The Mighty Ducks are the property of Disney. No copyright 
infringement is intended.

A brief explanation - there is no plot to this one. This was the first 
Mighty Ducks story I ever wrote and it was basically just an excuse 
to flex my creative muscles. It’s more of an examanation of the 
characters and how they interact. But it’s a good read! :)


Earthquake


Mallory cheered as the puck sailed across the ice and right into the 
net. "All right!" She could hear Duke and Tanya clapping as well 
from the side lines. "Good shot," Nosedive congratulated. "Went 
right past me. Let's try it a couple more times and call it a day."

Mallory nodded. Her aim had been getting a little rusty lately so 
Wildwing had suggested she get in some extra practice. She hadn't 
been too thrilled to find out that Nosedive was the only one available 
to play goalie - he'd never been her favorite person - but the 
afternoon had gone better than she'd expected. Nosedive had been 
serious about the practice and his usual sarcasm and bad jokes had 
been absent for the most part. And she had to admit, he *was* a 
good goalie. Not as good as he was in his regular position, but still... 
And she had gotten in a good afternoon of practice. Maybe she'd 
have to give the kid a little more credit from now on.

'Nah,' she decided. 'That would just throw everything out of 
balance.'

She took a few more practice shots. None of them got past him, 
unsurprisingly. There was a reason their opponents scored very few 
goals; the Ducks were good. And Nosedive was no exception. 
However, her shots were no longer heading straight toward 
Nosedive's gloves. She was getting better and better at aiming for 
the corners and unguarded areas. She was still angry at herself for 
getting so out of practice though.

She skated over to Duke and Tanya, collecting stray pucks on her 
way. "Hey, guys," she greeted. "What's up?"

"I got finished early and thought I'd come over and see if you still 
needed a practice partner," Tanya explained. "I see you conned 
Nosedive into it though."

"Yeah. We got in a few good hours of practice. Gave me a pointer 
or-uhn!" Mallory was cut off mid-sentence as the ground suddenly 
moved beneath her feet. She hit the ice hard, jarring her teeth. She 
heard a vague rumbling, like thunder in the background, and 
somewhere in the back of the building she heard a clatter as 
something fell to the floor.

"Holy-" Mallory shook her head as the rumbling ceased. "What was 
that?"

"Earthquake," Tanya explained shortly, for once skipping over the 
long explanation. "I'm told they happen a lot here. Disconcerting, 
isn't it?"

"Yeah. You guys all right?" They both nodded. "Hey, Nosedive, you 
okay?"

"Fine!" Mallory spotted him at the far edge of the rink. He must 
have been just stepping off the ice when the earthquake hit. "I'm 
going to see if anything's busted. Sounded like something fell."

She nodded and turned back to Tanya. "You say this sort of thing 
happens a lot?"

"Uh-huh. Seems California is on a fault line."

"Whose brilliant idea was that?"

Tanya gave her a wry smile. "I don't think anyone actually planned 
it that way."

"Well, I don't like it," Mallory muttered. "The Earth is the one thing 
I count on staying still." She sighed as she got rid of her skates and 
stood. "Let me get my stuff and collect Nosedive. I'm tired."

* * *

Wildwing cursed and threw the blankets back. Two a.m. and he was 
still wide awake. This on top of a press conference this morning and 
hours of cleaning up broken glass and fallen hockey equipment after 
that quake this afternoon. He was going to feel like hell in the 
morning.

Ten minutes later, armed with a mug of hot chocolate, he took a seat 
at the table. "It's way to early to be awake," he muttered under his 
breath. "Why did I have to schedule a seven'o'clock practice 
tomorrow morning?" He inhaled the scent of chocolate and sighed. 
"I wonder if Dive would give me too much grief if I rescheduled? Of 
course he will. He'll have to wake up at seven just to find out I've 
rescheduled it." He sighed again. "Oh, well. If they can suffer 
through it, so can I."

Thoughts of his brother, as always, brought a smile to his face. 
Wildwing had very little left in this - or any other - world. His 
parents had died when he was a child and there had been no other 
relatives to take them in. Dive had been all he had left in the world. 
But they had been split up for almost a year until both foster families 
backed out at the last minute. Then another family had agreed to 
take them both in.

