Assassin Crow Evolution

Eight eggs rolled out of the ant’s stomach.

Though they seemed large, they still looked too small compared to the giant centipede which he, and everyone else around him were inside of.

The colorful eggs obviously belonged to the centipede, he was sure of it, but he was underwhelmed.

Jimmy had prepared himself for one of his greatest battles. He had been ready to blow the head off of the ant with the hottest fireball he could muster, it being his blue one, and yet these short humans delivered the ant to him in a silver platter.

The result was anti-climactic to say the least. The fact that he only saw eight eggs amplified the utter lack of excitement this situation had. He figured that a beast like this centipede would lay hundreds of eggs, not eight.

His best guess was that its other eggs were stolen, failed to develop, or got destroyed somehow, but that didn’t make sense either. If this centipede lost hundreds of eggs, he figured that she’d be far more upset than she was right now.

Regardless, he made it his goal to preserve the remaining eight eggs.

He took a risk.

Within two seconds, he leaped between the eggs and the humans. He cawed and screeched.

Vorin didn’t know what was going on, and he especially didn’t understand why his brother was trying to mimic crow sounds while being a crow himself, and spoke in gibberish, but he tried to be a team player, so he joined his brother, and faked through his loud caws as well.

Several caws later, a couple of the humans, the same ones who were gutitng the ant, backed up for a couple of feet.

The humans talked amongst one another, and they appeared to be in a generally good mood. Their conversation was simple.

"The bird thinks those eggs are her’s." One of them said, "That’s so sweet."

"Well, the eggs look like they belong to... our host?" Another said, "We don’t eat them, they’re disgusting, so?"

"The birds can play with the eggs," An older, thick bearded human said, "Don’t upset them any further. They’re not a threat, and they don’t know any better. We fed them already, so we don’t owe them anything else."

The humans backed away and focused on tearing apart the rest of the ant. Their tolerance for birds remained a mystery that Jimmy could not crack, but his faked desperation worked.

He couldn’t understand these short humans, but when they backed away and carried on with their feast, he knew that he had convinced them to not touch the eggs.

"Well, your weird plans worked again," Vorin said, and he couldn’t help cackling, "I can’t say that I’m surprised, but, were you acting the part of the mother, or was I the mother?"

"Hell, I can be a mother if it’ll get me six-thousand year old Sentient Feathers." He joked.

"Six thousand?" Vorin parroted, "That sounds like a lot."

Jokes aside, since the team completed most of their mission already, only one task remained.

They had to figure out how to get the eight eggs out of the centipede.

Jimmy hadn’t thought about this part of the plan at all, because he didn’t expect their hunt for the ant to go so well, or be this quick.

With that said, he was stuck.

For a moment, he figured that it would be a good idea to get the humans to carry the eggs towards the mouth of the centipede, otherwise known as their closest exit, but he scratched that plan shortly after. He didn’t know how to convince the humans to help him.

He could buy that upgrade which would help him speak all human languages fluently, and in situations like this, he felt that that upgrade was long overdue, but he feared that the implementation process would knock him out.

He did not want to be unconscious within the digestive tract of this monster, as he wasn’t sure if the team could handle that predicament.

The centipede kept thrashing the world around it, and it was already a hard job to keep the eggs in one place. He couldn’t afford to be knocked out.

With that considered, he settled with a simpler, more exhausting plan. He started pushing the eggs with his head, and his wings.

Jimmy was a big crow, and the colorful eggs weren’t too big, so he could push three eggs without them escaping his embrace. He was also careful to not fall over the eggs, as the constant motion of the centipede almost guaranteed for something to go wrong.

Vorin copied his brother, and managed to make his way around two eggs, but this came with a problem.

Since Virena couldn’t help them without bashing through the eggs with her intense grasp, they had to leave three eggs behind while transporting the other five.

Vorin noticed this, so he rushed forward, placed the two eggs he pushed somewhere safe, which was between Jimmy’s embrace, and then rushed back to the three other eggs.

