"What happened when you went to the meadow?" Wildwing questioned a few minutes later.
"We found out that Siege and Wraith were there sometime after we left," Mallory answered as she finally sat down. "Tanya was able to single out the different energy readings and found that one of the trees was giving off the same energy as the blue beak."
"Mage," he corrected.
"What?"
"She's a mage," he told her.
"She's a blue beak," she retorted.
"I called her that and I'm lucky to still have all my feathers," he replied. "If the nurse hadn't walked in when she did...Let's just say I'm really glad she walked in when she did."
"Fine," she grumbled. "Nosedive and Grin found the, mage's, shoes and cloak."
"What about the tree?" he inquired.
"Duke climbed up it, but wasn't able to find anything," she answered.
"Is that why you came back?" he questioned.
"No, a park ranger caught us and kicked us out of there," she told him.
She got up and started pacing. He could see her get more and more agitated.
"Something bothering you?" he inquired.
"Tanya said something and the more I think about it, the more it bugs me," she admitted.
"What did she say?" he questioned.
"She mentioned that the mage looks a lot like Amber Rotente," she stated.
"I never met Amber, though I had heard of her," he replied.
"I know," she said. "She's a nice girl and Canard had a thing for her, but she didn't feel the same way. That's part of the reason she wasn't around when we were about to go after Dragaunus's Master Tower."
"I had wondered about that," he mused. "Where did she come from?"
"Duke rescued her after the first wave of attacks," she answered. "He pulled her from the wreckage of her family home. Her sister was alive when he pulled Amber out. But when he went back to get the sister, the house collapsed."
"I can't imagine what that must have been like for Amber," he softly stated, very thankful that he still had his baby brother.
"The thing is, when we went through the rubble so we could bury her family, we only found her parents," she told him. "The spot where her sister should have been, someone else had already dug up and her sister was gone."
"You think Ducky is Amber's missing sister?" he asked.
"NO!" she yelled, drawing the attention of a few afternoon shoppers and she immediately toned it down. "There's no way that thing is our sweet Amber's dead sister."
She paced even more aggressively as they waited. It took about ten minutes for her to finally snap, which was about nine minutes longer than Wildwing thought she would last.
"I'm going back to The Pond and getting my blaster," she stated as she grabbed her bag and left.
He didn't get a chance to say anything before she left, not that he really had anything to say. He just sat back, crossed his wings over his chest and settled in for a long wait.
Wildwing knew she couldn't stay in there forever, but it sure felt like it. She had been in there for so long that the sun was nearing the horizon and he wondered if there was some secret passage out of the store. When she finally emerged, she actually looked surprised to see him still there.
"I'll give you this, you are tenacious," she stated when she stopped in front of him. "Fat lot of good it's going to do you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.
"It means I'm out of here and you can go home," she answered as she started to turn away.
"Sorry, your majesty, but that isn't how the story goes," he growled as he stood up and loomed over her.
"Hate to break it to you, Wildwing, but you're not going to win this round," she told him with a sad shake of her head. "Just bow out gracefully before things turn ugly."
He made a grab for her. Before he could even blink, he was sitting back on the bench and unable to move. He stared at her in shock. With another shake of her head, she started to walk away.
"See you on the flip side, Wingwing," Ducky said.
"Not so fast, blue beak," Mallory yelled as she stepped out from her hiding spot and fired her blaster.
The puck bolo wrapped around the mage's torso, forcing her wings down to her side. Wildwing almost cheered, until he realized that the ropes of the bolo weren't actually in contact with her. With a shrug, the ropes fell uselessly to the ground and the mage carefully put her bags down.
"Ever since I've gotten here, all you've done is shoot at me and harass me," the blue beaked duck stated softly and they could hear the fury in those quiet words.
She slowly turned around and Wildwing swallowed nervously. Her eyes were glowing a bright white instead of the normal blue. Her hands were balled into fists and her face was a mask of pure anger.
"Enough is enough," Ducky growled.
"Mallory!" he warned.
