Power. Dark. Electrifying. Seductive. It poured from the hands of the magi like lightning from the skies. It engulfed her, yet it seemed to yield in her presence. She was merely a silhouette against the blinding, white and crackling blue energy that flowed from her, yet she was so much more.

Dagger's Amethyst colored hair billowed all around her as her powers worked their magic. They buzzed and snapped charging the midnight air with wild, dangerous forces. She closed her eyes tighter and attempted to focus harder on the task at hand. She was hunting. Looking for the lair of the criminal group called the Blade. Dagger focused on them. Their energies, their strength. Hypnotically the magic wove through the sky. Strong. Focused. Deadly.

It felt the clouds and searched the air for it's commanding mistress. Then as if pulled by an unseen rope the power surged back from the sky. It withdrew from the air and sucked itself back into Dagger's slender hands till she could hold no more. Subsequently it began to wither away like mist till only fragments remained. Then there was nothing.

The young magi sunk to the ground, exhausted. The spell was over, the power gone to silently fester in her soul once more. She had not done a spell like that in quite a few years. Dagger was proud of her control over the power, and she was glad she was still alive.

A shadow loomed over her. Slowly the duck lifted her head to see who was intruding on her in this moment of pride. Concerned black eyes stared down into her wild, yet tired violet ones. Softly she smiled. Jericho.

The tall male knelt down beside her, a look of curiosity and worry on his handsome face. He had never seen Dagger use that much power before. Moreover, her power had never felt like that before. Even from a block away he had felt the spell's energy. It had tugged at his soul and screamed through his mind like a banshee. Jericho had been forced to take cover in a nearby shack just keep his sanity. He had felt her power and it had scared him to death. Though he was not afraid for himself, he was afraid for Dagger.

"I...found them," she said slowly getting to her feet.

Jericho was instantly next to her, helping her up from the ground. Cradling her in his hard, trench coat covered arms. "Where?" He whispered.

"They are nearly a mile below the city, in a secret base." She allotted herself only a few moments to linger in Jericho's Gentle grasp before taking a step out from him and standing on her own. She had to learn to be stronger in magic and she was not going to learn that wrapped in the arms of her best friend

.

Jericho replaced the look of concern that was written on his face with a look of stern, anger. It was not that he was angry right now, simply that the look was so used to going on his face that it naturally fell there. Besides he couldn't be showing emotions, that would make him look weak. Right now weak was the last thing he needed to be. "So now what? Do you want us to charge down there and get our bloody heads blown off?" His voice held no anger. The question came in a very matter of fact tone.

Dagger smiled, "if that is what you really want to do. I was thinking of something that involves a little less danger to us."

Jericho only grunted. He hated it when Dagger was patronizing to him.

Softly she stepped towards him and placed her hand on his chest. Cocking her head to one side and smiling gently, Dagger looked earnestly at her friend. "I'm sorry Jericho, I didn't mean it like that."

Jericho's heart began to flutter. It happened whenever She touched him like that. He desperately wanted to touch her. Kiss her. Feel her body and know that he did for her what she did to him. All he had to do was touch her!

Quickly he pulled away and turned to face the twinkling lights of the near by New Ducaine Central. He couldn't do it. 'I'm a fool' he thought to himself. His emotions were running like wildfire, surging through his blood. He took a deep breath in. He had to control them. Quickly he muttered, "whatever, don't worry about it."

Dagger sighed. She wished he would tell her what was wrong with him, but she knew there was no point in asking.

"What's you're plan, Dag?" Jericho asked turning back to face her.

"Well, I suggest that we call them. Now that we know where they are that should be easy enough."

Jericho was perplexed. "How...?"

Dagger laughed, "my power didn't just find there location Jerri. I also have the signal of their communicators." She placed her hands on her slender hips. Dagger was very proud of herself.

Jericho stared at her, open mouthed. "I don't even want to know Dag. Let's go find a computer."







