“Fallen Angel”
Interlude: Matter of Opinion
Wildwing was tired. In the past four hours, his team had prevented three robberies, two shootings, and six arrests, the latter of which almost occurred because Captain Klegghorn just “felt like it.” Wildwing shook his head as he leaned against the wall of the elevator. Thank the Stars for Duke’s quick talking and lithe fingers, that’s all he had to say.
The elevator jarred to a stop, and Wildwing was the first one off. He quickly switched into his normal clothes and pulled off the Mask, placing it in a pouch on his hip. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he needed to take it off for his little brother. Nosedive seemed to look at it weird when he wore it, and he didn’t want to make Nosedive feel uncomfortable. His brother still was a little uneasy from his past being spilled out like a soap opera, and though he didn’t say it, he was embarrassed for having returned to Dragaunus. Nosedive even blushed when he caught his teammates staring at his back. Though they couldn’t see it under his shirt, they all knew the Stigma was there, and they all knew what it meant.
Wildwing tried to push the dark thoughts from his mind when he entered the Main Room. A natural smile formed on his beak when he spotted Nosedive sprawled across the couch. He visually relaxed, his body losing tension now knowing the team had come back from patrol, and Nosedive hadn’t run away again.
Nosedive sat up as they entered the
room and returned his brother’s smile, as if to say, “I’m still here, bro.”
Though all he said out loud was, “Hey, bro. How was
“Same as it was yesterday,” Wildwing commented, dropping to the couch next to his brother.
“I wouldn’t know,” Nosedive snapped.
Wildwing mock-glared at his little brother. “Good because if you did, that would mean you went out.”
Nosedive simply resolved to sticking out his tongue and turning back to the TV.
“Anything good on, kid?” Canard asked, sitting down on the opposite side of Nosedive.
The teen shrugged. “I haven’t been able to find anything good to watch on Earth, so in that perspective, no.”
As he flipped through the channels, suddenly Mallory shrieked, “STOP!”
Nosedive tensed abruptly and shot a look toward her. “WHAT?”
“Channel four, please,” she said sweetly, and he simply scowled her way. However, he obeyed.
On the TV appeared a woman in her late forties with long blonde hair and a white long-sleeved shirt with a pink skirt. She stood in the middle of a platform of sorts with a screen behind her. “Hello, I’m Mary Hart and welcome to Entertainment Tonight. On the program—”
“Sweetheart, please tell me we’re not going to watch this junk,” Duke pleaded, sitting on the arm of the chair she occupied.
She hit him on the thigh. “Hey, come on! We’re on this sometimes, you know. It might not be a bad idea to see what they’re saying about us.”
Nosedive snorted disbelievingly. “You’re on this?”
Tanya sighed, commiserated, from behind the couch. “Are you kidding? We’re in People magazine more than Brad Pitt.”
“What? And who?”
“You’re better off not knowing,” Wildwing smiled, hitting his brother on the shoulder.
Mallory leaned forward in her chair, swiping her hand. “Hey, guys! SHH! We’re on again!”
Nosedive hit the volume up, causing Wildwing to focus on the screen. He blinked, his eyesight betraying him. He closed his eyes, then opened them again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He felt his little brother tense against him, and a little gasp escape the teen’s beak. Wildwing had the same reaction, for on the screen behind the blonde woman was a candid shot of Nosedive!
“New to the
“What! I’ve only been out of the Pond once!” Nosedive shouted.
Wildwing winced at the panic in voice, but forced himself to be rational. “Calm down, baby bro,” he said, nuzzling Nosedive’s forehead. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
The motion had the desired effect when Nosedive relaxed slightly and fell back on the couch. Still, he was peeved. “Sure, it’s nothing to you. You’re not plastered on the screen like a drug-addicted, reject, washed-up actor,” he grumbled, looking away. “They want wild, I can give them wild.”
“Please be advised that some of the images we are about to show are graphic. Now, here with the story is Vanessa Minnillo,” the blonde reported.
Wildwing shared a confused glance with Nosedive. Graphic? What could they show that could possibly be graphic?
The TV picture switched to a poor quality black and white image from what looked like a dashboard of a cop car. Wildwing glanced down at Nosedive, who gaped suddenly, blinking rapidly, at the sight of himself—battered and bleeding. In the image, he wore ripped and muddied clothes, while his hands were bond in front of him. He pointed a blaster toward the ground, while staring unsurely at the police.
Wildwing sighed forlornly, remembering the day poignantly. It still hurt to think how close he was losing to his little brother, and he forcibly pushed the thought from his mind. He wouldn’t, couldn’t think about it, and in affirmation, he wrapped an arm about Nosedive’s shoulders to hold the boy close.
A female’s voice cut through the
air. “When this image was slipped to the media a little over three months ago,
many of us didn’t know what to make of it. Who was this drake? Was he a symbol
of an invasion? Were really the peaceful ducks that had landed prior
Nosedive squirmed uneasily when he watched himself fire shots at Canard and Mallory before finally succumbing to Wildwing’s gas puck. He looked away, abashed. He must have realized just how close he came to killing the people whom he had become so close to since then.
