Chrysalis

Chapter 1199: Anthony On Tour – Survival (Barely)

Now, obviously the gravity well I created is pulling in the opposite direction from the black sun chewing up every piece of the planet it can get its little grubby hands on. However, it’s not enough to counteract the force, not even remotely. Despite deploying the spell, the lake is still going crazy, the air is still screaming past me, and the boat itself is starting to lift up out of the water.

But the railing hasn’t broken! Whoo! I’ll take the wins where I can get them.

I get the feeling the well is doing just enough to take the edge off, which is nice, sure, but it isn’t enough to save my backside.

For that, I’m going to have to rely on the industrious ant and brathian mages hard at work beneath me, and inside the ships of the rest of the fleet. All I can do is float, three legs hooked around a wooden beam, as I watch my spell consume and consume and consume.

It’s apocalyptic up there.

Spiralling pillars of water have towered all the way up and they too are spiralling down into the core, along with ever increasing chunks of Greystone. I’m really hoping the spell is only ripping into the outer shell of the mountain and not any inhabited areas. I get the feeling the bulk of the added rock, or at least a mega-thick layer of it, is just there for defence and for show, which I hope continues to be the case. The golgari might have brought this upon themselves, but I don’t think they would care all that much if several thousand of their citizens got mushed inside a black hole.

There are several spirals forming around the black sun, revolving around it and each other as they circle the drain down to oblivion. Rock, water, air and everything else it can reach is there, being yoinked in. Someone should shoot some fire at it, so all the nations are represented in the destruction.

Snap.

I don’t like the sound of that.

Snap!

I really don’t like the sound of that!

As well I shouldn’t. With one final shuddering pull, the railing snaps free from the deck, and all of a sudden, I take flight.

Ahhhhhh nards! Flying is freeing and all, but I didn’t want to experience it like this!

[Eldest! Take hold!]

[What?]

I turn just in time to see something whip up towards me from the deck below and I snag it in my mandibles. It’s a rope, a great chonking thick one. Some of the mages below deck must have used some wind magic or something to send it flying at me.

[Thanks! Make sure the rope is fastened to something sturdy!]

Not that I like to draw attention to it, but I’m rather heavy, after all.

[Not to worry! We’ve secured it to the keel.]

SNAP!

[That broke.]

Dang.

I crunch my mandibles shut, severing the rope. Any further damage to the ship is going to put my siblings at risk and that’s not worth it. Without anything to tether me down, I rise faster and faster. Once I’m free of the gravity well, my acceleration increases even further.

Well, Anthony, you giant moron, you really did it this time. Finally, after so many close calls, you’re finally going to get turned into pulp by your own spell. There should be some sort of award for idiocy of this magnitude. Not only for the impressive scale of the poor decisions made, but also their regularity.

A normal person, certainly a normal ant, would have learned from their mistakes after the first, absolutely after the second, near-death experience. Me, though? Oho! Absolutely not. I’m made of sterner stuff.

The scene above my head as I rise toward it defies description. An unreasonable level of destruction, a seemingly unending appetite for chaos. The black sun is a silent, still, monstrous entity, difficult even to look at.

Rising rapidly now, there isn’t much I can do to save myself anymore. My brains have turned to sludge after their heroic efforts in creating this mess, and it’s not like I can swim through the air back down to the ship.

Or CAN I?

No. No I can’t. Nice try, though.

Yeesh, how high up am I at this point? Pretty darn high, a couple hundred metres for sure. Honestly, would the fall be worse than being crushed within a black hole? That’s a stupid question, of course it would be.

Well. I had a good run. It’s hard not to get misty-eyed, thinking of my family and my siblings. Except ants don’t have tear ducts, but I’ll ignore that. The Queen, my mother in this life, certainly gets my vote for ‘best mother that I’ve ever had’. Not exactly a difficult award to win, in retrospect. The Queen spoke to me, that pretty much put her over the top straight away.

I didn’t have brothers or sisters as a human, that I’m aware of, anyway. I was separated from the family home at a young age so it’s possible, I suppose? But those theoretical siblings can’t compare to the incredible sense of worth and wellbeing I get from my sisters. My thousands upon thousands upon thousands of sisters.

I wonder if Vibrant could outrun a black hole?

I kick off a passing rock and roll myself over, I don’t want to look up at the black hole, I’d rather look down at the fleet. Looks like they’re going to hang in there. That’s great. Although, I can barely see them from this high up.

The squeeze is getting pretty intense now, I must be getting close-ish. Any second now, my carapace will collapse and I’m going to get squished. If I had some gravity mana to work with..

Wait a sec

I do have gravity mana? And tons of it?!

YOU IDIOT, ANTHONY!

My gravity mana gland! I reforged it into Resonant Well Stone! It turns gravitational energy into mana, and there’s a freaking heck of a lot of gravitational energy around me right now!

Ohpleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Brains! Work!

I flush my system full of regeneration fluid in the vague hope it will help my brains, but even if it doesn’t, I need them to push.

Summoning all my myriad minds, I empty the gravitational mana gland and weave the fastest, roughest, ugliest gravity well I can possibly imagine, then fire the spell out, desperately hoping it works at all!

And miracle of miracle, I freeze in place.

Oh so carefully, I roll over and look up.

The centre of the gravity bomb is still almost a kilometre away maybe it’s hard to tell, but much closer and I would have been torn apart for sure. Yikes.

I roll back over and look down.

That’s a long way to drop.

Then the black sun flickers and disappears. And so does my gravity well.

Honestly. I’m fine with it.