“Fallen Angel”
Chapter One: Prey
Chameleon had failed…again. After hours of tromping through the barren desert, after hours of sand infiltrating his boots, clothes, and who knows where else, and after hours of dry heat—Whatever happened to “wet planet?”— he found himself STILL without the necessity his lord desired—the Proteus Chip. The power that chip held would once and for all destroy the Mighty Ducks, and finally, the world would be his!
Uh…Lord Dragaunus’s. Yeah, the world would be Lord Dragaunus’s…
But, of course, the five-mile radius in which Dragaunus had located the chip was five miles of sand. Yup, scratchy, coarse, itty-bitty, puke-yellow spheres, which were just created to collect in his pants until he was forced to burn them!
Sighing, he walked up to the colonial house inconspicuously
located in the suburbs and mildly entertained the idea that no neighbors ever
wondered why, suddenly, overnight, a house appeared next to theirs. Gotta love humans! Chameleon smirked as the
Raptor’s doors swished open, and he entered. The brightest life forms this side of the galaxy!
The compression of the gears and motors gushed once more into his ears as hunter drones were forged in the Raptor. Like everyday, after the Mighty Ducks had destroyed the drones the pervious night, the bottom level of the Raptor reverberated with the creation of more robots to be utilized for Dragaunus’s will. Chameleon eyed Siege, the burly lizard at the control station of the production line. His fellow servant shook his head as Chameleon lifted up his empty hands.
“You worthless purse!” Siege grumbled as he hit a series of buttons. “I’m sure goin’ love watching Lord Dragaunus nail your hide.”
Chameleon closed his eyes, and his body instantly morphed into Arnold Schwarzenegger. His voice deepened as he spoke in a muscular tone, “You think the girly man Repub—Dictator!—can destroy this —”
“CHAMELEON!” Dragaunus’s voice thundered behind the shift shaper.
Cringing, Chameleon dropped into his normal form and whirled. “Boss! How you doin’? You’re looking extra evil today! Did you get your claws done?”
Smoke permeated from his nostrils as Dragaunus stalked toward Chameleon, his yellow eyes burning with contempt. His sharpened teeth clenched; his purple cape waved behind him like a flag in the wind. “Did you get it?”
“Did I get it? Did I get it? Can you believe this guy?” the green lizard chortled as he rubbed his hands together. His smirk faded and tone flattened. “No, I didn’t get it.”
“You’ve been looking two weeks for the Proteus Chip!” Dragaunus growled, pointing to a red beeping on the yellow computer screen on the console. “I’ve even located its energy pulse within a five-mile radius—”
“But boss, it’s five miles of nothing but—AH!” the shape shifter cried as a laser sizzled past his head, its electricity buzzing in his ear. Waiting…
He felt a rush of relief as no explosion followed. Slowly twisting, Chameleon noticed the hunter drone, still in tact, but no longer moving.
“I’m sorry,” Dragaunus sighed, his voice filled with tired misery. He covered his grimace with his hand. “I’m not myself today.” He flung out his wrist blaster again.
“Yikes!” Chameleon scurried out of the blaster’s path. Another energy laser blazed from his overlord’s wrist, the hunter drone’s parts smashing into the walls, smoke secreting from the only remaining part of the drone—its feet.
Chameleon smiled as he watched Dragaunus frown. “I know who could get it for us,” he chimed as he crossed his arms and averted his eyes, “but you’ll have to ask nicely!”
Dragaunus leaned over Chameleon, his amber eyes flaming, his face inches from the shape shifter’s. “Tell me who, you insignificant excuse for a henchman, before I blast your worthless life form into a pet store!”
“Okay, that was nice enough!” In a flash of green light, Chameleon turned into an emerald Wildwing. “I’ll find you lousy lizards, even if it takes me until next Wednesday!” His voice matched Wildwing’s perfectly.
“Oh?” Dragaunus baited. “And I suppose Wildwing will find the Chip for us?”
Gray, ominous clouds swirled in hurricane-like ripples behind Chameleon. Wraith’s elderly body emerged, his robes contorting from the clouds that rested him gently onto his wrinkled feet. “No, but I know someone who will be able to convince him.”
