Ruby closed the hotel room door behind her and sighed with relief. She had barely managed to avoid having another confrontation with the Mighty Ducks. She was too tired and shaken to deal with them at that moment.
When they had driven up while she was trying to change rooms, she nearly had a heart attack. Luckily, the clerk wasn't a hockey fan and was more than willing to hide her. She was just glad they were gone and she was going to get a chance to get some sleep. The dream she experienced earlier had been anything but restful.
The brownies started to pull on the suitcase she had bought when she had been resting up from her run in with Dragaunus's metal minions. She let the brownies have her luggage and turned toward the door to start casting her protection spells. She at least had the energy for that after taking down the ones from the last room down.
Luckily, the dragon had reminded her or she would have forgotten. It would have made life rather difficult for the maid and whomever rented out the room next. Knowing the humans, it would have ended up on the evening news as their headline story. She didn't care to think what Wildwing and his team would have done then.
She was extremely glad that the brownies had tagged along with her. She wouldn't have even gotten out of the room by the time the Mighty Ducks had shown up if it hadn't been for those industrious little Elementals. She was going to have to find a way to thank them later.
The brownies busied themselves putting her things where they thought they should go and for the most part, they were doing a good job. The dragon had pulled down the sheets and the bed creaked when he climbed up on it. She tried not to notice that the creature that started out the size of her thumb was now taking over more than half of the bed.
As she was finishing up her spell casting, one of the brownies brought her The Mask. She carefully sealed it into the drawer of the nightstand and did one final look around. Everything looked to be in order, so she closed the curtains, made sure the Do Not Disturb sign was out, stripped off her clothing and climbed into bed next to the dragon. She barely got the covers pulled up before she was asleep. She never noticed the brownies taking care of her discarded clothing or disappearing to explore the rest of the building.
Fortunately, Tanya was able to fix Wildwing's door with only a little effort and he was able to shut himself away for a while. Ruby had done it again. She had escaped and they had no idea where she was. How was she able to keep pulling that off?
It wasn't like she was trying really hard to avoid detection. The Internet was teaming with pictures of her now. So why couldn't they find her? For what seemed the millionth time, Wildwing wished he still had the mask.
With a sigh, Wildwing stepped out of his shower and dried off. He stared at the clothes he had lent her neatly folded on the counter. Had she worn them? He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
He grabbed them and angrily threw them in the hamper with the rest of his dirty clothes. How could one female get under his feathers like she had? She hadn't even been here more than a few minutes when she turned his world upside down and he wasn't sure it would ever go back to normal, mask or no mask.
He got dressed and then went to see if Tanya had made any progress on any of the projects he had set her. He knew he was darn lucky to have her on the team and he relied on her intelligence more often than not. He was going to have do something to make sure she knew how much the team appreciated her.
When he stepped into her lab he saw that the others were hard at work patching up the hole in the floor that the earth Elementals had created. He was about to go and lend them a hand when Tanya spotted him.
"Oh good, you're here," Tanya said as she waved him over. "I think I found something."
"What have you got?" Wildwing asked as he walked toward the work bench with the two pieces of metal he had asked her to analyze.
"I think I know why the hunter drones went after Ruby and not us," she told him.
"I figured that they were just programmed that way," he stated as stopped next to her.
"That's what I thought too, but then you handed me these," she replied, indicating the twisted bits of metal on the table. "At first I couldn't figure out the difference other than one had been melted, so I did a bit more digging. I ran them both through a bunch of tests and, you know, machines and the non-melted piece came out with a strange energy reading."
"How strange?" he questioned.
"I compared the readings to the ones I got off of Ruby while she was unconscious and they're exactly the same," Tanya explained.
"Shouldn't her energy reading be on the melted piece?" Wildwing inquired in confusion.
"You'd, like, think so, but it's not," she replied. "I decided to investigate further. I didn't come up with anything until I put it under the electric microscope."
"What did you find?" he asked as she walked over to her computer and started typing something in.
"This," she answered as a picture came up on the screen.
"Which is?" he questioned as he stared at the highly magnified image.
"A piece of a feather and it's what's radiating the energy," she told him. "This little bit of feather was attached to the hunter drone, so they all probably had one."
"But why?" he asked in confusion.
"As near as I can, you know, figure, it was a type of homing beacon for them to only go after Ruby," she concluded. "It's the right color to be one of her feathers."
"How did they even get hold of one of her feathers?" Wildwing softly inquired. "Prior to that night, they didn't even know she was here."
"Well, Siege and Wraith did visit the meadow after we left," Mallory reminded him.
"But the magic protects her," Wildwing muttered. "We all emptied our clips and it didn't do a thing except annoy her."
A memory wiggled around in the back of Wildwing's mind.
