The five allies reached the outskirts of Accra with only minutes to spare before the asteroid reached Earth’s atmosphere. From high in the air, it wasn’t difficult to see the rough circle of devastation, with what used to be the Kotoka International Airport in the center of a barren wasteland that reminded Charlemagne of what Porto Novo had become. Spotting a large patch of green surrounding Sakumono Lagoon, which had been far enough from the blast to escape relatively unscathed, the rooster began his descent, still clutching the very sore shoulders of Ndiogou Gueye.

  “How are we going to land?” the human shouted as they skimmed over the water, heading for the lagoon’s western bank.

  “I propose an alternative question,” Phatagin yelled as he popped his head out from Sirius’s furry undercoat and squinted off into the distance. “How do you suggest we prevent you and the canine from dying due to the radiation here?”

  “I am well-protected,” growled Sirius in response. “I have a Skill that allows me to resist all forms of energy damage.”

  “My Durability is quite high,” Ndiogou added. “I do not fear the fallout here.”

  “Bawk,” Charlemagne added, flapping his powerful wings a few times to maintain his desired speed and altitude.

  “You’re right,” Sirius agreed. “It does feel weaker here than it did in Porto Novo. You, pangolin, are you sure that there is enough here for the rooster to transform?”

  “It is not a transformation, per se,” Phatagin objected. “But you may have a point. I recommend moving to the center of the destroyed area. That is where we should find the most radiation.”

  The rooster bawked his agreement and, forsaking his intended landing site among the lush vegetation surrounding the lagoon, picked up both speed and altitude. The ambient radiation began to increase in density as they quickly approached ground zero, peaking barely two minutes later. Almost by reflex, Charlemagne’s body began to absorb the radiation as he circled above the ruined earth.

  “Ow!” Ndiogou cried as the rooster’s powerful talons dug into his body. “Just take this and drop me. There’s not much time left!”

  The human awkwardly shifted Sirius to his left arm and fumbled in his pants with the other. After a moment, he held up a vial of liquid.

  “Drink it!” the human yelled. “It’s a Strength Elixir.”

  The rooster leaned forward and snapped up the small vial before releasing his grip on the man’s shoulders. The ampule slid down the rooster’s gullet and reached his stomach almost immediately, where it magically dissolved into a rush of pure power. The Squiggles took note of Charlemagne’s increased Attributes.

  It was a good thing that Charlemagne had already dropped Ndiogou before taking the elixir, because his muscles spasmed in response to his Strength Attribute surging higher. He lost a bit of altitude before he regained control of his wings, but his new level of strength stood him in good stead as he ascended. Once he found the exact spot where the radiation was the densest, he stopped gaining altitude and instead banked sharply, making tight circles rather than attempting to hover in one place. His Ember Core drank greedily from the ambient radiation, but the rooster knew that he could do better - much better. He looked up for a moment, gauging how far away the asteroid was. His chicken brain still wasn’t good at math, but he could tell that he didn’t have much time left.

  Closing his eyes and reaching deep within himself, Charlemagne allowed his Skills to ignite, pulling in radiation from further and further away until the ambient energy formed an invisible but very real vortex with him at the center.

  His Ember Core Skill leveled up as his Core converted the radiation to raw mana, which then directly reinforced his body, causing it to grow. In no time at all, he had reached a size that dwarfed even the giant Quetzalcoatlus.

  Whoa, boss! You’re getting way too hot. I’ve got to bail! Bridget yelped as she took to the air. The rooster paid her no heed as he focused on controlling the incredible amount of raw power thrumming through his body. He had just realized that he had a problem…a big problem. The asteroid was directly above him.

  Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem. Charlemagne had an attack that could bridge the gap: his mana ball attack. But as his magically enhanced senses swept over the energy-infused lump of rock that was inbound, he realized that a long-distance attack wasn’t going to work. There was some sort of shield protecting the asteroid, and somehow the rooster instinctively knew that it would weather even the most potent mana-based attacks. He would have to get up close and personal, but flying, he had discovered, was much more about going forward than it was about going up and down. Still, he had to try.

  Tilting his body up as much as he could manage, the enormous rooster beat his wings while using mana to both lift his enormous bulk through the air and stabilize his ascent. He didn’t make it all the way to a ninety-degree angle with respect to the ground, but he wasn’t that far off, either. Upward he flew, pressing his modified body and his Ember Core to their limits. The wind resistance continued to mount, pressing against his face as he exceeded the sound barrier, then passed beyond Mach two, then three. As he continued to accelerate, the speed increase Charlemagne had earned from the Bald Bull kicked in, doing nothing to lessen the force of the wind but greatly adding to his overall velocity.

