Airika used the wall to bend down for her fallen crutches, and when she stood up, six ducks were staring at her. She sighed, eyes flickering to Duke.
"Morbid curiosity of some of those scrolls may have led to me teaching myself how to you know… harness saurian magic."
Duke put his saber away and dusted himself off.
"I see." He glanced at where Lucretia had landed on the floor. "You obviously succeeded." To the ducks. "She worked in the Ducaine museum."
"I don't get it." Nosedive scratched his head. "If you can do that shit why not-"
"Use it against them?" Airika finished. "Because up until five minutes ago, none of them knew I had the ability. And I haven't been strong enough physically. That's why our eyes are different. I'm impressed none of you have asked why as identical twins we have a different eye color."
"Well," Tanya fidgeted. "I did wonder but didn't want to be rude."
"The first time I got a spell right it sucked my energy to nothing. I woke up the next morning, my eyes were this color." Airika's attention went to Wildwing. "You still want me in this building?"
Nosedive scoffed.
"Why not? That was awesome."
Wildwing rolled his eyes.
"I mean, it would have been nice to know before now but I can see why you wouldn't bring it up."
"Well, I promise never to use it on you."
"You have my permission to use it on just one of us." Mallory inspected a seared hole in the wall from where Lucretia missed Duke with her blaster.
"Hey!" Nosedive realized she meant him.
"What the hell happened here!" Phil appeared, hair frizzy. "Did you have a firefight in the lobby? You couldn't wait!?"
"Wait for what?" Wildwing saw the answer to his question as a diminutive redhead with a temper close to Mallory's arrived. "Ah, shit."
"Let me guess, it was those oversized reptiles again." Klegghorn didn't wait for a response, his eyes missing nothing: from the lobby in disarray, Duke breathing hard and then zeroing in on the only duck he didn't know. "And who is she? Who are you?"
"Um-" Wildwing started.
"No!" The police captain's finger made an emphasis. "I want hear it from her. From you. You speak English I presume."
Airika remained quiet and rearranged her expression; she hoped to appear puzzled; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Duke smirking.
"Ah, no Cap, actually she doesn't."
"She doesn't?" Phil asked stupidly. "I could have sworn she did."
"You spoke English." Klegghorn wasn't so easily snowed.
"We had this thing called a translator." Duke took a step closer to her. "Wing, you'll fill the captain in on all the details, right?"
"I will?" The white duck asked.
"Sure, we will." Mallory was beaming, a smile the police officer didn't trust, judging by his narrow gaze.
"Airika, shall we?" Duke purposely switched to their native tongue. "Get the hell out before the human tries to wave around his badge to prove his authority." To the others. "Tanya, Dive?" Duke turned. "Grin."
Airika didn't hide her amusement. They weren't far enough away to not hear Phil.
"Insurance doesn't cover a shootout with other aliens!"
…
NIGHT TIME
The metal building was choked with smoke. Even close to the ground, she couldn't breathe. Every flash of light blinded her blurred vision. Dazed, she stumbled to her feet only to trip. The breath was shoved painfully from her lungs as she landed hard on the concrete. Twisting around, her stomach flipped as the bile threatened to spew. The blonde duck had died with her eyes open, the glazed expression haunting.
"T-T-Tanya?"
She reached out and shook the female's shoulder, even though she knew deep down it was useless. Feeling a state of shock coming over her, she found her grief frozen. She pulled to her feet robotically and started towards the firefight again.
To her right, there was what looked like a bucket of blood that had been upended in one spot. No limbs…just blood.
Grin.
She wasn't sure she knew it was the large gentle duck, but it seemed inductively accurate that that much body fluid wouldn't have come from any of the others except him. Nearby, Mallory was on her side facing Airika, her once beautiful face charred.
Airika forced herself onward, reaching the edge of a row of boxes to see Wildwing, Dive, and Duke in a raging battle with the Saurians and drones. She wanted to call out to them, but no words would come. Duke was closest to her, and she thought he saw her. An explosion's shockwave spread around the warehouse, slamming into Duke's back and sending him clear across the large room. She watched him crumple behind some heavy equipment as heat seared her face.
