An Owl's Rise

Having finished telling her friends and teammates about her past Evelyn received words of sympathy from both Rehni and Bylur.

They had known that something bad had happened to Evelyn in the past to make her wary of making connections, but the truth of the situation was far worse than what they had imagined.

In fact they did not even truly know the half of it. Evelyn's traumatic experiences went far beyond what had just happened to her in this life, but her previous one as well. In some ways it is a miracle that she managed to form any connections again at all.

"Thank you both for your kind words. I have been doing my best to work past what happened and becoming friends with the two of you has really helped." Evelyn said, a warm look in her eyes that surprised Bylur and Rehni.

Up to this point they had never seen such a genuinely happy expression on Evelyn's face, which was normally just blank in order to hide her emotions.

After that the three of them moved the discussion onto what they had original been planning to talk about during this celebratory meal.

"All our practice and planning really paid off. We managed to beat them without suffering any major injuries and almost too easily seeing as how they were all at a higher level." Rehni said, a pleased look on her face.

"Yeah, we won but I think that you put too much on yourself Evelyn. There was no need for you to fight Devurg and Trine on your own even if they were both injured. You could have gotten serious hurt if we had not gotten back when we did." Bylur said, his discontent apparent.

He wanted Evelyn to rely on him and Rehni more, especially him, rather than always shouldering the greatest burden by herself.

She almost always put herself in harm's way in order to take the pressure off her allies and Bylur felt that eventually she was going to end up in a situation where taking on too much might break her.

"Bylur is right. We have trained together and gotten stronger, but most of the time you put yourself right in the middle of danger to make sure we are exposed to less. But sometimes that winds up with you taking more than you can handle. It was fine this time, but next time it might not be. We can take a few hits ourselves. There is no need for you to take them for us if you do not absolutely have to." Rehni said.

Being ganged up and knowing her friends were right, Evelyn could only hang her head and weakly agree.

'I just really do not want them to get hurt. I know I can take the physical pain just fine, but I do not know what I would do if either of them got seriously injured or died.' Evelyn thought.

Naturally she still had plenty of fear that those she held close would die, and she was determined to do all she could to keep them safe.

This gave her the tendency to put herself in the position where she would take on the most risk, and Bylur and Rehni were not going to take it anymore.

As much as Evelyn cared about them, they felt the same way.

"Okay, I promise to not be as reckless and let the two of you take on more dangerous roles that I have been monopolizing. But enough about that, instead we should focus on our next enemies. We beat Devurg and forced him to disband his faction, but Legget still has it out for us. He and his faction are busy right now thanks to Melisandre's distraction but that will only last for so long. We need to prepare to take them out while we have the time."

Successfully changing the topic Evelyn managed to avoid any more scolding from her teammates for her reckless actions.

As they discussed what their next moves were going to be, time seemed to go by exceptionally swiftly and the restaurant they had reserved a room in was soon to close.

"This has been enjoyable, but it looks like it is time for us to go our on ways for now. I will be busy with my siblings for the next few days probably, but in a week we can meet up again and I will properly introduce you to them." Evelyn said before heading back to Melisandre's estate.

Before she left though, Bylur and Rehni told her to not get absorbed in working like she normally did and take things easy for a bit, since they had just finished an incredibly intense training regimen.

Nodding her head Evelyn said she would and then took off.

When she arrived back at Melisandre's estate, she found Anneli and Katrina waiting for her to give their congratulations.

"That was an amazing fight. The way you dominated that guy by expertly avoiding his attack, and zooming around the area amazing." Anneli said, gushing with praise.

She talked at high speeds for nearly two minutes, extoling everyone of Evelyn's moves, before finally allowing Katrina to speak.

"That was a good fight, I can see that all of our training together paid off." Katrina said, keeping her praise brief.

Not longer after Melisandre warped into the room and congratulated Evelyn as well.

"That was a good fight that reminded me of some of my own back in the day. You controlled the battlefield the entire time and did not even have to use your full power. You did better than I could have ever imagined." Melisandre said, proud of Evelyn's achievements.

"Now follow me to my room, I have prepared something for you as another reward for your victory."

Curious about what Melisandre had prepared for her, Evelyn took off with Melisandre and felt her anticipation rising as they flew through the halls.

When they arrived at Melisandre's room Evelyn saw that what Melisandre had prepared for her was already out and displayed.

"I figured that the armor and weapons you have are not able to really keep up with you. They may have been made to be usable for an awakened rank owl at the mid-tier , but they are not going to last much longer for you since you are far above the average. Instead, I dug out my old gear from when I was still at the peak of the awakened rank and got it refurbished for you. I think that it will suit you well."

Her eyes welling up with appreciation, Evelyn could not thank Melisandre enough.

"Okay, enough of the words of gratitude. Go ahead and try everything on before it rusts." Melisandre said, pushing Evelyn forward.

Feeling exited she flew over to the armor and began putting it on.

Luckily it was magically enchanted to wrap around her body and within just a half minute she was decked out in her new gleaming armor that used to belong to Melisandre.

"I am sure you can tell already that what you are wearing now is a lot stronger than your previous gear. It has more than just basic defensive enchantments and will help power up your magic as well. Go ahead and test it out."

A smile on her face Evelyn flew up into the air and felt that despite the armor begin made out of heavy metal that it was not any more difficult to ascend than before.

Each of the wing coverings were also embedded with wind and fire pearls that helped to amply Evelyn's magic and fly faster.

Along with that they had blades that could retract from both the front and back allowing her more options for attacking at close range.

Then the helmet had two horn like protrusions where the tuffs of feathers on her head fit, and each of these ended in a sharp point.

'Whoa! They act as a focus as well.'

Channeling magical energy into the horns on top of her head, Evelyn was able to easily elongate them and could use them as weapons.

"Evelyn!" Melisandre shouted out while she was fully emersed in testing out the abilities of her new gear.

However, when she looked down Evelyn found a spinning ball of water in Melisandre's hands and saw her master give her a mischievous smirk.

She then launched the ball of water at Evelyn to fast to avoid.

Only being able to tank it, Evelyn channeled her magical energy into her armor.

When the attack hit she felt her entire body shake from the impact, but her amor absorbed most of the force and kept her from being injured.

"It works pretty well doesn't it. In your previous armor that attack would have left a huge dent and given you a nasty bruise."

"Yes, it can take more than I thought. I was sure I was about to be knocked out of the sky by that attack. But this armor absorbed almost all of the force. It really is amazing, Thank you Melisandre."