"I can’t believe that kid!" Mallory skated around, annoyed. "He still isn’t here, and we need to practice! You can’t have a three on three game with five people."

Duke crossed his arms. "Cool it babe, Wildwing will be back with him soon. Dive’s just being a teenager. Didn’t you ever like to sleep in?"

"No." Mallory said pointedly, almost insulted.

Duke had nothing to say to that, so he kept quiet. When Mallory was on the warpath, nothing could stop her.

Tanya heard steps coming from the top of the stands and called out. "Phil?"

Grin turned from Duke and Mallory and followed her gaze. "It is not like Phil to break his restoration so early."

"It’s not early!" Mallory was getting more and more angry. She hated hanging around. If Wildwing were here, than she could at least practice her shooting. "Grin, could you get in the goal?"

Grin slowly shock his head. "I think something important is about to happen."

"Yeah, you’re gonna be goalie!"

Nosedive walked out onto the ice at the other end of the rink. "Hi."

"About time! Where are your skates, and where’s Wildwing?" Duke told him, grinning slightly.

Nosedive didn’t answer, but walked towards them. When he was ten metres away, Tanya gasped.

"You’re not Nosedive!"

Mallory frowned. "What do ya mean? Who else is it?"

Tanya was about to reply, when Wildwing and another Nosedive skated out.

"It’s too early!" the second Nosedive complained.

"Get moving." Wildwing told him firmly. Nosedive made a face, and turned away to face the others. He caught sight of himself, and sharply drew in breath.

"No." Tanya shook her head. "THAT’S Nosedive."

Duke had slunk to the side, and had grabbed a puckshooter. "Mallory!" he yelled, tossing it to her. She caught it, and aimed at the imposter.

"Touch the sky, Chameleon." She told him.

"Wait!" Nosedive ran towards the strange duck. "That’s not the Chameleon! That’s my sister!"

"Your what?" Mallory squeaked.

"Our sister." Wildwing told her, looking very surprised. "She’s Nosedive’s identical twin."

"Ducks don’t have twins." Duke was amazed.

Wildwing pointed to Nosedive and his twin, who were hugging each other. "They do now. Mum was surprised too, should have seen her face when two ducklings broke out of the egg."

Nosedive was dragging his sister over to the others, both laughing. "Guys, meet Jadestar. Jadestar, guys."

Jadestar waved meekly, but still smiling. Her face and hair was identical to that of her brothers, except for her eyes, which were a dark, bright green. She was also shorter than Nosedive, and obviously with a different figure. She was just average there, no supermodel. But Nosedive was looking at her like she was a queen. "Hey there. Sorry to give you a fright."

Mallory slapped a hand on her face. "I don’t believe it." She muttered. "You did this to me on purpose, Nosedive!"

Nosedive nudged Jadestar. "That’s Mallory. She’s grumpy when I’m late for practice."

"Oh. Hi, Mallory. Don’t worry, I don’t sleep in like he does." She grinned.

Jadestar suddenly caught sight of Wildwing. "Wing!" she cried, running and jumping up to hug him around the neck. Wildwing still looked slightly stunned, but hugged her back. He put her down, and she stepped back. Duke stepped forward.

"My name's Duke L’Orange. You may have heard of me. I was a thief back on Puckworld." He took a bow. Jadestar looked thoughtful.

"I’ve heard about you, but not for that. I think I can guess everyone else’s names. You’re Grin, right?" she pointed to the hulking duck, and he bowed. "And you must be Tanya."

"Well, yeah. Um, I don’t want to be, like, rude or anything, but how on Puckworld did you get here? And how did you know our names?"

A thought suddenly hit Nosedive, and he grabbed Jadestar’s arm and pulled her close so he could whisper to her. "Did a certain rabbit/duck have anything to do with this?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

Nosedive smiled. "Let’s just say that I can’t explain in front of the guys. But don’t tell em about her, she likes to pick the ones who know about her."

"Why?"

"I dunno, just the way she works. Tell em the rest but, I’m dying to hear." He wiggled his eyebrows, and she giggled.

"I missed ya Dive."

"Likewise."

Wildwing cleared his throat. "I think we’d be better off talking about this somewhere more comfortable. We meet at Drake One in five minutes."

"All right!" Nosedive cheered. "I’ll show ya around Jadey!"

"Five minutes Nosedive. Show her round later."

Nosedive made a face, but agreed. "Fine. Come on Jade, this is gonna blow your mind just getting to Drake One!"

