To Watch the Fall, Part 2

Written by Zelda and Kelly

 

                Zelda slowly placed her forepaws back on the ground and sighed. The Medicom was of no help to her now, it only brought bad news. She left its whirring, cold, unfeeling mechanical self behind her as she walked to Wildwing's bed. It didn't care if Wildwing lived or died, it was one of the things she hated about machines. She reared up and looked at Wildwing. He was horrible. It hurt her just to look at him. She could tell. With every beat of his heart, he winced, tumbling into a deeper and deeper state of pain. She didn't want to see him like this at all. She knew there was a way to help, to end his suffering. But she couldn't bring herself to do that. Never in an eternity. To give up like that was weak and she knew Wildwing wouldn't hear of it. But then again, she wasn't the one with this disease. Wildwing was frozen sick, but Zelda knew his mind was still working in usual fashion. He was still thinking normally, too deep in pain to sleep and too tired to stay awake. She realized he must be horribly lonely, the others being too afraid to come visit him. She leaned closer to him and spoke.

                "Hey there Wing." she greeted warmly, quietly. "I don't want you to worry, I'll be here to take care of you." she assured. "I know you look pretty bad, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But I just can't see you giving up like this Wing. You'd hate to go out this way. Not with all you still have to do. You've got a team to lead, to coach. We've got a Stanley Cup to win my illustrious league's-best goalie." she smiled. "You've got a little brother to take care of. Most importantly, you've got an enemy to beat. Dragaunus did this to Canard and I know he's not going to get you too." Zelda told him. "So. I know it looks bad, but you know how I get those feelings? Well I'm not lying... I've got a feeling you're gonna beat this Wing. Somehow this whole thing'll just blow over. This  is scaring everybody sick. But I can't give up faith in you." She licked his cheek gently and receded. "Now you get your rest." she said. "We've got a big day tomorrow." Zelda plodded slowly out of the infirmary, looking for a place to lay down and cry in.

 

                Night was coming. Zelda sat outside shivering in the twilight. Night was coming, coming. Would it steal away with Wildwing's life, oh fickle night? How she used to find such comfort in the magical stars, the black cloak of velvet darkness! Now the stars were cold eyes staring at her, the darkness sharp and frightening. Wind blew sharply over the roof of the Pond. It spread Zelda's wings and tried to rise her up into the air. Zelda denied it and dug her claws into the roof of the Pond. She wouldn't let it take her away. What if the Pond were to just float away, taking the whole earth with it while she was up in the air? What if she never came back down? A storm was coming, Zelda could smell the sharp sting of electricity in the air. The door creaked open, and Tanya came out on the roof, the wind blowing her hair back. She beckoned for Zelda to come inside. Doggedly, the dragon turned on the hostile night and shut the door behind her. But up on the catwalks of the rink, she felt no better. Below her was the ice, sharp and cold and white. She was up in a realm of metal and dust and shadows. She shivered, trodding closely behind Tanya as they boarded the service elevator and went down to the highest level of seating. There they parted without a word. She turned into the rink, silent. It was too hollow, and big, and empty to offer her solitude. She turned away from it and walked down the corridor. Slowly, she made her way down, beneath the Pond. She went through the Ready Room and down the twisting, never-ending tunnels. Finally, she came to the infirmary. She opened the door and walked in slowly. But this place struck a deeper fear in her. The Medicom whirred steadily, droning on. The room was empty, lit by harsh florescent track lighting. And Wildwing lay in the middle, cringed and frozen in a horrible stance. Every finger curled, every muscle taught, to try and ebb away the disease that just wouldn't let go. Suddenly, something boomed loudly over her head. Thunder. The metal conducted sound well here. It was followed seconds later by the pounding of rain. Zelda looked around, and noticed Wing's goalie stick had been placed against the wall near his bed. So Dive had some in to visit him. Zelda smiled as she walked over to Wing's bedside and lay down, curling up on the metal floor. Suddenly, a sound rang through the halls, startling Zelda so that she almost hit her head on the bed getting up. Drake 1's alarm. The team quickly ran to the infirmary door to meet her.

                "This can't be Dragaunus NOW!" wailed Mallory. Tanya quickly checked on the alarm from her com.

                "I'm afraid it is. Teleportation energy reported at the Starchaser observatory." she sighed.

