Taking a moment to recognize him Jim found the person he thought was long dead, not only alive but way stronger than before. They haven’t seen each other for two months and it seemed like they had both experienced a lot.
He also recognized Chris with his brown hair that was even longer than Clay’s tied to a pigtail that hung over his shoulder and blue-gray eyes.
Waving his hand Clay said, “Hey there. Long time no see.”
Jim was dumbfounded before he asked in disbelief, “Long time no see? That is everything you have to say after running away and leaving us alone to fight for ourselves?”
“Yeah, I don’t owe you anything neither an explanation or justification for my actions, “ replied Clay coldly. “It wasn’t my choice to come back, there were some complications that forced us. I didn’t expect to find anyone so soon, but that spares the trouble of looking for you all.”
Jim wasn’t satisfied with that answer and wanted to confront Clay about what in the world happened, but Max was faster and asked, “What do you mean with complications?”
Shaking his head Clay said, “I would prefer to speak with Solaire. I assume that old man is still alive and spreading his belief in the sun, even at this time.”
Nodding his head Dave replied displeased, “Especially in this time, he spreads hope with his lectures and teachings.”
“Good, so he is alive. He is at the church I assume,” said Clay with an unfriendly demeanor. Dissatisfied with his behavior Emma intervened and said, “He is, but what in the world happ-”
Interrupting her Clay moved on saying, “Sorry I don’t have time for some reunion celebrations. Either you continue hunting or follow us back to the church.”
Refusing to explain further Clay moved in the direction of the church, with Chris closely following who didn’t say a single word the whole conservation and was ignored by everyone.
The group was taken aback by Clay’s cold demeanor, he definitely changed over the two months they didn’t see each other. From the outside Clay indeed appeared cold and rude but internally he felt anxious, there was not much time, and most of all he was scared.
While turmoil raged inside him Clay made his way back to the church. Jim and the others were of course intrigued by the sudden return of Clay and Chris especially considering their grand entrance of easily killing a rank four insect, a mantis no less.
They had to find out what happened and followed them. Their way back was unobstructed and they soon reached the church and its walls, which were fortified countless times over the past two months.
After Dave called out the gates soon opened and they were able to enter the church. Not long after Clay stumbled over Solaire, who was helping someone in need, like he always did. Feeling the gaze on him Solaire turned to look at Clay.
In the process Clay’s eyes widened as if he was shocked mumbling, “...how the fuck…” Hearing this Jim who was standing beside him asked, “Did you say something?”
Shaking his head and quickly regaining his cold demeanor he replied, “No, it's nothing.” Jim was slightly confused by his behavior but was quickly distracted by Solaire who was already standing before them.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” said Solaire with a smile. Not wanting to waste any more time Clay asked directly, “We have to talk, can we go somewhere more private?” Agreeing with a nod they left to one of the empty houses nearby, vanishing from the view of the people, while Chris tagged along.
Time passed and it seemed like they were not finishing their conversation soon, which piqued Jim's interest; what were they talking about? That was the question many wondered about, while they moved on with their usual schedule of helping where they could. After almost a whole hour they were finally called for a meeting.
Arriving the complete Vanguard and every other person who had control in the church filled their usual meeting room, making it feel a little cramped. Standing at the front were Solaire and Clay.
Waiting a moment for the room to quiet down Solaire said with a strong voice, “Thank you all for arriving so quickly, as you could have guessed today's meeting is important and could determine our future survival.”
Waiting for a moment to let the news sink in Solaire explained, “Some of you have noticed the return of Clay. He and Chris survived for the past two months in the wilderness and without going into too much detail were able to find a lot of information and are here to warn us.”
Nodding his head Clay took over. “I know that many of you don't know me and those that do are not too welcoming. Nonetheless, we returned because we found things out there that are too important to withhold from you. The woods are a completely different world that you can’t yet imagine, let alone are prepared for. To speak the truth I’m a little shocked at the state of the city. I expected there to be countless animals of the fourth rank roaming the streets, but most are still of the third.”
“Wait, why is that bad? Isn’t it better if the mutants are weaker?” Charlotte asked in confusion.
“First of all, they are still animals, not mutants. I know that they can seem like mutated monsters, but they are still animals, following their instincts. They are dangerous, yes, but they are definitely not some mutated abomination,” corrected Clay.
“And to your question yes it would be of course good if the animals were weak but that is the problem; they aren’t. Many animals in the woods reached the fourth rank long ago and started forming their territories, while the city is almost empty of them. The few in the north are the last remaining and the mantis we killed today was probably the strongest of them all.”
Interrupting Max said, “Who cares if the mutants in the wilderness are stronger? That isn’t something unexpected. The forest has after all more animals than the city, they aren't a threat to us when they are in the forest.”
