Chapter 8

Shiron

“Yes….YES!” I shouted as I felt the power of a Lord was coursing through my body.

As I had hoped, even the nibbles that we had snatched were packed with power. Al the way from my newly regenerated legs, to my cranium, I could feel myself growing stronger!

And I wasn’t the only one…

“Oy…bruv, is that you?” Kuron asked

His limbs had regenerated as well, but that wasn’t what was important right now. What was important was the fact that my dear brother was looking at me- Looking at me! With his beautiful eyes. They were still white, but the milky blotched parts were gone, replaced by a human iris and pupil.

“Yes, dear brother, it’s me! It’s Shiron!”

“So this is the world, eh? I always thought it’d be a bit more, you know, exciting. Compared to you it’s all a bit boring, ey bruv?”

“? What do you mean Kuron, I’m just as pale as everything else around here.”

“I don’t know what ‘pale’ looks like yet but you definitely stand out way more than anyfing else I can see.”

I wasn’t sure what Kuron meant, so I looked at one of my legs and… it was astounding! My body had completely changed. It now reflected the light off what must be a hard carapace but unlike Kuron, whose body shines like metal, mine was different. The light reflected off of my in speckled streams, washing my surroundings with a spectrum of colors, like a gemstone.

“Ha..haha! This is fantastic! It must mean that my armor had become like yours, dear brother! Your armor, harder than any metal, and mine harder than any jewel. We truly are an unstoppable combo! Kuron, imagine what will happen when we eat the rest of that Lord!”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be so bold as to declare our victory this early- after all, that Lord was still alive and had already proven himself capable of holding his own against an opponent on Kurons level. But what was the harm? He was down two limbs and I had already memorized his style of fighting. Both Kuron and myself were way stronger than we were at the start of the fight as well. With Kurons eyesight I wouldn’t need to direct him as much and with my new armor I could join the fight in earnest.

We had this in the bag, practically speaking.

“Come Kuron, let us engage in our counter attack! If you wish I can continue directing you as I always have, but I presume that you would like to give those eyes of yours a good testing out, eh?” I asked, still gazing at my own glorious visage.

“…”

“? I wasn’t being rhetorical, dear brother. Which would you prefer?”

“…”

How odd, for some reason Kuron wasn’t answering. Reluctantly, I tore myself away from my new armor and back to my brother. Kuron was simply standing there.

Then I realized, the Lord was nowhere to be found.

Momentarily alarmed, I quickly scanned the sky. But he wasn’t performing a jumping attack either…so where was he then?

“Kuron quickly, help me find the Lord, we need to finish him off!”

This was bad, this was very bad. I became too careless after evolving and now the Lord could be anywhere or worse he could have run away. All the Lord needed to do was consume some weak prey and he would come back fully healed and likely stronger! We needed to-

“…-ther…r..n” Kuron said out of nowhere

“Kuron, finally! Lister we have to-”

“Shiron…run…Shiron…run…Shron..ruun…sh..un…” Kuron repeated, his consciousness growing dimmer and dimmer as he went on.

“Kuron? Kuron! What’s happening to you!?” I screamed, but it was too late. His consciousness had already faded away.

My brother was dead.

I couldn’t understand what was going on, why had Kuron suddenly died? Had evolution done this to him? The Lord was nowhere to be found and Kuron was dead.

Then, as I gazed helplessly at my brother's body which was still standing still as stone I saw something under him. It was just hidden from my sight, crouching in front of Kurons head. He’d had his back to me this whole time, so whatever it was had been obscured by his massive body.

Tentatively, I walked around Kurons body, afraid of what I would see when I got to his head.

I was right to be afraid.

There he was. The Lord, not hiding or running as I had anticipated, but attacking. In his remaining two hands he grasped my brother's head and from his mouth he was spewing copious amounts of some liquid into it.

