Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

Rosslyn tried to shield her eyes as she ran.

Adon noticed too late that the Princess had been almost fully blinded by the sudden brightness of the glowing violet crystals. He only recognized what had happened when Rosslyn smacked head first into a wall and almost tripped over her own feet getting away from it.

Shit, Adon thought.

I need guidance, Rosslyn thought at the same time.

"Adon?" she whispered.

The quick march of the ants' feet was audible as the monsters turned their attention in unison to the two intruders and began moving in their direction.

Right, go left, Adon sent.

Rosslyn took a step to the right and one to the left and almost tripped over a stalagmite sticking up out of the ground.

Shit, take a jump over these next stalagmites, Adon transmitted.

Rosslyn silently obeyed and then picked up the pace.

Now? she thought.

Just forward for now, Adon sent. One foot in front of the other, but picking up the pace!

Rosslyn accelerated to a jog, arms raised defensively, eyes squinting.

"Sorry to depend on you so much," she muttered, slightly embarrassed. "This light after hours of darkness… there are still stars dancing in front of my eyes."

It's all right, Adon sent. I should have realized you'd be half-blind. Some of my eyes are out of commission now, too, but I barely noticed it. I have multiple pairs.

It sounded weird to Adon as he said it, but he caught a strong whiff of admiration from Rosslyn—and slightly stranger, a hint of jealousy. Perhaps it wasn't odd in this circumstance, considering she was blind.

Sometimes I wish I was like you, you know, Rosslyn articulated in her head. Limitless potential, whatever appendages you need—the world at your feet.

She had accelerated her pace now, and Adon had to focus most of his attention on guiding her. But a part of him couldn't help but read into the underlying thought processes in Rosslyn's head. He didn't fully understand why she—someone with a perfectly functional and, frankly, appealing human body—would want to be a mystic beast.

Adon's Telepathy found more than he had bargained for, in the mingled conscious and unconscious of her stressed, unguarded mind.

An insecurity about her personal power and thirst to prove himself; well, he had always known on some level that was there.

A draw to him that seemed to be semi-consciously based almost as much on his power and potential as on his personality and character; that was… interesting.

A distinct, articulated question that she had clearly consciously pondered before: What would our children be like?

That was what made Adon push completely out of Rosslyn's head. He realized he was invading too much, too quickly, in a space that was more private than he had at first reckoned on. These were the kinds of thoughts that he shouldn't know about, even if they were tantalizing from his perspective.

He felt a little dirty for having snooped.

It was hard to resist temptation sometimes.

Rosslyn gathered a sudden burst of Mana and threw up a wall of fire behind them, kept running, then added another wall of fire a few feet later, and then yet another wall of fire.

That ought to teach them, she thought.

Tack left, Adon sent.

He didn't have the heart to point out that fire hadn't exactly done wonders against the ants on the earlier floors—not when Rosslyn had already employed the tactic.

Maybe if you were looking at her strategic thinking instead of her dirty laundry, you would have noticed that before she wasted the Mana, he chided himself.

He could tell the Princess was worn down from the long day—the climb here, mainly—and he began to feel that getting them out of this situation would be his responsibility.

Unless her plan worked.

Adon turned slightly so that he could observe both in front and behind them—one of the benefits of his eye placements.

He saw a plume of flame go up from the first layer of fire walls, and he guessed that an ant had passed through it. There were two more plumes of flame from that wall, then three plumes from the middle one, and then three Gold-Digging Ants burst through the wall right behind them. Adon saw them, moving at their fullest possible speed.

Then they collapsed to the ground, their outer layers looking melted, their internal parts seemingly failing to sustain themselves. Even though he still couldn't reach into their minds to communicate, he could feel the spark of mental activity slowly wane and leave them.

Those three ants had simply died, and the fire walls were still standing.

Perhaps this could work. Fire wasn't a particular weakness of these ants, but sustained exposure—as if they had to run through three layers of fire walls, all the while bathed in the heat between the flames—might be enough to kill large numbers of them, especially if they ran forward blindly as they seemed to be doing.

Maybe the sudden brightness had partially burned their eyes, as had happened to a few of Adon's eyes and much more mildly to Rosslyn's.

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Or maybe they just didn't care about their lives. Adon remembered the Vendetta Ants from the garden. There was no reason why ant monsters from a dungeon should be any less persistent than those crazy—and apparently naturally occurring—bugs had been.

Then he saw more of the ants. These ones were playing the situation smarter, crawling up the walls alongside the flame barriers—though others continued trying to make it through the walls of fire and dying horribly at the same time.

How are the obstacles doing? Rosslyn thought. Are we still being chased?

Underneath those thoughts, Adon got an idea of her condition. Her legs were sore from the long day of climbing, and she had a stitch in her side. She could keep running for a long time even in that condition, but he could tell that something would eventually have to give.

I'm afraid so, Adon replied. The walls are killing some ants, but others are just wall-crawling to go around. The crazy thing is that they're not all smart enough to avoid being burned to death.

Something is pushing them to pursue us, Rosslyn mused. Oh well, fire is not as effective against them as we might have liked. But at least it has thinned their numbers a little.

Can you blast them with light magic? Adon asked. That's seemed more destructive than fire magic the few times I've seen you use it.

