Assassin Crow Evolution

After several hours of absurdity wrapped around in confusion, Jimmy and Virena crawled out of the odd rat-hole.

This experience left plenty of their questions unanswered, but they had faith that the cores they harvested would shed light to some of the mystery.

Jimmy dragged the cores, along with ten pounds of meat through the snug tunnel that he grew to hate.

It was an up-hill battle. He had to drag the thing through a narrow tunnel, while squeezing through what he compared with a flea-infested cesspool.

Luckily, whatever flea hung out around here, wasn’t quite compatible with him. He was a bird, and could not catch the same fleas that rats caught. That was one of the few upsides of this experience.

Anyway, once they made it out of the rat-hole, they got on a rooftop afterwards, and decided to rest.

Whatever plan they had concocted down there, had to wait. They had been fighting, crawling, and gutting animals for hours on end. A nap sounded amazing right now.

It was a bit past the middle of the day, so odds were that they’d get surprised with a squirrel attack, but they didn’t care. The squirrels may be horrifying, but they weren’t nearly as dangerous to Jimmy and Virena as they were before.

They ate some of the seared rat meat first, which was considered high-quality meat for them. Then, slumber overtook them.

When they woke up, the sun was close to setting. Their nap went on for longer than they planned.

Razor Squirrels didn’t visit them, thankfully, but who they woke up to was perhaps worse. They woke up to angry, self-righteous crows.

"What sort of lazy bastard sleeps through the day?" A low-pitched, tired voice caught their attention.

"Bastards who spent their morning fighting giant rats." Jimmy was quick to answer. "What do you want, old man?"

There were only a few crows who’d get offended by anything Jimmy did, including when or how he slept.

Those crows were Hammer Beak, Gutling, and Zed. Otherwise known as a part of the few crows in the city who managed to experience old age.

"What do I want?" Hammer Beak parroted, "Well, I’m going to take everything I want tonight. We took the food you were hoarding, and gave it to the brave children, men, and women who’ve starved themselves because they were busy fighting our war!"

"You took my shit?" Jimmy cocked his head, and raised his hammer, as to emphasize his contempt, "Do you know how much work went into that sack?"

Virena noticed that the sack was missing. Paired with the raised, high-pitched caws of the crows, she expected a battle, even though she didn’t understand a word. She was ready, the blade of her sickle emitted a tiny flame.

The old crows did not see her as a threat, and focused on the young crow instead.

Gutling calmly said, "Careful, young one. You’re raising your hammer, the weapon of the enemy, against an elder."

"Fuck you, and the enemy," Jimmy mimicked the elder’s calm voice, and lowered his hammer. "You don’t even know what you stole. There were Beast Cores in that sack that could kill crows on the spot!"

"Were there?" Hammer Beak tried to smirk.

A second later, a full armor of spikes erupted out of Hammer Beak’s feathers. Gutling and Zed followed suit with the same armor.

"I’m sure we can make use of those cores," Hammer Beak said.

"What is this bullshit?" Jimmy scoffed, "You’re trying to scare me with tricks you learned from me? You morons! It was me who taught my brother how to use cores!"

"We’re aware," Hammer Beak said, "Vorin is the only crow in your family who isn’t a traitor. The rest of your family takes pride in abandoning wars. Your older siblings did it, and it looks like you followed their cowardly footsteps."

"I abandoned the wars after I won plenty of battles for you, but you’re conveniently forgetting about that." Jimmy said, "I killed the Fire Mage, a man that neither of you could kill for years! I taught you how to use the squirrels to your advantage, the same squirrels that kicked your asses back in the day. If those mean nothing, then sure, you can call me a coward, but you geezers are complete, and utter moronic losers."

"Losers die," Zed chimed in, "We’re alive."

"Yes we are," Hammer Beak nodded with a forced smile, and it was clear that he had lost his temper a while ago. "Tonight, we’ll rid the community of dead weight. We’ll get rid of you, your brother Gordon the Fat who had the nerve to strike me, and last but not least, we’ll get rid of White Blade who allowed you to prosper. You should’ve died in the meadows."

"Wait, I didn’t agree to this!" Gutling interrupted, "You want me to kill White Blade, my grandson?"

"To hell with your grandson!" Hammer Beak exclaimed.

In a single motion, he then head-budded Gutling, nearly knocking him out.

Gutling looked at Hammer Beak for a second, and then he locked eyes with Jimmy. A wink of desperation hid behind his eyes.

At this point, Jimmy was done trying to reason with these crows. He was sure the old men felt the same about him. They never came here to reason with him to begin with, they came here to serve their insane egos.

"You want to kill me, my friend, and my family?" Jimmy raised his voice a bit, "Honestly, you would’ve had better luck if you went after them first. Hell, Gordon would’ve still kicked your ass, not to mention White Blade, but they would’ve still spared you. I’m not as nice as them."

Jimmy then quickly dropped his hammer, raised his claw forward, and unleashed a Red Fireball.

Then, he shot another.

[-100 mana points]

The elders in front of him were almost as big as him, they were big targets for the average crow, but Jimmy was done feeding their egos. To their disadvantage, his mana pool had recovered a little bit over the past few hours, and his growing understanding of the Arcane was great at exterminating idiocracy.

The first fireball hit Hammer Beak, and the second one hit Zed.

The two of them were quickly engulfed in flames! Their feathers caught on fire, and in a panic, they flew upwards, so as to try and put out the flames, but they couldn’t get far.

Several gut-wrenching, desperate caws later, they fell from the sky, featherless, and well-toasted like a chicken dinner.

They surrendered their lives to their own, bottomless egos.

[+280 system points]

[Total points: 9,636 points]

"Now, what do we do about you, Gutling?" He asked, "Do you still feel like killing me?"