“Fallen Angel”
Chapter Five: Foreboding
“No!” Wildwing rushed into the kitchen, his hair still
dripping wet from his shower. “No! Nonononono!”
He looked about the room frantically, finally resting on Canard, Grin, and
Mallory gathered about the kitchen table. Duke and Tanya were missing from
their morning routine, down in the brig, watching over Siege.
Canard’s coffee cup clattered to the
table, its precious contents spilling across the cloth. “What’s wrong? Is the
kid all righ—”
“I’m such a horrible, miserable,
idiotic moron of a big brother!”
Mallory stared at him skeptically.
“What’s got you all riled?”
“Canard!” Wildwing clamored before
letting out a resigned sigh. “Do you remember when we were coming back from
Twin Beaks?”
Canard nodded cautiously. “Uh…yeah?
So?”
“Do remember when Dive was telling
us about the Zenith and how he hated missing his first Trials?”
“Is there a point coming?”
“Remember what he said followed the
Zenith…about a month later?”
Canard thought for a moment,
studying Wildwing’s face, until his eyes widened suddenly. “His hatching day!
Shit! That’s—”
“—sometime this week!” Wildwing
finished for him. “In fact, it might have passed already! I’m such an idiot!”
He slammed his fist against the table, splashing up coffee at Grin. Wildwing
didn’t even notice. “I can’t believe I forgot my little brother’s hatching
day!”
Canard slapped his brother on the
shoulder. “Yeah, you do suck as an older brother.”
“But as a twin brother, I’m still
good, right?”
“You have your moments.”
Wildwing rolled his eyes and wiped
his hand on his jeans. “Okay, look. I’m gonna head out. Maybe buy him
something.”
“Like what?” Mallory asked starkly,
getting up from the table and putting her empty plate in the sink. “He’s a
hatchling on an alien planet, and the only aspect of its culture he’s been
socialized to is MTV,” she scowled, and Wildwing couldn’t help but chuckle
softly as he remembered Nosedive refusing to submit the remote to Mallory
during the American Idiot music
video.
“I’ll think of something,” Wildwing
smiled knowingly. “In the meantime, could you keep him busy?”
“And just like that, I’ve been
turned from a rebel-slash-crimefighter to a babysitter.”
“We’re going to need a cake,” Grin
reminded him gently, finishing off his bagel. “What are his preferences?”
“Uh…” Wildwing grimaced guiltily. “I
don’t…really…know.”
“We’re going to need decorations,”
Canard offered with a nudge of Wildwing’s arm.
“So then what do we do?” Mallory
finally relented, walking up to the group. “With all you out, and Tanya and
Duke down by Siege…how am I going to explain that?”
Wildwing glared at her before
growling internally. After what Siege said a little over a week ago, he didn’t
want Nosedive stepping two feet outside the arena, let alone going to the mall,
but Mallory was right. Nosedive was going to wonder, and Wildwing would be
there to make sure his brother was okay…and
he really didn’t want Nosedive in the Pond with Siege without him.
“Fine,” he reluctantly
resigned. “He’ll come with us. Mallory, would
you mind taking him clothes shopping?”
Her head perked up immediately, and
Wildwing almost could see his brother tearing him apart later for making him
Mallory’s very own Ken doll.
“Sure. No problem,” she smiled
euphorically. “However, you’re going
to have to get him up.”
Wildwing flipped open his comm.,
realizing it was only nine-thirty. Now that Nosedive had his own room and was
moved out of the infirmary, the teen never rose from the depths of slumberland
until at least noon.
“In any case, he’s going to need a
comm., Wild,” Canard urged.
Wildwing snorted. “I was thinking
more along the lines of a launcher.”
*^*^*
“So…this is Earth?” Nosedive
hesitated, standing at the entrance of the Anaheim Mall. He flipped his soaking
wet bangs out of his face, a remnant of his impromptu bath, courtesy of his
overbearing, way-too-anxious older brother. And they called him impatient!
Mallory nodded to him and allowed him a moment for it all
to sink in. “Yup. Not much different from Puckworld, even though the heat will
melt you.”
“No duh.” He pulled his sweatshirt
away from his saturated feathers. “I didn’t know we landed in Hell.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,”
Mallory laughed before grabbing his good wrist. “Come on. How about we try
Abercrombie first? Or maybe American Eagle Outfitters?”
Nosedive tilted his head back
against the sun, while savoring the wind that blew about him. Taking a deep
breath, he let it out slowly, basking in the feeling of complete freedom and no
boundaries or walls…or as close as he got.
His eyebrow arched, as he watched yet another human walk
by, sending him a bewildered, almost hostile expression. He dismissed it when
he heard Mallory continue to squeal off places to take him. He became squeamish
at the level of enthusiasm in her voice. She seemed just above the
strip-worn-out-shopper, but just under Gwen Stefani’s posse.
“Aeropostale!” Mallory exclaimed
with exhilarated definition, dragging him behind her as she dashed toward the
store.
He followed without resistance, mainly
because Wildwing made him promise to stay with Mallory at all times and not to
wander by himself. Wildwing had been so adamant, almost beseechingly so, and it
was the first time he had ever seen his brother so animated. And it worried him. While he hadn’t known his
brother for very long, he knew Wildwing wasn’t one to be so demanding or so…so…
His thoughts drowned into the rock music that played inside
the store. The group almost sounded like the Screaming Beaks! His eyes pored slowly over the tee-shirts,
jeans, and jackets as he freed himself from Mallory with only a faint reminder
not to leave the store without her. He quickly began to circumnavigate the
place.
“Oh. My. God.” A forced stoic voice
pressed from behind him, excitement bubbling from the words.
Nosedive cringed before his eyes
rolled heavenward. He mouthed, “Damn.” He sighed deeply and turned around.
“Hey.” Meeting the female with green eyes as growing smile curled upon his
beak, he realized he couldn’t have been older than she. When he looked her down
and up, it became suddenly apparent that while she was a different species,
women, both ducks and humans, shared similar qualities.
“You are not who I think you are,”
she spouted.
Nosedive smiled sheepishly as he
grabbed a pair of jeans from a rack. “I take it you’re a hockey fan, huh?”
“Are you kidding?!” She screamed
shrilly. “The Mighty Ducks are, like, the most awesome team ever!”
“So I’ve heard.”
She pointed a shaking finger at the
taken back duck. “Y—you’re that new one! You’re Nosedive Flashblade.”
“Word travels fast here, huh?”
“Nosedive Flashblade is in my store,
is in my store!” she squealed before
putting her hands out in from of her and taking deep breaths. “Um…can I…*Eep!*
…help you?”
Nosedive shook his head and regained
his thoughts. “What’s up with the sizes, dudess? They doesn’t seem to
synchronize with my planet’s.”
“Well, as long as our watches are
synchronized…”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” the girl laughed. “Why
don’t I see what your pants size is there, and then we’ll know what to work
down from.”
Nosedive fidgeted nervously with the
hanger in this hand. “You know, I’m good.” He backed away slowly from the
startled female. “Sizes are overrated.”
“It’ll just take me a moment.” She crept closer to him,
which really didn’t help his on-end nerves.
“I’m good. Really. Why don’t you
just back—”
“Four,” Mallory declared as he
notched her elbow with his and handed Nosedive a pair of jeans and an
Aeropostale tee-shirt. “You are definitely a four.” She took the ten in her
hands and gave it to the sales girl. “Would you mine putting these back?
Thanks.”
Passing the dumbfounded girl,
Nosedive waited until they were out of earshot to mutter under his breath, “You
are a lifesaver, and I’m not talking about the candy.”
“What happened to you back there?”
Mallory asked as Nosedive shut the door to the dressing room.
Turning around so as not to face the mirror,
Nosedive quickly undressed, which wasn’t too hard in his big brother’s clothes.
“I…I just don’t like people touching me. That’s all. Don’t you ever feel weird
when a complete stranger says, ‘Hey, let me check out your waist band?’ ”
“A little, but it wasn’t just her.
You had the problem with Tanya, too.” Mallory’s voice raised to call over the
door. “Why are you so rattled?”