Mallory tried to dive out of the way of the ball of energy that came at her, but it moved with her. Wildwing struggled to get up and help his team mate as the energy engulfed her, however, it was like he was glued to the bench. With a sweep of the mage's wing, Mallory found herself air born. With a shout of surprise by her and Wildwing, Mallory landed in his lap. Their arms were suddenly wrapped around each other as if they were cuddling.
"There, now don't you two make a cute couple," the mage sarcastically spat out. "Don't bother getting up."
"DUKE! GET HER!" Wildwing shouted.
She quickly spun around and looked for the other team mate. She wasn't expecting the attack to come from above. He swung down from the roof of the music store and grabbed her around the waist.
She gave a startled yelp as her feet left the ground. They landed several feet away from her bags. Duke got his other wing around her just before she started struggling.
He managed to hang on to her for a few seconds. Then he found himself flat on his back and stunned. He felt like he had been hit with enough energy to light The Pond.
He shook his head to clear it. He barely registered that Wildwing and Mallory were yelling at him, though he couldn't figure out what they were saying yet. He finally looked up at the mage as she turned around.
It took all of half a second for her to recognize him. He tried to scramble backwards as her eyes blazed white hot again.
"YOU!" she shrieked angrily.
He found himself flying towards her by no visible means. She grabbed the front of his shirt, getting chest feathers in the process. Before he could complain, she shook him hard enough to rattle his teeth.
"Where is she!?" she yelled as she continued to scramble his brain cells. "What did you do with her!?" shake "WHERE" shake "IS" shake "MY" shake "SISTER!?" shake "WHERE" shake "IS" shake "AMBER!?"
Nosedive was in the kitchen making himself a super-duper-deluxe sandwich.
"A couple slices of cheese-some pickles-a banana...," he happily hummed to himself.
Just as he was putting the finishing touches on it, the emergency klaxon went off.
"Ah man," he griped.
He quickly grabbed his sandwich and ran for the control center. Tanya was already there typing away at Drake One while Grin stood next to her watching.
"What's that?" she asked, staring at the food in Nosedive's hands.
"It's my famous Super-Duper-Deluxe Sandwich," he answered as he took a bite and some of the ingredients fell out.
"That looks disgus...disgus...That looks gross," she said before turning back to the super computer. "Wildwing has sent a distress signal. He's in the mall."
"What could be distressing at the mall?" Nosedive asked.
"He's been following the blue beak all day," she reminded him. "Guess things finally got out of hand."
"It's time for some pay back karma," Grin stated as he activated his battle gear.
"Let's do this thing!" Nosedive exclaimed as he activated his own gear and shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth.
A couple of minutes later, they hit the doors to The Pond running. They transformed their shoes into jet skates to make better time. Following the indicator on their communicators, they found their missing team mates.
What they found left them with their beaks hanging open.
"SHE'S FINE!" Duke shouted as he struggled to get out of her amazingly strong grip.
"What did you do with her!?" she growled, her eyes still a hot white, though she did stop shaking him.
"I took her with me and we found other survivors," he gasped a bit winded after nearly having his beak shaken off of his face. "She got people organized to bring in supplies and other survivors. She started out running a refuge camp until the resistance found them. After that, she helped run the resistance."
"That sounds just like her," she sighed with relief. "She was always so organized."
With a small contented smile, she let him go. She walked back towards her things, seemingly ignoring the other ducks.
Wildwing got Duke's attention and nodded toward the mage. Duke pulled his saber off it's holder and quietly walked toward her. As a former thief he was quieter than a snowflake when he wanted to be, or so he thought.
Before he got more than a couple steps, the puck bolo that had been laying on the ground suddenly sprang to life. It moved too fast for his brain to properly process and much too fast for his blade to cut. Not that his blade was going to do him much good laying on the ground.
The ropes wrapped around him from shoulder to ankle, tight enough that he couldn't move, but loose enough not to cut off circulation. Suddenly, he was yanked off of his feet and he found himself hanging upside down. He looked toward his feet and saw that the end of the rope had tied itself around a rather sturdy branch of the tree shading the bench Wildwing and Mallory were occupying.
He was grabbed and spun around. His heart leaped up into his throat when he came beak to beak with a really cheesed off mage.
