The frog straightened its spine as much as possible, trying to support its weight on its legs alone.

  It was hard.

  Without relying on its arms for support, it kept falling forward, and even when it managed to recover, it ended up overcompensating and stumbling around until it went down.

  Usually everything would just handle itself: every part knew exactly where to go and how to do so. But now that it was forcibly trying to move in a certain way, it was as if its own body was rebelling. Even its tail kept getting in the way!

  It was so very frustrating! How was the dark one doing it? contorting in all those absurd manners and slapping creatures away as if it were no issue at all, while the frog couldn’t even stand still in them!

  Finally too drained to keep going, it slumped onto the ground and fed, glad yet again that the dark one was ignoring it so completely.

  It had been out of fear, at first, that the creature would kill it for daring to set up its haven in a cave so close. Now it knew that wouldn’t happen, but would feel bad if the thing were to see it fail so badly, after trying so much. Why it would ever worry over something nonsensical like that was a mystery, but such were its feelings.

  The dark one was a truly fascinating thing, presenting the same underlying horror as the knight. But also entirely different: while the knight was aggressively bad, a horror for the whole world...

  the dark one was a horror for itself.

  It was a very strange sensation. A kind of shared ache that reminded the frog of losing its friends, but not quite.

  The closest thing would probably be that bat, back then - the unfortunate creature that had been wounded so badly its gem had come out of its body while it was still alive, kept hanging on only by filaments, shaking hands, and desperation. Even though the frog had no stakes there, no relation with the creature and so no reason to be concerned... it had been painful to watch.

  ... No, that didn't make sense: the dark one couldn't be felt at all. It might not even have a gem! Its must be an entirely different situation. Though it was clear, in some obscure way, that every moment the creature was alive was... sad. For it.

  And yet, it also possessed a grace, that went beyond its fighting prowess. A.... grace, that the frog found... alluring? Perhaps that was why it didn't want to be noticed by the creature.

  The dark one was important. Much more important than a jumped-up frog. And that frog didn't want such a superior existence to acknowledge its mediocrity.

  No, it definitely didn't want to catch the creature's attention,

  before it was ready.

  And of course there was all that complicated stuff, that it had been the one to kill the bison...

  ...

  What a wonderfully complex creature! No wonder that it occupied the frog's thoughts so often!

  In any case, there had been no real progress with the moves since it had started, even with so many good downtimes devoted to chasing after them. It wouldn’t give up entirely, of course. But a change of pace would probably be helpful.

  Better to keep trying during the surges - when it had to hide in here, anyway - between bouts of filaments-snatching practice. As it should have been doing from the start.

  The frog bounced the infused gem in its hand, feeling satisfied: it had truly made good progress with wrapping up the filaments.

  Unfortunately, that was as far as it could go here since this skill had been perfected as much as possible. It couldn't get any better, and trying more would only be a waste of time and effort.

  A pity. Actually making tangible progress with something again had felt pretty good. Alas, it was time to face reality and move onto something else. This should be quick enough to make an attempt for the bison's filaments, after all. It might have been enough for quite a while. There were no more excuses, and time was running out.

  The guards had made distressingly good progress, while it had been distracted staring at the dark one. Of course they had, when the knight had started to come out of the castle and charge down the hill, trampling on the swarm with a dedication that would have rivaled the bison. It had been terrible to watch, the frog's ambitions hanging on a thread...

  Fortunately the knight seemed unwilling to stray too far from its lessers, which for their part were far from quick and powerful enough to keep up, often failing to form a line and secure the ground their champion had conquered, forcing it to backtrack and support them many times.

  Then, it would eventually go back to the castle... and the guards would lose a good chunk more of what they'd taken, forcing the knight to recover it again in its next outing.

  It was a truly strange behavior, if a convenient one. Had the thing ignored them and went out on its own, it would have claimed the bison already. Maybe it was worried that they wouldn't hold in its absence? It might be, with how the swarm pressured them during the worst surges.

  But then why didn't it simply keep going? Why not slaughter the whole surge single-handedly? Why go all the way back each time?

