*****
[CH 5 We Finally Meet]
The sun slowly sets on the city and all around was slowly being painted in shadow. The explosion had caught the attention of the surrounding neiborhood and the police were summoned. Needless to say the remaining Quarrymen have disappeared leaving a certain blonde alien duck very relieved. He was sitting quietly next to the small stone gargoyle eating his third hot dog. He bought five of them from a guy with a hotdog cart he met outside the park; who was quite surprised at meeting him, but not so much to sell his goods. The other two hotdogs were for his new friend when he woke up, which, Nosedive hoped was soon; he was still hungry. He also had his Duckcycle parked right next to him; in front of the bushes were it hid stone-frozen being. The sun had set, the cool evening was welcome by his tired body and soon he heard the splitting sound of stone. Nosedive glances at the statue and sees it cracking and covers the remaining franks just before the statue moved; extending it body into one long stretch and sending it stone skin tumbling to the ground.
"And a good evening to you too." Joked the duck as he watched the gargoyle finish his stretching and yawning. "And what a lovely sun set it was folks. It's now 6:00 pm and we have a nice light breeze visiting us from the north. Hungry?" he handed the olive-colored creature the hotdogs as if the situation was completely natural to him.
"…Um… thanks." Lexington stared at the duck; a bit put off by the offering and the unnecessary broadcast but mostly by the fact that he hadn't been dreaming last night, "You… watch me throughout the entire day?" The look of the duck answered that before hand.
"Sure." Replied the duck simply "Couldn't have those losers finding ya the way you were. Besides, I owed ya one." He shoved the other half of his hotdog in his beak. "Name's Nosedive." He said around his full bill. "Dive for short. I never caught your name the first time."
"Um… Lexington." Answered the gargoyle around his first bite, "Like the avenue, but everyone calls me, Lex." He finishes the hotdog in four bites and starts on the second. "Umm… don't you… I don't know, feel awkward talking to me? I mean usually people are scared of me."
"Nope. And in case you haven't notice I'm not a people." The blonde stood up and rolled his left arm around. It was obvious he was testing its mobility. "The only thing that freaks me out is a spider. I can't stand those things."
"Are you hurt?" Lexington could see he was limping; not to mention he had a scorched mark on the back of his armor.
"Nothing a hot shower and a few Z's won't cure. Course, I'll be sore for a while but hey I'm used to it." His casual manner seemed very awkward to the small gargoyle. However Lex became a bit sidetrack by his motorcycle.
"Whoa, is that yours?"
"One of them. You're into bikes?" The duck watched small creature nod.
"Yeah, kind've," Nosedive waited for him to get up on his feet before kicking the stand up. The two soon started walking down the path. "I've built one before. I like tinkering around with things."
"Cool." Replied blonde teen. "I only ride'em and fix'em if need be." He had to hold down a chuckle when he saw the little creature switched to crawling on all fours as it studied his bike, "So little goblin dude; ya mind telling me why those goons were after ya?"
"Gargoyle."
"Wha… Huh?"
"I'm not a goblin, I'm a gargoyle," Explain the little creature in a most dignified tone, "and it's because of what I am that they were hunting me." They both stop for a moment, "They call themselves the Quarrymen. They're hunters; anything that's not human is their prey. They've been after my clan since they first formed."
"Ah man, that's the pits." His voice held every fiber of sympathy and oddly enough understanding. "I know what that's like… Guess I made their list too, huh? Oh well. It happens." He shrugged it off as if it was nothing of interest. "So, um, guess you're gonna need a ride home." The alien duck patted the back part of the seat of his motorcycle, "How bout it?"
As tempting as the invitation was, the little gargoyle wasn't sure what to think of this duck. He was just… too comfortable with this whole situation. What kind of being would just shrug off the fact that he's been added to a hit list? Where did that warrior armor came from? A celebrity and a warrior… just like the Pack. Ever since what happened with the Pack, Goliath had told him to be more cautious about trusting strangers. Then again, his life was never saved by one before… but how did he know it was all a trick like last time? However, before Lex could give an answer a voice came yelling angrily from around the bend.
