Chapter I

The streets were silent and deserted. St Canard was surprisingly quiet tonight; Megavolt was in the lighthouse, muttering to a bulb he held lovingly in both hands, Bushroot running around his hideout, talking to the plants as he added fertiliser, pulling weeds out, and Quackerjack alternating between rolling on the floor laughing hysterically, and talking to Mr Banana Brain. But to say that the streets were villain-free tonight would be a mistake.

The paint was long dry, the turpentine having run off long ago. Overhead, the clouds darkened, and the first few drops of rain started to fall. What started off as drizzle soon became a downpour, drenching the streets. The water flowed along the road, mingling with the paint, slowly invigorating it, changing it into a liquid. A line of white flowed out from the main puddle of paint, branching into three different lines. Slowly, each line lifted up, followed by the main line, forming a grotesque parody of a hand. The thing groped around, blindly, grabbing a newspaper and a half-eaten Hamburger Hippo burger as they blew past before finally grasping the object it intended. But the thing was crude, ungainly, and dropped it. It slobbered at the object for a while before finally getting a hold of it, lifting the glowing paintbrush into the air.

Slowly, clumsily, it started painting, using the puddle as its palette. Soon, another arm had been painted, though less rudimentary that the first. This actually had four fingers, encased in a black, fingerless glove. Taking the brush from its crude counterpart, it started painting with incredible dexterity, faster and faster.

In a matter of minutes, she stood in the rain, her hair and clothing drenched. With a quick flick of the brush, she corrected the first limb, changing the ungainly object into a perfectly shaped arm like her other. Looking around furtively, she scanned the streets for any sign of law enforcement. Satisfied, she finally allowed a smile to twist her beak upwards. That fool Darkwing Duck had thought that he could kill her, stop her from righting the wrongs that had been done by the bourgeois classes. She shook her head, almost pitying him, were it not for the fact he had destroyed her once. It had been mere luck that had allowed her to paint herself again, that had allowed the paint to flow into that crude hand-shape.

Her smile slowly began to grow into a maniacal grin, spreading across her face. You can't keep a good daringly innovative, pseudo, anti-neo, post-modern deconstructionist down, she thought. Flicking her brush again, a pair of purple wings appeared on her back, flexing in the night as she arched her back, laughing now. Oh, yes, I won't - I can't abandon my crusade to right the wrongs done to art, she thought. But first, Darkwing Duck, you will learn that some bourgeois art-hating clown in a costume will not stop Splatter Phoenix!!