When the overhead walkway fell, instead of a magical duck falling with it, something went off into the air instead. There was a pink feathered duck with wings coming out of the dust. In two arms she held the wrist of a cream feathered blue billed duck. Despite the sudden fall, the blue billed duck still had her sights aimed at Siege. She pulled her free arm back and charged a light blue magical blast. The blast was thrown directly at the orange lizard. Lucky for him, he had time to duck behind another crate.

“See, you can’t expect the magic blast to do all the work. You have to put more of your arm into it,” the blue billed duck instructed the one holding her. It wasn’t said in a rude tone though, she was obviously teaching the other duck. 

“Yes, I understand. But please don’t move  much until I get across to the window,” the pink duck had already formed a plan to get to the next safe place. A high up window on the side of the warehouse.

“There was two of you up there? Where are all these new ducks coming from? I can’t keep TRACK anymore!” Siege complained before raising his head above the crate he was hiding behind. He then raised his blaster to fire directly at one of the pink duck’s wings.

“Nina, watcheth out!” the blue billed duck warned the one in flight. With a wave of her hand she casted a short shield spell over the pink duck. Though the shield protected her from a direct hit, the physical force of the blast hit loosened her grip on the other duck. Then  dropping the blue billed duck to the walkway wreckage at the warehouse floor level. 

“BLEU!” Nina was trying to gather her bearings to dive down to grab her teacher again. The fall was a short one though and didn’t give her time to even try to catch the other duck. While Nina was focused on Bleu though, Siege fired another blast at the winged duck, causing her to fall too, though a distance away from the other magic duck.

Bleu got to her feet rather quickly despite the drop she suffered. Between the dust of the fall Bleu could see her student getting caught by Grin. She had already observed several times previously that the muscular duck had a soft spot for Nina,  “I shouldst get myself one of those.”

In that moment the blue billed duck heard Siege approaching and started to cast a shield on herself. However, before she could, the orange saurian had already grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. He had cast his gun aside, finding it more important to grab the magic using duck. 

“Got you!” Siege exclaimed as he tightened his grip on Bleu, “No more of your blasts from above. Not so tough when your hands aren’t free to cast, huh?”

“Wraith wouldst be doing the like if he was here,” Bleu scoffed, followed by a grunt at being squeezed tight by the orange lizard,  “Any cunning magic user worth their mana always hath a back up plan.”

Bleu’s bill glistened in a weird refracted way for a moment. She opened her bill wide. From the angle Siege looked down on her, he could only see the top of her beak. What he could not see as he held her was the nice long set of fangs she had. 

The orange saurian experienced a sudden burning pain as two punctures were thrusted onto his arm. Though the fangs were small, they felt like large blades digging in him. And it gave a burning that quickly spread from there the sharp spikes first bored in. 

Siege let go of Bleu. It was more of a reflex than what he really wanted to do. The drop was sudden for her too, not landing on her feet, but on her knees. She struggled to get up, feeling like she had bruised ribs from how tightly the saurian was holding her moments ago. 

Despite the pain the brute saurian felt in his one arm, he put both hands in a fist over head. His intention was to bring them down with a force on the blue billed duck. 

Luckily, his attack was interrupted by puck blaster fire. Siege stumbled back away from Bleu. Before he could go in to make another attack he instead gripped his bitten arm in pain and proceeded to back up more. A few more projectiles from a puck blaster headed in the saurian’s direction

Bleu looked up to see a familiar redheaded duck welding the firing blaster, “I can always relyeth on a fellow lady for assistance.”

“Always happy to help,” Mallory replied in a tone that sounded like she was annoyed, but it wasn’t directed towards blue. She often suffered from a ‘resting jerk face’ physically and verbally.  Bleu understood that, and often suffered from the same. 

With her blaster still pointed at the orange saurian, Mallory offered her free arm to help Bleu up. It seemed like the rest of the team was successful, since Dragaunus and his other minions were retreating. Siege quickly followed in suit.

“Wow, what did you do to him?” Mallory questioned. In the heat of battle she had not really seen Bleu sink her now not visible fangs into Siege. 

“Oh, just a little of thy usual, as thee say here, hocus pocus?” Bleu smiled a currently fangless grin.

—------------

“Well, she probably used some poison dipped daggers on you,” Wraith argued with Siege as he looked through several glass bottles in a case in front of him.

“I had her arms held DOWN. She bit me! That's how it happened! Since when are ducks venomous!” Siege growled as he coddled his injured arm. It was now limp with no muscle control at all. 

“They’re not. That is why I am saying you must have seen the situation wrong. Maybe she had one arm free and stabbed you twice?” Wraith muttered as he found the liquid solution he needed, “Any smart magic user worth their mana always has a back up plan.”

“Ugh… wait, what did you just say- AGH!” before Siege could think about what Wraith had said, the old warlock had jabbed a needle in his injured arm. Without a warning he injected the whole continents into the orange saurian. 

“There, you’ll be fine by sunrise,” Wraith muttered as he closed up his case of vials.

“Ugh. Whatever,” Siege grumbled, not thanking the old saurian and just left the room. He saw Dragaunus  right in the hall by the doorway of the room he was leaving. He just kept walking and grumbling though, not giving their fearless leader and acknowledging greeting. 

Dragaunus stepped into Wraith’s room right after Siege had left. 

“Venomous duck?” Dragounus questioned with no other words. Wraith let out an ugh and a sigh.

“Siege is just seeing things. Or perhaps he is a sore loser that one of the little witch ducks got the best of him,” The old saurian grumbled.

“And out of all the different venoms it could be you just happened to have the cure?” 

“It is part of my job to always be prepared. You should be glad with the limited supplies I have that one of the few anti-venoms was the cure for Siege. He’s very lucky,” Wraith replied in his usual even tone.

“Yes, but all of your little bottles contain saurian anti-venoms. Right? For those of our kind that are venomous?” Dragaunus questioned as he leaned in closer to Wraith.

“So this duck somehow had saurian venom she weaponized. They keep bringing more and more powerful allies to this planet. That is what you should be concerned about,” the old saurian pushed past him, not threatened by their overlord at all.