"Look I could care less if it's safe or not! I've done plenty of reconnaissance and rescue missions in my life to know how to take care of myself! Our teammate is in there and we're going in whether you like it or not!"
Nosedive easily recognized the voice belonging to his shot tempered, spitfire, and redheaded teammate. He couldn't help but feel sorry for whomever she was yelling at. But then he began to panic at the tone when he realized she was there in the park! However, the second voice that follows was one Lex knew very well and had him jumping to his feet.
"Look ma'm I understand your concern, but I can't allow you to go in the park." The two peeked around to see a dark-haired policewoman trying to reason with Mallory. {Heaven help her!} "Besides the explosion there have been reports of gun shots as well. This could be a possible gang war and we can't afford to put anymore lives at risk."
"Oh Drake!" Exclaimed the blonde duck nearly shouting "I forgot that my bro heard the gun shots and explosion before my com got busted!"
"Oh no, No, NO!" exclaimed the small gargoyle. "I can't just walk out there like you; I'm not allowed to be seen by humans! And if Elisa is here than that means my clan is near by too! There's not enough wind for me glide out of here!"
"Man, this is worse than the time I got kidnaa…" It took a minute for those last words to sink in, "Hold up, that cop knows about you too?"
"Yea, she and her partner Matt are our friends." Lexington was watching the skies as he answered, panicking too much to realize he just revealed his clan's secret, "Wherever she goes in the city we're usually there too…" then the situation dawned on him, "You're not suppose to know! No one is supposed to know we exist!"
"Okay man, don't panic, don't start freaking out on me now." Nosedive started to pace back and forth. "Give me a minute I'll think of something." He stops shortly and rapidly taps his foot while Lex hyperventilated and had his eyes darted all over. He was clearly at his wit's end. Somehow Dive had to keep all the attention on himself so his little bat friend wouldn't be seen. Then he got a good look at himself. Ruffled feathers, battle worn armor, slightly torn uniform, and a few scrapes on his knees and arms, "I got it! Here's what we'll do…"
*****
"Ms. Maza is there any way to contact my brother?" Wildwing had to retrain himself a great deal not to argue with the female officer. She only doing her job after all and besides Mallory was yelling enough for them all, "He got caught in the middle of all this, please."
"We're doing everything we can to find him Mr. Flashblade." Elisa assured the masked mallard. She could see through the mask and into his worried eyes and had to sympathize with him. If it was her own brother in there…, "If he's in there we'll find him. And we'll see to it that whoever was after him will be thrown behind bars. You can count on that."
"Wing?" the voice sounded hopeful if not edgy. The being it belonged to was cautiously peeking out from the bushes. This is where those acting lesson from Mrs. Plumage's theater class was about to pay off. Nosedive had messed up his hair into a swirling mess of blonde locks and small twigs. {The cause was worth the sacrifice.} He tore up his uniform bit more to show whatever bruising he had and rubbed dirt on his armor and feathers. It fully convinced his brother.
"Nosedive!" without meaning to; Wildwing shoved his way pass Detective Maze and ran towards his brother. After quick comment from Duke about fast work for cops; he and the others had followed their leader as well. "What the stars happened to you?! Are you alright?!"
"Oh man bro! It was crazy!" The blonde teen got it all out in one breath, jerking and twisting around as if he expected another attack. "Crazy! I'm all trying ta find you guys on my Duckcycle so I could see the show and then I go and try to take a shortcut through the park, and the next thing I know I'm getting shot at!!" Needless to say he made quite a big scene that no one noticed that he intentionally backup near the bushes again. These freaks just came outta nowhere and jumped me! And their all shooting at me with these crazy looking guns that shot out nets, and bullets, and darts; so I'm all running and punching and kicking and running some more and then they nearly blew me to pieces; It was Crazy!! They wanted to mount my head on their wall!!!" He ended it by faking a loud cry into his brother shoulder, then stepping back a little and asking the dark-hair detective in his normal voice. "I guess this is why you people don't go in here at night huh?"
