Chapter 67: Pudding
Jimmy saw plenty of flaws within White Blade’s logic. The flaws mostly consisted of wishful thinking.
’So he is making shit up along the way.’ Jimmy thought, ’I don’t know if that’s the worst, or best way to make plans? Shit, he’s adaptive, but his ideas could unravel into a pile of shit at any moment.’
In any other situation, Jimmy would argue with White Blade for a full day and night, but the more he thought about this war, the more he realized that he didn’t care. From what White Blade and the other crows said, Jimmy’s family was alive, and that fact alone got rid of any sort of interest he had towards this war, or the supposed end of it.
Instead, he circled back to what he came here for to begin with, "I’m happy that the war is over, man, but I’m still going to need my Beast Cores back."
"Do you not wish to share your victories with the crows?" White Blade asked, "I can make your life easier, you know? I can ask your father to lift your banishment. Hammer Beak is the reason behind your banishment, as far as I heard, and I’m certain I can punish him on your behalf as well."
At that moment, Gutling chimed in the conversation, and said, "We had to kill Hammer Beak, kid, Zed too."
"What?" White Blade tilted his head, confused rather than angry, "Why?"
"They wanted to kill a lot of crows, and he wanted to kill you as well." Gutling answered, "They had to die."
"I see," White Blade looked down, "That’s a shame. I had plans for them. I hope they didn’t injure you two."
"I had Jimmy with me," Gutling said.
"Understood," White Blade nodded.
In reality, he didn’t understand how the altercation occurred. He spoke to Hammer Beak a couple of hours ago, and watched him leave with Zed, and his grandfather. He couldn’t figure out what happened within those couple of hours.
However, since his grandfather left with those couple of problematic elders, he figured that his grandfather was just as much to blame for the potential murder-spree of the already dwindling population of crows. He could tell that his grandfather wasn’t telling him everything, but he chose to leave it be for now.
Jimmy shifted White Blade’s attention from the elders, as he once more demanded, "I want my Beast Cores. They’re dangerous."
"If you let me keep them, I can lift your banishment." White Blade insisted.
"I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I don’t care if my father lifts my banishment, or takes it with him to the grave! I stopped caring a while ago." His eye twitched, and he began to lose his temper. "But the cores... I don’t know which ones Helene used, but any one of them could kill the crows at random. There’s a distinction between them. That aside, me and Virena risked our lives to get those cores, and we’re not so keen on giving all of them away."
"I understand," White Blade said. "I had plans for those cores, but if you insist that they’re dangerous, we’ll give them back."
A second later, they heard one of the crows scream.
For a moment, everyone thought that the squirrels attacked, but as they turned around, they saw a crow laid flat on the other side of the watch-tower.
Upon closer inspection, they saw that its body was, in a way, melting.
The rest of the crows cawed in panic, and most of them backed away.
Jimmy and White Blade were the only ones that stuck close to the struggling crow.
"Is she dying?" White Blade asked in a panic.
"Probably," He tried to keep calm, "I’ve experienced something like this once, when I evolved, but she doesn’t look right."
"Doesn’t look right? She’s my partner!" White Blade raised his voice, "Where did you even get these cores from?"
"Rats," He answered, "Weird fucking rats."
Jimmy spotted five cores hidden within a crack at the top of the watch-tower. Whoever hid them, had gotten rid of the sack a while ago, so as to not attract attention towards the cores.
The crow who for some reason absorbed one of the cores, be it clumsily or out of greed, was melting far too fast for this to be considered a proper evolution.
Its tar-like body stretched two feet wide, and it eventually seeped into the crack where the other five cores were stashed.
Jimmy and White Blade couldn’t do anything to separate the crow from the rest of the cores.
They couldn’t drag a liquid body away from the cores, and they couldn’t touch the cores either. Not without risking absorbing them, or tossing them somewhere in the city, at least.
With that considered, the suffering crow ended up shattering all five of the remaining cores. It absorbed all of them only a few seconds later!
"Back up!" He shouted.
Jimmy noticed that the liquid multiplied. It was a faint clue, but he knew that whatever was to come next was entirely unpredictable!
The two of them backed up quickly, and seconds later, they saw a pair of wings form within the puddle.
The wings were tiny, and a bit deformed.
For a moment, Jimmy was hopeful that this poor crow could survive the evolution, but then the wings melted back into the puddle.
This horrific scene went on for a full hour.
The puddle of feathers and flesh kept assuming weird, temporary forms. From a two-foot large singular beak, to floating claws, and even to a puddle three times its initial size. It formed everything but a full, healthy crow!
"We should put her out of her misery," Jimmy sighed.
"Yes, but how?" White Blade’s voice shook.
A faint whisper later, a Red Fireball shot out of Jimmy’s claw, and hit the abomination.
The puddle gurgled. Faint screams escaped out of the puddle, and it shook everyone’s souls!
"Why did I fight you over the cores..." White Blade cried out as he lost control of his emotions entirely. "She wasn’t supposed to die! I loved her!"
"I’m sorry, man," Jimmy said.
Afterwards, he tossed yet another Red Fireball towards the puddle. He had a feeling that the suffering woman was still alive.
The fireball boiled away most of what remained of the puddle.
Whatever survived the fireball, dripped away from the watch-tower.