//------------------------------// // Leader to Leader // Story: Equestria Ninja Girls Ducks Rock! // by WarriorofFaith18 //------------------------------// It was late at night in the Pond. Everyone was sleeping in their RVs while Night Shine slept in a hammock he set up just outside the vehicles. The Mighty Ducks were sleeping in their quarters while Phil fell asleep in his office still trying to find his halftime entertainment. Everyone was sleeping peacefully. Except for Wildwing. The Mighty Duck leader was still hard at work watching the monitors. But even he couldn’t help but doze off. As he slept a little, he began to dream. He and the Ducks were chasing Dragaunus through a dimensional gateway when the Raptor fired an electrical worm. “Tanya, What is that?” Wildwing asked. “If I’m not mistaken, I’d say that it’s some kind of electromagnetic worm!” Tanya said. “If that thing gets big enough, it’ll swallow the ship!” Duke cried. “Well, how do we get rid of it?” Wildwing asked Tanya. “Well, it has to consume some sort of matter!” “Then we’re gonna have to jettison something!” Wildwing decided. “But what? Everything’s bolted down!” Before anyone could answer, they heard one of the doors open and a big gust of wind was blowing. Wildwing looked to see a Duck his size with a shoulder pad and wore navy blue. He was also wearing the mask. Wildwing hurried over to him. “Canard! What are doing?” “You heard Tanya! I’m gonna close that thing down!” “Are you crazy!” “It’s the only way!” Canard took off Drake Ducaine’s mask and tried to give it to Wildwing. “Take it, Wildwing!” Wildwing was shocked. He couldn’t take the mask. He reluctantly shook his head. “TAKE IT!” Before Canard could argue more, the worm snared him by his feet and started to drag him down. “CANARD!” Wildwing hurried and grabbed his friend’s hand with Grin grabbing him. Despite pulling hard, he was losing his grip that his hand slipped from his hand to the mask. Canard held onto the mask one more time as he looked at Wildwing straight in the eye. “Take it. You’re team captain now!” Then Canard let go of the mask as he drifted away before the worm made him vanish. “NOOOOOOOOO!” Wildwing cried. -------- Wildwing woke up with a start. He looked around to see he was only dreaming. He took off his mask and rubbed his eyes. He then put the mask back on and continued to do his work on the monitors when he heard a voice behind him. “Trouble sleeping?” Wildwing turned to see Leo by the doors with a glass of water. “Oh. Hey, Leo. Just checking the monitors. I didn’t wake you, did I?” “Nah. I was up on my own anyhow.” Leo casually walked up. “You’re trying to find the final fragment of the Eye of Sarnath, aren’t you?” “I…just wanted to make sure Dragaunus and his goons haven’t found it yet. We’ve been delayed twice with the Street Sharks and Dr. Paradigm and Spider Bytz as well as curing Shine Boy. And like your brother Raph said, no doubt Dragaunus is gonna up his game to get it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad we were able to help them, but it’s just Dragaunus has played rough against us before and I can ill afford to mess it up again.” “Again?” Leo pulled up a chair and sat near Wildwing. “You wanna talk about it?” Wildwing took a deep breath as he took off his mask again. “You’re the leader, right Leonardo?” Leo nodded. “Well, you remember when I told you about my best friend Canard? He was our true leader. I still remember his last words to me. He told me to take the mask and that I was team captain now. But I didn’t put on the mask right away. I wanted to find find Canard and bring him back. I still do. Duke kept telling me Canard gave me the mask to lead them, but I was in denial. I’ve known Canard since school and I tell you he’s a better leader than I’ll ever be!” “I can actually understand that perfectly.” Leo nodded. “Master Splinter told me the reason he picked me to be leader was because I asked first. Raph was pretty sore about it.” “I bet.” Wildwing smiled. “In fact, out of all my brothers, he questioned my leadership the most. One time, we were chasing our enemy Snakweed who was kidnapping civilians and he kept grilling my leadership so much that I gave up, made him leader, and left. That was when I first met Karai. Back then, she was working for Sensei’s arch enemy the Shredder.” “Because he raised her from an infant and made her think your father killed her mother and he