Assassin Crow Evolution

The unpredictability of the cores shone its brightest now, as the test subject struggled to stay alive.

Well, her horrid screams confirmed that she was still alive, but otherwise, the immense pain that the core clearly caused her, helped remind everyone that cores weren’t to be messed with.

The eight test other volunteers, upon hearing this crow scream, and roll around, were bluntly turned off by the idea of being Jimmy’s next test subject.

They had a reality check. A couple of them even threw up, as if they were feeling the pain as well.

Three crows flew away. They weren’t as brave as they thought they were, just mostly reckless so far.

The unbearable pain went on for an hour.

Jimmy, and everyone else had to watch her as she slipped in and out of consciousness. She didn’t have the privilege of sleeping through the pain, as the sharp strikes woke her up every five minutes or so.

As her gut-wrenching screams lessened, everyone else was nearly convinced that she gave in to the strong grip of the core. They thought she died.

Jimmy knew better, however, and so he didn’t panic in the slightest.

He said, "As long as she doesn’t melt, or explode, she’ll be fine."

She ended up being fine, and managed to get back on her feet. Young, traumatized, her voice shaking, but alive nonetheless.

"What’s different about you?" He asked, "Do you feel anything?"

The crow did not answer. She tried to speak, but her speech was slurred. Not because of brain damage or anything like that, but because she was too traumatized by the pain to speak.

Every word of hers was a mumble, or a hiss. Consistent with the rest of her experience so far.

After a couple of minutes, she felt too embarrassed to hang around here anymore, and so she took off. She flew away.

Five volunteers remained. They appeared brave, they appeared unshakable, but Jimmy could see it in their faces that they were just being stubborn.

Nevertheless, he tried to reason with them, and so he turned to them, and said, "I have one more core left for you guys. I hope you now understand the risks involved. Neither of you have to take this black core, you have the option to walk away from this. There is nothing cowardly about preserving your life."

Despite giving it his best shot, the remaining volunteers didn’t fly away. Greed was stronger than fear, and from the looks of it, these five crows were the greediest of the initial murder.

Jimmy wanted to get this over with and throw the black core at them, but despite that he waited for an hour, he felt that he was rushing things.

The last volunteer flew away before he could figure out what changed within her. He didn’t notice any changes, as the constant screaming had been a bit distracting, and had caused him a headache. But he still wanted to know.

For that matter, he turned to the volunteers once more, and asked, "Your friend didn’t give me anything to work with. Did any of you notice any changes in her appearance? Come on, there are no dumb answers."

"I thought you already knew," A crow spoke up, "Her talons are bigger now. Well, not bigger, but stronger. Look there, see those claw marks where she pulled the grass out of the ground? It looks like a boar dug in it. Normal crows don’t do that."

Jimmy took a couple of steps forward, leaving the cloth with the remaining core behind, and had a better look at the ground.

It was a two-foot wide circle of up-turned dirt. He had obviously seen it before, he had seen that young crow claw at it while she screamed at the top of her lungs, but only now did he notice that this wasn’t random.

"Impressive," He nodded, "I wouldn’t have ever noticed that. I thought she was just losing her shit."

"She did poop," The crow followed along, "But I watched her feet. The last time I saw talons that looked that strong, were on a Dry Eagle."

"Okay, thank you, that helps," He said.

Walking back to his friends, he then said, "Well the red cores are absolutely shitty. That poor girl will probably never touch a core again, and she only got some shitty claws as a result."

"Strong feet can come in handy," Vorin said, "I’ve heard the stories. An elder told us that before we retreated into the city, plenty of crows, young and old, died because of a leg injury they couldn’t beat. The meadows are out to break our legs."

"Stronger claws may be good for the community, but it’s barely gonna make a dent in our arsenal." He countered.

"My arsenal consists of two things, three, if you count my dagger, which I can barely swing without hurting my leg." Vorin insisted, "I’d gladly smash a red core or two."

"Alright, we’ll look into it," He said, trying to be as non-specific as possible, just in case the volunteers in front of him got opportunistic, "We’re ready for the last test, then. Time to see what the black core does."

Jimmy then hit the last remaining core with the stick he was fiddling with, tossing it to the crowd.

This time, he noticed that the volunteers weren’t as frantic.

Well, they were, except this time they frantically flew away from the core, rather than towards it. They moved as if death was swinging his scythe at them.

Despite the bravery they portrayed so far, it would appear that Jimmy’s warnings had finally pierced through their hollow, bird skulls.

"Come on," He smirked, "Anyone?"

Four of the birds flew away, they finally abandoned the testing session. They did not want to risk their lives, now that they knew that there were actual threats, and they were envious that the only crow who benefited out of this session, pain-free, was kicked out of the circle with no consequences whatsoever.

They cursed their luck.

However, not all of the volunteers fled without saying a word. One of them did not flee.

It was the same crow from a moment ago, who deduced what changes that young crow had gone through.

He was a stranger, a new-comer recruited by Gordon the Vast from another human settlement. Jimmy had seen him a couple of times before, barely enough to recall his face.

He was a young adult, perhaps a year old at most. There was a look in his eyes that could be easily mistaken as greed.

Jimmy observed him, and noticed the crow’s pupils widen. This meant that he was either very excited, in other words scared, or he was grealy curious.

"Are you feeling lucky, man?" He asked, "What’s your name?"

"Enkus," He nodded, unwilling to avert his gaze from the core. "I’m risking it."

A moment later, Enkus took one step forward, and crushed the core.

The normal process started right away. The core’s shards dissipated into nothingness, and the string of misty light that broke out of it, floated up and into his chest.

Enkus held his breath. He didn’t know what to expect, no one did, and in the first ten seconds, nothing happened. He felt that he was out of the woods, and yet, this made him sad, because he didn’t notice any changes.

As if the universe favored him, he did feel pain after the ten second mark. Comparatively, feeling pain was slightly better than not feeling anything, because it had a microscopic chance of bestowing a great skill, or evolution.

Enkus tried to be enthusiastic. The pain that struck him was local, cranial, it didn’t afflict great pain across his entire body.

Just his head.

The pain knocked him out cold.

Jimmy began to wonder if the black core was in any way related to magic, because from his experience, only magic-related gains would deprive one of the ability to scream.

"Is he dead?" Vorin took a step forward.

His experiences with power-ups were different, so he didn’t know what he was looking at here.

"Nah," He said, "I don’t think cores can cause heart attacks or something like that. Deaths by cores are far more explosive."

"Do you know that for sure?" Vorin asked, "It would be sad if he died. He was the only one of White Blade’s guys who wasn’t an idiot."

"I don’t know for sure, but he knew the risks," He said.

The team waited. They checked on Enkus’ breathing from time to time, to make sure that he hasn’t succumbed to the deep embrace of death, but other than that, they were hoping that the black core had something interesting to offer, because the rest of the cores have been wildly disappointing so far.

There were cheaper, better, and completely safe options within Jimmy’s Evolution Tree.

Anyway, Eknus woke up twenty minutes later, and he seemed alright.

Unlike the last test subject, he didn’t fly away crying as soon as he woke up. Though, the team haven’t spotted any changes on him so far.

"How do you feel?" Jimmy asked, "I’m sure that you can give me a comprehensive answer."

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