An Owl's Rise



"How are you doing Aralee? I know you got hit by its poison as well." Evelyn said while swallowing some magical energy replenishment pills and splashing another healing potion on her shoulder where she had taken the most damage.

It was certainly reckless to use so many restoratives at once since it put extreme strain on her body after the fact, but Evelyn did not have much of an option in the current situation. She needed to force her body back into fighting shape to deal with the bramble dragonfly that was only seconds away from destroying the false hedge wall and turning its attention back towards her and her sister.

"I am doing okay. It was only a glancing blow, and my opponent was not as dangerous as yours, so I already had time to recovery a bit." Aralee said, wearing a resolute expression.

However, Evelyn could see that she was still suffering from the poison just as she was. The magical antidotes she had created using alchemy were taking the edge off, but the bramble dragonfly's poison was too potent for the medicine they currently had to fully stop it.

'I am probably going to need to use its poison as a base for a true antidote if I want to get it out of our systems. That means we need to retrieve the bulbs intact.'

Evelyn internally groaned at this prospect as just fighting the monster was hard enough, but trying to preserve part of it at the same time was going to be far more difficult.

Unfortunately, she did not have time to come up with any sort of concrete plan, as the bramble dragonfly took down the giant shrub that had been disguising itself as part of the maze.

"Aralee, keep it slowed down with your momentum magic and use your wind magic to restrict its movements the best that you can. Don't worry about doing any damage to it. I will bring it down with my magic." 

Once Evelyn had finished giving out her instructions, she took back into the air despite her body's protest.

From there she began spreading out small sparks of her heavenly flame as if hundreds of fireflies had just come out. She knew that even her fastest attacks were unlikely to hit their adversary and planned to catch it within a field of magic it could not escape from.

Of course, the bramble dragonfly was not just going to hover in the air and wait for Evelyn's sparks to reach it and began firing off more jets of its deadly poison while approaching at an incredible speed.

This time though, Evelyn did not have to deal with its assault by herself and Aralee stepped in and fired off several yellow balls of magic that intercepted the monster's attacks.

When the balls of momentum magic hit, the fast-moving poison shots began to slow down to less than half of their original speed and they became far easier to avoid.

The incredible speed of its attacks and movements was the bramble dragonfly's greatest assets, but Aralee's magic was a perfect counter to it. In a way, she was its natural enemy.

'Oh, it is going to run.'

Evelyn was a bit surprised to see their enemy turn around and fly away when it had been relentlessly attacking them before.

Nevertheless, it was able to detriment that it stood little chance against Evelyn and Aralee while they were working together.

The floating sparks of Evelyn's heavenly flame prevented it from approaching, and Aralee's momentum magic slowed down tis ranged attacks to the point that they were ineffective.

"We are going after it. We need some of its poison and it is too dangerous for us to let it go here." Evelyn said, giving chase.

Aralee followed Evelyn's directive despite wanting to simply be done fighting such a dangerous enemy and gave chase.

Chasing after it was easier said than done, however. The bramble dragon fly was incredible quick and pushing themselves to keep up only sped up the spread of the poison in Evelyn's and Aralee's bodies.

Yet, the maze that had been infuriating to no end for them finally worked in their favor. After pursuing the monster for several minutes, Evelyn and her sister caught up to it at a dead end. Now their enemy had nowhere left to flee.

"Deceleration Gate."

Without any other option left to it, the bramble dragon fly had tried to take Evelyn and Aralee by surprise and rush them the second they came around the corridor that led to the dead end it was trapped in.

Nevertheless, they had been tracking it with their magical map and knew it had been trapped. Allowing Aralee to cast a wide range spell between them.

The instant that the bramble dragonfly flew through the giant shimmering yellow gate its incredible speed rapidly began to drop.

It was still moving fast, but not to the point that Evelyn could not keep up with it anymore.

'Whirlwind blade.'

Evelyn extended the blades on the tip of her wings and began rapidly spinning her body around. Turning her entire body into one giant wind blade.

Her magic sliced the bramble dragonfly in half. Sending the separated parts of tis body flying in different directions.

In a last-ditch effort, the monster fired off one last volley of poison jets at Evelyn, but Aralee stepped in by slowing them down and blowing them away with her wind magic.

With two heavy thuds both halves of the bramble dragonfly crashed against the hedge maze and fell tot eh ground.

The tail end had already gone completely stiff, but the side that had its head swiftly got back up and its body began to morph. It may have taken the appearance of a dragonfly, but it was still a plant monster that was not easily put down.

Its twisted together bramble body began to unravel, and it used what used to make up the length of its body as new legs to run away on now that its wings were no longer operable.