Confidence Regained

Kat Warrior

A/N: I'm well aware of the fact that everyone's sick of Wilding bashing on himself, and I am, too. I think it's about time he got over that… And there are no fan characters in this story, so everyone belongs to Disney.

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Wildwing held his black jacket steady when laser-fire struck it and bounced off again, destroying a nearby robot. He lowered the shield for only an instant to fire the puck-launcher in his glove.

The team had headed out when Drake One had picked signs up of a small army of Dragonus' drones outside a very odd-looking building. Tanya had theorized that it wasn't a trap for them, but that one of Dragonus' henchmen (likely Chameleon) had accidentally set the robots out. The Mighty Ducks had arrived to destroy all the robots and keep them from terrorizing the citizens.

Even now, half of the robots were heaps of scrap metal on the pavement, a good deal of them making it obvious that Grin had had his way with them. Now the tall, muscular duck brought his fists down heavily on the head of a drone, crushing it like a soda can. As it fell, he effortlessly lifted it and tossed it into two more drones, crashing them against the outside wall of the Raptor.

With cat-like agility, Duke dodged the fire of a drone, and deflected the next blast so that it struck the robot firing at him. With that same grace and agility, the gray-feathered duck leapt into the air and landed just behind two drones, slicing them instantly with his golden blade. He had recovered nicely from the chest wound he received a few months back, and this was his first time in battle since then. He was making it obvious that months out of action hadn't made him "rusty".

Nosedive was having the time of his life as he ducked behind signs, mailboxes, and garbage cans. He would pop up, fire repeatedly, duck, slink to another covering and fire again. All of his shots hit home, and it was obvious that he was giving the drones more trouble than the rest of them.

Wildwing turned to see Tanya, dashing for cover from a small detonator she had planted in one of the robots. Even as she ducked behind a large, blue mailbox, not far from Nosedive, the robot blew to pieces, taking several other drones with it, but causing nearly no damage to nearby property. She had improved quite a bit since they had first left Puckworld.

Mallory grunted with a little effort as she hopped into the air, slamming her foot into one drone while taking out a few more with her puck-blaster. Even as she landed, she swept a robot's legs out from under it and jumped right in the middle of it, still firing. Like Nosedive, her aim was true and she never missed.

Wildwing smiled with pride for his team as he continued in the battle himself. Very few drones remained now, and taking out the last few would be a snap, especially for the more experienced of the ducks.

And he was right. In a matter of minutes, every drone lay mutilated on the pavement, some of them twitching while others sparked and crackled. The six ducks couldn't help but laugh when they heard Dragonus bellow something in rage from the towering Raptor above them, obviously directing his fury at Chameleon. Tanya had been right.

As an earth-quake-like tremor ripped through the ground, all the ducks but Grin were thrown off their feet. The Raptor took to the sky, its pilot desperate to find a new hiding spot. Wildwing frowned a little as he watched it go, but he wasn't mad at himself like he would have been before. Getting on the Raptor hadn't been part of the original plan, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

Wildwing looked to his sides to see his team gathering around him, watching the direction in which the Raptor was making its escape in. As they stood, Wildwing felt himself swelling with pride. This was his team, and they had done their job well. They had taken out all of the drones and managed to cause minimal damage and had prevented civilian casualties.

"We'll find them again, team," Wildwing assured them, "And it probably won't take us too long. Dragonus left in a desperate rush, so he probably did a lousy job hiding."

"That's the Wildwing we know!" Duke declared, smiling. He was rather pleased that their leader finally had his confidence.

"I say we celebrate with all-you-can-eat pizza!" Nosedive suggested with excitement. "Super-heroes eat free after saving the world! Come on big bro, please?" Nosedive had put on his best puppy-dog eyes face.

"Alright," Wildwing agreed with a laugh, "But first, how about we clean up? I don't think they want a bunch of sweaty ducks in battle gear eating in their restaurant. And we aren't exactly super and we didn't really save the world…"

But Nosedive was too busy hollering victoriously as he charged towards the Migrator, closely followed by his teammates. Wildwing smiled as he watched them go, and them turned and look into the sky.

The sun was setting, spreading rich waves of crimson and violet across the evening sky.

"Thanks Canard, for everything," he sighed, "I realize now that you had good reasons for making me the leader of this team, even if most of them are older and more experienced than me. I'll make you proud, Canard. And I vow to you, wherever you are, that I'll never doubt your decision again."

THE END

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Boy, for Duke being my favorite, this focused a lot on Wildwing. Oh well, I hope you all enjoyed it!