Rematch, part 5

Written by Zelda

 

                Wildwing wiped his brow in satisfaction.

                "I think I got it." he smiled, leaning up from the console. The red letters on the screen had faded.

                "Me too." Mallory called. "Lookie what I found."

                Wildwing looked up to have a launcher tossed to him.

                Mallory emerged from a storage closet with her arms full of their gear.

                "Excellent." Wildwing scooped up his loose pucks and reloaded his arm launcher to the fullest. He pocketed his brother's launchers and Tanya's Omnitool, while Mallory reloaded her cannon and tucked Grin's launcher at her side.

                Duke had his sabre, smoke pucks, and grappling puck returned to him, which he slowly stored away.

                Wildwing patted his arm. "Well now we can finally deal with those Saurians instead of running from them, which means we can leave now."

                "Yahoo." Mallory said grimly. "First we're gonna have to find everyone else."

                Wildwing looked at his restrapped com. "And that's going to be a problem." Suddenly, a burst of red laser fire shot up the huge computer screen, making the glass shatter and fall in on itself.

                Wildwing stood up quickly.

                "I have a feeling our problem is solved." Mallory cocked her cannon and slowly walked behind the chair.

 

                Her lungs burned as if there was a fire inside them. Tanya had grown to know that feeling, that feeling when your body was telling you that you'd had too much, that it was trying to use pain to make you stop. But Tanya knew that to stop was to die. The only hope she had was to make it back to the control room. But she had no idea where she was going. Sprinting down the dim halls and black stairwells had gotten her turned around in this place, Seige just a few lumbering footsteps behind her the whole time. How could he run that fast!? Moreso, how was she running this slow? She was so tired. She slammed herself through a doorway and bounded into another hall, to realize joyfully that this was the hall to the control room! And there were sounds of combat. She thought that Seige was gaining on her, but the sounds were coming from ahead! Was Wing in trouble? Tanya had second thoughts of running into the room, could it be a dead end? A laser blasted on her heels. Tanya decided to go for it. She charged into the room, now having some room to maneuver. She darted to the left and spun around to see Seige come lumbering in after her, just as tired as she. The moment Tanya stopped, her body seemed to slowly freeze up, wanting to preserve the moment of rest. Tanya shoved off of her toes and ran again, for the large chair in the center of the room. She ran around it for cover, and nearly slammed into Duke!

                "Whoa! Easy Tanya!" he yelled.

                Tanya stopped, gasping for breath, wide-eyed. "What's.... going on?" she panted.

                "Wraith's somewhere in here." Duke propped himself out of the chair.

                "So is Seige!" Tanya cried.

                They could hear his footsteps lumbering closer and closer.

                Duke took out one of his smoke pucks and waited. At the first flash of orange around the bend, he hurled the puck and Seige disappeared, hacking and wheezing, inside the thick black cloud of smoke.

                "That should keep him outta our hair, eh?" Duke chuckled.

                Suddenly, something hit Tanya on the side of the head, not hard. She stooped down and picked up her Omnitool! "Finally!" she grinned, putting it back on her wrist. "Where are the others?"

                "Over there somewhere I'd guess." Duke tried to stand again.

                "Whoa, relax. Keep a eye on Seige for me." Tanya nodded to him and ran off into the room. Wraith had better look out, she was in no mood to play nice.

 

                Grin stared blankly along the shore, using his visor to shade his eyes. This was hopeless. He could trek across this whole island and not find a boat. Baron had to have one somewhere, but he had already swept the shoreline perimeter of the mansion, and had found nothing. He knew he should keep looking anyway, but still he wanted to get back and check how Zelda and Nosedive were doing, and whether they had continued their search as well. Finally he started to walk back, along the blinding white sand of the shore. Suddenly there was a watery roar in the distance. Grin immediately crouched on the ground, expecting some mechanical killer whale to come lunging at him. But there was something approaching the island in the distance, sparkling white and silver. Grin didn't feel a threatening presence, so he waited, squinting to see what it was. And then he finally recognized it: The Duck Foil! He instantly knew what this meant, and continued back for the jungle.

 

                The dragon could hear him coming from a long distance away, and was happy when he finally arrived. She hadn't moved an inch since Grin had left her, she was too tired and Nosedive was asleep. Zelda stood shakily as he came up to them both. "What's happening?" she asked.

                "The others have brought the Duck Foil here." Grin reported.

                "Are they aboard?"

                "Not yet, but we should do just that." Grin put Zelda on one shoulder and used his arm to support Nosedive. He began to wake up as Grin lifted him.

                "Wha...." he started, eyes groggy and half-open.

                "Easy Dive, we're going home." Zelda told him.

                "I'm cool with that..." he muttered.