“AHH!” Chameleon jumped and twisted around, pointing an accusing finger at Wrath. “Don’t do that!”
Dragaunus’s eyes narrowed ferociously. “Who?”
Wrath bowed in front of his lord before straightening, his lips curling into an evil smirk. “I believe you have a slave in your possession, my lord, one who could extract tremendous influence over Wildwing.”
“Yes…” Dragaunus murmured, rubbing his chin gently. His malevolent eyes focused quizzically upon the sorcerer. “But he will not help us willingly.”
“No,” Wrath leered, his smirk growing ever more vicious. “He will not… willingly.”
Canard huffed as he skated across the blue line and into the offensive zone, the cold wind blowing back his feathers. He studied his brother attentively, looking for the correct hole in which to aim. The five-hole was sufficiently covered by Wildwing’s stick. The catching glove was poised, ready to grasp any shot hurling towards it. Shoulders square to the shooter, Wildwing was in perfect position.
Canard caught his brother’s gaze, Wildwing’s blue eyes shining with energetic mirth. They narrowed, baiting Canard to take his best shot, full of boastful confidence. Then, for only a split second, the royal azure dulled, and the right arm lifted ever so slightly.
Bingo.
With a long stride, Canard wound back his left arm and followed through, hitting the puck with flawless precision. It cut through the cold, arena air—soaring under Wildwing’s right elbow and smacking into the back of the net.
“Damn!” Wildwing muttered under his breath as he reached behind him and shot the puck out his goal. “Lucky shot, bro!”
Canard slid to a hissing halt at the top of the goal crease, laying his elbow on the nub of his stick. “You mean ‘lucky three shots.’ ”
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
Eyes narrowing, Canard scrutinized his brother’s teasing attitude. That light tone might have fooled their teammates, but they hadn’t lived with Wildwing since they were nine. “Okay, bro. Spill.”
Wildwing rolled his eyes and sent Canard a lopsided smile. “What?”
“That act might fool the guys and maybe even Mom and Dad, but really? Me? Ever since we’ve landed here, you’ve been this defiant, rebellion leader, but come on. Something’s been bothering you.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Canard. I’m fine,” Wildwing defended wistfully.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. I just might have actually believed that if you didn’t let in three goals in one afternoon,” Canard chuckled, shaking his head. “I know I’m good, but no one has ever been that lucky against you.”
A smirk tugged on Wildwing’s beak. “You haven’t seen the ‘Final Face-off’ from the original series, have you?”
“Different universe, you know.” Canard’s eyes softened as he laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Come on, Wing. We’ve always been able to tell each other everything. Now shouldn’t be any different.”
“You do realize we’re in the middle of a war, don’t you?” Wildwing snapped.
Ripping off his glove, Canard raised his comm. unit to Wildwing’s face. “Oh, that’s what this is all about? I just thought it was stylish.”
“Whatever,” Wildwing dismissed and pushed off his goalpost, gliding toward the edge of the rink.
Why did he even bother to ask? Canard knew it couldn’t be anything else tearing his brother apart.
Dragaunus stood across the electrical abyss, a dark
sneer twisting his malicious face. “I was hoping it was you, Wildwing.” A sinister chortle reverberated through the
towered confinement. “You and your loathsome brother have been causing me trouble for months. I knew eventually
you’d come, so that I may rip your hearts out with my own claws and taste the
sweet innocence of your Puckworld blood.”
Canard watched his
brother’s face tense, even under the Mask. His muscles rippled; his gauntleted
hands curled into fists.
“Surrender, Dragaunus, or face destruction,” Wildwing
threatened. His harsh and unforgiving voice caused alarm in Canard. This wasn’t
the brother he knew.
Dragaunus seemed to actually enjoy Wildwing’s warning and nodded accordingly. His face grew
malevolent. “I control this pathetic
planet. I have more military forces than you could ever imagine, and you want
me to surrender? I could kill you and slaughter your precious, insignificant
resistance without raising a finger.”
“If you believed that, then you wouldn’t know
who we are, would you, Draguanus? You wouldn’t be
bothered with such details,” Wildwing scoffed, the
Mask’s eyes blazing of fire. “You’re not stupid, Dragaunus.
