DRAGONQUEEN: RISE OF THE SILVER PHOENIX

Chapter 26 - Evasive Menuevers

The air whistles around them as Lila dives through the night sky. Rebecca checks her altitude meter. She watches in fascination as the meter numbers drop.

The longer Lila holds her wings tucked in the faster they fly. Her speed defies the gravity pull of the planet and her wings and tail help keep her in a straight line.

Below them, whisps of grey clouds speed by them ever faster. "Lila control your speed. We are coming in too hot."

"When we reach the cloud line. I want to use them as cover while I regain control of my flight speed. Godru has reached the clouds and flared his wings, hold on. This is going to hurt," says Lila.

Lila levels out between the clouds. She flares her wings and roars in agony as she strains to keep both of them in the air. Rebecca senses the massive strain on Lila's wing muscles. They are barely managing to hold on. Lila is not built to handle this kind of speed.

Her wing muscles and tendons start to tear. Rebecca realizes she has only seconds to take action before the wind tears off Lila's wings.

She digs into her pockets and fishes out a red and gold amber crystal in each hand. She tries to position her hands over Lila's shoulder blades where her wings are connected to her body.

The crystals work but the war with the sheer natural forces is overwhelming. With each passing second, the tendons in Lila's wings tear as fast as they heal. Rebecca looks back and notices that Lila is not using her tail to help break their speed.

"Lila, your not using your tail?" Rebecca asks.

"We are going too fast. Every time I try to use it to break our speed the wind knocks it back. I was barely able to change direction," Lila replies.

"Shit!"

Rebecca gathers her power,  "Heal!"

The strain on her power to heal Lila's wings intensifies. They slow down but the sheer force of the wind beneath Lila's wings is still causing immense pressure on Rebecca's magic and the two crystals in her hands.

Rebecca feels her power draining at a rapid rate. With a cry, she digs deeper. 'Come on silver phoenix. If I have access to a portion of your power there has to be more than enough to help Lila.'

Rebecca feels a sudden boost and she looks back to see the telltale signs of a magic surge rippling across her skin, looking like gentle white water ripples in a pool.

She shuts her eyes and focuses on her magic core. She sees that her magic pool can no longer handle the amount of mana flooding in and the spout has broken. The white mana is spraying in every direction. She does what she can and snaps off the spout. The exposed fountain pipe gurgles and there is so much mana that the small pool nearly overflows.

'You will have to take time to readjust the size of your pool. This will do for now.' The phoenix tells her gently.

Rebecca shifts her focus to the task at hand. Every second counts. Lila bursts through the cloud cover. The ground is now hurtling past them at a rapid pace.

The magic in the crystals disappears. 

"Shit!" Rebecca exclaims.

Lila roars defiantly. Digging as deep as she could to try and slow them down. Her tail is finally able to help her break.

They speed past a cluster of firelights. Illuminating the surroundings just enough to make out the outline of the village homes.

Rebecca realizes with a jolt that she now has night vision. Because everything outside the circle of light is visible in greyscale. She sees a dog running in the street and barking at Lila. She can not hear it this high up, but she can tell by the way the dog's head is moving.