Kurons skull had become some vaguely organic mass. Except for the eyeballs, which had been ripped out, one by one and were laying on the ground. This cruel Lord had made my brother spend his final moments trapped in darkness. This monster killed my brother, the only light I had in this dark world.

“I. Will. Kill. You!” I screamed, rearing up on my back legs and preparing to smash this evil Lord.

****

Forminus

I was fading fast. Because of my anatomy I hadn’t lost much blood, but intense pain was dulling my senses and I felt like I could fall unconscious at any moment.

“Ember…I need help, is there anything I can do?”

“Your body is damaged, but if you eat something it should repair itself.”

“Eat what? There’s nothing here.”

“…I could always come to you and-”

“NO, no way we’re doing that! I won’t eat you Ember.”

The idea of it disgusted me. Not just because it was gross, but because Ember was my friend. She was the only anchor I had right now and it wasn’t worth sacrificing her life so I could keep mine.

“But if you don’t you’ll die!”

“Guess I’ll die then.”

“Master…! No, you can’t! W-What about the Cleaners’ legs? They should still be laying around somewhere!”

Ah right, I had forgotten about those. I scanned the area and eventually found my quarry. Fortunately, the legs were still in the vicinity. Unfortunately, they were all located behind the white and black spiders.

As if to punctuate this bad luck, the Black One seemed to have remembered that he was in the middle of a fight because he turned around and trained his eight, now very different looking, eyes on me.

“God dammit…” I thought, as the Black One walked over to me. Its pace was brisk, but it was clearly still wary of me. And it’s eyes…

They were very familiar eyes, unlike those of the other Tarantulas I had seen. They weren’t a solid black with a slightly darker shade in the middle where the pupil would be. Rather, they were quite white, with a soft brown iris surrounding the pupil. Looking at them filled me with rage, but why would such kind looking eyes anger me so?

Then I realized…

They were my eyes. My eyes that this spider had stolen. My eyes that these creatures had taken away and replaced with these monstrous bug-eyes! It was…It was…!

“Unforgivable” I whispered, projecting my thoughts at the Black One.

Though my tone was soft, I blasted right through his mental defenses and made him hear me. My anger, my sadness, and all of my hate bore down on him, washing over his mind and scattering his thoughts.

The spider clutched his head and kneeled down as he tried to shield himself from the force of my mental attack. His eyes- my eyes, closed from the pain.

“Unforgivable…those, those are mine!”

The intensity of my thoughts caused his knees to buckle and his considerable weight collapsed to the ground. Surprisingly the White One still hadn’t noticed what was going on, as he was gleefully examining himself all over.

“The strength of your attack has broken his concentration, he can’t call for help from the other Cleaner.”

My ears were ringing, and I barely registered what Ember had said. Right now all I could feel was the blind rage boiling in my stomach. I made up the distance between the Black One and I, and then I reached out my arms.

“You took those from me. Give. Them. Back.”

I could feel the spiders pain and sadness as our minds were connected. He had been blind his whole life, and now he was being plunged back into the darkness.

I didn’t care. I had already lost my humanity, my family and the woman I loved. I mercilessly ripped my eyes out, taking care not to damage the precious orbs.

But it wasn’t enough. I still felt the rage boiling and churning inside of me. It was painful, so painful that my gorge rose and threatened to spill the contents of my stomach all over the spider.

He was still on the ground, all but immobilized by the sea of my emotions that had washed over him. I grabbed his head with my functioning hand and pulled him up to face me. When I had him standing I clutched his head and finally released the anger that I had allowed to fester inside of me.

I opened my maw, and out of it came acid. Formic Acid, the ants secret weapon. It sprayed out like a hose all over the black spiders head, melting it rapidly.

“Ember…”

“…I um…..I kinda forgot about that…plus there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to use it anyway…”

“…”

“Sorry Master…”

Regardless, the Black One was done for. My acid had taken it well beyond the point of no return and all it could do now was sit there and die a painful death. After eating my arms and stealing my eyes, it was well deserved.

