Assassin Crow Evolution

Chapter 37: New Weapon

Virena was quite aware of how evolution worked. She took pride in the fact that she had gone through multiple evolutions through rigorous training.

Today, after Jimmy was done with his barrel of evolutions, she took comfort in the fact that her saddle, or bed, differently described as Jimmy’s back, got bigger. Sitting on his feathers was soft on her hardened legs.

"Are you done evolving?" She asked.

"Yes, I’m done." He nodded, "I’m bigger than ever, right, but I’m still not as big as White Blade. I don’t understand how he bounced up in size so quickly. Maybe white crows have an advantage in evolution or something?"

"Size isn’t everything," She added, "I’m sure you got to learn that up close."

"Yeah, you punch harder than I can," He chuckled, "But I’m not as strong as you. Size means a lot to me, and as far as I saw, it means a lot across all crows."

"I suppose," She nodded.

"Speaking of punching, I need a new weapon." He sighed, "The damn ravens broke my knife."

...

Finding a weapon was easy for humans. They could just buy it.

Crows had it more difficult. They had to find, and steal weapons without a human spotting them.

Since they’ve tried for years to avoid the humans, avoid triggering their defensive side, they couldn’t simply steal something like a dagger straight out of someone’s belt. They had to look for weapons that were in a sense, abandoned, or stashed somewhere in inventory, deemed as useless.

Much to his advantage, the average storages across the city were located across the rooftops.

With that said, he flew above the city, searching every rooftop for a weapon he could snatch.

The city wasn’t large, it had perhaps five hundred buildings, but for a bird, those were a lot of rooftops to go through.

Jimmy was hoping that he’d get lucky and find a dagger after a few minutes of searching, but that was not the case.

Try as he might, he didn’t even find something as simple as a knife.

"My fuck, I don’t even want a knife." He sighed, "I’m too big for a knife now. I’d look ridiculous holding one."

Jimmy gave up after an hour of searching. He had an idea in mind.

He flew back to where the recently deceased crows were stashed, and met with White Blade there, who was nearly done gutting all the bodies.

"I need a weapon," He said, "The ravens broke my knife."

"You evolved?" White Blade pulled his head back in shock.

"Yes," He nodded, "The evolutions hit just after I talked to you."

"That’s fortunate," White Blade nodded, "I have to admit that you have better luck than I do. You know what I mean."

"I do," He nodded, "You are the luckiest, unluckiest crow I ever met. But anyway, as I said, I need a new weapon."

White Blade’s face slowly turned sour. The stench of the sewer had gotten to him over the hours, and Jimmy’s request was a tipping point that he did not want to give in to. So he took a deep breath.

"If you’re planning on taking a weapon from our fallen soldiers, then I apologize, but you can’t." White Blade said directly, "We bury our crows along with their weapons. We must honor their sacrifice."

"So I figured," He nodded, "But what happened to all the hammers from the ravens? I didn’t find any of them in the meadows."

White Blade did not answer right away. He thought about the matter for a while, and he was tempted to ask Jimmy a bundle of questions. In fact, he even wanted to scold the crow, but refrained from doing so, as he did not want to upset the man who saved him.

At last, he answered, "We hid the hammers, so the other ravens can’t use them. Be that as it may, I still don’t think you should wield the weapons of the ravens, because you might be confused with a raven in battle. That aside, even if you don’t get confused with a raven, I’m sure that plenty of us crows will muster a grudge against you for imitating the enemy. We’re good at holding grudges, you know?"

This was the most that White Blade had spoken in a while. He refrained from dwelling in conversation, even if it was a harsh debate, but Jimmy did a good job at breaking nearly every single tradition that the crows had held up. White Blade got upset quickly, even if he didn’t show it.

Jimmy was oblivious to the fact that his friend was upset. He just cared about his goal of obtaining a new weapon.

Likewise, he said, "I need a weapon, man. I can’t run into war unarmed. That would be like going through the winter without feathers. It’s just a bad idea."

"Alright then," White Blade sighed, "We hid the hammers close to the city’s main gate. Look for a rat hole like the one we’re in right now, and follow it."

Jimmy smiled, and waddled away from the premises. The gutted bodies of the crows hadn’t bothered him at all.

White Blade was quiet afterwards, but he understood why plenty of crows didn’t want anything to do with Jimmy. It was hard to like a crow who refused to show respect towards anything that the crows had built.

...

Jimmy made his way to the city’s main gate. His flying speed had always been decent, and with the recent upgrades, he was even faster, so it didn’t take him long to get to the gate.

With little effort, he found the rat hole that White Blade mentioned.

The rat hole appeared tight, and he was not a fan of squeezing through wherever rats have been, but he pushed through his disgust, and slithered in.

"There they are," He held his breath.

Virena walked in front of him, as she didn’t want to get squished along the way.

"Can you even hold a hammer?" She asked, "They’re not as easy to wield as blades."

"I have a feeling I’ll learn how to swing hammers as well," He smirked.