Even as he asked the question, he felt annoyed at himself. Rosslyn was already pretty exhausted. The biggest display of power she had put on in the dungeon thus far had been light magic, and that had left her unconscious for what must have been the better part of a day.

What an irresponsible suggestion, he thought to himself irritably.

I can, but it takes a lot out of me, Rosslyn thought. Sorry. I wish I could be more helpful, but I am not quite at full strength after all that climbing… and not much food. If I use light magic, we should try to find a safe corner of the dungeon where I can rest a bit before we advance further.

Of course, Adon replied. My bad for even asking, honestly.

Several minutes passed, in which the Princess ran, and their only exchanges were Adon giving her directions and her responding. Rosslyn's eyes had almost fully recovered from earlier, but the violet crystals on the ceiling, walls, and floors were continuing to light up as they passed through areas—as if they were on a motion sensor or something—which meant Rosslyn could not see very far ahead of them and still needed to rely on Adon's directions. Her eyes having adjusted to the violet light, they could not penetrate the deep darkness beyond the crystal-emitted rays even to the limited degree that had been possible before.

As she ran, Adon focused his attention on their surroundings, trying to gather any useful information from the walls the pair rushed past. There were many imperfections and geographic formations of note, including cracks and crevasses that a human of Rosslyn's size might slip into, which gave Adon ideas.

Rosslyn had gotten into moving at a more sustainable pace, and she moved more gracefully now that she could see her feet and the ground around them. But she didn't seem to be leaving the ants behind. Adon guessed that she couldn't. This was the limit of how fast she could run with endurance, and eventually, that would be worn down.

Occasionally, behind them, an ant seemed to stop dead in its tracks, and the others would simply climb over it and keep going. Adon noticed more than once that the mental signs would completely cease from those ants, and he realized, after a couple of examples, that those individuals were dying from exhaustion.

Ants could endure a lot, he remembered. So these deaths by exhaustion must have been partly a product of how long they had been in the "death spiral" Rosslyn had mentioned. That was one thing in their favor; the ants were already fatigued, too.

But this also demonstrated how determined these survivors were to catch Adon and Rosslyn. It was an absolute commandment for them, above the survival of any individuals—and probably taking the place of the survival of the colony as a priority, since Adon imagined there was no queen or future for the colony left anymore.

They won't give up no matter what, he thought.

And Rosslyn would tire eventually. It was anyone's guess whether she would tire before or after the last of the ants. They had superhuman endurance—for their size, Adon knew, ants could lift many times what a human could, run much further than a human could—but then, Rosslyn had superhuman endurance, too, and she still wasn't doing much with her Mana. She had just been lightly powering up her leg muscles.

Rosslyn, I think we have to change up our strategy, Adon sent.

What did you have in mind? she thought. The Princess wasn't wasting a single breath on speaking aloud anymore.

It's only a matter of time before the ants get us like this, Adon replied. I think I should distract them and lead them in the wrong direction for a while, and in the meantime, you can get away and find a place to hide.

That sounds a little too much like leaving you to fight alone, Rosslyn thought. If you think we cannot outrun them, I am open to that possibility. If that is so, we should stand and fight. If we make our stand now, while we still have some energy, I believe we will win.

You wouldn't be abandoning me, Adon argued. It's not like I'm planning to die in some dramatic last stand here.

You have played rather fast and loose with your safety in the past, so forgive my skepticism, Rosslyn thought.

I won't even be fighting much, Adon sent. Just distracting them, keeping them here, taking up their attention span. If they have what seems to be prey in front of them, they won't go looking for additional organisms. You know how good I am at escaping from tight spots anyway.

That much is true… Rosslyn thought with obvious reluctance. Where would I even hide, though?

Look for one of those crevasses in the walls that we've occasionally passed, Adon sent. Be ready to blast anything that comes in with light magic. I might not be able to keep them away for long enough for you to have a real rest. When I get away from them, I'll find you. I'll try to keep track of where you are with Telepathy all the time.

All right, Rosslyn thought. You have to promise me that you will not do anything foolish, trying to take the army on by yourself, though. Our story does not end in this cavern.

I agree. I have to die gloriously if I'm going to die this young. I can hardly do that with no witnesses. His tongue was firmly in cheek with that reply, but Rosslyn seemed reassured.

He would hardly joke like that if he was actually planning to risk dying down here, she thought at a layer just below what Adon normally read.

His Telepathy was still getting stronger, he noticed. It was getting easier—even when he wasn't sure he wanted to—reading Rosslyn's mind. And given that she was more mentally disciplined and guarded against mind-reading than probably more than ninety-nine percent of people in this world, this was a power he was going to have to exercise much more responsibly.

But that was a concern for another time.

Adon hopped down from her shoulder.

"Good luck," Rosslyn whispered.

Get away as quickly as you can, and I won't have to do this for as long, Adon replied. Other than that, don't worry about me!

Adon used Transformation, and he assumed the shape of a human—a far wider and taller humanoid form than he normally adopted, for the moment, so that he could conceal Rosslyn slipping further into the cavern from the ants' view, even if only for a moment.

Come at me, the butterfly thought. I'm ready!