"So, what's the plan?" I asked Anne, scanning the rows of black armored ants that separated us from the equally dense rows of red fire ants on the opposite side of the scale.

"Hold on," said Octavia, glancing behind us. "Before we get any further, I need to know: is it safe for us to be here? I know that this is the front line, but what assurance do we have that we're not going to get flanked?"

"I have stationed sentries around the perimeter," said Anne. "If any more fire ants incursions begin, I will be the first to know, and we will have ample time to retreat to the tunnels."

"That's good to know," I said. "Though, now that I think about it, flanking isn't such a bad idea."

"What would you hope to accomplish by such a maneuver?" said Anne. "The crater is too massive for us to truly ambush the ants. The flank would only be useful if we reduced their numbers to the point where my forces could surround them to cut off an escape."

"I see your point," I said

"I don't," said Octavia.

"It's asymmetric warfare," I said. "Even though the battle lines look evenly drawn, we're more easily defeated. Anne's ants can only function with her as commander, so she's naturally more vulnerable. The fire ants don't have a central command point. There are no strategic targets, no 'head' we could try to cut off."

"Yes," said Anne. "The most obvious path to victory for us would be a complete rout. In addition to being obvious, that would be exceedingly difficult, and a battle to the death is not something to be done by half-measures, given that they may have reinforcements inbound."

"So," said Octavia. "We get the scale, or we get nothing. How do a spider and a dragon help with that goal?"

"I regret not having the chance to formulate a plan while awaiting your arrival," Anne said. "Unfortunately, not knowing the full extent of your capabilities, I didn't have the opportunity to devise a plan which would fully utilize your abilities. Would you please let me know exactly what tools we have to work with?"

Octavia glanced at me, and I sensed a question in her expression: on our way back from the subterranean river, we had discussed the matter of what information to strategically withhold from Anne. If we ever did find ourselves on opposite sides of a conflict, Anne having a full working understanding of our abilities would certainly put is at a disadvantage, but at the moment, that seemed like the least of our concerns.

"Of course," I said. "After all you've done to help secure this dragon scale, the least we can do is bring you completely up to speed on our combat abilities. I emphasized the word completely just enough to ensure that Octavia understood my meaning. She nodded.

Octavia and I gave the briefest summary we could while still being thorough, explaining Octavia's toxic sludge attacks and webbing abilities, and my own abilities. I began by explaining [roar] and [harden scales], since they seemed like the easiest to explain, but Anne seemed to take particular interest when I described the properties of my three breath attacks, nodding along as I explained my [noxious breath] and [poison breath]. As soon as I arrived at [paralyzing breath], her antennae began twitching excitedly.

"Do you have anything else to divulge?" Anne asked.

"That's the extent of it," I said.

"I see," she said. "Well then, it would appear that we have a mostly-symmetrical set of abilities, which does pose some difficulty."

"What's that mean?" asked Octavia.

"Things would be easier if you or I had attacks that could discriminate with their targets," I said. "The problem with my breath attacks – and your toxic sludge attack – is that they'll affect both the enemy ants and Anne's ants equally." I turned to Anne. "Is that what you had in mind?"

"Absolutely correct," said Anne. "My armored ants will need to be part of the picture if we're to have any chance of leaving here with that scale. Unless…do you think that you could lift more than a ton?"

"It really weighs that much?" I asked.

"By my estimate and observation, yes," said Anne. "I estimate its weight at slightly more than a ton. It would take between twenty and thirty of my ants working in tandem to carry it."

"I don't have that much strength," I said.

"Neither do I," said Octavia.

"Then we cannot employ any strategies that would preclude my ants' involvement. For example: Octavia, if you were to cover the scale – and the rest of the crater – in toxic sludge, that would effectively prevent the fire ants from claiming the scale, but it would also prevent my ants from carrying it, yes? The same is true for using our dear Drew's breath attacks, especially considering that your offensive breath attacks are now even more potent due to the scale's influence. We need to find a way to take your normally symmetrical abilities and make them asymmetric so that they impede the fire ants, but not my ants."

"I'm afraid my webs won't be of much use," said Octavia. "They're an ambush predator's weapons. They're fine if I need to play defense, and I could construct a makeshift 'fort' for us, but–"

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"Alert!" Anne's antennae pointed north. "We're being flanked!"

Anne's back row peeled off from the main formation and began marching toward the north part of the crater.

I hesitated. "Should we…"

"Both of you, go with my strike team," Anne said. "I can hold the front line, but we need to be ready to intercept the next wave at our flank. The sooner we eliminate them, the better. They'll lead you there."

"Got it," Octavia and I said in unison as we rushed to follow behind the cluster that formed Anne's so-called 'strike team.'

Elder Dragon Scale aura buff lost

I blinked away the notification, leaving behind the dragon scale behind and headed north after Anne's smaller squad.

As I followed, I scanned the horizon, my eyes straining in the twilight for any sign of movement silhouetted against the top edge of the crater. I glanced at Octavia. "Do you see them?"