It was about then that he had met Canard. A new neighbor and the 
first person Wildwing had been able to get to know for more than a 
few months, the two boys had hit it off perfectly. Canard and Dive 
had never really cared for each other, not until the very end, a fact 
Wildwing still regretted, but they'd never been hostile. He half 
suspected that they'd agreed to disagree just because he wanted them 
to get along. It was something they'd both do. 

'Who would have thought it would turn out the way it did?' he 
mused thoughtfully. 'Our foster parents killed in an accident. I was 
legal, but Dive wasn't, they were about to throw him into another 
foster family, and then the next day the world is conquered by the 
Saurians and we both end up fighting a rebellion that catapults us 
across space to an alien planet where a bunch of ape-beings who 
think *baseball* is more important than hockey rule the world and 
don't have any idea that the greatest threat they've ever faced is 
plotting their destruction even as we speak.' He shook his head and 
took a drink of the chocolate. 'Life is weird.'

He wrapped his hands around the mug, enjoying the warmth. Weird 
wasn't even close. But this was all they had, and he'd take it. After 
all, professional hockey player on another planet was a hell of a 
better life than he'd seen coming when the Saurians had sent him 
and Dive to the mines.

'And really, Earth isn't so bad,' Wildwing mused.

He heard it before he felt it. A rumbling sound as if from far away 
filled the room, and suddenly the room started to shake. Wildwing 
cursed as the chocolate sloshed over the edge of the mug and soaked 
his hands with the scalding liquid. Cups and dishes fell to the floor 
and shattered, food fell from the cabinets. But instead of fading as 
the last quake had done, it got worse. He was shaken off his feet and 
fell to his knees as the rumbling increased. The cabinet above him 
fell open and the contents rained down on him. He ducked down, 
covering his head with his arms, managing to deflect most of the 
boxes and cans.

Gradually the rumbling faded and the shaking stopped. Wildwing 
pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the room. "What a mess," he 
muttered. "So much for seven'o'clock practice." He could hear voices 
from back toward the sleeping area. With a sigh he went to join the 
others.

They were gathered in the main room, equally demolished, where 
Tanya was tending to a cut on Duke's face. They looked up as he 
entered, and Nosedive gave him a relieved smile as he took a seat. 
"Everyone okay?"

"We're all right," Tanya told him. "Couple of bruises, and Duke got 
hit in the head by a lamp, but nothing serious."

Wildwing scanned the others quickly. Mallory looked shaken, even 
more so than she had that afternoon, but it wasn't anything she 
couldn't handle. Besides, he was just as shaken. Grin looked as calm 
as ever - one day Wildwing was determined to find something Grin 
would get excited over. And Dive was himself as well. Wildwing 
knew what it took to get his brother to be serious, and it was a force 
considerably stronger than the movement of the Earth. "Well I don't 
know about the rest of the place," he said, "but the kitchen is totaled. 
It's going to take hours to get this place cleaned up." He paused for a 
moment, but there was no complaining or moaning so he continued. 
"I'm canceling practice for tomorrow morning. Sleep a couple extra 
hours and then we can get to work on cleaning up. Sound good?"

A couple of sleepy nods of agreement were his only reply.

"Good," he managed through a yawn. "Go to sleep. Tanya, Duke, 
are you two all right?"

"I'm finished here," Tanya replied. "Just don't do anything to 
stressful for the next day or two, all right?" she told Duke. "Take it 
easy."

Wildwing yawned again and sank back against the chair. He was on 
the verge of falling asleep when he felt a hand on his shoulder. 
"Come on, bro," Dive urged. "That goes for you too. Back to bed."

Wildwing let himself be pulled out of his chair and down the hall. 
"Who's the older brother here, anyway?" he teased. "To think, 
fifteen minutes ago I was complaining that I couldn't sleep."

"Wait until tomorrow morning," Nosedive advised. "Tonight'll look 
good."

