Within an hour, Raj spotted 15 Raven nests around Roger's property. He noted all the coordinates and sent them to Roger. Upon receiving the coordinates Roger looked up at Raj with a huge smile on his face.
"Amazing job Raj. Do you think you have got all the nests tagged? You are very good at this. I will send these coordinates to the Contagion response team to get it cleaned up." Roger responded with a grin on his face. He seemed very happy with the results.
A beep sounded on Raj's arm to signal the transfer of 3000 credits. Raj smiled. This was the first time he earned some money. The amount was roughly equal to half what his parents earned in a month.
Raj gestured at the wall to wall displays in the room where Roger was watching the contagion responders move to clean up the Raven nests. He said, "Do you mind if I stuck around to watch the response team take out the Ravens?"
Roger looked up from his tablet and said: "Knock yourself out. For the service you did, I wouldn't mind if you stayed for the brunch party after the extermination."
It was almost 10.30 AM, he could use some food especially after the increased metabolism due to the Syn Cells. He looked at the screen that showed a team of five people. Clearing Raven nests was a grade D assignment especially if you considered there were 15 nests around this place. They all wore aerodynamic suits which looked like they could stop bullets with ease.
He could hear their words through the screen. He did not want to offend them by following them on the drones while Roger was in view. If they found out that he was spying on them it would be a major hassle. So looking at the screen he could see an attractive blonde girl talking to a large green suited guy.
The displays also came with tagging mechanism, it floated names of the subjects it was showing. This was a useful feature when watching missions in progress. The teams usually had codenames that they used in situations like this. And Raj could see tags floating above their heads as the team moved forward to the first nest that he had tagged.
"Bark, I want you to be the spearhead of the formation. Look out for anything that might want to attack us. You will be responsible for defense from frontal and upward attacks." She commanded. Her codename seemed to be Domain from the floating characters above her head.
On one of the screens, it displayed the primary powerset of the team members. It said
Team 5A – "Team Vanguard"
· Bark – Plant-based defense – Tank type
· Domain – Aura based powers – Support type
· Cheeta – Speedster – Rogue type
· Bolt – Biological Projectile – Ranger specialist
· Flicker – Teleportation and spatial manipulation – Mage type
Domain ordered "Cheeta on the left, Flicker on the right and Bolt to the back. I will be in the center. I can heal you based on the situation. Maintain radio silence unless you want to grab my attention for medical assistance. Alright team, move out!"
Immediately a few things happened. Bark bulked out with tree-bark growing on his skin. Raj guessed that was where his codename came from. Cheeta moved like a flash of orange to the left of the formation. Flicker blinked out and appeared on the right while Bolt moved to the back of the formation. Domain was 5 feet from each of them in the center of the formation.
They made their way to the first nest. Bark held his hand up and gestured to the nest upon the tree based on the geotag location on their watches. Bolt's back seemed to shudder and his muscles rippled to create three holes. Bolt winced as three high-velocity projectiles made their way to the Ravens. From what Raj could see the projectiles looked like bones.
One of the 3 Ravens on the nest exploded in a puff of feathers and blood. The remaining Ravens spotted the team and flew to them in black blurs. They sped through the distance of 30 meters. The speed made Raj flinch. Cheeta now had a sword in his hand that he twirled around in a silver blur that matched the speed of the Ravens.
These Ravens were large. Each Raven was about 3 feet in height and weighed about 10 pounds. These were massive birds, four to five times their ancestors. What made them more dangerous were their strengthened talons and beaks which could rip apart steel.
One of the Raven tried to peck at the Bolt as it spotted him as the aggressor. While the other made its way to Bark since he looked like the biggest target. Before Raven could land an attack on Bolt, the silver blur that was the sword of Cheeta split the bird in two. While Bark seemed occupied by the last Raven, Flicker teleported into the air centimeters away from the Raven and plunged his knife in its back. He teleported back to his position on the right of the group before the dead Raven fell to the floor.
Domain looked at her teammates to see if there was any assistance needed before saying "Alright on to the next target. Bolt reload on your spurs. Try to take out more than one target on your shot next time. Let's move on to the next nest."
Flicker cleaned his knife while walking away from the fallen Ravens.
Raj was impressed at how quickly the team dispatched the nest of Ravens. He also felt a little less than prepared for attacks. Almost all of his skills as of now seemed ready for surveillance and protection. He would work more on offense and using Syn cells to his advantage later in the MMA class in the afternoon. His teacher would be surprised to see how far he has come.
Raj looked at Roger and said, "What happens to the dead Ravens?".
Roger looked up from the incident reports he was studying and said "The city municipality will take care of them. There is not much to them in terms of material for processing. If you see something that interests you, you can take it. Nobody would touch them anyway there is not much money to be made."
After Ragnarok, the biomaterial industry bloomed to new heights. People realized Animal skins, hair and almost all the parts were valuable. Ravens were grade E organisms. They rated as grade D assignments due to their social behavior. If not for them being in groups, they were simple threats. All grade C and above animals formed a gem like core near their sternum. These cores were crystalized fifth force generators. They formed the new renewable source of energy. They were always in high demand. In 16 years of his life, Raj had only seen them on websites never in real life.
What Raj was interested in was to see if he could take some talons and beaks for material analysis and understand their properties. Raj thanked Roger and started looking at the team as it started moving on to the next Raven nest.