Despite the urgency of the scream, Det didn’t dash right off down the hall. That last fight with the mechants had proven his sword wasn’t enough on its own. He may not have time to reinforce his pack, but he sure as hell was going to take the minute he’d need to provide himself with a better weapon.

  Down to one knee, he took out the half-full bottle of ink and his brush, then got to work. Having done the image before, his strokes were sure and clear. For whatever reason, it was always faster and easier to paint the same thing a second time. He’d even noticed benefits up to about the fourth time, though after that it seemed to be as good as it would get.

  As for this image—another cascade of inky-flames along both sides of the katana’s blade—it only took him about twenty-five seconds per side. Less then a minute total? Not bad.

  Not entirely unhappy with the time it took—his wolves keeping an eye out the entire time—Det recorked the ink-bottle, then slipped it into his belt along with his brush. Feeling a little more confident in his ability to deal with the ants, he took one step in the direction of the scream before an idea struck him.

  Out came his tools again. Though he had to put his sword down for this—thankfully, he hadn’t activated the magic yet, so nothing was lost—the two images on the palm of each of his hands only took fifteen seconds each. Another fifteen—and some arm flapping—for the ‘paintings’ to dry, and he was almost ready to go.

  The bottle was basically empty at that point, so why not use it for something a little different? One last painting went on the outside of the now-completely-empty bottle before he stored it on his belt. Then, since his gut was screaming at him he was about to get himself into “a situation”, he reached into his coat and pulled out one of his three, remaining pieces of paper.

  Looking at the image on it—especially compared to his wolves—he couldn’t imagine it being particularly effective, but it was what he had to work with. Magic funneled from his fingers and into the paper for the requisite two seconds, before a large ink-rat leapt from the paper at the same time it fell from his fingers in a shower of embers.

  “You’re not here to fight or protect me,” Det told the ink-rat. “If we find any survivors, lead them back down this tunnel to safety.”

  Whiskers on the ink-rats face quivered at the instructions, and a small squeak signalled its understanding. Or, maybe that was just Det imagining what it meant. Either way, he’d done everything he could, so he scooped his sword back up, and looked at his wolves.

  “Ready as I’m going to be,” he said, and the alpha responded with a short bark that seemed to tell him he better be.

  A second bark sent a single wolf scouting down the hall, while the other four stayed close to Det. Apparently, the alpha felt the challenge of the last group of ants merited keeping most of its troops close.

  That was fine by Det, they had been made to protect him after all. So, with his honor guard around him—including the new ink-rat sticking to the shadows—he jogged down the hall after the scout, then sped up to a run as another, even more heart-wrenching scream echoed off the walls. Whatever was happening to that person, it wasn’t anything pleasant.

  “Go, go, go,” Det grunted to the wolves, moving up to a full-on sprint down the hall. A turn ahead, not that he was going to stop, had him skidding and sliding along the floor to slam his shoulder into the wall before he took off again. Ahead, the tunnel widened into a larger room, the scout-wolf already darting in to catch an ant between its jaws. As one of the larger variants, the attack didn’t lead to an instant kill, though a vicious shake of the wolf’s head slammed the ant hard into the wall. There was a brutal cracking sound before a shake in the other direction flung the ant away. While that probably wouldn’t…

  Det’s thoughts trailed off as a horrible grinding and screeching noise filled the room ahead. From his sides, two more of the wolves charged ahead, reaching the room seconds before he did to bodily tackle more of the ants reacting to the attack. Already, a snarling, barking cacophony filled the room ahead of him, and Det pushed magic into the flaming enchantment in his sword.

  Ink-black flames ignited all along the blade, just in time for him to charge in and strike the nearest ant with a powerful, overhead slice. Compared to the how he’d done with the normal sword, the success of his strike was night and day. Before, he’d scarred the carapace, but hadn’t punched through.

  This time? This time the blade went clean through the skull of the thing to come busting out of the bottom. Just like that, the ant staggered lifelessly, it’s legs still not realizing it was dead. With the black flames licking and burning the carapace against all logic, Det stepped forward and shoved the ant back into its brethren, the flames catching and spreading among them.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  That single move bought him the seconds he needed to look across the room and take in what the hell was happening.

  Nothing good was the answer.

  In the room stood only two people, an older man shielding a young girl behind him. Arms spread, he had blood running from a shoulder wound, while a semi-circle of a dozen ants surrounded him. To his side was the cause of that horrible grinding sound Det had heard, and also probably the blood-curdling scream from before.

  A bloody mulcher for all intents and purposes. Four rows of spinning, bladed and toothed wheels—all already covered in blood in the red light of the tunnels—whirred in a constant medley of dismemberment and death. In just the second Det’s eyes landed on the mulcher, a pair of ant legs vanished within, crushed and destroyed like wheat through a thresher.

