Tension Convention
by Cheezey

Chapter One

The expression on Quackerjack's face was one of pure hatred as he stared down at the newspaper in his hands. "A Whiffle Boy fan convention?" he shouted, even though there was no one there but Mr. Banana Brain to hear him. "As if that big contest last year wasn't enough, now he gets his own fan convention?" The enraged duck leapt to his feet, crunching the newspaper down roughly into a little ball that he then tried to bounce like a basketball. When it didn't bounce, he kicked it with all the force he could deliver in his clown shoes, and it ricocheted off of the far wall. "Whiffle, piffle! That pixilated wimp gets everything! Even his own movie!" He stomped over to the table where Mr. Banana Brain was sitting, staring back at him.

"The movie sucked," the doll seemed to say to him.

Quackerjack's eyes widened in horror, and he collapsed melodramatically against the table. "Et tu, Mr. Banana Brain? You watched Whiffle Weenie's movie?"

Mr. Banana Brain remained impassive. "Don't be silly, Billy. Sisquail and Egret gave it two thumbs down."

"Really?" Quackerjack ran over to retrieve the wadded up newspaper, and un-crinkled it so he could find the movie review section. It was only then that he remembered the movie came out a few months ago, and the review would not be in that paper. He scowled as he instead saw once again the giant full-page advertisement for the Whiffle Boy fan convention, scheduled for the upcoming weekend in one of St. Canard's more posh hotels. "Bah," he said, about to toss the paper again, until some print below the giant picture of Whiffle Boy caught his eye. "What's this?" He brought it closer to his beak for a second read. "'Convention special guest Brant Strongbill, who played our weasel-whomping hero in the blockbuster hit Whiffle Boy: The Movie, will be appearing on opening day for a meet and greet with all of his and Whiffle Boy's fans. Be there or suck eggs with the Weasel Kid!'" he read aloud. "Oh, really?" A mischievous gleam lit up in Quackerjack's eyes. "Whiffle Boy's gonna appear in person, is he, Mr. Banana Brain? Well then," he giggled madly, "maybe this little convention of brain-rotted video game groupies will be worth attending."

Quackerjack reached into a drawer and pulled out a toy flamethrower. Not surprisingly, when he switched it on, it spewed out fire like its non-toy counterpart. He proceeded to light the newspaper on fire and skipped merrily over to a metal wastebasket on the other side of the room and dropped it in, unmindful of the few other things in there that also caught fire but luckily burned themselves out. "First your ugly picture, then you, Whiffle Boy! We're going to watch you go down in flames." Quackerjack giggled again as he watched the fire dance and its soot blacken the wall behind the can. "But this time I'll make sure Darkwing is too busy to stop me from getting revenge." He snapped his fingers and ran over to Mr. Banana Brain, already bored with his little bonfire. "Any ideas?"

After a moment of silence and staring into Mr. Banana Brain's smiling face, he heard the doll suggest, "Give the Fearsome Five a call, Paul!"

Quackerjack gave a thoughtful pause. "The Fearsome Five's kaput, though." Although they had never officially dissolved, after Negaduck had double-crossed them by stealing their powers with the mystic eye of Quackzecoatl, none of them were willing to work with him again. Since he had been the definitive leader that held the team together for the most part, they had pretty much gone their separate ways after that. Quackerjack had not even been in touch with Megavolt, who he had been closest to out of the group, recently. He wondered if Megavolt would be interested in joining him in a fun game of "whack-a-Whiffle-Boy". It had been a while since he had seen him, and his help would be useful when Darkwing showed up to ruin his fun, which he inevitably would. Picking up Mr. Banana Brain, Quackerjack said, "Well, it's worth a try. Thanks, you're a doll!" He kissed the banana toy on the head and stuffed him into his pocket, and then skipped merrily over to the nearest phone and dialed. He frowned when he did not hear it ringing on the other end; apparently he did not notice that he was using one of his toy phones that actually was just a toy. Angrily, he slammed down the receiver.

"Worthless phone company! No wonder I never pay my bill." He sighed. "Guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way." Quackerjack headed to the door and picked up a motorized pogo-stick. "I hope he's cleaned out that lighthouse since the last time I was there."


An impromptu visit from Quackerjack was about the last thing Megavolt expected that afternoon. The rat had been relaxing contentedly in his living room in front of a large panel with at least seventy-five light bulbs plugged into it, of various sizes and glowing at different intensities. He was deep in conversation with several of them when he thought he saw something jump past one of his windows out of the corner of his eye. Curious, he looked over, but it was gone just as soon as it had been there. "Probably just a bird," he muttered, figuring that nothing else would be up that high. He resumed his conversation with the 60-watt incandescent that had been so rudely interrupted when he saw it again, and that time he could have sworn he heard it laugh. "What the…?"