"Oh, *thanks.*"

* * *

"This is why I joined the military," Mallory said disgustedly. "Just 
so I wouldn't have to do stuff like this." She swung the trash bag 
over her shoulder and stalked toward the door. "I *hate* manual 
labor." She half wished someone were there to hear her, maybe she 
could have herself a good argument. But the others were spread 
throughout the Pond, cleaning up after last night's fiasco.

She threw the bag with the others she'd gathered. Broken dishes, a 
smashed chair and crushed food - more of it than Mallory would 
have thought they had - filled the bags. She had two of them piled 
by the door, and thankfully she was almost finished with this room. 
They'd need to buy more food and dishes, but for now it would do.

The broom she threw in the closet while she dragged the table and 
remaining chairs back into the kitchen from the hallway. She made 
a mental note to suggest they move to somewhere on the East Coast, 
preferably somewhere that had never even heard of earthquakes, as 
she collected the three trash bags and took them outside to the 
dumpster. All down the street she could see other people doing the 
same thing, and street crews working to restore downed power lines. 
It was a strange place where this was a common occurrence.

She spotted one of their ‘neighbors’, Jane somethingorother, who 
lived a few blocks over, waving from across the street. Mallory 
offered a halfhearted wave back and darted back inside before the 
woman started talking. She had been one of the first humans not to 
care that they were aliens, and ducks to boot, and treat them 
normally, but she was an awful busybody. If she started talking it 
would  be a couple of months before Mallory could get away. And 
right now she was not in the mood to listen to a detailed description 
of why Jane's daughter and Nosedive would be absolutely perfect for 
each other. It was enough to make her wish the woman was a 
xenophobe.

She stopped in the doorway of the Ready Room where Duke and 
Tanya stood in front of the television, identical expressions of 
concern on their faces. "What's up guys?" Mallory asked "Trouble?"

"Yeah," Tanya said. "Looks like that quake we had last night was 
just a foreshock."

"Meaning?"

"It wasn't an actual earthquake," Duke explained. "It was just the 
beginning. The real earthquake is expected to hit sometime in the 
next day or so."

"Are we going to have more of these foreshocks?" Mallory asked.

"Mmm-hmm. And after the quake we'll go through a series of 
aftershocks."

"How bad is this quake going to be?" Mallory looked at the TV 
worriedly, but the news had ended and all that was showing now 
was a rerun of *Star Trek.* "As bad as last night?"

"Worse. Last night's quake was a 4 on the Richter scale. They're 
predicting that when the earthquake actually hits, it'll be at least an 
6."

"How bad is that?" Mallory asked warily.

"Not good," Tanya admitted. "We should get ready. We need to 
stock up on supplies, like bottled water, flashlights and stored food 
in case the power goes out. And we should have an emergency 
medical kit in every room."

"That sounds like a good idea, actually," Mallory agreed. "I'm 
finished in the kitchen. Why don't Duke and I get the food and stuff, 
and Tanya, you can get started on those medical kits. And see if you 
can't find the others and let them know, okay?"

Tanya nodded and moved off. Mallory turned to Duke. "Let's get 
shopping, shall we?"

* * *

Chaos reigned at the local Quik-Mart.

Mallory barely had time to blink at the rushing, pushing, shoving, 
yelling crowd of people filling the store before Duke yanked her off 
to the side and out of the way of a new group of customers. "Looks 
like we weren't the only ones to have this idea," Duke said wryly. 
"We'd better move or there won't be anything left." 

They split up and moved out down the aisles. Mallory had found 
some bottled water and juice and come close to wrestling another 
woman for the last two packages of matches on the shelf. She 
wondered absently if Duke would manage to keep from pulling his 
sword on some of these people as she threw some canned stew and 
vegetables into her basket. The thought of living on Dinty-Moore for 
a couple of days if the power went out was repulsive, but it beat out 
starving. Barely.

There were no candles, but Mallory hit the jackpot while checking 
out the detergent aisle. "Flashlights!" she exclaimed, then 
immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. Before anyone who 
may have overheard could rush over and grab them she took six 
flashlights and shoved them into her basket. "Batteries," she 
muttered. "We'll need batteries for these things. Where are - ah-hah! 
With the cookies. Who the hell organized this place?"