"He ain't hurt," Duke spoke with a sigh, "Still has his sense of humor." Which was a huge relief to the other ducks.
"Can you describe them?" Elisa interrupted; she had her notepad and pencil out. "Did you get a good look at them."
Remembering that she was supposed to be bugged Nosedive made sure he listed the right marking. "Yeah a bunch of Creepazoids around your size, four were a little taller, they were wearing these goofy looking black jumpsuits with a dopey looking Q printed on it that looked more like a hammer and creawnt moon and stupid looking hoods marked the same way. Called themselves the… Quacky… Qerky…"
The Detective's eyes practically doubled in size. "The Quarrymen?!"
"Yeah, there ya go, that's them." Confirmed the young duck. "That's what they were calling themselves."
By this time Nosedive was given a long dark blanket to cover himself from the breeze. He flung it around his shoulder like a cape before closing it in front of him. Inwardly smirking as he felt the smaller form of his new little friend pressing into his lower back as the blanket draped over him as well. Goliath and the rest of the clan were shocked to learn that the Quarrymen were involved in all this and feared the worst for their smallest member. Meanwhile, Elisa explained to the rest of the duck team about who Quarrymen were; and then questioned Nosedive some more on how many there were and which way he had seen them going before the police had arrive. He told them where he managed to take out a few of them, but made sure to tell them he wasn't sure if they were still there. That was all it took for them to leave him alone and go on a hunting mission of their own; leaving him free to leave with his team. No one noticed the tip of an olive green tail sticking out from under the blanket.
Instead of going to the Migrator like he thought, the whole team came in one of Xanatos's limos. This was going to workout better then he could have hoped. "Whao, hold up!" he said stopping in front of Owen. "I forgot the Duckcycle in there."
"Don't worry about it Dive," answered Wildwing trying to steer his brother in the car. "I'll get before we leave."
"But you don't know where it is." Nosedive placed his hand on the open door "In fact those goons cased me around that place so much I can't remember where I left it."
"Not a p-problem." Answered Tanya as she activated her Omni-tool "It has a, um, built in homing system."
"We'll find it faster if we all go." Informed Mallory, though what she really wanted to do was 'interrogate' these Quarrymen herself.
"You heard the girl," agreed the teen "Lets move ou-Ow!" he had forgotten about his shoulder extended his left arm little faster than it would have liked. "Ow-ow-ow!"
"The only place you're moving to is in this car." Stated Wildwing. His stern tone told his little brother not to even think of arguing.
Nodding in agreement Dive turn and limped to the limo and acted like he was setting a foot in the long black car. Satisfied that he was cooperating, his team headed back towards the park. "Yo Owen, they gone?"
A bit curious at the question the assistant replied "…Yes, Mr. Flashblade."
The blonde teen looked back and around to make sure no one was looking. "Those fancy black windows that close you from our half of the limo are down right?" Again the stead fast human nodded and before he could ask for a reason he saw the young duck looking up towards the rooftops. "Okay Lexie move."
In one fast movement he opened the blanket and Lexington threw himself into the back seat of the limousine. Owen's mouth dropped open when he saw what had happen, but before he had a chance to recover Nosedive slid in after the small gargoyle like nothing had happen.
"You didn't see anything." He told the blonde human as he imitated a Jedi hand gesture.
Understanding what was to come, Owen shut the door and stood at his usual spot in front of the driver's seat door. Since the all the windows were tinted, Lexington could now safely crawl through the window space and into the passenger side of the limo without worrying about being seen. Once there he pressed the button used to shut the black window and cut off the back of the limo from the front.
