The great bird’s body partially unfolded as it yanked up on the pine marten’s tail.

But despite what it had been doing underground before, the pine marten had become fully focused on the surface once it felt a firm grip on its tail. It must have dug in its claws to resist the bird’s pull, because its body only barely shifted with the bird’s exertion.

As the creature moved, Adon saw two horn-like feather protrusions sticking out atop the bird’s head. The first thing he knew, even in the dim quarter moon light, was that this was not the Golden Eagle. An entirely different beast had appeared for him to deal with.

The positive effect of a large, predatory bird trying to steal Adon’s prey out from under his nose for the second time in a day was that the butterfly was not at all stunned by the creature’s arrival.

He instantly used Identify to see what he was dealing with.

Brown Eagle-Owl (Male)

That makes sense. As he looked over the body, it had a mighty figure like that of an eagle, but the head was distinctly the shape of an owl’s. Maybe the name means it’s some kind of hybrid?

The round head turned, and the orange eyes gleamed in the moonlight as the owl opened its wings and flapped once, still clutching the pine marten’s tail tightly. The pine marten shifted another inch out of the hole, even though Adon guessed that it continued to hold on for dear life underground.

Interesting. I guess the wings are a strong tool even for hunting on the ground.

Adon started charging a Mana ball almost immediately now that he knew what he was fighting. He had already been thinking that a little energy bullet would be the perfect tool to dislodge the pine marten without destroying too much of its tasty flesh. That was even truer of the large eagle-owl. A whole right in the middle of the breast would be the perfect method for killing the bird.

Mana began gathering along Adon’s antennae, pooling at the ends that pointed from Adon’s head directly towards his target.

The eagle-owl seemed to react to Adon’s Mana charging—or perhaps it simply became impatient with the pine marten’s resistance. It took flight, just an inch or two above the ground, and it placed its other claw in a tight grip on the pine marten’s tail.

Then the bird simultaneously yanked with both its clawed feet and beat hard with its wings, creating a downward draft of air. The force of the wind, Adon observed, was nowhere close to what the Golden Eagle had mustered before. It was just the ordinary strength of a bird.

This will be good practice, he thought.

The pine marten came loose as Adon’s Mana ball was finally fully charged, and the eagle-owl took off.

Darn.

Adon flapped his wings and gave chase.

The eagle-owl hadn’t made much distance, and Adon could see its brown shape clearly under the pale moonlight. But it couldn’t see him, he didn’t think. At least, it wasn’t moving unusually quickly as if it was worried about him.

He had a moment to reflect.

This whole situation is pretty strange, he thought. I mean, I was just chasing a large, predatory bird across the sky an hour or two ago. Not that any of this is out of character for me, but it’s a little ridiculous that this is happening twice. He swelled up with pride. For any other butterfly, this would have been impossible. Then again, apparently the previous mystic butterflies could do some wild things…

Then he poured his energy into chasing the eagle-owl. It still held the pine marten clutched in one of its claws, but it appeared to be using the other claw to repeatedly stab the poor creature. The pine marten writhed in pain and tried unsuccessfully to twist up so as to bite or claw the great bird’s underside. When it did this, the eagle-owl briefly released its grip, then latched back on, holding the pine marten by the body instead of the tail. This made the resistance the pine marten had been attempting essentially impossible. And the eagle-owl resumed stabbing with its other claw, producing pained squeals from the pine marten.

Trying to kill its prey while airborne seemed to be slowing the big bird down, as well as forcing it to fly in a predictable pattern, so Adon decided now would be the best moment to try his attack.

He drew to within ten feet of the owl and waited a moment to make certain that it seemed to be flying straight. Then, from his position behind the eagle-owl, Adon released his Mana ball.

The projectile arced through the air, following the trajectory Adon had intended. It drew almost close enough to the eagle-owl to scorch the feathers on its back—and then the big bird weaved to the side, just before it could hit. The Mana ball succumbed to gravity and fell harmlessly off into the darkness somewhere.

Did this guy do that on purpose? Adon wondered. Was it a coincidence?