Cringing, Nosedive slipped on the
pants in silence, then pulled on the shirt. Opening the door, he flung his
wings wide. Dressed in tight-fitting denim jeans, perfectly frayed at both
knee-caps, and a form-fitting tee-shirt that accented his muscles and his still
partially emaciated body, he sprang, “Ta-Dah!”
Mallory crossed her hands over her
chest. “You never answered my question.”
Rolling his eyes, Nosedive moved to
slam shut the door, but Mallory caught the edge. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. I
didn’t think. With Dragaunus…”
He flinched at the name.
She noticed.
“So, uh…they look good,” Mallory stammered, taking a step
back. “Why don’t you turn, so I can see the butt. Make sure it fills out.”
“Wha?”
“That’s one of the first places women look when they’re
scoping a guy.”
Nosedive scoffed, “You’re putting me on.”
“Nope, that and the hair. You’re already oh-for-one, so the
least you can do is nail the butt.”
He rolled his eyes but complied. When he met her gaze her
again, she was smiling widely. “You could run for the Democratic Party—and
you’d win.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. I’m just admiring my good taste. Why don’t you
stay in those, while we search for more, huh? You can wear them out instead of
your brother’s huge pants. They do nothing for you.”
“All right-y, then.” As he bent down to grab the puck
launcher that was advertently placed in his brother’s clothes, his sparkling
lavaliere squeaked out from under his tee-shirt collar and oscillated about his
neck. He tucked the launcher into the back of his pants and pulled the door
shut.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you. Who made that?” Mallory
asked, pointing to the necklace from the opposite side of a clothes rack. “It’s
beautiful.”
“Oh, this thingamajig.
Uh…” He hesitated for a moment before confessing sheepishly, “Drake DuCaine.”
Mallory growled at him. “Fine. Next time save yourself from
Humanzilla.”
“I’m serious, Captain McMallard,” Nosedive spouted as he
raised up a tee-shirt that read, “Will Try Anything Twice.” She shook her head
at it with a scrunched grimace, but he kept it anyway. Grapping his lavaliere,
he lifted the necklace over his head and hair, then handed it to her.
*^*^*
Wraith’s eyes snapped open, and he
stared at the newly reconstructed orb floating between his hands. The teal mist
inside wringed within itself madly. The rounded edges became sharp, and the
teal faded to blood, then onyx.
His sadistic smile demonized.
*^*^*
“Mallory,” she corrected as she
studied the necklace. The bright silver glistened in the overhead light of the
store. It looked exactly like Wildwing’s mask, except for the difference in
color and the shimmering with paramount brilliance. She had never seen anything
just as beautiful, just as magnificent, and she doubted she ever would. “Call
me Mallory.”
“You know that Wildwing and Canard took me with them to get
the Mask, right?”
Mallory shrugged, not taking her absorbed eyes off the
necklace. Her eyes widened slightly at the set of initials curved on the
side—“D.D.” “Yeah,” she answered, somewhat distracted.
“Well, when we went into Drake DuCaine’s tomb, we found an
unexpected body.”
Mallory finally looked up at him and reluctantly handed
back the jewelry. Why couldn’t she have known Wildwing and Canard before their
tomb raid? “You mean Drake wasn’t
there?”
“Oh, he was there all right—or was.” Nosedive made a face
as he slipped back on the necklace. Mallory had to do a double-take as she
swore the necklace glowed gold.
Nah…right?
“We found another tomb there, too. Draven’s.”
Mallory shook her head, clearing her thoughts, as she met
Nosedive’s gaze. “Who?”
It was Nosedive’s turn to shrug as he grabbed another pair
of pants and considered them. A clean pair of jeans—no rips, tears, or
discoloring—he put them back. “Draven DuCaine, Drake’s little brother.
According to the stories on the walls that we could translate, which amounted
to like, two, Drake not only created the Mask, but also the H.O.C.-Key.”
Mallory groaned and felt a headache coming. “Look, you can
do this the drawn out way, and I end up killing you before I hear the end of
the story, or you can just cut to the chase.” She tossed him another shirt and
pair of jeans.
Observing them for a moment, he stifled a laugh, which only
infuriated her more. Didn’t the kid know she was serious?
“The Hyperspace Optimum Convergence Key was the initiation
of the portal to Dimensional Limbo. It was a mixture of magic and technology,
kinda like the Mask. Drake knew that so much power in one hand, you know, the
Mask and the Key, could be a major problemo, so he gave the H.O.C.-Key to his
little brother to keep.”
“Is that’s it?” she clarified, pointing at the necklace
about his neck.
“You got it.”
“Wow…” Mallory stared at it, mystified at the power,
untapped, that hung about his neck…in the hands of a teenager. “How’s it work?”
“Damned if I know,” Nosedive replied with a truthful sigh.
“I just wear the thing.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. “So what else?”
“That’s it. End of story. Credits: Nosedive
Flashblade—speaker.”
“Yeah, sure, but…” Mallory rested her elbow upon a rack and
swung a pair of pants, black casual, on her fingers.
Nosedive rolled his eyes. “Hey, you said to keep it short.”
“Yeah, but…I was expecting…more. Like, what happened with Draven and Drake?”
A drawled sigh, “Well, to tell you
the truth, there isn’t much more. Drake defeated the Saurians; Draven opened
the gateway. Boom! Saurians became myth.” He shrugged. “What else is there,
anyway?”
“You tell me.”
Nosedive muttered faintly, attention
grasped by the tag hanging from the jeans in his hands, “Well, the rest isn’t
pleasant, but there was only one thing really whacked about it. The stories
said that Draven took off the necklace. The only time it was removed was after
his death…” His eyes widened suddenly. “Oh…shit.”
Mallory whirled, her puck launcher
appearing from nowhere. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Uh…did you see this?” He leaned the
tag over for her to see.
“Wait. You’re freaked over the
price?” Mallory retorted incredulously as she lowered her launcher.
“Hey, girlie. You see any money in
these pants?”
Mallory glowered at him, not too
fond of being called “girlie,” and holstered her puck launcher. “Nosedive, I
have an American Express Centurion. We could charge until this place was
completely empty, and I’d still be under my limit.”
“You’re paying for this?” He asked
thoughtfully, his voice cracking in surprise. “Why?”
“Well, Wildwing and I might square
later, but…” She shrugged and felt the texture of a satin looking shirt.
“Yeah.”
“And I repeat: why?”
“Because you’re a member of the team
now, and teammates help each other out,” she stated as a matter-of-fact, her
tone as crisp as the military personnel she was.
Nosedive froze, unbeknownst to
Mallory as she continued to weave through the store, gathering all sorts of
pants and shirts.
His thoughts reeled unbound in his
mind. He was a member of the team now?
He rubbed his lower back aloofly,
realizing the ironic validity of her statement.
*^*^*
Eyes narrowed, blade flickering like
lightning as he slowly rotated it back and forth, Duke stared down Siege. The
burly Saurian simply glared back. Neither spoke. The only motion and noise in
the whole room was that of Duke’s sword—
—until the elevator swished open.
Carrying a tray filled with raw meats and brown stuff that
Duke didn’t even want to know what, Tanya entered the room with a lifted beak,
two fingers pressed into her nose holes. “This is…” She couldn’t finish her
sentence as her gag reflex acted up.
Already breathing through his beak, Duke hit the control
panel, and Tanya slid the food into the cell. The tray bumped along the ground,
its contents skewing on the metal before slamming into Siege’s foot, covering
the lizard’s toes with gruel.
“Eat,” Tanya ordered, gulping down yet another gag.
Siege stared back at her with a furled eyebrow, but didn’t
move toward the food as the lasers once more activated. “You first.”
“Then starve,” she retorted bitterly. “Just see if we
care.” Taking a seat next to Duke, she once more picked up her cards.
Duke looked over his with a baiting smile. “Hit me.”
She smacked him in the shoulder.
“No! The cards!” He rubbed his injured area. “Trying to
discourage me from winning?”
She slapped a card face-up on the table. It was a ten of
clubs. “Just keep thinking that.”
Eying her suspiciously, he flipped over his cards onto the
table. “Twenty. Beat that!” He hit the table for good measure.
