The bear's body shuddered violently, and its jaws clamped shut hard on Adon, testing the butterfly's magical reinforcement of his clam shell form once again.

He felt the walls of his body bend slightly, as if the armor was about to cave in, and Adon frantically pushed more Mana into the hard shell until it stabilized. He heard crunching and grinding noises coming from all around him, but it seemed to be the bear's teeth crushing themselves against his body.

Still, the pressure remained intense. The fact that the beast would sporadically partially open and shut its jaws made it even worse. Several times, Adon's clam shell form almost flew open at the sudden loosening of the pressure.

The desperate strength of the dying beast made it impossible for Adon to do anything other than simply hold himself together under the tremendous pressure. He was still using mental magic, but he lost awareness of anything but the bear's brain and its clamping jaws for what felt like a very long time.

The jaws' crushing vice grip would slacken for a moment, then increase again, then clamp down, over and over in a quickly repeating cycle. As it did this, Adon was vaguely aware that the rest of the bear's body was still moving, but he couldn't even tell if there was direction to the motion or if it was still just writhing involuntarily.

All Adon could do was hold on and hope for his friends' success.

Finally, though, the beast's continued efforts to snap its jaw shut on Adon seemed to weaken. The pressure diminished to the point that Adon sensed it might just be the weight of the top of the bear's head holding the jaw shut now.

Or perhaps the body was starting to stiffen slightly in death.

He reached out with his mind to the brain he was still gripping with mental magic, and he felt there was still some life in there, but it was hard to tell if the activity he sensed was the bear still being alive and well, or the brain going through some last spasms of life before it shut down for good.

Is it over? Adon sent, barely able to spare a shred of his mental capacity to communicate telepathically while holding onto the bear's brain with his power.

He expected his friends to answer and let him know if he could finally climb out of this horrible trap jaw.

Finally over, sent a small, deep, exhausted voice very close to Adon's body.

It did not belong to either Goldie or Samson.

After the sound of it faded, the bear's body shuddered a single, final time and finally went still.

So, that was the bear's voice, then, Adon thought quietly.

For the first time since he had found himself in the bear's mouth, he partially relaxed. He deactivated his mental magic—his head was really starting to hurt, so this was almost a matter of necessity—and he extended a tendril from within his clam shell form to try and extricate himself.

The extended limb quickly lashed itself around a cracked tooth and then slowly pulled. After a moment's effort, Adon heard a crunching sound from behind him—probably another tooth breaking as the clamshell pressed hard against it.

Then he was yanked loose, and he started to fall forward.

He had not noticed before that the bear's muzzle was pointed downward, but now that he had jarred himself free, gravity did its work. Adon slid across the bear's tongue and smacked into its partially closed front teeth.

Adon! Goldie's telepathic voice finally answered him, after what felt like forever but was probably only a handful of seconds.

Are you all right, bro? Samson's voice was not far behind.

I'm fine, Adon sent immediately.

He wasn't certain he was entirely fine. He felt very shaken, both in body and mind. Thoughts were running through his mind that became harder to suppress as the danger receded. The headache that had begun while he was in the bear's jaws was getting noticeably worse, and that might also have had something to do with his altered state of mind.

Pain can change the way the brain processes events.

As Adon pried open the bear's jaws with his clam shell parts, he felt a wave of sadness.

I could have tried to heal him, but it probably wouldn't have worked, he told himself. And the way the fight went, it was too close for me to waste energy on that. I probably would have been crushed inside his jaws… For something that was being controlled by rabies, he was awfully calculated with some of those moves! Catching me in his jaws like that… Adon realized that he had suddenly become angry at the dead bear. That didn't make sense, did it?

He fell toward the ground and allowed his Transformation to undo itself as he dropped. His head was pounding now, but at least he had a soft landing as his butterfly body struck the soil.

The world went almost black as the pain suddenly sharpened.

Adon's visual experience was of falling downward into darkness, the daylight receding to a tiny pinprick of blue and white far above him.

