I don't own the Mighty Ducks.

Left Behind

Chapter 3:

She turned the gold object back and forth in her hands as she walked, trying to figure out what it went to. Her fingers caressed the rounded edges and the smooth surface. "What could this go too?" She wondered. It didn't go to any weapons she knew about. She looked at her com again to check the time, seeing that it was mid afternoon, she was about to close her com when she looked at the cover to her's and back at the golden cover in her hand. It was the same.

"Canard! Canard had a golden communicator! He survived the worm attack otherwise this wouldn't be here!" "YES!" Mallory cheered to no one in particular, throwing her arms in the air in a small victory dance. To anyone looking they would have thought she lost her mind but Mallory didn't care. Chances are that he was alive and she was going to find him, then together, they were getting outta dodge!

With new energy in her step she continued her search.

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So far her search had turned up nothing.

Limbo was expansive, he could be anywhere. Would he be crazy from being stuck here for so long? What if he wasn't alive? What if something on the ground got to him...No. She didn't get to spend much time with him as a fighter but from what she saw she knew he was good. If anything Canard was a survivor. She would not stop searching for him unless she found evidence that proved without a shadow of a doubt he was dead.

Mallory's feet screamed at her with every step she took. She really wanted to stop but why bother, she was barely able to sleep as it was thanks to the never changing sky. Soon though she would have to stop and sleep, she couldn't go on like this forever. Maybe she could find some more water to soak her feet in. The bones in the balls of her feet were what hurt her the most, a close second was her leg muscles. The muscles in her thighs and calves burned in protest as she used them to lift herself over some of the large rocks in the landscape.

Lifting herself over a particularly high rock she got a glimpse of something moving in the distance. "What was that?" It was pretty far off so she wasn't worried but she didn't want to draw attention to herself that she didn't need... like from another creature that wanted to eat her. Shivering as she thought about the last creature with the freakishly long tongue and ugly blue fur. If it had gotten her into it's mouth, it would have bitten her in half. Mallory walked for twenty more minutes before she decided to check and see where that creature was at. Climbing up again she peered over the rocks to see that it had gained great distance and was headed speedily towards her location. "Crap." She muttered, as she searched for a place up high to hid. "Bingo!" Jumping up she made quick work of getting to the ledge fifteen feet up, using a corner where she used her leg strength to hop from stone to stone to reach it. It was hard considering how tired her legs were but she was tough.

Looking around the stone, at it's progress she almost jumped at seeing it maybe 100 feet from her previous location. Now that it was closer she could really get a good look at it. It was something she had never seen before, it's strange almost see through pale skin had ugly black veins creeping over it's bald body. It's eyes were blood shot and black drool dipped from it's mouth, that held a full set of small but sharp flesh shredding teeth in a long snout. It stumbled around on it's four legs, acting disoriented, like it was dizzy. It turned it's head in circles as it made huffing noses, like it was difficult to breath. It opened it's jaws trying to bite the air currents around it. "If I didn't know better I'd say this thing had some form of rabies." She thought as she watched it. "It's definitely sick."

The creature swayed on it's feet. The thing stumbled into the rock she was hiding on but didn't notice her there. Getting this close it smelled sick. Mallory covered her nose, trying not to breath in the strong smell of ammonia coming off of this thing. It went to where she stood previously and used it's vampire bat like nose to sniff at the ground. It was trying to track her.

As it started following the path she took when the noise of sliding rocks caught it's attention. Lucretia stumbled out of the rocks, right in the creatures path. Double shit. That sucked for her. Mallory shook her head at the duck who just served herself on a platter for lunch. Lucretia was frozen in horror at the monster standing before her, clearly frightened and not thinking. She just stood there while the thing stared at her and turned towards her. It bared it's teeth and reared up on it's hid legs like a bear but pushing it's head back like a snake ready to strike. It stood a good ten feet tall on it's hind legs, it's very sharp claws, which were dripping that black liquid, where positioned like it was going to pounce on her... and she still just stood there, staring in abject horror. "Is she stupid or something? Oh wait... yes."

Finally her brain caught up with her and she ran, the thing was right a her heels. Mallory watched them race away, fully intending to leave Lucretia at the mercy of that monster. Mallory jumped down ready to move one when she heard Lucretia scream. It was a scream of true terror and despite being a terrible person, Mallory released she couldn't leave her like that.

"Crap. Why do I have to have a conscience? She would so not do this for me." Mallory grumbled rushing to Lucretia's rescue. She found her stuffed in a small corner that the creature couldn't get into. It reached it's long claws for the purple haired duck, carving up stone as it did and shifting the rocks around, trying to wiggle in to get to her. Mallory rolled her eyes at Lucretia, she couldn't have picked a worse spot, if it didn't eventually get her then the rocks it was shifting around would crush her.

