Stranger than Truth
Nosedive approached the computer cautiously, half-expecting Tanya to come up behind him any second. He knew that she and Wildwing would definitely not approve of what he was doing. But the two of them were doing battle over the chessboard, and Mallory was learning some of the finer tricks of poker from Duke, so no worries on any front. Still, squadrons of butterflies danced in his stomach as he opened the browser and typed in the address.
Make Your World Reality! the slogan read in italic letters underneath the site’s banner. He looked at the options available to him, clicked on the link called Comics, selected a sub-category, and started reading. I like this place, he concluded after looking at the sheer mass of writing that had been posted. I wonder why everyone was all smirky when they were telling me about it, though…
An hour later, when he had scoped all the comic fic he could take, he returned to the main site and stared at it for a few minutes. Then he spotted it, a category named Misc. Having seen enough lists, sites, and other compilations of stuff, he knew that sometimes the coolest stuff was hidden in that rather simple word miscellaneous. He clicked it. The seven sub-classifications it gave him all looked interesting- except maybe the wrestling section, that wasn’t his thing- but the one that most attracted his attention was the sports section. The titles and summaries that spilled onto the giant screen made him start. "Well, that might have something to do with it- Holy hockey sticks, Batman!" Man, I’ve gotta stop reading all that retro stuff.
In the next room, Duke heard the outburst. "I got it covered, Wildwing," he called to his teammate. "Mally, can ya wait a bit? The kid’s in some kind’a jam or other weirdness." He slid off the table and left the room. "All right, kid, what’s goin’ on here? What is this?"
"Teresa and Thrash told me about this cooella site, fanfic.com, and I was just checking it out. Now I know they were all smiling at me when it came up in the conversation."
"What the heck is fanfic?"
"It’s short for fanfiction, which is, according to my sources, what happens when crazed fans of something decide they want things to happen their way. I thought it was just for fictional stuff like my comics, but…" Nosedive trailed off and waved an arm toward the screen. "People like to rearrange real people too."
"As if our lives weren’t ‘ready gettin’ messed up enough," Duke huffed. "Now people think they have ta make up stuff for us ta put up with?"
"It’s crazy."
"Insane."
"Let’s see what these nut jobs thought up." Nosedive directed the computer to search the site for references to the team. Once the very long list came up, the two ducks settled down to read. The perusal was mostly silent except for the occasional snigger, sound of disgust, or exclamation of "I would never say that!"
"People are strange," Nosedive finally concluded.
"Ya know it. Hey, I didn’t see this one before." Duke pointed at the very top of the screen.
"It must’ve just been posted. Hmmm… ‘Ducks and Disappointments,’ by moni-puppy-eyes- don’t you just love the names these people give themselves? ‘After a crushing playoff loss, two teammates discover deeply hidden secrets that will change everything. Beware! Yuri slash!’"
"There’s a crazy Russian guy in this story?"
"Sounds interesting." Duke clicked the link.
A bit into it, Nosedive declared, "Wing wouldn’t say this. I don’t think he even knows these words exist, and if he did he wouldn’t know what they mean."
"Well, ya know humans, they got this tendency ta think that everyone’s just like them, right down ta the cursin’."
Nosedive snickered. "Too true, Duke, way too true. They don’t understand us, and we don’t understand them." He twirled his chair around and re-immersed himself in the fiction. With a chortle, he added, "I think I see where this is going, and if I’m right, it’s going to be quite strange."
"What do ya think is goin’ ta happen?"
"Oh, come on, Duke, you can find out for yourself." Heh, I wish Wing were in here reading this, he’d probably have a heart attack or something equally fun to watch.
A few minutes later, the story took the turn Nosedive had half been expecting, but there was a twist. He thought it to be of secondary importance to the plot, something to throw the unwary reader off his stride. He spent a moment looking out the corner of his eye at Duke to see what his teammate’s reaction was and was well pleased by the horrified and faintly disgusted look on Duke’s face.
Then the plot complication that- if Nosedive had bothered to familiarize himself with fanfiction terminology would have been seen a mile away- came up and smacked them hard in the face. Simultaneous double-taking neglected to change the words on the screen, so they did the next best thing: they screamed together "GREAT MOTHER OF DUCKS!"
Wildwing rolled his eyes. "I should have known those two would get into trouble. Tanya, will you remember to remind me whose turn it is when I get back? Thanks very much." He got up from the table, asked some higher power for an extra dose of patience, and left the room. Tanya stared after him, silently wondering what was going on in there. Mallory sat down next to her and verbalized the question.
The blonde shrugged. "Guys are strange."
"You said it."
"Dive, Duke, what are you doing in here?" Wildwing demanded. "Don’t you know that Drake 1 is not a toy to play with? Now, one of you tell me why you both look like you saw a ghost."