There it was again, and that time he saw the "bird's" tail, which looked suspiciously like the tails of a familiar jester hat. Frowning, Megavolt went over to the window and pulled it open, where a grinning Quackerjack bounced up to greet him. "Hiya, Megsy!"

Megavolt followed Quackerjack's bouncing motion with a nod down, and then back up. "What are you doing here?"

Continuing to giggle as he bounced down and up again, Quackerjack replied, "Waiting on you to let me in, of course."

The look on Megavolt's face changed from bemusement to mild annoyance. "The door is down there." He pointed to the base of the lighthouse.

"You," Quackerjack bounced down, "didn't," he shouted from the ground, "answer!" he finished on the bounce up.

"Because I didn't want to be bothered!" Megavolt sighed. "That dumb Quackerware salesman's in the neighborhood today, and I have important things to do."

Still pogo-ing, Quackerjack asked on his next bounce up, "Even too busy for an old pal?"

"Augh. I'm not carrying on a conversation like this!"

"You already are," the toymaker retorted when their faces met on the next bounce.

Megavolt's response was to slam the window shut, but that did not stop Quackerjack from continuing to pogo up and down outside it. The next time he reached window-level he waved and shouted, "I can still see you!"

The shade came down next.

"Party pooper! When did you get so grouchy?" When Quackerjack did not get a response, he began lobbing super-balls at the window, thoroughly interrupting Megavolt's attempts at reinstating the conversation with his light bulb panel, to the point that the rat began sparking at the fingertips. "I can bounce here all day, you know!" he heard Quackerjack add, followed by another assault of super-balls on the window pane and a round of childish, maniacal giggling.

Thoroughly aggravated, Megavolt groaned, "Oh, fine!" The rat turned and stomped all the way down the stairs to the ground floor and opened the door. "You win. Come in."

"Woo-hoo!" Still on his pogo-stick, Quackerjack bounded past Megavolt, through the door, and ascended the stairway in little bounces. Megavolt followed him up, although when they reached the living room, he forcibly yanked the pogo-stick away from the duck, knocking him into an ungraceful heap on the floor before he could bounce all over the place and break anything. Since the motor was still on, it shook Megavolt around a little before he found the "off" switch. Quackerjack was back on his feet in a snap, unfazed. "Long time, no see, Megsy!" He pulled the rat into an impulsive hug. "How've you been?"

"Fine, I guess. Darkwing hasn't bothered me in almost a week now, so that's a plus. He was on a nice roll there for a while. Did you know that jerk even showed up at my high school reunion?"

Quackerjack blinked, and while it was not a comparison he would have wanted, he had almost the same reaction that Gosalyn had when her father had told her about fighting Megavolt at the high school prom. "You went to high school with Darkwing Duck?"

"No! Uh, well maybe I did, but not like he was in school with me as Darkwing. I think he's someone from my class, but I can't remember who," Megavolt explained. "Darkwing showed up at my prom, that's the first time I fought him."

That revelation rendered Quackerjack speechless for a moment, which was no mean feat, although he recovered quickly enough with a quip about it. "Don't tell me he stole your date."

"I didn't have a date," Megavolt retorted, and when he saw Quackerjack's beak open to make another snappy remark, he cut him off preemptively. "He was trying to stop me from blowing up the school."

"St. Canard High?" Quackerjack inquired with an arched brow.

Megavolt nodded.

"Guess you failed, with it still being there and all."

If looks alone could have fried, Quackerjack would have been on fire with high voltage. "Yes."

Ignoring the rat's glare, Quackerjack clapped him on the back. "Well, better luck next reunion! That's in five years or so, right?"

"Yes," the exasperated Megavolt groaned. "Now can we please not talk about Darkwing Dork anymore? I'm still sizzling over the last time I had to deal with him." His fingertips sparked to underscore the sentiment.

Quackerjack quirked his head to one side in a curious look. "Oh, that wasn't the last time you saw him?"

Megavolt shook his head. "No. I got stuck helping him clean up a mess he made by screwing around with some weird experimental weapon that created three energy creatures out of one of those kids that's always following him around. I thought I'd be able to harness their power, but that was impossible, and they were too destructive to control. I wound up having to help that idiot keep them from destroying everything in sight." He sighed. "I felt so dirty, but I kept thinking of my poor light bulbs and what they'd do to them!"

"Well, aren't you the popular one? Darkwing hasn't bothered me in weeks. He must like you." Quackerjack winked and waggled his eyebrows.