He heard Goldie's voice, urgently crying, Adon! Adon!!!

It was joined by Samson. Adon! Answer us, please!

But it was hard for the butterfly to worry about it. Everything felt very distant and very unimportant. He sank into a stupor, and gradually the noises of his friends' voices fizzled away to nothing.

Adon became aware of himself again.

He found himself in a dark, sunken place.

Is this like a tunnel? he wondered groggily. Then I should go toward the light, right? Did I die? Well, if I did, it's not like I can choose to say no and just go back to a destroyed body…

What had happened suddenly hit him all at once. The hunting trip. The fight with the bear. Getting sucked into the bear's vicious jaws and almost crushed to death. Saving himself with a quick Transformation. Helping his friends to kill the bear by paralyzing its body with mental magic.

I was sad, he thought. That's right. I was sad about something. Wasn't I?

Slowly, unsteadily, as if swimming through a great distance underwater, Adon approached the light again. As he rose through the shadowy depths, he felt his headache again.

Right. I still have a headache. Great. Of course I do. Why would being in the dark make it get better so quickly? He was still a bit out of it when he struck the opening the light shone through and emerged into the day.

As he surfaced, voices struck his mind, and the slight throbbing of his head intensified with the suddenly increased perception of the light.

Adon, how do you feel? Goldie's telepathic voice cut through the pain.

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You good, bro? Samson asked.

The butterfly shook himself slightly and realized that the two spiders were next to him now.

When had that happened?

Did I black out for a minute or something? Adon wondered. His headache was still there, but it had receded a bit, as if he had waited a while before using Telepathy again. A fog of sadness still surrounded him, but that too was at a slight remove.

You did black out, bro, and for more than just a minute, Samson sent.

Wait, was I transmitting that? Adon asked. What do you mean more than just a minute?

You were sending it, yes, Goldie sent. That was actually how we knew you were awake. You started sending thoughts out again.

Oh? Adon sent a little sheepishly. It was always a little awkward when he had telepathic incontinence. Usually it required intoxicants in his system, as he had become more disciplined and gained greater control over Telepathy as time went by.

Nothing embarrassing or anything, Samson transmitted hurriedly, as if he knew the nebulous concerns that Adon had yet to voice even in his own mind.

Perhaps he did. The two arthropods had been brothers in their previous incarnations, after all.

You said you were sad, Goldie added.

In the past tense, though, Samson clarified. Like, you said you were sad before?

Yeah, that's right, Adon sent. I wasn't feeling so great about what happened. Um, what happened with the bear? Just want to make sure I have my facts straight. It isn't still alive, is it?

Look for yourself, man, Samson replied instantly. He pointed with one limb, up and to the left.

Adon turned his body in that direction, but the sun was to that side now, and he found he was almost blinded by its light. But he was himself again. His strength was mostly restored to what it had been before his bout of unconsciousness.

He fluttered his wings, then reckoned with that strange feeling of being refreshed as if he had been unconscious for some time.

Hey, guys, how long was I out again? he sent, pausing for a moment.

About an hour, I think, Goldie sent—a little uneasily to Adon's mind. Perhaps it was just that she was not confident in her ability to tell time out here.

The sun had time to move a little in the sky, Samson clarified.

I see, Adon replied. Thank you both for keeping my body safe.

Of course, Samson transmitted instantly.

You save all three of us back there, Adon, Goldie sent. If you had not stopped the bear with your magic, we could not have done anything significant to harm it.

That's kind of you to say, Adon sent.

Then he flapped his wings and rose into the air. He wanted to see what had become of the bear now—with his own eyes.

As he floated over the beast's body, Adon was finally able to get a view not distorted by the sun's blinding light. It was really easy to see the bear's corpse once he had a clear line of sight.

That guy was huge, Adon thought a little admiringly.

The bear was laid out flat, body spread across the ground like a bearskin rug. As Adon got a good look at the beast, he took in those details that were ugliest and spoke most clearly to the battle that had just been fought.