“If you insist,” she smirked and flicked over a queen on
her ace. “Blackjack.”
“No way!” Duke stared
incredulously at the cards. “This is impossible. You can’t win every game!”
“It’s all about numbers, Duke,” Tanya informed in an almost
sing-song tone. She was enjoying it thoroughly. “The number of cards, the order
in which they—”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He rolled his eyes as he gathered the cards
to shuffle, dividing the deck into two. The cards ruffled like an accordion.
“You’re talking to a master thief here.”
“Then why can’t you beat me?”
“Casinos and all that weren’t my expertise. There were
others in the Brotherhood for that.” Smiling coyly, he dealt her two cards. “Watch
out, I feel myself getting in the zone.”
“Even if you could
beat me,” she replied playfully, “that would still make the score seventy-two
to one.”
“Yeah, but once I get in
the zone, I’m in the—”
Tanya’s omnitool beeping cut him off.
She scrunched her face as she
frowned through her purple-tinted glasses. “Someone’s at the front door.”
Chuckling, Duke turned to Siege, noticing the Saurian
hadn’t moved to touch his food. “You know, it never ceases to amaze me how
humans can walk up to an arena like it’s the house next door and try to sell us
something.”
“It’s the Girl Scouts,” Tanya
replied flatly, heading toward the elevator.
“Sure.
That’s a racket if I ever saw one. Dressing little girls up in uniform to get
me to buy some fattening food—”
“What kind do you want?” Tanya
interjected complacently.
“Tagalongs.”
The doors to the elevator closed.
Silence.
“You ducks think you’re so smart,
don’t ya?”
Duke suppressed the urge to shoot
the lizard. After all, Wildwing did give him permission. “Shadda up,” the
former thief spat, hand nearing the controls to the cell. “You want to be
zapped?”
“You miserable fowls don’t have it
in you.”
“Try me.”
A scornful smirk enveloped Siege’s
face, unnerving Duke. “Lord Dragaunus will rule this planet, and once he does,
you’ll be nothing but a roasted—”
*ZZZZAPP!*
Siege’s body jumped and went rigid
as kilowatts rushed through his nerves. Sure, Duke knew, it was corporal
punishment, but hey, the lurid lizard did enslave his people. And beyond that,
Siege deserved a hell of a lot more for ever touching Winter’s son.
Duke gripped the sword in his hand, and his face remained
hard. “You want more? There’s plenty.”
Siege sucked in deep, ragged breaths. His head jerked
upward as his eyes burned. “Lord Dragaunus will reclaim what is his.”
“He’ll just have to look elsewhere. He ain’t getting the
kid.” His jaw tightening, Duke was beginning to understand what Wildwing felt
that day in the lab, and the leader had to listen to it for five minutes.
“You can’t stop him,” Siege continued to protest. “He’s ten
phases in front of you.”
The former thief glared at Siege until he realized with a
sickening feeling what Siege meant.
“Tanya, come in,” he called into his
comm.
No answer.
“Tanya!” Urgency rose in his voice
when there was still no answer. Where could she have—He whirled madly to Siege.
“What are ya—”
A blast boomed through the arena as
the ground shook like an earthquake. “What the hell—?” Air fled from Duke’s
lungs as the table smacked into his chest, and he was thrown to the floor.
Drake One’s alarm pierced through
another explosion. Rolling end over end, Duke slammed into the end of the room,
and he lifted his arms in protection as the chairs crashed beside his
head.
Siege laughed haughtily. “Surrender to Lord Dragaunus or be
used as a centerpiece.”
Duke threw the table off of his
chest and sucked in hollowed breaths. As he righted himself, another explosion
rocked the floor. He gripped onto the side of the control pad, attempting to
keep himself erect.
Gritting his teeth, the former thief
smacked the button on the panel that controlled laser beams. Immediately they
deactivated, and Duke fumbled his way through the food that now coated the
floor. Grabbing the lizard about the neck, honed blade directly underneath
Siege’s chin, he threatened, “If anything’s happened to Tanya—”
A surge of rhythmic explosions
sounded from the elevator shaft, and he braced himself—
A blast tore through the door, and
Duke never knew what hit him.
*^*^*
“So, where to next?” Mallory
inquired as she dipped her French fry in sweet and sour sauce. “Want to get
your hair cut?”
Dressed in the same jeans and
tee-shirt from the first store, only now he had his brother’s sweatshirt tied
about his waist, Nosedive shook his head, taking a bite of his McRibb. “Num. Uh
kimda lid if thus lenthm.”
Her face twisted in disgusted horror
as she watched him chomp with his beak open.
Gulping, he sent her an expression
of youthful innocence. “What?”
“Nothing,” Mallory moaned, taking of
a sip of her coke, “but can you translate what you said into English?”
“I said I like it this length.” He rolled his eyes and finished off
the rest of his sandwich in one stuffing of his beak.
“You’re kidding,” she almost burst
with giggles. “It’s…so retro!”
“You know what? I’m not even going
to ask what that is.” Nosedive snatched a few of her fries.
“Retro is the time from—”
“No.”
“Have you ever heard of Bon Jovi—”
“Don’t care,” he jingled, dunking
the food in ketchup then shoving it into his beak.
“How about during hockey games?”
Mallory posed. “Won’t it get all sweaty and knotted?”
“I used to have it longer than
this,” Nosedive declared with an exasperated sigh. “In fact, I used to have it
in cornrows and dyed blue.”
Mallory blinked. “No way.”
“Yes way.”
“But why? That’s how rejects wear
their hair.”
Nosedive snorted and sipped his
large soda, slurping loudly. “Thanks, Mallory. It’s so nice to know that I have
now officially been stereotyped.”
“I didn’t mean it like that!” she
yelled indignantly.
“Maybe I can get a shirt that says
that,” Nosedive pondered, looking out the window at the mall. “You know where I
can get ‘I’m a reject’ shirt? Or better yet, ‘I’m an alien reject’?”
“Are you always this annoying, or is
today just an exception?”
“Nah, this is pretty much me,”
Nosedive admitted candidly with an unabashed smile.
“And you, the son of a military
general. I would have never thought it.”
“You aren’t the first one, Mal,” he
replied flatly. He sent the rest of her French fries a impish look, and Mallory
finally just handed them to him.
“Was he hard on you?” she asked plaintively.
Looking up at her, Nosedive, French
fry hanging out of his beak, regarded her with a bemused expression. “Come
again?”
“Your father.”
A roar of laughter echoed from his
beak. “Dad? *HA AH!* Yeah, right!”
Mallory crossed her arms over her
chest and glared at the teen. Seeing this, Nosedive muffled his laughter until
he finally calmed into coughs. “Sorry.” He allowed himself a few, quick
breaths. “It’s just…what you said was totally bogus. Dad was never strict. He
always felt guilty, so besides the normal curfew, check in, and ‘Don’t leave
your clothes on the bathroom floor,’ I was pretty much a free bird.”
“He felt guilty?” Mallory echoed,
almost as if she couldn’t believe she had heard it.
Nosedive shrugged absently as he
turned over the empty French fry container and shook it. “My dad was asked by Wing and my dad to watch over us, and he
failed big time with me.” He finally just threw the container dejectedly in the
McDonald’s bag. “In fact, that’s the only reason he adopted me. I’d love to tell you that he came inside the
orphanage and that the moment he saw me, he just knew I was his son, not in
blood, but in spirit…but nope.”
“So, he only adopted you because you
went through a bad foster home?”
“Foster home, HA!” Nosedive grumbled
and crossed his arms on the table. “Sure…but
in theory, yeah.”
“But you call him Dad, so…”
Nosedive nodded as he eyed the board
behind her, filled with more food. “Well, yeah, it all worked out okay. He
eventually came to love me as his son and all, but…there were some rough spots.
There always are.”
Mallory watched him carefully. “How
so?” She could tell by the way he moved about, eyes darting back and forth,
looking at anyone, anything, but her,
that these were not the fondest of memories.