Nosedive and Duke exchanged a glance. Just how were they supposed to explain something that had so shocked them by its foreignness and vaguely twisted nature? "The folks at the shop told me about this site, and then, well, ummm… bro, you’d better read this story…" Nosedive suggested faintly. "It’s kinda hard to explain."
Wildwing sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and scrolled up to the top of the screen. From there he read down much more quickly than his brother and Duke, and for a while Nosedive amused himself by watching the rapidly changing expressions on his older brother’s normally impassive and well-hidden face. He could tell to the nanosecond when Wildwing hit the section that had so completely freaked out him and Duke, because the wince was very noticeable. "Uh-huh. And what precisely possessed you to read this piece of insanity?"
"We didn’t know!" Duke protested. "It didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout comin’ up with this crazy idea ‘bout Tani and Mally!"
"Yeah, I just thought it was going to be you two!"
"You’re telling me that a site that is meant for all sorts of people to read didn’t warn you that this is a story with same-sex romance? Either something is seriously wrong with this place or something is seriously wrong with you." Wildwing’s tone changed to one a bit darker. "I wonder if that lawyer is still in town, although I don’t think it was his specialty. Still, we can’t let this go on."
Nosedive sat down on a blank part of the computer and said, "Now you’re going to say something like ‘having said that’, because you’re as hooked on this fic as we are, aren’t you? You know what’s going on, you know how wrong it is, you know how sick and twisted it is, but you want to keep reading it anyway."
Wildwing glared at him. "Of course not."
"Then why ain’t ya walkin’ away?"
"Okay, guys, I’ve gotta make one thing clear. We can’t let the girls find out that we’re doing this. If Mallory doesn’t kill us for reading it, Tanya will kill us for reading it on her computer. Yeah, I know it’s the team computer, but she’s so protective of it that it’s not even funny. So if anyone ever mentions it, we’re going to deny it, right?"
"I think so, yeah. Now be quiet, I’m trying to read."
"Whoa, bro, you don’t have to freak."
Several hours later:
Mallory looked at her watch. "That’s it. They’ve been sucked into another universe again and we’re going to have to go on some weird quest to get them back without destroying the world. Tough luck. I don’t feel like saving the world today. Do you?"
"Well…" Tanya trailed off cheerfully. "It would get pretty boring without having them around." She stared at the game she and Mallory had started half an hour after Wildwing’s exit. "Anyway, uh, which cards are we using as the castles again?"
"I thought those were the tens," Mallory replied with a frown. "Or were the tens the bishops? I always get those pieces confused. Oh, ice it, I don’t feel like playing chess anymore, and you can’t play a decent hand of poker to save your life. I’m sick of waiting for him to come back. I’ll be back."
"Nuh-uh. Everyone went in there alone and no one came back. If you’re going in, then so am I. Besides, chess is just weird with playing cards." The two female ducks got up and walked into the other room.
"We’re busted, guys, run for it!"
"Clear the history first!" Wildwing yelled.
It was too late for practical advice to be followed, though. Duke and Nosedive had already taken off running, and the suspicious and skeptical look coming into the eyes of his female teammates was enough to convince Wildwing that following suit would be the best idea. Once the guys had high-tailed it out of there, Tanya approached the computer carefully. "Now it’s time to find out what they were up to." She opened the browser back up, reviewed the history, and clicked on the most recent link…
Sweet Spot: Somewhere in New York City, this idea hit me right between the eyes and refused to go away no matter how hard I tried. It was at least partially inspired by the fact that there was a sports section on fanfiction.net that I posted to semi-regularly with the adventures of my quasi-original and quasi-sane New York Empire. Another small chunk can be attributed to the fact that in that section a lot of the stories were slash, a lot of the stories were hockey, and there was even one about a team called the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks (farm team? I would like to know if anyone knows). So a few random ideas came together and demanded to be written.
As far as I know, there is no fanfic.com, no fic entitled "Ducks and Disappointments", no author with the penname moni-puppy-eyes (I certainly hope there isn’t, anyway, since I concocted the name from my friend the former Ducks fan’s screenname and the nickname of one of my characters from my own personal universe), and certainly no stories that have that particular relationship in them, other than a very brief scene in Raven Anderson’s riotous twisted humor fic "Rave’s Lizard Tales".
And Wildwing was right, a site like this needs warnings. What he and Nosedive didn’t know was that there was a warning. ‘Yuri slash!’ is not an ungrammatical warning about or a suggestion to a Russian guy with a knife; yuri is the anime term for female/female romance. Now, if I were the kind of person to present a challenge to someone, I would dare anyone reading this to write the unlikely Mallory/Tanya slash fic, or maybe to write the Wildwing/Duke yaoi slash story that Nosedive thought it was going to be. Or perhaps I could ask you just to write a follow-up to this adventure, and see if the girls really do go kill the guys.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters (although I wish I did). I don't make any money off them (although I wish I did). I just like 'em a lot. So please, don't sue me. BUT anyone strange you run across is mine, so don't get comfy with them.