Re:Ant Lord-Chapter 40: Kidnapped

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The guards exchanged worried glances. "Take him to the Healing room immediately," one said, stepping aside.

"I’ll inform Captain Darius, You, come with me" the other muttered.

The young ants carried Kai through the winding tunnels of the Ant Kingdom, passing curious onlookers and whispering soldiers. News traveled fast in the ant colony. Whispers filled the air.

"He is just a worker Ant. Why is he being carried like a war hero?" an on-looker soldier said.

They ignored the voices. Inside the Healing room, elder ants rushed to take Kai from the stretcher. They surrounded his body, casting diagnostic aura, inspecting wounds, and debating emergency procedures.

"He’s stable," said the lead healer. "But his aura system is overloaded. He’s in regeneration shock."

As the workers watched, Kai was placed into a large honey crystal pod filled with liquid amber gel. The fluid bubbled as it sealed around his body, stabilizing his condition.

"Will he live?" asked the youngest ant.

The healer looked at them. "If he survives the night... yes."

Meanwhile the rest of the team went to meet Darius. Elsewhere in the kingdom... Captain Darius stood in front of his personal quarters, his borrow twitching.

"Vex," he asked the team. "Where is he?" novelbuddy.cσ๓

Rao approached him and told him everything that happened. How they encounter the shadow lurker beast. Vex ran in different directions. Then they were separated. Two days later they found Kai on the river bank.

The captain’s eyes narrowed. "Kai’s alive?"

Rao replied, "Yes, sir. We returned with him."

Darius clenched his fists. He thinks, "So. The plan had failed. That useless Vex is missing." But something in his expression twisted, not rage... but calculation.

He looked toward the direction of the Healing room and smiled coldly. "Well then. Let’s make sure Kai never walks again."

Night draped the Ant Kingdom’s passageways like shadows. Pale glimmers of bio-luminescent crystals along the corridor walls provided only the faintest hint of light, and the hush of slumbered workers was broken by the occasional drip of mineral-rich water from the high cavern ceiling. Within the Healing Hall... two sets of eyes glowed in the dark.

One pair of eyes belonged to the mysterious cloaked ant, a lean figure whose cloak had the faint sheen of midnight-blue fabric. His eyes twitched with constrained energy, occasionally brushing the edges of his hood.

Inside the room a Healing Hall attendant who dozed off near a corner, lulled by the lullabies of an otherwise quiet night. However, that half-snoozing attendant was not truly relevant; he was lost in the bliss of deep fatigue, certainly no obstacle to the cloaked ant’s secretive errand.

In a pod of honeyed gel, Kai lay unconscious. The fluid was laced with healing enzymes, meant to accelerate exoskeleton repair and restore aura channels. But as the cloaked ant approached, he showed no concern for the normal protocol. He pressed a button at the edge of the healing pod, and the locks hissed softly. With a deft swipe of his mandibles, he pried the container open. A rush of warm, gel-scented air wafted out, and the occupant’s battered, battered form was exposed.

"I have him," the cloaked ant whispered, voice low but firm.

With surprising gentleness, he lifted Kai out of the healing fluid. The battered worker ant was still drenched in that golden gel, droplets trickling down over newly forming cracks in his chitin. A swirl of thick tension hung in the room as the cloaked ant paused, sweeping the dark corners.

He wanted to make sure that no one else had noticed him. He moved with silent steps, forging a path through half-lit tunnels that wound upward and away from the usual dormitories. Occasionally, he slowed, letting a patrolling guard pass.

Now and then, a flicker of soft greenish biolight would illuminate his cloak, revealing the muscular shape of an older ant beneath. But each time that glow came close enough to betray him, the cloaked figure slid seamlessly into a recess of the wall. In these near-pitch-black tunnels, no one realized a kidnapping was in progress.

Soon, the cloaked ant emerged at a reinforced stone archway, guarded by a single soldier who quickly snapped to attention. The soldier recognized the cloak, or at least the insignia embroidered in faint silver thread at its shoulder, and stepped aside, letting him pass without protest.

The corridor beyond that arch opened into a more lavish hall, walls lined with polished chitin panels and soft-luminescent crystals shaped into artistic designs. The air was drier here, faintly perfumed by incense braziers that gave off a subtle, sweet aroma.

At the end of this hall stood a heavy wooden door carved with intricate patterns of vines, ants, and swirling runes. The cloaked ant paused, took a breath, and tapped a small sequence onto a hidden crystal panel near the door’s edge. A faint beep confirmed the unlock. The door slid open soundlessly.

Inside, the chamber was vast. It was far larger than any typical "bedroom" one might expect in an ant banquet hall. Tall pillars supported a domed ceiling inlaid with star-like crystals, each shining with a subdued white glow.

At the center sat a bed; though "bed" was an oversimplification. It was nearly a dais or platform of cushioned, luxurious materials carefully piled to accommodate more humanoid forms. Rich draperies hung around it, parted in the center, revealing a plush arrangement of pillows and a silver-brocaded blanket.

Standing to the side, wearing stately yet minimal attire, was a sexy tall figure. From behind, the figure’s silhouette seemed regal: a slender waist, a set of elegantly curved shoulders, and an ornate circlet glinting at the top of her head. The cloak ant bowed deeply, antennae nearly scraping the floor.

"My lord," said the cloaked ant, voice pitched in respect. "I bring the worker ant named Kai."

The figure turned slightly. Moonlight from a high-placed crystal skylight revealed a glimpse of her face: Princess Mia, the pride of the colony. She had golden hair pinned up in an elaborate half-crown, a delicate dress that accentuated the subtle curves of her exoskeleton, and the faint glimmer of silver ringlets on her wrists.