"That is not even the slightest, remotest, tiniest, or in any other way even a little bit funny," the rat informed him with a glower. "Working with that egomaniac ranked up there with working for Negaduck; no, wait, Negaduck showed me more respect, I think. Darkwing asked for my advice, tied me up, ignored it, and then made me watch him pretend to be Whiffle Boy to lure that dumb kid's energy monsters back to—"

The mention of Whiffle Boy changed Quackerjack's mood from amused to enraged in a flash. "Whiffle Boy?"

Megavolt thrust out his hand to stave off the rant he knew was forthcoming at the mention of the toymaker's loathed adversary. "Believe me, I didn't enjoy watching him act out his stupid video game hero fetish. He barely even won."

It was as if the rat had not even spoken. Quackerjack began bouncing around the room, furious, nearly foaming at the mouth. "I hate Whiffle Boy. Hate him, hate him, hate him! Have I ever told you how much I hate Whiffle Boy?"

"Only nine hundred twenty-three thousand and seventy-five times," Megavolt replied, rolling his eyes behind his goggles.

"Well let me tell you again," seethed Quackerjack. "I loathe him. I despise him. I want to see him burned into fiery ash and then resurrected like a phoenix just to be burned again, and again, and again, and I want him to suffer slow and agonizing deaths in torturous flames each time while I do the happy dance on his grave!"

"And? What else is new?"

Quackerjack leaned closer to Megavolt, pointing his finger at him wildly. "That's actually why I'm here."

Megavolt blinked. "Because you heard I had to watch Darkwing pretend to be Whiffle Boy?"

"No! Because I need your help destroying Whiffle Boy!"

"How? He's a video game character. Just find the factory that makes his games and trash it or something." Megavolt walked back over to his panel of light bulbs.

"It's not that simple, Megs, he's everywhere! I need to make a statement that'll get noticed."

Caressing a night-light in the upper left corner of the panel, Megavolt suggested, "Blow up Whiffle Town then."

A maniacal grin spread across Quackerjack's beak. "Actually, I'm going to do one better than that. I'm going to get my hands on Whiffle Boy himself and make him pay."

Looking up from his light bulbs, Megavolt gave Quackerjack an odd look. "You do realize that Whiffle Boy is just a bunch of pixels in a game, right?" He paused, wondering just what the nutty duck was planning. "Did you get your hands on one of those digitizer things they use to make the games or something?"

Quackerjack shook his head, the bells on the tails of his hat tinkling as he did so. "Even better! There's a Whiffle Boy fan convention in town this weekend, at the Hotel Swanlord. We're going to crash it and take Whiffle Boy as our prisoner."

"Quackerjack," Megavolt said slowly, taking steps toward him with a look on his face that indicated he thought one last loon had flown over the duck's cuckoo nest, "You can't just kidnap a video game character."

"Well duh! I'm not an idiot, Sparky." Quackerjack frowned irritably, while Megavolt tensed all over and began to glow with unspent energy at the use of his loathed nickname.

"How many times have I told you not to call me that?"

"Then don't be so condescending," he huffed back with his arms folded across his chest. "Anyway, Whiffle Boy will be there. It says right here in one of these flyers." He fished a convention flyer out of his pocket that the wind had cruelly deposited across his bill mid-pogo on his way to Megavolt's and thrust it toward him. "He's even signing autographs."

Dubious, Megavolt took the flyer and read it over. "You mean Brant Strongbill? You're going to abduct him?"

Quackerjack's eyes lit up with malevolent glee. "See, now we know his real name! Whiffle Boy is toast!"

"I thought that movie was as bad as the next guy, but Brant Strongbill is just an overpaid actor with a nice beak and a good agent," Megavolt argued.

"But he is Whiffle Boy! Just look at any movie poster for that abomination." Quackerjack pulled out a folded up poster from his other pocket, depicting the Whiffle Boy movie advertisement with some creative graffiti done by Quackerjack on the figure as well as several holes from darts that had been hurled at it, and waved it in Megavolt's face. He pointed to the tagline at the bottom that read "Brant Strongbill IS Whiffle Boy! Coming to you this summer! Suck eggs, Weasel Kid!"

Megavolt was not convinced. "I'm telling you, Brant Strongbill is just some rich actor…" The rat's voice trailed off as wheels began to turn in his head. Rich actors had rich families, rich friends, and rich employers who wanted to keep them safe, individuals who would pay handsomely to anyone who guaranteed their safe return. The ransom of someone like Brant Strongbill could go a long way to funding his Light Liberation Crusade, and give him some nice pocket change to boot. Maybe indulging Quackerjack's irrational hatred of Whiffle Boy wouldn't be such a bad caper after all.

