Survivor

Part 2

Written by Zelda

 

                The sound of the sea and the wind had not faded with the dimming sunlight. As the sky grew fiery and the sun hung low on the horizon, Zelda’s eyes opened slowly, and she sneezed again. At first, she didn’t think about where she was, but that ignorantly blissful feeling was gone with the last shrouds of sleep. She slowly remembered why she was here, and who she was here with. But sunset? They both must have fallen asleep, they were so exhausted! This wasn’t good, they still needed to find water, and they couldn’t do it in the dark! The effort of standing also made Zelda remember just how tired her body was, having fought the powerful currents earlier that day. Was it only hours ago? It seemed like months!

                “Nosedive, get up…” her voice was still just as raspy. “Come on.” She turned to see the young Duck snort awake, obviously enjoying the opportunity to rest.

                “Aww… do I haveta?” he whispered dryly.

                Zelda pulled herself up beside him and nudged his shoulder. “Night’s falling, we have to find water before then.”

                “How far’s that?” he asked.

                “I don’t know.”

                “How big’s the island?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “Then why go looking?”

                “Stop procrastinating.” Zelda coughed. “If we don’t find water now, we won’t have the energy to by sunrise… We’ve swallowed too much salt water, it’ll overwhelm our systems if we can’t find a way to restore the balance…”

                “Whoa, you’re sounding like Tanya.” Nosedive said. He relented by drawing in a deep breath, grabbing a tree root, and pulling himself up to a sitting position. “Ow…” he muttered. “Sunburn…”

                “Me too.” Zelda nodded. “We shouldn’t have fallen asleep…”

                “You shouldn’t have woken me up.” he grumbled in reply. “This sucks…” He ran a hand through his straggly hair.

                Sneezing again, Zelda tried to stand tall and sniff the air around her. “We don’t have much time, come on.” Not waiting for him, she staggered off to the next tree, quickly leaning on it for support. She had forgotten just how strained all of her muscles were, this was going to be tough. Still, it would be a little easier to walk once they got off of this sand, and onto solid ground. Zelda swung her head back, patiently knowing that Nosedive would follow.

                Grumbling again, Nosedive reached for a palm frond, and used it to pull himself up to his feet, wincing and quickly holding his head. He leaned against the tree trunk and stood silently for a moment, stooped over.

                “Dizzy?” Zelda asked, perking her ears.

                “Yeah…” he managed.

                “Keep your head low, breathe deeply.” she nodded. “It’ll pass…” Or at least she hoped so. Nosedive was a lot bigger than she was, it took more energy to keep him going. And if he passed out on her now, there would be little she could do for him. But she was relieved as he slowly started to stand again, blinking quickly.

                “Dang.” he muttered.

                “Come on.” she pawed the sand as a gesture for him to follow her. “Once we find water, you’ll feel a lot better, I promise.”

                “Yeah?…” he slowly started to comply, shuffling through the sand. “Dragaunus told me the same thing once, only it was if I stood still while he tried to blast me to pieces…”

                Zelda couldn’t help but smirk a bit. “Got your sense of humor back, at least.” She sneezed and sniffed the air again. Heading straight inland would be their best bet.

                “But speaking of Draggy… You think we’re stranded here just ‘cause of dumb luck?”

                “No.” Zelda shook her head as she walked off. She actually had never had the time to think about how they had got here, and what had caused that freak storm. “Something’s definitely fishy about that…”            “Yeah, dunno just what though…”

                “We’ll find out.” she replied. “And the others’ll find us, I think they’re okay. We’ve just gotta worry about being in good shape when they get here.”

 

                “I just hope they’re in good shape when we get there…” Wildwing sighed, glancing back to Grin who sat in the back of the Foil, eyes closed and in deep thought.

                “I am almost certain that they are both alright.” he spoke quietly. “We must rest, regain our strength, and find them as soon as we can.”

                “Time is of the essence.” Tanya nodded. “If we’re right about that storm, we need to get out of here.”

                “So, tell me again why we’re not moving?” Mallory asked.

                “It’s called resting, sweetheart.” Duke opened an eye for a moment, from where he was slumped in the other back corner of the Foil. “We’ve been rowin’ for hours.”

                “Yeah well this is getting us nowhere!” she grumbled back. “I want to get to the others as much as the rest of you, that should be our first priority.”

                Wildwing sighed and looked out over the darkening water. “I know… but we’ve got to be prepared, just in case. Say that Dragaunus can cause these storms. If he’s waiting to strike us again, he’ll do it at night when we can’t see the storm coming. We need to be rested, in case…” he trailed off.

                “In case we have to swim.” Duke finished the sentence.

                “The Foil’s guidance system is still working, we can always keep rowing during the night.” Tanya spoke.

