Prologue

In the hulking, formless shadows of the garden Drake curled up into as small a ball as he could, his terror transforming him into a shaking ruin. His skin itched mildly where his salty
tears had dried onto his pale cheeks, where fountains of flame had poured from eyes no longer blind and innocent but chilled by phantoms and the harsh words of Mother. In the moments it had
taken to flee the house his tears had run out, though dry and clumsy sobs still racked him.
The sky overhead was a myriad of greys, swarming and surging like whirlpools, guiding the rain down to the ground in swirling tornadoes. Underneath the great swooping arms of the oak tree Drake was sheltered from most of the drops. Those that did catch him he hardly noticed, despite the holes in his torn and mud stained clothing. His long black locks dribbled water down onto his face and knees, mixing with the mucus that had spewed forth as he had cried.

As the wind rose to a haunting pitch the boy quieted for a moment, suppressing a shudder. Cautiously he peered up through the mass of leaves and wood above him, into the loud
unfriendliness of the storm. In it he could see dancing shapes, twirling pictures and mocking faces. He watched, blinking back the rain that assaulted his eyes, and made a furtive glance in
the direction of the mansion from which he'd fled.

As soon as he'd done so he wished he hadn't. Unwillingly his eyes trailed from the front door over to the only lit window. In it he could faintly see the silhouettes of his family, of his
sister, of Mother. Horrified yet unable to turn away, Drake wrapped his arms about himself, rocking slowly back and forth, even as the dangling thing in the casement rocked back and forth. The young boy dug his teeth firmly into his blue lips, too numb to feel the pain it caused, or the trickle of blood that ran down his chin.

Looking at those figures, hypnotized by the swaying motion of the thing in the window, Drake could not help but remember the
sounds. Like worms they slithered into his thoughts, until he was sure that Mother was right there beside him, that his sister, Laine, was standing there in front of him, that his father and uncle were....

A bird call broke his trance and his head swerved violently back so that his neck made a sharp cracking sound. The thing in the trees stared down at him with it's cold inhuman stare. Its
coal-black eyes piercing his skin and driving straight through his heart. The raven let out another harsh bark of sound before hopping down to a lower branch. With great effort the bird spread its wings and Drake noticed that one of them was bent so that it could not fly properly.

Despite his own helplessness the young boy felt a pang pity for the creature, injured so that it could not fly to freedom. It seemed that the bird, too, was aching to escape this dreary cage. Drake realized that he envied the raven, its distance and self-reliance, even as it struggled to take flight, a futile battle that it could not possibly win.

At that moment the bird's independence awoke something within the boy so that he stood up under the tree and fixed the mansion house with a fiery glare. The light in the room had finally

gone out, the swinging shape obscured from view by the darkness. All alone he surveyed the house that had once been his home and it came upon him that he must flee, or else be discovered

and returned to his one-time home.

Under the stony gaze of the raven and the roar of the angry wind Drake abruptly turned and ran from his hiding spot.

As he fled, feet pounding against the wet grass and dirt, he thought he heard a faint rustle as of a birds wings against leaves. The sound, along with the mansion faded from view or earshot. Without looking back Drake Mallard sprinted across the grounds and then through the fence that divided his father's land from the large forest surrounding it.

A ghostly fog descended on the place where they had murdered
his childhood.

Chapter 1

The dancing lights of St. Canard played across the faces of the citizens in the streets, a mass of dazzling colours, twisting and changing as the motorcycle roared past. Drake bathed himself in the feeling, the sights, the sounds, the sensation of the wind whipping past him. When he rode downtown like this, loose and unafraid, he felt truly alive, truly at peace.
With a heavy sigh Drake closed his eyes momentarily, soaking in the warm glow of the city as he opened them again. Tonight the city was at piece. Tonight everything was all right.
A week had passed since the incident involving The Doctor and Drake was finally starting to get over what had happened. The Doctor had been a nice man, a good man, and what had happened to him had been unfair. Unfortunately terrible things had a tendency to happen to kind people and there was very little that anyone could do to stop it. A week ago one such thing had happened to a kindly doctor, and Drake had been unable to help him, unable to offer any assistance besides locking him up and throwing away the key. He had done it because that was what was expected of him, that was what he had been told to do.
But was it right?

The question had been plaguing him for a while now, to the point where he had almost told SHUSH to shove the job up its ass. In the end he hadn't, of course, but he had promised himself to check up on The Doctor, to make sure that they were treating him well in prison. After all, he needed this, he needed it the way that he needed food and drink. In his own way he was saving people like The Doctor from themselves.
But not tonight.

