Back in Grimfalk's domain, the theropod deity watched as his Champion examined the corpse of the plasmodium. Charlemagne had not only awakened a hidden power and pulled off a victory against a stronger opponent, but he had also enabled Grimfalk to win a sizable measure of power. And that was on top of the wager that Grimfalk had made with Plasmodius. The deity had every reason to shout for joy, yet he was yelling at the screen in anger.

  "Why won't you eat it!? You literally just got a Special Ability that makes you stronger when you eat Champions. Stop just standing there staring at it! Are you chicken or something? It's dead. It's totally dead. Can't you tell? Just eat it! Eat it!!!!!!!"

  Longclaw waited for her companion to lose steam before interrupting the tirade.

  "I hate to be that creature, but your Champion already ingested the plasmodium Champion in his physical body. I'm not sure that consuming it on the metaphysical plane will do anything. What exactly would he even get out of eating a dead spirit?"

  "Well...that is...I guess you’re right. Plus, it would be bad manners for Charlemagne to eat Plasmodius’ Champion right in front of him, wouldn’t it?” Grimfalk responded with a nervous laugh. “Speaking of…uh, Plasmodius…about our little wager…”

  The feed cut off and the quivering blob of a deity reappeared, minus the top hat.

  “I trust you are questioning neither my integrity nor my memory,” the plasmodium hissed with barely contained fury. “As per the terms of our arrangement, your payment will be processed in the next twenty-four hours. I do hope you won’t spend it all at once.”

  “Uh, no. I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grimfalk denied despite having planned to do exactly that. “I’ll save some for a rainy eon, yeah.”

  “Yes,” sniffed Plasmodius, managing to sound condescending with a single word. “Perhaps a rain in the figurative sense, like a certain event some sixty-six million years ago.”

  Longclaw glanced quickly over at Grimfalk to confirm that he had indeed understood the insult before stepping in once again.

  “Well, it was delightful to see you again, Plasmodius. I do hope that we’ll have the opportunity in the future to work together rather than pit our Champions against each other. There could be some interesting synergies once we’re able to field multiple Champions at once. But for now, we have a great deal of planning to do and I’m sure you do too.”

  Plasmodius had managed to stealthily retrieve his hat during the conversation. Using a pseudopod, he swept it off and made the blob equivalent of a bow.

  “Lady Longclaw, it is always a delight to see you. If you ever have need of me, you know where to find me.”

  Without further ceremony, the screen cut off. Grimfalk waited a moment to ensure that he and Longclaw were alone before collapsing onto the sofa, choking back tears.

  “He just had to go and mention it, didn’t he,” he moaned as Longclaw attempted to hand the grieving deity a tissue. “Every time something good happens, someone always has to bring up the…the…”

  “Shhh,” Longclaw said as she held up one of her talons to her mouth. “It was mean of him to bring up the meteor, yes. But you’ll pull through. You always have and you always will. Besides, we beat him, and with the divinity you won in the bet, plus what you’ll be earning from Charlemagne’s performance today, you don’t have to choose anymore. We can pick that Brahma in Spain and still have plenty left over to give Charlemagne a boost after his next devolution.”

  Grimfalk sniffed and gave Longclaw a hopeful look.

  “You mean we can have Ricardo the Rooster?”

  Longclaw plastered on her best smile.

  “Yes, of course. But let’s circle back on that name later, okay? By the way, is it all right if I turn the screen back on? I want to see if Charlemagne has woken up yet.”

  The other theropod shook his head.

  “There’s no way he’s going to wake up for a while yet. He’s got to digest the enemy Champion and process all the changes that just happened to his body and soul. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t wake up until the next morning. And in the meantime…”

  “Yes,” Longclaw laughed. “We can do some online shopping. We’re going to need a lot more snacks, especially if we have to watch two Champions at the same time.”

  Back on Earth, Charlemagne slowly opened his eyes and looked around. As his pupils adjusted to the light, which was still quite strong even in the shade, he noticed that everything was much clearer. He stood up and found that the ground was much further away than it usually was. The change puzzled him, but he didn’t have time to stand around and work out what exactly had changed. A shout nearby and the shrill blast of a whistle alerted him to incoming danger. As four uniformed men ran towards him with their guns leveled, Charlemagne disappeared deeper into the woods.

