Turi sat contentedly on a branch. He hadn’t spotted any more lottery tickets, but he had managed to catch a squirrel and had killed at least a hundred bugs, ranging from beetles to a stick bug- how was that thing even still alive?- to strange bugs that he had never seen before, such as a worm with twelve other worm-heads protruding from every inch of its body.
The sun was setting once more, and Turi had been heading back to the flock. He could feel himself at the very edge of ascension, though, and had landed. A few minutes passed, and finally, he was proven correct; a question was pushed to the forefront of his mind. What aspect of himself did he wish to ascend?
He examined his assessment for a bit first, though. His strength was still listed as above-average, but he knew that he was on the verge of being pushed back to average. His durability was listed as average and his senses as ‘below-average’, which was something he hadn’t come across until now. He was still able to see just as well as he could pre-ascension, though, so he didn’t really care.
He shuffled his feathers in excitement as he chose intelligence. This time, he did not black out; instead, he felt his mind expand and morph, and, in the span of two seconds, it was done.
Turi looked at his assessment, and nearly fell off of the branch in surprise when it still told him that his intelligence was still merely abnormal. What would he have to do to improve it further?
Regardless, Turi briefly tested his new capabilities. He thought faster, of course, but his memory had also gotten significantly better; he could recall most of his life with ease. Nothing else had changed as far as he could tell, but even those two things were enough to make Turi giddy with joy.
Turi flew back to the flock’s area, and perched on the same sign as before. The dark crow was there, too, but it edged away from him when he landed. He didn’t care; he was only here for safety, not to make friends.
More and more crows steadily returned. This time, they were all considerably different. Many of them were larger, and many of them had changed drastically. One of the crows had feathers that looked like the night sky, and another looked like he was made of stone; that one couldn’t even fly. The strangest one, however, was an absurdly large crow with four wings. It had come back with a group of four crows following it, too; it was clearly an exceptional crow, but not nearly as brilliant as Ascenturi.
'I intelligent,’ Turi thought smugly, peering down at the four-winged crow imperiously. He fell asleep soon after.
***
Turi didn’t awake to any questions as to which aspect of himself he wanted to ascend, unfortunately. The sun was only just poking out from behind the horizon, and he chose to sit around and wait for a while.
Turi decided to stay in the city today. The forest was full of insects, and while it had attracted plenty of competition, it was mostly birds. The mice, rats and squirrels and other such easy prey stayed away for the most part, and he was unwilling to prey on his kin.
He hoped that the rats and mice had stayed in the city, and that they hadn’t all died or something. Once the day had properly started, Turi took to the air and started searching for prey.
After about an hour, Turi had come across at least a hundred humans, and not a single mouse or rat. Had the humans already killed them all? Was he late to the party? He was starting to think he should have chosen to ascend his senses instead.
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Another hour or so passed, and Turi was definitely going to ascend his senses next time.
Just as he thought this, his thoughts sped up. He hadn’t seen anything coming towards him, so he had no clue where the danger originated from, but he twisted to the side, and a rock whizzed past him a moment afterwards. Turi glanced down, and found a… squirrel? Its fur was gray and had the texture of stone, and as it stared at him, another rock began to levitate right next to it.
‘How is it doing that?’ Ascenturi wondered, but he quickly became preoccupied as the second stone shot towards him, but missed by several feet.
Turi dove down, the wind rushing past as he picked up speed. He plummeted with immense speed, and balled up his talons into a fist, like the falcon had done. He struck the stone squirrel just as a third stone started levitating around it, and…
Pain radiated from his leg. He had expected it to hurt, but it had broken every bone in his leg, because the squirrel hadn’t budged an inch. The concrete of the street had wrapped around its paws. His thoughts accelerated, and he took in every detail of the squirrel that he could. Now that it was closer, he could see that it was the size of a small dog. A web of cracks spread through the thin layer of stone that encrusted the squirrel; he could see through the cracks that its fur wasn’t stone, but that it was merely clad in it. Turi flapped his wings, but the stone-clad squirrel pounced at him, tearing at him with its claws and teeth.
The ascension to his durability had been much more effective than he thought, though, and the squirrel’s attacks were, for the most part, stopped by his feathers. For some reason, the squirrel paused for a second, and Turi managed to escape the squirrel’s grasp. Before he could even take to the air, though, he learned why it had stilled; the levitating rock slammed into his wing, and he felt something snap.
For a brief moment, Turi seemed to think at the speed of sound. He took in every detail of the squirrel, and tried to find any way he could survive this. It wasn’t as durable as it seemed, and its powers seemed to exhaust it quickly, judging by how heavily it was breathing. It also had to stop and concentrate to launch the rocks at him. Before he could think any further, the squirrel lunged at him, and Turi hopped backwards with his single remaining leg, just barely dodging the squirrel’s grab, and pecked at its eyes. The squirrel angled its head downwards, and he struck its skull, which was clad in less of the stone fur, but he was pretty sure that his beak ended up in more pain than the squirrel’s skull.
He didn’t pull his beak back to strike again, though, and instead pushed the squirrel’s head back just long enough to make more distance. Turi’s brain felt hot in his head, like it was overheating. He pushed it further, though, and something happened. It was difficult to tell what, in the heat of the battle, but as the squirrel charged at him again, clawing at his eyes and trying to tear out his throat, it never even managed to get close. Every twitch of its muscles told him what it was preparing to do. It was like he was seeing into the future.
Turi dodged its next three attacks, and even managed to weave his head out of the way of another launched rock, but it felt like his brain was melting. The squirrel looked utterly exhausted, though. Levitating and launching the rocks was, apparently, very exhausting.
Turi’s remaining leg felt like it was about to shatter under his weight. It had performed admirably, enabling him to dodge the squirrel multiple times despite his much-increased size, but he could feel it trembling beneath him.
The squirrel lunged again, and Turi forced his mind to go even further. He pushed, and it felt like everything moved a tiny bit slower as his mental speed increased. In its exhaustion, the squirrel had made a mistake. It went airborne, with no way to alter its course. Turi saw through its trajectory and jerked his head backwards, and the squirrel’s jaws snapped closed on empty air. It stumbled, having expected the resistance of his throat, and fell. Turi’s beak fell, stabbing at the web of cracks right where its spine was. His beak didn’t touch a single bit of stone, and stabbed through its fur with ease. It did nothing more than leave a hole, though. With the squirrel beneath him, he pushed, putting all of his weight into his beak, and felt the squirrel’s spine break. The squirrel went limp, and Turi fell beside it a moment later.
Turi’s mind slowed. His thoughts were slow, sluggish and clunky, and he hardly even registered the burning pain coming from his head. Turi pushed his mind to work just a little longer, and while his thoughts cleared a bit, he felt like it was going to kill him. Turi quickly dug the core out of the squirrel and snapped it in his beak. As his consciousness began to slip, Turi saw the four-winged crow enter his vision.