                Mallory sighed and rested her head against the back of the gently rocking Foil. She, like the rest of them, was exhausted. Her arms felt like ropes of twisted wet noodles, after all of the rowing they had done. It didn’t seem to get them anywhere, there was still nothing around them but miles of black water. And there were clouds in the distance, ringing the horizon and glowing orange on their undersides as they reflected the setting sun. It was eerie, and completely silent with the exception of the occasional wave lapping against the Foil. She closed her eyes to block out at least some of her sensory information. This whole thing seemed like something out of a movie. But Grin seemed to be keeping a positive frame of mind, and she trusted him to be able to tell whether or not the others were truly in danger. Still, it wasn’t much consolation. She just wanted to be home…

 

                With a yelp, she suddenly had lost her balance, pitching too far forward to recover herself. The next thing she felt was her snout digging into the soft, sandy soil, clogging up her nose.

                “Whoa…” Nosedive looked up at her, seeing one of her front feet had been snagged in a clump of tree roots. “Have a nice trip?”

                “Ha ha…” Zelda coughed weakly, her voice sarcastic. “So funny…” She trailed off as she pulled her elbows  back underneath her, readying herself to try and stand again. This was the second time she had tripped, and Zelda knew why it was happening, she was starting to feel too faint to concentrate on where she was walking. Especially now, as she tried to lock her joints and stand, glittery fragments were creeping across her field of vision, like white noise across a television screen. And if she was feeling this bad, Nosedive was probably barely able to stay standing. A quick glance back at him revealed the young Duck leaning heavily against a tree, eyes closed. Neither of them would make it much further at this rate.

                “Zel?” Nosedive asked, his knees starting to bend. “Can I take a break?…”

                She shook her head, but grew worried as she saw him starting to sit anyway. Maybe he couldn’t help it… “No Dive, we have to keep moving…” she insisted, nearly losing her balance again as she wrenched her forepaw from the roots that had caused her to trip in the first place.

                But Nosedive kept sinking, his back scraping down the bark of the tree, his knees starting to wobble as the joints lost their lock. Stumbling weakly, one leg buckled and sent him to the ground, still sitting against the trunk.

                “No Dive…” she repeated, her voice gaining a desperate tone as she turned and wobbled back to him. “We can’t stop…”

                “I’m… so tired, Zel…” he confessed, eyes still closed. “Not just… for a second?”

                “Come on…” she nuzzled his arm gently. “I’ll help you up again. We have to find water.”

                “I can’t…” he sighed, frustrated, thunking his head back dully against the tree trunk.

                Feeling helpless, the dragoness turned and looked at her surroundings. She could leave him here alone… but she wasn’t far from the point of collapse herself. And she still couldn’t smell any sign of fresh water anywhere! But suddenly, something cold and wet splatted down on the top of her head. Surprised, she shook it off, as more wet splashes hit all over her body. The forest started to sound off with a pattering noise as Nosedive opened his eyes again. “Well well…” Zelda smiled slightly. “Maybe we won’t have to move…” It was raining! Instead of trekking off to find it, the water had practically come to them! Zelda almost couldn’t believe their good luck. The coldness of the water was refreshing as the droplets ran off of her scales, helping to dissolve the cloak of salt that had crusted on them. Blinking and reaching up, she pulled a pair of huge, oval shaped leaves from a tree next to her, and folded a crease down the middle. “Here…” she handed it to Nosedive. “Find a place where the water’s dripping, and hold the leaf so the water runs into your mouth…”

                He fumbled with the leaf for a moment, and then leaned over enough to catch a dribble from a frond of the palm he was sitting underneath.

                Zelda found her trick to actually be more difficult, soon giving up and resorting to just holding her jaws wide open, gaping at the sky. In forest this dense, the water would be slow to come down. But it would, all of the rain couldn’t stay puddled in the canopy. The cold water was like a burst of liquid energy. This was exactly what they needed to get them back on their feet, and in large quantities. With all of the salt water she had swallowed, and the following dehydration on the beach, she’d need to take in at least a gallon of water before she could hold any sort of food down. “Drink all you can Dive…” she advised between short gulps.

                “All over that one…” he replied, his voice already starting to sound clearer and stronger than it had all day.

A gentle breeze rattled the leaves, and big droplets hailed down around them. Rubbing her flanks against some nearby bushes to get the salt off, Zelda was still concentrating on drinking herself. Another breeze floated by, slowly rising into a stronger wind. It was actually a bit chilly against her wet scales, but that was of little concern to her now, not after she’d been roasting out on that beach for the past few hours. All that she could focus on now was getting a good deal of fresh water into her. She sneezed again and shivered a little as another wind blew past the both of them. For several minutes, the two of them fell silent, drinking all that they could of the downpour. But after those few minutes of being exposed to the wind, they both started to get a little cold.

Nosedive had retracted back against the palm tree, the wispy fronds offering him little shelter at a time like this.

Zelda too, shivered a little, glanced back at him, and took a long last gulp of water.

“Do you think this is just a shower?” Nosedive asked her.

Zelda cleared her throat and looked upward, blinking the rain out of her eyes. She couldn’t see the clouds, not through the thick canopy of leaves. And in her tired state, there wasn’t much of her sense left for predicting the weather. “Kinda breezy… it might be a storm.” she shrugged.