"Mallory! Honey, what are you doing here?"

Mallory's head snapped up and she blinked at the woman before her. 
"Jane. Hi. Uh - how are you?"

The blond woman sighed exaggeratedly and slumped. "Oh, I swear 
one of these days I'm going to get fed up with these infernal quakes. 
Sixteen years we've lived here and I'm still not used to them."

"That I can understand," Mallory sighed. "We didn't have 
earthquakes on Puckworld."

"Oh, that's right!" Jane gazed at her sympathetically. "I hadn't 
thought of that. It must be difficult for you and your friends. How 
did you all take the tremors last night? Was anybody hurt? Oh, I 
hope not. That would be just horrible!"

Mallory considered beating her head against the aisle wall. 'I never 
should have encouraged her. She'll never shut up. If she so much as 
*mentions* Nosedive...'

"Oh, look," Mallory said relievedly. "Duke's ready to go. I'd better 
get going. Wildwing wants us to stick around home until this is all 
over. Bye-bye!" She turned and tried to run without making it look 
that way.

"All right! Good luck! Tell Nosedive that Jessica says hello!" Jane 
stood on tiptoe and waved to her over the heads of the people around 
her.

Mallory clenched her fist and screamed inside her head. "Duke," she 
called. "We have to go now."

Her teammate met her at the checkout counter. "Was that Mrs. 
Hyams I saw you talking to?"

Mallory growled.

"Oh-kay."

"What else do we need to get?"

"Well," Duke dug through his basket. "We've got the emergency 
generator at the Pond so we have a choice between powering the 
lights and appliances or the infirmary. Lights and the TV are a 
relatively low priority, and we can stock up on nonperishables, but 
we can't fix broken bones and concussions with duct tape, so we 
need candles and matches, flashlights and whatever food won't go 
bad in two or three days. I don't know about you but I couldn't find 
candles or flashlights. Plenty of food though."

"Good. Maybe we can find the candles somewhere else. Do we have 
any back at the Pond?"

Duke considered this while the cashier rang up their purchases. 
"Yeah, we do actually. Phil gave us a bunch of them at Christmas, 
remember? We never used them, even if he did talk us into the tree. 
Weird holiday."

"So we're covered there. Good. Let's get out of here and wait this 
out. And if we're lucky, we got out of cleaning back at the Pond."

Duke chuckled. "Nice to know you've got your priorities straight."

Mallory paid the cashier and hefted one of the shopping bags, 
leaving the other for Duke. "I don't know about you, but my 
priorities involve keeping both my feet firmly on the ground." She 
froze in the doorway as the now-familiar rumbling began anew. 
"Oh, shi- Away from the glass!" She grabbed Duke's arm and pulled 
him back into the store, away from the glass storefront just as the 
rumbling increased. She allowed herself a moment of amusement at 
seeing an entire storeful of people cowering behind magazine racks 
and shelves full of pasta before she joined them herself.

For less than a minute everything went crazy. Outside, cars 
screeched to a stop and pedestrians scrambled to get away from glass 
and telephone poles. Dogs barked and people shouted and things 
fell, and glass shattered and beyond it all was the sound of thunder. 
But this thunder came from the ground, not the sky and was causing 
a lot more damage than a thunderstorm ever had. But it stopped 
even more suddenly than it had begun and Mallory breathed a sigh 
of relief. This hadn't been as bad as last night. Maybe Tanya was 
wrong. Yeah, right. "You okay?" she asked Duke.

"Maybe you shouldn't say much until this is all over," Duke 
remarked lightly.

Mallory smiled a little, remembering her last comment before the 
tremor. "Maybe you're right."

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Chaos Central. This evening for 
your entertainment we have: The Pre-Quake Show! Featuring: 
Emergency rations! Let's see, what do we have here?" Nosedive  
examined the contents of the cabinets. "Peanut butter! And who can 
forget everyone's favorite - a dish that needs no introduction - Dinty-
Moore!"

Wildwing smiled without looking up from the table as he loaded the 
flashlights with batteries. "Keep it toned down, bro. Mallory doesn't 
look like she's in the mood for fooling around and I'd hate to have to 
throw her off the team for killing you."