  That thing was bad news, and the fate of the people in the room if Det didn’t do something about it.

  Of course, between him and “doing something” lay about forty of the bigger ants. That wasn’t all, either, with a damn horse-sized, white ant standing at the back. Yeah, that thing was outright huge, but also not the only white ant. Standing atop the mulcher was a second, much smaller white ant. This one, with only one eye—for whatever reason—clacked its small mandibles in Det’s direction, and suddenly the battle was rejoined.

  “Any chance you want to take the big one?” Det asked the alpha, while the swarm of ants rushed forward. A raised eyebrow—expressive for an ink-wolf—was all the answer he got. “Yeah, I didn’t really think so.”

  In front of him, his reduced pack of ink-wolves leapt forward to meet the charge. Against the tougher, bigger variants of the mechants, the powerful jaws and sharp claws weren’t quite as dangerous as they had been before. Unfortunately, for the ants, the Pack was far too smart to simply get rolled over, and the only weapon they really needed was in the room with them. Provided by the ants, though for a different purpose.

  Latching on to an ant’s head, the alpha shook it viciously from left-to-right, lifting it from the ground, before the ink-wolf whipped its whole body around. Using magical strength and weight, the move launched the mechant—complete with flailing legs—up and over the rest of its kind in an almost graceful arc. Graceful, that is, until it crashed into the grinding teeth of the mechanical mulcher.

  The cracking and crunching reminded Det of an all-you-can-eat-lobster buffet he’d gone to as a kid, albeit with less carnage. Back then, those people had brought their own tools, and he had to wince at the memory of their merciless descent on that poor, defenseless buffet. Not that Det had time to dwell on that, his ink-wolves looking to follow the lead of their alpha.

  Throwing sacrificial ants into the mulcher wasn’t a perfect solution—the next one bounced off the side instead of going into the crushing jaws—and his side was vastly outnumbered. For now, though, he had his own target, the horse-sized mechant whose glowing, red eyes locked onto him above the sea of its allies.

  The mandibles on its face clacked threateningly, each as big as a tennis racket, and with razor-edged serrations running the length of the inside. If it got those around any part of Det, well, he’d lose that part, no questions asked. They were easily just as dangerous a weapon as the ink-flame sword in Det’s hand, and the ant seemed to realize that. A subtle shift of its head to the weapon Det held—and the fact it hadn’t charged right in—showed it wasn’t an unthinking drone like the other ants. It planned. Considered. Calculated.

  It also missed what Det’s other hand did in the moment of distraction, having reached back to grab a certain ink bottle while his Pack had gotten to work. Magic finished flowing from his fingers into the ink imagery along the bottle, having still required the full two seconds to activate. As soon as the huge, white mechant shifted its attention to Det’s sword, he stepped forward and hurled the bottle like he was throwing the first pitch of the world series.

  Given he was—as Captain Simmons had pointed out—very right dominant, his form was a little off, but his ReSouled body helped make up for the fact. Self-correcting mid-throw, his arm, his legs, and his torso all seemed to know what to do, taking his memory of every throw from his right side, and translating it to his left. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was enough he didn’t completely whiff the toss.

  In the pounding heartbeat before the ant realized what was happening—and mid-flight—the images on the ink bottle came to life. From a glass bottle that would pose zero-threat to a giant, mechanical ant, it transformed into the equivalent of a black-flame Molotov cocktail.

  Just like the flames Det had drawn on his blade, ink ignited across the glass, resulting in the best facsimile of a fireball he could muster. Unfortunately, in the pounding heartbeat after the ant realized what he’d done, it shifted unbelievably fast. Not quick enough to completely avoid the projectile, but enough to get its face out of the way.

  Spreading its front legs, the ant dipped its head just enough to slip under the flaming bottle, though it still proceeded to shatter against its back. Or, maybe explode would be a better word for what happened.

  As soon as the bottle hit, a concussive wave of ink-flame and burning, glass shrapnel showered the area around the huge ant. Dozens of shards of glass all burning—rained down on the smaller ants, igniting each of them with black flames where they touched. Just like that, more than half of the ant horde burned, while the huge ant itself had its whole back end on fire.

  It wasn’t a decisive blow by any stretch of the imagination, but it did give Det and his wolves a fighting change. Something the smaller ant atop the mulcher seemed to realize, another series of clacking orders from it telling the other ants to take the kid-gloves off.

  With a surge of fury, the huge ant barreled straight toward Det, uncaring for the smalling ants it stomped over with its larger legs. Sure, licks of flames caught on those limbs, but it didn’t care about that either, all its focus on Det as it opened its mandibles to cut him in two. Worse, though, was how half-a-dozen ants had peeled off from the main force, ignoring both Det and his ink-wolves.

  Instead, this small force went straight for the two prisoners, and Det didn’t need to speak ant to know what they were planning on doing.

  It was time to feed the mulcher again.