“Fallen Angel”
Chapter Two: Lifeline
“Nosedive!”
Trembling, blue eyes focused upon him, and Canard didn’t
like the desperation evident in them. He hadn’t seen it before he and Wildwing
left the boy with his father, and he hadn’t even seen it when they attacked the
The blaster in the teen’s hands shook as a fine quiver overtook Nosedive. His finger jittered about the trigger, uncertain. His stained long blonde hair swayed gently in the wind, accenting his wild eyes, one encircled by hues of purple, black, and blue. Hunched over, he breathed raggedly through gritted teeth. Carved into his chest, expelling a crimson, macabre life-force, were three deep gouges. The skin tears’ shape and contour on the boy—they were irrefutably made by Saurian claws. Blood stained the teen’s chest feathers, tricking over the already caked substance. Lacerations covered the boy’s arms and legs, while the teen leaned a little too much on his left leg. A smudge of blood smeared across his left cheek. Warily, Nosedive stared at Canard before he shook his head in disbelief and squeezed his eyes shut. His body tensed in sheer pain.
“You know this kid?” Mallory asked softly, yet rigidly, puck launcher still pointed toward the frightened teen, as he still held a blaster toward them.
Canard holstered his weapon and put his hand over Mallory’s. “Put it away, Mal.”
“No way! He could be the Chameleon! We could be playing straight into Dragaunus’s trap!”
“Mallory,” Canard grated and turned toward her, eyes hard. “Stand. Down.”
She met his gaze indignantly before grumbling and uncocking her weapon. However, she refused to holster it.
“Canard, he one of yours?” Klegghorn shouted from behind his car door.
Canard ignored him, staring straight at his brother’s brother. “Dive,” Canard eased gently, making sure his voice was comforting but forceful. “It’s me. Remember? Canard? Come on. Put down the weapon.”
The boy looked torn, his face twisted with pure horror and at the same time, longing. “No…no!” He shook his head violently, as if trying to rid himself of memories. Tears tricked from his frightened and wide eyes. “No! Y—You’re dead! I—I—he killed you!” The blaster rattled in his hands.
Aww…kid… “No one killed anyone, Dive,” Canard soothed, taking a tentative step forward. “I’m here. See? Alive.”
“No! Stop it, Wraith! I won’t let you play me! I won’t! Not again! I’m not going back! You’ll have to kill me first!”
Canard almost winced at the hysteria in his voice. “Kid, you’re not going back. It’s okay now. Dragaunus won’t get you again. I won’t let him. And Wildwing—”
That did it. As soon as his brother’s name passed through Canard’s beak, fury and pain erupted in Nosedive’s eyes. His face hardened.
And he pulled the trigger.
A hard force from behind knocked Canard to the ground, as the blast slightly blazed his shoulder feathers.
“He’s out of control!” Mallory screamed.
“Great observation!” Canard seethed in frustration when the teen aimed again.
*Bang!*
*Bang!*
*Bang!*
The two duck targets rolled to their feet as blasts whizzed pass their bodies, millimeters from burning them. Mallory twisted to her holster, only to find it empty. Her eyes widened—she lost it when she saved Canard!
Canard stepped in front of her, drawing all of Nosedive’s rapt attention. Diving into a forward roll as blasts burned above his head, he uncoiled at point-blank range from the trembling teen. Aiming the blaster into Canard’s chest, Nosedive took a half-step back, shuddering. He didn’t fire.
“Kid, drop it. You know it’s me. I’m here now. It’s okay,” Canard reassured. Reaching out, he cautiously stopped before stroking the teen’s hair tenderly, only for more tears to seep from the boy’s shut eyelids.
“Kill me, Wraith,” Nosedive whispered brokenly, his head bowed, shoulders slumped in an involuntary expression of suppression, “or Chameleon, or whoever the hell you are. What are you waiting for?”
The warehouse door smacked open, crashing against the wall. Wildwing and Tanya burst through, the former’s eyes widening.
“Nosedive!”
Abruptly, the teen jerked away from Canard, his frantic eyes darting from one brother to the other. “No…stop it! Stop it, Wraith! I—I know Draga—that—that he killed them! Stop it!” The blaster clanked to the ground as Nosedive fisted his bonded hands in his bangs and sunk to his knees. “Stop it! Stopitstopitstopitstopit…!” he pleaded over and over.
Canard just stared at the hysterical teenager, completely unhinged. “Kid…”
“Canard! Move!” Wildwing shouted harshly.