  Not that the frog should complain when the situation was to its advantage... Though still quite dire: they were almost back to where the trail forked into multiple ones, ever closer to the bison. Even if it should take them some time and more than one foray from their champion, that was assuming nothing changed: that they didn't have some other trick; that the knight kept behaving as it had; that the surges kept coming, hitting just as hard... Too many things that might go wrong.

  The frog really, really needed to get a move.

  … but what if it was the dark one that changed? What if it left, when the frog was so very close?

  Already the creature twitched every time the knight came down from the castle. What if it left to fight it? The frog might lose its only chance at something incredible! Something that would surely carry over after the transformation! Probably.

  ...But deep inside, it knew what was the correct action.

  Between ensuring its claim on the one, certain path to enormous growth and strength - strength like it had never had the right to even hope for - and risking it all for a vague thing that might just be a delusion...

  The choice was obvious.

  The frog twisted and flexed into its new routine, finally feeling good feedback from its limbs. It had been hard, slow, and intensely frustrating, but apparently even its instincts could be overcome: if it beat them down with enough repetition, it could eventually shape them into something else.

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  This time, it might have really found the right approach... an approach that should have been obvious all along.

  The dark one was different from it, so it made no sense trying to mimic its exact same moves! Rather, it should've immediately tried to understand what was behind them, and mimic that.

  Clearly, just as the frog's caution and smarts made its fighting better than most other creature's around – with the obvious exceptions – and their senseless aggression, the dark one must have something even better. Many times over, most likely, and probably more than one.

  Unfortunately, the creature's inscrutable reasons were just that: inscrutable.

  And the frog was stuck with trying what felt right. Or rather, what seemed reasonable intellectually, but against whatever it felt. Because doing any of this certainly didn’t feel right, at first.

  Still, the results were quite satisfying. Perhaps it was just deluding itself, but it felt on the cusp of something good. Wonderful. If only it could manage to clear whatever was the last hurdle...

  It had been stuck here for quite some time, with no progress on that front. At least, it had gotten as far as it could with the filaments-snatching - so it could drop everything and run for the bison, in the worst case - and had practiced its self-made moves. It liked to imagine that even the dark one looked over here every once in a while and acknowledged its progress.

  Of course, that truly was a delusion: the only thing the dark one ever did was standing still, staring straight at the castle and using its moves to…

  It was using its moves! Using them. That was what the frog had been missing! What use were combat moves if it didn’t practice them against another creature? It should hurry and find something to fight!

  But... that thought felt very wrong.

  If it went around attacking creatures just for its convenience, then how would it be different from any predator? How different would it be from the owl?

  No, it absolutely couldn’t do that.

  ...

  But if another creature attacked first…

  A huge paw slammed where it had been just a moment ago, the extended claws piercing its skin, uncaring of its supposed toughness.

  The frog scrambled away, and then started bouncing around frantically, trying to avoid its pursuer, its objective basically forgotten.

  Why was this thing so fast on top of having such power? And why had the frog thought approaching a lynx would be a good idea? A creature so much stronger than it and so happy to brutalize anything that came close... It should have started with something simpler. There were so many weaker targets around!

  The fight was keeping it always on the back foot, and needed everything it had to give: its speed to just barely dodge out of the way, its tough skin to avoid deeper wounds when it didn't, and its sneakiness to disorient the enemy, ducking in its blind spots every time it could. And still, it was extremely close, always just a small mistake away from doom.

  ... but it was doing something.

  The frog couldn't ever go onto the offensive, but was avoiding a horrible death quite well. It could allow itself to slowly shift more and more of its focus onto the moves.

  Until it felt ready to try one of its own versions of the dark one's aggressive dodges: a move that should allow not only to avoid damage, but also to get in position for a perfect strike.

  It stopped suddenly, and waited for the lynx to come...

  but fumbled under the pressure of trying something so new against such a terrible threat.

  Luckily, the lynx didn’t have mysterious powers helping it and the frog's thick skin was enough to limit the damage: it ended up with a painful, deep gash on its belly, but nothing that wouldn't heal.

  Still enough to impress upon it just how much danger it had put itself in.

  And to get it just a tiny bit angry.

  Now, if it managed to lose the enemy in the throng of creatures, and then sneak back up to it after it had lowered its guard, jumping on should be easy. Then, with its experience and thick skin, it could just bite down into the neck and–

  No! What was it thinking? It was falling back to its instincts! Maybe it could ensure survival with those - maybe even win - but what use would that be?