“Like, huh, in the beginning
he...uh…forced bleached my hair, then left it that color because he didn’t know
what shade of blonde I was. Then, he cut the tree down outside my window, so that
I couldn’t climb down it to escape. Oh, and we can’t forget how he used to sit
at the table and actually watch me do my homework to make sure I did it.” He
shook his head before focusing upon Mallory again. “It all worked out at the
end, and we got used to each other. But…things were hard for me, especially
living with yet another stranger…so I
was really in the mood at the time, ya know?” Tracing his finger absently on
his napkin, he confessed, “I mean, things really got good after my first
hatching day with him. He really tried to get to know me and at least lessen
that I-hate-you-evil-eye barrier between us. And, well, that spawned our annual
hatching day trips.”
That caught her attention. Shit.
“What do you mean? You went places?”
Nosedive finally sighed and looked
straight at her. “Every year, Dad would take me some place different that I
hadn’t been, someplace exotic or adventurous on my hatching day. We went
swimming in melted ice once, climbed the
“Sounds interesting,” she grinned,
“and fun.”
He returned her smile. “It was.” His
face darkened a little, and he averted his eyes.
That didn’t stop her from the seeing
the pain evident in them.
“I’m sorry,” Mallory said softly. “I
didn’t mean…I forgot about the base.”
Nosedive didn’t reply for the
longest time. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It happens. I kinda wished he wouldn’t
have, but...it was coming.”
“Coming? Kinda hard to see a Saurian
invasion coming,” was the incredulous response.
“I wasn’t talking about the
Invasion.”
“Then what were you?”
He utilized his recent favorite
word. “Nuthin’. Forget I said anything.” He looked out the mall, eyes clouded
over as if his mind was someplace else.
Patting him on the arm, she smiled
reassuringly. “Look, I’m going to the bathroom, okay? I’ll be right back.”
He nodded absently, though Mallory
knew he truly didn’t comprehend her statement.
Hating herself as she stepped
carefully over the fortress of bags that safeguarded their table, she strode to
the hallway outside the bathroom and flipped open her comm. “Wildwing, come
in.”
After a brief moment, Wildwing’s
face, sans the Mask, appeared. “Mallory, what’s up? Is Dive—”
“I think I brought up some bad
memories, but other than that...Look, I was talking to him, and he said that
his father used to take him places for his hatching day. You know, like
snowboarding and swimming…I just thought you’d like to know.”
Wildwing looked at something off the
screen, then back at Mallory. A satisfied smile graced his face with boyish
charm. “Perfect. How’s shopping going?”
“Great. Just a few more stops, and
we should be good to go.”
“Good. We’ll meet you at the
Migrator, say, in an hour?”
“Goal.”
She snapped shut her comm. and made
her way back to the table. When she reached it, she took note of the finished
dish of ice cream in front of Nosedive. She was positive that wasn’t there
before.
“Ready to go?” she asked the considerably
younger duck.
Nosedive looked up at her and rolled his eyes. “More
shopping? Haven’t I had enough?” He motioned to the numerous bags surrounding
their table, stacked upon one another.
“Come on!” She hauled him up from
his seat. “Wildwing said I could dress you for another hour, so let’s get
moving!”
As they exited the McDonald’s and
Mallory scoured for another store in which to torture her little doll, she
suddenly yelped when Nosedive’s bags crashed down in her arms.
“You know,” the teen stammered as Mallory clutched as many
bags as she could before they clattered onto the ground. “I have to…um…” He
shifted his weight from one leg to the other nervously. His eyes darted, as
panic seemed to settle in them. Finally, he shouted, “Go to the bathroom!” in
triumph. “Yeah, I have to go to the little duckies’ room. Any hints where I can
find one?”
She sent him a hostile glare, which quickly
dissolved as she saw the look of terror in his eyes. “Uh, yeah.” She shook her
head and pointed back into the restaurant. “In there, take a left, but is
everything all—”
He dashed inside—
“—right?” she grumbled, letting the
rest of the bags tumble to the ground. “What is your story, kid?” she said to
no one in particular. After a moment, she finally rolled her eyes and busied
herself picking up the fallen outfits.
They all clamored to the ground
again, much to her irritation, when Drake One’s obnoxious, attention-stealing
alarm sounded from her comm. She quickly deactivated the noise and flipped it
open.
“Mallory here.”
“The Pond’s been breached,” Wildwing
informed curtly. “Try to contact Tanya and Duke, while Canard and I get over
there. Keep Dive busy until I contact you. Got it?”
Mallory hated being taken out the
action and wanted nothing more than to take on the Saurians, but under the
circumstances—she shot a look toward the McDonald’s—she understood.
“Ten-four—”
A chilling scream pierced through
the mall. Mallory’s head jerked upward, and she pivoted on her heel, puck
launcher already pointed directly in front of her. She gasped as she saw
Wraith, Chameleon—It can’t be…—and
Siege.
“You’re not allowed out of the Pond
without a leash,” she spat at the burly lizard. Hitting the button on her
comm., her normal clothing shifted in a glow of green into her battle gear.
“Looks like we have a lone duckie
who wants to play.” Chameleon transformed into Yoda and aimed his blaster
toward Mallory like a light saber. “Challenge the Dark Side you will, hmm?”
Mallory’s eyesight drifted ever so
slightly to her comm., and she let out a sigh of relief. The cover was still
open. That meant she hadn’t broken the connection with Wildwing. Looking about
the mall, she noticed that many of the humans had cleared out, leaving her
alone with the Saurians. Good, she
thought solemnly, that brings the
causalities down to one. Three Saurians against one duck, even she had to
admit were not good odds.
A fireball ignited in Wraith’s hand as he hovered a few
inches above the ground. “Where’s the sanies?”
“He’s in the bathroom,” Mallory
retorted with an absent shrug.
Obviously, Wraith didn’t believe
her. With a reverberant roar, he released the fireball, while Chameleon fired
his blaster.
Mallory dropped the ground, rolled,
and shot twice. One puck smacked directly into Chameleon’s stomach, throwing
him backwards, while a puck bola wrapped about Wraith’s body. The ancient
Saurian crashed to the ground with a growl.
Regaining her footing, Mallory
looked up just in time to see Siege charge toward her in a full sprint,
slamming his shoulder square into her chest. Air was forced from her lungs.
Thrown backwards, she collided with something hard in a fury of pain.
Crumpling to the ground with a painful moan, Mallory laid on her side,
unmoving.
*^*^*
Siege leveled his blaster at her, a
grunted and hoarse laugh echoing from the depths of his being. “That’s one dead
duck.”
“NO!” a vehement shout resounded as
a force slammed into Siege’s side, sending the Saurian tumbling.
Nosedive winced and rubbed his
shoulder, amazed that he was actual able to unhitch the burly Saurian. He
turned swiftly to Mallory and rushed to her side.
“Mal?” he asked softly, lightly
touching her arm and rocking her gently. He cupped the side of her face and
inhaled sharply at the blood that trickled down her forehead. “Mal, wake up!”
He shook her more forcibly. “Come on! Don’t do this to me! Wing’ll kill me if
something happened to you because of me!”
Suddenly, a hand encompassed his
entire shoulder, its nails digging into his flesh and feathers. Cringing as pain
raged through that area, he was abruptly thrown in the air and caught. Two arms
contorted, like a boa constrictor, about his torso. He held in a grimace as
pain spread like liquid fire through his stomach area—his once healing ribs. He
thrashed unsuccessfully against his captor, his feet barely making contact with
the ground. Whoever held him was easily four times his size, and it wasn’t
Siege. That lard of a lizard now pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his
blaster, and pointed it straight at Nosedive’s chest.
The teen gulped and instantly
stopped struggling, even though a fine shaking overtook his timid body.
One week…one stinkin’ week and four
days of freedom…
Dread and paralyzing panic settled
in his stomach as Wraith weaved a spell that slowly undid his binds. A swirling
gray cloud helped the ancient Saurian to his feet.
No…he couldn’t become his sanies
again…Wildwing promised him he wouldn’t be…
Oh, what the hell did Wildwing know?
He thought his brother was free.
Looking warily over his shoulder,
Nosedive froze, then shunned away. He didn’t just see that. He didn’t just see
Grin. They were playing with him again. Then it clicked almost audibly within
his mind.
Chameleon.