The tan mallard blinked, barely registering the command, before unconsciously backing away.
*Bang!*
Out of Wildwing’s gauntlet flew a single puck. As it landed next to Nosedive, the distraught boy stared at it in shock for a moment, his hands gradually unfurling from his hair. Purple gas burst from the puck, blanketing the bewildered teen. When the gas dispersed a moment later, Nosedive’s body laid upon its haunches, his back lightly arched on the ground, unconscious.
Wildwing and Canard rushed to the teen’s side instantly. As Canard knelt by Nosedive, Wildwing hit the sides of the Mask.
“Canard…” the leader stammered, “I—I don’t see him.”
Hands hesitantly halted over the boy’s prone body, and Canard looked up at him. “What?”
“He’s not registering in the Mask.”
“Then is this even…” He couldn’t bring himself to think it, let alone say it. This had to be the kid. It had to be.
Wildwing pulled off the Mask, his normal sharp eyes trembling. “Check for it…Please, Canard…”
Instantly leaning closer to the teen, Canard gently extracted something from under the tattered shirt. In his hand was a silver necklace in the shape of the Mask.
His knees buckling, Wildwing inhaled a shivering breath.
This truly was he.
Nosedive.
His baby brother.
Wildwing quickly ripped the bonds from his brother’s wrists. His eyes darted to and fro, taking in all Nosedive’s injures. “Dive…”
Tanya fell next to teen a second later and quickly checked
his vitals with fumbling fingers. Standing at Nosedive’s feet, arms crossed,
Mallory searched with furious eyes for more Saurians. Wildwing warmly trailed
his fingers through Nosedive’s matted and dirtied hair, as Captain Klegghorn
walked up next to Mallory. He stared down at the boy, his face sorrowful.
“This kid one of yours?”
Wildwing only nodded, too emotional to speak, his eyes never leaving his brother.
Canard took over for him, his tone grave. “Yeah…he’s…he’s with us.”
“What happened—”
“How is he, Tanya?” Wildwing urged, his voice tight.
She shook his head dolefully. “We have to get him to the Infirmary. Now.”
“Canard, the Migrator! ” Wildwing ordered as he slipped his arms under the boy and with the utmost caution, lifted Nosedive into his arms.
*^*^*
Wildwing bristled through the doors of the Infirmary, Tanya huddling close to him, forefingers pressed to the boy’s neck. Wildwing laid the unconscious teen onto the nearest table as the others crept into the room, watching attentively. Tanya was on the move, grabbing a special designed gasmask and holding it over the boy’s beak. She grabbed Wildwing’s hand and clamped it on top of the plastic.
“Hold,” was the only word spoken.
And Wildwing obeyed.
She immediately stuck an IV into the boy’s arm, then made her way to the medicom. Canard edged up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Is there anything I can do?” Anxiety was eating him, and doing something, no matter how menial, was better than just standing and watching.
“Get me towels from the cabinet, then fill a bowl with water.”
He hurried off.
A heavy and stunned silence remained, the only noise the beeping of the medicom gathering data.
Wildwing stared forlornly down at his brother in soul-wrenching fear. He had been ecstatic waiting for this day and at the same time, dreading it. Ever since the fight at the Master Tower, ever since he found Nosedive in the merciless hands of Dragaunus, ever since he found his brother a slave, he knew this day would come, and Nosedive would be hurt…or worse…at least he could find some reprieve in the fact that his baby brother was still alive, but for how long? One hand still secured over the gasmask, he took his brother’s lifeless and gored hand in the other. He squeezed tightly. He had searched fifteen years for this teen, and he would not let him up without a fight.
“Come on, bro,” he breathed. “Come on. Hang in here with me, kiddo. Don’t give up. Stay with me…”
Canard, having been given new directions, slowly cut the shreds of cloth over Nosedive’s chest and dabbed the weeping lesions. He looked up briefly at Wildwing, sighed, and returned to work. Nosedive had to be okay. If he wasn’t, his brother wouldn’t survive, either…the kid…he just had to be okay…
Grin sat in the corner, silent, yet he didn’t even try to meditate. He gazed at Wildwing, the teen, then back at Wildwing. They had similar energies. True, one was pained and broken, and the other gripped by hopeless trepidation, but…they paralleled. His eyes widened in shock, and he knew.
Mallory and Duke both stood next to Grin, Mallory twiddling with her weapon, while Duke crossed his arms over his chest. The former thief sighed heavily, eyes averted toward the ground. Why was the medicom taking so long?