There is no mercy among bugs.

I felt my connection to it’s consciousness start to fade away, so I retracted my mind from his. When the exoskeleton of his head had melted down to the point where his gray matter was visible he finally shuddered and drew his last breath.

But I didn’t stop. There was still too hatred much inside that needed to be let out, so I spewed more and more acid at the monster for hurting and stealing from me.

After a while I could hear the sound of the White One moving around. He must have noticed the Black Ones lack of responsiveness. He moved around the Black One, keeping an ever vigilant eye and no doubt looking for me.

I didn’t stop, I wanted him to see me. To know what I had done. What I would do to him.

“I. Will. Kill. YOUUUUUU!” a voice screamed inside of my head when he found me. It was remarkably posh sounding, despite being a spider.

It’s threat had little impact on me, killing each other was the plan after all. So instead of replying I assaulted it with the same rage I had used to immobilize the Black One, but somehow he managed to resist it.

From him I could feel hatred and anguish as strong as my own, as well as something even stronger. It was love. The love he had for his brother was protecting him from my hate. I couldn’t dominate him, even in death the Black one was shielding him.

“Tch, struggle all you like, I’ll just have to kill you slowly!” I shouted.

My anger was still growing, and I could feel my reason slipping away.

What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I calm down? I had killed the Black One, so my anger ought to have gone away.

Unless there was something else enraging me. And it had nothing to do with these spiders.

“I’ll eat you! I’ll eat you for Kuron! I’ll eat you, and then I’ll eat him! We’ll be together forever you bastard, so just sit there and DIEEE!!!”

The spider also seemed to be beyond reason. He lunged at me, making no attempts to obfuscate his movements. I backed off and slashed with my remaining secondary arm. I was able to dodge the attack, but the spider took a gash in one of his front legs.

This would be a battle of attrition. Neither of us were bothering with tactics, and both of us were attacking with our full, rage fueled, power.

Though injured, the spider didn’t slow down. He leaped into the air, attempting to crush me. Rather than dodge, I jumped to meet him, pointing my secondary arm straight at his abdomen like a spear. If I could stab his heart it would end here.

The white spider wasn’t going to make it that easy though. As he came back down he pointed all eight of his legs at me. He was attempting to stomp me under his full weight and block my spear attack at the same time.

I retracted my secondary arm and, when the spider was almost upon me, I grabbed one of his legs, using it to push myself out of the way.

The spider landed with a mighty crash, leaving a crater the size of a truck in the already pockmarked earth below. I landed only a few feet away and wasted no time dashing at the spider. I aimed for the leg I had cut earlier, slashing violently.

The first leg had been severed.

The spiders angrily screamed profanities at me, but his movements didn’t slow down. He seized the chance to counterattack while I was close and slammed one of his forelegs into my stomach.

The carapace there cracked and I could feel that something internally had broken, but whatever the damage was, it didn’t appear to be critical.

Still, the kick had thrown me several meters away and I used that to my advantage, quickly getting to my feet and dashing around the spider to get into it’s blind spot. The beast was fast, but it’s body's structure made turning speed slightly slower than running.

I rushed in close and slashed another leg. It didn’t sever, but the spider tried to counter attack, as I’d hoped it would. It wasn’t able to see exactly where I was, and so I was able to dodge the attack completely and slide under the spider. There I jammed my secondary arm into it’s abdomen and held on with my normal arm for dear life.

This time I could sense real pain coming from him. It wouldn’t be enough but this wasn’t all I had planned. Before I could continue my attack however the spider sat down, attempting to crush me under his full weight.

But it wouldn’t work. I could lift an elephant with my bare hands, this spider's weight was barely enough to make me uncomfortable. Pushing with all my might I lifted the spider up and shouldered it.

“KSHAAAAAAAAA” I shouted, tossing the spider up and flipping it onto it’s back.

