An Owl's Rise

With a loud snap one of Osten's wings broke and his body crumpled to the ground.

It was only a moment later, though, that he forced himself back up, and it was clear that like it had done with its last host, the parasitic vine tangle was pushing the body it had taken over beyond its physical limits.

Essentially, as long as its nervous system was not damaged to the point of being unresponsive, it could force even a broken body to move.

Still, no bird was going to be flying with a broken wing no matter how hard it tried to, and this prevented the parasitic vine from even attempting to take off again.

'Now comes the most dangerous part.' Evelyn thought as she flew above Osten's body.

She needed to somehow get the parasite to leave Osten and try to latch onto her, but even though he was injured, it could still use his magic and would attack anything that got close.

Even now it as still firing projectiles made of earth at them, but there was a limit that it would eventually reach.

Every being had a finite amount of magical energy inside of them, and when it reached that limit, that would be the time to strike.

"Now we just need wait for him to run out of magical energy. Then I will go and restrain him and creating an opening for whatever that thing is to latch onto me." Evelyn said over her squad's connection.

Unfortunately, now that they had some more time as Osten was not going anywhere and his attacks were not able to really reach them so long as they focused on evasion, Adolophine decide to bring up their earlier disagreement.

"No, I will do it. I have more physical strength and am at a high rank both as a beast and squad leader. It is my job to do this." She said obstinately.

"It has to be me. If you do it, I only see you failing. In that case we will be back to square one, and unlike Osten, I am probably the only one that can keep up with you. And I do not think I would be able to go through another long, drawn-out fight with you. I would just have to kill you." Evelyn said sharply.

She made sure to fix a glare filled with pressure at Adolophine, and once again she felt a sense of fear seeing Evelyn's gaze.

For some reason, even though she was a higher rank, Evelyn gave off a presence that seemed insurmountable and her instincts told her she could not win.

"Fine, but the same goes for you. If you fail, we will have to put you down along with that parasite." Adolophine said with as confident of an expression as she could muster. Which was really not much.

'Yeah, I am pretty sure if that thing got full control over me and could use all my powers properly, it would kill all of you.' Evelyn thought imagining how it would go down.

However, she was certain that would not come to pass. There was simply no way that thing should be able to survive being consumed in her heavenly flame.

Flying down towards Osten, she created a powerful barrier of wind in front of her and shaped it like a giant bullet.

Sensing the incoming threat, the parasitic vine tangle used the last of its magical energy to create a wall of stone that was reinforced with roots that stuck out like spears.

Normally this should have been enough to stop the charge of any fiend beast, but Evelyn pushed her power over her first affinity to its max and shot forward like a missile.

The powerful gale force wind she had created around herself smashed into the wall of stone and roots. And for just a moment, it held her back, before the roots splintered and the wall crumbled.

Most of her power was lost in breaking through, but with the remaining strength she had, she slammed into Osten's body and the two of them skidded across the ground.

Quickly she increased the gravity around them and restrained his body with her own.

For a few moments the parasitic vine tried to force Evelyn off, but she was actually stronger than she looked. In large part to the human magic core she had.

With her normal physical strength, she could likely match Osten, and with his body current injures and her gravity weighting down she had the clear advantage.

Soon enough the parasitic vine stopped futile struggling and launched numerous tendrils out of Osten's mouth and began clinging to Evelyn.

Quickly it dragged its body out of its previous host who was now crippled, and began wrapping around Evelyn.

Once she was certain that enough of it had attached to her, she began struggling to spur it on and jumped away from Osten using a gust of wind to propel herself.

This pulled the rest of the vine tangle's body out of her squad member, and it fully gripped its body around Evelyn and tried forcing its way down her throat.

'Got you.' She thought as it wrenched her beak open.

So far, she had not used her heavenly flame during the battle since it would do too much damage. But also, so that this parasite would not be wary of her.

If it knew she could use flames that could hurt it, there was a chance it would not have left Osten's body and fought to the death instead.

But now she had it where she wanted it, and as soon as it tried crawling into her, she let loose fire from her mouth like a dragon and burned the invading vines to ash.

The plant let out a horrendous sound as part of it was burned away, and it tried to unwrap itself from Evelyn.

Before it could though, she covered her entire body in her crimson heavenly flame and engulfed it and herself.

The parasitic vine flailed around as its entire body began to burn and all the moisture in it began to vaporize.

In just a couple of seconds, the once formidable enemy was reduced to nothing, as Evelyn destroyed it in its entirety.

'Whew, so it did work. I knew it would, but that creeping doubt I might fail was always in the back of my mind.'

Letting out a sigh of relief at her success, Evelyn slumped over onto her butt and began breathing heavily.

She had used up most of magical energy and stamina, and her body felt like a rock now.

Nevertheless, their goal had been accomplished, and while Osten was currently unconscious and is body battered horribly, he was still alive.

Swiftly the other owls in their squad flew down, with Adolophine going up to Osten and pouring a healing potion down his throat and trying to reset his wing.

"Are you okay Evelyn?" Rehni said as she landed right in front of her.

"Yeah, just tired. I used up pretty much all I had left there at the end. But at least it worked out." Evelyn responded.

She then hiked herself up despite her fatigue and took out three bottles.

Inside was the basic recovery items of a healing potion, magical energy replenishment pill, and a stamina recovery potion.

Quickly she downed them all in the practiced motion she had picked up in her sparing matches with Katrina and let out a long sigh once she had finished consuming them.

Just a few moments later she felt the magical powers of her potions working and her heavy body began to feel a bit lighter.

"How is he doing?" She asked after hoping over to where Osten was.

Currently Adolophine was looking him over and had a frown on her face.

"It does not look good. He is pretty roughed up not just on the outside, but internally as well. I have given him some of my healing potions, but he is going to need something stronger or the help of our doctor, Slaine. At this rate, I think carrying him back to base might kill him though. Whatever that thing was did not use his body gently."

'Guess I do not have a choice." Evelyn thought.

Holding out her spatial storage cuff she took out a very vibrant green potion that shimmered with a beautiful glow.

Seeing it Adolophine was stunned for a moment, and she looked at Evelyn in astonishment.

"Is that not a grade four potion?! That is something only a tyrant rank beast or higher should be able to make."

"Yes, it is. My master made it for me before the expedition. It was supposed to be used in an emergency and I think this qualifies." Evelyn said as she brought the potion up to Osten's beak.

Pouring it down his throat she watched as the wounds he had that were not able to be healed by the lower quality grade two potions that Adolophine had used began to close.

Within just a minute Osten took in a deep breath and his eyes flung open, before in exhaled in relief and fell unconscious again.

"There, looks like it worked." Evelyn said seeing that the potion had healed Osten.

Still, Adolophine who knew exactly how valuable the potion Evelyn had just used could only stare at her in disbelief.

"I cannot believe you just used something that would cost at least three million credits! Even to save squad members life."

Shrugging her shoulders, Evelyn responded, saying, "It had to be done. It was a gift from my master, so it did not cost me anything. Anyway, I already put in too much effort to back out at the end simply because I needed to use an expensive potion."