Mallory leaned over and whispered, “What’s with the Bronzeplumes and the kid?”
Duke looked at her, astonished. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“That kid is Wildwing and Canard’s little brother.”
Her beak gaped, and she took a half-step back. “What!”
“Yeah,” Duke nodded somberly. “He was captured by Dragaunus
before we attacked the
“But that was four months ago!”
“Yeah.”
“And Dragaunus had him before that?”
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes solemnly and leaned against the wall, her legs suddenly flushing numb. “…”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
At the medicom podium, Tanya gripped the sides even harder, her hands turning a ghostly white. A shrill, final beep sounded. “He has three broken ribs, a broken left wrist, tendons torn in his right ankle and knee…there is no indication of internal damage as of yet—”
Wildwing sighed, letting out unfathomable amounts of pent up anxiety.
“But h—he…he needs a blood transfusion.”
Turning wide, yet steady eyes on Tanya, Wildwing sputtered, “I’ll do it! I’m his blood type!”
“And so’s Mallory,” Tanya supplied, looking over at the redhead. “He’s going to need a lot. Do you mind?”
Mallory stepped away from the wall and opened her beak—
“She can’t,” Wildwing interjected, staring down at his brother agitatedly once more, as he played absentmindedly with loose strains of Nosedive’s hair.
“What!” Tanya accused, stalking about the podium. She grabbed a fistful of Wildwing’s shirt, the pressure and situation finally exploding. “You don’t have enough blood for the two of you! If you want this kid to live—”
“I want my brother to live more than anyone here, Tanya,” he pressed back, ignoring her shocked expression, “but Mallory can’t.”
“Sure, I can,” the redhead offered prosaically.
“No, Mallory, you can’t. Wraith…” Wildwing looked down at his brother again and sighed. “Forgive me, Dive…” He met the team’s questioning stares. “My brother…he’s Enchanted.”
Everyone froze.
“Don’t touch him! Get away before your Cursed, too!” Mallory shrieked.
Canard’s face twisted with embitterment. “Mal—”
“My brother isn’t Cursed, Mallory! Wraith just cast a spell on him!”
“So he’s Cursed!” she bit back, slowly backing toward the door. “That’s why all Enchanted ducks are quarantined, so that they don’t infect the rest of us with their doomed presence!”
“He’s not doomed!” Wildwing hollered, dropping his brother’s hand for a moment. “He just can’t have anyone else’s blood but mine, or he’ll die!”
“See! He’s already a dead duck, and he’s not taking me with him!”
Wildwing scowled, then turned to Tanya urgently. “Please, Tanya, just help me with the blood transfusion. Canard and I can do everything else, but please…”
Flashing eyes, Tanya staggered backwards as she moaned, “I—I don’t know, Wildwing. I mean, maybe—”
“You’d let him die just like that?” He looked toward the others, demoralized. “All of you? You’d allow an innocent sixteen year old die just because you’re too afraid for your own lives?”
Duke twiddled nervously with his sword, staring down at the ground. Tanya shook her head dismayed, while Grin stood passively in the corner. Mallory’s eyes burned.
“Better to let a single duck die than for the whole Resistance to fall,” she proclaimed in a defiant tone.
“So…that’s how it’s going to be then?” Wildwing seethed with rage. “We let each other die because it’s what’s best for the team?’ ” he growled before nodding toward his brother. “Canard, I guess you’re going to have to do this. Get an IV and a connector switch.”
Wildwing laid down on the bed next to his brother as Canard linked the already existent IV with the new one. He sighed, sending Wildwing an uneasy glare. Laying the needle on the table between the two beds, he snapped on a pair of gloves, then tied a tourniquet about around Wildwing’s bicep. “I don’t know exactly how to do this…so just bear with me, alright?”
“You have to find a vein, Canard,” Wildwing reminded hollowly.
Canard let out a nervous laugh. “Right. Right.” He rolled his eyes and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“You have to wash his arm,” Grin added, handing the tan duck an alcohol swab.
Wildwing smiled relieved at the burly duck. “Thanks, Grin.”
“Fear is bred from ignorance and misunderstanding. What can I do?”
Sighing, Canard chuckled humorlessly. “Uh…could you maybe stick my brother for me because I’m gonna—” His eyes suddenly rolled back into his head, and he collapsed.
“Canard!” Wildwing swung his legs over the side of the table.
Grin caught Canard millimeters from hitting the floor.
