Assassin Crow Evolution

Jimmy did not know that there was more than one way to manipulate fire. He only knew of fireballs.

In his case, even his hottest fireball, the violet one, may not be able to pierce cleanly through a solid, walnut tree trunk.

Vorin slipped through it, along with his entire body, using a simpler, less hot color variation. Specifically, Vorin used a mixture of red and yellow fire, which in any form of basic elemental magic, should be hot, but not hot enough to slip through a tree trunk like a hot knife through butter!

It didn’t make any sense, and it made Jimmy think, ’Did he step into the tenth realm of mana or some shit?’

Naturally, he was a bit envious, and more than that, he wanted a slice of that action. He too wanted to pierce through trees, and enemies alike. He especially loved the idea of piercing through that odd creature they fought last night, but alas, it remained a horrid fever dream.

The reason why Jimmy couldn’t get remotely close to obtaining the same skill was because Vorin had set the walnut tree on fire.

The fire quickly spread upwards, got to the branches in mere seconds, and once it reached its tender leaves, the fire multiplied rapidly! Jimmy figured that he could manipulate this wide-spread fire enough to snatch that core, and drop back down here, but the fire had already started sizzling the cores.

He had a feeling that a charred, dry human organ had no benefits to give him.

"Fuck my luck..." He took a deep breath, and then he turned to the ladies. "Fuck your luck too, I guess? I’m pretty sure this fire just burned your share of the Flesh Cores."

"Who told you to stash my core up a tree?" Zoey tried to act angry, just to get a reaction out of him, "What are you, a squirrel?"

"Don’t call me a squirrel," He tried to pretend that he was keeping his cool, "I was trying to protect our cores from squirrels. The last thing we needed were squirrels shooting fireballs at us. How do you think that would go?"

"I think your cloaca would tighten," Zoey said, "You’re scared of squirrels."

"They almost killed me once!" He lost his cool.

"Oh, get over it," Zoey smiled, "Do you know how long I’ve been trying not to mock the elders back home for being scared of squirrels? Three summers and winters! That’s how long. I’m not sparing you."

"Maybe I won’t let you touch my cloaca next spring, then?" He bargained.

"What are you degenerates going on about!" Julia interrupted them, "Vorin is still on fire!"

"Are you scared he’ll hurt his cloaca?" Zoey asked, and winked at Jimmy.

"You weren’t supposed to tell!" Julia exclaimed, "We’re old crows! No one else should know that we want to build nests with crows who aren’t even a single summer old!"

"Oh, relax, no one heard us," Zoey cackled.

While the two ladies bickered, Jimmy, who his female companion sometimes considered a bickering old lady, actually rushed towards his brother. He didn’t fear fire as much as he used to in the very beginning.

Indeed, Vorin was still on fire, but he didn’t exactly look worried. It was hard to read the facial expressions of a ball of fire who stood still, as it didn’t have a face, but the fact that Vorin wasn’t running around like a headless chicken, was enough of a hint.

"I think I burned our Flesh Cores..." Vorin spoke, his voice deep, fiery, really.

"I ate mine already, but the ladies aren’t that happy." He added, "Julia wants to know if you’re okay, and I guess I do too, though I don’t particularly care about your cloaca."

"Why would either of you- care when I shit?" Vorin innocently asked.

"Shit?" He repeated, "Oh, unfortunately, shitting is not all your cloaca is good for. Nevermind that, are you okay?"

It took him another five minutes to answer, which was to say that he also remained as a ’breathing’ fireball during this time, but what was important was that he did answer.

"I’m alright," Vorin said.

Seconds later, he turned back to normal. His feathers, surprisingly, were not burnt all the way down to his skin. He was fine, physically.

The fire that engulfed his body was gone, and at this point, so was most of the walnut tree.

"Looks like you ran out of mana," He added.

"Mana? I heard you mention that before." Vorin said, "Am I supposed to count that too?"

"Not really," He said, "But you’re a Mage now, kinda, and as a Mage, it would be bad if you found yourself running out of mana, because then, you’ll have to rely on the basics, like your dagger. In a battle, ending up stuck with just your dagger doesn’t sound so bad to you at the moment, but you had a taste of real power today, didn’t you? A dagger should already look like boring, extra weight to you. I know my damn hammer does."

"I’m not sure what- to think about my dagger." Vorin sighed.

Their conversation ended there, and their ’short’ break ended too.

They weren’t being suddenly attacked, or anything like that, but with three cores gone, and the team being fairly wide awake right now, there simply was no reason to hang around the walnut tree anymore.

There wasn’t much of a tree left over to sleep in anyways.

Jimmy looked at the positive side of things. He was happy that he managed to save his brother’s life, and he did not mourn over the twenty-one hundred mana points he poured on Vorin in order to save him. He would pour tenfolds on him if he had to, and if he could. With that considered, he had a baseline of positivity.

Though, right now, as the images of his human mother churned in his mind, he couldn’t help but idolize the idea of being able to help her too. He could not save her when he was a human. Even the doctors couldn’t save her, but still, he muttered over the impossible idea of helping her. It was hard not to feel sad every time he thought about her.

Some would say that a boy’s mother was his first love. Freud would agree.

Jimmy didn’t want to bang his mother, but he sure wished she didn’t die at thirty-seven years old.

Nevertheless, he settled with hitting the sky again, and he was about to gather the team to do exactly that, but then Virena called for attention.

She finally woke up again, and innocently shouted, "We’re being attacked! Someone set our tree on fire!"

"We’re not being attacked," He chuckled, "Vorin accidentally set the tree on fire."

"Oh," She sighed, "You kids love to play with fire, don’t you?"