Tonight Drake Mallard was cruising the streets, calming his nerves, and about to pick up his girlfriend, Morgana, for a trip to the fair. He was himself, not Darkwing, not the masked, crime fighting, gun toting icon.
Every other night this week Drake had patrolled the city streets for lawbreakers, dressed in his dark purple cape, hat and suit. Under the guidance of SHUSH, St. Canard's official crime fighting organization, he had left his hideout inside the bridge tower to embark on important missions for his superiors. With the assistance of his pilot, McCadrey, or 'Launchpad', as he was nicknamed, Darkwing would apprehend those who sought to cause the citizens of the city harm.

He had made a nice, stable life for himself in the city. He had friendly, though somewhat irritating neighbors, a home to come back to after work, his adopted daughter, Geraldine, and a loving girlfriend. When Drake couldn't be there for his daughter Launchpad was always there to help, for convenience the young pilot was now living with them in the suburbs.
At only twenty-eight years of age Drake had made a life for himself, one that had enough perks to keep him satisfied, to let him cope with his job. So many things had gone wrong during Drake's youth, things that he had thought would never heal. But, as it turned out, nothing was insurmountable, there was nothing so bad that one couldn't recover.

Drake had been adopted by a friendly couple living outside of St. Canard when he was eight years old. He couldn't remember much of his life before the age of seven but had never been too bothered by it. At the local elementary school he had befriended a boy of the same age named Elmo. Neither Drake nor Elmo had been popular at school and were often teased by the other children. The two had remained close friends until their last year of high school, when, tragically, Elmo was killed in a fire at their school that had been caused by a group of bullies. Drake had moved to the city for university, unable to remain in the home where they had built so many memories. He had been hired by SHUSH as an agent and through them had met Launchpad. He adopted his daughter, 'Gerry', at twenty-six. She was six years old at the time. A year later he had met Morgana.

Among those few criminals that always stuck out to him, was The Doctor. He had been the modern Frankenstein, with the exception that he had performed his experiments on himself and not on dead bodies. The Doctor had managed to fuse his cells with those of a plant, deforming himself and allowing him strange abilities. Shy, quiet, and maligned by his fellow scientists, The Doctor had attempted to mutate the cells of a young female scientist who he had befriended. He had killed his tormentors and then kidnapped the young woman. Darkwing managed to save her before anything was done and had arrested The Doctor. SHUSH headquarters had code named him 'Bushroot' and he was put under heavy surveillance. His file was added to a portfolio containing information on 'high priority' criminals. There were three other men and one woman who held places along with him.

The first was a man code named Crackerjack, an ex-toy maker who had gone insane and transformed his harmless toys into dangerous weapons. The second a man named ' Liquidator', a former salesman for a major pharmaceutical company who had been involved in a conspiracy within the company. He had been poisoning consumers by adding toxic substances to the company's products. When the police had attempted his arrest inside of one of their chemical plants he had fallen into one of the vats and was horribly mutilated. He had survived and had been mutated in such a way that he was nearly complete liquid. The fourth man was Megavolt, not much was known about his past but he was considered the most dangerous of the four. He was fascinated by all things electrical, to the point where his fascination seemed almost to be a sexual fetish. He had been identified as a psychopath and had demonstrated on numerous occasions that he had at least minor abilities which allowed him to control electricity. The woman was code named Toxin, or was sometimes referred to as Pestilence. She was believed to be working for Megavolt and little was known about her. Apart from physical deformities SHUSH could not see that there were any further mutations in her cells. Her importance to Megavolt was still unknown. It was Darkwing who was most often sent to deal with these people when they were sighted, though sometimes SHUSH would call in for outside help. Among Drake's helpers, both official and unofficial, were Morgana, Stegmut, Fenton Sellers and Launchpad McCadrey. Fenton worked for a branch of SHUSH located in another part of the country and Stegmut was the victim of one of Darkwing's now deceased enemies. The young man had been experimented on so that his skin had an almost scaly texture and had turned an ugly greenish tint. He had suffered mental damage that had made him simple-minded and forgetful. Most of his memories prior to the trauma he had endured were lost.

It was with these people that Drake spent most of his time. Now, on his night off, he would be spending more time with Morgana. For once, however, it was for pleasure and not work.
He grinned to himself as her house came into view. As he drove up her street to pick her up the growl of the motorcycle slowed to a purr and then stopped. The young man tugged off his helmet so that his long, black, curly hair toppled onto his shoulders. With his small, pointed goatee Geraldine always joked that he looked like the devil.
Morgana liked it.

And there she was, dressed in a long red dress with a black shawl over her shoulders. She always wore clothes that seemed too fancy for the places they went together but that was just how she was and he loved her for it.