You know that once you steal something, you’ll be fighting forever to keep it.”
Dragaunus’s eyes flickered of rage and glowed an asquint amber. “Very good, Wildwing. It seems that you’ve grasped the concept
of knowing your enemy…” he added triumphantly.
“…and so have I.”
Wildwing cocked his weapon and raised it, though, as
Canard knew well, the delay of the puck at such a distance would give Dragaunus more than ample time to duck and retaliate. “What
are you saying?”
“Haven’t been in
contact with your Resistance cell recently, have you?” Dragaunus
leered.
A
coldness seeped to
Canard. An almost anxious gaiety flowed
through his veins. “What the hell are you talking about?” he spurted, his puck
launcher leveled next to Wildwing’s gauntlet.
Dragaunus was amused. “After your apparent departure
from your home bastion, my emissary reported you would return shortly. So…accordingly,
we attacked.”
Wildwing gaped, his red eyes dimming and widening.
His fists uncoiled. “No…”
Canard’s entire body
flushed numb, and his puck launcher almost slipped through his fingers.
Dragaunus nodded and proclaimed, “It was…interesting,
to say the least, to discover that you have a younger brother, Wildwing. He has been quite helpful these past few months
in unwinding my anger from your absence.”
“WILDWING!” a shrilled scream
echoed through the tower.
Wildwing and Canard whirled. “Nosedive!”
Across the abyss, Siege slapped a disheveled
being across the back of the head with his blaster, sending the captive down on
all fours. In the dirty brown crown hung low Siege fisted his free hand,
involuntarily thrusting the boy’s head upward, showing just how young he was.
Cringing, heaving in ragged breaths, the boy silently beseeched to Wildwing and Canard, his trembling, yet piercing blue eyes
meeting theirs. His uniform from the Resistance, which almost matched Wildwing, was stripped of its armor, the teal jumpsuit
dulled, browned, and wet. Ripped at his chest, legs, and miscellaneous
segments, it was stained crimson—blood!—as lesions coursed his batted body. A
gash bled under the left eye on Nosedive’s panicked face, while energy bonds
restricted the boy’s hands at waist-height. Behind him knelt Siege, the nook of
his elbow encircling Nosedive’s neck, blaster poised to the back of the boy’s head.
“He’s alive, Wing,” Canard vowed softly.
Wildwing halted abruptly but didn’t turn. “You don’t know that.”
“He’s a strong kid,” Canard maintained, his sharpened blades cutting the ice. “Dragaunus couldn’t have broken him.”
“It wouldn’t have been his decision.”
“It wasn’t yours, either.”
Pivoting on his blades, Wildwing leveled a furious glare at his brother. “He wouldn’t be in Dragaunus’s possession if it wasn’t for me.”
“You searched for him for fifteen years!” Canard reached forward and ripped the inactivated Mask from Wildwing’s face. He stared directly into his brother’s eyes. “What were you supposed to do? Just let him go?”
Wildwing’s piercing glower faded as dark, coarse black lines circled his weary, horrified eyes and a lethargic expression contorted his face. “Stars, Canard,” he confessed despairingly, staring down into his empty, gloved palms, “what have I done?”
“The same thing any of us would have done.” His adoptive brother laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You wanted to know your brother. There was no way you could’ve known that Dragaunus would Mark him.”
“No,” Wildwing grated. “I should have known. We were marked! Once Dragaunus found out that Dive was my—”
“Which he wasn’t supposed to.”
A flicker of fearful despair flashed through Wildwing’s eyes. “W—What if he’s not, Canard? What if he didn’t make it? What if Dragaunus…” His voice trailed off, as he was unable to finish the thought.
“Faith,” Canard proclaimed firmly as he lifted his brother’s beak with his hand. “Have faith, bro. You can’t give up because he sure as hell hasn’t. Nosedive’s out there.” Canard pointed out the doors behind him. “You will find him, Wildwing. Just believe.”
Wildwing scoffed. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s been four months since we’ve landed here, and Dragaunus hasn’t made a move. We don’t even know if he’s on this planet!” His anger subsided as exhausted desperation reigned. “We’re never going to find—”
Drake One’s alarm pierced through the empty arena.
