SCCRAAAAAAAAA!

The surrounding ants, those that populated the trees and were hoping to see their generals annihilate the humans let out a chorus of grating, screeching cries at the injustice of what had inspired.

They were not shy about vocalising their rage, shaking the trees in which they dwelled. However how much they screeched and cried, none of them dared to move from the safety of their perches within the trees. Whether this was out of fear of the expedition force, respect for their transcendent ant leaders or for some other reason, they kept to themselves in the trees and simply watched as the slaughter unfolded.

And what a slaughter it truly was. Whether it was by fate, or the dreadful luck of these worthless creatures, all of the Ant Generals abilities seemed to be countered by one of the expedition force.

Surely, it had to be some cruel fate of nature that the weak swarm was more of a threat to them than the so called powerful figures.

They had expected at least a valiant battle against some powerful foe, but what transpired was nothing short of a complete and utter humiliation.

The first to move after Astra's assault was, unsurprisingly, the sporadic and extra twitchy ant. The little blighter could barely contain himself through a single conversation, so asking it to stay calm with combat breaking out was never going to happen.

It darted forward in an instance, its tiny form becoming nothing but a blur that streaked between the trees, bouncing off them like a pinball before finally rocketing towards its opponent faster than a man could blink.

The ants might have seemed intelligent, given their ability to mimic speech, but the simple fact that they accepted the expeditions positioning, even after Astra's display, showed that they truly were nothing but mindless insects.

The opponent that had positioned themselves before this ant, and which it was single-mindedly attacking, was that sly old Fox. His eyes were the only thing that moved as his insectoid opponent leapt around like a madman. They moved back and forth, tracking the impossible blur, while the rest of him stayed rooted in place.

His feet together, one hand on his katana's sheath while the other rested on its hilt. When the beast finally leapt at him, although it was moving at blindly fast speeds, to Fox it was like it was moving through molasses.

He was already moving before it had even poised itself to leap, its speed meaning nothing when its target was reading its overly simplistic moves like he was reading a children's book.

With a single side step, Fox drew his sword and slashed upwards. Green blood sprayed in an arc, following the path of his blade, as the creature's body once again became visible.

Before it had even hit the ground, head or body since they were now separate entities, Fox had already sheathed his sword and had once again returned to his neutral position.

The other 'Ant Generals' were not faring any better with their chosen opponents. Perhaps if they had the wherewithal to switch, they would be fairing better. Such a shame.

Alexandra was ducking and weaving around the gargantuan ants tyrannical blows like a trained boxer. Her hands kept up in front of her face defensively as she let another wild swipe bypass her, its scythe-like talons whistling as they sliced apart nothing but air.

As she rose from her duck, she shot her arm upwards in a tight uppercut, shattering apart the clacking mandibles and sending the Goliath ant stumbling backwards. It didn't even get a chance to recover, taking a straight cross directly to the chest moments later, cracking its thick carapace and sending it flying backwards, with Alexandra already lunging in chase.

The 'feral' ant, the only one still standing on six legs instead of two, was using those six legs to scuttle backwards as it constantly let out screeches and chatterings, in a desperate attempt to intimidate its opponent.

But how could it achieve such a thing when it was doing so whilst it was constantly retreating, until its butt was pressed against a tree. Even having backed itself into a corner, it still persisted with its fruitless intimidation tactic, as Cynthia simply strolled towards it with careless abandon.

She had removed any form of expression from her face, forcing this creature to face down a faceless abomination that was as unstoppable as time itself. The ant took another mouthful of dirt, chewing it rapidly before starting to spit the formed rocks out of its mouth.

Each rock, formed into the shape of stone bullets, let out a resounding crack as it broke the sound barrier, shooting towards the abomination. Yet when they hit the slime girl, she didn't even flinch.

They plunged into her gelatinous body, but it may as well be shooting into a pond. The stone bullets rapidly lost all momentum, dragged to a stop by the viscous solution within her body. The same solution that was devouring the bullets from the moment they entered her, dissolving the fatal bullets into wisps of dirt, before even those too were dissolved.

Such was the same fate that awaited the bullet spitting ant as Cynthia descended upon it like a tidal wave.

When it came to the ant with the fiery spit, Erik had even less trouble facing it. A constant stream of water poured from his outstretched hand, showering the ant and immediately dousing any flames that it tried to conjure.

It's flesh melting bile was helpless in front of the valiant, aquamarine knight. Especially so when he got his hands on it.

When he finally reached it, Erik simply clamped his hand over its mouth and used the leverage to pin the ant to the ground, while the stream of water continued to pour from his hand.

All it ever managed to do was scratch his armour uselessly, all from its helpless flailing as he drowned it on dry land.

Alfie didn't even need to move to deal with his opponent. He was the master of smells, after all. A bubble of floral magnolia suffused the very air around him, creating an impenetrable barrier of fresh, pleasant air that the ant couldn't even dream of penetrating with its vile concoction.

Not that it ever got the chance. As it turned out, the vile, flower melting stench it created happened to be extremely flammable. And he was all too good at fire now.

It was honestly surprising it hadn't happened to the creature sooner, considering it lived with two sources of open flames. Perhaps this was just nature correcting a serious mistake.

Standing next to the broken body of the electric ant, her hand still wrapped tight around its antennae, Astra watched with slight amusement - and a little bit of discomfort - as they utterly slaughtered the supposedly powerful ants.

She did say that this was going to be a slaughter, but actually witnessing it was something else. It was almost... pitiful. The way they tore them apart without a chance, beat them to a bump, melted and drowned them.

She almost asked herself if this kind of treatment made them the monsters, but she immediately caught that ridiculous thought before it could take root. No, the monsters were definitely the monsters, that was pretty obvious.

Perhaps they did use some... creative methods to deal with their opponents, but it was nothing compared to the torment and misery real monsters like this sowed into the world with glee. Laughing and smiling as they did so.

She yanked the antennae again, making the ant screech in pain and generate more electricity in a vain attempt to shock her off of it. Indeed, she had kept it alive just for this reason.

She was standing with one foot on its back, keeping it down and using it as a living battery.

Once she was fully topped up, she used her antennae hand holds to pull the ant's head off, before tossing the head to the side dismissively, not giving the worthless creature another thought.

Her mind was buzzing, filled to the brim with energy as her senses extended outwards.

Before she could feel the electrical impulses of the larger ants and the people of her expedition only when they were relatively close to her. But now she could feel even the smallest impulses seemingly from within the entire forest.

She could even feel the impulses from the mounts they had left outside, as they slept or rested.

It was one of these tiny impulses that drew Astra's glowing, pure white eyes to the ground where she saw a tiny, fingernail sized ant burrow its way out of the mound of dirt and take to the skies on buzzing wings.