Assassin Crow Evolution

"Where did you learn how to shoot fireballs?" Gutling asked, and his voice shook a bit, even though he tried to control it. "Why haven’t you shared it with the crows?"

"The crows, or you guys, just tried to kill me." Jimmy answered, "Why would I equip any of you with fireballs, old man?"

Gutling did not answer. He could think of a hundred different ways to answer, but he was sure that it wouldn’t help his case.

Silence stretched for a short moment. It felt like an eternity.

Jimmy felt forced to repeat one of his former questions, "Do you still want to kill me, Gutling? I mean you can try, but I guarantee you that you’ll fail."

"What do you expect me to say?" Gutling shook his head, "Do you want me to beg you to spare me? Forget it. I never begged anyone in my life, and I’m not starting now, so if you wish to kill me, do it. I didn’t come here to bargain with a traitor."

"From the way I see it, you’re the traitor." He countered, "You and the elders tried to have a lot of us crows killed. Now I’m tempted to keep your dirty little plans a secret, so my siblings won’t tear you apart before the next sunrise, but you have to fall in line."

"Fall in line?" Gutling parroted.

"Yes," He nodded, "Stop bugging my family, or the crows in general. Those idiotic friends of yours were planning to kill White Blade, for fuck’s sake, your grandson. It’s about time you understand that your friends were horrible."

"I must admit that Hammer Beak wasn’t the smartest of all crows," Gutling said, "I would’ve killed him myself before he could’ve even raised his blade against my grandson."

"Alright then, you understand what I was getting at." He nodded, "Now we have to go and get my Beast Cores back, and you’re going to lead me to them. That is, if you don’t insist on being a prick."

"I can help you find them, yes," Gutling nodded, "But what do we do with the bodies of... my old friends? Do we tell White Blade what happened? I believe that we must tell him, because he is in total command of the crows now after you killed Hammer Beak."

"You can tell him whatever story that would keep the both of us out of trouble. I don’t want to fight any more crows, because as you saw, I’d end up killing them. It wouldn’t sit right with me." He said, "Now take me to my cores."

...

The flight led by Gutling was awkward.

It was the equivalent of beating up an old man, but then being forced to hang out with that same old man afterwards, to learn and play nice.

Jimmy didn’t feel great about it, but he always ended up in such awkward situations.

The community that kept trying to figure out new ways to abandon him, inevitably threw curve-balls at him whenever he abandoned them back. It was almost as if they didn’t want him gone.

In his head, Jimmy tried to dispel the awkwardness by reminding himself that he had a goal in mind. He wanted those cores above anything else.

Virena, laying comfortably on her friend’s back, got closer to his head, and whispered, "Are we going after the cores?"

"Oh, yeah," He nodded, "Sorry, I forgot to keep you in the loop. Thanks for not killing Gutling, by the way. I know it must’ve been hard for you to figure out that I didn’t want him dead. You don’t have to whisper, by the way, he doesn’t understand jack shit."

"Well, I knew you could have killed him, but you didn’t, so I figured that you had a plan in mind." She said, "Are the cores related to your plan? Are there any test subjects that we should be looking out for?"

"Hopefully the crows weren’t frantic enough to touch the cores," He said, "With the way that things are going, we’d have an annoying problem in our hands if someone actually absorbed the cores properly. I don’t want to deal with a cow-sized crow right now."

"Maybe they just focused on the meat?" She added, "Birds are simple creatures."

"Crows are definitely not simple," He said, "They’re feathery ego-maniacs. If they puzzle together a way for them to get stronger, they’ll ignore hundreds of pounds of meat easily."

Their concerns were ever rising, and rightfully so, but at least they managed to drown the awkward silence. Well, at least momentarily.

Gutling led them to a watch tower at the edge of the city.

Most of the crows have gathered up here to rest, and intercept squirrels from a high vantage point. Sleeping in their usual spots, and or nests, was highly dangerous now with those violent critters running around.

The situation became awkward the moment Jimmy landed on top of the tower. Plenty of crows were eye-balling him, and saw him as a traitor, amongst other things. News spread fast across the crow community.

"I suppose you’re here because Hammer Beak took your food," White Blade approached him, but he couldn’t bring himself to greet his friend, "I understand that he had no right, but his heart was in the right place."

"I don’t mind sharing my food. Hell, I can show you where to get hundreds of pounds of relatively fresh food right now if you have some men available." Jimmy rushed through his words, "But, Hammer Beak took some Beast Cores from me as well."

"Are you not willing to share your cores?" White Blade asked, "Your brother brought two cores to me today alone. Maybe you should follow his example?"

"My brother sounds like an idiot, and he probably is one." Jimmy snapped, "But you barely know anything about cores. The ones that were stolen from me could be extremely dangerous. Has anyone absorbed them?"

"Dangerous? I don’t think so." White Blade nearly scoffed, "We managed to make good use of them. Well, three of them."

"Three?" He parroted.

"I realize that your relationship with our community is... complicated, but I’d like you to see that we put the cores into good use." White Blade continued, "I invite you to watch the meadows with me. You should be able to spot one of our elders down there."