"NO! Wing!"
Dive gave a harsh cry of rage and grief, unleashing a volley of explosive pucks at the advancing drones. He killed a few before a well-planted headshot knocked him backward, the blast landing him by her feet. She could only stare down at him. The mechanical thuds of the approaching drones made her look up to the cold, unrelinquishing gazes of Dragaunus's machines.
She didn't feel the shot that ended her life…
A blast hit the wall as Airika shot straight up, her hands out defensively. Her t-shirt stuck her from sweat, and her breath was shaky as she took in the safety of the bedroom. The dream had felt so real, leaving her sick to her stomach. Every one of them had died. Well, she wasn't sure if Duke did, but she had to assume from the way the sound of his skull hitting the metal beam echoed he had.
She tried to calm herself, glancing guiltily at the burn mark on the wall. Now that she had almost recovered, she could feel the itching inside her to release the red inferno. Perhaps it was stupid of her to succumb to temptation almost a year and a half ago. But if she was honest with herself, the ability to harness energy so that anything was possible fascinated her. She just hoped she could retrain herself to have ahold of it and not have it have ahold of her. She let herself fall back onto the pillow and was drifting off when a loud alarm ripped through her silent room. She levitated, heart slamming against her ribcage. She glanced upward to the speaker in the corner of her room. It was Drake 1. The sick feeling to her stomach rushed back as she remembered her dream. With the spell casting came the one thing she hadn't expected. Prophetic dreams. They had never been wrong. She learned the hard way with that that day. The day she ignored the warning. She promptly put the thought out of her head and got out of bed quickly, regretting her sudden movements as the room spun. Trying to shake away the vertigo, she grabbed the nearest article of clothing, a large hoodie.
….
"It's an energy reading coming out of the warehouse district…" Tanya paused. "Again?"
"Well, what we waiting for?" Nosedive slapped a fist into his palm. "Let's kick some scaly tail."
"It's odd." Tanya remarked. "They've never returned to an area we've stopped them at."
"Maybe they're running out of places to hit, figured they'd rerun their itinerary." Nosedive was undeterred.
Airika quietly climbed up to Drake 1, where the others stood around the computer and listened to their various action plans.
"So, we're good then, right? Excellent!" Nosedive spun almost into her. He jumped, possibly higher than she had, when Drake 1's alarm blasted across her head in her room. "Jeez A. Warn me next time."
She looked past him. "Don't go to the warehouses."
Tanya narrowed her eyes, concerned, and then she, like everyone else, glanced at the leader to see how he would take her plea.
"We have to Airika, if there's a chance we can get Dragaunus I'm going to take it."
She didn't answer, just stared before lowering her gaze and leaving the large dais.
"What was that?" Nosedive asked as everyone watched the female duck disappear into the hall's darkness that led to their rooms.
"I have no idea." His brother answered slowly.
"I'll be back." Mallory pulled her blaster off her back and set it by the controls of the computer. She started down the stairs.
"Where you going?" Nosedive asked.
"To powder my beak." The redhead's sarcastic answer floated up somewhere below them. "Where do you think Dive?" She added that once she was on solid ground and moving across the rec room,
Tanya only waited for a second before quickly following.
….
"Airika?"
Airika remained seated, facing the wall. She could hear Mallory and another set of footsteps drawing towards her. Then, the redhead was within her peripheral vision.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Her tone sounded robotic, even to her.
Mallory glanced around the room. "I think we all know that isn't true. You made that very clear a second ago."
The dirty blonde looked down at her hands, playing with them.
"You know you can trust us right?" Tanya said, though not without nervousness. "I know you feel like you can't but you can."
"I know I can." Airika said softly, then she looked up. "Ducks aren't built to handle the energies the Saurian mages can. It was really dumb of me to even try, but now that I have tried, there's no going back."
