Darkwing Duck: Waking Nightmare
Hello, everyone! This is my first Darkwing Duck story! This was one of my favorite cartoon series when I was a kid and I even have a Darkwing plushie somewhere in my attic. I remember the Disney Afternoon cartoon block with special fondness, and when cartoons were on regular TV channels before and after school. But I digress…
In Season 3 of Darkwing Duck, the monster that had Gosalyn Waddlemeyer/Mallard's grandfather murdered in cold blood emerged from the shadows… Taurus Bulba should've died in the explosion on that skyscraper, but FOWL decided to turn him into a cyborg and he went psycho on Darkwing and Gosalyn. Now I know episodes aired after that, but I thought of a different episode that should have come after… And that is where this story begins…
Disclaimer: Peach Wookiee doesn't own Darkwing Duck or any other Disney characters. If she did, there sure would've been a Season 4 of our billed version of Batman!
Gosalyn Mallard looked up in the sky where Taurus Bulba had flown away. She could distantly hear the SHUSH agents coming, and her father, currently dressed as Darkwing Duck, telling Launchpad to get a lawn chair or something since the wheelchair was smashed, but she felt funny and rather detached.
He's back… Bulba's back… He'll try to kill Dad and everybody… She wasn't quite ten years old, and yet her world had been shattered twice before. First her parents had died in an accident, and then she'd gone to live with her grandpa. And then Grandpa had been killed, and the little redheaded green-eyed duckling had been sent to the St. Canard Orphanage where she'd been an outcast because she didn't act like little girls are supposed to act. But then, when Hammerhead Hannigan, a goat henchman for Taurus Bulba had tried to kill her, Darkwing Duck had swooped in and saved her.
Bulba had almost killed Darkwing later, but the superhero had somehow survived an explosion and a fall and adopted Gosalyn as his daughter… Drake Mallard's only child. The duckling also considered herself the surrogate little sister of Launchpad McQuack, a duck who stood six feet tall and had red hair under his goggles and pilot's cap. He acted a lot like a kid himself, and so it was easy for her to think of him as a big brother.
Bulba will hunt them down… Honker's in danger, too… Since moving into suburban St. Canard, a little duckling boy with yellow feathers and a brilliant brain had become her best friend. Honker, a.k.a. Herbert Muddlefoot, Junior, was the younger son of the Mallards' next-door neighbors, Herb and Binky. He hadn't had a lot of friends, and had Gosalyn really considered the matter, she'd have realized they complemented each other. It tore her apart to think that he might have gotten hurt or killed because of her.
"Gosalyn?" a young voice, slightly congested by allergies asked, "Gosalyn, are you okay?" She turned around, meeting his blue eyes in confusion.
"Yeah, Honker, I'm…" and then she froze and the world was spinning away…
Honker Muddlefoot realized what was happening as Gosalyn's eyes rolled up in the back of her head. The stress of the past few hours had been too much for her and the adrenaline in her blood was finally dropping. She was passing out. Fortunately for the small boy, she fell forward into his arms.
"LAUNCHPAD! MR. DARKWING!" he shouted.
Launchpad came running quickly. "Honker, buddy, what happened?!"
"I asked her how she was and… and she just passed out," Honker answered, scared. I should be the one doing this, not her. It struck Honker at this moment that he didn't know as much about his best friend as he thought he did. She'd told him some things about her past and how she'd met her dad, but she'd never told him about Taurus Bulba. Launchpad took the girl's limp form in his arms and ran over to the SHUSH agents and Darkwing.
"Gos! LP, what..?" Darkwing asked, very worried.
"She just fainted," the bigger duck explained. "Probably from what happened, DW." A few of the SHUSH medics raced over with gurneys, one for Darkwing as he had two broken legs from a previous injury and one for the unconscious little girl. Launchpad laid Gosalyn down gently onto one gurney and helped Darkwing onto the other.
"We'll take you both to SHUSH headquarters," one agent said. "Are these two..?"
Launchpad, having worked for SHUSH's sister agency, the Duckberg Intelligence Agency (DIA) and SHUSH itself, said with confidence, "Yeah, I have clearance and this kid's a witness," laying his hand on Honker's shoulder. The agent nodded. Gosalyn was loaded onto a huge SHUSH transport vehicle before Darkwing was, giving the superhero some time to give his sidekick some instructions without being overheard.
"LP?"
"Yeah, DW?" Launchpad asked in a quiet voice.
"We're going to need to get in contact with the Justice Ducks."
"Okay. We can do that at SHUSH, can't we?"
"Yeah… But…" Darkwing took a deep breath, and over a year of being his sidekick and housemate made Launchpad realize that what his friend was about to say would be extremely difficult. "We've got to call Herb and Binky…"
END CHAPTER ONE
Oh, a cliffhanger! Unlike Disney, I will actually resolve this one… I know some of you are going to say Gosalyn wouldn't faint, but then again, in "The Steerminator," the Gosalyn we saw froze with fear and Honker had to act to try to save him and Gosalyn both. Even the strongest child has her limits. I hope this story is good enough to continue. Read and review, pretty please?