Author’s note: Woohoo, back in the good old days when MIB’s cartoon was original and popular. Who’d have thought that one would stick around for four seasons? Anyway you won’t need to know much about MIB to get this, it doesn’t go too deep into their own little continuum. But you do need to know the Ducks! This story functions as a partial sequel to the episode “Mad Quacks From Beyond the Hockeydome”, and you should see it before ya read!
Rating: PG, nothing too big or bad within.

 

 

Ducks In Black

Written by Zelda

 

                "Weird, I've never seen Klegghorn with bodyguards before." Tanya said, jabbing a thumb at the figure at the security monitoring screen, currently pounding on the door.

Wildwing eyed the picture. "Those aren't bodyguards, their federal agents. I wonder what they want here..." he said.

                "Great, the last thing we need is the FBI bustin' in here." Nosedive sighed, putting down a comic book.

                "Yeah, remember when Kleggy nearly sicked the EPA on us?" Duke said. "Jeez we'd have been in deep with that one."

                "You can see the headlines now: 'Hockey rink shut down in lieu of a federal investigation'." Mallory agreed.

                "Well I'd better go up and deal with them, I'll call you if I need you." Wing sighed, getting up off of the Ready Room couch.

Zelda leapt onto his shoulder. "Maybe I'll come too." she said.

 

                Klegghorn looked at Wildwing when he finally opened up the locker room door.

                "Well finally! I've been standing out here for five minutes!"

                "Sorry Klegghorn." Wildwing said.

Klegghorn was about to speak, when one of the two men behind him reached out his hand and shook Wildwing's. "Pleasure to meet you Mr. Flashblade." The man said. "I'm Mr. Kay." This 'Kay' was a tall Caucasian man with a hard, creased face and a sharp black suit. He wore neat, shiny black shoes.

The man that stood next to him also snapped to and extended his hand. "Yo, I'm Mr. Jay." he shook Wing's hand as well. Wildwing noted this younger, African American man was wearing exactly the same clothes.

Zelda nodded her head to the two men.

                "Wildwing, these federal agents would like to speak with your team in private." Klegghorn said, motioning to him that he should take them below.

Wildwing frowned slightly, and then nodded. "Of course, right this way." he said, and led the two into the locker room. He punched the code in on the wall, to open the elevator. The two men stepped in, but Klegghorn did not follow.

                "Well, this is the end of my beat. Bye." he said, and informally split.

Wildwing stepped into the elevator and the doors closed.

"Now gentlemen, pardon my directness, but why are you here?" Zelda asked.

Mr. Kay was unmoved. "I think this will be better explained in front of your team." he said.

The elevator stopped and the four stepped out. Seeing the visitors, the rest of the team snapped to order.

                "Team." Wildwing began "These are agents Mr. Kay and Mr. Jay, of the..."

                "INS Division 6." Kay said, sitting down beside Jay in a chair. Wildwing took a seat on the couch near them, next to Mallory.

Zelda was going through things in her mind. INS? Division six?

                "Now, we know ya'll kinda freaked out with these government people all comin' up in here, but lemme assure you, we're not lookin' for trouble." Jay said, raising his hands.

"We simply need to inform you of this government's policy on extra-terrestrials." Kay explained. Zelda cocked her head. What the heck?

                "Ummm, I didn't know this governmant HAD a policy." Tanya said.

                "Not a public one. We are a secret government organization. We are the first, last, and only line of defense as far as aliens go. We monitor all alien life on the planet and track their every move. We work in silence, we act in shadow. We are the Men in Black."

The Ducks appeared impressed by the speech.

                "But why would you need to monitor us? We haven't done anything wrong..." Duke started

                "We don't mean to offend, Mr. L'Orange, but we track every extra-terrestrial on the planet. Nobody's exempt." Kay explained.

                "And what involves this 'monitoring'?" Zelda asked suspiciously.

                "We'll put all of you on government file, accessable only by our agents when needed. We'll put tracking devices onto whatever article of clothing or device you carry constantly, or implant them into you. You'll also receive zones where you can and cannot travel, in case it may trigger conflict with other aliens..."

                "You mean other aliens on the planet?" Tanya looked alarmed.

                "You in for a suprise girl, they's a lot of people out there, you wouldn't know it, but they's ain't human." Jay grinned.

                "You see our job is to keep the public from knowing about alien life." Kay started

                "You mean a conspiracy?" Grin asked.