"Not yet," said Octavia. "But Anne's ant team clearly knows where it's going."

I followed the ants until they stopped near the lip of the crater. Rather than climbing upward, the armored ant squad stood in place. "Is this where we wait for them?" I asked. "Should we scout ahead?"

"I'm waiting down here with the ants," said Octavia, spinning a web a short distance away, enough to give herself a safe zone to retreat to, but far enough away that Anne's ants wouldn't accidentally get caught in the webbing. "You can outrun them, so you can scout, but is that a good idea?"

"I'd feel more comfortable with the ants accompanying," I said. I glanced across the crater at Anne, who was still maintaining the front line, and unfortunately too far away to be within earshot. I tried to think through Anne's reasons for having the ants stop here. Why not go higher? Height would offer the advantage of sight, if nothing else. It would be bad if we encountered the enemy while ascending – that would give them an uphill advantage – but we could always retreat. Why stop here?

"I'm going up," I said, walking along the upward slope. Octavia nodded. "Stay safe. Retreat at the first sign of trouble."

I scanned the top of the crater again, and began marching. It wouldn't take more than half a minute of climbing to ascend it. If I could just –

"Back here!" Octavia cried.

I immediately swiveled around, and watched as a fire ant emerged from a hole in the ground right next to the armored ants. Before I could begin running back, the armored ants had already eviscerated the fire ant, two grabbing it from either side and pulling it in half. Another ant emerged, and the armored ants did the exact same thing.

I heard the cracking of rock behind me, and watched as a fire ant emerged from the hole. Without thinking, I whipped around and swiped at it, crushing it with a single swing of my claw.

Fire ant defeated! 1% exp gained toward class ascension

Another ant was following immediately behind it, and by the time the ant's front half had emerged from the hole, my jaws were already around it. I bit down, separating its head from its torso.

Fire ant defeated! 1% exp gained toward class ascension

Another fire ant struggled behind the remains of the ant I had just bitten in two, and I did it the favor of pulling its ichor-leaking exoskeleton out of the newly-formed tunnel, long enough for the next fire ant to crawl out from behind it. That one, I killed with a swift claw strike.

Fire ant defeated! 1% exp gained toward class ascension

"Drew, behind you!"

I turned around, just as I felt the all-too-familiar sensation of a bite on my tail, and I swung around, knocking that ant loose. It went flying through the air, and landed among the group of armored ants, and Anne's squad made quick work of it while I whacked the next one as it emerged from the newest hole.

I backed up to more effectively see both holes, and proceeded to spend the next minute playing whack-a-mole. Then a third hole appeared, and my adrenaline surged, allowing me to keep pace with the ants as they spilled out of the newly-formed tunnels.

It wasn't until the fourth hole emerged beside me that I actually was overwhelmed to the point that several ants managed to sneak past me: it was simply unavoidable in the moments when circumstances of timing forced me to deal with three emergent ants at once, as my body was pulled in too many different directions to deal with all of them. My anxiety spiked for a few moments, but mercifully, Anne's black armored ant squad was able to pick off the few fire ants that managed to sneak past me.

Octavia, for her part, seemed to be having an easy time of things, as her webs proved highly effective at plugging the holes that appeared around the area she was defending, with the only problem being that those ants seemed to abandon their tunnels every time they encountered a web, digging new tunnels each time. By the time several minutes had passed, Octavia had spun webs to cover more than a dozen different holes.

Finally, there was enough of a gap in the influx that Octavia was able to divert her attention to plugging the holes that had emerged around me. By that point, the wave had mostly subsided.

After half a minute of waiting with no new ant incursions, Octavia finished webbing the last of the holes for safety, and we headed back to meet Anne at the front lines.

Elder Dragon Scale aura buff: +1% to all offensive abilities

Things back at the front lines were just as we had left them, with her rows of ants continuing to engage in the dance of advance and retreat, matching the movements of the ants on the other side, neither side seeming to gain any ground.

"The situation's been dealt with," said Octavia. "And I webbed up the holes, so they shouldn't be coming through the same way again. Do you sense more of them?"

Anne turned to one of her returning armored ants, tapping her antennae against its antennae before sending it on its way back to the rear of her formation. "All is well," said Anne. "Thank you for your adept handling of that situation. The fire ants are best dealt with before they can reach the dragon scale's area of effect, and you both handled yourselves capably. Drew, may I inquire about your current stamina reserves? What is the maximum number of times you could use your breath attacks if you had to?"

"I didn't use any stamina dealing with the flank," I said. "So I've got enough for 18 noxious breath attacks, or 9 of either paralyzing or poison breath, or any combination thereof. Why?"

"I observed your confrontation with the flank as best I could," said Anne. "And while I was watching, I came up with an idea for how to deal with this situation." She turned to Octavia. "We will require significantly more of your spider webs for this to work. I presume that won't be an issue."

"Not at all," said Octavia. "Tell me what to do."