Jadestar looked at him, puzzled, but curious. Nosedive laughed.

"Exactly!"

***

Ten minutes later Nosedive and Jadestar walked to the others next to Drake One. Jadestar couldn’t stop gazing around her.

Mallory gave Nosedive a "you’re pathetic" look, and he looked straight back, hurt.

"Look, I’m sure Wildwing knows that for someone who hasn’t been here before, even getting to Drake One takes awhile cause they have to stop and look. Plus, I had to get out of my hocky gear!"

Jadestar patted his arm. "Don’t worry about it Dive. This is a pretty nifty computer, by the way."

"You, er, like computers?" Tanya inquired.

"Are you kidding? I love the things! You got Internet capabilities on this thing?"

"Duh, who hasn’t!"

Duke stepped in, before their conversation turned into a tech-fest. "Scuse me ladies, but I’d like to hear the story."

"Oh, sure. Make yourselves comfortable. OK, first off, here’s some news I think Wildwing will like, Canard’s fine. He’s sorta in charge back on Puckworld."

"How did he get there? We thought he was trapped in Dimensional Limbo!" Wildwing was overjoyed, but mystified.

Jadestar snorted. "Yeah, for about ten seconds. Turns out that Draganus’s wormy thingos aren’t very effective, and his Dimensional Gateways aren’t that much better. No staying power. As soon as the Dimensional Gateway closed, the worm and Canard dropped out, and landed back on Puckworld. It was quite a drop. Fortunately, the disintegrating worm landed beneath Canard, and then broke up all together. The Resistance was wondering why you guys weren’t back, and the search party picked Canard up. He told us what had happened to you. Once we had gotten rid of the rest of the Saurians, which was easy, Canard was made King! King Canard, has a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?"

The ducks were all happy now, and everyone was smiling. Duke turned to Nosedive and Wildwing. "Why didn’t you tell us you had a sister?"

"We thought she was dead." Wildwing replied. "There was a angry Saurian at the prisoner camp, looking for somewhere to vent his feelings. There was a sort of drain come canal running through a corner of the courtyard. She was drinking from it, and the Saurian started using her for target practice. We saw her try dodge the shots, but she was hit twice, and she fell in. It was winter, and the drain was icy. I figured that if the shots hadn’t killed her, the cold water would, or drown her anyway." He shivered at the distant memory. "I had to hold Nosedive back though. He wanted to go in after her. Probably would have gotten shot if he had. He almost got shot anyway, from screaming at them."

"I really thought you were gone." He whispered. Jadestar squeezed his hand.

"I thought I was too. When I hit the water, I blacked out. I woke up later on the floor of a shed. The Resistance had grabbed me down stream, and had treated my wounds. After that I stayed with them. But it was only the day after I came to that you guys fought Draganus. I met up with Mum and Dad when the Saurians were defeated, but they were sick, and they died a few months ago." Jadestar let that sink in for a moment, herself having cried enough. Wildwing’s beak fell, and Nosedive quickly whipped away a few tears, both boys deciding to grieve later.

"I had nowhere to go, and I convinced Canard to get me here." Jadestar lied. "I wanted to see you guys."

Duke was taken aback. "He let you come? Why didn’t he send some more ducks to help us?"

"I didn’t know we had any Dimensional Gateways." Tanya thought out loud.

"Well, we don’t really." Jadestar scrambled for an idea, ignoring Duke’s question. "The Saurians had one on another plane that we used."

"Oh." Tanya was not quite satisfied, but kept quiet.

"Wildwing, Nosedive and Jadestar. Interesting names." Mallory changed the subject, sensing that Jadestar had told her story.

"You can call me Jade if you want." Jadestar told her.

"You can’t call her Star but! That’s only me!" Nosedive grinned.

"Yeah, and I’m the only one allowed to call him…" Jadestar was cut off by Nosedive’s hand.

"Hey! Don’t! Wildwing, can I show her around?"

"Yeah Wildwing, can Divey show me around?" Jadestar shrieked with laughter as Nosedive roared and chased her out of the room. The other ducks could hear a scuffle unfolding in the hall, and giggles mixed with yells. Duke peeked around, and saw Nosedive unceremoniously sit on top of his sister. She was yelling at him, and started to tickle him. He laughed and fell off. She jumped up and raced away. Duke noted that she was faster than Nosedive, but she was also heading for a dead end. He grinned as he heard the cry of dismay, and Nosedive’s crowing. He went back to the others.