  Although the rooster had no way of knowing how much time had elapsed since he had eaten the plasmodium-infected lizard, over two days had passed on Earth while Charlemagne had been unconscious. The Beninese military had been called in to hunt down the wild beast that had somehow managed to kill two police officers in broad daylight before escaping. An extensive search of the forest where Charlemagne was holed up had taken place, and multiple officers had simply passed by the rooster without giving him a second glance. After all, who would have suspected that the diminutive creature was actually the killer?

  But, unfortunately for Charlemagne, he was no longer diminutive. His Mana Core had been hard at work while his body was dormant, absorbing the traces of ambient mana and storing them. As he regained consciousness, it began to pulse in time with his heartbeat, and since Mana Core also encapsulated the Mana Reinforcement skill, each pulse of mana coursing through his body benefits, enlarging his muscles, strengthening his bones, enhancing his physical sense, improving the ability of his blood to transport oxygen, making his organs more efficient at their various tasks, and even sharpening his intellect. He was now the size of a large turkey, an animal unknown to most of West Africa, and about as heavy as a medium-sized dog.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A burst of gunfire erupted behind the fleeing bird, raking through the tall grass and bushes and carving deep holes into the palm trees scattered about the dense vegetation. A number of those bullets slammed into Charlemagne, leaving deep welts in his skin but failing to penetrate. Still, they stung. The rooster’s newly enhanced intellect warned him to flee until he could turn the tables on the humans, making them the hunted instead of the hunters. And for that, he needed to head deeper into the bush.

  Thub Thub Thub Thub Thub

  The rhythmic beat of a helicopter’s rotor drowned out the shouts of the soldiers as a small Sikorski S-61 approached and began hovering over Charlemagne’s location. The rooster picked up speed, trying to leave the strange metal insect behind, but the helicopter wasn’t so easy to shake. After a few minutes of running northeast, Charlemagne broke out of the dense undergrowth and found himself in a large open field. Putting on a burst of speed, he was pleasantly surprised to see the aircraft falling behind him. As a flightless bird, the sensation of pure velocity was something that Charlemagne had never really experienced. After his growth spurt, however, his top land speed rivaled that of a car, and the feel of the wind rustling his feathers and tickling his beak was intoxicating. He pushed himself even harder.

  His joy was short-lived, as three Toyota Hilux trucks carrying soldiers bounced into view and slammed on their brakes. One of them had a curious stick mounted on the back that looked like a larger version of the weapons that the other soldiers carried. If it was a larger weapon, Charlemagne reasoned, slowly getting used to using his brain on the fly, then it would be stronger and hurt more than the weapons he had already experienced. And those hurt a lot.

  A staccato burst of noise ripped through the air as the 50 caliber Browning machine gun mounted to the back of the Hilux launched a steady stream of bullets toward the sprinting rooster. Although most missed, a few stray bullets found their mark, this time slamming through Charlemagne’s defenses. The combination of shock and sheer force from the bullets caused him to trip, which saved his life by taking him out of the line of fire. He rolled to a stop in a bloody heap and lay still, wondering how he could fight something that hurt him so badly from a distance. This also saved his life, as the machine gun ceased firing and a squad of 4 men advanced to check out his body.

  Although he was wounded, Charlemagne’s Mana Core still held a considerable amount of power, and his body was replete with the stored nutrients contained inside the placenta and the lizard that he had recently eaten. Even as he played dead, these two healing elements worked in tandem to close his wounds and replace the blood that he had lost. Since Mana Core was a skill normally not unlocked even by mana-sensitive species before level 25, it was especially effective at shoring up Charlemagne’s relatively low-level body.