*****
It was agreed that Duke was going to ride the Duckcycle back to the Xanatos building and the rest would ride in the limo. Along the way Nosedive told them how he fought the Quarrymen while Wildwing took a good look at his arm and picked out the twigs from his hair. Taking note that he was bragging a little too much about taking on the gang than he was complaining about getting mugged by them.
"Man you should've seen it!" stated the teenager as they made it to the underground parking of the Xanatos building "I pounded them! Down right pounded them! That'll teach them not to mess with a Mighty Duck!"
"Alright Dive that's enough." He's brother said with an even tone "Let's just get you inside and into the showers. You're a mess." Remembering he had a limp, Wildwing helped the younger duck out of the car and followed the others to the elevator "And by the way you're not leaving this building alone again."
"What?! Ah c'mon bro!" Nosedive cried out. "It wasn't really that bad, honest! So I got a little grubby…"
"A little grubby?!" exclaimed the masked mallard "Dive that group that attack you was said to be a bunch of lunatics! Apparently they hunt after anything not human, as in 'not of this planet'; in other words you might've been their first hunting trophy. With guys like them running around this city there's no way you… or any of us for that matter will be going anywhere alone. Is that clear?"
The rest of the team agreed to the terms fully and they all entered the elevator once the doors had opened. Once the coast was clear Owen circled back and opened the passenger side door for Lexington. Who by now had just realized just how much more he told that teen duck than he should have.
"It's safe for you to venture out now, Lexington." The human confirmed the small gargoyle's thoughts. "I'll accompany you to the lower floors of the castle so you may join the others undetected."
"Thanks Owen." The littlest gargoyle followed the blonde human towards the elevators. "Um Owen… Could you, maybe, not tell the others about Nosedive?" he didn't even look at the steadfast assistant. He was glancing to the side, ears drooping, and hands claps with his index fingers tapping each other at the tip in a nervous fashion. "See if they found out he knows for a fact that we exist than… well I'd get in a lot of trouble and…"
"Yes, I can understand how intimidating Goliath's temperament can be." Nodded the human in agreement. "I can assume that young Mr. Flashblade understands that he can't speak of this?" the gargoyle hesitated for a moment then nodded. "Then you can rest assured they won't hear of this from me. Now might I suggest you join the others before they suspect anything?" With that the elevator doors opened two floors below the main court room into a dark hallway that lead down toward the open court yard, near one of the towers which lead to the wall's walkway.
*****
On the wall Bronx watched happily as Goliath and the others returned home from their patrol. Though he was a little confused at why they didn't have his smaller owner/playmate with them. Neither of them looked too happy at all.
"I can't believe it…" Sighed Brooklyn, "I just can't believe it!" Out of frustration he slams his fist onto the small stone pillar, causing in to crack a little. "We searched the park and the surrounding area and still nothing!"
"He's been gone since last night…You don't think…" Broadway could barely make the suggestion, "…he might have been captured do you?"
"I am not sure." Replied Goliath, staring out into the night, "If he has been, then we must do everything we can to find him."
"Aye that we must." Agreed a frowning Hudson "These Quarrymen may be ruthless but they are not fools. Chances are they might keep the lad alive long enough to set a trap for the rest of us."
"Lets not jump to conclusions too soon." Angela reminded the others, "The police had found the three Quarrymen that the duckling was able to capture when they hunted him. Elisa will be here shortly to tell us if…"
Bronx caught a familiar sent and started to run, barking happily, towards the left tower. Lexington was too distracted by his own thoughts about the alien duck to see the hound coming. 'How could I have let this happen? What was I thinking striking a conversation with that duck? Now he knows everything about us. Can Nosedive even be trusted? …Well he did help me. Maybe…' He had barely taken five steps out of the stairway door when the huge gar-beast ran up and pounced on him. Bronx knocked the small gargoyle down to the ground and had it pinned between his large heavy body and the stone floor. Before Lex could say a word the huge dog was licking at his face; the tong trailed from his collarbone, up his neck and over his cheek and up to his ear over and over, tickling him as it did so. The dog had clearly missed him a lot.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha! Bronx ha-ha-ha stop!" laughed the little gargoyle as he tried to push his contented pet off. "I-I can't ha-ha-ha breath!