I jumped up onto it’s abdomen before it could right itself and, using my blade arm as a forceps, ripped the gash I had put in it’s bottom open, creating a space just large enough to stick my hand into.

Though it wouldn’t be my hand going in there.

“Die in agony monster, die for what has been done to me! Die so that I can be at peace!”

“Noooooo! I can’t lose, I have to win! I have to win for Kuron! I have to-”

I lowered my head and stuck my mouth into the wound and with a great heave I spewed my acid into his carapace. Liter after Liter I sprayed, melting the hole and widening it while also drenching his organs in the corrosive liquid.

“GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!” He screamed, flailing his legs and trying to shake me off. It was to no avail, my secondary arm was lodged in his body and my normal arms powerful grip kept me locked onto the hole.

Slowly. Minute by minute, his struggling slowed down and he lost energy. He even managed to right himself and ran around, trying to throw me off. But eventually his mind grew dim and his body slowed. When he was finally still I stopped spewing my acid and let go of his body. I could still sense a glimmer of consciousness from him, but the damage my acid was doing to his body would kill him soon.

I hopped off of his abdomen and was about to leave when I heard the spiders voice. He was broadcasting his thoughts everywhere, making no attempts to hide anything.

“Hey Kuron…where are you? It’s so dark…Kuron…please brother…we’re supposed to stick together…Kuron?…”

“…Your brother is waiting for you elsewhere. You’d best go find him.”

I didn’t know if the white spider had heard me or not, because a moment later all of his thoughts ceased.

I had neither pity for the duo nor regret for having killed them. They were hungry predators and I was guarding my wards. Had I gone easy on them we would have all been killed and eaten. But I do wish they had died together.

There’s nothing worse than going alone into the darkness.

“Master you should eat now, you need to heal your injuries.” Ember said, worry evident in her tone.

She had a point, I was down two arms and the injury in my abdomen had started hurting now that the adrenaline from the fight had worn off. I had been getting light headed lately from the days without a proper meal and I was starting to feel ravenous. If I kept on like this it would be impossible to control my hunger.

But…

I just couldn’t do it. Not yet. Maybe I was just weird, but something about devouring a raw tarantula carcass, one whom just moments ago had died an extremely painful death while lamenting the loss of his brother, felt like it would mean an end to the human Marcus Taylor.

It would have to happen eventually, I knew that. But I wanted to hold on for just a while longer. So I walked away from the two brothers

“Master! What are you doing!? You need to heal!”

“I’ll heal well enough the natural way, for now. At least until we’ve escorted the humans to safety.”

“Pleeeeaaase Master, I’m begging you, just a mouthful will accelerate your bodies natural healing…please!” Ember shouted desperately.

It broke my heart to make her sad, but this was my decision to make.

“I won’t die, Ember. I promise you that, even if it means finding a bug and eating it. So let me do this at my own pace. If it comes down to it, I’ll even let you call a wasp over.”

And I meant it. Preserving my dying past wasn’t worth being dead in the present. Not after all of the fighting I had already done. But for now, I was in no immediate danger. So I’d indulge myself.

“Master…if I let you do this, then you have to make me a promise.”

“Of course, anything.”

“Then promise me, if we’re ever in danger and you get hurt and there’s no time to find you any food, you have to promise that you’ll…that you’ll eat me.”

“…Ember…”

“Promise me! Or else I’ll come over there right now and force feed you those Cleaners! No matter what happens to me, or the humans, or anyone else, you must not die! I’m supposed to be your caretaker, you understand what that means right? And if my life can be used to save yours, then you must do it! So, if you want me to back down then say it.”

“…”

“Master!”

“…Tch, very well. I promise.”

Ember didn’t reply, but she let the issue go for now. She had successfully backed me into a corner and now when I fought it will be her life that’s at risk instead of mine.

Unless I cave in and eat my enemies. Either way, Ember gets what she wants.

