Okay folks, here it is: Chapter One. I just thought I'd point out a couple things for those of you who don't know.
This is an alternate dimension fic. Obviously a bunch of ducks didn't land in Middle-Earth. This is an alternate dimension, both for Mighty Ducks (cause some of the stuff I've done to those characters isn't in my duck fiction!) and the Lord of the Rings.
Obviously I don't own Lord of the Rings, the marvelous J.R.R. Tolkien does. And I admire him greatly for it. I don't own Mighty Ducks either, Disney does, and they have more money than me, so please don't sue a poor high school student saving for University.
I do, however, own Rose, Missie and Christé, and any changes I've done to characters is all mine, so no stealing, please and thank you.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Ash nazg durbatulûk...
Wraith was waiting. He stood in the shadows, out of sight of the spying eyes of the ducks, though he knew that Rose's sharp Saurian eyes would spot him should she look his way. But that didn't matter, because no matter what the ducks did, he still was safe. He seemed, to them, to pose no threat, leaning heavily on his staff as he stood in the corner of the massive room, watching quietly. Of course, they couldn't possibly know that he was weaving a dark and dangerous spell around the room, ensnaring the ducks before they even knew he was there. The process was slow, time consuming, and wearying, but he knew that it would be worth it. He only wished that he could see the looks on their faces when they discovered what he'd done.
*****
"Everybody get back!" Wildwing ordered, spinning away from the Saurian and his dimensional gateway. Spinning, and finding himself face-to-face with a glowering Puckerdrone.
Preparing to shield himself from a blast from the robot, Wildwing raised his arms, but the expected blast didn't come. The puckerdrone simply stood there, glaring down at him, but not attacking. That is, until Wildwing tried to duck past it, and a metal arm swept down, caught the team leader, and non-too-gently pushed him back.
Mallory, nursing a bruise from a similar encounter crept over the charred ground to her team leader. "What's going on, Wing? They aren't attacking. They just seem to be...guarding us."
Wildwing frowned, brows furrowing. "Mallory, I think that's exactly what they're doing. But why-"
Rose interrupted him, running over to them. "Hey, fearless leader, I think I know why." And at that, she pointed to the corner.
Mallory shrugged. "Wow, Rose. An empty, dark corner. I'm scared."
Rose looked like she was going to snap off some smart remark at the fiesty redhead when Wildwing, having activated the Mask, said, "Shit. What's he doing?!"
Mallory blinked. "Who? What?!?"
"Wraith." Rose answered coldly. "He's standing in that corner whispering something. I can't make out what he's saying, he's too far away. Can you tell with the mask, Flashblade?"
Wildwing ingnored, as usual, Rose's insubordination by addressing him by his last name. Instead, he shook his head. "I can read his lips, but that doesn't help any since he's not speaking English, Heaventoll, or any other language I recognise. And since you've told me basically what Saurian consists of, I don't think he's speaking in Saurian, either."
"What, is Wraith another Andrake DuCaine?" Mallory snapped. "I think one legendary speaker of all languages is all we need."
Rose's eyes narrowed at her comment, but she didn't respond to it.
Duke called their attention back to Seige and the Dimensional gateway at that moment. "Hey, Wildwing! I think something's gonna happen!"
Wildwing took two long strides to where the rest of the team waited, weapons out and ready, trying to watch both the Saurians and the Puckerdrones at the same time. "Get ready, team," he said, in his finest leader form. "We don't know what to expect."
"Dear duckian friends," Chameleon called, and in surprise, all eyes travelled back to the green shape-shifter that stood beside the Dimensional Gateway. He wore some kind of long, black robe, and smiled smugly. He looked human at the moment, or, at least, kind of like a human. Long black hair swirled around his green face, and he bowed. "Dear friends. I invite you to enter our magic of the Dimensional Gateway, and voyage to a new, Saurian-free world, all free and courtesy of the great Overlord, Dragaunus!" He paused, as though for applause, but all he got was alot of angry eyes focussed on him. "Ah, yes, well." He cleared his throat. "I can see that you your less than thrilled. But I assure you, this trip is to die for."
That was when Wraith stepped out of the shadows, staff in hand. His lips were moving rapidly, as he was hissing something in a dark sounding language. His eyes never stopped looking the ducks over, his mouth never stopped moving. After a nervous few seconds, he suddenly stood straighter, taller, and slammed his staff's base on the floor. It felt like a rippling shock-wave flowed over them, and in the suddenly questionable light, they could swear Wraith himself flickered, showing something else insidehim, like Wraith was an image he wore over his true self.
"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbutal," he yelled, sounding stronger, darker, and altogether more than Wraith had ever been before. "Ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimputal!"
A pinpoint of light exploded in the middle of the room, as though, by itself, the Dimensional gateway had suddenly burst its seams, aching to reach out and ensnare its captives. Dazzling whites mixed with the deepest non-light assailed their eyes, and everyone in the room threw their hands up to protect their eyes, even as the puckerdrones closest to the light exploded in showers of sparks.
