Adon began climbing the nearest bush.

The best way to figure out where you are is to get to a high place, he thought. He tried to project confidence to himself as he scaled the side of the bush, but his inner voice sounded anxious instead. And it wasn’t hard to see why.

There were a multitude of flying creatures of various sizes flitting about in the air. Adon had never really noticed them in the daylight, but he couldn’t help thinking that if he had seen so many at once, he would have stayed closer to the soil.

I stuck to the ground this whole time, despite the scary monsters down there, for a reason. On the ground, I have firm footing, I have good camouflage, and at worst, I can probably outrun most of these massive predators. Crawling up the side of the bush, it felt like he had less of a fighting chance against anything that might attack. His footing was horribly unstable, he had little confidence that his body’s changing colors could adapt quickly enough to keep up with the uneven background of leaves and twigs, and he would be slower than anything that might fly over to eat him.

The situation was nerve-wracking.

It’s fine, he told himself as he neared the top of the bush. I’ll get the lay of the land, take a minute, two minutes tops, to get my bearings, and then I’ll know which way I’m going. And I won’t let my camouflage down the entire time I’m up here.

Adon finally reached the top, and he looked around. This garden was so different at night, but he thought he saw a few landmarks. Now that his vision had improved, he could see what looked like a massive building somewhere in the far distance. He saw the outline of the birdhouse, not nearly as far away as he would have liked.

And he saw, somewhat closer than the building, what looked to be a great wall rising in the distance to his other side.

Was Goldie’s web built against that wall? Adon had not been trying to memorize details like that when he encountered the spider. He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever looked to see what the web butted up against.

It was hard to delve too deep into the memories right now. Hard to think at all while keeping a large chunk of his brain focused on maintaining his changed coloration. Plus, he’d been thinking about how he could fill his belly with ants at the time, and then he was petrified of Goldie herself.

But finally he managed to pull the images of what he’d seen back to the forefront of his mind, without dropping his camouflage. And he did think that the spider must have had some surface she built her web against. It was the quality of the light in his memories that convinced him. The sun’s rays had been blocked on one side.

Light and dark was really all his old eyes could see, so the memories were rather stark. But at least he remembered.

At the time, I thought her web was secured to heavy rocks, because it hardly moved at all when the ants fell on it, he thought. I couldn’t see worth a damn back then, so I was just guessing. More likely, she attached it to a wall or a tree.

He couldn’t be certain, but he thought he would at least try walking toward the wall. He was still a little too close to the birdhouse for his liking, so he would at least walk a bit more before he considered resting for the night.

“Screeeeeeeee!!!!”

As Adon reached a resolution, a piercing shriek tore through the air. It seemed to be intended as an attack on him. Rather than hurting his eardrums, which Adon doubted he had, the screech hurt his whole body. Everything from his antennae, his head, his stomach, and even down to his silk generating organs, felt unsettled.

Ahh! What the hell is that?

Adon dropped his color change. It clearly wasn’t working if something was attacking him directly. He turned and saw a flying brown blur winging its way through the night.

Despite feeling uncomfortable and slightly disoriented from the sound attack, he kept sufficient presence of mind to use Identify.

Little Brown Bat (Male)

That’s one of my natural predators, isn’t it?

The bat was flying right towards him, though it was still several feet away.

It unleashed another sound attack.

“Screeeeeeeee!!!!”

Even though he was more prepared for it this time, the attack made Adon’s body twist and writhe with pain and discomfort. He didn’t realize it until the sound finished escaping his mouth, but he even cried out.

“Ahhhh!”

I didn’t even know I could scream, he thought. Though the sound was so high-pitched and weak, it was more like a whistle blown by a child with asthma.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off the enemy even as the sound ripped through him, though. The bat wasn’t going to kill him with those noises. The damage it could do was definitely limited, even if it felt extremely painful. It was trying to soften him up for the inevitable physical attacks to follow.

The bat circled around, keeping its distance for the moment. Based on the screeches, it was intent on weakening him as much as it could before it tried to make the kill.

Adon waited for it to close the distance, turning his body to keep facing the flying predator.

What is it with me and flying enemies, anyway? he thought. They don’t want to pick on somebody their own size?

There was a part of him that found this exhilarating, though. If he could defeat a bat, what would that be worth in Evolution Points?

The bat let out another screech.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Screeeeeeeee!!!!”

Goddess damn it!

This time, though, he did not cry out. The attack seemed to have diminished somewhat in effectiveness, perhaps because he had endured two more previously. There was only so much damage the bat could inflict with this sound-based attack.

And the monster seemed to realize that.

It started to swing around once more, but this time, it flew directly at him.

Adon still hadn’t gotten a good look at the creature. He focused on it, planning to attack once the bat got close enough. It would discover that he was far from defenseless. The bat took a minute before it got close enough for Adon to simply see it better. As it pulled into view, he winced inside his own mind.

Ugh. That thing’s butt-ugly. If I had a one in Charisma, is it possible this creature has a negative number? An ugly face, an ugly voice, and the creepiest shape I’ve ever seen…

Ugly was the least of it, really. The bat’s face was monstrous. It had ears so massive they reminded him of horns, tiny black eyes, and jaws that looked almost hairless, like someone shaved a rat.