"Bronx down!" cried the brick-colored second in command. He and Broadway ran up and pulled the huge beast off their smaller brother, "Down boy! Heel!"
It took a few tries but the two managed to pry their huge pet off their Rookery brother. Lexington laid back wiping his face and still laughing. It took a little while to stop since he had always been kind of ticklish. With a relief smile, Angela helped him to his feet, while his two older Rookery brothers held the excited gar-beast at bay.
"Lexington, it's so good to see you." The little gargoyle found himself in strong embrace by his leader's daughter. "We were very worried about you."
"Indeed lad." Added the old mentor "When you did not returned last night we were thinking that duckling was going to stay out till the morning. Then we've all heard about what happened at the park with the Quarrymen."
"We figured they went after blonde duck and you jumped in and fought them off," Broadway added once Bronx calmed down enough to be let go. "And the sun had to have come up while you were."
"What I don't get is why they didn't try taking you away while that small group went after the duck?" Brooklyn sudden point had everyone looking at each other and then at their smallest clan member.
"Umm, …yeah, … well I managed… to lose them before the sun rose," he petted Bronx as an excuse not to face them. He didn't like the fact that he was taking credit for another warrior's heroics, "What surprises me… is that Nosedive fought off and caught a few of them." He glanced back at them, "I was hiding in the trees while the police where questioning him. I guess these ducks are a lot tougher than we thought."
"That makes sense," nodded Broadway, "And with all the humans that were there its no wonder you took so long to come home."
"Well yer back now lad," said Hudson as he laid a hand on the smallest member's shoulder, "That's all that matters."
*****
Inside the CastleAfter a wondrous meal and soothing hot shower Nosedive felt fit as a fiddle again. Tanya gave him a full check up and to the relief of all the others found nothing serious. Fact was the worst was only bruises and a few scraps. The shoulder would be stiff for two days at most and the limp should be gone by tomorrow; which meant he'd be able to play in the upcoming game.
"Am I done yet?" asked the teen, he was shirtless and board with having to look right at the flashlight in his face, "Cause if this goes on any longer, I'm gonna crash right here and…" giving his playful nature his head slumped off to the side and he began snoring.
"D'oh alright Nosedive you can, you know, put your, um, shirt back on," said the blonde scientist with a small chuckle. "By my calculations you should be, um, fit as a fiddle for our game this w-weekend."
"Cool," replied the teen. Then remembering Lexington was probably watching raised his voice a little, "Hey ain't that one at 7:45 on Saturday night?"
"Um, yeah it's the only one we've got so far," answered Duke, "What you got hit in the head and forgot?"
"Naw just wanted to make sure,"
"Well now you know," stated Wildwing as he began steering his brother towards their room, "Which means you'll be able to sleep without any trouble."
"Say what?" Nosedive was hoping he's get a chance to hang out with his new friend, "It's only 8:45…"
"And you'll be able to make up for last night's sleepless race," answered the elder Flashblade brother very much the same way their father would have, "Now off to bed with you."
"Aww bro come on," somewhere out there was a bat-winged creature laughing his head off, Nosedive just knew it, "Just a little longer…"
With a grin Wildwing gave his siblings their father's answer, "Only if you agree to wake up all the earlier tomorrow."
"You're mean!"
"So I am," with that the two disappeared down the hallway.
Although, Lexington wasn't there when the date of the game was mentioned his older Rookery brothers were. It sounded like the perfect opportunity to witness the skills of their guests first hand. Maybe even learn a few tricks to use in battle. With this in mind Brooklyn glided off to report to the others while Broadway continued the shift.