“You were saying?” Canard jabbed as he tossed Wildwing back the Mask and skated off the ice.
Bursting through the locker room doors, both hit their comm. units. Their hockey gear and uniforms faded in a flash of green, and instead of professional sports players now stood two fully battle-geared ducks.
“What is it, Tanya?” Wildwing demanded grimly as he emerged from the elevator, Canard a step behind him.
The team was already assembled around Tanya at Drake One’s console. Typing into the computer, the team tech assessed, “There was a break-in at…a warehouse on the upper side?” Her bewilderment was quickly put aside. “Teleportation energy was detected.”
“Could it be Draguanus?” he questioned hopefully. “After all these months?”
“Drake One isn’t reporting any energy—” Another wail from Drake One’s alarm shocked everyone except Tanya, who immediately went diligently to work. “We have more teleportation energy!” she reported with urgency. “Who else on Earth has that capability?”
“Okay! Let’s rock Ducks!”
As they rushed to the Migrator, Duke lingered next to Tanya. “Hey, hey Tanya! Is there anyway we could possibly—I don’t know—turn that down a little, say, from ‘stabbing’ to ‘Def-Con One?’ ”
The green light faded about his torn and bloodied body. His long, blonde hair hung limply in front his eyes, dirty from months of uncleanly prison cells and countless beatings. His uniform had all but disintegrated at the torso area from the lashes of the whips, the slashing still resounding in his ears, blood trickling down his chest. The teal cloth about his legs was in shambles, rips revealing burning, unhealed wounds, blisters, and contusions. His body ached as his chest heaved up and down laboriously. Restricted gasps burst from his beak, each breath harder and harder to take. Gurgling blood rose in his mouth and seeped through the crack between his cheek and beak. All Nosedive Flashblade wanted to do was collapse...
He lifted his head reticently—PAIN! AGONY! MISERY! Searing through his neck, the blinding throbbing paralyzed him, and he wished was for it to end.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Dragaunus’s sadistic voice hissed in his ear, his body shivering from the memory of the hot, saturated breath and the reeking odor of decaying flesh. It can end now. Just tell me what I want to know.
*Sisszzzap!*
*Sisszzzap!*
Hesitantly, he ventured to lift one eyelid, only a crack, and saw the electrical bonds encompassing his wrists. Feathers no longer cushioned the beams, and they burned excruciatingly into the remaining pink flesh, turning his skin ghost white. His hands slowly were pried open as his will to fight the pain ceased. The teleporter clank to the ground, the sound echoing in the silent building.
He had no need to pick it up. As he surveyed his surroundings—endless rows of boxes, a concrete floor, a wooden-and metal-structured building, and the scourging warmth that engulfed his body—he realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. He didn’t even where he was, but that didn’t matter. The Saurians would find him and drag him back to their ship just to exalt their power over him, and he accepted the inexorable truth.
He was never going to be free.
There was no escape. He was going to always be the Saurians anger-management release, and it was only a matter time before others joined his stature because…who could stop Dragaunus?
Wildwing was dead.
His world swirled about him suddenly, hues of black, browns, and navies, shifting under his feet. Nosedive moaned as his body smacked against the cold, concrete floor. His bonds sizzled. His tired body lost its strength to fight. He cringed as the blaster tucked in his waist band dug into his back. The where and how he obtained it escaped him.
As he laid, a chilly feeling encircled his neck. Squinting, he looked down at the ground, a silver necklace laying there—the emblem of the Mask, Drake’s… his brother’s…
Hissing, he cringed, a whispered whine escaping his beak. He squeezed shut his eyes against the protesting bleeding lacerations, his ankle and wrist both torturing his body. His last punishment had yet to heal.
It wouldn’t get the time it needed.
The air around him shifted; his feathers prickled on end.
A flash of green light shimmered across the opening.
They were here.
Wildwing felt his body tense as he
rushed down the alleyway toward the warehouse. An anxious nagging tugged at his
gut, and he couldn’t shake the resounding words from his mind. Do what you have to do, Nosedive had
whispered to him before the battle at the
He eyed the door at the end of the alley as it emerged from the night. Slowing to a stop, he pressed his back against the left side of the doorway as Canard did the same to the right. He armed his gauntlet instantly, not taking any chances. He sure as hell wasn’t going to give the Saurians any advantage.