Wildwing felt his brother jolt slightly and observed Canard’s elbow leaving Nosedive’s gut. His twin brother simply smiled at his kid brother. There were no hard feelings, the tan mallard conveyed, and Nosedive grinned back slightly.
When Wildwing redirected his focus to the screen, an Asian woman dressed in flashy clothes stood in front of the Pond, walking toward the camera that shot her. “When originally the question was brought to the attention of the Ducks’ manager, Phil Palmfeather, the media was denied the existence of the badly wounded teenage duckling.”
“Duckling?” Nosedive echoed, bemused.
“It’s the Earth word for ‘hatching,’ ” Tanya replied, ruffling his hair.
“However,” the woman on the TV continued, stopping and cocking her head to the side, “eventually, the truth would be uncovered, and like the ducks before, the answer would come in the form of hockey.”
A picture of Phil Palmfeather flashed up on the screen. The manager stood in front of a white wall with cameras and microphones around him. “Though I was previously misinformed,” he grumbled something under his breath, resembling, “Wildwing should have told me, so I could sign him earlier,” “a little over a month and a half ago, another duck did teleport to Earth.”
“The rumored teenage duck?” An off-screen journalist asked.
Phil nodded sharply. “Yes. Nosedive Flashblade, Wildwing’s little brother, arrived from their native planet of Puckworld. As you know, when the ducks left their planet, it was war-torn, in ruins. Wildwing left to help rid the planet of its totalitarian rulers, and subsequently, Nosedive became a victim of that war, almost fatally so.”
“STARS! He said that?” Nosedive beseeched to Wildwing. “How could you let him to say that!”
“I didn’t tell him what to say!” Wildwing said indignantly.
“And this duck was like no other,” the female narrator replied. “If you’ve been just transported from another dimension to Earth, where would your first stop be? After the obvious hockey arena,” the female voice paused as a picture of Nosedive on the bench during his first game switched to one of he and Mallory in a store, actually shopping for clothes, “the mall of course, and that’s exactly what our little teenage mallard did.”
Nosedive blushed and sat further back in his seat. Shifting, he relaxed when Wildwing pulled him closer and sent him a sympathetic smile.
“But this mallard definitely has a different taste than the original six. According to our fashion expert Steven Cojocaru.” The picture flashed to a man with great brown hair, wearing a black jacket and a purple shirt that didn’t at all go together.
The man pursed his lips. “This duck definitely is going through his rebellious teenage years. Just look at his long hair. Hello, can you say Bon Jovi?”
“Okay, now I want to know who they are,” Nosedive said to Mallory.
“But,” Steven continued, his voice raising alluringly, “what really sets this duck apart is his tattoo.”
Wildwing looked to Nosedive in shock, but the teen shouted crossly, “Hey! I don’t even know what a tattoo is!”
Suddenly, on the TV was a picture of Mallory and Nosedive stopping at a bench. The picture switched to Nosedive’s back as the teen unwrapped a sweatshirt from his waist. The video froze as the sweatshirt was just below Nosedive’s waistline, revealing a space in between his jeans and his newly brought tee-shirt.
Shown for the ducks and every watcher was a red and black taint in the form of a dragon’s head with a spiky tail and a slash over it.
His Stigma.
The remote dropped his sudden limp hand, and his beak dropped. He uttered only two words, devoid of feeling and completely unhinged, “Oh. Stars.”
“It looks like some sort of lizard tattoo. Possibly gang-related or—”
Canard quickly scooped up the remote and shut off the TV. Nosedive made no recognition as he sat rigidly in his brother’s embrace. Deep gasps of breath escaped his beak, and his eyesight slowly shifted downcast.
“Kiddo—” Wildwing started.
He was cut off by Mallory’s startled voice. “Dive, I’m sorry. I—I didn’t…I didn’t think…”
Nosedive didn’t seem to register her, as he shook his head in denial.
Wildwing could only imagine what his brother was thinking. In the short amount of time on Earth, Nosedive had endured nothing but pain and torture. Then, for the evidence of that torture and the lowest part of his young life to be plastered on TV like entertainment for the whole country to see…He squeezed his brother tightly, but the teen just stared blankly.
The door opened.
“KID!” Phil hollered excitingly, already on the phone. “You’ve got a bikini tattoo! Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know many jean companies will want you for their ads?”
“Phil!” Tanya snapped.
“What?” he griped, taking the phone down from his ear. “It’s so perfectly placed—and the colors! Not to mention that slash and the dragon—Wow! Whoever did that must have been a—”
Nosedive suddenly tore from his brother’s embrace and fled from the room.
“—master.” Phil looked bewildered at the incensed team glaring at him, all with expressions of resentment. “What I’d say? It’s a good job!”
Wildwing sighed, standing. “I’ll go to talk to him. In the meantime, will one of you escort Phil out and change his access code?”
“Wildwing?”
Stopping at the door, Wildwing turned just enough to see the redhead. “Mallory, it’s okay. I’m sure he doesn’t blame you.”
