An Owl's Rise

Chapter 17 17 Comeuppance

?"YOU ABSOULTE MORORNS! DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT I WOULD NOT FIND OUT WHAT YOU ARE UP TO?!"

Absolutely livid, the researcher was yelling at his assistants.

Naturally he had found out from Elder Uriah that his assistants had requisitioned for stronger beasts to be sent from their main headquarters.

However, he had only found out after the orders had already been submitted, and the first shipment of three awakened beasts was already on the way.

While he yelled at them his three assistants lowered their heads and tried to act apologetic until their master's anger blew over.

Yet what happened next was outside of their expectations.

Quickly the researcher moved his hands in a certain pattern and cast a spell at them.

"Rime Collars."

Ice shot from his hands and attached itself to the necks of all three of the assistants who looked down in horror.

They could all feel the cold chill of the ice on their necks and knew what could happen next.

All of them had seen this spell before, and they knew what it did.

"Now which one of you was the leader of this idiotic idea that I specifically disobeyed?"

Their eyes going wide, they could tell that he was deadly serious.

Immediately they began begging for forgiveness, and that they did it to advance their research.

"Sir please you have to understand. We did this for you as well. The leaders are going to get impatient if we do not deliver more results, and they will come down on you. It will simply take too long for us to wait for that owl to be a suitable specimen." The smaller assistant said.

Unfortunately for him, this is not what the researcher wanted to hear and snapped his fingers.

As he did, the collar around the short assistant began to squeeze, and his face turned blue as his neck was crushed.

The short assistant tried clawing at his neck to break the collar, but instead his fingers simply froze to it and soon his head snapped off after his neck was fully frozen.

"I suppose that this was a necessary lesson I had not instilled in all of you. My orders are absolute, and I will not take any dissent." The researcher said to his two remaining assistants with a stern gaze.

Nodding their heads, the two of them with fear running through their entire beings, promised to never go against the researcher's orders ever again.

"Good. Now we have a lot of work to do. We are packing up and moving our operation. I must not have stressed the importance of keeping our operation here hidden, but it is imperative that we not be found by anyone."

After saying this the researcher waved his hand and dismissed his two remining assistants and went to organize their move with Elder Uriah.

Unfortunately, at this point it was already too late and the researcher's fears were soon to be realized

Days quickly went by as they organized their abrupt move that was going at full speed.

During this time, Evelyn even though she was isolated from the rest of the facility in her room, noticed that something was wrong.

It had been five days since the last test had been performed on her. and they had never gone this long without doing something awful to her.

The only thing that was still the same was that food was brought to her at regular intervals, but no one ever came into her encloser and dragged her off for experimentation.

'What is going on? Why are they leaving me alone now? Is this some type of test? Or are they preparing some new experiment that is taking time to prepare? Ah the anticipation is almost as bad as the pain they constantly put me through.'

Unable to figure out what was going on, all Evelyn could do to occupy her time was practice her wind magic.

She still was not able to do much with it, but she had gained enough control to send a gust of wind forward with about the same force as a shove from a normal fully grown man.

Certainly, it was not much, but she was making progress with her control over the wind.

Eventually though after around a week of being left on her own, something new happened.

Evelyn felt a rumble throughout the area, and dust began to fall from the ceiling.

For a moment she thought that maybe there was an earthquake happening around them, until she heard a huge explosion.

BOOM!

The facility began to shake violently after this, and Evelyn began rocking back and forth as she sat on the tree in her encloser.

'What the hell is going on?'

Jumping off from the tree, she began flying in the air to avoid the shaking of the facility that had even began to crack.

The sturdy walls around her crumbled, and pieces of the ceiling were cracking off and falling.

'Crap!' Evelyn thought as she dodged a piece of the ceiling.

Certainty she was fine with the place breaking apart if it gave her an opportunity to escape, but right now it seemed more likely that she was to be buried alive as the place collapsed.

More rumbling from above resounded through her room and began getting louder and louder.

Then a massive root that was at least ten feet thick pierced through the ceiling and smashed into the ground of Evelyn's encloser.

By some miracle it did not hit her, nor did she get buried under the tons of rubble that fell down.

Gulping, she wondered what this was since it had appeared out of nowhere, and what might happen to her.

There was no way she could fight against whatever this was, and if this root turned towards her, she knew there was nothing she could hope to do.

Luckily it did not spin around and attack her, but instead began receding back upwards out of the hole in the ceiling.