                "This can't be happening." Grin whined, slumping over.

                "Well it is! We have to deal with it..." Duke started.

                "Duke's right... we have to answer to this." Mallory said.

                "Zelda, you stay behind with Wildwing. We'll keep in touch." Tanya ordered, as the team ran off.

                "Be careful!" she called after them, as they disappeared around a bend. She went back into the infirmary stormily.

                "The nerve of Dragaunus to make a trouble at this time." she whined, hanging her head between her shoulders. She reared up beside Wildwing.

                "Don't you worry Wing, we remember what happened LAST time we went into battle with no leader, and the guys'll be sure to work together this time." she smiled. Quietly, she receded and lay down again. Waiting for her teammates was horrible, and she soon got so worried she gave up and tried to fall asleep, fearful of what news the morning would bring. But she realized that she didn't want to sleep, not with Wing there. She didn't want to leave him all alone at a time like this. She reared up again.

                "Jeez this place is quiet." she said slowly. She thought for a moment and then smiled. "I bet I know what the guys are doing riiiight now." she told him. She knew that Wing needed to be talked to, to hear someone's voice. "Picture it Wing." she spoke in her normal, friendly voice. "They'll roar up in the 'Grator, leap out, and you can just imagine all the henchmen going "Oooooh noooooo!"!!! And then you know what happens from there." she laughed. "They all pull out lasers and launchers and have a big firefight as usual, and maybe a few drones would get involved. You know how it is. But heck, what's a few drones to us huh? We'd smash 'em faster than Grin can mow through a forward line." Zelda closed her eyes. She could speak normally if she couldn't see his face. "Just picture it Wing. Isn't it great? Just missing the two of us, and then everything would be as it should."

 

                Ugh, Mallory hated being wet at a time like this. Soaked and freezing from being out in that storm, she was also exhausted. None of the team had gotten any sleep last night. It was hard enough to keep Duke awake while he drove back to the Pond in the early hours! Mallory brushed back her ragged wet hair. All she wanted to do was get back to the Pond. Dragaunus had put up a lousy fight. The battle itself hadn't lasted more than ten minutes, but the observatory was an hour and a half away from Anaheim. Now, as the dawn was coming, Duke pulled up to the special billboard and pressed on the button which raised the sign up to reveal the ramp. Duke sighed and drove down, underground and out of the rain.

 

                The team became distracted as they walked out of the vehicle bay. Where was Zelda? Why hadn't she been there to meet them? Any absence or strangeness in view was taken as a sign to fear. The team quickly walked along, heading for the infirmary. They halted by the door, afraid to open it.

                "Wait!" Zelda whispered, coming up to them from the corridor.

                "Zelda...what?" Dive started. Zelda smiled.

                "He's asleep.... but I suppose he wouldn't mind the company." The team opened the door and walked in. Wildwing lay as he was, hands still cramped up. But he seemed more placid, relaxed. "Now see? He's beating it. Slowly but surely, he's beating it." Zelda grinned. The whole team sighed collectively in relief. "Now come on, you look terrible. Get yourselves to bed." she said, ushering them out. Mallory shook her wet head and sighed, ready to drop down and go to sleep.

 

                  Understandably, the team didn't get up and out till past noon. But when they did, they came in to see Wildwing. Recovering quickly, he was able to move his fingers again. But he was sore from all the muscle cramping. His attitude, however, was great. He was ready to get back up and in goal. And he talked for a while with his brother. A conversation the rest of the team kindly kept out of. But the team was just glad to have Wing back to normal.

                "Now see? We could do something." Zelda told Duke. "We could reach our hands out to him."

                "I guess you're right." Duke said back. "I'm just happy this is over with, and we didn't get worse from old Lizard Lips."

Zelda nodded. "I've actually been thinking about that," Zelda said slowly. "And I think that once Wildwing is back on his feet, we need to have a meeting. But first," she said, "I'd like to take some blood samples of each of you."

                "How come?" Duke asked. "I thought you said the Plague of Statues wasn't contagious."

                "It isn't," Zelda said. "And that's why I want the blood samples. Think about it Duke: How did Wildwing contract a deadly virus, that isn't contagious?"

 

                Over the next few days Wildwing's condition improved steadily until Zelda finally agreed to release him from the infirmary. The team's spirits had improved along with their team captain's health and by the time Zelda called for a meeting, everyone was mostly back to normal.

