Assassin Crow Evolution

Chapter 7: Crows Vs. Rats

Riva pierced through the air like a frantic rocket. She wasn’t excited, perse, just clumsy when it came to flight. She just started flying today, after all. Her slightly pink beak spoke of her young age, her blue eyes even more so.

Riva’s siblings followed after her. Amongst those siblings were Jimmy, and two others.

Jimmy was last in line. Despite his admittedly larger wingspan, he was a third bigger compared to his siblings, and therefore, heavier.

Gliding paired with occasional flapping was enough to keep him afloat, but his speed left much to be desired.

"Come on, chubby warrior," one of his brothers, named Vorin, shouted out, his tone high pitched, "Keep up."

"My name is Jimmy, damn it!" He shouted back, "Don’t make me beat your ass again!"

"You’d have to catch me first," Vorin chirped happily.

The team of four couldn’t steer too far from the nest, but their motive was clear. They wanted meat. Preferably rat meat, since that was the kind they tried before and fell in love with, but any other type of meat would do. They weren’t too picky about it.

Eventually, they landed in a thin alleyway, three buildings away from their home nest.

It wasn’t too far away from their home, and yet the distance, and the surroundings made them optimistic.

Jimmy saw plenty of humans on his way here. Some seemed prestigious, and wore golden accessories, and the rest appeared poor.

"No bling, no coins," he said.

Their shiny rings did catch his attention, but he couldn’t eat rings, so he let them be.

Other than that, he couldn’t understand a word the humans here were saying. Their language sounded beyond gibberish to him, it sounded animalistic.

Just like a human heard caws from a crow, he heard apeish grunts from the humans. There was no rhythmic pattern in their speech, none that he could recognize, at least.

With that said, he saw no reason to seek comfort in interacting with a human. He had been a human himself in his past life, yes, but he thought it impossible to build a meaningful connection with the humans. He wasn’t impressed with the small city the humans built here. They were stuck in medieval times at best, as the lack of hygiene hinted.

Dirty puddles on the ground, and the moss on the walls paired with god knows what, hinted that the city was old.

"Gotta avoid the puddles," he said, "I don’t want to catch the Black Plague or something."

The siblings hoped through the alleyway. Down here on the ground, hoping was faster than walking, because their knees were high up in their legs, covered by their feathers. Walking would require a lot of hip rotation, and it was tiresome for ground hunts.

Ten minutes into their hunt, they saw some movement.

Insects.

There were a lot of insects around here. Beetles and cockroaches mainly, paired with a few spiders who hunted for flying insects.

Jimmy was grossed out by the cockroaches, so he stomped one of them to death.

"I won’t eat that shit," he sneered, "I don’t care how it tastes, or how hungry I get."

[+1 system points]

"Oh?" He shook his head, "I found a use for cockroaches."

"Use?" Kessa, his other sister, asked, "Are you talking to the wall, or the cockroach?"

"The cockroach," he answered.

Jimmy spoke to the system, but he didn’t want to admit it. He was secretive about the system, simply because he feared that someone would take it away from him. He was greedy about it, and didn’t want to share.

Regardless, he kept stomping on every cockroach he saw, so as to collect points. He didn’t eat a single one of them.

Although his siblings weren’t so enthusiastic to eat cockroaches, they couldn’t understand why their brother killed so many of them, just for the sake of killing them. They were weirded out, and saw him as wasteful.

"Stop messing with those damn bugs," Vorin said, "Leave them be if you’re not going to eat them."

"I hate cockroaches," Jimmy said, as he tried to excuse his killing spree.

"Go home, brother," Vorin sighed, "You’re not much help, but don’t worry, we’ll share our kill with you later if we bring one home."

"Hell no!" He exclaimed, "I can hunt."

Vorin wasn’t insistent on their brother leaving, so they continued the hunt. Jimmy kept squashing bugs, however, cockroaches exclusively. He didn’t bother the beetles, because they appeared less gross to him. Just like that, he went up by tens of points.

[Total system points: 608]

"Nice," he said, "I could’ve gotten the points I needed just by squashing bugs."

Though now, his feet hurt. He was too grossed out to kill cockroaches with his beak, so he had to use his feet.

"I better stop killing bugs for a while," he winced as he hopped along.

At last, they ran into a group of rats. Seven of them. Jimmy was surprised to see that not all of them were as big as the one his father brought to the nest.

They were big, yes, but they were smaller than him and his siblings in size. The best assumption was that they were also young.

"Let’s try and grab the smallest one," Vorin said, "We don’t have to fight all of them."

Their plan sounded smart, and no one contested it.

In quick response, the siblings started flying forwards. Each of them headed towards the smallest rat of the bunch, but as they flew, as clumsy as they were, they feared that they’d bump into each other mid air, so subconsciously, they ignored the initial plan, and aimed to either grab a random rat, or avoid them altogether.

As always, Jimmy was the last in line. He was too big to keep up, despite how hard he tried, and he even had a hard time getting off of the ground. It didn’t help that his feet scratched the stone alleyway every time he landed for a brief moment as he flew forward. His feet were as sore as a Waiter’s after a fourteen hour shift.

Jimmy saw his sisters grab a rat, each. Crows weren’t exactly known for having talons, or a gruesome grip strength, but they were strong enough to snatch small rats.

His sisters then dropped the rats to the ground as soon as they flew high enough, so as to kill the rats easily. They did so nearly subconsciously, and in essence, it was a low-risk hunt for them.

Vorin failed to grab a rat, so he flew around to give it another shot. It might take him a while.

Jimmy wasn’t as agile. He swooped down for the snatch, but he didn’t nail the attack.

Instead, he nailed the biggest rat’s body, head on, as if he was a battering ram!