(AN: I actually planned on writing a chapter over Christmas break. Fat chance of that, huh? You can all thank your lucky stars that my Christmas break ended so soon! Here's chapter nine, with some promised Tonya vs. Buck goodness for you.)

O.o.O

Night fell and morning came, just as it always does on the farm.

Buck pushed his way out of the henhouse (he had moved all the beds and made them into one big bed, while the hens so thoughtfully slept on the floor) and walked out into the cold morning air, sucking in the oxygen… oh yes, it was going to be a great day! He took a step forward and—

—pulled his foot back instantly. There, right outside the chicken coup, was a dirt-colored blanket stretched over what was undoubtedly a hole. He laughed rudely.

"Nice try, Tonya or whatever your filthy name is! You're going to have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over me!"

Buck threw his heavily-combed head back and laughed, taking a step to the side of the obvious trap laid out so clumsily by the stupid little hen.

"AAAAHHHH!"

Cursing wildly and loudly, Buck heaved himself up on his feet and stared up at the bear-pit trap that he had fallen in, laid just to the left of the first one. The trap was at least four feet deep—maybe not very deep to you, but to a chicken, it was more than twice his height.

The guilty party's yellow-feathered head poked down and grinned maliciously at Buck, still seething.

"Actually," said Tonya in a cheery voice, "I did get up early in the morning to lay these traps. Guess my hard work and early morning paid off, huh?"

Behind her, of course, was the approving giggles of her nasty little siblings.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT, YOU—"

"I know the author still wants to keep this PG, so I'll censor that word!" Tonya quickly said.

"—I'M WARNING YOU!"

"Aaaaww, go take a very long walk off a non-existent pier," said Tonya with a dismissive wave of her wing, turning around and leaving her foe still hollering profanities from his dungeon.

"That was a great one, Tawnie!" laughed Karley, clutching her sides from laughing so hard.

"One of my better efforts, I have to agree," said Tonya smugly.

"It's too bad Booker and Sheldon aren't here to see this," said Ryan with a sigh. "They would have enjoyed this."

"Yeah, even Booker, that stubborn little brat," Tonya had to agree.

Alexander lightly and fearfully tugged on Tonya's wing. "Tonya… don't you think you've tormented Buck enough now?"

"Are you kidding?" Tonya barked out. "If I kept this pace up for a hundred years he would still deserve more! Besides, it's a lot of fun, and Mom isn't here to tell me to knock it off."

"But…" Alexander, as usual, had to search for his words in between his hesitant stutters. "…but Buck s-said that… he'd rip you a-apart… and e-every time you do something to him, he gets m-madder and madder!"

"Pish-posh," said Tonya in a pish-poshy sort of way. "Have you counted how many times he's said that?"

"Fourteen, at last count," Julius piped in.

Tonya raised an eyebrow. "…Ooooo-kay. That was actually a rhetorical question, but it does prove my point. Buck has made that claim multiple times a day, and yet he has only acted on it twice."

"But—!" Alexander began.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Tonya interrupted. "And both times I totally and completely kept my cool, remember? You saw one of them."

"He strangled you!" Nicole reminded Tonya rather harshly.

"And I'm still okay, aren't I?"

"That's not everyone's opinion," Alison whispered to Logan. Logan twittered with laughter.

"Shh." Tonya flapped her wing across Logan's mouth, silencing her sister. "Do you hear that? It sounds like Buck's yelling 'duck' or something like that."

"Maybe someone's about to hit their head on a low branch and he's telling them to duck," Julius offered.

Tonya shook her head. "No way. Buck's not that considerate." She bit her beak in thought, and then remembered with a flash—"I know! He's calling for that poor duck that he terrorized that night he was partying in the coup!"

And sure enough…

"DUCK! Get me out of this hole!"

Wade had scrambled to the hole as soon as he heard Buck's vengeful rage, but as he looked down the hole, he shook even more with fear.

"Uh, your worship, your grace, your royal highness of evilness—"

"STUFF IT!"

Wade's voice was now hardly more than a whisper. "—I don't know how to get you out!"

Buck snorted very rudely. "You moron, you lean down, extend your wing, and I jump and grab it!"