He was standing in a hospital hallway with a human doctor.
"What's wrong with her?" Wildwing asked.
"We're not entirely sure," Dr. Charles answered. "Physical examination and x-rays don't show any physical trauma other than a cut on the back of her hand."
"Her hand," Wildwing mumbled. "How did she get a cut on the back of her hand?"
"Pardon?" Tanya asked in confusion.
"Nothing," Wildwing said as he shook his head. "Have you got anything else?"
"Well, I did analyze Ruby's cloak and shoes before they disappeared," Tanya told him.
"What did you find there?" Wildwing inquired.
"The shoes were made of elk leather and looked hand made," Tanya started. "However, the cloak took a bit more time. I couldn't get a sample off of it no mater what I tried. I had to stick the whole thing in the machine."
"Let me guess," he sighed. "It was spider silk."
"How did you know?" she asked in surprise.
"Because the dress she was wearing was also made out of it," he explained.
"How did she get so much of it?" Duke inquired. "That stuff is rarer than feathers on a Saurian."
"The mages make it," Wildwing replied, turning to the team's center.
"But the spiders that produce spider silk are extinct," Tanya stated in confusion.
"No, they live with the mages," Wildwing told her, returning his attention to her.
He then relayed to them all of the information that he had gotten from Ruby the two times that they had spent in each other's company. Duke was probably the most unnerved by how Ruby had given up her normalcy to save her sister's life. When Wildwing was done, they were all silent for a few minutes.
Wildwing was almost tempted to tell them about his dream, but he didn't dare. If he did, then he might have to explain that strange spark back at the hospital. He wasn't sure what that had been about and he didn't need his team suddenly decide that he was turning into a monster. They were as close to him now as his brother and he couldn't bear to have a wedge between him and them.
"How can we believe anything she says?" Mallory finally asked as she placed the last of the tiles on the newly repaired floor.
"She can't lie," Wildwing reminded her.
"So she says," Mallory scoffed.
"How else would you explain her having so much spider silk?" Duke countered.
"She stole it," Mallory shot back.
"From where?" Duke asked. "Take it from a former thief, stealing jewels was a lot easier than trying to get hold of spider silk. Trying to sell it is even harder since every piece is registered in a global database on Puckworld. To have that much spider silk means she either knows where someone stashed a huge cache of it centuries ago or they really do make it."
"I still don't trust her," Mallory muttered.
"None of us do," Wildwing assured her before turning to Tanya. "Have you had any luck finding her energy signature in the city? Any ideas where she might have gone?"
"No, I'm still getting the residual energy from the hotel she had been staying at," Tanya replied in frustration. "Drake One will, you know, go off big time whenever she uses enough power."
"Ok, that's good," Wildwing replied, hiding his frustration as he turned to the newly repaired floor. "What else needs to be done?"
"Nothing!" Nosedive happily announced as he headed for the door. "We're all done!"
"Not so fast," Tanya nearly growled as she grabbed the young drake by the back of his shirt. "There's still the ladder in the command center to replace."
"Ah man!" Nosedive whined.
There were a few groans and at least one muttering about a certain mage, but the team headed for the command center. They stood at the base of the dais and stared at the ladder that was twisted and barely holding onto the wall.
"How did she manage this?" Wildwing wondered out loud. "She was pretty wiped out when I last saw her."
"Yeah, well, you thought the lock on your door would keep her in, too," Mallory grumbled.
"From the, you know, looks of it, the ladder was put under quite a bit of stress from heat and weight," Tanya stated as she took a closer look at the damaged climbing device. "There are scorch marks."
"This thing is supposed to be able to hold more than all of us combined," Wildwing reminded her. "What could possibly weigh so much to do this to it?"
"It wasn't just the weight that damaged the ladder," Tanya reminded him, "but the heat as well. Whatever did this was very hot."
"The dragon," Wildwing sighed. "I thought it looked bigger when I locked the two of them in my room."
"What dragon?" Duke asked nervously.
"The salamander transformed into a dragon," Wildwing answered.
He reminded them of what transpired at the meadow when Ruby pulled the large slab of metal out of the ground. The memory still weirded him out, but he did his best not to show it. The Forest Lord claiming that a Phoenix was somehow involved and that Ruby wasn't really at fault didn't really do much to give the drake a case of the warm and fuzzies.
"So, that little flame from the other night is now a dragon?" Nosedive nearly squeaked. "As in fire breathing, village destroying, maiden eating dragon?"
"Is it too much to hope that maybe he'll eat Ruby?" Mallory rhetorically questioned.
"If you're, like, done, could we please work on replacing this ladder?" Tanya irritably asked.
