AN: 06/27/2013 More story! This is what I cranked out yesterday and today. I thought about waiting to actually finish the story to post it, but got excited about knowing where the story is heading and decided to post it now;) Now, off to work! And maybe more will be written this week.
"You incompetent fools!" Dragaunus ranted. "I give you one simple task and you bungle it yet again."
"Heyyyyyyy..." Chameleon whined, doing his best Curly impression. "I resemble that remark, nyh, nyh, nyh."
"If you would use the dark powers of our saurian ancestors-"
"Screw magic! I want to pulverize those fowl!" Siege interrupted.
"Enough!" The overloards roar was deafening. "They destroyed one robot, but we still have the TimberJack. Siege, you and Wraith will go to the Plore Orchard and start cutting down all the trees."
"Uh..." Siege was confused. How was cutting down trees going to destroy ducks or cause chaos? "Why?"
"Because I said so, you blithering idiot! And because that orchard is nothing more than a guise for a secret government weapons facility. While you and Wraith are distracting the ducks, Chameleon will slip in and steal their new TCL canon."
"Ooh!" Finally, the plot clicked in the slow saurians skull. "This is gonna be fun!"
0000
It had taken a lot of effort, but the Migrator was finally freed from the rubble that had fallen on it. Mallory drove with Nosedive sitting next to her. Despite besting Chameleon in the robot, they still had no idea what had happened to Wildwing or Duke. They had all decided to drive around in hopes of the sensors on the Migrator picking up some trace of the Raptor.
Nosedive had his elbow resting on the dash, chin in hand as he gloomily watched the city buildings speed by.
"We will find them," Grin encouraged.
"Hey!" Tanya exclaimed excitedly as one of the instruments on the Migrator control panel started blinking. "Drake One's picked up their homing beacons!"
"All righty!" Nosedive cheered as Mallory took a corner sharply and began following Tanya's directions to their missing teammates coordinates.
0000
Dragaunus strutted into his throne room once more. Maybe this time he would have a little fun with the ducks. Yes... Target practice would be quite entertaining. Never mind the fact that they were in cages and couldn't run. He preferred it that way.
"So, ducks," he spat as he looked up at the cages. "What?!"
Those wretched waterfowl had escaped! How? It didn't matter; now that they were loose, they'd run back to their team and give away the location of the Raptor. Smoke billowed from his nostrils as his fury grew.
Storming over to the control panel, he pressed some buttons and began using what little power the ship had re-gained from the Regenerative Energy Cells. The ship de-cloaked and began ascending into the sky to find a new hiding spot.
0000
"Ooh, no!" Duke spread his arms out for balance as the floor under him shifted. "They're taking off!"
Wildwing quickly scanned the wall with the mask and was relieved to find that it was an outer one. He leveled his gauntlet at it and fired, creating a quick exit.
Duke and Wildwing stepped to the hole and looked down to find the ground quickly receding. The surrounding buildings were already a fair distance below them and growing smaller by the second. Without a second thought, Duke put his hand on Wildwings back, prepared to shove him out. Wildwing gave him a glare that clearly conveyed his thoughts- don't you dare. Duke smiled and pushed, jumping from the soaring ship at the same time. He kept close to Wildwing, wrapping his left arm around his leaders shoulder. The leaders eyes opened wide as they fell, but he refused to vocally express his terror.
A flag pole sticking out from the side of a skyscraper flew past the swiftly falling ducks. Duke fired his grappling puck at it and the cord wound around the metal pole several times before pulling taught, halting the ducks descent.
"Oof," Duke groaned. "You ever consider loosing weight?" He began slowly releasing more rope, slowly lowering them towards the ground.
"Now I know how Tanya felt when Nosedive did that to her," Wildwing laughed.
A sudden downward drop startled the two drakes. Duke looked up to see the flagpole bending under their combined weight.
"Uh-oh..." Wildwing knew what that sharp curve meant.
The flag pole ripped out of the wall, speeding the final twenty foot drop. They hit the pavement hard, landing on their sides. A moment later, the flag pole bounced just behind them.
"I've had more graceful landings," Duke groaned as he sat up, rubbing his right shoulder.
"Ow," Wildwing agreed, holding on his head.
Just then, the Migrator pulled up and the front window rolled down to show the rest of the teams smiling faces.
"Need a lift?" Mallory asked.
"Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes." Duke smiled, still grasping his shoulder as his right arm hung limply at his side.
The side door opened, admitting the two wayward drakes.
0000
"GAAH!" Duke squirmed in pain. "Leave it alone!" He tried to pull away, but the team tech held his arm in her firm grasp.