The fur that had dissolved and the skin that had reddened on contact with Goldie's most destructive venom was now stiff and red and bled slightly, as if the bear's Mana had been keeping it from suffering further from the effects of the substance in life, and had only now given way.

But the worst of the damage was to a section of the bear's neck.

A huge black chasm had opened up there, where it looked like the flesh had mostly rotted away in a large circle—a shape almost the size of Goldie herself. The fur all around where the flesh was gone was matted with blood, and the ground nearby was splashed with the same.

That clearly hadn't been there when Adon last saw the bear. The wound looked extremely painful, obviously fatal—and rather pitiable.

What a terrible way to die, Adon thought, not even thinking to restrain his inner voice. He remembered now why he had felt a bit sad at the prospect of the bear dying.

It probably was a terrible way to die, Goldie sent in response, but remember that it was the bear or us, Adon.

Yeah, Samson agreed. Plus, we came out here to hunt, right? That's all that happened. The bear attacked us while we were hunting, so we hunted him instead of whatever else we would've killed.

Adon did not reply for a long moment. He felt strange.

I know he attacked us, but he had rabies, Adon sent at last. He really didn't have the ability to control himself. I just feel a little sorry for him. I kind of wish I could have tried healing him.

I am glad you did not, Goldie replied, sounding a bit confused and perhaps slightly annoyed. If he had been healed, I doubt we could have killed him, even with you paralyzing him. It was the fact that his fur had burned away that helped give us our opening.

Mama's right, Adon, Samson sent, slightly more hesitantly than his mother. What exactly bothers you so much about this?

He was… He was one of us, basically, Adon sent. There was a sense of loss in his tone, even he could hear it, but he could not find the words to fully explain why he felt upset at the bear's death. The mixture of his residual headache and general fatigue made it harder, but he also felt a bit hypocritical. Samson, Goldie, and in particular Adon had been involved in the deaths of many fellow creatures, and he could understand why the spiders would not share his point of view on the death of the bear.

Perhaps it was simply that the feeling of regret over killing the bear had compounded his earlier failures. The fact that the bear's eye had melted out of its skull reminded Adon that he had failed to regenerate Rosslyn's eye. The impression that he had of the bear, with its unused-sounding inner voice, as a solitary loner, reminded Adon of his own failed previous incarnations—of his own persistent social isolation and inability to make deep and lasting connections in his other lives. Even the simple truth that Adon himself had not killed the bear—had instead been forced to rely on his friends to do it—was probably a little part of the explanation.

I'm a hypocrite for even feeling this way, he thought quietly. I simultaneously feel bad about the bear being dead, and I wish I'm the one who killed it.

He thought of all the other semi-intelligent creatures he had killed in the past. Then he pushed the grim thought away.

At least the bear didn't get to kill us, Adon finally sent. Thank you both for saving me from inside the jaws of the beast. He tried to insert a little lightness into his tone as he spoke, though he didn't feel much of it. I'm impressed that your venom was so strong, actually!

That was a bright side. The spiders had definitely improved a great deal. Their venom would certainly kill humans if it had killed the Mystic Iron Bear.

It was really mainly just Mama's venom, Samson sent modestly. You can see where she injected the bear; it's that giant gaping hole in the neck. My injection site is on the other side. It's a couple of little red marks, like a bee sting.

That is nonsense, Sammy, Goldie transmitted reassuringly, turning her whole body to look at her son. Every bit counted. It was terrifying while we were fighting the bear. If you had not been there dividing his attention, he might have ripped me in two! She shifted to face Adon again. And the strength of my venom was thanks to you, Adon.

Me? Adon asked. How?

During the fight, you spilled some of the bear's blood, she sent. It landed near me, and I drank it. And I started to recover my strength immediately.

That made sense, Adon realized.

We barely survived that, huh? he sent.

I think so, Goldie replied mildly. I am grateful we will face another day. Um, is it all right if we go home soon?

It is, Adon transmitted. Let's eat some bear meat and get out of here.

In his own mind, he added, I think I've lost a bit of my taste for hunting.

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