What the heck were those things? Walking trash compactors?
"Kill the mage," one of the overgrown tin cans said in a monotone voice.
Ruby didn't care what they were, they weren't friendly. She tightened her grip on The Mask and bolted out between the trees, not noticing that she had dropped her bag. It was amazing what adrenaline could do for a tired body. As soon as she cleared the trees, more of those metal monsters appeared out of thin air.
She blasted the one in front of her and ran toward the hole in the circle of machines. She hadn't gotten more than a couple steps before another one took its place. They started firing at her.
They couldn't get through the magic that protected her, at least not yet. She had had a long day dealing with the Mighty Ducks and her evening had consisted of a lot of hiking. The magic wouldn't hold them off forever.
She kept blasting away, destroying one after another, but they kept coming. Their own blasts were starting to knock her around. The protective magic was weakening and they were closing in. She could feel the panic setting in.
Memories of the house coming down, of being trapped rose unbidden. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The fire burning in her chest was the only thing that kept her on this side of sanity.
She heard more weapon fire and some yelling, but she couldn't fathom what it meant. At some point she had lost hold of The Mask, but it didn't matter now. There was someone else there.
"Well, this is most unexpected," he stated.
She had never seen one before, not even a picture, but that didn't matter. She knew what he was the moment she laid eyes on him. A Saurian wizard was there and that was when she lost it.
They had gotten in the air in record time and were almost to the meadow when they saw laser fire lighting up the night sky.
"Looks like there's a quite the party going on down there," Duke said in amusement. "Too bad we weren't invited."
"Guess we're going to have to crash it then," Wildwing replied. "Tanya, hold us steady over the meadow and then take the Aerowing up. But be on standby in case we need you."
"Will do," Tanya responded as she carefully maneuvered the air ship into place.
The rest of the team rappelled down behind the scores of hunter drones. They could see Ruby in the center blasting the drones as fast as she could. They could hear the drones saying "Kill the mage" over and over again before they even hit the ground.
"Wow, I thought we had it in for her," Duke stated in mild amusement as he got his blade out.
They started to destroy drones left and right, but the machines just ignored them.
"Man, this isn't any fun," Nosedive complained as he annihilated a couple more drones.
"Why are we even bothering to help her?" Mallory asked as another over grown tin can bit the dust.
"The enemy of my enemy is my ally," Grin stated while he tore another robot into scrap metal.
"Uh, Grin, that like made no sense," Nosedive replied.
"Grin's right," Wildwing responded. "Ruby is obviously an enemy of Dragaunus's. While we may not like her, we can at least try to work together. Besides, if something happens to her, how will we get the mask back?"
Before anyone could answer, there was a scream of outrage that came from the center of the drones. The shock wave that hit them a second later knocked them all flat. Wildwing saw Wraith laying on the ground not too far away just before the Saurian teleported out of there. A shriek of anger and frustration brought his attention back toward the center of the meadow.
He couldn't see much from his position on the ground, but there was a strange glow coming from where he was guessing Ruby should have been. It appeared that the drones that were closer to her were now slag. The drones that survived, got up off the ground and continued their assault.
The team scrambled to their feet. Before they could start creating more scrap metal, there was another scream of anger. They were hit with a wall of heat that made them step back.
The glow from the center of the drones grew brighter as the heat intensified. They took more steps back as the temperature rose. Then they saw the source of the heat and light and they all stopped and stared.
Ruby glowed a bright golden red, her eyes the same color as the glow. And it almost looked like she was on fire. Her hair had escaped its braid and was writhing around her like it was alive. Despite all that, the glowing and moving hair wasn't what stopped them dead in their tracks. She was floating several feet off of the ground with no visible means of support.
With another shriek, she aggressive swung her wing at the drones and a swathe of machines were melted to the earth. The drones continued to shoot at her, but she took no notice. Wave after wave of her wings she gave and row after row of drones melted before their eyes. Her screams of anger echoed through the hills and chilled the ducks to their bones.
They backed up against the side of the hill and then held perfectly still. Maybe it was strategic or maybe it was instinct that kept them from moving. Either way, it probably saved their lives.
When the last of the hunter drones were nothing more than a pile of smoldering slag, she turned her attention to them. Wildwing heard someone audibly swallow. He hoped it was someone else, but he had the sinking suspicion that it was him. Her eyes bore into his and he couldn't move. He had a pretty good idea how a butterfly pinned to a board felt.
"What were those things?" Ruby asked, her voice had a strange echo to it.
"Hunter drones," Wildwing answered, wondering if his shield would be able to protect them should she decide to attack.
"Truth," she stated as her eyes started to glow blue instead of red. "Who sent them?"
"Lord Dragaunus," he replied.
"Truth," she repeated as the glow lessened, her voice returned to normal and she started to slowly sink back down to the ground. "The wizard. Who is he? Are there more?"
"His name is Wraith," he told her as she continued to visibly calm down. "He's the only wizard that we know of."