                "Not at all. I mean the public hasn't been deemed ready yet to handle this information. The aliens themselves have consented to this secrecy."

Wildwing frowned. "But these 'regulations' you plan to impose on us.... why do we need them? We've done nothing wrong, we work for good. And we're from a different dimension, how could we start a conflict with other aliens from this dimension?" he asked.

                "We have to be careful sir, we've been quite busy lately with your particular team. The fact that you were integrated into the public before we could get to you was a bit of a disadvantage to our organization." Kay started. He stood up. "Look, we have no reason to press you, we haven't worked up a set of rules for your team yet. But we'll return to talk a few things over in a while." Kay put on a pair of black sunglasses, quickly followed by Jay. Kay walked in front of Zelda and took out a small metal device, about the length of a pencil and the thickness of a thumb. He crouched down in front of the dragon.

                "Wait a sec, what are you doing?" Zelda asked, backing away.

                "This device is quite harmless Zelda, I assure you. It's a neuralizer, a short term neurological scrambler. What it will do, in layman's terms, is make you forget that we were ever here."

                "And why is this needed?" she asked, still being stubborn, and for a good reason. She had no intention of having her brain messed up!

                "Because you're not an alien, and the Men in Black are supposed to be a secret to you." Kay explained, opening the device.

                "Now wait a sec..." Wildwing started.

                "I'm sorry Mr. Flashblade, but it's government policy."

                "Since when does a dragon operate under human government?"

 Jay stepped between Kay and the duck, easing him back into his seat.

                "Uh look Mr. Flashblade, I know y'all scared. Believe me I hate it when he does this! But it won't hurt nothing, and she's better off not knowin' anyway."

                "That's right Zelda." said Kay. "Just watch the red light." Suddenly, a red flash and a small whirring noise went off. Jay and Kay removed their glasses and stood again as the dragon snapped back to order. "Now you just remember to keep your furnace well dusted, we'll be back in a few weeks." Kay suddenly changed tone, smiling and shaking Wildwing's hand. The two walked out.

Tanya knelt down beside the still dazed dragon, amazed at Kay's device. Did it really work? "You okay Zel?" she asked.

                "Just seeing in green." Zelda smiled. "Those neural scramblers don't do sqat on dragons." She shook herself and growled at the closed door the Men in Black had exited through.

                "Who the heck did THEY think they were?" Nosedive asked.

                "Well that's just government policy for ya." Mallory grinned, throwing up her hands.

 

                Kay led the way back into the command room. He sat down promptly at his desk and started typing up a mission report on his computer.

Jay sat down beside him, draining a cup of coffee.

An old man with dark circles beneath his eyes leaned on his desk. "Back so soon Kay?" The man asked.

                "I can see we're going to have a tough time with this one Zedd." Kay sighed, not taking his eyes off the screen.

                "Resistant?"

                "Slightly. They're confused as to why they apply to our plan."

                "We can't take any chances Kay."

                "I know that. But they're good with the public. If we're not careful..."

                "I wouldn't worry about that now."

                "Yo, I just don't get why you were so intent on usin' that flashy-thing on the dragon, man." Jay slid into the conversation. "I thought you said that thing only worked on humans."

                "It might have worked." Kay shrugged.

                "You mean a dragon's never been involved with MiB before?"

                "Oh I'm sure they've seen aliens, they're just never involved with them." Kay said, and kept typing.

                "The twins are still working on a policy for them." Zedd reported.

                "This is gonna be a tough one Zedd, you know they got the whole hockey game thing going." Jay nodded.

                "We can't let them into zones that might cause trouble Slick." Kay said.

Zedd got up and walked away.

 

                Tanya sat, sorting through all of the calls they had gotten to their hotline that day. Fortuantely, none of them had fallen into the 'crazed megalomaniac' category. That was the last thing she needed. She was sorting through the last few when a familiar voice came in over the speaker.

                "Good morning Ducks, this is Agent Kay, MiB. Just calling to say that we'll be checking in on you sometime in the near future. I'll ring you again when I'm sure. Thanks."

Tanya sighed slowly, and pushed away from the console, standing up and walking away.

 

                The ice was helping, Nosedive was glad to have it. Dang Islanders. He hated the their arena. Wait until THEY came to the Pond! He tried to take the focus off of the pain from the broad bruise on his left shoulder, and concentrate on looking out the window.