was her father?” Wildwing recalled. “Yep. After she humiliated me, I returned to our home and Sensei taught me that Leadership wasn’t about being appreciated. It was about the responsibility. I went out to find my brothers only to be sidetracked with Karai.” “So how did Raph handled being leader?” Wildwing asked. “He was able to find where Snakeweed held the civilians as fertilizer and freed them. Snakeweed attacked them and hurt Mikey, causing Raph to crack under pressure and retreated. He learned what I go through as leader and went to find me. He met Karai that day too before Snakeweed attacked us. Karai retreated, leaving me and Raph to fight him. We managed to defeat him, and Raph apologized. So to speak.” “What about Donnie and Mikey? Did they ever question your leadership?” Wildwing wondered. “Oh yeah. One time, after April left us after her father got mutated, we were training and collecting mutagen canisters we accidently spilled throughout New York. One training run, my brothers used their own tactics which I criticized as cheating. The biggest blow was when the marked ‘Lame-o-nardo’ on my sword. I began to doubt my leadership and was about to give up again. Shredder had just gotten his Foot Bots from the Kraang. They’d make Dragaunus’ drones seem like can openers. Karai sicked them on us, resulted in me getting captured and humiliated. My brothers came to rescue me and I allowed them to use their tactics to defeat the Foot Bots and I fought Karai who escaped.” “Wow!” Wildwing blinked. “Nosedive and I argue sometimes, but we were never that cruel to each other.” “Did any of the Ducks question your leadership?” Leo asked. “Other than Mallory who thinks brute force would be better, not really. Not like Raph. But there was a time I actually quit.” Wildwing sat up a little. “Sometimes, I feel like if Canard was still leader, we’d be back in PuckWorld, despite the others telling me otherwise. One day, we received a broadcast from what appeared to be Canard out of dimensional limbo in the mountains. We went to investigate only to find out it was Chameleon in disguise and Siege blasted the bridge we were on. As we tried to climb up, the two stole the Aerowing to shoot down a ship that belong to a couple of peace-loving beings called the Watchers and stole their neutronium core to power their ship as well as a plant called an Alterian Creeper. We gave chase on our blades and stop them from taking the Aerowing again. After that, I lost faith in my leadership and quit, leaving the mask. Before I had second thoughts on leaving the team, the Watchers, Flork and Zork, kidnapped me and forced me to fix their ship. Meanwhile, Phil tried to fill in as goalie just to not call for a replacement, but the others convinced him otherwise. Meanwhile, Dragaunus had Chameleon plant the Alterian Creeper in the park, turning into a giant plant that nearly covered Anaheim.” “Yikes! That would put Snakeweed and the Creep to shame.” Leo flinched. “How’d the others handled it?” “Well, they knew they needed a new leader. And from what they told me since I wasn’t there, they didn’t want Nosedive as leader, though he claims he’s next in line because he was my brother. Duke took it up first putting on the mask, but when he tried to slice through, he was captured, forcing to toss the mask to the others. Tanya tried next and found out that the plant couldn’t handle nitrogen but cracked under pressure and quit being leader after the plant snared the Migrator. After they made a weed killing missile, Mallory stepped up as leader. But when the vines attacked headquarters, she was captured. Grin tried but was snatched by Nosedive who had a unique way of leadership. When the Aerowing was caught, they tried to reach the core to inject the weed killer only to get caught. By then, I managed to get free and convinced Flork and Zork that Dragaunus had their neutronium core. With the Ducks captured, Siege tried to grab the mask when I came and grabbed it. After repelling Siege, I used the weed killer on the creeper, reducing it back to its previous self, freeing everyone and Flork returned it in its case. Zork remotely destroyed their neutronium core, causing the Raptor to be powerless stranding Dragaunus on Earth again. Everyone was glad that I returned and was leader again. Duke even said I was a better leader than Canard. I don’t know about that, but I was glad to be back.” “Whoa. That sounded