"Truth," she quietly said again and they started to move away from the hillside. "Where did he go?"
"He probably went back to the Raptor," he responded. "We don't know where it is."
"LIE!" she shrieked as the fiery glow returned and floated higher as they backed up again.
"The Raptor is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean," he hastily amended. "But we don't know where in the ocean."
"Truth," she whispered.
She seemed to have nothing more to ask of them. She floated backward until she was as far across the meadow as she could get from them. She closed her eyes and the glow went away a moment later. She fell to the earth and collapsed in a heap.
They waited a good long minute to see what she would do next. When she continued to not move, they cautiously stepped forward. They didn't have far to go before they reached the edge of the battle field. It was covered with the smoldering remains of drones.
"Wow," Nosedive quietly said. "This brings a whole new definition to being slagged off."
"How did we get lucky yesterday afternoon?" Duke questioned.
"She wasn't fighting for her life," Wildwing reminded him.
"Hey guys," Mallory softly called.
"Yeah?" Duke asked when they had all turned to her.
"What's that?" she inquired, pointing toward the stand of trees. "Am I seeing things?"
The others turned to look at where she was indicating.
"If you're hallucinating, then so am I," Nosedive confirmed.
Barely daring to breathe, Wildwing carefully walked over to the white object at the base of a pine tree. It was face down and partially covered in dirt, but it seemed to be unharmed by the battle that just took place. With his heart pounding, he slowly reached for the mask.
Just as his fingers touched it, it zipped out of his reach by nearly a foot.
"What the heck!?" Wildwing exclaimed in surprise.
He took a bold step toward the mask and made a grab for it, only to have it go skittering away.
"What did she do to it?" Mallory demanded, glaring at the still figure across the meadow.
"I don't care," Wildwing growled as he gave chase. "Just help me catch this thing!"
In a matter of moments the five ducks were chasing a supposedly inanimate object all over the meadow. There was more than one meeting of minds when more than one duck made a grab for the maddening thing at the same time. Anyone who did manage to get hold of the mask ended up being dragged over dirt and drone bits until they let go.
They finally had the mask surrounded. Nosedive made the grab and it shot toward his brother. Wildwing tried to make the block, but the mask had other ideas. It shot upwards, smacking him in the beak on the way over his head.
Wildwing spun around and tried to grab it as it burrowed under Ruby. He stopped short of touching her. He wasn't up for another shock like the one he got the last time he touched her when she was out cold.
He looked down at her still form and resisted the urge to brush her loose hair out of her face. That was when he noticed the small flame near her hand. Not wanting to be responsible for a grass fire, he went to stomp it out. Only the flame jumped out from under his boot and ended up on the small part of the mask that was sticking out from under the mage.
"What the heck!?" Wildwing exclaimed in confusion and quite a bit of worry.
He started to reach for the mask, despite the strange flame that was starting to spark.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," a soft voice cautioned causing him to nearly jump right out of his feathers.
"Why not?" he demanded, staring at the prone figure.
His patience was at an end and here she was pretending to take a nap. He just wanted to get the mask and then take his team home. Was that really too much to ask?
"Because the salamander will burn you," she told him.
"Salamander?" he questioned in disbelief. "What salamander?"
"The flame," she told him. "It's a salamander."
"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Even if there was a lizard hanging around, how would you know where it was? Your eyes are closed."
"Don't need my eyes to tell where a living flame is," she cryptically replied, finally opening her eyes. "And mundane salamanders are amphibians."
He glared at her and she gave him a small smile. She slowly sat up and he could tell it wasn't easy for her, but he didn't help her. It was so incredibly frustrating to have the mask so close and still have it out of reach. He didn't quite trust himself not to throttle her for all the problems she had created.
As soon as she was sitting up, she pushed her hair back over her shoulders. She picked up The Mask and the small flame suddenly started zipping all over her hands. She gave a low chuckle as she watched it. She flipped a hand over, palm up and the tiny flame settled there.
"See? Salamander," she stated as she held her hand out to him.
He didn't really want to look, but curiosity got the better of him. He took a closer look and sure enough, there was something in the flame. It looked like a miniature lizard about the size of his thumb and he started to reach over to touch it.
"Don't," she warned as she quickly pulled her hand away. "It will burn you."
"Then how come it isn't burning you?" he snapped.
"It appears I'm fire proof," she stated sadly. "How did The Mask end up under me?"
"As if you didn't know," Mallory retorted as she and the others came up behind their captain.
"What did you do to the mask?" Wildwing demanded.
"Nothing," Ruby replied.
"Yeah, right," Nosedive snorted.
"Do I really need to go over the whole not being able to lie thing again?" Rube asked Wildwing heatedly.
"Then you explain why every time we tried to touch it, it moved," Wildwing shot back.
"It moved on it's own?" she questioned in bewilderment. "It shouldn't be able to do that."
"It was like it was possessed," Duke stated, disgruntled.