  It kept dodging strike after strike, always trying to find openings for its moves, but always coming up empty.

  It was just so much more difficult to try this against a creature that seemed to be doing its very best to stop it. The lynx just wouldn’t stay still and let itself be hit where the frog needed to!

  On top of that, these moves might be wrong in the first place! It had tried to interpret the dark one, but had it really caught the creature's intent? This felt somewhat right in that sense... but trusting instincts to defy other instincts might have been a tad unwise.

  Not that giving up was an option, when it had dedicated so much time to this already, wanted the results too deeply.

  It would keep trying until one of them triumphed or dropped from depletion. It was on the brink of something, for sure!

  It kept dodging and ducking, but all still according to instinct! Somehow, while the feeling of being close, so very close... The frog still didn't get it.

  And it was finally getting drained too, while the lynx was completely fresh. Even if its endurance was supposed to be quite good, fighting so many lynxes in a row were really putting a strain onto that.

  But it would last until this one collapsed and covered its head too! Strange that they always did that...

  Back in its cave, the frog kept fidgeting more and more. The surge was hitting harder than usual, something that should be terrifying any other time, but was barely registering right now.

  Containing the restlessness was a struggle. Just coming back here to safety - interrupting its training when it was so very close - had been hard, even knowing what was coming.

  Whirling back and forth, the frog stared up, at what a wonder that creature was. So smooth and skilled as to be immovable. Having practiced its own moves only made the sight more impressive, revealing in more ways just how superior the dark one was. How unreachable.

  Maybe the frog had wasted time, after all. This itch at the back of its mind insisted that there was something else to do that it had forgotten, something far more important. But it just couldn't remember what. It felt drained in more ways than should be possible, but it couldn't even bother to feed.

  It couldn't do anything besides looking at the dark one, appreciating its mastery. Taking it in.

  ...

  Unwittingly, it found itself standing from its crouch, muscles relaxing.

  And moving out, into chaos.

  It entered the surge, which should be cause of immense panic.

  No such feeling came.

  There were only its imperfect moves, and even those vaguely.

  It got shoved, scratched, thrown to the ground. But somehow it was always making progress, always moving forward.

  The frog could do nothing but advance... until it was in the very middle of the surge.

  And then it fought,

  with everything it had.

  Using its instincts mostly, driven by the underlying terror of the situation. Muted, but still very much there on second glance. And also its moves.

  Mostly its moves in fact.

  More and more, improving on them.

  Dodging just a bit better, striking back just a bit harder.

  With such a gradual and smooth pace, that it almost didn't realized when it happened.

  When the next huge creature tried to shove it out of the way, to pierce flesh with its horn... the frog acted.

  A simple step, in the perfect place; a twist of its body, just the right angle; its claws on a collision course with an unprotected neck.

  The attacking creature rushing forth one moment, was beheaded the very next.

  All with such an ease, that felt crushingly impossible. Too much to bear. Almost enough to ruin the absolute elation the frog felt at having triumphed. Almost.

  But there was no time for that, when the next enemy was already coming.

  A slaughter began. The swarm forced to split as if encountering a massive boulder, those that tried their luck picked apart in one perfectly smooth strike.

  It was such a wonderful, terrible sensation. The frog's body moving before its mind even started to think that it should.

  As if its instincts had become something more. All encompassing.

  Not just cobbled-together moves: anything it wanted to try was perfect. Any parry, any counter, any strike… they all immediately succeeded.

  It was wonderful and terrible, that this state was draining away as fast as the surge was dying.

  Its movements less quick, its decisions less spot on. And space freeing in its mind to finally be something else than fight.

  Until it vanished.

  It was such a sudden, enfeebling moment, the frog managed to get body checked by one of the very last - and least - creatures of the surge, as the swarm fully settled into a downtime.

  Despite the profound weakness seizing its limbs and the almost deadly depletion it felt, there were many thoughts in its mind, all of them confusing and confused. But there was no time for that, with the creepy pressure mounting against its back.

  Still on the ground, the frog turned, already knowing through the frail, quickly fading connection, what it would see.

  Its gaze found the dark one.

  The creature was staring back.