Back in Grimfalk’s dimension, Longclaw turned to her companion and sighed.

  “Well, that was unfortunate. Charlemagne is really in a bind now that his attack didn’t work. I wonder what he’s going to do next. Do you think he can escape?”

  Grimfalk pulled his attention away from the second screen, which showed an enormous rooster terrorizing a local grocery store and frowned.

  “Of course, he can escape. He’s a lot stronger than he thinks he is, and once he figures out how to take down that ‘chopper’ or whatever you called it, he’ll be fine. Did he eat anything fun recently?”

  Longclaw shook her head.

  “Not really. He found a confused bat, but that’s about it.”

  “Meh,” Grimfalk retorted, taking a long swig of Stoat Water. “So what happened to his attack? The one that didn’t work?”

  “The ambient mana is just too thin on Earth, still. There wasn’t enough in the attack for it to maintain cohesion, so it broke apart. So now Charlemagne’s Mana Core is empty, putting him in an even worse spot.”

  “He doesn’t need the Mana Core to beat those humans,” Grimfalk retorted. “He’s got all the tools he needs…he’s just gotta use his head.”

  Charlemagne was stumped and angry. He had just launched the same attack that had worked so well against the weird blob enemy in the floaty place, but it hadn’t hurt the metal insect at all. The attack had also left him fatigued. His Mana Core no longer had sufficient stores of mana to continue pumping the amazing substance through his body, which was now dependent upon mana to maintain its size and strength. The confusion and fatigue fed his smoldering rage as another salvo of artillery shells landed nearby, bombarding the rooster with pieces of shrapnel that punched through his feathers, skin, flesh, and even bones. He screeched, more in rage than pain, as he attempted to formulate a new plan. If only he could reach the metal insect, he could consume it from the inside out. Charlemagne’s head began to ache from the mental strain, but he persisted. Suddenly a series of pictures ran through the rooster’s mind, showing him a way that he could prevail.

  Charlemagne instinctively began to pull the thin ambient mana into his Mana Core, forcing it to circulate throughout his body as he raced through the thick jungle. His target was a palm tree that was located directly underneath the buzzing insect. Other than its favorable location, the tree stood out in two other ways. The first was that it was one of the tallest trees in the forest. The second was that its trunk was just the slightest bit crooked. The rooster hit the base of the tree at full speed and began running directly up the trunk. He leaped high into the air just before reaching the fronds and unfurled his powerful wings.

  Although not built for flight, most chicken breeds can stave off the pull of gravity for a while. This is especially true for smaller types of chickens like the poulet bicyclet, which have not been intensively bred for meat production. As a paragon of his species, Charlemagne possessed far greater strength than the average rooster. His wingspan had also increased when his body had been reforged by his Mana Core. Due to these changes, flying for an extended period of time was well within Charlemagne’s capabilities. He just hadn’t realized it until a few moments before.

  With strong but definitely ungraceful strokes from his wings, the rooster muscled his way through the air, closing in on the helicopter’s underside in just a matter of moments. The crew, having lost track of Charlemagne when he launched himself up the palm tree, had no idea that they were in danger. Each flap brought the young rooster closer to his goal, but the going got harder and harder the closer he got to the flying insect. There was some sort of force pushing him back down toward the ground. In fact, Charlemagne was struggling against the helicopter’s tremendous downdraft, which was a direct result of its rotor generating the lift necessary to keep the aircraft in the air.

  A mistimed flap accidentally carried Charlemagne out from underneath the helicopter, providing instant relief from the powerful winds and allowing him to reach the same altitude as the machine. As luck would have it, he avoided the deadly rotor and instead slammed beak first into the Sikorsky S-61’s square windshield, cracking the thick laminated glass but failing to puncture it all the way through. Inside, the two pilots panicked; with one reaching for her sidearm while the other put the helicopter into a climb. But Charlemagne wasn’t going anywhere. The rooster’s razor-sharp talons found purchase in the metal frame, and he used the new leverage to peck the glass over and over, each strike building on the last to create a deep hole ringed by cracks in the windshield. With a final strike, the rooster succeeded in forcing his beak all the way through the reinforced glass. Then the pilot opened fire.

