3/22 AN: Ah yes, more story. Not much to say here other than, enjoy!
"I need you two to swear on Grabthar's Hammer or whatever you comic book geeks hold sacred that you won't tell anyone that I let you down here or what you see." Phil stared at the punks in front of him, trying his hardest to appear intimidating. "Not even Nosedive."
"Dude, we probably know more about Nosedive than you do," Thrash said, arms crossed.
"You want our help or not?" Mookie sat on the cart and offered a knuckle to Wildwing. The white drake nibbled on her knuckle before lowering his head and letting her scratch at the poofy feathers.
Nosedive quacked softly, watching Wildwing.
"Fine, whatever." The portly manager turned to the giant logo on the locker room wall and flipped up one of the supposedly decorative pucks on a shelf. He entered a code on the hidden keypad and the wall cracked open, revealing a secret doorway.
"Cool!" Thrash and Mookie stared, eyes wide.
"That is, like, totally the most awesome thing ever."
"You haven't seen anything yet," Phil promised. He pulled the cart onto the large elevator and waited for Thrash and Mookie to follow before pushing the button to take them down to the Ready Room.
"Holy. Shit." Thrash stared up at the massive computer taking up the cavernous Ready Room.
"Looks like somebody's trying to overcompensate for something," Mookie sniggered.
"Come on." Phil ignored them and started pulling the cart towards the bunks. They'd have to get on another elevator to go one floor down to the pool. "Wait." He turned around, pulling the flatbed wagon in the opposite direction. "Let's use the Med-i-com to scan them first. Maybe it'll helps us figure out what happened."
"The medi what?" Thrash followed while Mookie shrugged at him.
"The Med-i-com. It's something Tanya built that helps diagnose injuries. I think it helps heal them faster too… Anyway, it's alien technology and might help us out."
The wide, metallic hallways didn't hold much interest for anyone, but Thrash kept commenting about how the base looked like a particular part of this comic book or maybe that one. Phil tried to ignore them and stay focused on the task at hand.
A stray thought caused him to stop short and turn around, staring Thrash and Mookie in the eye.
"How did you two get into the Pond anyway? There wasn't an open practice and I know nobody would have let you in." Shit. Were they some enemy of the ducks and he'd just led them straight into their base? Was another alien species responsible for his team's transformation and masquerading as their friends to gain his confidence?
"Chillax," Thrash held up his hands in a placating motion. "Nosedive gave us his code to the door. We were going to watch their morning practice then head out to Mavericks after."
"Yeah," Mookie nodded. "Wicked good surfing right now with El Nino going on."
"I'm pretty sure you two don't surf." The panic from his horrendous discovery began to wear off and logic began to return.
"Nope!" Thrash patted his pot belly. "I don't have a beach body, if you know what I mean. But the babe watching is muy excelente."
"Yeah," Mookie held up a fist and Thrash bumped it with his own. "And nothing beats watching girls falling all over Nosedive."
"Oh man," Thrash started laughing. "Remember that one chick last year? What was her name? The one with the skull gauges. Anyway, she was a total sheep. She thought he was the goalie!"
"Uh, her name was Rose and I went out with her for, like, a month." Mookie frowned at her friend. "And we didn't know anything about hockey before the Ducks came either; so, chill. Kay?"
"Psh. Whatever."
Phil continued towards the infirmary while they argued back and forth on the importance of hockey knowledge versus hotness factors when it came to who they would allow Nosedive to date-if he were even interested in humans, that was. Only actual, teenage humans could be so laid back about a disaster like this.
Thrash whistled once again when the door opened into a room filled with strange equipment. Sure, he knew his friend was an alien from a more advanced civilization, as hinted at by the massive computer in the main room they had entered, but this looked like something straight out of a B-rated sci-fi movie! Three beds with golden rings at the head sat in the center of the room while other strange equipment lined the walls or divided the room into two. A set of swinging doors similar to what they would see on ER leading into an operating room were next to the door they had come in. That was weird. Why was the door they came in all sci-fi alien with opening in three places and being circular while the doors right next to it were perfectly normal ones from a hospital?
"Okay…" Phil picked up Tanya and set her on one of the beds and walked to the panel at the foot. "Um." He scratched his head, unsure which button to push. While the keypad looked typical, several of the other buttons had strange characters on them he couldn't read. Dumb alien text. It's not like Tanya had tried to show him how to operate their equipment before and he'd ignored her or anything.