Duke quirked a slight smile as well. "Finding two replacement 
forwards at once would be a pain."

"I'm flattered to know you care so much," Nosedive said 
sarcastically. "So if I line up a replacement can I go on vacation?"

"No."

"And why not?"

"Cause I'm your big brother and I say so. So there." Wildwing 
packed up the flashlights. "Besides you're underaged, here *and* on 
Puckworld. Do you know where the candles are?"

"The Ready Room. Underaged undersmaged. You just hate me."

"My secret is revealed. All these years I've been trying to make your 
life miserable. Have I succeeded? And do you mind getting the 
candles?"

"I always knew it," Nosedive sighed. "The past seventeen years have 
been nothing more than an attempt to make my every waking 
moment hell. Do you want the candles in here?"

"Nice to know I've succeeded. Put them in the main room, okay? 
And take the matches with you. They're on the counter. Thanks."

Duke shook his head. "This is brotherly love?"

"Don’t knock it. We haven’t killed each other yet," Nosedive 
grinned. 

“Although some of us have been sorely tempted at times,” Wildwing 
interjected.

Nosedive scowled at him. "You should've seen us back when we 
*didn't* get along. That stage lasted about sixteen and a half years. 
And is about to resume."

"Go get the candles," Wildwing said good-naturedly. Dive threw 
him a look of mock-suspicion and disappeared down the hall. 
"Candles. Hah. Probably just another part of your nefarious 
scheme."

"You're lucky, Wild," Duke said wistfully. "My brother and I never 
got along that well." He smiled, but it was only the ghost of a smile. 
"We never even fought that well."

"I didn't know you had a brother," Wildwing said curiously. "You've 
never mentioned him before."

"Like I said, we weren't all that close. We had some real moral 
conflicts that kind of got in the way. I was a thief, he was a cop. He 
arrested me once. I spent a week in prison before I broke out." Duke 
shrugged and grabbed an orange from the fridge. "We never spoke 
again. About a year after that Canard asked me to join the 
resistance. I always regretted not knowing him better. I don't know 
what happened to him. He's probably pulling double duty putting 
Puckworld back together. If he's even alive." He peeled the orange, 
pulling the rind off in one long piece. But his mind was obviously in 
the past. A life to which he would probably never return. People left 
behind. Things left undone. Words left unsaid. Duke raised his eyes 
with a slightly embarrassed smile. He was not given to revealing so 
much personal information, even to someone he trusted so well. 
"That's why you're lucky. Even if you and Dive never speak to each 
other again, you know where he is. You know he's alive."

"That's gotta be rough," Wildwing said softly. "I couldn't stand not 
knowing like that. Always imagining the worst..."

"Yeah. Canard told me how you refused to join him unless Dive 
came along. But me... Well, I guess it's easier if you don't like your 
brother very much."

"I'm sorry, Duke."

"Don't be. I've had six months to get used to the idea."

"What's his name?"

"Rance."

"I-," Wildwing broke off with a resigned sigh as he heard the 
rumbling in the distance yet again. He looked around warily, but 
aside from a bit of rattling, nothing seemed to be happening. After 
just a few seconds it ended.

"This is starting to get old," Duke muttered.

"At least nothing broke this time," Wildwing pointed out. "Could've 
been worse."

As if on cue, the ground suddenly seemed to lurch and shake. 
Wildwing swallowed a curse as his chair suddenly tipped, spilling 
him onto the floor. He didn't try to get up, instead he braced himself 
against the wall, determined not to go sliding across the kitchen 
floor if this got any worse. He heard the sound of things crashing to 
the floor an thought he heard Mallory shout. Duke hit the ground as 
well and shouted "Under the table!" to a startled Wildwing who 
quickly followed him - just in time as a light fixture smashed to the 
ground where Wildwing had been only seconds before. Wildwing 
winced as another light fell, smashing into the table and raining 
broken glass through out the room. From somewhere in the distance 
he heard more shattering glass and someone yelling. "Me and my 
big mouth."

