Chapter Two: That Duke is Gone
The next morning, Duke woke his human companion up before dawn and before the others were awake. He rushed her out of the secret, underground compound built beneath the hockey rink of the Anaheim stadium. Before she left into the morning light of a gorgeous and sunny California day, she stopped and gave him a quick kiss on his beak then ran to her car hoping to avoid a ticket for having parked in a no parking zone the night before. Duke chuckled as he watched her leave, and then made his way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and a piece of toast before the others rose for the day. Smirking silently to himself, he proudly mused over the fact that he managed not to trigger any of the alarms both when he brought her back to his quarters in the secret layer and when he snuck her out. The ducks would never know she was here.
While he methodically stirred the cream into his coffee, Duke thought about his new human friend. She was the one lifeform that was slowly bringing him out of his delusions of being mistrusted by his team. She was positive, offered advice, and was very attractive: for a human, that is.
Throughout the past few days, the team was acting very…aloof. Customarily, Mallory and Tanya rarely spoke to him, while Grin was always quiet. Wildwing, of course, greeted everyone with the same level of respect, but it was Nosedive whom Duke really enjoyed talking to. However, even he didn't invite Duke to the Anaheim Mall like he normally did at least once every two days. Duke had always thought of Nosedive as a true little brother, maybe even a son. And though Nosedive seemingly didn't give into the teams' suspicions of Duke's betrayal, Duke had locked him and Tanya in an air-tight vault for three hours with no communication. He felt awful about it but knew if there was anyone that could get Nosedive out of there, it was Tanya. However, he miscalculated and the team narrowly rushed in to save them before the air ran out.
Duke stared blankly into his coffee but couldn't bring himself to take a sip. He had let a lot of people down in his life. Nosedive, his team, Canard, and even his own son back on Puckworld. Getting caught during a heist and being thrown into prison only to discover days later that Puckworld was under attack by the Saurian Empire had thrown Duke into a rage. He yelled for hours in his cell for any news about his son, but to no avail. The guards simply hit his cell door with their batons repeatedly until his ears pounded in agony and he was forced to curl up on the floor, covering his ears from the pain. After Canard broke him out, Duke tried to track down his son but there was no trace of his him. As days turned into weeks of bombing, raids, and finally, the slave trading, he knew it was time to move on, not only for his sake, but for the mission's, as well.
Being the eldest member of the team, Duke never sought any one of them to discuss his son. Only Canard knew of his little Liam and the secret died with him. Now, Duke could only hold on to the hope that the Brotherhood of the Blade had kept Liam safe. But seeing Falcone again and knowing he had betrayed the Brotherhood to join with Dragaunus threw Duke into a spiraling depression.
But that is a totally different dimension, Duke. A different time—a different me. That Duke doesn't exist anymore, nor will he ever again.
Suddenly, Duke was shaken out of his thoughts by Nosedive crashing into the kitchen with Grin.
"Yeah, yeah, I still don't think that's how the episode should have ended, big guy…" said Nosedive.
"Ah, my little friend, you are forgetting the…" began Grin, but he abruptly stopped mid-sentence to stare at Duke. Nosedive also turned to look at Duke sitting at the counter next to the coffee pot.
"Hey, fellas, I was just leaving," said Duke as he got up from the stool and grabbed his coffee mug.
"Nah, bro, it's cool. You can stay," said Nosedive with enthusiasm.
"I should really be going…out," replied Duke. And with that, he walked out of the kitchen. As he walked down the hallway back to his quarters to get ready for the day, he passed Wildwing on his way to breakfast with the others.
"Hey, Duke, are you doing alright?" Wildwing asked.
"I'm fine. Just up a little early, that's all," he said.
"Well, if you need to talk…" said Wildwing.
"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind," Duke snapped as he pounded on the button to open the mechanical doors to his quarters.
In his quarters, Duke ran a cold, long shower to help calm him down but when he got out of the shower and looked at himself in the mirror, his frustration returned immediately. His hair had been turning ever more grey-white and was thinning. Back on Puckworld, grooming supplies had been readily available at any store, but here on earth, the ducks were forced to frequent pet stores for their feather products, much to everyone's amusement. The team had decided to take turns running to and from the pet store so that each would have to endure the stares and chuckles less frequently, but every trip was torture for the grey drake. He despised being different not only from his team, but also from the humans. Duke preened himself the best he could, styling his hair in its customary bushy, but flowing fashion above his head. Then he looked at the chip in his beak, a sign of poor health and lower status on Puckworld. When a duck chipped his beak, his parents would pay to have it repaired. But Duke never had that luxury as a merchant mallard on the streets. A rival gang of thieves picked him up by his long hair and punched him square in the beak. The damage was far worse back then than it was now, having saved the money from months of robberies to have it fixed when he was older, but doctors couldn't completely buff out the chip.
You certainly are one disheveled avian alien, thought Duke. Maybe to some extent, that Duke still exists through all these scars. My beak, my eye, my thinning feathers, my age…
*Sigh. Well, at least she doesn't care about all that. She loves me because I am who I am. And that should be good enough for me…at least, good enough to get me through another day.