"Tanya?" Phil looked at the towel wrapped, mallard hen on the bed. "How do I work this again?"
Tanya tilted her head as if curious but made no other response.
"Ugh."
Mookie stepped behind Phil and looked around him at the control panel.
Phil had a momentary fear of the young woman grabbing his neck and shoving him to the floor like she had done to the ducks when capturing them.
After looking over the various buttons, she pressed one and the Med-i-com started humming as it warmed up.
"Lucky guess," Phil muttered.
"No." Mookie pushed one finger into Phil's shoulder and shoved him away from the control panel. "I know how to read this."
"What? How!"
"Easy," Thrash picked up Wildwing and set him on one of the other beds. "Nosedive showed us their text and taught us how to read it in exchange for us helping with English."
"Yeah." Mookie pressed a couple other buttons, setting the machine to do a full body scan. "You know, being able to leave notes at work written in an alien language drives the boss nuts. He hates it."
"Probably cause he's figured out most of them are jokes about his bad hair piece."
Phil paced while Nosedive's friends set up all three machines to run scans. After half an eternity, the first machine beeped and information popped up on the screen. He ran over to see the results. Thankfully, they displayed in plain English. He'd never get used to the strange mixture of Anaskin and English the Ducks seemed to use.
He skimmed the information at first, hoping something would jump out. Nothing did. A deeper reading revealed that there were three perfectly normal, healthy ducks sitting on the Med-i-coms. There was no hint of what had happened or suggestion on what to do.
"Shit."
"At least there's nothing wrong with them," Mookie tried to look on the bright side.
"I'd say the size and inability to talk is something wrong." Thrash gave her a deadpan stare, not amused by her optimism. "How are they supposed to save the world now?"
"I dunno. Maybe Buzz knows something?" she suggested.
"Too bad Alvin's still in jail. I bet he'd be able to help."
"Yeah, except for the fact that he hates the ducks and probably is the one that made this happen."
"Buzz!" Phil snapped his fingers as if he'd come up with the idea himself. "He's a genius! He should be able to help! Ooh, and who was that doctor Tanya's always going to visit…" He raced over to a computer console on the wall and began typing away in an effort to find an address book or something similar.
"You know, it'd be much easier if we could use the Mask," Mookie suggested.
"Yeah, but didn't Nosedive say only ducks can use it?"
"The Mask? Oh, shit!" Phil's eyes grew wide as he remembered what was probably one of the most important things to the ducks- the Mask. "We left it upstairs!" Turning around, he ran to the door. "You two stay here. I'll be right back."
"Dude, I'll come help," Thrash offered. "All their gear was everywhere too. I'm pretty sure Mallory would flip out to find her stuff scattered around like that."
"I think she'd be more concerned with the thought that they're pretty much all running around naked right now." Mookie moved Wildwing from the Med-i-com back to the cart.
Phil almost choked on his own spit at the thought. Holy shit, they were! On second thought, did it really matter if they were Earth ducks? Ah, this was all so confusing. He didn't know what to do.
"I could always get some of Abuelita's costumes…" Mookie mused. "But my car won't make it all the way to Sunnyvale right now. Breaks."
"Yeah, mine neither," Thrash did something. "Rage hasn't had a chance to stop by and work on it."
"He's back in town?"
"Yeah. Hey, I'll let him know to check out your breaks while he's here."
"Maybe some doll clothes would work? I could always run over to the baby store and get some stuff."
"Guys!" Phil grabbed their attention. "We've got to figure out what happened and how to get them back to normal. I'm going to go get the Mask and then I'm coming back down here to call Buzz. Someone needs to stay with them to make sure nothing happens. Can you two do that?"
"Uh, Phil? They're going to need a little more that someone just staying with them." Mookie's voice held a condescending tone. "Like food and water. Cause, I promise you, they aren't going to be eating pizza and tacos like this unless you want some sick birds."
Phil closed his eyes and whined, fists clenched. Deflating, his shoulders slumped and he shrugged.
"Fine, guys. What do I do?"
"Well." Mookie crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip. "First, we're going to put them somewhere they'll be happy for a bit while we go get some shit. You and Thrash can get the Mask and clean up whatever mess they left on the ice. I'm going to the feed store and I'll find something for them to wear."
"Okay. Pool's this way, guys." He led them out of the infirmary and to the other side of the massive base.