“Be on your toes, team,” Wildwing warned into his comm. unit. “We don’t know who or what is in this building.”
Canard cocked his puck launcher, and with an infuriated, almost wild look in his eyes, he nodded. “Ready for Saurian pâté, bro?”
“More than ready,” Wildwing seethed.
Flying off its hinges, the door crashed against a row of boxes. Wildwing hustled into the building, scanning with the Mask, his gauntlet held fast in front him. Canard entered behind him, going back-to-back with his brother, launcher poised to shoot.
“Clear,” he reported sharply, even though the darkness impeded much of his sight.
“Check,” Wildwing confirmed,
hushed. Like night vision, the Mask’s red sight lightened the scene for Wildwing, and the leader easily surveyed the area. Rows of
boxes lined the buildings edges and continued inward toward the center. There…he
blinked, his beak opening in shock. Saurians…they were here. On Earth…Nosedive!
“Anything?” Canard whispered from behind Wildwing. His eyes darted back and forth rapidly, searching for anything out of the norm. A sudden squeak caused him to jump, but he quickly breathed a sigh of relief at the mouse scurrying across the floor.
Their comm. units crackled to life, Mallory answering prosaically, “Negative.”
“The karma here is…tainted, pained,” Grin replied resignedly.
Pained? What the hell was ‘pained’? Wildwing reeled.
“Nothing here,” Tanya clarified for Grin.
“They’re here,” a stunned Wildwing finally announced. “The Saurians are in the building, at a clearing in the middle.”
Canard’s jaw tensed as his eyes narrowed at Wildwing. “Then let’s attack—”
“No,” Wildwing bit back, a mixture of anger and worry rising within him. As much as his big brother sense wanted nothing more than to just attack the Saurians and destroy them utterly, asking questions in between shots and spilling blood, his leader side knew the team needed a strategy. Also, the former’s plan wouldn’t help his brother.
“Guys, make your way toward the center. Wait for my signal to attack. Let’s see what they have to tell us.” Collapsing his comm., he nodded once to Canard, determined and rigid, before taking off down one of the aisles.
“Well, where else would it have teleported?” Siege’s gruff voice blared through the building.
Wildwing and Canard exchanged quick, confused expressions, then dashed toward the end of the aisle. As they neared the last of the boxes, the clearing emerged, at least a fifty-foot circle in diameter. Creeping along the left side of the aisle, Wildwing stopped at the last tower of boxes, slowly peering around the edge. Canard knelt next to Wildwing’s knees and cocked his head about the bend.
In the center, Siege’s red, hefty body stood out in the darkness. Next to him, Wraith snapped his bony fingers, producing a fireball that lit the area. His cane was held fast in his hands, the duck skull decoration drawing discomfort from Wildwing. Chameleon sat down on a near-by box, looking about the place.
“It couldn’t have landed in
As he straightened, Wildwing strained to see what the Saurian had found. His breath caught in his chest as he realized what was in Chameleon’s hand—a teleporter?
“Well, we had better find it,” Wraith warned. “I predict a gloomy outcome if the Ducks spot us—”
“Oh, relax,” Siege huffed as he stomped away toward an aisle. “They don’t even know we’re here, let alone it.”
Canard looked up at Wildwing and mouthed, “ ‘It?’ ”
*CRASH!*
Wildwing quickly hit the sides of the Mask, scanning the warehouse. His vision immediately shifted to heat signatures of reds and oranges, and the sensors immediately picked up on his team’s bodies. Duke’s lithe and Mallory’s petite outlines were clear as the pair slouched behind a row of boxes on the other side of Saurians. Mallory sent Duke a scrutinizing glare, her eyes narrowing dangerously in his direction, while Duke shrugged innocently. It wasn’t them. Grin’s burly body overshadowed Tanya’s more modest frame from where they hid to the left of the Saurians. Tanya frantically scanned with her omnitool, doing the exact same thing Wildwing was. Not them, either. His twin brother’s muscular outline was next as he surveyed the warehouse, pivoting slowly upon his left heel. Yet, not another frame surfaced. As he started to drop his hands—WAIT! He quickly whirled his vision backward to where he had just passed. There—a tower of boxes smashed across another tower, but…no one was in sight.