The eagle-owl had returned to its previous trajectory, which made the swerve look like a completely unnecessary movement—except for the purposes of evading the Mana ball.

Of course he dodged. Even if he couldn’t see me, he saw a bright shiny energy ball hurtling in his direction. I thought I fired into his blind spot, but he must have turned his head and seen it when I wasn’t looking.

He pondered what attack to try next. Fire magic would be just as visible, and Adon would probably char some of the meat in the process of killing the owl.

Adon decided to close the distance and try his bladed wing attack.

This time, in addition to infusing Mana into his wings, he used his shapeshifting power to transform the edges of his wings into actual blades, with hard exoskeleton edges much like his pre-Evolution Bladed Mandibles.

Then he flapped harder and faster, trying to shrink the distance between himself and the eagle-owl even further. Adon shot forward, closing to within three feet.

Two feet.

One foot.

His body got almost close enough to touch the eagle-owl, and he poured even more Mana into the edges of his wings and swung himself down like a throwing star aimed at the middle of its back.

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And the eagle-owl spun to the side, performing a mid-air twirl, apparently to avoid Adon.

It lowered its head to the pine marten as Adon was recovering from his last burst of acceleration, and the eagle-owl ripped the pine marten’s head from its body with the combination of beak and claws pulling at both ends.

I guess the pine marten won’t be helping distract him anymore, Adon thought as the eagle-owl opened its jaws wide, flicked its head back, and tossed the pine marten’s head into the air. But how did he know that attack was coming? What’s going on? I’m sure he didn’t look back this time. I was paying close attention. This thing doesn’t have eyes in the back of its head. Does it?

The pine marten’s head came down in the eagle-owl’s beak, which had opened wider than Adon would have believed possible. And the eagle-owl started to swallow the pine marten head whole.

What the hell?

The pine marten’s head going into the eagle-owl’s throat caused it to visibly bulge and swell as if the eagle-owl was a python swallowing a feral hog or something. It was almost grotesque, and it looked likely to take a while, as the progress of the head moving further inward seemed very slow. The eagle-owl’s eyes carried a hint of suffering.

Can he really eat that thing? Adon wondered. Is this what an eagle-owl normally does? Or is this closer to the dictionary definition of biting off more than you can chew?

Most relevant, from Adon’s perspective: Why would he put himself through swallowing something so large, when he’s in the middle of a fight with me? Does he not realize something is pursuing him? He looks so uncomfortable. There’s no way he can defend himself adequately while trying to swallow that giant head…

It made him wonder if the previous instances of dodging his attacks had been nothing more than flukes. That seemed implausible somehow.

Adon pivoted to chase the eagle-owl. He just flew straight at it this time, with no particular plan. The eagle-owl shouldn’t be able to see him right now, because of Color Change, but even if it could, its beak and one claw were already occupied.

Adon drew to within six inches, and the eagle-owl suddenly flapped both its wings and sprung up above the butterfly, increasing the distance to a couple of feet within a few seconds.

He can’t see me, right? What’s going on?

He threw himself at the eagle-owl again, and again it performed a spinning maneuver to avoid him, even as it looked like it might choke to death on the pine marten skull that was slowly, laboriously inching its way through the owl’s throat.

This is getting ridiculous! How can he keep moving out of my way at the last minute when he can’t possibly see me—and in this horrible condition, with a huge chunk of meat stuck in his throat?!

Adon was tempted to break off the fight for a while and find a body of water or some other reflective object, just so he could get a good look at himself and verify that he was still more or less invisible, but he thought it would be pointless.

There was no reason to think his powers had stopped working except that the eagle-owl was evading him. And if he took five minutes to search for a lake that he and the Golden Eagle had flown over earlier, the Brown Eagle-Owl would certainly get away.

So instead, he continued the reckless dance he had begun with the eagle-owl, paying careful attention now and trying to uncover the secret of what the beast was doing to avoid him, rather than worrying about doing damage.