  Blam

  Blam

  Blam

  The barrage continued nonstop until all eighteen bullets had been expended. Most of the shots had struck the windshield and failed to penetrate, but a few struck Charlemagne in the beak, breaking pieces away and sending shocks of sharp pain through his face. The rooster pulled his head backward, ignoring the agony as he gripped the helicopter’s metal body even tighter.

  Having cracked the shell of the insect while taking minimal damage, Charlemagne squeezed himself through the hole he’d made, gracelessly faceplanting into one of the pilot’s chairs before recovering his footing and perching on the top of the chair. The rooster stared at the humans intently, his bird brain belatedly wondering what humans were doing inside the flying insect. No, it was not an insect, he slowly came to realize. It was something different, like the things with wheels that the humans rode all over to compensate for how slowly they ran. Unfortunately for the rooster, that was the sum of his revelations on the subject: he still lacked the mental capacity to draw additional conclusions based on this information. And the humans weren’t going to give him any more time to stop and ponder.

  The two pilots had frozen up in horror for a few moments after Charlemagne literally ripped their windshield from its mounting and casually hopped on board after taking multiple gunshots to the face. However, their professionalism reasserted itself and they sprang into action, with the male copilot drawing his own Sig sidearm and firing it almost point-blank into the rooster while his companion desperately grabbed for a new magazine so she could reload.

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  As the barrage of semi-automatic fire slammed into him, Charlemagne squawked in outrage and pain. The shots didn’t break his enhanced skin, but they still left deep overlapping bruises on his chest and left leg. The attack also made it easy for him to decide which of the humans to go after first, so he rushed forward and used his Peck skill on the kneecap of the man who had just shot him. It exploded. The pilot screamed and collapsed into the wall of the cramped cockpit, dropping the firearm as he fell. The other pilot abandoned her attempts to reload her own pistol and flung open the cockpit door, yelling something that Charlemagne couldn’t interpret but nonetheless understood was a cry for help. The rooster pivoted and caught her in the ankle before she got away.

  With both pilots down, Charlemagne turned back to the man lying in the cockpit, finishing him off with a quick strike to the neck. Before he could turn around to take care of the other human, there was a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. The rooster turned around just in time to catch the first round from an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon right in the sternum.

  Jalen Briggs was a contractor for the government of Benin, working security for a program that provided logistical support for operations in Park Pendjari. When the government had asked his six-person, two-helicopter force to help them track down an unknown animal that had killed two police officers, he had thought that the entire situation was some sort of bizarre political theater. Without any clear idea of what exactly they were looking for, the squad had pulled two back-to-back four-hour flights, returning to the airport in Cotonou just long enough to refuel, hit the head, and grab a protein bar. After returning from their second stint, he and the two pilots had just finished stowing all their gear and putting the aircraft to sleep when the call from the Beninese military came in: the other air team had spotted something and needed assistance.

  By this point in his career, Briggs had mastered the art of swearing, and as he broke all the gear back out, he wove a tapestry of obscenity that would have given his grandmother a heart attack had she not lost her hearing a few years back. Garcia and Pitt, his two pilots, had run off to give instructions to the ground crew. Briggs liked working with them: they treated him as an equal instead of as hired help as some pilots were known to do.

  The trio quickly worked to refuel and get the aircraft back in the air, before heading almost due west of Cotonou to rendezvous with the other element of their team. The flight took just over ten minutes at full speed. When they arrived, he got on the radio with Hank Cliffton, the other aircraft’s crew chief, to take over tracking the target using the helicopter’s infrared search and track system.

  “Whatever this thing is, it’s fast,” Cliffton relayed as Briggs struggled to spot the heat signature of what the other man had described as a large, flightless bird with razor-sharp claws and a beak powerful enough to shatter bones. I’d estimate its top speed is only a bit slower than our own, assuming it had a level surface to accelerate. In the jungle, it’s a lot slower.”