Crash sighed. He was getting nowhere locating Cole. He had been in his lab for over 4 hours attempting to locate the thief. First he had tried his communicator. Nothing. Then he had attempted to trace his Credit cards. Useless. Lastly he had tried to hunt down his DNA in a city wide search. Squat. Another thing that upset him was the fact that his DNA modulator was broken. Finding Cole had been it's first test, and needless to say, it flunked.

Truthfully Crash couldn't blame Cole for leaving, after all Tammra and Cole had been involved and now she was gone. Even a scientific mind like Crash's knew that had to hurt. Lazily, he spun around in his large chair thinking of ways to find Cole and how to get the DNA modulator working. As he turned Crash looked longingly at the room surrounding him. It was his laboratory, given to him when he joined the Blade. The room was made entirely out of computer terminals, valves and switches. There was more technology in this large, metallic room then there was in most of the PuckWorld army. The 15 year-old sighed, all this and he couldn't get on lousy invention to work or find one, lone, duck. Slowly he stopped spinning.

"Problems kid?"

Crash attempted to stand up from his chair to confront the owner of the voice. As he did, vertigo set in, the room began to spin and, rather quickly, Crash found himself plopped on the floor squarely on his rear. Pain ran through his young, slender body. Momentarily forgetting the voice Crash wiggled around to ensure nothing was broken. Satisfied that his ass and his pride were both safe he began to stand up.

It was then that the blonde remembered the voice. Quickly, he jumped to his feet and reached for his wrist communicator. As he did so he happened to look towards the door, here he found Sabastian leaning on the wall watching him with mild interest.

Crash didn't know it but underneath the mask the Sabastian wore he was smiling. Truthfully Sabastian was nearly to the point of dropping on to the floor and laughing till he peed himself. However, the Ivory colored mallard, refrained from doing so, guessing that action would cause Crash and his dignity to go running from the Blade never to return.

"Uh...yeah, I mean no. No problems at all." Crash was glad Sabastian didn't laugh, he couldn't have taken that type of stress at the moment.

"Good to hear, kid, good to hear." Sabastian walked further into the room and planted himself on a small stool in near a buzzing computer. "Anyway," he continued "I'm just here to tell you that Oz wants to see you. Group meeting or something."

Crash walked over to asilver wall and pushed a small red button. Half of the lights in the room turned off and the buzzing from the computer silenced. "Alright then, shall we?"

Sabastian got up and walked out the door with Crash trailing along behind him.









"...So we're at an understandin' then?" Oz asked. There were several head nods and a few murmurs. He was addressing the members of the Blade, 45 of them at least. Among the missing were Sabastian, Crash and Cole, though he knew the whereabouts of the first two.

As soon as the main team had returned from the raid on the Saurian's base he had arranged a group meeting. Everyone had been ordered to attend. Oz had a few things to inform them of, one was Tammra's death, the other was Saurians. There was a multitude of Saurian thieves ravaging PuckWorld almost more than before. Oz had gathered the group together to not only put out a warning, but also to put out hits on anyone of the scaly lizards that interfered with Blade business.

The Blade didn't get to be a multi-billion dollar organization by allowing the lizards run the show. Plus now that Tammra had been murdered, it was personal.

Oz glanced up just as Sabastian and Crash entered the large conference room and took seats near the back.

"To recap, the lizards go down the second they get to close, n' the memorials' at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon." Oz sat back in his seat and tried to make himself look business like and at ease. He had to be the picture of confidence, he was the leader and his team counted on him to be strong.

Shaddow stood up and continued from where Oz left off. She seemed the essence of confidence and authority. "One more thing before you all go." She walked to stand in front of the small painting of Drake Ducaine that now hung in the spacious executive style room. "There is now a vacancy in the Blade, 2 in fact."

Gasps resounded through out the room. The members of the team had expected to hear of 1 position open, though they thought that it would not be mentioned until after the funeral. But 2? This could only mean one thing.