"HEY UGLY!" The creature didn't take notice of Mallory at first but once she threw at rock at it's head she got it's attention. Pulling out her gun she set it to lethal pucks. "That's it. Right here." She said as she backed up, the pale bald creature turned to her, slowly approaching on it's four legs. It stumbled forward, swaying from side to side a little but it's blood shot eyes remained focused on her.

"Lucretia when I say shoot the puck ropes at it's legs." Lucretia grabbed her gun with shaking hand and nodded.

Once it lifted up on it's hid legs in the strike position Mallory yelled out her order. "NOW!"

Lucretia didn't do at all what she asked her to do. Instead she used a grapple hook in her gun and swung her way out of the situation. "COWARD!" Mallory yelled, shooting the thing with her lethal pucks right in it's chest but it wasn't enough to bring it down. It charged her and Mallory jumped out of the way to avoid it's teeth, however she couldn't avoid it's claws. Two claws sliced into the side of her right thigh. She fell to her side with her gun still in hand. She didn't want to kill this thing at first but it was leaving her no choice. She was hoping to tie it up and leave it, it would get lose eventually but thanks to Lucretia, that wasn't possible.

It fell face first into a rock, slowly it got to it's feet, breathing heavily from the gunshot wound to the chest. She could hear blood start to fill it's lungs with each breath it took. It started running at her but she grabbed her gun and shot it right in the forehead, blowing it's brains out the back of it's head and putting it is down for the count. At least it was out of it's misery now.

Getting up Mallory put weight on her one leg and almost screamed, it burned like it was on fire. Looking down at her leg she could see the black fluid from it's claws had gotten into the cut. Shit.

Mallory limped away from the dead monster, she needed to find a stream and fast. She had to wash this or who knows what would happen. "When I get my hands on that purple headed bimbo... I might kill her myself." She raged. She saved Lucretia's life only to have the bitch turn around and feed her to the wolves, or in this case giant rabies infected monster.

Limping over to a large rock, she climbed up as best as she could and searched for water. Likely for her there was a body of water not far from her but it wasn't going to be easy to get too, not with her leg like this. It was going to require her to do some climbing.

Once off of the rock she kept her gun out in case she was attacked. Limping towards the location of the water she pushed through the pain that burned in her leg. Thirty minutes of limping and climbing over rocks and she had finally made it to the waters edge. She was covered in sweat and panting. Not wasting any time she cleaned her leg the best to her abilities. Making sure all of the black fluid was out of it she gently pried the deep cuts open by the edges of her torn flesh with her fingers so she could better look inside the cut. There didn't seem to be any more black in there but that didn't mean she was in the clear, actually the chances of her getting sicker where high. She needed to disinfect the wound some how. The chances that the water was sterile was pretty slim, she would need to boil it some how.

But she didn't have a bowl! It was the only thing she didn't have and it was the most essential. This just wasn't looking good for her. "Okay McMallory think about your training! If you don't have one thing then make it up some how!" She could try to find a rock shaped like a bowl but chances of that were slim to none. What could she do? What held water well that you could heat it with? Hummm... Leather!

Getting up Mallory limped the thirty minutes back to the dead creature and pulled out her knife. This was going to be gross...

Mallory limped back to the water her hands covered in black fluid, large square of skin in her hand as she limped going to the waters edge she cleaned the skin and herself to the best of her ability. Finding some high rocks she made a place for a fire and used wood to start one. Then used rope and wood to hang the skin over the fire. The heat from the fire would rise up and burn away any unwanted disease on the skin. Then she would scrape away any unwanted flesh or burnt pieces. She placed fist sized rocks in the fire to heat them, once they were properly heated she would placed them in the leather sack with the water and bring it to a boil that way. Gotta love Puckworld Special Forces training!

Once the leather was done, she went back to the water and used the skin to get the water and wrapped a rope around it, making sure not to spill. As she worked she could feel her leg burning more and more. She needed to hurry. Quick as she could she hung the pack up near the fire and used extra pieces of leather to get the rocks and place them in the leather sack. She could hear them steaming as they plunged into the cold liquid. She just had to keep doing this and soon she would have sterile water to clean her wound with. Within minutes she had the water boiling, leaving the rocks in the sack, she let it cool down to the point that she could us it.

Carefully she angled the sack over her leg and poured the hot water into her cuts. Breathing heavily to get through it, she wanted to whimper at the pain. "I hope this works." She panted, trying her best to tough it out. Once she felt the wound was sufficiently clean she used more pieces of leather to cover the wound and wrap it tight. Tying it off Mallory was finally done. She leaned back against the rock behind her and looked out over the lands. Maybe someone would see her smoke and come or maybe she would attract more of those creatures. That was a risk she couldn't take but if Canard was out there and saw the smoke signal then maybe he would start heading in her direction.

Since she decided that she was going to leave the fire going, she would need a more hidden spot. One of the trees had a perfect spot twenty feet up. It wasn't going to be fun but she could do it. Using her puck gun, she fired a grapple hook at a limb and used it to help her up. Once tucked safely in the tree she settled in for some much needed rest.

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