The team was in the infirmary as Tanya examined Dukes shoulder. The gray duck sat on the edge of a Med-I-Com as Tanya poked at his shoulder, judging how badly it was dislocated.
"It wouldn't hurt so much if you'd just sit still," she ordered.
"Pain is but an illusion," Grin reminded.
"Yeah, right. Come here and I'll show you an illusion!" Duke threatened.
"It's not that bad," Tanya tried to soothe. "Just sit up straight and let me put it back into place."
"Cool!" Nosedive tried to get a better look. "Are you gonna pop it back in?"
"No," Tanya snorted. "There are other ways of doing it that don't hurt so much." She gently took Duke's hand and pressed it against the inside of her left forearm. "I need you to hold on here," she instructed as she pressed her thumb into the crook of his elbow and slowly pulled down. "Come on, sit up straight," she poked him in the back, "And try to relax."
"Yeah, you relax," he muttered, but followed instructions anyway.
"Just take a few deep breaths." She started massaging his trapezius, moved down to massaging the deltoid, and then do the bicep. "Come on, sit up," she reminded and he straightened his back once more. "Feel it relaxing?"
"Yeah," he nodded, surprised at the growing relief. He watched as she moved back to slowly squeezing his shoulder and the dislocated joint fit back into place on its own.
"There. Is it back in?" She slowly rotated his arm away from him and back, judging how freely it moved.
"That's amazin," Duke complimented as Tanya gently moved his arm in front of his chest and put his other hand on it to hold it in place.
"Good. Now, just stay there while I get you a sling."
Wildwing studied Tanya for a minute. She had always stepped up to aid any injured team member with a calm demeanor that showed years of medical experience. But, she was a technician, skilled with machines and supposedly untrained as a doctor.
"So, just where did you learn all of this?" the leader queried.
"Oh, well, uh..." She stuttered a little bit, embarrassed. "My, uh, parents sort of pressured me to be a doctor my whole life. I was actually in my residency at DuCaine Hospital when the invasion happened. I only had another six months left before actually becoming a surgeon myself."
"Wait a minute," Nosedive piped up. "You're actually a doctor? I thought you were all about the machine-a-reenos."
"Well, not quite," She spoke as she placed the sling around Duke's neck and gently placed his arm in it. "Like I said, I never, uh, finished my residency. And I do prefer machines! My passion has always been for inventing things, not fixing ducks. But, well, I was never very good at standing up to my father." She looked away and adjusted her glasses, trying to hide her discomfiture. "He was the top neurosurgeon in Puckington.
"After the invasion, I managed to find the resistance and join up as a medic. When the head doctor complained about how difficult it was to diagnose injuries without the proper medical equipment, I started building the Med-i-coms."
"You invented those?" Mallory asked, clearly impressed.
"Well, yeah! Not by myself; I had a lot of help from a mechanic who let me raid the wreckage of some vehicles. How do you think I was able to build the ones we have now? It's not like I brought plans for them from Puckworld or anything."
"Because you're a genius?" Duke offered.
"Oh! Um, yeah, that too," Tanya continued. "After I gave the resistance the instructions on how to make them, the head doctor transferred me to what was left of the militaries science division. That's where I started to really get creative and was finally able to use my mind to help people. I'm not a very good doctor, truth be told."
"Aww, Tawny, you're not that bad!" Nosedive complimented. "After all, you're the one who took care of me when I had that concussion!"
"Maybe that's what happened to your brain," Mallory teased.
"Nah, he was like this before Dragaunus' goons dropped him off that mountainside," Duke added.
"Thank you for telling us about this," Wildwing said as he glanced towards the door. He thought he had seen something moving around over there... "It's good to know that we have an actual medic on the team and won't have to rely on humans if something major happens to one of us." He raised his left hand and caught the orange Nosedive had hurled at him. Sighing to himself, he put it in the pouch at his side. He was amassing quite the citrus collection.
"Duke, get some rest," Wildwing ordered as he turned to leave. "Grin, you take watch for any sign of Dragaunus' next move."
End authors note: The technique Tanya uses to re-locate Duke's shoulder is called the Cunningham Technique. Seems a far more civilized, fluid way to pop a shoulder back into place than jerking it in;) As for the whole Tanya's really a doctor thing, I'm just getting creative here.
Also, I made a new forum for Mighty Ducks fanfic discussions ( fanfiction dot net /forum/Mighty-Ducks-The-Animated-Series/135358/). It includes a thread that has youtube references I use for my stories, so you can actually see where my inspiration/insanity comes from =)
More to come when I get it written!