Assassin Crow Evolution

"I’m a crow!" Vorin continued to yell, after he had woken up, "A crow I am!"

Jimmy watched him in absolute horror. He was overtaken by that deep, fearful, and paranoid feeling one had when they woke up from a nightmare. It was the deepest kind of fear, which nearly pushed him into fight or flight mode!

The concept of family was fickle for him in this world, especially since his crow family has caused him a lot of trouble, but in terms of Vorin, he truly considered him his brother, and he knew that the feeling went both ways. He did not want to mercy kill his brother, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it either.

’I guess this is one of the harsher side-effects that I’ve been lucky enough to avoid?’ He thought, ’It has to be brain damage.’

Zoey and Julia had woken up. Sure enough, all the shouting from Vorin’s side was hard to ignore, even if they had been in their deepest, most rewarding slumber beforehand.

Zoey, being an illusion mage, sought to calm Vorin down, even though helping others didn’t come naturally to her. She usually used her magic to scare the daylights out of predators, but in this case, she poured her mana on the young crow, hoping to engulf him in a reassuring, calming illusion.

It did not work.

"I’m a cro..." Vorin tried to yell once more, but his speech slurred, and staggered.

As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, there was another detail that only Jimmy noticed.

It was barely visible to the naked eye, as the difference was by a single centimeter, but the left corner of Vorin’s ’smile’, curled downwards.

It was what slurred his speech. It was a facial drop that altered his face, or his beak placement, by a nudge.

Jimmy couldn’t believe his eyes! For some reason, and only for a moment, he wished that he hadn’t noticed this facial drop.

Immediately after, Vorin lost his balance, and fell off of the tree. He did not even try to break his fall, or, he couldn’t.

At that moment, as he watched in horror, frozen in shock, Jimmy was hit with a barrel of information from his past life. He recalled memories that helped him realize what exactly was going on.

’That’s how mom died... my human mom.’ He thought, and afterwards, he found it within himself to yell out, "A stroke! Vorin is having a stroke!"

Zoey and Julia did not know what a stroke was. They never heard of it, but at this point, they didn’t want to ask questions, because they could feel that there was nothing they could do to help.

Zoey’s heart sank. She believed she caused this, as Vorin’s speech slurred shortly after she tried to calm him down. This guilt distracted her so much that she absolutely failed to react in time, and tried to break Vorin’s fall with her telekinetic abilities.

She was hoping that the fact that the drop wasn’t that high, was enough to give Vorin some sort of a fighting chance, but it was hard to hold on to whatever sense of hope she felt. She was speechless.

The sadness that overcame her, and even Julia when they saw that one of his wings was bent out of shape, was as deep as the oceans. They’ve grown to like him over time, and likewise, it was hard to see a crow they cared about, submit to what appeared to be an untimely death.

Vorin didn’t actually die, but he was close.

Jimmy joined his brother on the ground, shortly after. Up until that point, he had felt frozen in place, and he simply did not know what to do.

After he realized that he had frozen in fear, he snapped out of it with a desperate shout, and then he dropped down from the tree so fast that he heard a crack once he hit the ground! He broke his ankle.

[-150 mana points]

[Remaining pool: 2,950 points]

A black mist enveloped him in an instant. He wasn’t even given the chance to feel the pain from his broken ankle. The Help Yourself skill worked overtime, and thankfully, it had a full mana pool to work with.

"Why is he shaking?" Julia panicked.

"He’s having a stroke..." He rushed through his words, "His brain isn’t getting any oxygen!"

"Oxygen?" Julia parroted.

Jimmy did not care to answer.

Instead, he placed his claw on his brother’s chest, and quickly summoned the Helping Hand skill. He didn’t need a nine-step plan for this one, and in this case, even his brain was lagging behind, and was yet to come up with a nine-step plan.

Jimmy was yet to get over the fact that in his past life, he saw his mother die from a stroke. Her downwards curled lips was an image that he could not get out of his head. It felt like it was stamped behind his pupils.

Though, he now realized why when he was feeling low, or when he was severely hurt, his mother was the one he missed the most. He had lost her when he was only twelve years old!

Nevertheless, despite his mental barricades, the Helping Hand skill did trigger.

It detected Vorin’s very broken body, and surrounded him in the blink of an eye!

Poof!

It disappeared as quickly as it appeared. One would miss it if they blinked.

[-2,100 mana points]

[Remaining pool: 850 points]

"Did it work?" Julia parroted, "Please tell me he isn’t dead..."

Jimmy could not bring himself to speak. He did not have an answer for her, and simply, he was hoping for the best.

Vorin’s body continued to shake. The stroke he was suffering through would not let go!

Although Jimmy was willing to pour his mana pool on his brother ten times over if it meant that he could save him, Jimmy feared that no amount of amateur healing magic could put a dent to the stroke!

For a moment, he thought that all was lost. He feared that his brother submitted to an eternal slumber, but then, Zoey aggressively flapped her wings, excited, shaking one of her claws at Vorin’s wing, so as to point at it.

"You healed his wing!" She mustered the power to speak, scream, in fact. "Is that enough?"

Jimmy did not want to abandon hope, but as Vorin continued suffering through the stroke, abandoning hope may just be necessary.

"Why didn’t it work..." He mumbled.

Afterwards, he tried to summon the Helping Hand skill one more time, and pour what was left of his mana on to his brother, but it did not take.

The Helping Hand skill, apparently, couldn’t find a target to help. The system notified him of the matter.

"No..." He held his breath, "There’s nothing we can do..."

Jimmy mustered a tear. It was hard to stop the waterworks. He was about to go on an all out rage, and destroy the rest of the cores so they could not hurt the rest of the team, but then, a piercing caw broke out, enslaving his attention!

"Raaah!" Vorin shouted.

In a blink, Vorin woke up, and even stood up, but there was one major problem.

His body was still shaking!