                The team sat gathered around the Ready Room, patiently waiting for her to tell them what this was all about. She'd assured them that Wildwing was making a full recovery and there was no worries of a relapse so they were content to wait until she'd gathered her thoughts.

                "You all remember those blood tests I took a few days ago?" she finally asked. Everyone nodded. "Well, I had a reason for that. The Plague of Statues is not only very rare - it's not very contagious. You don't catch it like you would the cold. The virus has to be introduced directly into your blood stream. There is a way to explain this," she said. "It's possible that Wildwing was infected after suffering an injury. It could have been as long as a year ago. The POS can stay in your blood for as long as that without affecting you."

                "That's certainly possible," Wildwing said. "We've all had some pretty bad injuries at one time or another. And on some occasions it's been a while before we were able to get them treated."

                "Yes, but remember what I said. Only ten people have ever been diagnosed with having this illness. It's extremely rare because almost everyone alive is immune to it - humans anyway. And my kind too. That's why I took the blood tests. It seemed strange that you guys would be so susceptible to this virus, especially since your immune systems are usually better than a human's."

                "What did you find?" Wildwing asked.

                "You're all completely immune to POS," Zelda said simply. "Including you, Wildwing."

                "I don't get it," Nosedive said simply. "If he's immune, how did he get sick?"

                "I wondered the same thing, myself," Zelda said. "So I took the sample of Wildwing's blood and checked the virus. It's not POS. Not the real Plague of Statues, anyway. It's been genetically engineered to be able to affect Puckworlders - even those who are immune."

                "Someone deliberately tried to kill Wildwing with this virus?" Tanya asked. "Who would be able to do that?"

                Mallory snorted. "Who else?"

                "Dragaunus," Wildwing said disgustedly.

                "It could have been someone else," Zelda suggested. She didn't believe it herself though.

                "It would explain his bad timing," Nosedive said. "He really didn't cause any trouble. He just sort of showed up and made a lot of noise."

                "He was checking to see if Wildwing was down," Tanya said. "If Dragaunus could have engineered the POS virus to strike at Puckworlders he could easily have engineered it to been activated at a certain time.

He would have known exactly when Wildwing became sick."

                "So he tested us," Duke said. "To see if he could take us out while Wildwing was down."

                "He couldn't," Wildwing said satisfactorily. The pride in his voice as he regarded his team was apparent.

                "If Dragaunus could do this once," Mallory said, "he could do it again."

                "Exactly," Zelda sighed. "This is why I thought it was so important to tell you."

                "Zelda, do you have any idea how Wildwing could have been infected in the first place? And were any of the rest of us infected at the same time?" Duke asked.

                "None of you were infected," Zelda said. "So we don't need to worry about that. As for your first question - most likely Dragaunus loaded a dose of the engineered POS virus into a hypospray. During battle he could have hidden it in the palm of his hand and injected the contents into Wildwing's bloodstream during the fight. Who would have noticed one more bruise? And it never occurred to me to run blood scans after every battle. Maybe it should have," she sighed.

                "Hey," Nosedive said, "don't do that, Zelda. None of this is your fault! Without you we wouldn't have even known what was going on! Now we know to expect this sort of thing from Draggy. Besides," he added, "you're the one who made sure we didn't give up."

                "Dive's right," Wildwing added. "You did all you could, Zelda. You always do."

Zelda smiled at them. "I know that. But thanks for saying it." She sighed. "Which leaves us with the problem of what we're going to do about Dragaunus' new biological weapons."

                "I don't see what we can do," Wildwing said. "There's an almost unlimited number of diseases, viruses and whatnot out there that Lizard Lips can turn against us, and in a thousand different ways. We'll just have to be careful. Maybe the blood scans aren't a bad idea."

                "We'll beat this," Duke said confidently. "You were right, Zelda. All we can do is believe. We saw one teammate fall - by his own choice. We won't sit back and let anyone else suffer the same fate. We're a team. And if we stick together," he shrugged and glanced at each of his teammates in turn, "then Dragaunus won't stand a chance against us."

 

                That night Zelda saw the cold eyes of the stars welcome her back with warmth and the promise of tomorrow.

 

The End

 

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. Again, a big thanks to Kelly on this!