"Bu-but you're too heavy for me too—"

"LOWER YOUR WING, DUCK!"

"—hold," Wade finished meekly. Nervously balancing himself on the edge of the bear trap that Tonya had so meticulously dug in the wee hours of that morning, Wade every so carefully, inch by inch, began lowering himself down, but then a thought came to his panic-stricken mind—

Why help him at all?

Wade was terrified of disobeying him, to be sure, but… jeez, he was four feet under! What could he possibly do to him?

"What are you waiting for?" snarled Buck.

"You know, actually, I don't think I will help you out of there!" said Wade in one of his characteristic, although sadly usually short-lived, spouts of bravery. "Ever since you've came here, all you've done is yelled at me, belittled me, and forced me to do all your work, completely throwing off the balance of the equal duties we all have here! But now that you're down there, there's no possible way you can hurt me, thus giving me no reason to fear you, thus I am blatantly disobeying your orders!" Wade took in a deep breath and, as confidently as he ever had before, looked Buck directly in the eyes, with a smug superiority etched on his feathery face.

Unfortunately, Buck knew Wade's random fears all too well. "But I can sing 'Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here' in the key of G flat while juggling water balloons."

Wade shrieked in fear. "You wouldn't!"

"I would!" hissed Buck.

Wade gulped in terror. "Alright," he murmured resignedly, "I'll do it."

Finding his balance again, Wade leaned himself as carefully as he could into the pit, holding on to the ground with one wing for balance.

"You're going to have to lean down further than that," snapped Buck.

"But I'll fall!"

"Hail, hail…"

"No, please!" begged Wade. "I can get lower…"

Now leaning as far down into the pit as he possibly could, Wade stretched his wing down to Buck, and…

Buck jumped up and grabbed Wade's outstretched wing. Scrambling madly, Wade managed to hoist Buck out of the pit and safely on terra firma, but he very nearly lost what little balance that he had. Flailing his wing out while grasping firmly onto the edge with the other, Wade probably would have regained his balance and even pulled himself out all by himself…

…if Buck hadn't, forcibly, deliberately, cruelly…

…pushed his savoir into the pit.

The hollow thud of his landing, the shark crack that sounded from his right wing when his body landed painfully on it, and the searing pain that shot through his wing, completely silenced Wade as painfully sat up and stared at his injury. It had finally happened… he had always feared it, but never experienced it, but now, that snapping sound, the way his wing was misshapen, and the way that it hurt to even think about moving it, eliminated all questions.

"I broke my wing!" Wade wailed helplessly.

Wade was, by nature, always an apprehensive (at best) and panic-stricken (at worst) creature, but rarely did he succumb to tears. But the fear of actually being injured—people could die from broken bones, if they punctured a vein or something, right?—added with the excruciating pain racing up and down his wing pushed him over the edge.

Through huge, gasping sobs, he cried, "It hurts and I'm gonna DIE!"

"Oh, knock it off, you big crybaby," scoffed Buck, brushing his wings off nonchalantly.

"Help me!" cried Wade.

"Help you?" repeated Buck. "I can't help you! I have chores to do! Chores that you're supposed to do for me! Like watering the crops… and the big bear pits…"

"What do you mean by that?" Wade asked innocently, blinking away tears.

Then he his head around, taking in his surroundings.

"OH NO!" he wailed. "You don't mean that! You can't!"

"Aaw, come on," said Buck with a horrid grin. "Ducks like water."

"Not me! I'm afraid of it! Besides, even if I wasn't, I can't swim with a broken wing! Where are you going? Come back! Please come back and get me out of here! If you do, I'll do anything—I'll even let you sing 'Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here' whilst juggling! Don't leave! Help! Assistance needed! Please, please don't leave me here to drown!"

Of course, Buck had been long gone before Wade even started his third sentence. Realizing this, Wade moaned loudly and very possibly would have curled up in a fetal position if his wing weren't so painfully useless. "Somebody, please help… ORSON!" he screeched.

By a wondrous stroke of good luck, Orson happened to be walking by the henhouse at that very moment. Hearing Wade's voice far more panicky and terrified than it had ever been before, he screeched to a halt in his tracks. "Wade! Is that you? Where are you?"