Zelda, having just secured the ice pack on his shoulder with an ace bandage, was calmly standing by the control panels, reared up and leaning on the dash.

                "Don't take it too hard my friend." Grin smiled at him, seeing Nosedive's sour face.

                "Yeah kid, we won 5-2!" Duke chuckled.

                "I STILL don't like those Islanders.... or their ugly uniforms." he added viciously.

                "Hey, I'm proud of ya Bro, you took a big hit tonight and didn't even flinch." Wildwing said, at the wheel as usual as they drove through the suburbs of New York, just about an hour north of the big city. They were heading to Buffalo for the next game tomorrow night. The sun had set, but the sky still glowed red and orange. The trees in the forests around them stretched black against the sky.

                "Don't remind me." Nosedive retorted and yawned.

Wildwing leaned back and looked out of the windshield, keeping his eyes on the broken yellow line to his side. Suddenly, a long black car flung itself in front of them, speeding wildly and swerving violently. Some kind of blue things seemed to be folding into the back of the trunk! Wildwing gasped and slammed on the brake, swerving off and onto a grassy shoulder, nearly putting the fender through a tree. He sat in shock for a moment before quickly looking to his side, to see the black car park just as haphazardly, two men in black suits getting out quickly.

                "Don't I recognize them from somewhere?" Mallory asked, stepping up to the windshield.

                "Those are those Men in Black people! I hope this isn't the way of introducing their new 'policy' to us." Tanya snorted, as the team quickly ran out of the Migrator and onto the shoulder.

Kay was talking into some kind of communicator, while Jay looked over his shoulder.

                "Hey man, what's the big idea runnin' us off the road?" Nosedive asked, tapping Jay on the shoulder.

He looked behind him and gasped, suprised to see the Ducks.  "Uh oh.... Kay?" he asked.

The man behind him closed the silver communicator and turned around. "Well well, we heard you were in town Ducks." he greeted.

                "And I hope this isn't your way of pulling us over for a ticket!" Wildwing said coldly.

                "Sorry about that, we didn't even see you." Kay apologized.

Jay walked up to him and handed him a very large plasma gun, looking like something out of a sci-fi movie! The Ducks immediately drew back and set their arms. The nerve! Was he trying to shoot them with that?

                "This isn't for you Ducks." Jay chuckled, shouldering a gun of his own.

                "We've gotten a report of an illegal Alterian landing about a mile into the forest from here. They'd better have a good reason for being here." Kay explained briefly.

                "Alterian...... that rings a bell." Zelda thought.

                "Wait a second.... Kazor went over to Alteir 4...remember? Do you suppose he landed here?"

                "Yeah, the lion dude, I remember him!" Nosedive said. "But why would he be here?"

                "Whoever they are, they're gonna be sorry they violated treaty landing zones." Kay said, and walked off briskly.

                "You say you know this... Kazor." Jay suddenly said. "Why don't you come along with us?" Kay glanced over his shoulder, and then walked on.

Wildwing thought for a few seconds. "If Kazor's involved, maybe we can talk to him if he's really done anything wrong." he said. "Let's go."

                "You armed?" Kay asked, as the group briskly started a jog up into the bare-treed woods.

                "Always." Mallory said rather proudly.

                "Good. I'll scout ahead." Kay said, and jogged faster on ahead.

The Ducks watched him disappear into the darkening landscape.

                "Okay Ducks, it's getting dark. We need a flank line search, and make sure you stay within eyeshot of each other. If anything happens, we shoot first and ask questions later. Got it?" Mallory ordered.

The Ducks nodded.

Jay looked impressed.

                "I'll fly patrol just below the canopy." Zelda volunteered, and leapt up into a nearby branch.

The Ducks flanked out, each standing about 20 feet from each other, and started walking quickly through the forest.

 Slowly Jay walked to the edge of the line, about 20 feet from Grin, and began to search as well. He tried to keep his mind on the ground around him as he walked quickly. He didn't really think of the Ducks as aliens.... at least not as alien as the slimy, tentacle-waving city scum he was used to dealing with. They seemed to be rather.... human. And they seemed to be down with most of the superhero type hype. The leaves under his feet crunched loudly, and suddenly Jay snarled and ducked as a sharp pain ran violently into his right foot. "YAOW!" he yelped, and knelt instantly on the ground. There was something in is foot, something thick and sharp.

