Chapter 4: Arrival of the enemy

"...erbeak!!!"

Mallory, after being unconsious for the longest time, sat striaght up from where she was lying down, and screemed. Looking around, nothing had seemed familliar to her. She knew where she was. She was in Tanya Lab. She knew about each and everything around her. She knew that those were viles of different chemicals all sitting against the wall. She knew that the door was truely a door, and that it was really open. She knew that lights were on. Yet it was all strange to her, as if it were a memory. Luckily for her, it was a memory that was slowly coming back to her. She recognized Wildwing sitting next to her, with a look on his face as if the dead had come back to life, and that he was extremely happy about it.

"Mallory!!!", Wildwing exclaimed. "What's wrong with my beak??"

Still a little drowsy, Mallory uttered out a responce. "Nothing.....what are you...talking about?"

"You said 'your beak'..."

"Well, I ment nothing. I'm just...really out of it"

At that moment, Tanya came running though the open door. Her hair done up in the normal fashion, and her glasses slighty on an angle, she looked exact as Mallory remembered her. Hurried as usual, she barely noticed that Mallory was awake once more on her way to talk to Wildwing.

"Drake 1 just picked up a whole bunch of teleportation signatures!!", Tanya said, in a tone that made it sugest that it was DEFINATELY a matter to be concerned about. "The thing that is really bugging me is that Mallory is out and they have hit in three different areas of town. There is no way we can make it to all three!!!" Her arms flailed around her as she tryied to express the importance of the whole ordeal.

By this time, Mallory was fully awake, and aware of the problems they all faced. "Well then", she called out. "What are we doing sitting around"

"That's what I'm saying!", Tanya responed instinctively. Then she noticed the one thing that had slipped her mind as she walked into the room. "MALLORY!!! You're alive!!!!"

Tanya ran over and gave Mallory the mother of all hugs and blabbered on about how worried she was for her and how she didn't know what would happen if they had lost her.

"I'm fine Tanya. Thanks for caring. But I believe we have some over-grown lizards to take out!!"

Mallory ran out the door and started to head for the control room, where they ducks always had their meetings. Tanya and Wildwing looked at ecah other with puzzled glances, both shocked and amazed and both Mallory's quick recovery and her zeal to get into the combat. Moments later, they headed after her.


Duke, Grin and Nosedive were all huddled around Drake 1, trying to figure out how Dragonus could be striking three places at once. Well, at least Duke and Nosedive were trying to figure out. Grin was just sitting there complaining.

"...and I'm telling you,"Grin said. "If you just used meditation crystals..."

Duke cut him off, the stress of the problem was enough to get him frusterated. Not at all to mention the fact that Mallory was out of the picture momentarily. He was stressed enough to take Grin's life if he didn't cool down. "WHAT ABOUT YOUR MEDITATION CRYSTALS?!?!"

"They would be able to see the forces at each drop point and how they got there."

"They why haven't you done that and told us all those things!?!"

"Because I...well...." Grin's voice trailed off.

"Yeah", Duke said coldly. "That's what I thought."

Silence surounded the group, as neither one had anything to say to the other. They were all angry, and focused on the task at hand. The large hallowed room took something of a darkened presence, cold and unwielding to kindness. The hard steel walls echoed the slightest sound that as made. Becuase of this, the ticking clock on the wall made them all crazy. All heads turned towards the door as it opened. A fully consious, and alive, Mallory came running through the door. Duke whispered a secret prayer of thanks.

"Hey guys!!" Mallory said, breaking the forboding silence. "How are we going to do this??"

Nosedive was the first to come out of his shocked state. He chuckled to himself as he said, "See what happens when you play around with the toaster?"

Mallory looked at Nosedive, and a smile covered her face. No matter what he said, she knew that Nosedive had been worried about her. She desided to play along with it. "After we defeat these Saurians, I'm going to make YOU into toast!!"

The other two ducks just sat there and smiled, glad to have thier friend back among them. Finally able to catch up with Mallory, Tanya and Wildwing ran through the door. All the ducks looked at Wildwing, expecting thier team captain to come up with a plan of action. Noticing this, Wildwing started talking....

"Now that we have the whole team back together, we can operate properly. The Saurians have landed down in three seperate areas of the city. The first, here," Wildwing pointed to the location indicated on Drake 1's monitor. The downtown industry sector."The second landing occured here," Wildwing pointed again, this time at an old apartment building. "And finally, here, the first old folks home of the city. The thing that all these places have in common, is that they are deserted. That's good, because we don't have to worry about inguring anyone in the way. The Saurians are split up, so this is our chance to take them all out for good."

Duke interupted Wildwing's little pep-rally with his usual pestimism. "That all sounds really nice, but to get to them at the same time, we would have to split up as well. Plus, Dragonus isn't that careless. He's got to have a plan."

The rest of the team nodded in acknowledgement. They had to be careful around Dragonus, cause if there was one thing that Dragonus wasn't, other than good looking, was a fool. Even Wildwing had to admit this.

"Alright then", Wildwing continued. "There will be three teams. Duke and Dive, you two will go to the industry sector. Tanya and Grin, you guys head to the apartment building. Mallory, you're with me. We're going to hit the old folks home."

All the ducks agreed and headed out towards their area with no complaint. Well, except for Nosedive.

"Why does he always get to team up with the cute ones???"

"Cmon!!", Duke called out to him. "We got some fish to fry!!"

"I'm coming", Nosedive replied. He headed over to Duke and his car, only slightly muttering about cute girls.

To be continued....