Tanya was by his side instantly, taking his pulse. “He was just overwhelmed,” she reported. “Grin, could you put him on the other bed?”
Wildwing scowled to himself as he stared unkindly at the floor. “Thanks, bro. You really came out in the clutch.” Pressing down upon his elbow, he felt what he thought was a vein, then reached for the needle on the table. He took a deep, deep, drawled breath…
A peach-feathered hand covered his.
“You were really going to stick yourself, weren’t you?” Tanya asked pointedly.
Scoffing, Wildwing answered without looking at her, “Of course I was. He’s my brother.”
“You’d risk yourself like that?”
Wildwing turned to her, his eyes assured, dark but twinkling with warmth. “I didn’t search for him for fifteen years just to watch him die.”
She looked away for a moment, her face troubled as if having a mental debate with herself.
*BEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!*
Tanya raced to the podium as Wildwing, eyes wide and frightened, dashed to his brother’s side.
“Nosedive!” He pressed his fingers against his brother’s neck and when he failed to feel the thumping, snatched his brother’s wrist.
Nothing.
With shaking hands, he knotted his fingers together and pressed the heel of his palm into his brother’s chest. One compression…two…five…ten… thirteen … fifteen …thirty… He ripped off the gasmask—
Tanya bent down, opening Nosedive’s beak farther and huffing two rescue breathes into it.
Again, nothing.
Damnit, NOTHING!
Wildwing, teeth clenched, stomach sinking, once more clamped his hands together and compressed the boy’s chest again and again and again…
Two breaths from Tanya….
With each compression, more glistening tears trickled from
his eyes. Terrified desperation gripped his heart. Don’t do this to me. Don’t leave…I won’t let you go. I won’t. I refuse to. *Press!* You stay with me, you hear? I searched too long and too hard for you,
and I will not let Dragaunus take you away! *Press!* I won’t let him! *Press!*
No breaths.
A light hand touched his shoulder. “Wildwing…I’m sorry.”
“No, Tanya! N—no!”
Tanya turned him around to peer into his wretched and mortified eyes. “He’s gone. I—I’m sorry. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“No,” he begged softly, tears gushing from his grief-stricken eyes. He glared at his brother’s macabre body, its chest no longer heaving, its voice silenced forever. Crumbling to his knees and resting his forehead on his brother’s stomach, he wept unabashedly, sobs wracking his body. The horrid beeping wailed in his ears. “Please…don’t…don’t leave me…”
Tanya blinked back the tears that rose in her eyes. Duke gasped softly, his beak gaped in disbelief. Mallory closed her eyes, turning away.
Grin bowed in mourning, as he felt the energy leaving the body.
Wildwing sobbed endlessly into his brother’s stomach, shoulders shaking. The last fifteen years flashed through his mind…fifteen years of searching…fifteen years of wondering… fifteen years of desperately holding onto nothing in hopes of something… fifteen years of despondent faith…all for it to end here … now…to lose the one thing he always wanted to save…
His hands imploringly curled into fists, gripping the sheets. He remembered his brother…his voice eerily echoing in his ears…
Do what you have to
do.
He sprang upward.
“NO! I WILL NOT LOSE YOU!” His clenched fist slammed down into his brother’s inert chest.
*GASP!*
Wildwing staggered backwards as Nosedive’s upper body jerked. The teen inhaled a deep, drawing breath, his cobalt eyes flashing to life, wide and gleaming, all-encompassing. Suddenly, he grimaced as if in tremendous pain and went rigid, before hacking, his chest shuddering.
He gasped a few times, then looked down at his astonished brother. He grinned weakly. “Hey, Wing.”
A relieved smile overtook Wildwing’s face. Tears glimmered in his eyes. “Hey, Dive.”
As if he awoke only to hear his brother, Nosedive’s eyelids drooped shut, and he lurched into Wildwing’s reaching arms.
*^*^*
“How is he, Tanya?” Wildwing whispered earnestly as he looked over at his little brother before his eyesight drifted upward to the blood circulating between them.
Tanya sighed as she pulled off her gloves and threw them in the hazardous materials bin. “It’s going to be a tough few days, Wildwing. He still is missing a lot of blood, and…if Mallory can’t—”
“She can’t. Trust me.”
“Then…it’s going to be a rougher few days. I—I don’t know what else to tell you.” She once more looked over the medicom print-out on the console. “He lost tons of blood, and a few of those claw marks on his chest are pretty deep. I’m going to clean them out, then probably have to stitch two or three of them…Not to mention his knee and ankle…” Fiddling nervously with her glasses, Tanya sighed helplessly. “There’s more, Wildwing.”