This time, he pushed all three of them, because he didn’t want to make two trips. He had to walk really slowly, but he caught up with his brother eventually.

As both of them recognized the flaw in their prior plan, they decided to form a chain of transport.

Either one of them held most of the eggs in one place, while the other pushed two or three forward.

It didn’t help that they also had to drag their weapons around. Jimmy would kill for a scabbard right now, or whatever would help him strap his weapon on his back.

This trip took a while. They felt like they were surfing in extreme waves because this centipede would not hold still, but eventually, two hours later, they managed to get close to the mouth of the centipede.

"Okay, now what?" Vorin asked, overheated, and struggling to breathe, "How do we get the eggs out of here?"

"I don’t know..." He mumbled.

Seconds later, through the mouth of the beast, Jimmy locked eyes with General Xin, who watched the centipede’s head from the outside.

In a blink, the team, and the eggs started floating.

They floated through the mouth of the beast in an instant, and then they were gently placed a few feet away from the beast.

"I can’t believe you did it!" General Xin exclaimed, "Thank you!"

General Xin then had the eggs float in front of the centipede’s eyes, and then gently placed them in front of her head.

The centipede started circling around her eggs, pushing everyone else away, including her masters.

"Did you manage to kill the Fire Ant?" General Xin asked.

"Well, it’s dead." He answered.

Xin was silent for a moment. He breezed through Jimmy’s brain, and read through whatever he refused to tell.

"So you met the humans?" Xin asked. "I’m glad they were useful to you."

"You know about them?" He asked.

"I do," Xin nodded, "They’re parasites. It’s difficult to get rid of them, and as you know, we can’t send any mantises inside our girl to hunt them, but they haven’t caused us too much trouble. I figure they often kill some problematic insects and animals that Wugong eats whole. If my powers could reach past the walls of Wugong, I would’ve killed the humans a long time ago, but oh well, this doesn’t matter much right now."

"Yeah," He nodded, "We got the eggs here safe and sound. How about you give me those feathers now, so we can be on our way?"

Xin stared at him for a moment. This silence got Jimmy nervous, and he was getting ready to attack if the situation came to it.

Thankfully, Xin broke the tension shortly after.

He said, "Well of course!"

With a flick of his hypothetical wrist, four feathers appeared. The deal had been three feathers upon mission completion, so Jimmy didn’t understand what the fourth one was for.

The feathers were of four distinct colors.

Xin pushed the first one forward, a pink one, and explained, "This one is the oldest, 14,000 years old. I believe it has observed the first ever animals who practiced rapid evolution. The species of bird it fell from should no longer exist."

"This red one is over 10,000 years old. I have no clue which bird it fell from. Its sentience is a fortress, and I doubt you’ll ever be able to merge with it." He added.

"As for this blue one, although it’s over 6,000 years old, its thought process is rather mellow. I think you won’t struggle to merge with it." He continued.

Finally, as he had the fourth feather float forward, he explained, "This black one is from me, for a job well done. I’m sure it used to belong to a crow, and it’s only 500 years old. It shouldn’t give you any trouble, but tell me, do you know how to merge with Sentient Feathers?"

"I do not," He admitted.

"Through meditation, you have to surrender your entire Arcane Comprehension to it, and have it choose if it’s worthwhile to merge with you. This of course leaves you open to losing every bit of your comprehension if the feather chooses to steal it, and flee." Xin explained, "Us mantises have tried to merge with them for millenia, but only a handful of us managed to do so successfully. I suppose that feathers don’t like insects."

Jimmy grabbed the feathers with his claw, and figured that they wouldn’t ’break’ upon touch. He didn’t start absorbing them by accident.

The feathers tried to wiggle away from his grasp, but he easily had them under control.

"Thank you for wisdom," He nodded, to Xin, "We’ll be going now."

"Alright," Xin nodded back, "Also, I formally ask you to avoid our lands in the future. You’ve seen more than you were supposed to today, and I can’t excuse your potential second appearance to my superiors."

"No problem," He said, "We got what we came here for."