* * *

Mallory shook her head as she watched Tanya fiddle with some sort 
of electronics. It would eventually be an advanced sort of portable 
comm unit, superior to the one they already used, more easily traced 
and with a better audio. So Tanya said. Electronics was something 
Mallory didn’t get.

Mallory stood, leaning against the wall and alternating her attention 
between Tanya and the television. Something called Batman was on 
and it looked pretty good, but she was having trouble concentrating. 
She’d have to watch it again when she had less on her mind.

“So these things will make it easier for us to track each other down 
if we’re separated?”  she asked.

“Exactly. And the enhanced audio will make it easier to verify the 
identity of the caller. Like if Chameleon gets a hold of one of our 
comms and pretends to be one of us, it’ll be easier to run the audio 
through a scanner and find out if it’s a trick,” Tanya replied 
absently. “Remember how Chameleon fooled us into thinking he 
was Canard, freed from the vortex?”

“Yeah,” Mallory mumbled. “I remember. It’ll be good to know we 
won’t have to go through that again.”

“Uh-oh.” Tanya froze. Mallory felt it too, a slight rumbling beneath 
their feet. But after only a second, before they could really react, it 
faded away.

“Thank goodness,” Tanya sighed. “That wasn’t bad at all.”

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Mallory sighed.

Mallory and Tanya exchanged one brief look before the ground 
swelled and knocked them off their feet. "Not again!" Mallory 
shouted. She grabbed a hold of the nearest fixed object, the couch as 
it turned out, and thought some choice words about the 
circumstances that had brought them to this planet.

She caught a glimpse of Tanya across the room, similarly clutching 
to a heavy recliner. "The doorway!" Tanya shouted. "Get to the 
doorway!" She scrambled across the room, almost falling as the 
ground shook beneath her feet. Mallory hurriedly followed, seeing 
the wisdom of that as the track lighting shook free of the ceiling and 
crashed to the floor behind her. They huddled in the doorway, backs 
against the doorframe. Mallory heard Duke shout something from 
the kitchen, something about a table and the sound of crashing glass 
came from the Ready Room, accompanied by a string of swears and 
curses she was positive most of her commanding officers wouldn't 
have known. Nosedive, Mallory recognized. She hoped the kid was 
okay.

“I think this is it!” Tanya shouted. 

Then the lights went out.

* * *

A pair of gloves, a Time magazine and sixty-eight cents in change, 
but no candles.

Dive closed the closet, pocketed the sixty-eight cents and examined 
the room thoughtfully. There were only so many places to store 
things in there - the Ready Room was mainly used for conferences, 
planning missions and talking Phil out of publicity stunts. The 
weapons and uniforms were kept in an adjourning room. A small 
closet that had become dumping grounds for whatever was left in 
the room was pretty much it for storage. Unless...

He strode across the room toward the ring of computers and comm 
screens that made up their supercomputer, Drake One. Tanya - as 
the resident technological genius - tended to keep a pile of 
potentially useful odds and ends in a drawer over by the computers. 
More than once he’d seen her dig through there and come up with 
some wire or piece of electronics that had proven to be  the solution 
to some problem or another. It was also the only other place in the 
room where someone could have hidden a bunch of candles.

Dive opened the drawer and peered in, trying to search the drawer 
without having to move anything. Tanya had an ‘ordered chaos’ way 
of organizing things, she’d probably notice if one thing in here was 
out of place. Not that she’d care, but still... At the back of the drawer 
he spotted the plastic bag decorated with Christmas designs. “Aha!” 
he exclaimed softly. He pulled out the bag and dug through. Just as 
he’d remembered, candles of varying sizes filled the bag, along with 
a couple of glass and ceramic candle holders, enough to last a while. 
He tied the bag shut and kicked the drawer closed.

It was with vague surprise that he noticed the slight tremors through 
the floor. In his preoccupation with the candles he hadn’t noticed it. 
He tensed slightly, ready to grab onto something if it got worse, but 
the tremors faded only a second later. Relieved, he turned and took a 
step back across the room toward the door.

He didn’t make it.