  “I still don’t see it,” Briggs griped. “Wait, there it is. If it didn’t have two legs, I’d swear it wasn’t a bird at all. You think maybe it’s an albatross that got really lost? I’d hate to kill something like that. Isn’t that bad luck?”

  “You’re thinking of the ‘Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’,” Cliffton said with a chuckle. “Killing an albatross isn’t bad luck, but I think it’s illegal. Well, illegal in the United States. Ain’t nothing illegal in Benin but making the government look bad.”

  After the other helicopter departed to refuel, Briggs took over relaying the position of the unidentified but allegedly hostile heat source to the Beninese military, which had surrounded the forest in which the animal was hiding. Cliffton had been right: the little bugger was fast when it decided to move. The heat source stayed mostly still but occasionally zoomed around like a cockroach, always staying within the confines of the small forest. He watched with amusement as the army began shelling the forest, wondering how they had managed to scare up five artillery pieces in such a short amount of time. Up in the cockpit, he could hear Pitt cracking jokes while Garcia groaned.

  Suddenly the creature took off sprinting, moving faster than ever. It ran straight into the trunk of a tree before making a hard turn and disappearing.

  “It’s gone,” he yelled over his in-helmet communications gear. “Hold steady while I reacquire.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s gone’,” Garcia demanded. “Is the thermal on the fritz again?”

  The argument was interrupted by an enormous thump from the cockpit, followed by a shout of surprise and fear from Pitt.

  “Get the SAW,” Garcia shouted.

  “What?” Briggs called back, confused. Violent extremists operated only in the north of the country. There was no way they’d attack all the way down by the coast. Multiple deafening blasts from a pistol shook him from his reverie and the man raced to get his weapon. It took precious seconds for him to break it out and turn off the safety. His hands trembled as more gunshots ripped through the air, followed by a sudden scream from Pitt. As he turned back toward the cockpit, the familiar weight of his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon was his only comfort.

  Suddenly, the door to the cockpit burst open, and Garcia tumbled through, slamming hard into the metal floor. Her ankle was a bloody mess. Briggs put his finger on the trigger and moved forward with small, deliberate steps. He caught a hint of something black moving, but before he could fire, it disappeared. There was a wet gurgle from inside the cockpit. Briggs realized in horror that must have been Pitt’s death rattle.

  Briggs was trying to figure out how exactly to step over Garcia’s prone form when something appeared in the doorway. Not even bothering to register what it was, he clamped down on the trigger. The M249 roared to life, spitting a relentless stream of 5.56 rounds into the target’s body. The scent of burning gunpowder and flesh filled the air, along with a smell he couldn’t identify.

  Round after round tore into the animal’s chest, shredding its fur and splattering blood all over the cockpit. The beast shrieked an ear-splitting cry that made the entire helicopter shudder. Still, Briggs held the trigger down, emptying his weapon into the creature that had downed his teammates.

  And then there were no more bullets.

  The smoking barrel steamed in the hot, humid air as the echo of gunfire faded. The former soldier panted, his heart hammering against his ribs. He finally got a good look at his opponent, realizing that the creature looked almost exactly like a giant chicken, and what he had taken for fur was in fact feathers. It was hard to tell anything beyond that, though, since the creature was a mess. Its chest was ruined, part of its face was missing, and one of its wings was only attached by a few strips of flesh. He was certain the thing was dead.

  And then it stood back up as if nothing had happened.

  A guttural growl rumbled from deep in the beast’s throat as, despite its small stature, it nonetheless towered over Briggs. By all rights, it should have died from its injuries, but the strange animal barely seemed fazed. Its hellish eyes locked onto Briggs with unexpected intelligence – and rage.

  Briggs screamed. Then, the chicken struck. A leg tipped with talons like scythes flashed out, slicing clean through Kevlar, uniform, and flesh. Pain erupted in Briggs’ gut as razor-sharp claws burrowed into his stomach and tore it wide open. The man gasped, a strangled cry escaping his lips. He tried to move, to fight back, but his body refused. His vision blurred, the edges of the world turning black. The last thing he saw before the void claimed him was the giant chicken looming over him, its beak opening wide in triumph. Then everything went dark.