He shuddered as the other two
Saurians stalked toward him, fiery anger burning within their eyes. He slumped
and relented to the Saurians. He was a slave. He always would be. There was no
escape.
“Thought you could escape, did ya?”
Siege berated, slapping the boy up the side of the head.
Nosedive’s head ducked as he blinked,
dazed. The colors about him whirled into one another, and his world spun. He
tried to think, tried to clear his head, and met Siege’s malevolent gaze.
This
can’t be happening! This can’t be happening! This can’t be—
“I won’t go back.” The frail conviction in his voice didn’t
even convince him. His eyes pleaded behind the Saurians, searching for any sign
of his brother or team.
Nothing.
He was alone.
He was always alone.
“You don’t have a choice, sanies,” Wraith replied maliciously.
The admonished teen’s eyes softened until they no longer
sought, and he succumbed to his rightful place of subservience. Hanging limply in Chameleon’s arms, he waited
what was to come, what was his fate.
Wraith lifted his wrinkled hand into the air as familiar,
yet indecipherable words poured from his mouth. Nosedive remembered hearing
them before, but he couldn’t quite…As much as he fought to close his eyes and
not listen, as much as attempted to shut the horrific mage out, as much as he
struggled versus the demon that lay dormant in his mind, Nosedive found himself
unable to pull away, as his eyes focused evenly into Wraith’s glowing crimson
orbs.
Then the word, “Roast—ugh!” A puck whacked Wraith’s staff
from his hands, startling the mage.
Nosedive blinked as he shook his head, unaware of his
surroundings. Everything was so blurrily, like a fog had descended upon his
world.
“Back off, fossil breath!” The words were distant, almost
inaudible.
Another puck connected directly with Siege’s stomach,
knocking the Saurian to the ground.
Wraith conjured up a fireball from his bare hand, but a
white and teal form body-checked him. Through Nosedive’s bleary sight, the teen
was unable to tell who it was, despite the fact that the figure pointed an arm
over his head and fired. Suddenly released, the teen collapsed. Two strong
hands caught him about his waist and lowered him gently to the ground. He shook
his head and closed his eyes as an arm tucked around his back and under his
arms, holding him close to his savior.
“Dive?” a soft, concerned voice called.
Nosedive shook his head again, the sounds of puck launchers
and blasters clogging his ears. He blinked once more, his eyes wide and
all-absorbed, as the owner of the voice finally was recognized by his brain.
“Big bro?” He cocked his head to the side, looking up at
his supporter with vacant eyes.
His brother’s masked face met him with a tiny, worried
smile. “You okay?” A glistening noise sounded behind Nosedive as a blue-tinted
shield was erected. A fireball dissolved upon contact, and Wildwing dropped his
shield.
“Yeah, I think so.” Nosedive touched the side of his head
and squinted, somewhat unnerved by the sight of two Wildwings. “You never told
me you had a twin.”
“You mean Canard?” Wildwing sent his brother a confused
look, before reaching around Nosedive’s head and firing two shots. A shriek of
pain echoed through the mall, and a moment later, the sound of a teleporter was
heard.
“No, the guy next to you.”
Walking in front of Nosedive and kneeling, Mallory
holstered her puck launcher. “Is the kid all right?”
Wildwing put a hand in front of his brother’s face. “How
many fingers am I holding up?”
“Including the three thumbs or not?”
“I’m not Tanya, but that can’t be good,” Mallory commented
wryly.
“Are you fit to drive?” Wildwing asked, sending a pointed
glare at her forehead.
Mallory wiped her hand over the section and smirked
slightly as her fingers smeared with blood. “Major headache, but nothing a huge
pill can’t fix.”
“Fair enough.” Standing up, Wildwing gripped Nosedive
tightly and helped the wobbling teen to his feet. Draping an arm about his
shoulders, Wildwing secured him next to his body. “Come on, baby bro. Let’s get
you back to the Pond.”
*^*^*
“Is everyone in one piece?” Wildwing
asked as he, Nosedive, and Mallory entered the Ready Room.
On the platform, Tanya turned from Drake One and affixed
Wildwing an exasperated glare. “The brig is completely destroyed,” she reported
with a sigh. “I have no idea where the elevator went, and you do not want to
see the locker room.”
“Are you and Duke okay?” Wildwing climbed the stairs and
studied the charred edges of the doorway where the elevator entrance used to
be.
“I’m fine,” she replied with a slight smile, putting an
hand on her waist. “They didn’t do anything but knock me out. Duke’s in the
infirmary, suffering from a concussion and a few bruised ribs.”
“I wonder why they kept you guys alive,” Mallory thought
out loud. Blinking after a moment, she elaborated, “I mean, the Saurians could
have just…you know…”
“Yeah,” Tanya replied flatly. “Makes me cringe to think
what they’re up to.”
Nosedive broke from his brother’s side and walked to the
ledge. He bent over the open doorway and stared down the elevator shaft,
whistling softly.
Wildwing fought the urge to tell him to be careful.
“Man, that must have been one heck of a fireball.” A
flicker of anguish flashed through the teen’s eyes. “They came after me…didn’t
they?”
Mallory looked to Wildwing uncertainly, as did Tanya.
Neither spoke.
“Uh…” Wildwing leaned back against Drake One’s console,
hating what he had to do, but knowing he couldn’t lie to his brother. “Not you.
Dragaunus wanted his henchman back.”
Nosedive stepped back carefully from the edge and sent
Wildwing with a bewildered expression. “Huh?”
Wildwing rolled his eyes heavenward, searching for the
strength he needed. “Siege’s been here for the last week.” He braced himself
for what was to come.
Nothing did.
He slowly looked down at his brother, who just stared
blankly at him. Gradually, second by second, Nosedive’s face tensed.
“Dive?” Wildwing tentatively asked, nearing his brother.
“That’s why you’ve been sleeping in my room, hasn’t it?”
Nosedive pierced, almost bitterly.
Wildwing clasped his little brother on the shoulder. “I…I
was afraid that Siege would…and I couldn’t…”
Nosedive’s head snapped upward, his
eyes boring into Wildwing’s. “Siege was captured to lure me out. They came to
get me. They came to reclaim me.”
Wildwing froze at the word. The same
word Siege how used…Slowly, he pulled his little brother into a hug, content to
feel the youth’s presence, and he rubbed Nosedive’s back gently.
Nosedive tore away, eyes glassy with
tears threatening to fall. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“No,” Wildwing admitted hollowly. “I
don’t.”
Torn, distraught, and solemn, the
teen dropped his hands to his sides in fists. His body shook as one of his
hands slowly moved to his lower back. He stared at Wildwing, pleadingly, for a
long moment. Finally, he just scowled before bristling out of the room.
Wildwing stared at where his brother
left, and Siege’s stab finally hit home.
Accept
it, the Saurian’s words replayed horribly in his ears. He accepts it.
Wildwing leaned over the console of
Drake One forlornly and finally understood.
In his mind, Nosedive was a slave.
*^*^*
“Are you sure about this?” Canard
whispered as he and Wildwing made their way down the hall. “After yesterday—”
“I’m going to be there with him. You’re going to be there. The
whole team is going to be there,” Wildwing snapped. “We shouldn’t have a
problem.”
“ ‘Shouldn’t’ being the operative word there.”
Wildwing neared their target door. “Look, he’s been through
enough already, okay? I just want him to have some fun for once. Let him enjoy
a day out, even if it is for a little while.” The lighter of the two mallards
sighed, looking down at his open palms. “It’s his hatching day.”
“I know, but…”
“He still thinks he’s slave, Canard,” Wildwing confided
somberly, looking away. “He thinks they’re going to take him back. I have to
prove to him that they can’t and they won’t, okay?”
Canard let out a prolonged exhale before clasping his
brother on the shoulder and sending him a reassuring smirk. He pointed to his
watch. “At least let him sleep a little longer. It’s only six-thirty.”
“Who says I’m going to wake him up?”
A mischievous smile crossed Wildwing’s beak as he keyed in his brother’s code
and entered the room.
The room was still dark with only
the light of the hallway to guide them. Wildwing pointed to the closet and
mouthed, “Clothes.” Nodding once, Canard diverted to the doorway.