Adon had the urge to run, but he ignored it. That would just make him an easier target. Surely the bat had been trying to break his spirit with those sound attacks, as well as weaken his body. Maybe it didn’t realize how dangerous of a caterpillar it was attacking.

I’ve already killed one life form that was above me in the so-called natural hierarchy, he thought. Watch out! You might join the bird’s eggs…

The thought trailed off lamely. Defeating helpless eggs really wasn’t much of an achievement. Running from the bird was, but it didn’t strike the same tone.

And now the bat was close enough for Adon to see the expression on its creepy face. It looked like a hideous, open-mouthed smile, showing all the bat’s small but sharp teeth.

Ready. Aim.

Adon pointed every spine he could from the front part of his body toward the bat. Some of the spines on his underside couldn’t be aimed that way, and some of the spines on his right were useless because the bat was swooping in from the left.

But as the bat flew closer, dozens of Adon’s hundreds of spines were pointed in its direction.

Fire.

Adon launched his attack, but the bat suddenly changed direction!

It couldn’t be reacting to his spines, because it moved at almost the same moment that he shot them.

Crap.

Adon began hopping from leaf to leaf, no longer concerned with trying to fight the bat.

That thing was way out of my league anyway, he thought. I don’t even know how he’s doing what he’s doing. What the hell was that sound attack? How the hell did he dodge my spines before I fired them?

The bat released another burst of its sound attack, but Adon was able to power through it, since he was moving quickly and was only partially caught in the zone of impact, and his body was also slowly getting used to all of his innards being rattled.

Desperation lets you do crazy things, he thought as he kept moving, barely slowed by the attack.

He turned his body around so that he could begin clambering down the side of the bush, tail end moving first. At least I can see his next attack coming that way.

But as Adon started to move, he saw the bat fly down incredibly low to the bush and strike at where he had just been. It threw a claw swipe with one of the short claws on its feet, then immediately bounced upward into the air again.

Wait. He doesn’t know where I am?

Adon began to descend the side of the bush—but slowly, while he tried to figure out what this might mean.

The bat doesn’t have very good eyesight, since he attacked the place where I just was instead of where I actually am. That was the first physical attack he bothered with. Maybe those attacks he was trying to soften me up with weren’t just attacks. What if they’re weaponized echolocation? If that’s the case, maybe he was trying to weaken me while also keeping an eye on my location. There’s probably a number of attacks he usually throws before he thinks the enemy is weak enough to hit directly. So maybe he wasn’t predicting where I would shoot my spines before. Maybe he changed directions because he was feinting. That wasn’t the moment when he was planning to attack anyway. He wanted to hit me with another sound attack.

Adon was making a lot of assumptions. Optimistic assumptions, at that. But the bat didn’t seem to be planning on leaving him alone, so it was important to think about his next attack. Would throwing venomous spines at the bat work this time? If not, Adon should stop wasting them and try to jump in close to the bat’s lower body. If he could keep away from the jaws, then he could stab the bat with his venom spines directly, and maybe use his freshly enhanced mandibles to inject its body with acid.

As he considered options for dealing with the bat, Adon saw that it was circling back for another attack on him.

If I understand the pattern vaguely correctly, he’s going to hit me with his sound attack again, and then he’ll come in for that claw swipe attack. He’ll aim at wherever his echolocation shows him I was. So if I just stand still and let the attack hit me one more time, I’ll know exactly where he’s going to attack next. And after that last upgrade, my spines are longer, sharper, and cover more of my body… They’re generally just much scarier than they used to be.

Adon thought he could win the fight if he could strike the bat with enough of his spines. Despite being one of his natural predators, it really was little, just like its species name suggested.

A small body should mean venom won’t take as long to circulate through it. I can win. I can do this. I just have to wait…

As he had the thought, another sound attack struck him. And Adon hadn’t been imagining its diminished effectiveness. He clenched his mandibles and took it until it was done.

As the painful sound faded, Adon let go of the twigs he was holding onto and allowed his whole body to drop several inches down on the bush.

There. Now, even if my next attack misses him, he won’t hit me.

Adon prepared. He had lost a couple dozen spines from the front of his body in his last failed attack. But a huge number of spines on his back remained, and now most of them faced up at where he expected the bat to be in a few seconds.

He waited, holding his breath.

His eyes tracked the monster’s movements. It circled around, trying to approach from a new angle.

Its whole approach, Adon thought, is to attack from different sides and try to surprise and disorient the enemy. It probably thinks I can’t see it, just like it can’t see me. If that was the case, new directions of attack would be a good strategy. But Adon’s vision was much stronger now than it had ever been before. He could see everything.

The bat made a final circling motion and began flying straight at the place where Adon had been, accelerating for a forceful strike with its clawed feet.

It was the moment of truth. Adon waited until he thought the bat was too close to pull out of its dive. Then he fired.

A thick barrage of quills shot out of his back in the bat’s direction. Adon saw over a dozen of them miss the target, but far more embedded itself into his enemy. The bat took spines to the eye, throat, all through the torso, but mostly—and perhaps most importantly—in the wings.

“Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!”

The bat let out the most intense sonic attack yet.

Adon’s body wiggled and writhed under the painful noise.

But he wanted to smile even as he endured the discomfort. He could hear the pain in the bat’s voice.

I think I won!