                "Come on, let's walk back to the beach little friend." Grin started off slowly, still wary of the jungle around him.

 

                Wildwing was immensely relived to see the three unraveling themselves from the jungle foliage and coming towards the boat.

                Mallory ushered them on. "All aboard you three! We're shovin' off!" Zelda leapt off of Grin's shoulder and glided gently onto the white hood of the Duck Foil, sighing gratefully.

                "What's wrong with Dive?" Wildwing helped sit his brother gently in the back of the boat.

                "He got a little tranquilizer in him." Zelda explained. "He's just a little woozy."

                "What about Dragaunus?" Grin asked.

                "He'll be busy inside." Tanya said. "But not for long. Let's get outta here!" The boat's engine roared to life as the Foil gently pulled out into deeper water, spun about, and shot off into the water.

                "Ahh home free!" Mallory smiled. "Man I can't describe how great this feels."

                "YOU ARE NOT OUT OF ZE CLEAR YET DUCKS!" A harsh and scratchy voice boomed over the crystal water.

                "Not again!" Wildwing groaned. They all peered around a bend in the island, to see a huge metal triangle plowing through the water beyond it.

                "What the...." Tanya started.

                "You have gotta be kidding me!" Duke sighed.

                "Maybe we should have taken Baron's threat of hunting us with an aircraft carrier seriously." Grin mumbled. The huge metal ship loomed ominously, churning away from the island.

                "What are we gonna do?" Tanya began to panic.

                "That thing could have missles, torpedoes!" Mallory agreed. "They'd blow this little skiff right out of the water!"

                "Worse yet... he could have more of those... seagulls..." Nosedive gurgled sleepily.

                "Tanya, how much juice do we have in this thing?" Wildwing asked her.

                "The tank's full." Tanya answered, not taking her eyes off of the ship.

                "Then we can outrun him." Wildwing grinned slightly. "Everyone grab a hold of something." The other Ducks holed up against the back of the boat, while he prepared to gun the motor. Suddenly an explosion ripped up about twenty feet away. The waves rocked the boat violently.

                "Aww man I'm gonna be sick...." Tanya sniffled.

                "Hang on!" Wildwing yelled, and suddenly the boat shot forwards.

                "YOU CANNOT RUN DUCKS!" the voice boomed again, over a loudspeaker.

                "Then try and catch us." Wildwing yelled back, his voice blotted out by the churning water from the back of the boat. The Foil raced off as agilely as if it were a jetski.

                Mallory peeked over the top of the boat to see the island and the lumbering aircraft carrier disappearing quickly behind them. Another explosion ripped up next to the Duck Foil, nearly capsizing the boat. The occupants clung on frantically as it righted itself and sped off again.

                "Long range torpedoes, we'll have to move on this one!" Wildwing was yelling, nearly crouching at the steering controls. "Tanya, when will we be out of weapons range?"

                "Another half mile at this speed and we'll be in the clear." she yelled back to him.

                "We'll make it." he said confidently. Another explosion, this time much father away. Baron was losing his accuracy.

                Tanya watched her Omnitool as the Foil inched closer and closer to safety. "There! We're out!" she yelled.

                Wildwing slowed the boat only slightly, but everyone relaxed. Another explosion sounded behind them, this time so far away that the Foil barely felt the wake of it. Wildwing switched on the autopilot and slumped down on the floor with a relieved smile.

                "Whew."

                "You said a mouthful." Mallory agreed. "Man am I gonna kill Phil when we get back!"

                "I think 'Phil' is still in the storage closet where we left him." Wildwing snorted. "Now, everyone think they're gonna live until we get back?" he asked.

                Everyone chuckled slightly and nodded.

                "Good." the leader replied. "I almost feel sorry, that poor Medicom's gonna be running on overdrive."

 

                Tanya scratched her hand, the feathers worn and frazzled around the area with the cast. Man her wrist hurt. Two cracked bones... good thing it was the offseason. She was glad she was at least still able to work her keyboard, tapping away at the Medicom. At least she wasn't the worst off, poor Duke had two ribs snapped cleanly on his right side where Seige had hit him. How they didn't stab him clean through the lung was a mystery to her, but they merely bruised it. He was now resting comfortably, protesting just as well as Zelda that they were fine. Nosedive had woken up long ago, the tranquilizer wearing off on its own. Nosedive would probably be left with some permanent phobia of seagulls though! The Mask lay waiting for her on a table in her lab, to be repaired. And with the exception of bumps and bruises, everyone else was pretty much okay. The only thing they had in common was complete exhaustion. Tanya got up and walked out, the only thing she wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed! Of course the cast was going to be a problem... ahh who cared? At least she was home, and being home was half the matter.

 

                                                                                The End