The others quickly apologized to her and got to work replacing the damaged piece of equipment. It took some time, since a couple ducks had to go the long way around to get to the top of the dais so they could remove the bolts at the top of the ladder. All in all, it took them over two hours to replace the thing.
"The next time we manage to catch that mage, we're locking her in a holding cell," Mallory nearly growled as they started to head toward the kitchen.
"Do we even have a holding cell?" Nosedive asked.
"Well, yeah, of course we do," Tanya answered.
"Need I point out the absurdity of having a place to hold an enemy inside our secret headquarters?" Duke inquired.
Wildwing dropped back and let his team go ahead of him, not sure why the thought of locking Ruby up horrified him. The wave of sadness that hit him a moment later stopped him dead in his tracks. He didn't understand why he was fighting back tears.
Several minutes later he was able to shake it off and follow the others in search of food. He wasn't sure what brought on the melancholy feelings, but he somehow suspected that the missing mage had something to do with it.
Ruby woke up to the feeling of being poked by something just shy of being sharp. As she became more aware, she realized that there were several things trying to poke her. She finally opened her eyes and realized that she was sleeping on top of the dragon. His spines were poking her and only her magic was keeping her from being hurt.
She sat up and found that the dragon was covering most of the mattress. Bleary eyed, she looked down at the large Elemental and could only stare at him. He was the quintessential dragon, straight out of a fairy tail book and the only thing he was missing was the wings. He was also as big as a horse.
With a tired sigh, she crawled off of the dragon, trying not to wake him. She stumbled into the bathroom and thanked her lucky stars that the brownies had put everything where she needed them to be. She wondered how long they would hang around and only barely noticed their lack of presence in the room.
When she emerged some time later, she was clean and a bit more awake. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or not that she no longer smelled like Wildwing. As she got dressed, she noticed the dragon watching her.
I have to leave, he sadly stated.
"I know," she softly replied as she pulled a shirt over her head, trying not to start crying.
I will miss you, he said as he slithered off of the bed and that piece of furniture groaned almost as if it was relieved the weight of the dragon was off of it.
"And I you," she said with a raspy voice.
She wasn't sure if her throat was hurting from the day before or because she was fighting back tears. She was fond of the dragon and would miss him. As aggravating as he could be sometimes, he was company that didn't judge her because she was different.
Still only half dressed, she went over to him and hugged his neck. Her wings barely made it around. She was very glad that the magic protected her as she could see how needle sharp his spines were.
He made a rumbling sound deep in his throat that almost sounded like a purr. They stood there for some time before she could convince herself to let him go. When she finally released him, she swiftly turned away so he couldn't see the tears in her eyes.
Would you open the door for me? he asked as she finished getting dressed.
She nodded as she quickly fastened her pants. She sent the air spirits to check if anyone was around. Once they let her know that there were no people in the area, she opened the door wide. The warm summer air felt so nice as it rushed into her stuffy room.
We will meet again, he assured her as he disappeared from view.
She felt the heat of him passing her by and then waited several seconds to make sure he had made it completely out the door. Once she felt it was safe to do so, she quietly shut the door. She went over to the bed and sat down to have a good cry.
When the tears finally stopped flowing, she dully looked over at the clock on the nightstand. Her stomach growled and she realized that it had been over twelve hours since she had last eaten. With a yawn and a stretch that made her joints pop, she stood up to finish getting ready.
As soon as she stepped outside, she had this sudden need to head to the music shop that she liked going to. Music had always been her refuge. No matter how bad life got, music was always there to sooth her. Even at Twin Beaks there were instruments that could be used if one wanted, though a duck had to be willing to teach him or herself how to play if he or she didn't know already.
Her stomach let its presence be known again and she decided that she needed to eat first. Luckily, the hotel wasn't too far from the mall and there were plenty of places to eat between the two. As it was after the lunch rush, she was able to get her food quickly. After nearly inhaling her food, she headed for her favorite store.
She grabbed the handle to the shop and felt a strange shiver run up her spine that nearly caused her feathers to stand on end. She shook it off and headed inside. She stopped just inside the door and looked down at her hand. There was an oily residue on her feathers and she quickly wiped it off on her jeans. Figuring that someone had greasy hands when they opened the door last, she put it out of her mind.
She went off to the listening room the shop had to see what other types of music this world had to offer, never realizing that several miles away, under a couple hundred feet of water, a reptilian mouth smiled.
Author's Notes: Until now, I've been pretty wishy-washy about the timing of this story, i.e., what time of the year does it take place. After much mental going back and forth, I've now fixed this story to have Ruby's arrival be towards the end of June, after the Ducks won the Stanley Cup. Sunset times for that time of year in Anaheim is a little after 8 pm and temps would be in the low to mid 80s and I will be keeping that in mind as I continue to write. As always, please enjoy and reviews are always appreciated.