Fire

As I lay staring up at the beautiful morning sun, my mind began to wander and the events of just a few days ago replayed itself in my head. After the green ant, her name was Belle, had knocked the Don senseless the cockroaches swarmed us, and though I possessed enormous strength and despite the size and power of my new weaver ant allies, we were quickly overwhelmed.

On the verge of annihilation just as we thought all hope was lost, in came a certain giant green insect wielding his two huge blades, slicing and dicing more than half of the cockroaches in one dash. We watched in awe as the cockroaches were decimated in a mere few seconds and then just like that Blade was gone again.

I felt a tap on my shoulder awakening me from my daydream, it was Amber.

"Hey Red!" she spoke," Noire is back"

"And what of it?" I asked rolling over lazily.

"He found a fire ant colony"

I jumped to my feet. So that annoying red weaver was right. I walked over to where the others gathered surrounding Noire and Ka-el. Noire looked particularly dark next to Ka-el's red hue.

"Looks like our benevolent king had finally decided to join us," said Ka-el with a spiteful grin on his face.

"Shut up and give me the details pathetic subject" I answered back equally spiteful.

Ka-el glared at me.

"Well as Amber may have told you, Noire found a fire ant's nest while he was out scouting just as I predicted," Ka-el began," Its approximately 20 minutes away from here by foot to the northeast, after a surveying of the land and from what Noire told me; I have plotted our path along a small stream which flows to the northeast, we will follow it until we reach the point indicated on my makeshift map here and then."

"Yea yea we cross it do you have to say everything we might not be as smart as you but you don't have to explain every single minute detail !" I said my anger reaching a boiling point.

It wasn't that Ka-el wasn't useful in fact he was nothing but useful since we left the city however for whatever reason he managed to annoy me enough to make me lose it at least 3 times a day.

"Kid what's wrong with ya," Dean started up," Ya blow up at almost everything"

Muttering I began to walk away.

"Uh Red," Amber spoke sweetly.

"What!?"

"The stream in question is in that direction," she said while pointing in the exact opposite direction to where I was going.

Ashamed I marched slowly behind the group. Honestly, you'd never believe I was the leader.

"Oh hey kid here's your share of the food," said Dean tossing the previously non-existent piece of bread over to me.

I thankfully wolfed it down. Life had been much easier since this bunch had joined. With Noire and Belle doing all the food hunting and Amber helping here and there I was finally beginning to realize how utterly pampered queen ants were, but I was a King.

We travelled quickly along the stream. We were rather open on the silvery rock, by moving quickly we also avoided unwanted predators.

After what was a seemingly uneventful trip we reached the point of crossing. Noire was to take us over one by one. The first being me and the last being Dean.

Just as soon as we hit the air did we hear loud buzzing. Rising from the surface of the water was what seemed to be a regular dragonfly, but our worry soon became fear when the dragonfly began spewing balls of flame in our direction. Noire manoeuvred quickly, with a sharp turn and dive, he avoided the fireball so narrowly I felt the burning heat as it zoomed by. He quickly flew back to the shore dropping me unto the ground. The dragonfly pursued him and began attacking the group. I grappled with the ground but found myself unable to move, watching in a dazed state just as I had when my colony was erased in one ghastly blaze. The dragonfly shot fireballs randomly at the group as they scattered trying to avoid getting hit, while Noire skirted around carefully trying to find an opening so he could stop the rampaging insect.

Then it happened, almost in slow motion, a giant fireball spinning right towards me where I sat frozen. Closing my eyes I awaited my fiery demise. There was a crash and an intense heat bathed me for a moment.

"Red what are you doing get moving" shouted a voice which sounded like Ka-el's.

Opening my eyes I saw the brown weaver, Elbon, standing over me. His tough armour steamed a little.

"Fireproof skin," he said, "Though I didn't think it would ever become useful.

"Move!" Belle shouted as she zoomed up pushing me and Elbon out of the way of yet another fireball.

Shaking myself I snapped back into reality.

How do we fight this thing?

That was when I saw Noire sending Dean hurtling through the air.

'This isn't anytime to be fighting amongst ourselves,' I thought.

Then I saw Dean slam head first into the side of the dragonfly. He was almost instantly smacked into the ground with such force any insect would be severely crippled. Yet Dean got up in the blink of an eye proceeding to dodge several more fireballs. With the opening Dean gave, Noire flew in and grabbed the dragonfly's wings forcing them together. Both he and Dragonfly began to plummet just barely landing on dry land. In a second Belle who was meters away from them sped up to the dragonfly delivering a powerful speed enhanced punch. Then Dean, Noire, and Belle kept it pinned down while Ka-el, who was hiding in the bulrushes up to this point, approached beheading it using a sharp rock.

Amber, Elbon and I approached cautiously while Ka-el sat examining the dragonfly's head.

"Looks like ants aren't the only one that scientist messed with," said Ka-el pulling out a metal orb from the dragonfly's head. Without the orb, the dragonfly's head crumpled becoming a sack of skin.

Using a long blade of Grass Ka-el created what he referred to as a carrier. He put the orb in it and then strapped it to his back carefully.

The rest of the trip was uneventful with Noir flying the group to the other side of the stream. Only he carried Ka-el last and had quite some trouble due to the unbalanced weight.

Once we reached the colony I sent Amber ahead to set up camp along with Belle and Elbon.

We greeted the two colony guards, leaving behind two silent bodies.

In an extreme show of force, we slaughtered nearly the entire colony leaving behind a mere thousand of the alleged 5000 members.

Scared and broken the ants huddled together.

I surveyed the crowd. The cowards were either trembling in plain sight or hiding behind bigger ants. The fairly skilled ones held unwavering gazes shielding the weaker ones behind them and the sinister kept giving me dirty looks eyeing up their enemies no doubt plotting some kind of revenge.

"Listen up you ants," I spoke in a commanding tone letting them know who was in charge, "I'm going to let you live"

"A gasp came from the crowd of ants".

"Oh no don't misunderstand," I smiled, "I can only let saay a hundred of you live? But I cant just choose myself so why don't u guys uhh work it out yourselves, a little battle royale. If you don't get started then we will be forced to start killing you, if you try to run away we will kill you and if try to fight us again well, you know. So then better start figuring who's living or we will!"

For a few seconds, there was silence then a murmur. Then a yell in the middle of the crowd someone had died. First there only a few but then soon all the ants were engaged in a battle to the finish.

As I stood watching the carnage I laughed maniacally. While Dean and the others watched on, their faces void of emotion. Reed had certainly gotten me a good present, a team of ruthless killers to do my bidding. I'll have to thank him when I finally see him again.