Having a cold glint in his eyes Clay corrected, “Animals, not mutants.”
Throwing his hands up Max asked, “Who cares? We called them mutants the whole time. Why should we suddenly change that, just because you want to?”
“Exactly,” replied Clay directly. “Without me, you are going to die soon enough and this may be stupid for you, but it is important to understand your enemy. They are still life forms like you and me. It is disrespectful to call them mutants when they just evolved further. If they are mutants, so are we.”
Wanting to rebuke him Max was just about to speak when Solaire intervened, “Please calm down you both. Clay is right, we need his help, there is no need to argue about terminology, we will just call them beasts and be done with it. They are after all dangerous and more threatening than any animal of the past.”
Nodding his head Clay said, “That is fine with me. Anyway, back to the topic. These beasts are a big threat because they won’t stop advancing their territory and fighting for more land. They will not stop until every piece of the forest belongs to someone and that includes the city.”
Shaking his head Max asked, “And what is the problem? These ‘beasts’ are at best in the fourth rank, like Jim, and if we work together we can easily kill them.”
“That is where you are wrong,” said Clay with a stern face. “You don’t understand how huge the difference to the fourth rank is. This is not about a difference of rank anymore, how strong someone in the fourth rank is can be vastly different. There is a huge power difference between someone who just reached the fourth rank and someone who reached the peak of it.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Intrigued, Jim asked, “So how strong was the mantis we fought earlier?”
“It was in the middle tiers,” replied Clay quickly, already having an answer. Shocked by this revelation Jake was the next to ask, “Just how many rank fourths did you exactly encounter and what was the strongest?”
Thinking for a moment Clay said, “I can’t give you an exact number but we saw dozens, some we fought others we avoided. The strongest if you only account for power would be a bear that stands at the peak of the fourth rank.”
Thinking back to this encounter a shudder ran through Clay’s back. “This was truly a beast with immeasurable strength, that could rip easily through trees with its claws, which were sharp like blades. It had inexhaustible stamina and surprisingly fast movement, for its big body, that reached over three meters if standing on two legs.”
“If this bear is so strong how did you survive the encounter?” Evelin asked in shock.
“We hid, concealed our aura, and prayed that it wouldn’t catch our smell,” replied Clay with unfocused eyes. “We survived mostly due to luck, if it wasn’t distracted by another beast it would have found us sooner or later.”
Hearing this Dave asked, “Wait, how can you hide your aura?”
Tapping his forehead Clay replied, “Right, you don’t know that yet. We learned a lot about this aura in our fights in the wilderness. It is easier to show than to explain it, we can do that later but for now, we should talk about the threat that is coming to us.”
“Okay, can you finally explain what threat you mean?” Max asked impatiently.
“I’m talking about ants,” replied Clay. Confused Max asked, “Ants? That is the dangerous threat you talked about? They are harmless compared to wolves.”
Shaking his head Clay explained, “They would be if they were still small, but like any other animal they grew in size and are one of the most dangerous insects you could face.”
“Wait but ants are strong in their numbers and we know that insects survive the least transformations so there can’t be too many of them, right?” Charlotte asked bewildered.
Sighing Clay said, “Yeah we thought so too when we saw them for the first time. I mean there are billions of ants in the world. It wasn't abnormal for a few to survive the transformation, but as we encountered them in ever-increasing numbers our worries grew.”
Realizing something Charlotte asked, “Don’t tell me the queen ant transformed?” Clay waited for a moment before nodding his head confirming their suspicion.
Realizing what foe they were facing Jake was losing it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!! Oh god, why had it to be the queen!? That is beyond something we can handle, we have to… flee!”
Bewildered by Jake’s outburst Max asked, “What is the problem? We just have to kill the queen and the problem is resolved, right?”
“No you don’t understand,” replied Jake while walking in circles. “Ants are not something we can fight. They can carry several times their own body weight, not to mention now where they grew in size. They also have a perfect corporation where each member is happy to sacrifice itself for the colony and they can do this without problems because they can produce hundreds of ants each day.”
Getting more stressed as he talks, Jake turned to Clay and asked, “How far are they? Are we already surrounded? Can we flee? Where can we flee too? How much time do we have? Should we depart today?”
Grabbing him by the shoulder Clay said, “Calm down. I’m glad that you understand the seriousness of the situation but it isn’t that hopeless yet. We have visited every single village and have a rough estimation of where their nest is and learned a lot about them.”
“Wait... you were in every village? All five of them?” Emma asked with shock. “Didn’t you find any survivors?”
“We…” said Clay before shaking his head. “Didn’t find a single one. We only found half-eaten corpses wherever we went. The villages were too close to the forest and quickly overrun.”