Over a ten minute period, Adon managed to avoid burning too much energy as he and the eagle-owl darted, pivoted, and whirled through the sky and the nearby treetops. Every time he seemed to be getting close enough to do real damage, the eagle-owl would perform some improbable evasion, even though on several occasions, its dodges caused it to almost collide with trees.

Adon confirmed definitively that the eagle-owl could dodge him even when he made it seem that he had broken off the attack and then re-engaged, flying right into its blind spot.

So it’s definitely not relying on seeing me coming every time, if there was any doubt about that.

And he could tell that he had burned through much of the eagle-owl’s energy. Though it had finally swallowed the pine marten’s head, near the end of their engagement, the eagle-owl moved far less nimbly than it had at the beginning of the pursuit.

Every wing beat was just a bit weaker, every dodge came a little more narrowly.

After one particularly bad dodge, when the eagle-owl almost brained itself on a thick tree branch—and actually did scrape off one of its horn-like feather protrusions—Adon thought he had figured out some part of the secret.

It’s something to do with the way the wind touches the feathers.

The Brown Eagle-Owl, like the Golden Eagle, had some sort of wind-related ability that no animal from a non-magical universe would have. When Adon attacked from upwind of the eagle-owl, it seemed to sense him coming and make a skillful maneuver to get out of the way. When he attacked from downwind, the eagle-owl appeared to get a kind of last-minute notice of it, as Adon entered the cone of air that the eagle-owl’s flight made around its body.

There’s no way for me to get close without him sensing me with whatever Adaptation or Skill this is.

The strange thing was that Adon did not sense any Mana being used; when he or Rosslyn used Mana, he could actually see the color and intensity of it, with the intensity represented as visual thickness.

But I couldn’t see the blue bird using Mana when it tried to suction me up with its breath attack, either, Adon thought. And the same is true for the eagle’s weird miniature typhoons.

Maybe there was some natural organ or body part the animals had that was harnessing Mana in some unseen way inside of the body, where he wouldn’t be able to see it. Maybe that was why humans thought of most animals as being non-magical. The theory of it didn’t matter to Adon.

What was important was that he thought he’d found a weakness. Not only was the eagle-owl more vulnerable to attacks from downwind, where the wind wouldn’t carry its warning to it as quickly, but it was also getting tired and having trouble navigating obstacles.

Adon combined all three of those factors into a single plan.

He flapped up to a height above the eagle-owl, then flew right down at it, as he had done over and over again. The eagle-owl spun in a downward spiral to get away, and as it entered that flight pattern, Adon fired dozens of Mana-reinforced spines at it.

The eagle-owl tried to change direction, but it was caught at a low elevation, and as it turned, a tree stood on each side. Adon flapped up above it, to cut off its possible retreat there, and the eagle-owl hesitated for the first time since Adon had been pursuing it.

It finally managed to swing itself at one of the trees, keeping its force somewhat controlled so as to only lightly impact the tree. But a half-dozen of the Mana-reinforced spines stabbed it in the legs as it struck.

The blow to the head had only stunned it lightly, and as Adon glided down to press his attack, the eagle-owl seemed to finally become fed up.

It turned, squawked angrily at him, and tried to snap with its beak at where it must have imagined the attack was coming from.

Adon darted under the snapping jaws, reinforced his wing edges with Mana, and sliced sideways across the bird’s throat.

The eagle-owl flapped its wings in a fury, trying frantically to get more altitude, to escape, as it felt its life’s blood bursting forth from its opened neck.

The pine marten dropped from its claws in its panicked effort.

Adon noted where it landed, then looked back up after the eagle-owl.

It was flying straight up, gushing blood all the way.

This continued for another few seconds, until finally, what went up came crashing down.

Adon floated eagerly down after it.

The practice for the Golden Eagle had been a resounding success, and it was time to reap the rewards.

As the eagle-owl was still flailing from its position on the ground, trying with its last dying strength to beat away the unseen attacker, Adon started his meal with the pine marten.

He inserted his proboscis where the eagle-owl had torn the creature’s head from its shoulders, and he began to feed, much as he had on the bee-eaters.

Slurp slurp. Guzzle guzzle. Gulp.