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  It was about that time that the rooster began running out of air.

  At sea level, air pressure near the equator is approximately 1000 millibars. Charlemagne quickly reached and then passed the point where the pressure was only half that. Moments later, the air pressure was only a quarter of its original value. Still, the rooster struggled onward. His lungs drew in huge gulps of air as he soared upward, allowing the thin air to compress itself within their alveoli, which partially mitigated the effects. At least for a time.

  Less than a minute later, the pressure was less than 100 millibars, under one-tenth of that at sea level. Mana from the rooster’s Ember Core began taking the place of oxygen within the enormous bird’s body, allowing for normal functions to continue as he soared upward. It was around that time that the rooster discovered his second problem: wings only worked well when the air was dense enough to provide lift.

  Each wing beat pushed against the oppressive pull of the Earth’s surface less effectively. There was just nothing for his wings to move out of the way. It was a strange sensation, akin to an animal used to moving through water suddenly attempting to swim through the air. The loss of velocity was somewhat mitigated by the reduced wind resistance, but Charlemagne could feel himself steadily slowing down.

  A quick check of the asteroid’s position told him that he needed to keep going, so that’s exactly what the rooster did.

  Moving power away from his wings, which were flapping more or less uselessly in the thin air, he began to push mana out from behind him. The extreme heat generated by his Ember Core began to expel itself along with his mana, and the combination of the pure magic and raw heat created a significant amount of thrust. The Squiggles were apparently impressed with the rooster’s ingenuity and notified him of their approval.

  Charlemagne put his newest Skill to the test, rocketing upward at an incredible rate. The air pressure continued to drop rapidly, reaching less than one percent of its value at sea level. And still, the air pressure continued to drop as he reached the upper end of the stratosphere and crossed into the chilly mesosphere. Despite having only been deprived of oxygen for mere minutes, the rooster’s mana-reinforced body began to seize up, and his organs started shutting down to reserve as much oxygen for the brain as possible. But, such is the power of hypoxia that, even with these measures, Charlemagne’s brain was affected as well, sending the enormous rooster into a state of severe disorientation. As his thoughts grew muddled, he finally laid eyes on the incoming asteroid.

  Bawk, the rooster sent to the rest of the Party by accident.

  A space egg? Bridget sent back. Are you sure?

  Annoyed at the interruption, the rooster shut off the Party chat feature and pushed himself harder, hoping for a chance to hatch the enormous egg and care for the enormous baby chick it surely contained. The longer that Charlemagne stared, the more focused he became on the beautiful bundle of joy that was hurtling closer. In fact, the edges of his vision were swallowed up by a pleasant darkness until the whitish object was the only thing that he could see. Some strange sort of floating worms emerged from within the asteroid and began to writhe around. Charlemagne was sure that he had seen them somewhere before. It was, of course, the Squiggles.

  The addled rooster had lost the ability to read, so he failed to appreciate the effort that the Squiggles had gone through to entertain him. Even if he had understood the message, he had completely forgotten that he had eaten the hunk of metal they were referencing, which he had looted from the wreckage of the convoy along with a certain pangolin.

  Despite his ignorance, there was no denying that an incredible change was occurring. Charlemagne felt a tingling sensation all over his body as several things happened at once. First, silver-colored liquid began to ooze out from his pores and spread across his skin and feathers. When the liquid touched the vest he had received in the Lippity Dungeon, it too began to change, lengthening into a form-fitting outfit that practically coated Charlemagne’s body. The once-stylish piece of clothing felt more like a sticky layer of paint that covered him from neck to feet. It was nice and warm, however, which helped minimize the amount of heat that Charlemagne was bleeding out into the cold, thin atmosphere.

  While that was happening, a small portion of the liquid reached the monocle that Charlemagne pretty much never bothered using. The golden rim turned silver, and the device began to expand beyond its original dimensions, just like the vest had. Unlike the vest, however, the monocle stayed largely in the same place, although it underwent a similar transformation. The transparent crystal darkened a bit while the round frame elongated lengthwise to wrap itself around the rooster’s face like a visor. The top hat, which had been forged from the impervious leather of the Bald Bull, lost much of its definition and became a silver sphere that integrated with both the neck piece of the vest and the edges of the monocle.

  Now dressed for outer space, Charlemagne rocketed onward as a rush of oxygen filled his helmet. It was time to destroy an asteroid.