The ground under Wildwing's feet suddenly moved and he jumped back with a yelp of surprise. A blob of dirt about the size of his fist half crawled, half slid to Ruby and then climbed into her lap. The others stood there with their beaks hanging open while she only looked interested at the thing in her lap.
"What is-that?" Nosedive questioned, his voice just barely below a squeak.
"An earth spirit," Ruby answered distractedly as she bent closer to it.
The others watched in shock as she seemed to be listening to it. After a few seconds, her beak started to twitch like she was holding in a laugh. About a minute later, the earth spirit crawled off of her lap and disappeared back into the ground.
Before the Mighty Ducks could get over their shock, her hair started to move as if she had her own personal fan going. There was no breeze, so now they had to wonder what else was going on. Her hair settled down a moment later and she stared at something they couldn't see a few inches in front of her beak. She suddenly started snickering, though she did try to hold it in.
"Oh, how I wish I had seen that," Ruby chuckled and she couldn't help but grin at the looks on their faces. "It seems the earth and air spirits were having a bit of fun at your expense."
"Which means what?" Wildwing asked.
"It means that they knew I was trying to retrieve The Mask and when they saw you trying to take it, they played keep away with you," Ruby answered with a grin.
"Is that what that is?" Wildwing inquired, pointing at the flame sitting in her hand. "A fire spirit or something?"
"No, this is a newly formed Elemental," Ruby replied with a sigh. "And to forestall the next question, the differences between spirits and Elementals are many. However, for brevity, spirits are bits of magical energy that are aware, have almost no form and are not very powerful. Elementals are highly intelligent, have actual shapes and are extremely dangerous when crossed."
"They all look like that?" Wildwing asked.
"No, think of all the magical creatures from fairy tales," she answered. "Dragons, mermaids, fairies and salamanders are all Elementals."
"But they're not real," Mallory stated. "They're just fairy tales."
"Are they?" Ruby questioned, tilting her head to the side a bit. "Every story, every legend has a grain of truth in it somewhere."
"If they're real, how come we never see them?" Duke questioned.
"Because they're magical and they don't want you to see them," Ruby replied. "This planet is filled with magic, but there are no native magic users, are there?"
"There are stage magicians," Nosedive stated uncertainly and she shook her head.
"That's trickery, not magic," she replied. "With no magic users here, they've laid dormant for who knows how long. Not to sound egotistical, but things might start getting more interesting now that I'm here."
"Wraith has been here for a year and there haven't been any magical creatures walking down main street," Wildwing pointed out.
"The Saurian obviously hasn't tried to get to know them," she said as she struggled to her feet. "Even if he did try, chances are, the spirits would reject him. If you can't make nice with the spirits, the Elementals will sooner rip you to shreds than look at you. Even getting the spirits to like you isn't a guarantee that an Elemental won't stomp you flat."
"So, that thing will kill us if we don't make nice?" Nosedive asked as he pointed at the salamander.
"Nah, it's not big enough yet," she stated with a fond smile at the little flame. "It's just a baby. The most it can do right now is give you a bit of a burn."
She brought the hand containing the salamander closer to her body. The tiny creature leaped from her hand and landed on her chest. It sparked a few times and then ran up her front. It then crawled around the back of her neck and hid in her long hair.
"What happened to your shirt?" Wildwing asked.
He tried not to stare at the shirt that had the chest area burnt out. She wasn't indecently exposed, but there were enough feathers showing to make any red blooded drake sit up and take notice. It was hard to tell, but it looked like some of her feathers were dully glowing that same golden red color. If it had been day, he wouldn't have noticed the glowing at all.
"A really long story that I'm not in the mood to talk about right now," she stated in a tone that made it clear that to push it was asking for trouble. "Where's my bag?"
"I don't know," he retorted after managing to pull his eyes back up to her face.
"I wasn't asking you," she snapped tiredly.
She slowly walked toward the trees. Before he could ask her where she was going, he saw something moving along the ground between the trees. A moment later he saw it was a messenger bag and it looked like a clod of dirt was pulling it by its strap.
"Thank you," she said to the ground.
She picked up the bag and put The Mask in it. After slinging it across her body, she carefully started to make her way down the hill. Wildwing signaled to Duke and the former thief nodded his understanding.
"What? No goodbye?" Wildwing asked as he quickly got in her way.
"I wasn't aware that we were on good enough terms to exchange such pleasantries," she shot back annoyed.
There was a whispered warning in her ear and she moved the bag just before the light footed thief did a beak plant in the dirt next to her.
"You and your team are tenacious," she stated as she stepped around Wildwing. "Though, apparently, not very bright."
She continued her journey without a backward glance. Wildwing tried to go after again only to discover that his feet had sunk into the ground up to his knees. A quick glance at his team confirmed that the rest of them hadn't fared any better. In fact, Duke had the worst of it as he was buried up to his neck. He had no choice but to give up the chase and call in Tanya for help. Nothing was worth the lives of his team, not even the mask.