"Tell me Wildwing, are they playing, 'cause it’s starting to look like war." Duke cocked his head at Wildwing.

"Oh, they’re actually very close. Always have been. They did almost everything together, except play hockey."

"Well, er, why not hockey? Tanya asked.

"It’s strange, but Jadestar can’t actually play very well. I mean, she knows the rules and all, but she can’t handle the puck well. She’d only be about as good as the average kid around here. Don’t expect her to play any league games with us, she wouldn’t be able to take the knocks."

Duke frowned. "She handles Nosedive good enough, and she’s fast."

"You know as well as I do that that isn’t enough. Me and Dive have been trying to teach her for years. So, while we played, she read. She loves reading. She’s just like her mum." At the thought of his foster parents, Wildwing went quiet. "I’ll see you guys later." He headed for the door.

"We have a appointment with destiny tonight." said Grin.

"Huh?" Wildwing couldn’t figure that one out.

Mallory sighed. "He means that we have a game."

Wildwing ran through the days events. "We’ll cancel Phil’s photo shoot, and practice then. Nosedive won’t be ready till after lunch. You guys can take the morning off, do whatever."

Mallory grinned. "Tanya, it’s shopping time!"

"Well, as long as we stop in the hardware store. I’m out of 2/9 quad plugs."

"Uh, sure." Mallory turned to Grin and Duke. "You guys wanna come?"

Duke nodded. "I have a feeling that it ain’t gonna be quiet around here for awhile. Grin?"

"I will come. Noise affects my karma."

***

Nosedive and Jadestar were checking out Tanya’s lab. Nosedive found some interesting dyes to turn Mallory’s hair interesting colours, and Jadestar was trying to talk him out of it. Her argument was that it wasn’t very nice, but Nosedive ignored her as always.

"You worry too much Star. I do this kinda thing all the time!"

"But what if it doesn’t come out!"

"Then she’ll have green hair for while! Doncha think it’d suit her?"

"Dive!"

"Aww, come on Jade! You can’t be serious!"

Jadestar gave up. "Fine. But you have to do it. I’m only watching."

"Sure thing, sis. Come on, we can put it in her shampoo. We better hurry, she could get back soon." He grabbed the bottle and raced out of the room. Jadestar still had some misgivings, but then she thought better of it.

"What the heck." She shrugged. "Mallory’ll get over it."

***

Jadestar was having a shower when Nosedive went to see Wildwing. Wildwing was sitting up on his bed when he went in. Nosedive sat next to him.

"I didn’t even think that mum and dad could be dead, Wildwing." Nosedive said quietly. Wildwing put his hand on his shoulder.

"I know Dive. But I bet they were happy. They were free, and you know that if only one of them died, the other would be miserable." Wildwing had been thinking all morning about it.

"I guess." Nosedive decided to look on the bright side. "But hey big bro! We got out baby sis back!"

Wildwing smiled. "You missed her. Why didn’t you talk to me about it?"

"Hey, you know me Wing. I’m tough! You didn’t talk to me either! So that makes us equal. Anyway, she’s here, and she’s staying, right?"

"I guess. I don’t think we could send her back even if we wanted to!"

Nosedive smiled, he knew a way.

"Well, we don’t want to! But where’s she gonna sleep?"

"I guess it’ll have to be in either yours, mine, Mallory’s or Tanya’s."

Nosedive checked them off on his fingers. "Share a room with Mallory? No way! Tanya snores, you can hear her from my room! That leaves you and me."

"I don’t mind if she sleeps in here."

"That settles it then. If you want her in here, then she’s staying with me!"

"Whatever. You better go tell her."

"No problemo, big dude! And hey, I was meaning to ask you. Should Mallory dye her hair? I mean, maybe red makes her angry." He couldn’t resist putting this little hint in, and he raced out the door grinning madly.

Wildwing rubbed his forehead. Responsible for Nosedive and Jadestar! Oh well, maybe Jadestar would cool him off a bit. Yeah, and humans might fly!

***

After the game that night (which the ducks won, of course), Nosedive and Jadestar were reminiscing in bed when they heard Mallory yell angrily. Nosedive sighed happily, and Jadestar smiled to herself. Nosedive’s ideas were always fun, even though they didn’t always end so good. No doubt they’d get fried tomorrow.

Nosedive was thinking along the same lines, except in his mind, the punishment was worth it.

"Night Dive."

"Later Star."

They both fell asleep quickly, having been used to sharing a room on Puckworld. Both dreamed of home, which was wherever the other was.