He was running.

He was running for his dear life from the force which wanted it to die.

He didn't knew how long he had ran. He was tired and almost out of energy, and he wanted to rest but he couldn't because he knew that if he stopped for just one minute, that...thing who hunted him would catch up to him and probably do things to him that frightened even him to the very deepest parts of his black heart. Thats why he continued to run, ran as fast as he ever had done in his entire dishonest, crime-filled, violent life. He couldn't stop - not now, not ever - if he loved his life. It wasn't his own twisted, sick mind that forced him to run. No, it was the basic survival instincts that every living creature have which forced him to run, pumped his blood with whatever adrenaline they could find to keep him going. But if his own free will was allowed to choose...he probably would run as well, because however how much as he wanted to blast that freak into afterlife and then bomb his pretty little body into atoms, he knew that the freak was no longer playing games anymore and most likely would literally beat the ever-loving feathers out of him and then break his neck without hesitation or flickering.

He remember how it all started, that how things started out as normal. He was out, tried to become the public enemy number one by robbing, stealing, creating superweapons, destroying some worthless monument, etc, etc. When one day he heard some rumors. Rumors that said his arch-enemy had become more of a sorry-butt excuse of a hero than he already was: an apathetic depressive who had stopped caring about stopping the villains' rampages. They said that his dumb pilot had to drag his butt to the frontlines and then he would try to encourage him to fight the villains, either by strong words or physical contact, but he would just ignore him and everything else that happened around him.

The Waterguy was the one who first witnessed it. He told him and the plantdude that he was right in the middle of a good-old fashined night bankrobbering when his arch-enemy and his dumb pilot tried to stop him. The keyword was "tried". What he could remember from what the waterguy told him, the pilot tried to encourage his arch-enemy to use his gas-gun to take him down, but he didn't used it. His arch-enemy supposedly looked as if his own mother had been pushed right out of a cliff, and then had slammed right to her death below: completely dull, sad and uncaring. Almost like one of those soldiers with the thousand-yard stare returning from the war, (which pictures always made him feel something on him...rise up.) The waterguy told that he didn't even reacted when he washed him up with a mini-flood. At first, both he and the plantguy didn't put much thought of it. As entertaining as it was to hear about his arch-enemy in such a sorry state, he and mr. treelover thought that he simply had a bad day and that he would be an all over-dramatic, theatrical, egocentral idiot once again the next day.

But it turned out it was more than that. Soon every crook in St. Canard claimed he was in that state every time, completly apathetic and less than excited about his job. And he remained looking like if his whole family had been gunned down in front of his eyes. They said he never responsed to their taunts or attacks. They could even beat him up sometimes and he still wouldn't react, he would just remain dull about everything that happened to him or around him. The pilot or the cops were usually the ones who were forced to save his wretched life from being taken. This unsurprisingly inspired a new, bigger wave of crimes. Accordering to the news, the crime rate rosed up to 30% higher, and even with that fact his arch-enemy remained apathetic and depressed.

Soon it wasn't just in the underground world that it became aware of his arch-enemy's sorry-butt state. The newchannels were overflowed with rapports of crimescenes there the criminals had escaped or got away with their crimes because his arch-enemy spent more time mopping around than rather to do his job as St. Canard's little cute savior. The journalists soon however spent less time rapported the crimes, and more time discussed or "debated" his arch-enemy new personality. They all had their own ideals: some of them tried to defend him or made up excuses why he didn't acted like he used to, but most of them complained on him on why he didn't do anything to stop the rising crime wave. Ironic since they all had earlier complained on how he should stop being a "kid-scaring night crawler" and let the police do the hero-stuff. That usually made him laugh since the police of St. Canard was everything but competent.

Anyway, at first he thought that all this hype must be of ridiculous levels. It was no way his arch-enemy could be that pathetic. As a pathetic do-gooder as he was, he still was an alternative version of him, which meant that he wouldn't let all those crooks and journalists push him around like that, no less act like a cry-baby who was too retarded to actually cry or whine. This must be a bad joke or something he believed but he wanted to see it himself if it was true about what was told about his arch-enemy, so he planned the most baddest plan he could think of: blackmail the city of St. Canard to pay him 10 million dollar or he would blow up the city hall, and the mayor with it. That was a crime his arch-enemy should react to, even in his rumored depression.

Now, back then, he had actually never seen his arch-enemy Eeyore-style, since he was...busy with some stuff while the rest were out having fun. It would be interesting to see if what all the crooks, the journalists, the witnesses and his "buddies" had said were actually true. So he kidnapped the mayor, beat up the guards who tried to stop him, went to the city hall, planted some bombs everywhere inside it, held those people who were inside at that time hostage alongside with the mayor, videotaped his demand, sent the tape to the biggest newschannel of St. Canard through his bazooka and waited.

