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"You're not making this easy on me, are you?" he grunted, the red strands of light approaching him. He began to encircle the room, continuing the wind tunnel. It wouldn't knock Owle back from a different angle. Why did he do this?

Oh, right. The pile of smoldering novels. Yes, many were literally ashes by this point. But a good number still remained, and now they were rocketing towards Owle amidst the literal cloud of ash.

"You're persistant, I'll give you that." Suddenly, the wind tunnel dropped, as he backed against the wall to give him as much room as possible. With Owle hopefully blinded, she might not see this next defensive polymorph spell. If she did, it would look like he pulled an Obi-Wan, his robes going limb just as the strands of light sliced and diced them.

If her vision was still keen enough, perhaps through an extrasensory vision or aided by a snake, she would notice the dozens hundreds countless of teeny tiny spiders scattering across the room in all directions. They'd be going up walls, into corners, ducking beneath books and furniture, everything to escape her noticing them.

Hopefully, by the time her vision cleared, she would think he had fled.

It was disorienting, looking through so many sets of eyes at once. Though he did not have direct control over every single spider, he controlled groups of them at a time, using it as a hive node for the nearby rest. Its what's allowed him to maintain enough focus to watch for Owle, observing her facing at all times. His spirit would be everywhere around her, as if it were the room itself.

As she would look one direction, spiders in the opposite would scitter around. As she turned, they would take shelter from her gaze, and more would move. A game of cat and mouse, as it were.

Then suddenly, a large group of them ambushed her from beneath the cushy chair she used earlier. The would be surrounding her, attempting to climb all over her, trying to bite her legs and any other limbs they could attach to, each injecting its entire payload of venom. It would be heavily diluted compared to most spiders, but each bite would sting nonetheless.

(Outside Rain)

Maximos would see a great churning in the link between Owle and Rain, and the pile of snakes in Owle seemed to lessen, but still retained the same general shape.

(Inside Rain)

Except Owle wasn't looking. She was staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to make it rain.

And then they were on her, icky things, all over, and Owle reached for her snakes and pulled, and...

It was entirely possible that a large number of spiders would sink their fangs into her before she could counterattack. But then mouths erupted from every part of Owle, one hundred golden glowing serpentine mouths, swallowing the spiders whole, gulping them down, attempting to digest them or imprison them forever.

And for the moment, no water would enter the chamber.

Owle blinked, staring confounded up at the sweatdropping spiders. What the...?

She would have sent a blast of fire after them, if it hadn't been for the fact that their diversion engulfed her at just that moment. It was lucky for her that the old man hadn't realized that Owle hadn't figured out his plan...she had just felt the ceiling was the most productive place to stare.

Bleeding, itchy, and shaken by the feeling of creepy crawlies all over her, Owle did what was probably the last thing the old man expected her to do.

She killed the snakes.

Three of the magic missiles slammed into the horde of snakes pouring out of Owle, while two, by luck, missed them and slammed into Owle's main body, sending her stumbling back. But by the time she regained her balance, the deed was done. With only a thought as her weapon, Owle had severed the connection of the hundred snakes that had swallowed the spiders to her, leaving a mound of serpents bloody and lifeless on the floor.

Which she then proceeded to pick up by the power of her mind and throw at him.

Well, that felt good. Owle ran forward, summoning the knife her brother had forged for her into her hand. She wanted to finish him herself, wanted to plunge the knife into his heart and...

How was she going to get to him through all these corpses?

He had a moment's hesitation and unhurried thought to recover, and do something, before those red butterfly wings emerged and exerted their power again, the deadly red strands unfurling out from them, this time aiming to kill, to pierce his beating heart.

(Inside Rain's mind)

"Ow!" And Owle fell backwards, weakened body falling straight onto her back, even as her tiny, thin little red blades pierced the heart of the man she had made her enemy.

She got up slowly, unsure what had happened. Seeing the limp body, she drew the strands back and pierced it again. And again. And again...

By the time she was through, nothing human could have possibly survived in that body. She left the mangled remains on the floor, and, if she no longer sensed anything besides herself in the room, she left quietly.

If the door were still locked, rather than break it, she would slide beneath it, shapeshifting into the ittiest, bittiest little bird to do so. She was taking no chances with letting that thing into Rain's mind.

And then...and then...

(Outside Rain's Mind)

Back in the hospital, Maximos would see Owle walked out of Rain, and into herself. The double vision stopped; the snakes were no longer churning about, but concealed within the Owle form that had finally chosen to inhabit her own body. Something did seem wrong, though...spirit Owle was covered in multiple welts, tiny spider bites, as well as blood and the burn marks from the magic missiles and his touch on her shoulder.

"Oh! Maximos!" Owle exclaimed, with the look of a child who'd been caught doing something highly embarrassing. "I'm so sorry! Could we just...pretend I haven't said anything since I got to the hospital?"

A large sweatdrop actually appeared over Owle's head, hanging in the air for a moment.

He gave Siat a helpless look.

"I dunno, go on vacation? To put it in a bit of perspective, if Tijae's in trouble, it won't be small trouble, demon's don't do small trouble, as a general rule." He thought about it for a moment.

"Then again, making her might have meant that any trouble she get's into can be put back to me...karma's kinda vauge on the subject. She's got emotions, though, so I kind of figured, wind her up and let her loose, y'know?"

He'd been a little pressed at the time, maybe she wasn't developing as humanly as she should have been.