It was almost as if Leeroy had died and entered some sort of paradise. Except, frustratingly, she still clung to her mortal shell, along with the other Immortals. Despite this, she revelled in her current existence. The release she sought, the glorious end she strove to experience, had never felt as close as it did now.
As she strode back and forth before the massed ranks of her followers, her chosen sisters, the massive weight of her armour was a comfort bearing down on her carapace. The Immortals were almost shivering with excitement to the point the joints of their armour rattled. They had fought recently, a glorious battle that had pushed them to their limits. The Colony had pulled them back and forced them to wait until their Phoenix Fire organs had recharged, and now they were ready to be sent out once more.
“Are you ready my sisters?” she demanded of the waiting armoured troops. “Are you prepared for the fire that is to come?”
“YES!” they roared as they slapped their antennae against their armour.
“Will your charge never falter? Will you crush the ranks of the enemy?”
“YES!”
“Will you fight until you collapse? Will you fight until the last breath leaves your body?”
“YES!”
“Then, when you are engulfed in cursed flame, will you rise? Will you do it all over again?”
“YES!”
“WHY?” she roared, her pheromones billowing around her.
“WE SEEK!“
“WHAT YOU SEARCH FOR IS OUT THERE! IN THE MASSED RANKS OF THE TERMITE YOU CAN FIND YOUR REST! GO AND TAKE IT!“
“WE SEEK!“
With that final, suffocating roar the Immortals began to advance. There were almost two hundred of them now, each tier five or six, each armoured with a custom, fully enchanted suit of the finest armour the Colony could provide. Every individual represented multiple tons of pure, righteous ant fury. Their charge began as a walk, the armoured column moving in lock step, the tread of their six legs shaking the ground as they moved as one.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
At the head of the column, the rhythmic drumming of their steps matched the urgent beat of Leeroy’s heart. Every time she had sortied over the last weeks, the battle had been desperate and they had been pushed right to the brink before they were pulled back.
So close.
She’d been so close! The glorious, blazing and climactic end that she had yearned for from the moment she’d hatched had been within her reach numerous times. Even now, the scent of desperate battle hung heavy in the air. The acrid tang of formic acid, the bitter waft of ichor and the meaty iron of fresh Biomass washed against her antennae as the battle drew closer. Her eyes burned with passion. As she’d told the others, it was out there. They just had to find it.
Leeroy picked up the pace, no longer a stately march, she accelerated to a quicker gate, her legs beginning to eat up the ground and the column behind rose to match her pace. No longer did their tread create a steady beat; instead the noise had elevated to a constant rumble, more like an avalanche building in the distance than troops on the march.
Soon, they saw the battle lines up ahead. A horde of ravening termites threatened to overwhelm the ant defenders through sheer weight of numbers. A desperate struggle had broken out as the Colony fought to retreat as termite reinforcements poured from a tunnel in the wall.
Another breach. The ka’armodo were cunning and their mastery of magic beyond what the Colony could manage. Using their unknown methods they’d been able to guide their insect slaves through twisted and convoluted paths in the rock, evading detection and penetrating deep into ant territory. The breaches could happen almost anywhere at any time, tunnels crashing open and vomiting thousands of enemy combatants behind the main lines. For this reason the Immortals had been stationed as the rapid response force.
As always, the sight of the hated enemy ignited a primal rage in her gut and Leeroy embraced it. Their elongated mandibles, their strange, alien bodies, with only two segments rather than three, and their beady, near sightless eyes. They were unnatural and did not belong in this world. She firmly believed that, how else could she explain this instinctual hatred?
With a flick of her antenna the entire Immortal column accelerated to full speed. The avalanche was no longer in the distance, now it was right here and the ground trembled under the force of their charge.
Leeroy activated her skills, accelerating beyond what she was normally capable of as her Dash and Charge skills combined to elevate her speed. The tunnel even sloped downhill, perfect conditions.
With the Immortals rushing forward from behind them, the still battling ants scrambled to disengage and get out of the way, unleashing potent blasts of acid and mana to create whatever distance they could before the steel phalanx that was the Immortals reached them.
These were the moments that Leeroy lived for. Her soul was on fire. The ranks of the enemy grew larger and larger in her vision as she lowered her head and prepared to meet them, the ground blurred beneath her.
The moment of impact was like the detonation of an explosion.
An inrush of air.
The deadly silence.
And then the deafening crash. The shockwave swept through her body as her armour crumpled, the termite before her vanishing as the sheer force of her mass sent it flying back into the massed ranks of its allies. What did she care for ranks? What did she care for the new tactics of the enemy? The Immortals did not acknowledge such things.
Their charge continued as their legs pounded the ground, urging every bit of speed possible. They smashed through line after line of the enemy, squashing them beneath their claws, breaking their carapaces upon their armour.
Finally it came to a halt as their momentum slowed, the charge ground to a halt, and still there were termites in front of her.
Leeroy clacked her mandibles with joy.
“There’s still plenty left!” she cried. “Rejoice, my sisters!”
And there were, the termites continued to flood from the tunnel before them, the lines reforming as they closed around the Immortal column.
And the ants rejoiced.