"That's for destroying the support beam," she growled. "You may have saved Amber, but that doesn't mean I've forgiven you for trying to kill me."
With that, she turned away and marched back to her bags.
"Ruby Rotente!" Mallory yelled. "I command you to release us!"
"And I would do that why?" Ruby asked with one eyebrow arched.
"I true named you?" Mallory replied rather lamely. "You're supposed to do what I tell you."
"Even if the whole true naming thing was real, which it's not, do you honestly believe I would use the name on my hatching certificate?" Ruby questioned with a chuckle.
"It was worth a shot," Mallory muttered, crestfallen.
"True, it was," Ruby said as she finished gathering her bags. "I do commend you for at least trying. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll take my leave of you before backup arrives. I wouldn't want any of these good folk to end up being caught in the cross fire."
Belatedly, the trapped ducks realized that they were surrounded by a bunch of humans. Several of them had cameras or cell phones out either taking pictures or video of them.
"Oh, this is not good," Duke grumbled as he slowly spun around in the wind.
"Phil is going to have kittens if this ends up on the evening news," Mallory mumbled. "This couldn't possibly get worse."
"The others will be here soon," Wildwing assured them.
"Fat lot of good that's going to do us," Duke complained. "She's gone."
"Blast it!" Mallory stated as she looked around as best she could. "I don't see her."
"First things first," Wildwing said as he tried to move his wings. "We need to get out of this mess."
He and Mallory struggled to let go of each other, but it was like they were glued together. This was getting beyond embarrassing.
"Well, don't you two make a cute couple," Klegghorn chuckled and not in a very nice way.
"What was that about things not getting any worse?" Duke asked.
"You called Klegghorn?" Mallory demanded.
"No," Wildwing growled just as the rest of the team came around the corner.
They stood there, staring, not sure if they should be horrified or laughing their beaks off.
"This isn't what it looks like," Mallory forcefully stated as she strained to get free of the spell binding her to her captain.
"Should we leave you two alone?" Nosedive teased, trying not to laugh and not doing a very good job of it.
"Or maybe get you a room?" Tanya added.
"If it wouldn't be too much bother," Duke called, pulling their attention away from the two on the bench. "Would someone please get me down?"
Managing to keep his inner calm, unlike the other two, Grin went over, easily broke the rope and got him down. Tanya and Nosedive did manage to pull it together long enough to go over and try and separate Wildwing and Mallory. Unfortunately, it did no good.
"You mind telling me what's going on?" Klegghorn growled at Wildwing. "I thought you guys were gonna help the new duck, not try and beat her up. Though, from the looks of it, it looks like she can hold her own."
Wildwing and Mallory struggled a bit more to get free. While they squirmed, Wildwing told Klegghorn about their first meeting with the mage. As he related the tale it finally, truly, hit him. The mask was gone and he would most likely never see it again. This planet was doomed.
He stopped fighting and slumped down in defeat. That's when he found he was free. It took him a few seconds to realize what happened. He was ready to jump up and go after Ruby until he realized that Mallory was still stuck to him.
"Mallory, try relaxing," he instructed after thinking about what he was doing right before the spell broke.
She looked at him as if he had grown a second head.
"I relaxed and now I can move my wings," he pointed out.
It took her a while longer, but she finally did manage to relax. The moment she stopped fighting and let her muscles go, she was free. She immediately stood up and looked away from Wildwing.
"Awkwaaaard," Nosedive mumbled and Mallory gave him a death glare.
"Listen, I don't care what your problem is with this other duck," Klegghorn stated to Wildwing. "You will NOT be picking fights with her where other people could get hurt. Is that clear?"
Wildwing looked around at all of the humans walking by and the few that were still hanging around. The people who worked in the nearby stores were just starting to head back inside their shops now that the show was over. He didn't miss the dirty looks he got from the employees of the music shop.
"Yes, Captain," Wildwing muttered.
"Good!" Klegghorn stated with a nod. "If the mask is so important to you, why not make another one?"
Klegghorn turned on his heel and walked away, leaving behind a bunch of stunned ducks.