“What a bossy servant.” I thought absentmindedly.

“Hmph!” she replied.

With that resolved I walked over to the small patch of trees that the townsfolk had hidden themselves in. It was only half a mile up the road, but the pain I felt every time I took a step made the walk seem longer.

When I was only a few dozen meters away a few of the townsfolk saw me and alerted the group. There was cheering at first, but that died down quickly when they saw the state I was in. Carol was particularly upset about it.

“Forny!? What in God's name happened to you?”

“I fought them…and won…”

“Ya call this winning?! You’re all tore up! We gotta do something about those injuries or else-”

“I will live…It’s time for you…to leave this place”

A great cheer erupted from the townsfolk when I said that. They were just a short while away from freedom, of course they didn’t want to waste another minute. Still, it wouldn’t do to worry Carol.

“NIEL!” I shouted

“What is it boss?” he said, hurrying to my side

“It will be…another two hours…until we reach…the fogs edge…dress my wounds…as we walk.”

“Yes sir.”

Carol still looked worried, but she relented and kept silent as we walked the last stretch of the journey. The fog grew thinner and thinner, and soon actual sunlight pierced through. The townsfolk were blissful, some even bursting into tears at the sight of the blue sky.

I was suffocating, my wounds were causing intense pain, and the light stung my eyes. Eventually I wound up having to throw my old cloak back over my head to keep myself from going blind. There would be no more bugs from here on out. Which meant my role in this journey was over.

I stopped and everyone stood at attention, waiting for me to say something.

“This is as far…as I go…there will be…no more enemies…from here on out…keep walking…along the road…and you will be…free.”

With that I gestured at Niel to join the rest of the group. He all but ran way from me.

Then Carol stepped up and said “Forny…I think I stand for everyone here when I say thank you. Thank you for all you’ve done for us, I only wish we coulda taken you with us.”

“We live in different worlds…I could not survive out there…just as you could not survive…in here…live well, Carol.”

And with that I turned and made to walk back into the mist. But…

“Forny?” Carol asked.

I stopped.

“What is it…Carol?”

“You remember when I told you about my friend Marcus?”

“…What of him?”

“Well, it's just…I seemed to remember him sayin something to me. Y’see, back before he was taken away by the Wasps he was showing some mighty unique abilities. He was unbelievably strong and fast, ya know? And nothing seemed to be able to hurt him. Niel over there hit him square in the back of the head with a shovel and he didn’t even seem to be able to feel it.”

…Shit. Carol was smarter than I thought.I knew right away what she was getting at, but many of the townsfolk were looking awry at her, wondering what she was getting at. Only a few caught on right away to what she was saying. Niel for example, suddenly jerked his head up and stared at her, then at me.

“I see…he sounds like…he was quite something….”

“That’s right, quite something. But you know, he said something and I was wonderin if you could help clarify what he meant. See, he told us that he had to go with the bugs because if he didn’t he would die, and that if whatever they were going to do to him worked, he would come back much stronger than when he left…”

More people were catching on now. There was furious whispering going on as the townsfolk debated the issue among themselves. Delilagh’s eyes were suddenly wide open as she worked the timeline of events out in her head.

“…did he now…” was all i could say.

“He surely did. And you know what? He promised that all he’d need was a month and then he’d return to us and get us outta this fog. And wouldn’t ya know it, one month later someone arrives, and he’s crazy strong! And he even promises to get us outta this fog! It gets the mind thinkin…”

“…say what you mean…Carol.”

She looked at me for a moment, as if she were sizing me up.

Then said “Alright then, I’ll be blunt. Forny, are you Marcus?”

There it was. The whispering had stopped, replaced with a palpable air of anticipation.

“NO WAY! Shouted Delilagh, from the back of the crowd.