However, as it lifted up, Evelyn was able to see that under where the root had smashed into the floor there was a red stain on the ground.

Seeing this she realized that there was some type of fight happening above, and the people that were holding her captivate and had ruined her second life were dying.

Even though she herself was not safe from danger, a smile did creep until Evelyn's face as she thought about all of those that had tortured her dying.

'I suppose that this as good a time as any to get out of here.'

Flying up to the huge hole in the ceiling, she exited her prison that she had not left in over a week and began flying out.

For the first time in months she was able to move about freely without any restrictions, and the liberation felt great.

'Well, I wanted to get my revenge myself, but I would rather not get caught again. If someone else will kill them for me, I guess that will have to do.' Evelyn thought as she flew up the hole that led upwards.

Unfortunately, it did not go all the way out of the facility, and as she reached the top she found herself in a familiar room.

It was the place where she had first been kept in a tiny cage.

Though now the room looked far different with cages strewn about the place and the walls and floors cracked and crumbling.

It looked like a tornado had run through the area and the doors to the lab and the corridor that led to the facility's exited were broken open. Though the latter were blocked by a mountain of collapsed earth

RUMBLE!

Feeling another tremor this time coming from below, Evelyn realized that the fighting was still going on in the facility.

Flying around she looked for an opening in the ceiling in this room but did not find any that were large enough for her to escape through.

Once she had finished searching this room, she flew into the laboratory area where she had watched her parents die and the divine item had been implanted into her.

Yet as she entered, she saw that she was not alone, and in a collapsed part of the floor a person was clinging to life.

There the researcher was there, bloody and buried under a large amount of rubble.

Both of his legs and left arm were crushed under tons of earth, and a pool of blood was visible around him.

He was currently struggling to rip the top of off a vial that had a shimmering clear liquid in it.

Seeing this, Evelyn felt that it was an act of province, that the world was delivering her the person she hated the most on a silver platter.

Swooping down she landed right above him and looked down as the slight backlight behind her illuminated her outline.

It was an eerie sight to see as if some demon had just appeared, and the researcher's eyes went wide as he recognized his favorite test subject, now free from her bonds.

Jumping into the hole right on top of him, Evelyn stared at him with eyes full of murder, and his face twisted into fear and anger.

He tried reaching for her with his one remaining limb, but he was far too injured, while Evelyn was in peak condition. She slipped right past him and raked her talons across his face.

Blood began to fall from his face, and he had to close his eyes as red covered his vision.

Flailing around he tried to hit Evelyn to keep her way from him.

Nevertheless, in his condition he stood no chance now, even though he was normally far stronger than her.

Landing on his shoulder, she dug her claws in deep before jumping off and continuing to torment the man who had cultivated the hatred in her heart.

Se wanted to pay him back for all he had done to her, and the world had finally given her a chance to do so.

Nevertheless, after a minute of slashing him up with her talons, the researcher went still the blood loss to much for him to fight back any longer.

Seeing this, she knew it was time to finish up and to make her escape.

It was uncertain who had attacked this facility, but she did not want to stick around and get caught by them.

Delivering one last swipe from her claws, she cut through his neck, and blood began pouring out of his throat and down his body.

A satisfied smile on her face, Evelyn felt a weight that had been pushing down on her heart begin to lift.

'Whoever said that revenge left you feeling empty was wrong. I feel elated.' Evelyn thought as she watched the life leave the man who had killed her parents and subjected her to cruel experiments.

With the researcher now dead and her chance for freedom before her, Evelyn took back into the air and began flying around the collapsing ceiling.

Quickly she found an area where the light of the moon shone down and reveled an exited back up to the surface

Squeezing her way into this hole, she began clawing her way up the cramped space that barely was wide enough for her body to slip through.

At some pints she even needed to used her beak to dig out the dirt around her, but eventually she made it back to the surface.

As soon as she poked her head out she saw a flash of light in the distance followed by a loud booming sound.

Then another, and another, all around her through the woods.

It appeared that the battle between those who ran this facility and those who were attacking was still raging on all around her.

'I guess I will go that way.' Evelyn thought as she looked in the direction that was the quietest.

Hopping on the ground, she kept her body low and did her best to stay unseen

There was no room for error, and she needed to be cautious in order to avoid being recaptured.

Quickly she made her way out of the area, and when the flashing and rumbling of explosions was behind her, she opened her wings and took to the air. Flying away from the facility that had been her prison for a long time.