The gateway was the most unstable one any of them had ever seen, and in several years of fighting the Saurians, they'd seen a fair few. Tanya, closest to the gateway, was fighting against its flow even as she turned to Wraith, and screamed, "What have you done?!"
Wraith, still standing tall and majestic, said coldly, "In this, wife of my son, I am not sorry."
And that was when Tanya tripped, and fell, with only a small cry, into the gateway.
As though it had fed on Tanya's energy, and then used it to gain strength, the gateway expanded, throwing out tendrils of light, like arms, reaching to snag the team. Rose unexpectedly latched onto Duke's arm, and as they were dragged in together, she screamed to the Saurian wizard, "With all the strength that is in me, Wraith, I will agh burzam-ishi you! I will bind you in the darkness!" And then they were gone.
The others followed close behind, Grin struggling the most valiently to the last, but then, he, too, was pulled in.
As the last duck faded into the glowing portal, Wraith suddenly collasped.
Instantly, the portal vanished, as though it had never been, leaving its wake sputtering, sparking puckdrones, two shaking Saurians, and a third lying on the ground, clinging feebally to a tall staff.
"Wraith!" Chameleon came to his senses first, edging towards the elderly Saurian, putting his hands under his arm to help him up. "Are you alright? That was amazing!"
"Keep your handsss off me, mortal!" Wraith snapped, in a most uncharacteristic voice, as slithery and cold as it had previously been as powerful and deep, just as that was a sharp contrast to Wraith's voice normally. He pulled his arm away from Chameleon as though burned by him, and hauled himself to his feet with his staff.
Chameleon lept away, and looked at Seige, who was staring in bewilderment at the controls to the Dimensional Gateway. "Yo, Seige, did you hear that?! Wraithie's finally gone off the deep end! Yo, Seige? Seige!"
Seige looked up, puzzlement in his eyes. "What?"
Chameleon raised an eyebrow. "Seige, ol buddy. You look like you're actually starting to think, and you don't get it. What's the deal?"
"I don't get it." Seige repeated Chameleon's words unknowingly. "I don't know where that gateway came from. I never turned the thing *on*."
Two sets of Saurian eyes turned to the elderly one standing on the edge of the platform, looking piercingly at the place where the gateway had been. He turned around to look back, eyes cold and glittering. "Not a word about that to Dragaunusss." He hissed in his new, cold voice. "Not a word."
And turning, he stepped down and walked away, hand on his staff. And glittering on his finger was a ring none of them had ever noticed before.
*****
Travelling through a Dimensional Gateway at the best times is never pleasant. But when that portal is concocted completely by some dark, unknown magic, it becomes something out of a nightmare.
Hurtling through the reaches of both time and space, they reached out for anything to slow their fall, but there wasn't anything, and, when you thought about it, they weren't even falling so much as they were standing still and the universe was falling apart around them.
Never before had any of them experienced such agony. It felt as though they were being torn to pieces, then patched together wrong. And once the pieces were back, they were suddenly pulled inside out and upside down and rightside wrong. Everything was at once the brightest and the darkest, the loudest and the quietest, the most painful and the most peaceful. Their heads felt ready to explode, their hands felt as though some great cosmic force was peeling off sections of them, then mashing them back on in the wrong places. Their hair tingled like elecricity, their eyes burned with unknown sights. Their minds twisted and wrenched, some thoughts being ripped out, others being thrust on them like their minds were an open book waiting for anyone who would to place new thoughts upon it. And through it all, their hearts beat out a fierce tattoe in time with the horrible curse that Wraith had called down on them.
And then, as suddenly as it was begun, all save two crashed upon the soft ground of a forest floor.
*****
Green eyes opened slowly in the stillness of the forest clearing. They blinked, then furrowed, at the sight of the moss-covered ground only inches away. Below them, the hands of the same body reached down, bare hands touching the green carpet, then pushing, as they sat. That caused the entire clearing to reel in the eyes, and the hands flew to their owner's head, a groan issuing from pained lips. The hands held the head gently, allowing the pain to slowly abate. It was then, hands holding head, that the fingers of said hands found something odd upon that head.
They'd found the ears. Now, ears in themselves are certainly not odd, except that the particular head on which they rested was not used to ears in such a manner. Thin fingers traced the sharp edges, the pointed tip, then those same hands were moved, held in front of the eyes. They roamed over the hands, staring, confusion mirrored in both emerald orbs.
That was when the eyes looked up, and across the clearing, saw another set of eyes, in another pale face, this one too with the same elegent ears on the head. When those eyes met, they both widened. And from two mouths issued the same confused worlds.
"What the heck...?!?"
And that was when someone screamed.
******
Soo....what you think? Respond, please. I'm a poor little girl who's sad and wants feedback desperately...*bats eyes* And more coming soon!