An Owl's Rise

With the plan set and ready to be started, Evelyn, along with the burrowing owls waited for the scouts to return.

When they did, they brought with them fortuitous information.

Two groups of four ospreys had left the base in quick succession. With one going south and the other going east.

This was the perfect time for them to initiate their attack and after they had gotten all the information from the scouts it was time to set off.

"I will go after the ospreys that are going south since they have two mid-tier awakened ranks among them. Otis you take your team and go after the ones heading east." Evelyn said, taking command.

After receiving her orders, the burrowing owls led by Otis that numbered eight in total, set off towards the eastern group of ospreys.

Evelyn, once she had seen them off, turned to her own team headed towards the south to intercept the other osprey hunting party.

With her were six of the burrowing owls at the awakened rank and her second in command was Po. The burrowing owl that had originally asked for her help.

Flying high they scanned the horizon for their quarry and thirty minutes after they spotted the group of ospreys attacking a number of fleeing hares.

'Perfect. They are busy hunting their own prey and believe themselves the rulers of these skies. The chances that the look up for an attack from above is low.' Evelyn thought when she saw the situation.

A quick order later and all of the burrowing owls following her ascended and moved into position above the osprey.

They then began picking out their targets and Evelyn assigned a pair of the burrowing owls to fight the ospreys.

This left her alone to take on their leader, but she knew it would be better this way since her magic could have a wide range and be quite harmful to her allies if she was not careful.

Once they were all set they waited for the right moment, when the osprey were at their most preoccupied.

"Now!" Evelyn ordered when the ospreys caught a couple of hares and were distracted by finishing off their prey.

Leading the burrowing owls Evelyn went into a nosedive and began rapidly descending towards her target.

She was going after the largest of the ospreys which was at the high tier of the awakened rank.

And thanks to it being absorbed in putting down the large hare in its talons it did not notice Evelyn until she was within around a hundred meters of it.

It let out a loud screech to alert its allies of the incoming attack and reared up towards Evelyn in an intimidating fashion.

However, this was the last thing it ever got to do.

The moment she was in range Evelyn activated her gravity field and hit the osprey with her extreme press.

The lead osprey immediately felt the effects of the impossibly powerful gravity on it and slammed into the ground where it began sinking into the sand.

Immediately it began using its earth magic to solidify the area around it to prevent itself from sinking.

But before it had the chance to raise its head, a large sphere of crimson fire descended upon it and it was consumed in a scotching blaze.

For nearly three dozen seconds it held out by circulating its magical energy around its body in a barrier, but its power could not keep up and when the barrier broke it felt its wings burst into flames and begin to melt.

It died soon afterwards without having been able to put up much resistance and all that remained of it was ash that scattered into the desert.

'How are the rest of them doing?' Evelyn thought while turning her head to observe the other battles.

Luckily what she saw was not the burrowing owls struggling even in a two on one battle but them deftly handling their opponents.

They were not as weak as Evelyn had initially thought they would be, and while their small size made them ineffective in physical combat, they were quite nimble, and their use of magic was fairly adept.

The fighting only lasted around four minutes in total before all the ospreys were dead and Evelyn along with the burrowing owls were the undisputed victors.

Some of the burrowing owls had minor injuries but nothing that would be debilitating.

"Good job all of you. Now let us head back and see if the other team has completed their mission."

Having killed all four the Osprey, Evelyn along with the six burrowing owls she had been leading flew back their temporary base.

When they arrived, they found that Otis' team had already returned, though they were clearly despondent.

Scanning through their ranks Evelyn quickly figured out what the reason was for their sour moods.

One of the burrowing owls had not returned and two others had heavy injuries that would take multiple days to heal naturally.

This would effectively lower their forces by three and make it much more difficult for them to win the raid on the ospreys.

"Otis would you mind telling me what happened?" Evelyn asked the second she landed.

With a downcast gaze the leader of the burrowing owls retold what had transpired between his team of burrowing owls and the ospreys hunting party.

They had swiftly caught up with their target, but in their haste had not taken enough precautions and were spotted before being able to launch a surprise attack like Evelyn's team had.

A bloody head-to-head battle ensued after that and while the burrowing owls did win thanks to their greater numbers, they lost one member and had two others incur serious injuries.

"We can hardly call this a victory, especially when you came back with everyone and no major injuries. I am not fit to be the leader of the burrowing owls." Otis said with a dispirited tone.

"No, you did a perfectly fine job. We simply got luckier and caught our targets while they were busy. You still took out four ospreys at the cost of only one member, so our gains are still well above our losses." Evelyn said to try and cheer Otis up.

She could not have the burrowing owls' leader being crestfallen or it would hurt morale.

"But two of my team are too badly injured to continue fighting for at least a week. By then it will already be too late." Otis said.

Evelyn though simply raised up one of her feet and pulled out two potions from one of her storage rings.

All the burrowing owls stared at her in awe as this happened and they wondered what sort of magic she had employed.

"These are healing potions. Give them to the two heavily injured owls and they will recover practically instantly."

Carefully the burrowing owls brought the position bottle which were around half their size over to their injured comrades and poured the liquid over their injuries.

A soft green light enveloped the two burrowing owls and their wounds quickly disappeared.

"This is another advantage that allying with me brings. I have magic items that are rare to find in this desert and will use them to give us an even greater advantage."