Nosedive rubbed his arms and squeezed the saltwater out of his hair. “I feel a lot better.” he nodded. “Maybe I can stand up now…”

“Take it easy, then.” Zelda turned and paced back over to his side, noticing how much easier it was to move. In the cooling air, her muscles didn’t protest as much as they did before. “Here, I’ll help you up.”

Nosedive levered one hand against her head, and used the other to grab the tree trunk, to slowly push himself up again. His knees wobbled for a moment, but finally he took his hand away from Zelda and stood on his own. “Yeehaw.” he muttered.

“You gonna stay up this time?” Zelda asked.

“Hey, you tripped first.” he retorted. “So… now what?”

“Well…” Zelda looked around for a moment. “We got our water, I guess we should head back to the beach.”

“Just head back?” he frowned slightly, and then shivered.

“We’ll find some food along the way.” she nodded. “But I guess we should just go back and wait for the others, where we first got washed up.”

“Can we take a nap then, please?” he sighed.

                Zelda smiled slightly, backing away from him and looking back the way they had come. “Alright, then we’ll take a nap. Come on, I guess we should get started…”

 

                “I can see it.” Wildwing nodded. “This doesn’t look good.”

                “That storm’s almost directly to the south.” Tanya nodded, squinting into the dim light. “The clouds are all there.”

                “We should stay away then, don’t you think?” Duke asked. “Sooner or later that thing’s comin’ for us.”

                “Yeah, I don’t like this.” Mallory frowned. “That storm just came outta nowhere.”

                “As did the last one.” Grin nodded.

                “Well Mallory, looks like we’ll get some more rowing in after all.” Wildwing nodded curtly to her, causing Mallory to roll her eyes. “Paddles up everyone. I don’t know if it’ll do us any good, but we’ve got to try and steer clear of that storm.”

                The five Ducks grumbled as they mirrored their leader, picking up their paddles and starting to row again. Night was falling quickly, and once they lost sight of the storm clouds, they’d have no way of tracking where it was going. And with no guidance system working on board, they could paddle in circles for the whole night. Even worse, they could steer right back into the storm. All they knew was that they had to keep rowing.

 

                “Absolute fools.” Dragaunus chuckled, rapping his talons together as he steepled his claws. “I wonder if they even have enough brain power to think what they’re doing through.”

                “Hear that ol’ boy?” Chameleon had to jump high to give Siege a slap on the back. “That’s a compliment to YOUR IQ!”

                “Shut your face, pond scum.” Siege glowered at him, raising a fist in threat.

                “Both of you grow up.” Wraith sneered at them, a lip curled up in disgust.

                Dragaunus nodded slightly, still a little too lost in thought to pay attention to what was going on around him. “Siege, how is our power supply for the machine?”

                “Nowhere near depleted.” the leathery orange Saurian replied. “Power efficiency’s at 90%, ya thought good by having us build a smaller version of the one those aliens brought on down.”

                “That.” Dragaunus grumbled in reply. “Was not of our choosing. We had to be able to run the machine off of the Raptor’s impulse power, instead of an outside source. And as a result, that smaller machine can only affect a smaller area. Instead of blanketing all of Anaheim with snow, we can only flood out the parking lot of Disneyland.”

                “Hey, don’t do that! I still haven’t been on the teacups ride yet!” Chameleon interjected.

                Dragaunus rolled his eyes, shook his head, and went back to staring at the Raptor’s oversized control room screen. “We’ll keep our eyes on our target for now. Who would have known that we’d be chasing the rest of the Ducks farther away at the same time?”
                “Can’t we pleeeasse go down there?” Chameleon begged, hopping up and down to try and make himself look taller in light of Dragaunus sitting high up on his throne. “I mean, they’re just sitting there!”

                “Sitting Ducks!” Siege laughed.

                “Come on boss, this is totally unlike you!” Chameleon argued. “Let’s go get ‘em!”

                Dragaunus raised an eyebrow at Chameleon for a moment, and then smiled a little.

                “So impatient.” he chided. “This isn’t a mere hunt, we’re not just going to go in for the kill whenever we get the opportunity. We’re going to exploit those little fowl, we’re going to use this chance to make them sorry that they were ever hatched. And only then, when they’ve come to the point where they realize there’s no hope left....” He suddenly snapped a fist closed. “Then we crush them, one at a time.”

                Siege punched the air enthusiastically. Even Wraith looked to be satisfied with Dragaunus’s plan.

                “Stay your appetites for just a while longer.” the Overlord hissed, grinning. “We’ll have our roast Duck eventually, well-salted of course.”

                The thought of this sent all three of the henchmen into evil cackles. It didn’t help that they hadn’t eaten in quite a while, keeping track of the situation.

                “And those Ducks won’t even see it coming.” Dragaunus nodded confidently. He leaned over to a console on one of the arms of his throne, and started typing, changing the images of the storm that was brewing on screen.

 

To Be Continued…

 

Mighty Ducks-The Animated Series, including all logos and characters (except mine) are copyright and property of Disney. You may copy, print, or whatever with this document, so long as it is not altered and I (Zelda) am credited. Thanks!