Cornered Rat (4/4)

"S###! F###! F###!!!!" the Queen curses profusely. "USELESS! YOU COULDN'T EVEN HOLD THEM OFF FOR A FEW DAYS!?"

More than angry, the Queen is actually scared for her life right now. She's well aware now that the dragons know most of her cave network now, which means they might be able to find the side tunnels she's made on her way to the Threshold. She can't have them find her out so soon!

What's worse is that even if the dragons know about her plan to invade the humans' world, she can't back out anymore.

Her reasoning goes like this:

The Queen knows that as long as she's in the tunnels that the liberated moles were familiar with, that she'll be in the same, unescapable peril her daughter fell to…

…And the only tunnels the moles don't know about are the ones around the human's fortress. That means the ONLY place she can safely traverse without being incinerated or suffocated to death is at the Threshold!

She HAS to attack the place now! There is no retreat!

Before the queen even has time to breathe, she notices from her scout's eyes that there's a horde of angry Moles ripping their way through the tunnels, as well as humanoid dragons and an assortment of other ferocious, carnivorous Rehkin races, like lions, wolves, and bears.

Seeing this… uh… let's say "intimidating" force, the Queen screams into her children's minds, "Those are all 2 and 3 horned dragons! If we can overpower them and feed on the dragons, we'll recover most of our losses from fighting in this war! We might stand a chance!"

She WAS planning on going on the offensive here, but she immediately changes her mind when she sees that the the dragons have found her new tunnels and are setting up barriers blocking their exits.

Fearing that they're going to try suffocating her with her army by burning the air again, she frantically orders her troops to keep digging towards the Threshold, and that they need to dig up little air vents by breaking the surface.

Still, when the dragons breathe their fire through the barriers, the devastating attacks still decimate her forces; she's not bothered as much by this, since it basically costs nothing to revive her ants; everything's good so long as she, herself, remains alive and healthy!

Still, not wanting the Drakin and Rehkin alliance to find her real body in these tunnels, she instructs her newly revived swarm to try caving in tunnels here and there to mislead the enemy about where she is.

It only takes a few moments for this plan to fail spectacularly; since the Mole Clan is here, there's no way it could succeed, really. After all, Moles can sense vibrations underground with such accuracy that with all these ants trampling around, there's no way to hide. Plus the dragons are constantly communing with the Elementals to find where the largest concentration of ants is.

You see, the Dragons' reasoning is that since all the Ants are near the Queen when they revive, then with the hundreds of thousands of ants dying every few minutes, then most of the ants would be near the Queen (them all being newly revived.) If they can ignite the Air elementals on fire and collapse the tunnels around her, then they can suffocate her, just like what they did to the fake Queen.

If the Ant Queen wasn't able to see and hear everything her Ants see and hear, she'd have been confused and helpless about what was going on around her. From her own point of view, all she sees is thousands of ants burning around her in the tunnel behind her, and the earth above threatening to bury her. Normally, she'd have been so disoriented that she'd run around, confused like a headless chicken – all the way 'till the moment she's caught in the trap and dies.

Alas, the Queen has perfect clarity of her surroundings; she can see through her Ants' eyes the entire layout of the tunnel, as well as how the dragons are collapsing key points, while leaving a few others that they're using to burn her people with.

Indeed, she knows exactly what's about to happen to her… and because she knows their plan, she also knows the only path left for her survival.

So, the Queen hisses out her anger and determination to survive as she screams, "Take me to the front of the line NOW!"

"YES QUEEN MOTHER!" her swarm answers her with a single, identical voice.

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The next few minutes are pure hell for the Ant Queen. She has to constantly revive her ants, as her entire army gets decimated every few minutes.

The frustrating thing is that the individual ants only have average strength; the only Ant who can use the collective mana of the entire swarm is the Queen herself… and she can only be in one place at a time.

This is especially bad in these narrow tunnels, as each dragon is so unfairly strong that they rip through her forces like a meatgrinder without any sign of slowing down. (What's even more INFURIATING is that the dragons look like they're having fun! How dare they!?)

And so, the Queen has several thousand Ants ahead of her digging a tunnel in a straight line towards the Threshold. She knows there's open air there, so the dragon's suffocation tactic won't work there.

However, the released Mole Clansmen are getting in her way again. Because the moles dig a lot faster than her people, her ants keep on digging tunnels straight into places the moles have already dug before. What's waiting is one ambush after another.

Fortunately, because the Queen is up front, she alone is more than powerful enough to obliterate anyone who directly attacks her.

Still, since the Queen gets back all the mana she spent reviving an Ant whenever it dies, the only time she ever REALLY loses mana is when she has defend or attack herself. Any mana barriers or energy blasts is mana she's not getting back. This is why she prefers to fight and kill with her ants.

Even still, she knows she'll have to take the loss, since she has to be in the very front so that she can get out of these tunnels as fast as possible.

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At long last, the Queen can sense that she's nearing the Threshold's cavern. Still, she looks behind her and actually sees the dragons within eye sight. She can already see them setting up another barrier.

"NOOOOOooooo" she shrieks in her mind, though what comes out is only an unintelligible hiss.

Out of desperation, the Queen rips some of her Ants out of the way and uses a large blast of mana to blow a hole in front of her.

She would've never taken this gamble if she had another choice, since if the earth is still too thick ahead of her, then she'll just collapse the tunnel around her.

However… she finally has her first stroke of luck in this entire war.

The second after she blasts the wall, the rubble flies away from her, and she feels a warm breeze waft in from the hole.

Screeching in terror, the Queen dives through the hole… and immediately finds that the hole she's dug was about 20 feet off the ground. Yelping in surprise, the Queen tumbles to the ground, just in time to escape another blast of white fire that would've scorched her from the back.

"Finally!" she triumphantly hisses at the sky, "I'm out of the tunnels! I don't have to worry about the breathable air being taken from me anymore!"

The dragons just behind her see the Queen just barely escape, and they leap towards her with their claws extended.

Seeing that all of these dragons have 3 horns, the Queen decides to quickly dispatch them. With a quick blast, all of their heads are blown off, and 5 dragon corpses fall at her feet.

Alas, she doesn't have time to eat them just yet, since the human's fortress is powering up and getting ready to fire on her.

"No matter," she thinks as she sprinkles millions of light particles onto the ground. "I have my children with me again. At last, they can be useful once again."