Coming around the bed, Wildwing smiled at the sight of his
little brother, blanket pulled up and over his head. He gently pulled back the
covers, noticing his brother still wore his oversized sweatshirt to bed, but
now was dressed in flannel pajama bottoms. His eyes darted to the space between
the two articles of clothing at the small of Nosedive’s back, revealing his
feathers.
His stained
feathers.
Black and red, the taint’s horrifying message screamed,
even in the silence of the night.
Wildwing swallowed down tears that formed in his eyes and
the queasy feeling that squirmed in stomach. Not today. He couldn’t do this
today. His brother was not going to be a
slave today. Tenderly rolling over his brother, Wildwing slid his hands under
Nosedive’s armpits and the crooks of his knees and eased his brother into his
arms.
Canard evacuated the closet with a
jersey, jeans, and sneakers, holding them up for Wildwing to see. With a jerk
of his head, Wildwing motioned toward the bedspread, and Canard understood,
gathering it up as well.
Five minutes later, the Aerowing
flew into the dawning sky.
*^*^*
His beak twitched, as he felt
something sprinkle onto its top. Nosedive moaned softly and rolled over,
pulling his covers up to his chin and settling his head against the headrest.
Another sprinkle, however, this time a mild coldness brushed his beak as the
substance melted. He pulled the covers up and over his head.
Someone pulled the covers off, much
to his displeasure, and he moaned a little louder.
“Da…fibe mo’ minutez…”
More of the substance sprinkled upon
his head this time, flurrying onto his beak and shoulders. Slowly cracking open
his heavy eyelids, he watched the white dust fall in front of his eyes and pile
upon his beak. Cross-eyed, he stared at it for a moment, as realization cut
through his morning haze.
“Snow!” he shouted as he shot up and
watched the substance flurry from his beak.
“Morn’, baby bro,” a familiar voice
behind him greeted, warmth evident in its tone.
Nosedive whirled around to see
Wildwing, allied with a fond smile, sitting in the seat next to him. In his
hands, melting at a rapid pace, was a clump of snow. His eyes drifting
downward, Nosedive took note of the puddle underneath Wildwing’s chair.
“You know, I’ve come to the
conclusion that you are not a morning
person,” Wildwing kidded as he rubbed his hands together away from his body,
the snow fluttering to the floor.
“Wh—where are we?” Nosedive
inquired, fighting back a yawn and looking about the Aerowing’s cabin. “Where
did you get the snow? Are we home?” His voice raised excitingly.
“Nope,” Wildwing replied somewhat
sadly. He brushed the snow off Nosedive’s shoulders. “However, why don’t you go
look outside? I think you might be in for a surprise.”
Nosedive stared suspiciously at
Wildwing before standing up. His bare feet got a rude awakening as the icy
floor touched his feathers. Yelping a little, he hurried across the cabin to
the stairs, looked down the hatch—and froze.
“Surprise!”
The elated scream caught him off
guard, and with a sharp cry, he fell face first off the Aerowing and into over
two feet of snow.
Cold...He blinked as the feeling
registered against his bare arm feathers and feet. It was cold…but it was snow!
A thundering of crunching sounded as the ground jarred slightly, and Nosedive
sat up, completely astonished at the sight of the white, fluffy precipitation.
He whisked his hands through it and scrunched it in his fingers before halting
at the sight of a pair of blue military boots. Looking up, he met the confused
and shock expressions of the team. In each of their hands was either a wrapped
present or a cake. The particularly large, oblong-shaped gift in Grin’s hands
grabbed his eyes.
“Are you okay, kid?” Canard asked
him, grabbing one arm and helping Nosedive to his feet.
“Uh…please just forget that
happened,” the teen pleaded, half-kidding as he flexed his fingers, watching
the snow melt inside his palm.
“Sorry,” Mallory smirked as she
lifted the digital camera in her hand, its lens focused solely upon Nosedive’s
snowy face. “This one could definitely win on America’s Funniest Home Video.”
Shoving snow onto the lens, he
stared at the boxes in each person’s hand. “Um…what’s going on here? Where are
…” His eyes skimmed his surroundings to the best of his abilities, considering
all the ducks but Mallory were taller than he. “…we? Why are we here?”
A hand clasped his shoulder, pulling
him into a tight, one-arm hug. “Happy hatching day, little brother,” Wildwing
exclaimed.
“Huh?”
“Wildwing said your hatching day was
after the Zenith,” Duke smirked, handing Nosedive a smaller box.
“So? The Zenith isn’t until… It
couldn’t have passed yet. I mean, I couldn’t have been in the Raptor that …” He
frowned suddenly, staring at the box in his hands and jingling it.
“Last month,” Tanya told him, the
tone in her voice echoing the turmoil in his movements. He looked up at her,
only for her to repeat, “It was last month, if you were wondering. A few days
before we found you.”
“Oh.” He shrugged reservedly, as if
a hundred pound weight was pressing down upon both of his shoulders. “I didn’t
know…Drag—he didn’t feel free to keep
me up on current events.”
“Only once one is rendered silent
does the oppressor finally succeed,” Grin’s calm voice rumbled through the
silence.
Slowly everyone turned to look at Grin, who
bore his eyes into Nosedive’s. “Do not be afraid to speak his name, young one.
It only induces the fear you hold of him. He cannot hurt you here.”
Nosedive didn’t meet the concerned
glares of his teammates, as he fiddled with the wrapping paper on the box. “So, how’d you know my hatching day was a
month after the Zenith?” he asked, raising his eyes to the team. They glistened
with unshed tears, as Nosedive avoided looking directly at Grin.
“Uh…” Wildwing inhaled a deep,
nervous breath as he suppressed his body’s tendency to tighten. “You said it
was when we were coming back from Twin Beaks, remember? You were bummed out
that you missed your first Trials and—”
“You remembered that?” Nosedive’s
cheeks reddened as he looked once more at the present. “I can’t believe you
remembered that.”
Wildwing shrugged. “Hey, you’re my
brother. Your hatching day is important to me.”
“Yeah, but…I said that months ago!”
He laid his hand back on Wildwing’s arm. “I mean, Stars…I don’t even remember what I said two seconds ago!”
“Do you want to open your presents
now or just stand here and dwell on my idiosyncrasies?”
Nosedive smirked and ripped open the
first box in his hands, revealing a pair of ski goggles. He looked at them
intently, head cocked to the side.
“How’d you know I like to
snowboard?”
“You mentioned it once.”
“What else have I mentioned?”
“Oh, I dunno. How about—”
*^*^*
“Ye-ha-HA!” Nosedive let out as he
zipped down the mountain, passing by a slower human on skis. Waving strands of
his blonde hair peeked out from his new snowcap, while his eyes were obscured
by his new goggles. Dressed in his brother’s jersey and a pair of snow pants,
he weaved around another potential Olympic prodigy and bent his knees at the
sight of the hill up ahead. As he came to the end of the jump, he ollied off
the lip and zoomed into the air. Bringing his knees inward toward his chest,
his arms out wide, he savored the frigid air. The Saurians, the ducks, the
world—there was nothing else but he and the air—then he landed, snow sprinkling
from the side of his board. A twinge of nostalgia panged him as he saw out of
the corner of his eye another person land. For a brief, fleeting moment, he
thought he saw his father, lagging sluggishly behind him, wobbling unfamiliarly
on his snowboard. He held his breath and looked over his shoulder, only to see
Wildwing, Canard, and Tanya following breathlessly behind him. While he loved his
brother with all his heart, he sorely missed his father and their hatching day
trips. There wouldn’t be anymore. No more pressing from his father to find out
his latest girlfriend. No more teasing about dropping him as they teetered
thousands of feet above the ground while climbing the
Coming to another edge, he let his thoughts dwindle as
guilt began to sink in, and he sprung off the second lip, sucked his legs
inward and met the board with his hand. He released the board and absorbed the
landing, spinning 180 degrees. Reaching the end of the trail, he spotted Duke
standing at the opening of the lodge, looking at the people who passed. A
nervous jittering festered in his stomach, but Nosedive hid it under a cocky
grin. He splashed Duke with snow as he slid to a stop directly in front of the
older duck…and waited.
