mage assured her sibling, "they are positively burning with fighting spirit right now. It won't be long."

"Their spirit just wants to burn things, more like," Advant muttered.

The battalion of dedicated fire mages had certainly proven their worth over the course of their rolling advance, it was just their eagerness that bordered on mania the soldier didn't appreciate. Soon enough it was time to continue and Advant huddled with the generals and scouts, with Propellant peeking over her shoulder as they consulted on their exact path. With their destination identified, the column began to march forward.

It took mere moments for the ants to form their ranks, flowing into position with uncanny precision before they began to move at a steady pace. Advant watched her sisters march with pride, knowing how difficult it was for them to achieve. Each caste had to walk at their own cadence to achieve this even speed, given that their sizes varied so wildly. The smaller healers needed three or four steps for a soldier's one, and tier six soldiers had a longer stride than a tier five. Despite all these complications, they moved like a single unit.

Tens of thousands of them continued onward through the tunnels until they reached the next checkpoint, a small opening close to the service. The stink of termites covered their antennae and the moment the column stopped every single ant began to furiously clean them to wipe away the stink.

"Is this it?" Propellant leapt forward, her eyes shining with glee. "Are we ready to go?"

"Yes," Advant rolled her antennae. "When you're ready you can begin the bomba-"

"COME ON TEAM! LET'S GO!" the mage roared.

Quivering with excitement, the full complement of pyromaniacs raced forward, whooping with joy in an un-antlike display of emotion. Even so, the line was formed in a timely manner and shortly thereafter the temperature began to rise precipitously.

"LET IT BURN!" Propellant cackled.

Condensed balls of potent fire mana rocketed through the air before detonating with calamitous force against the target. When an angry force of chittering termites erupted from the walls to defend their position, the mages' joy was only intensified. Advant watched as the steady flare of explosions continued. Every now and again a truly large one would go off, the blast of hot air rushing down the tunnel and blowing her antennae back against her head.

When the target had been reduced to smouldering ruins, she ordered the mages back and they complied with visible reluctance. Then the soldiers were sent forward. Ordered ranks, thousands strong, stomped forward, Advant among them.

Eldest, we're coming.