He met her gaze anxiously. “How much more?”
She hesitated. “While I can do my best to fix his body…the way he was acting at the warehouse, desperate and frantic…I can’t repair his mind. If Dragaunus abused him mentally…”
“So what you’re saying is…Dragaunus might have driven my brother insane.”
“…I’m sorry, Wildwing.”
Wildwing nodded idly, his body suddenly void of feeling. His full and complete attention focused on Nosedive. He concentrated on his brother’s breathing, the only thing at the moment that would keep him sane. Evened to a mundane rising and falling of the chest, that simple motion Wildwing never knew could be so comforting.
His sight shifted for a moment to his twin brother, laying on the third bed in the infirmary. Wildwing sighed and blinked at the ceiling, left alone to his own thoughts while Tanya busied herself with cleansing Nosedive. It seemed once Tanya saw the boy’s body failing right in front of her, her maternal instincts kicked in. The fact that she touched, breathed life into Nosedive without dying, took all the superstitious fear out of her.
The others had left when the transfusion had started, Mallory sputtering someone about the airborne effects of the Enchanted, while Duke and Grin stayed briefly. When it was clear that nothing more could be done, the two reluctantly left, only because Tanya explained that the teenager probably would rather not have them there while she washed him.
Wildwing chuckled half-heartedly. He could only image what Nosedive would say if he ever found out a female had cleaned him. The teen had problems in the men’s shower at the Resistance base.
“Hey, Wildwing?” a concerned voice called him from his reverie.
Wildwing turned. “Yeah, Tanya?”
“I know it’s really not my place, but…” She cut the remaining cloth from the boy’s waist and probed something on Nosedive’s lower back. “Do you know about this?”
“Know about what?”
“I mean, I know teenagers get them on Puckworld, but …I’ve never seen one like this.”
His eyes narrowed. “One what?”
“A taint.”
Wildwing’s eyebrows furled. His tone grew tense, “What taint?”
*^*^*
It was his fault.
Wildwing sat at Nosedive’s side, eyes unfocused and disconsolate, one hand grasping his little brother’s, the other holding a carton of orange juice. Nosedive was now tended to, his chest completely covered with A&D and bandages, his ankle and knee wrapped, a cast on his broken wrist, his hair and feathers sponge-bathed clean.
Slowly stroking his thumb back and forth on his brother’s smooth, peach feathers, Wildwing could only imagine what the teen went through. And it disgusted him. Especially once he had seen…it. A spiraling, spiked red and black tail curved into a dragon’s head with a claw mark slashed across it—imprinted on the small of his brother’s back.
The crest of the Saurian Sovereignty.
His brother was stained by Dragaunus, Wildwing thought resentfully, mountable anger swelling within him. Yet, he couldn’t for his entire being bring himself to blame the malevolent lizard. There was only one reason why Dragaunus had taken Nosedive as a slave—because of his brother.
It was his fault.
His fault.
Something wet and cold trickled from his hand suddenly, and he looked down at the scrunched carton in his hand.
“Anger management—check.”
Wildwing scowled, but didn’t look up from his brother. “Go away, Duke.”
The door hissed shut, and Wildwing thought his message had been received. By the clicking of boots on the floor, he knew he was wrong.
Duke stopped at the foot of Nosedive’s bed, staring down at the boy gravely. “How’s he doin’?”
“You were here seven hours ago, right?”
“When he woke up, yeah.”
“Does he look any different to you?”
“That bad, huh?”
Wildwing chose not to answer.
“Your other brother’s kinda hedged, you know? He’s taking it pretty hard.”
“He’ll get over it. He, at least, was going to do something.”
“Uh…” Scratching the back of his head, Duke shifted uncomfortably. “I’m…you know…sorry about before. I just…the stories you hear about the Enchanted…”
“They’re victims, Duke,” Wildwing remonstrated bitterly.
“I know…it’s just…*Sigh!* You’re right, okay? I—I should’ve helped out rather than just stood there and watched your brother die, alright?”
“People died on Puckworld, left to die because others were afraid…because they didn’t understand. We’re supposedly better than the Saurians. It’s times like these I really wonder…”
“Hey! Look, I—”
Wildwing stared raucously at him. “They’re innocent. My brother’s innocent. Look what they did to him. Look how they abused him! Look how they broke him! And you were willing to let him die…because you were ignorant.”