"Down here in this pit!" cried Wade, feeling a small wave of relief wash through him. "Please get me out! I'm in pain and I'm dying and I'm going to drown if you don't do something!"

Orson peered down at Wade's underground dungeon and gasped. "Wade! What happened to you? Bo, Lanolin, get over here—and bring a ladder! How did you get down there?"

Wade trembled, clearly not wishing to answer.

"Wade, what happened?" Orson pressed.

"Thou shouldst not asketh a dying duck so many questions," he replied without conviction.

"Dying? Wade, what are you talking about?"

"I broke my wing!" Wade sobbed. "I'm a goner, I'll be checking in to get my halo any minute now, and, oh, there was so much I wanted to do with my life!"

"You're not going to die of a broken wing, Wade," sighed Orson. "But where did this hole come from? Did you fall?"

"Uh… yeah, sure, let's go with that," said Wade uncertainly.

"Wade… tell me the truth!"

"Like, we're here with the ladder, man," said Bo, running up to the scene of the accident holding one end of a ladder, Lanolin holding the other. "What's the buzz, cuz?"

"Wade fell down this hole that came out of nowhere and broke his wing!" cried Orson.

The sheep dropped the ladder and ran to the side of the pit, looking down at the unfortunate duck. "Wade, you poor coward!" cried Lanolin, almost sounding sympathetic. (Probably as sympathetic as she could ever get.) "How did you really fall down here? I bet it has something to do with that rotten rooster Buck—"

"Actually, it did."

Orson, Bo, and Lanolin spun around in shock at Buck, who was holding a garden hose and feigning despair (although now even Orson was beginning to see through it). "When I woke up this morning I feel right in this pit that that terrible little chick Tonya set for me. Duck—I mean Wade—heroically pulled me to safety, but he unfortunately fell in himself. I immediately ran off to get this hose to fill up the hole and have him float up to safety—"

"Thank you," said Orson curtly, cutting the rooster off. "But we can handle it from here. Leave us alone." Orson had never been this severe with Buck before, but if Buck noticed it, he didn't comment. He merely shrugged, dropped the hose, and sauntered off.

"What a loathsome lying fiend!" Lanolin spat out as Bo climbed down the ladder to retrieve Wade. "He pushed you in, didn't he?"

"Uh, maybe… is he still here?" asked Wade, trembling in Bo's arms.

"Dude, man, there's reason to be afraid and all that, but you like need to start standing up for yourself," said Bo sensibly.

"Am I going to die now?" asked Wade in a pitifully small voice.

Orson sighed. "No, you're not. Bo, could you take Wade to the barn? And Lanolin, could you find the chick Tonya and bring her to the barn?"

"What about you, hog-boy?" asked Lanolin bitterly. "Are you finally going to give that rooster the boot?"

"I DON'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY!" screamed Orson, taking aback Bo, Lanolin, and Wade.

Taking a deep breath and re-collecting himself, Orson continued, "Uh, sorry about that. But really, I don't have the authority to take people off the farm! I know I used to, but the farmer didn't like that. I'll put in a word with him, however. But I'll warn you that it probably won't do any good. We need a rooster here, and unless Roy ever comes back, Buck's the only one we've got."

"I hope Joanna comes back with Roy real soon," mumbled Lanolin. "She was right, of course… all of us will be welcoming him back with open arms."

With that said, the animals went their separate ways—Bo with Wade to the barn, Orson to the farmhouse, and Lanolin inside the hen house.

O.o.O

(AN: I suppose that's a good stopping point, although I could go on and on with this chapter! It should be a crime to have this much fun writing a story. And a crime to hurt poor Wade. Poor, poor Wade! :(

Oh yes, and if you're curious… I drew some pictures of Joanna and Tonya that you might like to see. Just remove the –'s.

http:-/-/-www-.-deviantart-.-com-/-deviation-/-23077066-/- is of Joanna, and

http:-/-/-www-.-deviantart-.-com-/-deviation-/-27270732-/- is of Tonya, in both chicken and—gasp—human form!

Anyway, I'll see you next chapter—chapter ten! Wowza! (faints))