It didn't took long before his actions and demand appeared on the TV he pulled from hammerspace, and he could also see that the journalists, the police and a large crowd of curious bystanders flocked around the city hall. The police tried to negotiate with him through a megaphone, the journalists stood in the front of the building and reported to the cameras, the bystanders outside prayed, cried or whatever they usually do, and his hostages pleeded to him to free them and the mayor cried that he would pay him the money if he just let him go. He ignored all that though. The money-demand was just a rush to sniff out his appearently now literally sad opponent. As he had continued to watch the news, the studio personals had asked who will stop him. The police was too incompetent and his arch-enemy was too depressed to stop him they said. But hold and behold he came, right through the door, strangly enough without the blue gas entry or some lousy, bad written one-liners he usually came with. Seeing his arch-enemy was quite a surprise: he did looked like a sad dog, so sad that he would laugh at him if he wasn't so surprised. His stupid partner attempted to encourage him to fight him and free the hostages, but he just stood there, looked completely hopeless and despairing, stared at nothingless and ignored his patner's and the hostages' pleeds. He remembered that he first just stared at him in surprise and didn't knew how he should react. He looked so pitiful, he really did. More pitiful than anyone could be, and he was sure that if he wasn't so psychopathic he would probably feel pity for him, if not empathy, for seeing him in that way.

The keyword was "if". After had stared at him for some seconds, he immediately started to laugh and hurl insults and taunts at him, hoped for some fun reaction. He remained unresponsive, guess the guys' words were true. As how much he loved to insult him as much he could, he was also slighty disturbed on why he didn't reacted. After all, it was his alternative "cousin" or something so he should at least come with some comeback. He didn't mind it though. It was afterall his arch-enemy in a big moment of weakness, and he wouldn't let it go to waste so after he hurled the worst insults he could think of he attacked him. As his arch-enemy remained still, his dumb partner tried to fight him instead. Fortunatly, he was clumsy in fighting as he was in piloting so he had no problems swipping him away. After he knocked him at a wall unconcious, he immediately attacked his arch-enemy. It was so easy: his arch-enemy didn't fought back at all, not even lifted his arms for protection. He just took the punishment without defending himself, despite it hurted him big. It hurted him physically, he knew it did, but emotionally it didn't seemed to differ. No crying, no yelling, no begging, no insulting, no angry words, not even a cry for his partner's help, just...dullness, as if he just beat up a regular punching bag. His eyes had no life in them, and he was sure if it weren't for the grunts that came out of his arch-enemy's beak, he may had punched and kicked an already dead corpse. Amusing as it was to beat him that day, his lack of self-preservation was yet weird and disturbing, since he knew how, as disgusting as it was for him to admit it, tough that duck actually was.

After several minutes of endless beating, his arch-enemy was on the floor, bloodied and bruised. It was so satisfying to see him lying there, crushed as the bug he was. Sure it was sad, but he didn't care. All he cared about was the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of justice that had being paid on the one who had been a pain in his butt of all his plans he had came up with.

He didn't had the time to enjoy his victory for too long though. As he went to the window to check out the outside, he saw that the police brought out the SWAT-team. Huh, appearently they had dropped the idiot ball for once and showed some rare moment of competence that day and was ready to break in. He had to escape fast so he blew the roof with the same bazooka to create a huge escape hole of it.

After the explosion, the cops didn't waited for the order to be said and stormed the building right on. He had then waited for them to come, so that he could blow some gas at their faces to confuse them while he would make his escape, and it worked. The explosion caused them to become so reckless that they hadn't thrown in some flashbang before going in. He aimed his arch-enemy's gas gun at them before they could aim their guns and pulled the trigger. The gas was all over their faces, confused them about what just happened.

While they woundered around and screamed what just had happened, he made his escape through the roofhole. Fortunately for him, no sniper teams were around the city hall so he made through it as whole. Why there weren't no sniper teams to support the SWAT-team he didn't knew but the most logically explanation must be that the city was too cheap to buy some sniper rifles. Unfortunately for the SWAT-pretty boys, he had activated the bombs right before he blew up that ugly piece of roof.

As he landed on the roof top of one of the tall buildings near the city hall, he watched what happened down there, hoped for some big explosion to lighten up that day even further. However, the hostages were being taken out by the police once they got their hold together. One by one they took them out, and the last ones were the mayor, the barly-concious pilot and the broken shell of his arch-enemy. They all got out of the building right before it exploded.

Smoke and stuff were everywhere but it quickly went down. As he had watched down, he saw that apparently no one had died. Shameful it was, that and the fact that he didn't get the money, but on the bright side he got to enjoy some awesome fireworks and he had beaten, trashed, smashed and humiliated his enemy in front of St. Canard (or just in front of some people but everyone could see the result down there at that day). The last thing he saw before he went home was the paramedics quickly pulled his arch-enemy in an ambulance. He never forgot the shocked looks everyone had when they saw the broken, bleeding half-dead body of his pitiful arch-enemy. It were both pity and sympathy in their eyes. Even those citizens who had been most vocal about the demand for his arch-enemy's "retairement" couldn't help but look on him with open mouth and shocked and, probably, tearful eyes for his pain and depression. Real sad, pathetic really. It was something seriously wrong with that duck that day. Something serious must had happened to him before that pleasant event took place, because it was no way he could be such a loser even if his own grandma got her head blown up. He was the kind of duck who could take the hardships of life and yet struggle on, no matter how tough they were. He could endure such stuff he knew because if he couldn't he would propably had stopped with his crimefighting days years ago...so some #½$* must had happened to him that not even he could cope with. Anyway he left the place by jumped down to his bike, rode back to the bakery and went home through the dimension-tunnel, laughed the whole way of that satifiying day.

But if he knew that was just the calm before the storm, the nice preview before the harsh destruction, the beautiful sunset before the merciless storm, the pleasant ride on the beautiful river before the meeting with the wrath of the waterfall, the peaceful days before the all-consuming, all-destroying, destructive, massmurdering war to end all wars...he would had not laugh that day because that was just the beginning of something terrible that would come.