With one gigantic heave the ground seemed to rise up and throw 
him off his feet, slamming him into one of the computer consoles 
and knocking the breath out of him. He slid to the floor welcomingly 
- keeping his balance only the second or two all this had taken was 
all but impossible - and forced the air back into his lungs with a few 
deep breaths.

Then he realized where he was.

“*Shit,*” he gasped staring at the huge monitors. They wouldn’t 
shatter, but they’d sure as hell fall if this shaking got much worse. 
Their anchors were only as strong as the walls that held them. And 
the rows of fluorescent lighting above him...

He couldn’t make it to the doorway, but the conference table was 
only a few feet away. Even with the Earth moving beneath his feet 
he should be able to get that far.

But the decision was taken out of his hands when the ground gave 
another tremendous heave - and a row of lights crashed to the 
ground not a foot away, shattering into a shower of glass.

He didn’t have time to think - just react on pure instinct. Throwing 
his left arm in front of his face he pushed himself to his feet and 
dove clear of the computers.

He hit the ground hard and rolled with the momentum, hoping to 
get as far away from the shattering glass as possible. His left arm hit 
the ground and he cursed, invoking every possible swear he could 
think of, but he ignored it, spurred by the sound of another row of 
lights smashing to the ground behind him. He ducked under the 
conference table, bracing himself with his uninjured right arm. 
Relatively safe for the moment he quickly examined his arm. Broken 
shards of glass - or plastic or whatever those lights were made of - 
had pierced the skin along almost the entire length of his arm. Blood 
had coated the entire limb and was starting to drip to the ground. 
Now that he’d thought about it he felt the burning sting of similar 
cuts along his left side and leg. He grimaced slightly and averted his 
eyes. He *hated* the sight of blood, even his own.

Then the problem was solved for him as the lights suddenly went 
out.

* * *

Wildwing waited almost a full minute after the shaking stopped 
before venturing out from the safety of the kitchen table, ignoring 
the bumps and bruises that seemed to cover most of his body. It was 
pitch black in the room and glass crunched beneath his feet. He 
moved slowly, determined not to trip over anything. The flashlights 
had been on the table, they should still be around here somewhere. 
He fumbled around for a moment and finally found one over by the 
sink. He snapped it on, relieved to find that the lens had not broken, 
and played it over the rest of the room. “Unbelievable,” he said. 
“*Unbelievable.*”

The light illuminated Duke standing beside the table. “Try to find 
the other flashlights,” he advised. “Then we can go find the others.”

Between the two of them they found all six flashlights in just a 
minute and ventured out into the hallways. Fallen light fixtures 
littered the floor in places, but the damage was much less severe. 
Less to *be* damaged in a place like this. They picked their way 
through the corridor carefully, stepping over and around debris. “I 
say, to hell with cleaning, let’s just move.” Duke said.

“Sounds good to me.”

Duke and Wildwing jumped, turning their flashlights toward the 
voice. Their teammate, Grin, squinted into the light. “You two 
okay?”

“Yeah,” Wildwing replied. “We’re fine. You?”

“I’d be better if you got those lights out of my eyes.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Wildwing tossed Grin one of the extra flashlights. 
“Here. Have you seen any of the others?”

“No. I was in the back meditating when the quake hit. I had just 
made my way out here when I ran into you guys.”

“Might as well come with us. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

Grin shrugged and started picking his way forward. “I got thrown 
around a little. Some bumps and bruises. A bookshelf fell on my 
head. But you know what I say about pain.”

“Yeah,” Duke grinned. “It’s an *illusion*...”

Wildwing had moved ahead of them and now ran the beam of the 
flashlight around a juncture in the halls. Forward, left or right? 
“Dive?” he called. “Mallory? Tanya?”

“Down here!” It was Mallory’s voice, coming from the left. Toward 
the Ready Room then, where Dive should be. “Are you all right?” he 
called as he led the way toward her voice. “Is anyone hurt?”

“Send someone down to the infirmary for a first aid kit,” she called 
back. “This one’s totaled.”