With widened eyes, Emma asked, “Does that mean we are the last remaining survivors?”
“It seems so,” replied Clay with a nod. “That makes it that more important that we make sure we survive this calamity. To summarize our findings we know that most ants are workers, who never surpass the second rank and are small, reaching about the height of my knees. A small minority are soldiers who are at least of the third rank and reach my waist.
The good thing is that the bigger size means a slower reproduction, I don’t know the exact number but it is very unlikely that the queen can produce more than a hundred ants each day, and as long as we are not fighting against soldiers they are very easy to kill.”
For a moment silence remained in the room before Dave asked, “You know best about these ants, what are we supposed to do?”
Thinking for a moment Clay said, “Our situation is bad but not hopeless. I can’t recommend fleeing. I have been out there for two months and the likelihood of us surviving the journey to the next city is slim at best. Besides, we can’t let this threat keep on growing. At the moment we can still exterminate them but if we wait for another month things would be different. If left unchecked these ants could grow to be a threat that can consume not only this city but everything.”
Understanding the seriousness of the matter Dave asked, “So we fight?”
Joining the conversation Solaire said, “Clay and I already talked about a plan. We determined that we should act sooner rather than later. We will take a group of about three dozen, the best of our fighters, equipped with weapons and axes. We will build a camp and use the trees to build a fire to smoke them out. If we really want to kill all the ants we will need a really big one.”
Nodding Dave asked, “Okay that sounds reasonable, should we tell everyone?” Thinking for a moment, Solaire eventually nodded his head. “They should prepare themself for the worst, if Clay is right our survival is not guaranteed and shouldn’t we return they have to flee even if their survival is slim.”
Shocked by this, Charlotte asked, “Are these ants really so dangerous that we could die even with our best fighters?”
"Unfortunately yes,” replied Solaire with a grim face. “The ants aren’t a threat we can underestimate and if we fail to kill them there is no other option left than to flee.”
A heavy atmosphere spread around the room. They faced countless dangers in the last two months and overcame them all. They were so close to reclaiming the city and establishing themself that it seemed like nothing could stop them.
Yet destiny seemed to mock them. Every time they thought they were making progress they would encounter a new threat, even more dangerous and deadly than the previous.
Somewhat calming down Jake asked, “What else do we know about these ants?”
“We determined that they are some species of fire ants, as they have a black-reddish appearance. We saw them hunt a couple of times. The strategy was often the same. They would look for a lone prey, pin it down with their mandibles, and use their stinger to inject venom into them. The venom is the most dangerous part of these ants, as their mandibles aren't too sharp and more used to hold their prey than to injure them.”
Understanding this Jake asked, “Okay do we know of any sort of weakness?”
“We do actually,” replied Clay, which spread some new hope in the room. “Like most insects, these ants are separated into three parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. To our luck, there is a section between the head and thorax where the exoskeleton is weak. You can easily insert your sword, which kills them immediately. Their small size makes it easy to hit that spot and as long as they don’t get a hold of you they aren’t a threat.”
Curious Evelin asked, “What happens should they get a hold of you?” Taking a deep breath Clay replied, “Then you better hope that they don’t get to inject their venom, because if they do you have a big problem. It causes your skin to swell like a balloon and explode into a fountain of blood and pus after a few minutes. In the process, you experience excruciating pain, and if the injected dose is high enough it can cause your throat to swell, cutting off your air, resulting in a death of suffocation.”
Nervously swallowing Evelin said, “Okay… avoiding the stingers at all costs; is noted.”
Showing them exactly where the weakness of the ants lay and discussing how they would search for the nest, they eventually talked about who would take part in this expedition. Looking at everyone Solaire said, “Someone must stay here who the people trust and can act as a leader, in case we don’t return.”
Hearing this Jim asked, “Aren’t you the best person to lead the people? I mean they trust you the most, and you have given them hope in a time that seemed hopeless.”
“The people indeed trust me, but my ability is too useful for this upcoming challenge and I’m getting old, someone younger and stronger should lead the people,” saying this Solaire looked at Dave asking, “Could you lead these people?”
Dave took a deep breath while he rubbed over his stubble beard. “You want me to leave you alone out there, fighting against possibly thousands of ants, while I wait here?”
Nodding Solaire said, “Please, I know that the people trust you even if you are sometimes grumpy. You have the knowledge to survive out there, the will to keep going, experience with leading people, and a strong body to hold the burden.”
Dave thought for a moment before nodding. “Very well, old friend. I trust that you can survive this.”
Hearing this Solaire started to laugh. “Thank you. I may be old but some ants will not be my end. Besides, the sun is protecting me. I’m sure we will come back safely. Let us come back to the topic. There is much to prepare and little time to do so…”