Eyes boring back into Wildwing—Duke let out a drawled sigh. “What do you want from me, Wildwing?”
Wildwing shot from his seat. “I want you to see the person you love most dying right in front of you, knowing there is nothing you can do to save him, and see others who can unwilling to…” Gripping onto the side rail of the bed to steady himself, Wildwing waited a moment as his world spun on edge.
Crossing his arms, Duke averted his eyes. “Yeah…well…we all have our stories, Wildwing…we all have stories.”
Slowly falling back to his seat, Wildwing stared down at the sleeping Nosedive, stroking his brother’s hair warmly. He uttered solemnly, “Leave, Duke. There’s nothing more you can do now anyway.”
“Well, I was kinda wondering how the kid got Enchanted in the first place, you know? Seems to me you’re pretty protective of him.”
Wildwing closed his eyes and placed the scrunched carton on the floor next to his chair. “Canard, Dive, and I were returning from obtaining the Mask when we were attacked by Wraith, Siege, and Chameleon. By then Canard and I had a reputation for messing with Dragaunus’s plans, and anytime they got even a whisper of where we were, they attacked. So…” He shrugged. “I don’t know how they knew we were there, but they did, and they targeted Dive, seeing how much younger he was than us. I don’t think they knew we were related back then, but…Wraith cast a spell and the next thing I knew, Siege was impaling my brother with a lance, and the three of them teleported out of there.”
“Wow…” Duke commented as he pulled over a chair from behind him and took a seat. “I can’t imagine. So, how’d you know to give him blood? You know, only yours?”
“I didn’t,” Wildwing confessed. “We weren’t far from the Resistance base, so I carried Dive there. Once we were getting him treatment, Canard recited the spell to the chief resident.”
“Weren’t they afraid of the kid?”
“It was different in our Resistance cell. Harp—General Flashblade wasn’t superstitious, and he understood how the Enchanted were merely victims of circumstance. He ordered that no Enchanted be quarantined or discriminated against in anyway.”
“Ah.” Duke nodded. “So…you know, what happened? The medic just—”
“Well, she started spouting orders and calling for Dive’s dad.”
“But you said you could only—”
“Only a biological family member can give Dive blood.”
Duke still looked confused.
Wildwing smirked slightly and elaborated, “His father adopted him.”
“I got you,” Duke replied, nodding thoughtfully. He froze suddenly. “Wait…his father adopted him? Don’t you mean your father?”
For a moment, neither duck moved. As Wildwing stared sternly at his brother, resilient, still, he didn’t answer. Slowly his demeanor crumpled, as he looked to the floor. For a moment, Duke saw the conflicting emotions in Wildwing, saw the anxiety vying inside him, saw his innocence.
Wildwing’s voice rose no louder than a whisper.
“Our parents…were not normal people. Both were in the military, and both were in it deep, profoundly deep. When I was seven, Nosedive just a few months old, they simply vanished. Gone, like they never existed. Those who wanted them dead searched frantically, while those who knew where they were remained silent. Dive and I didn’t have any grandparents or living relatives that I know of to watch over us, and even if we did, they were in danger, too. Our grandfather on Dad’s side could attest to that. He was killed trying to save us a little before our parents disappeared. Mom’s family was… scattered at best. Since there was no one to take care of us, my godfather, Dad’s best friend, changed our last names and put us into state’s care.”
“Wait. Your grandfather died saving you? Your godfather changed your names? Why?” Duke asked, astounded.
“To protect us.”
“From what?”
Wildwing snorted. “It wasn’t long until we were split, one of us into a foster home, another in the orphanage. I still remember that day I was chosen…” He shivered uncontrollably and sighed tersely. His voice was strangled. “I told my foster parents about him, told them I wanted to be with my baby brother, but…” Wildwing looked away, squeezing his eyes shut. “They didn’t listen…and that day I left, it was the last time I saw Nosedive before he was sixteen. By the time I was returned to the orphanage...”
“How about Canard? Wasn’t he with you?”
Wildwing shook his head. “My brother and I share many things, Duke, but genes is not one of them.”
“You’re kidding? You two look so much—”
“—like twins.” A tiny, deliberate smile edged itself onto Wildwing’s beak. “I know. We were told that even before the Bronzeplumes adopted me.”
“I—I would have never guessed. You two act like—”
“We are real siblings,” Wildwing seethed in frustration. “We are.”