She pushed and shoved her way to the front of the group, anger tinging her every movement. The way her lips were pursed and her eyebrows were furrowed made her look cute, even now. She was still a vision of beauty that even weeks of stress and fear of being eaten weren’t able to take away.

It made me want to vomit. The same rage that had boiled my stomach resurfaced, and I could hear a voice in the back of my mind screaming at me to spit acid at her. My mandibles opened and snapped shut of their own accord, as if they were begging me for the chance to close on her throat.

“There is no way that this thing is Marcus! He’s dead, he has to be!” She shrieked at Carol, practically spitting in her face.

Her desperation for my death puzzled me. Had I really been so terrible? Her words couldn’t hurt me anymore, I was beyond that, but I couldn’t help but want to know what I had done to make her hate me so.

As if echoing my thoughts, Carol said “Are you crazy or somethin!? Why the hell are you so against the idea that Forny is Marcus?”

She paused there and seemed to consider what to say. It was the million dollar question after all. It was apparently common knowledge that she and Niel were a thing, and she had been relieved by my supposed death. If I was Marcus…what would I do when I heard the truth.

Finally she opened her mouth.

“I deserved better than him!”

Nobody spoke. We all just stared at her. Some with interested expressions, others frowning at the audacity.

“I did! We were sweethearts in high school, and he always promised me that we’d live a good life together! But after we left school he wound up working at that crappy factory job and every day it was the same thing, he’d come home and lay down and spend the evening doing nothing! He never tried to go to college, or get a higher paying job! He’d just sit around and play video games!”

She paused for a moment to catch her breath. While she did that she also scanned the faces of everyone, gauging them for their reactions. Nobody spoke, though Carols expression had grown more and more sour as Delilagh spoke.

Then she continued “It took me a while to realize it, but I hated living together with him. The same thing day after day, sleepy kisses and tired sex and I hated it! And I hated him for never trying to do anything new. Niel might not be the best person, but at least he kept things interesting. Why should I settle for a boring life in that little town when there’s so much more out there for me to see? I’m not wrong, I deserve a better life than that!”

“You wanted him dead for that?” Carol said, disgusted.

“Stop acting like I’m the crazy one you bitch! He promised me the world and all I got was a shitty cashier job. He lied to me, that’s why I was happy when he went with the bugs!”

She finished, no longer even looking at Carol, instead yelling at me.

…

I turned around.

“Keep walking…into the light…you’ll be free…of this place…”

“Is that all you have to say!?” screamed Delilagh.

“No…you should smile…Marcus died…in the fog…”

“That’s not true and you know it!” shouted Carol.

I didn’t reply, but simply started walking. As I did a kind little spider crawled up my back and wrapped her arms around my torso and neck.

“That spider…!” Delilagh shouted.

“I don’t expect we’ll meet again…”

“Come back here Marcus! We’re not done yet” Carol said

For the last time I looked back at her, at Delilagh, at Niel and all the rest.

Then turned my head and kept on walking.

“ Marcus is long gone…I am Forminus” I said, disappearing into the fog.

“Master, I’m not well versed on human conversational rituals, but I’m pretty sure that human just said something unforgivable to you. Shouldn’t you punish her?”

“No Ember, there’s no need.”

“You were seething earlier Master, what happened?”

“I realized that I was an idiot. Everything that happened between us was the result of my own foolishness.”

“But you were clearly in the right though, why would you-”

“No, you misunderstand. I was an idiot for never seeing her for what she truly was. But now that I know, I feel clean. I’ve simply washed my hands of her. Her and everyone else.”

“…even me, Master?”

“…Almost everyone else.”

Ember didn’t reply, but she did nuzzle her head against me.

My emotions were stable again. Now that I realized how petty the squabble between her, Niel and myself was I felt clean. Shiron, Kuron, Enginar, and Ember had shown me more honor, love and affection than any humans I could think of. And with my mission complete I was finally ready to cast off my humanity and become who I was meant to be.

I was Forminus, The Ant Lord.