 

                Grin's head turned instantly at the sound. He had learned to expect trouble when things like this occurred. The vibes in the air were forboding, dangerous. He didn't like this at all. He saw Jay rather poorly in his black suit on the darkening forest floor. He placed his thumb and finger into his beak, and whistled for Tanya, who was next in line to him. Tanya nodded and opened her com to signal for the rest of the team. By this time, Grin had already made his way out of sight.

 

                Jay felt the strong, massive hand on his shoulder, and looked up quickly.

                "Fall?" Grin asked.

                "There's something mad sharp in my foot." Jay winced. "I dunno if I should pull it out."

                "The rest of the team is coming." Grin assured him.

                "Go get Kay." Jay said quickly, and fell to rubbing his foot to find what had injured him.

                "I'm on it Jay." a draconic voice assured beside him. Before the Ducks could turn to see her, Zelda was off, flying into the forest to find Kay, still far ahead.

Tanya knelt beside Jay and opened up a florescent light in her Omnitool. She picked up his foot and looked at it gently. "That's it." she said, a little grimly, seeing what was in his foot.

                "Jeez it hurts, can you get it out?" Jay asked.

                "Wait a second....." Tanya looked askance. More of them, deep gray thorns, broad at the base and sharp at the tips, were placed in a pattern around the whole area! Exactly like the one in Jay's foot. "This is a booby trap!"

 

                "Kay." Zelda called sharply down from the branch. The man hiding behind a treetrunk snapped up sharply, even angrily. Perhaps Zelda had spoiled a tracking plot. But before he could speak, Zelda had landed beside him. "Save it, your partner's down." she told him softly. He looked ahead at the forest.

                "Where is he?"

 

                Wildwing looked up as he heard the leaves crunching far off.

Tanya stood up and turned the light to reveal Zelda and Kay making their way quickly through the foliage.

                "Watch your step!" Wildwing warned.

Kay got into the clearing with the team, and looked down at his partner. Jay lay on his side, curled up and holding his foot, face hidden in pain. Kay looked at the thorns on the ground and shook his head. "Basic Alterian booby traps." he explained. "They're commonly used all over the galaxy. They'll kill a human in half-an-hour." he said. He knelt down halfway and shook his partner. "Come on Slick, cut it out...." he muttered, out of slight anger, but much more masked frustration.

Wildwing could tell he didn't like seeing his partner like this.

Kay stood up and reached into his pocket, pulling out a device that looked like an inhaler. Kay pressed it up to Jay's shoulder, and activated it with a blue button.

Jay flattened out and closed his eyes, breathing slowly.

                "That'll put him to sleep for a bit." Kay sighed, standing again. "I have to get him back to MiB headquarters now."

Wildwing gripped the young man around the shoulders, while Kay grabbed Jay's feet. It was only a half a mile through the forest, and the Ducks covered it quickly.

Zelda perched on Wildwing's shoulder, bobbing up and down and watching Jay warily.

                "How's he doing?" Nosedive broke the silence.

Kay frowned. "We'll get him back to MiB headquarters. There's one of our special ambulances waiting on the highway. You're welcome to come with us. In fact, I'd recommend it. For your own safety.

                "Our own safety?" Tanya repeated.

                "Yes. You see Alterians have been known to track down their enemies relentlessly. Since you were on the scene, they'll consider you a target as well."

                "Just what we need." sighed Grin from the back of the group.

                "Even if your 'friend' Kazor is involved in this operation, I wouldn't risk staying on the road tonight." Kay continued. By now they had reached the road, and the ambulance was waiting. It looked more like an armored car, it was so black and steely. A crew of about five immediately shuffled Jay onto a stretcher and the vehicle raced away.

                "You don't look phased by this." Zelda started, perching on the roof of Kay's black vehicle as he leaned on it.

                "It's a nasty hurt, but I expected something like this to happen in a way. He's a rookie, not too familiar with the turf. So that neuralizer didn't do squat eh?" he asked, frowning.

                "Is it my fault?" she asked back, and flew away. The team was loading back up into the Migrator and she joined them.

                "So we're goin' back with the government dude?" Nosedive asked uneasily.

                "I don't like it one bit baby bro." Wildwing shook his head. "But these guys sound like they know what they're talking about. I can't take any risks." As the long black car turned around and headed across the two lanes to the right side of the highway, the Migrator followed it.

 

To be continued......