  The rooster waited with closed eyes, using his other senses to mark the approach of the armed soldiers. They didn’t possess enough mana, and he did not have enough finesse with his skill, to monitor their approach using his mana sense, but his smell and hearing were both up for the job. Especially because the soldiers smelled like they had not showered in over a week. The 4 men whispered quietly and urgently amongst themselves, but, being a chicken, Charlemagne had no idea what they were saying. Then one of the men moved forward, either to get a better look or to finish Charlemagne off. That was when the rooster dropped his ruse and went back on the offensive.

  The poor soldier managed to get off a short burst of fire as Charlemagne burst from the ground and leaped high into the air, striking the man in the neck and finishing him with one well-placed peck. His claws dug deep into the dying man’s chest as he slammed into the soldier with all his body weight, pivoted, and then pushed off again in the opposite direction. He could see the helicopter looming over him in the sky again as he made a break for the dense vegetation, realizing that he needed it to keep him safe from the weapon attached to the truck. The three surviving soldiers yelled and fired after him, but they were terrible shots, and only managed to tag him a few times before he was too far away to be hurt. The machine gun on the truck spun back up a few seconds before he made it back into the woods. Thankfully, the initial volley was way off and the operator didn’t have time to adjust it before Charlemagne had once again disappeared into the foliage.

  As the rooster jogged through between trees and powered through the dense underbrush, a simple plan began to form in his bird brain. He needed to get rid of that helicopter. Since it took a lot of energy to fly, the giant insect must have trouble staying still in the air for that long. Eventually, it would get tired and either have to land or go away. Then he would be able to move around without the humans knowing where he was going. With this goal in mind, Charlemagne kept on the move, staying well within the forested area while catching and eating anything that he came across: mice, lizards, and the occasional complacent bird. His body, happy for the new biomass, used the opportunity to recover completely, but he did not gain any other benefit from eating this mundane fare.

  Almost an hour later, Charlemagne realized that his plan had a serious flaw. He had assumed that the humans had only tamed one giant flying insect. That assumption was proven incorrect when a second flier joined the first one, creating an even more annoying drone that covered the entire area. He did feel partially better when the first insect turned around and slowly flew away, proving that the fliers did get tired. However, that left him in a worse position than before. He was still stuck in a small, wooded area and had already consumed most of the other animals that lived there. As his brain sluggishly stumbled toward the conclusion that continuing to wait was going to be a bad idea, a new development made that train of thought obsolete. From somewhere outside the forest, there was a loud popping sound. Charlemagne’s prey instincts took over for a moment, causing him to freeze up upon hearing the unexpected noise. For several long seconds, nothing happened. Then the forest around him blew up.

  Ka-Boom

  The Beninese military had not been idle while the rooster was contained. Every available soldier had been mustered to surround the small forest, reinforcing them with elements from the local police where possible. Actual machine gun nests were set up at regular intervals, while small clusters of Hilux trucks waited further back, ready to intercept the now-enormous rooster should it make an appearance. Finally, the military had deployed five self-propelled howitzers. The arrival of their initial salvo was the reason that Charlemagne knew that his time in the forest was limited.

  Ears ringing from the aftermath of five 105-millimeter shells landing nearby, Charlemagne’s ire was directed at the only enemy that he could see: the helicopter that was hovering well above his position. Anger welled up inside his chest as he sought a means to attack the enormous flying insect. His Mana Core responded to his intent, spooling out thick threads of mana and forming them into a ball in his throat. Long seconds passed as he continued to charge his attack, but the howitzers were busy reloading and adjusting their aim, allowing him to prepare his attack in peace. As the mana condensed in his throat, the rooster pushed his skill to its utmost, emptying his core almost entirely. A blue aura appeared around him as Charlemagne gathered as much of the ambient mana as he could, cycling his core furiously to pump whatever leftover scraps of power were available into the attack. Finally, he was ready. He looked the helicopter straight in what he believed to be its eye and unleashed his charged attack into the air.

  “Buk-kawk!”

  The attack punched through the tree line and continued upward toward its target. Charlemagne watched with anticipation as the ball of mana dissipated into a wave of mana that threatened to engulf the shining insect floating high above him. He watched with confusion as the wave itself began to dissipate. Finally, he watched in rage as the wave disappeared completely before it had even crossed half the distance to the helicopter.