“Hey! I’m standin’ here!” Duke wiped
the snow furiously from his face, then turned. He leaped two steps back,
startled by the closeness of his captain’s brother.
“Miss me?”
“Man, kid. You just left five
minutes ago! How’d you get back here so fast?”
Tanya, Canard, and Wildwing glided
to halts behind Nosedive, taking off their goggles.
“I almost forgot how much fun that
was!” Tanya commented brightly.
Nosedive unclipped his boots from
his board, then pushed between Canard and Wildwing. Hurrying up the mountain,
he shouted, “I’m going again!” to his exhausted brother, whose shoulders
slumped immediately.
“This’ll be the sixth time?”
“Seventh,” Canard corrected.
“Oh, are you sure?”
“Actually,” Tanya interjected with
sigh, “this’ll be the eighth.”
“Damn.”
Canard pulled his goggles over his face
and situated them over his eyes again. “Whose idea was it again to take a
hyperactive, adrenaline addict snowboarding?”
“I think it was Wildwing’s,” Tanya
chimed, picking up her board.
“Sure, blame the older brother,”
Wildwing replied good-naturedly.
“Nah. I’m blaming the team captain.”
Canard grinned. “I say we mutiny.”
“Wing!” Nosedive called impatiently
as he reached the lift. “Are you com—” Wildwing turned around to yell back when
his eyes widened suddenly. “Nosedive! Look—!”
Turning around, but not nearly fast enough, Nosedive gasped
as a snowboarder blindsided him, sending the two tumbling down the small
incline. Detangled from one another, they slid to a halt at the bottom of the
hill, groaning loudly, Nosedive cursing under his breath to no end.
“Dive! Nosedive,
you okay?” Wildwing rushed up to him and knelt by his brother.
Nosedive, lying face-up, his hat and goggles missing from
his head, winced and opened his eyes with caution. “I didn’t think checking was
allowed in snowboarding.”
Smirking, Wildwing looked at Tanya as the blonde medic
leaned over Nosedive’s body. “Are you hurt?”
“Define hurt,” he cringed, using his elbows to lift his
upper body off the snow. “By my dictionary, I’m somewhere between throbbing
pain and stabbing agony.”
Pressing her hand into his chest, Tanya pushed him back
into the snow. “Move, and you might lose something.”
“You’re joking.”
Bending over his head and obscuring Wildwing, Tanya tugged
open one of Nosedive’s eyelids wider, studied it, then repeated the motion with
the other. “You know anything about medicine or tending to bodily injures?”
“Uh…no.”
“Then move at your own risk.”
“Buggar.” Nosedive grimaced, waiting to hear his brother’s
response to his swear. Please don’t have
heard that! Luckily, as Tanya disappeared, Nosedive redirected his gaze to
an amused Wildwing, who seemed to be enjoying something out of the teen’s range
of vision.
“Scoping the person who hit me? Anyone I know?”
“No, but it’s definitely someone who wished he never knew
you.”
“Canard taking care of it?”
“Canard and
Duke.”
Nosedive blinked, completely surprised. He couldn’t have
heard that right. Lost in thought, he almost yelped when a prick pinched his
left leg. “Bro?”
“Yeah?”
“Please tell me there’s nothing sticking out of my leg.”
Wildwing chuckled softly. “There’s nothing sticking out of
your leg. Tanya’s just making sure nothing’s where it shouldn’t be.”
“There’re no signs
of concussion, and his legs aren’t broken,” Tanya informed distantly.
“Rock!” Nosedive pulled his knees to his chest, then
struggled to pull his upper body up. Wildwing placed his hand behind Nosedive’s
back and helped the teen into a sitting position. Elbow on knee, Nosedive
touched his lower back with his other hand, finally realizing the burning
sensation. “Man, that stings.”
Oh, Stars, did he
just say that out loud?
The distinct sound of yelling caught his attention, and he
peeked over his shoulder. Duke now had the snowboarder who hit him by the
collar, while Canard shouted something not so nice into the guy’s face. Oh,
would Nosedive hate to be that guy.
Abruptly, Tanya’s hand jerked him from the entertainment
when she grabbed his jersey and yanked up the back of his shirt.
“Hey!” He sprang to his feet and whirled, looking down at
Tanya. “I’m fine! Okay? I’m fine!”
“Your back? Is it sore?” she asked, standing up and
ignoring his rant. “You might have pulled something.”
Rolling his eyes, Nosedive fought a cringe as another wave
of fire blazed through the area. “Soreness isn’t the word I’d….” His words trailed
on as he noticed Wildwing walk behind Tanya and reach down for something in the
snow. Straightening, the older brother held something silver shimmering in his
hands.
The H.O.C.-Key.
“I think you lost this, little brother.” Stretching around
Tanya, he held it out to Nosedive.
The teen frantically felt under his jersey and about his
neck, noticing the bareness. Snatching the necklace and slipping it on, he
reveled in its comforting presence that it brought. “Stars, I can’t believe I
almost lost this! That guy is so gonna get the Mr. T special—”
His voice cracked as he failed to hold in the twinge of
pain.
Wildwing stared at his brother, eyes trembling with
concern. “Dive—”
“You know, I really, really, really, really—you don’t know how much—have to go to the bathroom.” Slowly,
he crept away from his shocked brother. “I’ll be right back.” With percolating
vigor from somewhere, the teen dashed toward the lodge.
Mallory shushed to halt on her skis next to Wildwing and
Tanya, both staring at the teen’s back as he hurried off into the building.
“Where’s he going?”
“Bathroom,” Wildwing answered quietly. He shook his head in
disbelief as he turned to his two female counterparts. “Why do I get the
feeling that’s not all what’s up?”
“I got that the other day, too,” Mallory informed. “When we
were coming out of McDonald’s, he just dumped all the bags in my arms and ran.”
“Something’s wrong,” Wildwing growled, staring back at
where his brother left. “I just don’t know what.”
“How much do you know?”
He stared back at Mallory, frowning. “Huh?”
She shrugged under his glare and looked past him. “How much
do you know about him anyway? You’ve known each other less than a year. He
never talks to us about what happened before he was with his father or when he
was with Dragaunus. I tried to get him to open up yesterday, and I didn’t get
any farther than his hatching day.” Sighing, Mallory ruffled her hair and
leveled Wildwing with a stern gaze. “He’s hiding something. The question is:
what and how bad is it?”
“He’s not a traitor, Mallory,” Wildwing seethed with barely
contained rage.
“I didn’t say he was.”
“Then what were you saying?”
“Wildwing,” Tanya interrupted calmly, touching his
shoulder, “his back is bothering him.”
Wildwing blinked. “So?”
“His back,” the blonde medic emphasized. “His back.”
“What does that
have to do with anything?” Mallory snapped.
Wildwing felt his heart stop as his breath formed a cloud
in front of his face. As he continued to stare at Mallory, his neck slowly
cricked to gaze at Tanya. “You don’t…I mean, that can’t have anything to do
with…It’s just a…”
“But…what if it isn’t just a—? What if it does…you know…?
What if it’s more than just ink?”
Wildwing couldn’t answer as his beak suddenly became dry.
He closed his eyes as his entire body suddenly felt tired, and the faint
feeling swirled in his head. As he took a deep, drawing breath, his eyes shot
open when he felt the sudden presence behind him. Turning as a shimmer of green
dispersed about him, he activated his ice shield just in time to block the
laser shot.
Deactivating his shield, Wildwing ducked a slash of
Wraith’s fire sword, then attacked with a puck from his gauntlet. It dissolved
into ashes before hitting the ancient mage, as the Saurian conjured up a
fireball.
“Surrender what is rightfully Lord Dragaunus’s, and you
will be spared.”
“Why don’t you cold-blooded creeps go sit on a block of
ice?” Ducking the fire ball aimed at him, Wildwing brought his gauntlet to bear
but was rendered ineffective as a force smacked into Wraith’s side, throwing
the Saurian into the side of the lodge.
Grin cracked his knuckles as he stood next to Wildwing. He
nodded once and took off toward Siege and Mallory.
However, the redheaded mallard needed no assistance. She
delivered a roundhouse kick to Siege’s chest, knocking him backwards but not
off his feet. With a puck shot by Tanya, Siege collapsed to his knees as a boa
restrained him.