“Duke?” The older man nodded and slipped down a side hall. 
Wildwing and Grin continued forward, following the sound of 
Mallory’s voice as she gave a very compelling argument for 
relocating to the East Coast. They found her in the Ready Room, 
kneeling over someone sitting against the wall and using some sort 
of portable hand held unit for light. “Come here,” she ordered 
shortly. “I need one of you to hold this light for me. Did someone go 
for a first aid kit?”

“Duke. Who’s hurt?”

“Nosedive. It’s not bad,” she said reassuringly. “Lights fell and 
caught him is all. Messed up his arm some, but nothing that won’t 
heal.”

Wildwing knelt on his brother’s other side and took the light from 
Mallory. He switched it for the flashlight, which gave off more light. 
He winced slightly at the blood soaked arm Mallory held firmly 
braced against her lap, but gave his brother a reassuring smile. Dive 
didn’t seem too upset, but he was making a point not to look while 
Mallory prepared to remove the larger shards of glass. “Where’s 
Tanya?” he asked.

“Main room,” Mallory replied. “She hurt her ankle so I was going to 
find one of you guys to help me get her to the infirmary, but I found 
Dive instead. Hold your breath or something,” she advised. “This is 
gonna hurt.”

Wildwing placed his free hand on his brother’s shoulder, felt the 
muscles tense as Mallory removed the glass with one hard pull, but 
aside from an indrawn breath, Dive didn’t say anything. “Does 
Tanya know you’re here?”

Mallory paused. “No. Grin...?”

The burly duck nodded. “I will get her.”

“She probably heard me shouting at you two and realized that 
someone was hurt,” Mallory said. “But still. She’s okay, though.” 
She gently probed at Dive’s arm. “This one’s deep. I’ll have to wait 
until we get to the infirmary.”

“Is that bad?”

“Yeah. The longer they’re in there and the more he moves around, 
the deeper they’ll cut. Right now it’s not serious, but he could end 
up with some serious tendon and muscle damage. That’s why I’m 
trying to get as much out as possible.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Dive asked.

Mallory glanced down at him with a little smile. “Works on the 
same principles as shrapnel.”

“Of course.”

Wildwing looked up at the sound of footsteps. Duke entered the 
room carrying a medical kit. “Grin’s taking Tanya down to the 
infirmary. She says to get Dive down as soon as you’re ready and 
she’ll help you fix his arm.”

“All right,” Mallory gave Dive a reassuring look. “Just a few more 
and then we can get you to the infirmary.” She gently grasped a 
large piece of glass at the crook of his arm. “Just keep thinking 
about all the painkillers...”

* * *

“I think I’m going to cry.”

Wildwing shook his head as he gazed around the Pond. The damage 
suffered in the above ground arena had been much more severe than 
that suffered in their underground quarters. Part of the ceiling and 
wall had caved in, the ice was cracked and the scoreboard lay in a 
crumpled heap on the ice. It was, quite frankly, a disaster area.

The others had already begun the cleanup. Tanya and Duke were 
working to get the scoreboard off the ice and Mallory was getting 
started on repairing the section of caved-in wall. Nosedive was 
chipping in as best he could with only one arm, hauling away debris 
and tossing her tools as she asked for them. Grin was the only one 
not there; Tanya had diagnosed him with a concussion and told him 
to stay in the infirmary for a day. 

Wildwing looked up as someone came in the door from outside. He 
recognized the overweight human man in a business suit shouting 
into a cell phone instantly. “Phil’s here,” he remarked to no one in 
particular. “Are we surprised?” Their manager would be the only 
one happy today. Tanya had said that the scoreboard collapsed 
because of faulty construction. Phil had a lawsuit on his hands. ‘It 
figures,’ he thought wryly. ‘The only part of this place that we 
*didn’t* rebuild...’

“Wildwing, buddy, is everyone all right? Is any one hurt?” Phil 
rushed over, tie flapping. “This place is a mess, it’s going to cost us 
a fortune to fix it! Oh, no! Nosedive! Tell me you can play in the 
game next week!” Phil altered course and rushed toward Dive and 
Mallory.

Wildwing shook his head and smiled at the ceiling. They’d come 
through one more disaster alive and in one piece.

Nothing to do but wait for the next one.
________

End