“What was that?” Canard asked faintly.
Wildwing let his arms drop to his side. “A row of boxes fell, but I don’t see anyone.”
A bewildered expression enveloped Canard’s face. “They couldn’t have fallen by themselves. Wait—What do you mean you can’t see anyone? You’re wearing the Mask, for crying out loud!” He immediately cringed as he heard his hushed shout echo, and he rolled his eyes exasperatingly.
Frowning, Wildwing moved to once more scan when his eyes widened. The stack of the boxes behind his brother rose into the air, revealing both he and a startled Canard.
Canard hissed as he whirled. “Oh shit!”
“It’s the ducks!” Siege bellowed, stealing Wildwing’s attention away from the being.
Chameleon and Siege each produced blasters, pointing them at Canard and Wildwing, as Wraith’s fingers held his burning fireball.
“Ready to become extra crispy?” Chameleon’s impression of a Southern accent was thick and guttural as he transformed into the Colonel and fired.
Wildwing instantly jumped in front of his brother, deflecting the shot with his ice shield. “Whoa!” Wrenched backwards, he watched as the stack of boxes came crashing down where he stood. Bombarded with the sudden barrage of lasers and fireballs, he pressed his back against the next stack of boxes, then kicked over the shattered wood and their continents—rubber duckies—before bending his arm around the stack.
“Welcome to Earth!” Shooting three times, he returned to safety. “I don’t know why the Mask is malfunctioning! There must be something blocking it!”
“Like what?” Canard fired two shots underneath Wildwing’s ice shield and pulled back.
“If I knew that, would I be asking you?”
“Like a little heat?” Mallory quipped, and suddenly, a barrage of pucks blazed into the clearing.
Chameleon transformed back into himself, as a puck narrowly missed his head. “I think they like their Saurians fried!”
Siege snarled and fired back. “No ducks are going to roast me!”
A cocking noise sounded behind him, and a hard object was thrust into his back. Slowly, Siege cocked his head to the side and grumbled. His back met the end of Canard’s puck launcher, while Wildwing held Wraith and Chameleon at bay.
“Remember us?” Canard taunted, a smirk enveloping his face.
Hesitantly, the Saurian henchmen recoiled, walking backwards into the clearing. Meeting with the other ducks, Tanya and her omnitool, Mallory and her puck blaster, Duke and his sword, and well, just Grin, the Saurians were surrounded.
Wraith eyed each ducks rancorously, as Chameleon clawed his robes. “Wraith, you’re the one with the magic hands! We need a spell!”
As the sorcerer lifted his wrinkled hand, a puck line encircled it, holding it tightly, painfully. “You think so, huh?” Tanya inclined. “Try it, and we’ll see how well you make a pair of shoes.”
“What were you doing here? Where’s Dragaunus?” Wildwing demanded, pushing his puck gauntlet in Siege’s face.
The lizard wasn’t phased. “Hunting dinner; in the Raptor plotting your destruction.”
Abruptly, Siege hit his wrist, and a blur of green engulfed the Saurians. Wraith’s voice carried, “Enjoy your victory, Ducks, for it will forebode your obliteration.”
Wildwing lunged but only met the concrete as the Saurians vanished.
Deactivating his saber, Duke placed it on his shoulder and laughed, “Well, at least we have the right planet.”
“Still, what would Dragaunus want in here…” Mallory posed as she gave Wildwing a hand up and sent a pointed look at the rubber ducks. “…a toy warehouse?”
Wildwing peered about as his expression hardened. “I saw a row of boxes that fell, but no one was there,” he explained gravely and touched the sides of the Mask, once more searching the warehouse. Still no one.
“The Saurians were after something,” Tanya recalled, also checking her omnitool. “Whatever it is, it has to be important if they were willing, you know, to jeopardize their existence here.” She sighed exasperatingly. “I’m not getting anything big on motion detectors, heat sensors, or even Puckworlder/human DNA sensors.”