Wildwing gave his brother a few moments before knocking on his door. There was no answer.
He waited a few more moment, then knocked again. When he still received no answer, he punched his brother’s key code in. “Dive? You okay?” As he walked inside, Wildwing caught the sight of the bed, unkempt but empty. Miscellaneous dirty clothes were thrown or discarded about the room—He sent an extremely pointed glare at his jersey tossed carelessly on the floor beside the bathroom door. It was then he registered the noise of the shower in the background.
He furled an eyebrow. Why would Nosedive take a shower? “Dive?” He banged once on the door. “Kiddo, you okay?”
A hesitant, reproachful voice returned, “Go away!”
“Dive, come on. Come out. Really, it’s not that bad,” Wildwing fibbed. He knew just how bad it was. There would be reporters and all sorts of people asking the teen about the Stigma forever. Most would ask to see it.
“Leave me alone!” The teen yelled shakily.
Wildwing took a step back, hearing the harshness in his brother’s voice. Something was wrong, and he didn’t process the thought before he acted. Opening the bathroom door, he entered instantly and dashed to the shower curtain. Ripping it back, ejecting several of the rings holding the plastic to its pole, Wildwing gasped. His trembling eyes pored over the hunched-over boy at the bottom of the tub. His jeans unzipped and pulled down enough to reveal his taint, Nosedive held a bloody Brillo pad in his right hand, while cascading water washed away the fresh life force expelling from the teen’s back—his taint.
Nosedive looked up his brother, his eyes reflecting a myriad of fear and hopelessness. He quickly went back to scrubbing his back. “It won’t come off,” he repeated over and over as if in a trance. Tears trickled from his eyes. “It won’t come off…”
Wildwing instantly reached down and squeezed his brother’s hand with the Brillo pad. Blood soaked his once immaculate feathers. “Nosedive, stop that! You’re hurting yourself!”
“It won’t come off!” Nosedive screamed in his face and yanked his hand from Wildwing’s. Immediately, he commenced scrubbing again. He hissed in pain and grimaced, but continued to scratch the taint.
“STOP!” Wildwing scrunched the boy’s hand in his own until the Brillo pad fell to the tub’s floor. Wrapping both of his arms about Nosedive’s waist, he lifted the boy, despite his trashing, out of the tub.
He spilled the teen onto his bed, Nosedive shivering from the colder temperatures of the bedroom against his wet body. Wincing when he saw the blood staining the white blanket, sheet, and his own clothes, Wildwing sunk to his bed and reached for his brother. Nosedive pushed his back against the wall next to his bed, out of Wildwing’s reach. His eyes were blank, vacant.
The teen uttered one sentence, broken and dismayed, “It won’t come off…”
Wildwing lurched to his kin, but when Nosedive refused to acknowledge him, he snatched the teen’s hands, cupping his around his brother’s smaller ones. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he murmured truthfully. His own tears reddened his already ruddy face. “It doesn’t.”
“I’m a slave,” Nosedive admitted abashedly, shunning away.
“No. No, you’re not, Nosedive,” Wildwing affirmed, tugging his brother to him. “You’re free.”
The teen buried his face in his brother’s chest. “I bear my lord’s crest.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m attached to him for eternity.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It won’t come off,” the teen said pleadingly, as if the Stars heard them, they would take away his anguish.
Wildwing jerked his brother away from his chest and stared firmly into the teen’s fearful and lost eyes. Sternly, unrelentingly, Wildwing said, “It doesn’t matter. Not to me.”
Nosedive returned to his place at his brother’s side, clutching Wildwing’s shirt, absorbing his strength, his warmth, his love. A strained cry in the form of a question, “If you knew back in the resistance cell what you know now, would you still have called me your baby brother?”
The answer was instantaneous. “Without a doubt.”
“Would you
still have tried to save me in the
“I would
have taken you with me when Canard and I left the resistance cell. You would
have never been in the
“Even if I had the Stigma before?”
“Especially if.”
Nosedive leaned against Wildwing, one arm draped over his brother’s stomach, his head against Wildwing’s chest. “It won’t come off…”
“It will,” Wildwing promised, a sacred vow, “one day.”
Staying in his brother’s grasp, Nosedive reveled in his brother’s sheer presence. He sniffled, but relaxed against Wildwing when his older brother whisked his bangs.
A muted beseeching tore at his throat, “It doesn’t matter to you?”
Wildwing tightened his hold on his brother and nuzzled the teen on the top of his head. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Nosedive smiled slightly and sunk into his brother’s embrace. His eyes drooped shut; his breathing slowed. Within a few moments, Wildwing smiled contentedly and gently shifted himself into a more comfortable position against the wall. He couldn’t move too much, for fear of waking his sleeping brother.
Titling his head back against the wall, he embraced his brother. He wouldn’t be able to move for a little while, but he didn’t mind. His brother was alive, though troubled, but as long as he held Nosedive safe in his arms, everything was okay.
And one day, it would come off.
He hugged
his brother tightly in emphasis. I
promise.
Fin!