Duke put his hands up in the air in a proposition of surrender. “Sorry…you know I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know. I know…” Wildwing sighed as a hand ran over his eyes. “I tend to get defensive about that…Anyway…where was I? I lost the puck.”
“Never thought I’d here that from you,” Duke smirked. “The orphanage?”
“Yeah.” Wildwing cringed and resituated himself backwards in his seat, draping one arm over the metal top. “I started a new school not too long after that, and Canard was in my class. We…he really took the initiative. By then I was distant, closed off from the world because all I wanted was to hold onto the only family I had left, and they pulled me away from him. I didn’t want anyone else.
“But Canard…” His voice lightened as he met Duke’s gaze with a small smile. “Canard was something else completely. I didn’t want a confidant. I didn’t need a friend. I didn’t even desire someone to sit next to at lunch. Yet, I got a family.” A flicker of amusement and smug confidence flashed across Wildwing’s face. “I remember telling him to leave me alone a hundred times because all he kept asking was, ‘Why are you so sad?’ Finally, I just exploded on him. When I was done, he simply asked, ‘Feel better?’ And you know what? I did.”
He shrugged absently. “After that, Canard and I got really close, practically did everything in school together. Then he asked me to stay over at his house once, and I…I just couldn’t say no. I had been back at the orphanage for over a year, and the thought of a real bed and dinner and seeing a family again…I just had to go. So, I stayed over, and when I didn’t get off the bus at the orphanage, Snapper—”
“Who?” Duke questioned, leaning back in his seat and resting his elbow on the back of the chair.
Wildwing smirked sadly. “The orphanage keeper. Once he found out I was gone, he
called the cops. The bus driver remembered I had gotten off with Canard, and
the police questioned the Bronzeplumes. They didn’t know I lived in an
orphanage and hadn’t thought to ask about my parents. Canard had kept my past
from them, and I loved him for that.”
“Why was that so special?”
“Anytime someone says ‘orphan,’ people immediately get this look of pity and sympathy in their eyes. After two years, I had gotten tired of it. For once, I didn’t see it. The Bronzeplumes treated like a normal kid, and that’s all I wanted.”
“So…what happened?”
“What do you think? Canard stood in front of me and told Snapper that he couldn’t have me back. I was staying the night, and that was that for him. Snapper was furious. He hated kids, and the fact that one was bossing him around didn’t help the situation.”
“Hated kids? An orphanage keeper?”
“Yeah. For someone reason, they always do. Anyway, once Shane entered the fray, the Bronzeplumes coaxed Snapper into letting me stay the night.”
Duke rolled his eyes. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who’s Shane?”
“My older brother…err, rather Canard’s biological brother. He’s eleven years older than us and everything you’d expect an older brother to be. When he saw Canard fighting so hard, he kinda… um…punched Snapper, which didn’t actually help my situation much.”
“I can only imagine,” Duke chuckled.
Wildwing nodded in agreement. “Yeah, well, after that, it actually got better. Even though Snapper was livid and bent on taking it out on me, Canard’s parents petitioned to have me over for the Zenith. When Snapper forbade me, they came to speak to him in person. They were horrified at the living conditions and food, not to mention the black-eye and broken leg I had gotten. Immediately, they filed for adoption, and that’s how I became a Bronzeplume.”
Duke nodded toward the bed and asked carefully, “But what about the kid? …What happened to him?”
Wildwing exhaled and looked fervently down at his brother. “I—I don’t know the whole story. Dive never told me, and I never pried. Anytime we ever got close to discussing it, he’d always change the subject, and I didn’t change it back. I didn’t want to bring up bad memories because I knew not all of mine were good…and I didn’t know if his were worse…”
Duke shook his head somberly, as Wildwing stared down at his brother, twiddling with the teen’s golden locks, absorbed in the motion. Starkly, a soft voice returned, “I had continued to search, despite being adopted, but I got nowhere. I kept calling Snapper to see if Dive ever was brought back, but either he’d hang up on me or simply yell, ‘No!’ then hang up. Once, Shane, Canard, and I even sneaked into Snapper’s office and checked records, yet there was nothing after the age of one for my brother. So…after I started calling Canard’s parents ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ I explained to them about Dive. They didn’t hesitate,” he declared with a tiny, overly contented grin. “They tried to locate Dive, but with our names changed and the years that had elapsed, it was pretty much a cold case.” He shuddered involuntarily, showing just how upset he still was, and Duke could only imagine how much worse it had been years ago. “I was devastated, thinking I would never see him again. I had such a problem at the orphanage, and I was seven years older! What kind of problems did he have? Was he even alive?”