Wildwing dragged Wraith by the tail toward Siege and turned
to the last of the group, Duke and Canard, who had obviously abandoned their
attack on the suicidal human. Canard punched the green steroid-taking baseball
player, then ducked as Duke flew over his head, kicking Chameleon straight in
the stomach. Taking a hold of the Chameleon’s arm, Canard threw him over his
shoulder and into Siege, creating a lizard pile.
The team encircled them, puck launchers poised, sword
acute, muscles rippling.
“Game’s
over, Dragoons,” Canard sputtered, eyes burning with hatred.
“I do not believe you fully
understand the situation, Bronzeplume,”
a malicious tone claimed from behind them.
Mallory gasped as she looked beyond
Wildwing and Canard. Meeting her eyes, Wildwing crept about slowly, his heart
freezing in his chest. A dreaded coldness swept over him, consuming his being.
“Nosedive…” he breathed,
demoralized.
Dragaunus’s hand scrunched
mercilessly around his neck, Nosedive hung helplessly in the overlord’s grasp.
Eyes widened in complete terror, his hands clawing in hopeless desperation at
the hold, he gagged as air failed to reach his lungs. His legs dangled feet
above the snow, feet pointed downward, beseeching to the ground.
“Drop your weapons or watch him
die,” Dragaunus demanded of the ducks. He squeezed his hand in emphasis,
gaining a strangled cough from Nosedive.
“Stop!” Wildwing screamed,
immediately lowering his weapon. The other ducks followed suit, dropping their
puck launchers and sword to the ground.
Chameleon tore Siege’s binds apart,
releasing the lizard. Smacking into Mallory’s shoulder as he passed to join his
overlord, Siege laughed haughtily. “You mangy mallards thought you could stop
us.”
“Let him go, Dragaunus,” Wildwing
ordered, his voice rancorous from anger.
“No,” the overlord smiled venomously
at Nosedive as he pulled the trembling teenager closer to his face, then
lightly brushed the back of his free hand against the teen’s cheek feathers. “I
think I’ll keep him as a token of my time on Puckworld.”
Nosedive shunned away as he struggled to breathe. “Screw… yourself, Draga—”
The overlord backhanded Nosedive across the face, rendering
the teen into a daze. Oozing from the side of his beak, blood dribbled down his
chin. The teen’s hands slipped from Dragaunus’s fist as his body melted of
resistance.
“That is Lord
Dragaunus to you, boy, or do we need to season
you again?”
With a horrifying realization,
everyone realized why Nosedive never finished Dragaunus’s name.
Nosedive’s left hand fumbled behind his back as Dragaunus
regarded his mage. “You have your sanies,
Wraith. Now do with him as you need.”
“NO!” Wildwing shrilled, taking a step forward, only for a
blaster to appear by Nosedive’s head.
“Move and he will perish,” Dragaunus warned.
Wildwing stopped in his tracks, paralyzed with
soul-wrenching fear. His face, maskless, looked torn, unsure what to do but
desperately needing to save his little brother.
Nosedive looked back at Dragaunus,
tears streaming from his eyes as Wraith opened his mouth—
*BANG!*
The world and everyone in it froze.
Wildwing held his breath as he
observed Dragaunus’s expression stiffened. Wraith’s mouth gaped. Siege stared
at his overlord in disbelief, as Chameleon didn’t move—still in a baseball
player form.
Slowly, a drip of crimson befell
upon the immaculate snow.
Then all hell broke loose.
*^*^*
Released from the death grip, Nosedive collapsed to his
knees with a grunt as Dragaunus stumbled backward, arm gripping his stomach.
Looking up, the teenage mallard stared at the puck launcher in his hand
incredulously, realizing what he did.
He shot his liege, his
lord!
He might have well just turned the launcher on himself!
“You’ll pay for that, you worthless, wretched —” Siege
lunged for the stunned Nosedive.
Shaking his head, Nosedive flinched at the insult but
brought his puck launcher
to
bear. He eyed Siege and fired twice. He rolled upon the ground as one of the
pucks slammed into Siege’s arm, knocking off his feet.
With a loud roar, Chameleon punched
at Nosedive, but the younger mallard ducked the attack and countered with an
uppercut to the chin before delivering a sidekick to Chameleon’s stomach.
A reverberant screech, hellish, pain filled, sounded behind
him. He whirled to see Wraith throw a fireball at him—
—an ice blue shield erected in front
of him, and Wildwing stepped before his brother, blocking the shot.
“I don’t think so!” Wildwing
retorted, firing twice. The pucks passed through Wraith as his body faded into
the air, and the Saurian vanished.
Looking around, Nosedive panted as
he saw the other ducks race toward him but saw no sign of the Saurians. The
only evidence left of their malevolent race was the grisly crimson splotch of
snow, tainted by his lord’s blood—the blood he spilt.
He shivered as Wildwing said
something to him, voice filled with worry and apprehension. He didn’t hear what
was asked of him. He couldn’t. His entire, rapt attention was focused upon that
blood.
He waited, detached from everyone and everything, ignoring
his brother and team as they pleaded to him to answer.
He waited for the pain. He waited
for his life to end. He felt someone grab him close and shake him slightly, but
he couldn’t redirect his attention.
When was it going to come? Would it
be fast? Would he suffer? Would his brother witness it? How would his death
come? How, damnit!
“NOSEDIVE!” Wildwing clutched his brother by
the shoulders and shook him hard.
Nosedive’s head snapped backwards,
sending a stab of pain shooting through his neck. With a hiss, the teen
grimaced as the outside world finally broke through his thoughts.
“Wing?” Nosedive would have shaken
his head but instead rubbed the space between his eyes, a headache forming.
“I’m okay…”
Wildwing let out a heavy sigh, his
breath blowing Nosedive’s bangs gently. “Stars, little brother, you scared me
for a moment there. What happened? You spaced out.”
“I just…It’s…I’m...” He wanted to
tell Wildwing. He wanted nothing more than to hug his brother and just spill
until his beak was dry, and there was nothing more to say. He wanted to ask for forgiveness. It wasn’t his
fault. There was nothing he could’ve done, but Wildwing wouldn’t understand.
“I’m fine…” he resigned hollowly, his voice hoarse from
Dragaunus’s beating.
As he met Wildwing’s eyes, pain writhed through his neck.
He hissed again, and Wildwing rubbed the injured area tenderly, from his beak down
to where his neck connected to his torso, not really helping the throbbing.
Yet, somehow, it seemed to soothe Nosedive’s jitters.
Soft, gentle hands
probed his neck from behind—Tanya, Nosedive guessed. He didn’t dare move for
fear of another pang. His brother smiled sadly down at him before changing back
to his normal clothes and wiping the blood from Nosedive’s beak with his
sleeve. Wildwing’s eyes checked him over, absorbing every inch of his
disheveled and bruised body. Frowning
slightly, he focused poignantly on Nosedive’s left eye.
“And just when I thought we’d finally gotten rid of your
Shark colors.”
Nosedive sighed and looked down to the ground as Tanya
rotated his neck to the side.
“Hey! Pain isn’t
an illusion to me!” he yelled as a twinge of agony flourished.
Immediately the hands fled from his neck as he stared at
Wildwing’s chest and refused to meet his brother’s concerned gaze.
A heavy silence bestilled upon the group.
“Kid?” Duke called softly. “You know what they said…it
ain’t true. You’re not their…sanies.”
Nosedive didn’t raise his head as he fought the tears that
persisted until they trickled over the rims of his eyes. He couldn’t meet his
brother’s pitiful glare as he felt the worrisome eyes upon him.
He winced as he felt the pain fade from his back, though a
mild stinging persevered. He failed to hold in everything that tore at his
chest, that was safely locked inside him as strong arms curled around him and
beckoned him close.
It was then, held
tightly by his brother, staring with terrified eyes into Wildwing’s chest, the
horrifying realization sunk into his being. As he hadn’t done with his father,
as he hadn’t done with Blade and Lucretia, as he hadn’t done with Falcone, he
saw the end coming.
To Be
Continued…