Mallory frowned.
"What happened to the wall?"
"With the magic comes divinatory symptoms. And if you're not careful, you can lose grip with reality, the magic taking over you." Airika glanced at the burn mark. "Don't go to that warehouse."
Mallory could feel an iciness spread across her chest. She hated even to ask. "Why don't you want us to go to the warehouse?"
Silence.
"You die."
…..
"It's about freakin' time." Nosedive's arms were crossed, and he looked very much like his brother in the way he was standing. "They've probably emptied nine out of the ten warehouses by now."
Mallory turned to Tanya behind her. "Tanya, how big was the energy reading?"
"Not as big as usual. It's usually a five, the max, but this is a two."
Mallory was quiet for a moment. "I say we stay in."
"Huh?" Nosedive dropped his arms.
Mallory only focused on her leader and best friend. "That's my vote."
Wildwing wasn't wearing the mask; he hadn't worn it nearly as much as before Airika came into their lives. There was confusion in his blue eyes as he studied her green ones, followed by contemplation. "You're sure it's a two reading Tanya?" He asked.
"Yes." The tech always got a little indignant when her expertise was challenged.
Wildwing finally moved, turning lackadaisically to see the time. 1:25 am. "Well, I'm tired." He brushed by Mallory and waited for her below.
"The hell is going on?" Duke asked.
Mallory half shook her head. "It's late."
She grabbed the blaster she had left and turned, following Wildwing back to their room. His gears once rearing to go, Nosedive settled fairly quickly.
"Well then. Gents… milady. Night." He left, too, hopping the last few steps, landing lithely, and disappearing into the dark hallway. Duke was still only for a moment.
"Can't say I'm not alright with the decision." The grey duck finally said.
"Me either." Grin agreed.
The problem was that Drake 1's obnoxious alarm made it impossible for Duke even to consider returning to bed. After trying for an hour, he sat in the Rec room, half watching some late-night show.
"Can't sleep either?"
The shadow in the hall shifted. "Is it that obvious?"
Duke grinned.
"Takes one to know one."
Airika drifted closer. On TV, some human with voluminous white hair was using deadpan humor to get laughs from his audience. Duke shifted to give her room, which she took, first stiffly but then eased into a more comfortable position. At some point, the grey duck noticed Airika's attention slowly covering the room. He looked up, half expecting to see something interesting but the Pond was quiet.
"You okay?"
Airika nodded.
"Just thinking." She exhaled. "About how I would have liked to have joined Canard alongside all of you."
Duke wasn't stunned often.
"What?"
It was as if it was a normal conversation about the weather, not the Mighty Duck's fallen leader.
"It's what Dragaunus wanted me to translate. An ancient text for wiping a person clean, like erasing an information disk. Starting over."
"What does that have to do with Canard?"
"Dragaunus was going to pull him from Limbo but Lucretia came first."
Duke sat up straighter. "Pull him from Limbo? And what? Brainwash him?"
"Not brainwash. Recalibrate to his standards. Use Canard against you."
"He's alive?"
Airika shrugged. "Lucretia was"
Duke didn't know what to say. Canard was alive? It had been almost a year and a half; even Wildwing had seemed to resign himself to the fact Canard was gone for good. Now, Airika was telling him a very different story.
"We were orphans, only each other to rely on. I've never experienced the family dynamic." She glanced at him again. "He may not be here but his actions of pulling you together as a team created what you are to each other today. You're lucky."
Her words were incredibly intuitive. Duke was still trying to wrap his head around her confession. Dragaunus wanted her as a translator. And for what? Have Wraith perform the deed if Canard were released from Limbo. Wipe him clean..? The way her words were said, he was having difficulty grasping everything. He remembered her last sentence.
"You're a part of it too now."
"I'm still an outsider."
"I wouldn't say that. You blasted the bitch off me. You had the chance to let her shoot." Duke said. "Would he try? Dragaunus."
Silence enveloped the couch.
"I don't know. But I wouldn't put it past him."