“Stars, Wildwing…”
“Don’t,” the younger mallard spurted, his voice threatening and harsh. His finger shook as he pointed at Duke. “Don’t you dare. I don’t want it.”
Duke leaned back in his chair, his voice calming. “Got it.”
Sighing, Wildwing ruffled his hair slightly and gave one shake of his head. “When I went to finally entered the Commissioner’s Academy—”
“Wait! Hold on!” Duke interjected, sitting up. “You went to the most prestigious military institution on the planet?”
“Our parents were in the military at some point in their lives, and Shane went there,” Wildwing replied simply. “It was pretty much guaranteed that the two of us would get in.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah, well, it seemed I looked a lot like my father…” Wildwing grimaced, “my biological father, and people began to make comments. ‘Aren’t you Wilder Featherburn’s son?’ ‘Oh, you look so much like your father.’ I got it more than once. At first, I simply replied that I didn’t know the man, but after while, I figured out what they meant.”
Duke sparred him with a perplexed look. “I don’t.”
“I had long forgotten exactly what my last name was, Duke. It was so long ago, and I was so young when my godfather changed it…I was Flashblade before I was Bronzeplume… but before Flashblade…?”
With an almost audible click, Duke gasped, “Featherburn.”
“Exactly.” Wildwing smiled. “After that, I restarted my research, looking for anything I could find about my parents, searching for something to tell me what happened to them and maybe to find the whereabouts of my little brother. After a while, I came across a professor who told me a little about a certain friend of my father’s, in fact, my dad’s best friend. They went through school together and everything. Professor Anatidae said he even thought the guy was my godfather. So, I looked him up.
“Harper Flashblade.”
“You’re kidding,” Duke expressed flatly, waving a dismissive hand. “Your godfather cannot be a member of the Executive General.”
Wildwing laughed with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Hey, that’s what I thought, but when I saw his last name—my second last name—it all made sense. And when I talked to him, which I planned so perfectly right before the invasion,” his voice was tainted with facetiousness, “he said that he had been wanting to see me, to get to know me, and that he would definitely help in my venture to find my brother. Of course, he neglected to tell me that he had adopted my brother.”
A sharp inhale, “No way. You’re pulling my tail feathers.”
“Yeah, or so it seemed. However, the invasion came not too long after that, and I didn’t see Harper again until Canard and I found our way into his Resistance cell. He gave us a mission to save his son, who was being tortured to death in a camp for insubordination, and when we saved him, we saved Dive.”
Duke sent Wildwing a look of bewilderment. “How did you two know that you were brothers?”
Slowly reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, Wildwing pulled out a square, gray piece of paper. He unfolded and handed it to Duke. Scanning it for a moment, the former thief read the headline out loud. “Army captain, wife, two sons, slain in house fire…” His words trailed to silence. “This…this about you?”
“Yeah,” Wildwing confirmed softly. “When Harper put us in the orphanage, he gave each of us one, so we’d always know where we came from, even though it has no names or identifying information—to keep us safe.” His eyes rolled with an exaggerated sight. “After we saved Dive, we were laid over for awhile waiting for night again, and we got to talking. Dive took that out and told Canard and me how he had been adopted and had lost his family.” He looked up at Duke, eyes brilliantly glistening, unfathomable emotions bubbling from them. “When I saw that Duke…I…I…” He swallowed hard and gripped his brother’s hand again.
Duke observed him silently for a moment before clasping the younger duck on the shoulder. “Yeah, I get you.”
“I—I never thought I would ever see him again. I never thought I would be able to hold him, to know him…and now…”
“He’s a strong kid, Wing,” Duke eased as his grip hardened. “He’ll pull through.”
Silence.
“Look, why I don’t I go get us something to eat, and when I come back, I’ll tell you some of my stories, okay?”
Wildwing couldn’t find his voice as he pressed his forehead to Nosedive’s hand.
“Okay, then…I’ll be back in a moment.”
The door swished shut.
Gasping in wet sobs, Wildwing pulled back from his brother. He stared down at Nosedive, murmuring, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. And if I wouldn’t have left you…but I—I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I had just found you…and I knew that we might not survive the face-off with Dragaunus. I just wanted you to be safe.”
Wiping the tears from his eyes, he proclaimed resolutely, “And I promise you, here and now, you will never, ever be a slave again. I’ll protect you this time. I’ll safeguard you. Just please…please wake up. ”
To Be Continued…