like something!” Leo smiled. “I always do what I can to lead them. But I still vow to find Canard.” Wildwing stated. Leo placed his hand on his shoulder. “Wildwing, I’m sure Canard would be proud of you. Whether he’s the better leader or you, he must’ve knew somehow you had what it took to lead in case he fell. Kinda how Sensei did with me.” “Really?” Wildwing raised a brow. “The night Shredder slayed him, he told me the real reason he chose me to be leader was because he saw I was born to lead. That he was proud of how much I’ve matured. I felt guilty that I didn’t reach him in time to save him when Shredder impaled him and threw him over the building. After we buried him, his spirit came to me and Twilight and said I was the sensei now. We then banded together with the Rainbooms, our friends, and Dazzlings and avenged him by defeating the Shredder once and for all.” “And what happened after that now that Shredder was gone?” Wildwing asked. “We still have adventures. Sometimes we visit our friends in Equestria, Sunset’s home, other times we’ve visited other worlds.” “Tanya would giggle about the multiverse theory being true.” Wildwing mumbled. “What worlds you’ve visited?” “Well, we’ve visited a grim city called Gotham where we met a vigilante hero named Batman along with other superheroes. Then, there was Moo Mesa, where we teamed up with these cow cowboys. We’ve also met other versions of ourselves who, though different, were the same as us. Then there was The Digital World, home of these creatures called Digimon and we’ve teamed up with a group of kids called the Digidestined twice. Shine Boy also told me that Team Shine went to a dimension called MegaKat City and teamed up with these two cat guys called The Swat Katz. I hope we get to meet them someday. Of course, we once met these other version of us that are obsessed with pizza and say ‘Turtle Power’ or ‘Cowabunga’ and stuff.” “Sounds impressive.” Wildwing admitted. “Of course, we’ve met others in our dimension too. We’ve met a former thief named Carmen Sandiego. There was also Creepie, a girl in a family of bugs. Then, there’s Jake Long, this kid who can become a dragon, who helped us with these magic users from this world called the Boiling Isles. We also teamed up with these heroes called the Power Rangers as well as this guy named Ben Tennyson who has this watch called the Omnitrix that turns him into aliens. And we even met the teen heroine Kim Possible.” “Yeah. We’ve met Kim Possible.” Wildwing remembered. “We stopped this Duff Killigan guy who teamed up with Mindbender, just some wannabe villain, who tried to ruin another hockey game. But that’s another story.” “That’s great.” Leo smiled before yawning. “Well, I think it’s time we hit the hay.” “I suppose so.” Wildwing got up and stretched. “I’m no good to lead if I’m too tired.” The two leaders clapped hands together as Wildwing spoke. “And Leo? Thanks. For understanding and talking.” “Like Shine Boy one time told me we leaders gotta stick together.” Leo smiled. “And never give up. I know one day, you’ll find Canard. Good night, Wildwing.” “Good night, Leo.” Wildwing smiled before the two went back to bed. -------- Meanwhile, in the Anaheim jailhouse, in one of the cells were two guys dressed as beat poets sleeping. One was a skinny guy with light purple skin and the other was a hunchback guy with mint green skin. They were just sleeping before they were suddenly awakened by a loud smash in their cell. “Is it cock a doodle doo time already?” the hunchback groaned before he and the purple guy gasped. Through the whole in the wall was a giant tanker truck. “Yo! What’s with disturbing our trip to dream land?” the purple guy snapped his fingers. “I just believe it’s time to turn dreams into righteous reality, you dig?” The two gasped at the sound of the voice. Emerging from the truck was a big round guy with bright red skin wearing a black jacket and black pants over a white shirt. He had a purple beard and wore a black beret. “Big Daddy? Is that you?” the purple guy hoped. “That’s right, Digger! Big Daddy O’Cool is back! Cooler than ever courtesy of our new benefactor! And I got a righteous plan to get back at those square birds and their new buds and I could use you and Thrasher’s assistance like old time's sake, you dig?” “We dig!” Digger and Thrasher responded by snapping their fingers before joining their boss and escaping prison. To be Continued