Assassin Crow Evolution

Whatever Jimmy saw, it scared him half to death. He didn’t scare easily, but something about a half-humanoid creature hiding within the darkness of the chambers grinded his gears.

Every inkling of logic he had screamed at him to flee. His fight or flight response was triggered several times over.

Then again, curiosity got the best out of him. The need he had to figure out what he just looked at, stopped him from flying away.

"Come on, where did you go now?" His beak tightened. "Virena... do you see him?"

"No," She said, "I never saw him in the first place. I just heard you shout."

The chambers seemed bigger than ever. Panic waged war against his common sense.

Little by little, the blind spots that he had initially covered by scouting them from the ground, got away from him. He couldn’t focus, and he felt like he was going to be attacked from all sides!

Jimmy got used to being out-numbered, but there was something about the general darkness here that scared him to hell and back. He couldn’t explain it.

Maybe he was just a baby? After all, despite his size, he was still considered a teenager. The darkness was spooky.

Frustrated, he circled back, and finally grabbed his hammer. Afterwards, he approached the scene once more.

"I survived without mana before," He whispered, "A hammer can be just as good as a fireball."

The creature was nowhere to be seen. Jimmy’s Heightened Spatial Awareness evolution, which usually gave him exhaustive sensory information of his surroundings, could not pick up any movement this time around!

The other rats that he had fought, and killed so far, had fallen within the radius of his senses. He had heard them, but he couldn’t sense a single step of this one odd, half-humanoid.

This creature either moved with great caution, or Jimmy’s eyes had been playing tricks on him.

Those were the two explanations he could think of, though, he wasn’t anywhere close to admitting the latter.

Jimmy slowly spun in place as he tried to find this dreaded creature, and this was when he noticed that the chambers were getting darker by the moment.

"What?" He squinted.

At that moment, he saw the flame of one of the wall-mounted torches die abruptly.

Before the flame ceased, he saw a humongous shadow, resembling a four-fingered hand. Someone had put the torch out on purpose!

"Oh, hell nah." His feathers jerked up.

Jimmy arched his back, pushed his claw forward, and throughout a few whispers, three Red Fireballs raged forward.

[-150 mana points]

[Remaining pool: 202 points]

The first fireball hit the torch, the second one targeted the wall near the torch, and the third one flew further towards the right side of the torch, for good measure.

Every single one of them missed.

The fact that he missed forced him to question his sanity. No creature could’ve been fast enough to evade three fireballs which, from one another, were only timed a fraction of a second apart!

Jimmy’s heart sank to his foot. He didn’t know what to do.

The chambers kept getting darker. Fear sunk down to his bones when he realized that whatever hunted him, was putting out three torches at a time!

The torches were so far from one another that it was physically impossible for one creature to put out this quickly!

The entirety of the chambers went dark within five seconds after the initial shots he fired!

"Brace yourself, Virena!" He exclaimed.

What felt like after an eternity of darkness, Jimmy finally heard some foreign movements.

For a moment, he thought that the abrupt deprivation of his visual senses had made his other senses more effective. He believed that this was why he got an idea of where to shoot towards next.

He heard something move behind him, and so he swiftly turned around, and attacked.

"Red Fireball!" He shouted.

[-50 mana points]

[Remaining pool: 152 points]

Fire, and any movement that accelerated it, had only one intention. It was to burn.

The fireball beamed forward at great speeds! It shouldn’t miss its target, and yet it did.

It hit the wall on the other side of the chamber, and dissipated.

Before it did, it illuminated the place enough for him to have a poor, and yet still informative view of what was in front of him.

To his left, he saw a dark hand.

To his right, two pairs of hands. Same shade.

Jimmy could tell that these creatures were heading towards him. The invasive positioning of their hands told him so.

"No..." He gasped, "It can’t end like this..."

A moment later, he felt that someone had grabbed him. Gently, and yet slightly restricting his wings.

Although he only counted four fingers, the hands, in a way, still felt human. He wasn’t being crushed to death, and so his greatest fear was annulled.

A smirk stretched across his face. The fact that these creatures, who out-matched him, weren’t willing to kill him on the spot once they got the chance, gave him the supreme advantage that he was looking for!

He didn’t panic, and allowed whoever grabbed him, to lift him above the ground.

Splat!

Jimmy summoned his Retractable Razor Armor. Shy of thirty, two-inch metallic spikes tore through the hands of whoever grabbed him!

Skree!

The creature howled in pain. It tried to let go of Jimmy, and so it violently started shaking its hands up and down!

Jimmy didn’t give it the advantage of freedom. He didn’t retract his armor, and the creature’s hands were thoroughly stuck on his slightly curved spikes!

Not even porcupines could compete with the damage he caused in a few short seconds!

With every bit of strength he could muster, Jimmy started to stretch his wings out. He felt as if he was pushing two mountains apart. Whoever held him was far more powerful physically.

Jimmy didn’t care, and kept pushing.

Once he opened his wings up halfway, he gained some motion, and managed to tilt his body inwards. Towards the creature’s torso.

His hammer crashed against the ground. He let go of it, just so it wouldn’t weigh him down.

Afterwards, he shouted, "Red Fireball!"