Disclaimer: Thank you, Disney team, for Darkwing Duck.

Thank you again, little sister mine, for the giant comic book those few Christmases ago. Far away from across the ocean and the stretches of time, Darkwing, Launchpad, Gosalyn and Steelbeak came today and brought a little joy back into my life.

Thank you, my dearest reader for reading. May your vampires always be scary and your endings always be happy.


DARK DUCK

The Greatest Heist There Never Was


Chapter One


Part 1


The cold blue electric light of the air ship's control room coloured Steelbeak's vision. His heart was pounding in his chest. Not again ... not here ... again.

Far away across the distance of the room, the set of double doors with their circular windows stood closed. The doors led to the rest of the air ship, Steelbeak could feel it. Motivated to escape to freedom, Steelbeak raced towards the doors. After what seemed like ages, he got to them. Sweating, he tried the handle. They wouldn't budge. Desperately he pulled, twisted, pushed, and pulled again.

"No! Let me outta here!" He shrieked in terror, realising he wasn't getting out of this place.

Gasping for breath from his fit of trapped panic Steelbeak leaned against the unyielding doors and looked back at the room. The doors had never opened to him before. Why start now?

Three eggmen in their white, yellow and red uniforms were standing in a line watching him. They were waiting for him to do his job. As though telling him what that job was, the control panel swam into Steelbeak's view. The control panel was an array of switches, dials and knobs in grotesque distortion.

"Too late for getting scared, Steelbeak." He heard his own voice chiding him. "You're 'the guy'. Just like you always wanted to be."
"Please, leave me alone." Steelbeak whimpered. "I give up. I surrender." He begged. "Take me away, lock me up; just leave me alone. Please."
"Check your ticket, Steelbeak." He heard the sound of his own laughter echoing off the metallic walls. "You've gotten on the wrong train." His voice chortled back at him.

"I'm dreaming." Steelbeak looked up at the closed skylight. "I already learnt this lesson!" He yelled up at the daylight beyond the shutters. "I gotta wake up! I need to wake up, how do I wake up? Wake up!" Nothing changed and he looked back at the faces of the three silent eggmen. "Please." He directed his plea to them now, "Leave me alone. Please."

An idea flashed through Steelbeak's mind. "Maybe!" He gasped, "Maybe I can change it. If I can get that skylight open fast enough this time. Just maybe!"

He raced to the control panel but before he could reach the switch, he heard the words he'd heard before.

"I've got old fashioned chicken soup dinner on the menu."

With a shriek of fear, Steelbeak flicked the skylight switch and then spun around to watch it open. It was useless though; the machine didn't co-operate fast enough. "Come on, hurry up!" The shutters were so slow it was painful. "Oh, no." He sobbed, desperately looking up at the sluggish shutters. "Please no. Not again."

The vampire eggman dodged the light beam and kept his tail feathers smartly in the shadows. "Seeing you like this, I've got you figured, Steelbeak."

"Eggmen, stop him." Steelbeak directed the two other Eggmen even though he already knew they wouldn't move. They stayed standing side by side a few metres away and to the side of the room.

"I don't wanna get bitten." The first shorter one said plaintively.
"Me neither."
"Yeah, we saw what happened to those guys."

"Why me? Why now?" Steelbeak felt exasperated. "Of all the eggmen to get cooped up with it has to be two with brains?"
"The odds are such." His other voice answereed him, "After all we' been through. There's smart and then there's dead."
"Oh yeah," Steelbeak gazed in defeat at the two unmoving eggmen as his disembodied voice laughed again as though this were some huge joke.

"A sun beam. Great idea." The dark ominous voice of Darkwing Duck bounced off the walls, making the air in the room thick despite the bright sunlight streaming squarely into the centre.

"Yikes!" Steelbeak yelped and frantically looked for another switch on the control panel. "Anti-Darkwing, anti-Darkwing! Oh, no-no-no no-no-oo!"

"I am the terror that flaps in the night."

"It's not night over here." One eggman said.
"Yeah, go take a nap, Dorkwing." The other added.