Shaddow waited for silence then continued, "Tammra's place and Manda's place have become vacant in the last month. We will fill them with in the week. I want you all to start thinking about worthy candidates, the Blade is officially looking for applicants."

It was then that Oz's communicator began to bleep. He quickly pushed the black button on the front and spoke quietly into the comlink. "Cole, where the hell are ya'?"

"I don't know who Cole is, but by the accent I will bet you're Oz..."









Duke felt like a new drake as he stood upon the chilled soil of PuckWorld. He hadn't felt this good since he had left the planet. Sure quite a bit had changed since he had gone off chasing Dragonas all over hell and back, but he was home now, and he could start putting his life back together.

He raised his gray head and sniffed the air of his home world. His smile grew, lighting up his face. At last. Home. He had spent so many nights dreaming about this very moment and now it was here. The dark thief was positively giddy!

Behind him a loud 'clang' filled the air. Duke spun on his heal and came face to face with the nose of the AreoWing.

Duke had told the others that he was going to go find a spot that seemed safe to park the massive craft. At least until they could contact the special forces and tell them that they were back. Now it seemed the crew on ship had grown board waiting for the thief and decided to do a little scouting of their own.

'Aw well,' thought Duke turning back around and focusing on the freeway, 'this spot seems as safe as any.' As he focused on the distant road his vision snapped to the small, dark building just passed it. He swore that he had seen a flash of lightning coming from somewhere near the structure. The drake was about to walk over and take a closer look when a voice cut into his concentration.

"Are you planning on helping, or are you just going to take in the scenery?" Wild Wing looked down at Duke from his perch atop the AreoWing. Though his voice was sarcastic, Duke knew that Wild Wing was just as happy to be home as he was.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it." Duke pulled his newly acquired bow staff from its pouch upon his back and vaulted to the roof of the large ship. Ease and skill rippled from his every muscle as he landed. Whatever the lightning was, if it had been there at all, let someone else handle it. He was home now. That was all that mattered

Wild Wing only looked at Duke and smirked, "when you're done, we need to unload the… uh… trash..."







Chains rattled noisily against the thick metal wall. Darkness was everywhere in the small, square cell. This was the bottom of the Mighty Duck's ship, the AeroWing, a place were prisoners were meant to be kept. Held until they were to be taken where they needed to go. Normally, prisoners who had graced this area of the ship, were glad to leave it when their time came. Most of them, that is. But most of them were not going where Saurian high lord Dragonas was destined to end up.

Dragonas was none too pleased with the situation at hand. He had a lot of time to think on the long journey back from earth. In that time the lizard had come to a conclusion, as his daughter often used to say, this sucked slag!

He had lost his advisor Wraith to a mortal wound and was forced to leave the magi's corpse on earth. Then his best fighter, Siege and the shape shifting Chameleon were sent back to dimensional limbo with little hope of return. Not to mention that he had failed to destroy the Earth, PuckWorld, or anything else but his own pride. These were the worst and most humiliating things that he could remember having happened to him, except that is, for his defeat at the hands of the Mighty Ducks.

For years the Saurian high lord had believed that a duck was a meal, served with a nice honey glaze. He had lived by that thought, and enjoyed the mental image of eating the ducks of PuckWorld. Some with cream sauces, some with B.B.Q. After all they were only meals right? The lizard had enjoyed that rationalization. It made him almost happy and it had made the agonizing years in dimensional limbo almost tolerable. That and knowing that one day he would have is revenge on the wretched race of ducks that had imprisoned him and his brothers so long ago. But that was all over now.

Here he was. Him. Dragonas! A powerful Saurian high lord, technological wizard, chained, shackled and imprisoned by an entree. By those useless, miscreant mallards! He would not let them get away with this, oh no. They would suffer, all of them, if he survived. His head slumped back against the cool, dark metal. The high lord never imagined that he would think the thought that suddenly flowed through his head but, nonetheless, there it was. 'I miss Earth,' Dragonas thought irritably.