“What could hide from your tool and the Mask?” Canard asked, concerned.
Wildwing’s face darkened, despite the Mask. “I don’t know, but obviously, it’s dangerous. Let’s split up and search the building. See if we can find it.” He pointed to his left. “Canard, Mallory, head out that way toward the crashed boxes. See if there is anything still around them or any evidence of what it is. Duke, Grin, check the perimeter and exits. Make sure no one has come in or out. Tanya, you’ll come with me. Let’s check the security devices to see if they picked up anyone.”
The team nodded collectively and ventured into the darkened warehouse.
“Be care,” Wildwing advised. I don’t want to lose anyone else.
Canard cautiously walked down the corridor, Mallory on his heels. “I just love a scavenger hunt. How about you?”
Mallory kept her puck launcher pointed downward, her elbows locked, ready to shoot anything not her teammate. “Ever think about getting serious about this? As far we know, this could be a hydra or Martian.”
“Oh, a Martian?” Canard repeated incredulously. “We should definitely be worried about a member of a green, telepathic, peaceful race.”
“White Martian, idiot. And the hydra will eat you where you stand.”
Squinting, Canard eyed the fallen boxes ahead. He crept hesitantly toward them, his eyes darting back and forth searching for it. “That’s not what worries me,” he admitted softly. “What can hide from the Mask? That thing found the Saurians hundred of years ago, but it can’t find a rat in here? Doesn’t add up.”
He pulled out his own puck launcher as he stopped a foot from the boxes. Cocking the weapon, he first bent down next the boxes. Mallory stood directly behind him, poised to fight. “What do you think?” she inquired, hushed.
Canard shook his head, lightly touching the wood. “I don’t know. It looks like they just fell. No scratches or gouaches.”
Scuffling…
Canard’s head jerked up as he peered down the aisle. “Did you here that?”
“Yeah,” Mallory replied sharply. “Up ahead. It sounded like—DUCK!” She dove into Canard’s back, shoving him to the ground, as a red streaks shot toward them. The blasts burned above their heads, fortunately missing their marks.
Canard lifted his head and blinked a few times as his vision focused. A flash of silver flickered at the end of the alley, sparkling from the left to the right before disappearing behind another stack of boxes.
“There!” Canard shouted. “It’s getting away!”
Mallory instantly rolled off of him and regained her puck launcher. Pushing himself to this feet, Canard leapt over the boxes, dashing down the aisle.
As he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt and narrowed his eyes, just making out the mullet-long brown hair and dark clothing jumbling toward the glowing red exit sign.
“It’s a…human?” Mallory assessed as she stopped next to Canard.
“I don’t care what it is! It’s getting away!” Canard took off after the being, pumping his legs harder to make up the difference between them.
The being’s body rocked back and forth, reminding Canard of a penguin from Earth. Twisting its head toward him for a moment, its eyes glistened against the onyx night. A piercing blue that seemed so much like Wildwing’s.
Canard gasped when the being produced a Saurian blaster and fired. Sinking to the floor, he rolled onto his back, as the lasers passed over his head. Regained his footing, he spared Mallory a quick glance, noticing that she was fine, puck launcher out, before he pressed on. The being whirled back toward the exit as Mallory fired shots at him, pucks barely missing its waist and head. Kicking out the exit door, it fled the building.
The fire alarm blared through the warehouse, and scarlet lights flashed against the metal door. Canard burst through the portal and stopped.
The being was exposed, motionless in front of the police cars that had cornered him.
Captain Klegghorn stood behind his car door, as did many of the other policemen, gun out in front of him.
Mallory hustled through the door behind Canard, halting next to him. Huffing, she lifted her puck launcher mechanically as Canard pulled his from his hostler and cocked it.
“Okay,” he ordered, “turn around slowly or else.”
The being flinched noticeably, then slowed pivoted on its heel. Canard’s eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat. His stomach tingled. He couldn’t believe it.
Though its arms were restrained about the wrists by energy bands, a blaster was tight within its shaking hands, the teal jumpsuit was torn, and the golden hair was dirtied, Canard knew those azure, ethereal, terrified eyes.
“Nosedive?”
To Be Continued…