At this moment, Steelbeak noticed on the dashboard a large red button under a glass case saying 'self-destruct'. Steelbeak flipped open the lid and pushed on it but it wouldn't go down. He rammed his fist down on it and yet it wouldn't budge.

"But they say Quack Quong city never sleeps?" The first eggman countered.

Steelbeak turned around. He looked acidly at the two non-vampire eggmen. "Stop flapping your beaks you two and let me handle the witty retorts!" He snapped. "What? Do I gotta start remembering your names or something? Well I don't know your names, alright? Am I gonna ask? No! Why? Coz I don't care is why!"

"Ahem?" The vampire eggman interrupted them all, tapping his foot for attention.

Steelbeak shot another acidic look over at the vampire eggman, who took another step towards him. "You ain't it." Steelbeak said in exasperation. "I ain't scared of you." He challenged the vampire eggman. "You don't know it yet but you're just dust like all of the rest."

"I am the rubber band that snaps back at you." Darkwing's voice rang through again, making Steelbeak back away to the control panel to look again for an anti-Darkwing device in case he'd missed it the first time.

The vampire eggman looked up at the ceiling and snarled with the voice of a wild animal. "We know: you're Darkwing Duck!"

"And you're history." Darkwing appeared out of the shadow and web-kicked the vampire eggman in the stomach. The last vampire eggman stumbled back into the light beam and disintegrated.

Unable to help himself, Steelbeak repeated his weak supplication. "Gosh you saved me ... maybe I had you wrong, after all, Darkwing-."

The mallard shape twisted about to face Steelbeak, his black cape swirling behind him. Short as he was the vampire loomed, his voice was as dark and forbidding as any graveyard shadow. "You've wilfully killed hundreds of your own men."

"That was damage control," Steelbeak babbled, scrabbled for some sort of alliance, "you know about that-you even agree about that. It was spreading, it was outta control, it was dangerous ... a menace to society ..."

Helpless, Steelbeak watched Darkwing smoothly skirting his way around the square of light towards Steelbeak.

"B-but that's in the past." Steelbeak gulped. Darkwing's eyes were glowing a bright, freakish blue.

"Okay, let's think about the future." Darkwing paused for a moment.

"Tell me; just tell me what I gotta do. Please." Steelbeak begged hurriedly. "Anything. Whatever it is. You only gotta say."

"I've thought about it." Darkwing reported and took a step past Steelbeak. The vampire slammed his fist down on the skylight switch and the shutters closed.

"Please, no, please, anything!" Steelbeak tried desperately as the warm daylight faded back to the cool electric blue of the control room, "I'd do anything you want!"

The vampire mallard drew his cloak up around his face and twisted to face Steelbeak. With a snarl, he flicked back his cape, sharp teeth in his beak and a hungry gleam in his eyes. "I'm still going to eat you!"


"Ack!"

Steelbeak sat up with a bolt of fear, his eardrums ringing with the sound of his own terrified shriek. His heart continued to pound. The world still glowed a terrible blue. "No! No-no no!"

He gasped for breath as his brain caught up with his surroundings. This blue was far darker; more black than white. He turned his head to where the light was coming from and saw a high up floodlight shining down through his cellblock window. It was just a regular old floodlight outside. The blue tinge still had him nervous but Steelbeak was awake enough now to rationalise it all. The cool white light shone in through the bars of the window and cast the cement cell into a blue gloom. He was facing the interior bars and the brick wall with the adjacent cell was beside his bed on his left side. The outside wall was behind his head and the window was one step to the right.

It was just a floodlight and it was just a prison cell.

And if he was in jail then it had to mean he was still alive and reasonably safe.

With the reality that he was on his bunk in his prison cell firming in his mind, Steelbeak sank back onto his bed with relief. At least here, surely, he would get a bit of shut-eye? He looked at the bars of the door. He didn't like the idea of staying cooped up in the pen and he liked the idea of being back in St Canard even less. But at least there was no Darkwing Duck in here. He lay back onto his pillow and closed his eyes.

Not so long as Steelbeak was in jail would Darkwing Duck come for him.

Not in here.