"So whaddya say, Megsy? Will you do it? Will you help me whomp Whiffle Boy and destroy his totally undeserved fan convention?" Quackerjack looked at him with eager eyes.

"Yeah," Megavolt said, a smile slowly spreading across his face as he held up a sparking fingertip. "Let's enlighten some of those dumb Whiffle Boy fans."

The whoop of cheer that Quackerjack let out was loud enough to startle the birds off of the lighthouse roof outside. He pulled the rat into a big hug, dancing with glee. "Oooh, thank you thank you thank you! I knew I could count on you to help me out! Now I just gotta convince the others."

Casting him a puzzled look, Megavolt asked, "The others?"

"The rest of the Fearsome Five. Well, not Negaduck, not after that nasty trick of trying to take away my wackiness and all," he sniffled, still quite put out by that, "but I think Licky and Bushy could be a help. The convention will be big, and you know that dumb Darkwing will show up to ruin our fun. The more of us there, the harder it'll be for him to butt in and stop us. Besides," he added with a grin, "the Fearsome Five was fun."

"When we weren't getting our hides handed to us by Darkwing Duck, maybe. Besides, without Negaduck there'd only be four of us, not five."

Quackerjack let out a playful sigh. "You're so literal sometimes. So we'll be the Fearsome Four, or maybe the Felonious Four, or—ooh, the Criminal Quartet, I like that! –or something like that if we go with a new name. It'll just be fun!"

"Well I don't care if you drag Bush-Brain or Drippy along or not, but what makes you think either of them cares about Whiffle Boy or a convention of video game nerds?"

With a shrug Quackerjack replied, "I'll think of something. See you on Saturday!" The crazy duck then grabbed his pogo-stick and bounced out of the lighthouse without another word, leaving a bemused Megavolt staring after him as he departed.


Completely unaware that he was about to have another visitor at his greenhouse, Bushroot was surprised when he heard a rapping on the door at the far end from the bench he was working at. Spike was a deterrent to the vast majority of curious passers-by; even the meter-readers hated going onto his property, as the fly trap was as diligent as a watchdog about unwanted guests. One exception to that rule was Liquidator; it was not unusual for the water dog to drop—or was that drip?—in to his place for a social visit, but Liquidator was already there that day. Although the Fearsome Five had been effectively disbanded some time ago, Bushroot and Liquidator had remained in touch. Despite the fact that Reginald Bushroot the botanist and Bud Flood the salesman would have had very little in common in their pre-mutation days if they had met, the fact that they were now both mutated anomalies, not to mention super-villains with the same enemy, gave them a fair bit of common ground that had forged a partnership between them much like Megavolt and Quackerjack's. One thing Bushroot and Liquidator did not have in common, however, was that while Bushroot was content to stay in his greenhouse much of the time, Liquidator was a drifter, quite literally, and never stayed in one place very long. Bushroot supposed that it was hard for someone so fluid to put down roots like he did; he could not imagine voluntarily uprooting himself and his plants for anything other than necessity. Life as an outlaw had done that often enough with his stints in jail and being on the run, and Bushroot had never liked it. That and Spike never took proper care of his plants when he had to make an unplanned or extended leave. His pet fly trap was loyal and well-meaning as the day was long, but far from the brightest begonia in the bunch.

Liquidator sometimes stayed with Bushroot for days at a time. A greenhouse was an ideal environment for one made of water, as even if it evaporated off of him, it rained again soon enough to replenish it so he did not lose it for good. He also kept Bushroot's plants well watered when he was there, a favor in lieu of rent Bushroot supposed, but then he would up and disappear when it struck him to do so. Bushroot had long since given up trying to predict the water dog's mercurial moods, and was no longer surprised to either find Liquidator there, or not. He had no idea where it was that Liquidator actually lived when he was not pooling in the greenhouse for refuge, he had mentioned several places with the sort of familiarity one might a home, but Bushroot did not know if those were anything more than hideouts or novelties any more than he knew exactly where they were.

Knowing that Liquidator was there already, resting in the shade of one of his potted dwarf banana trees, made the knock on his door that afternoon all that more of a surprise to Bushroot, especially since Liquidator rarely bothered with knocking anyway. "What the…?"

"Bush-y!" a familiar, and entirely too happy, voice called out as the door swung open, "Oh Bush-y, are you home?"

The plant-duck set down the flask of experimental fertilizer he had been about to measure out back onto his bench. "Quackerjack?" He looked over to see that it was indeed his former companion-in-crime. "What does that clown want?" he muttered, and waved for him to come over while Quackerjack skipped over to his bench in a manner that Bushroot regarded right away as dangerously enthusiastic.

"How's it going, Bushy?"

"Uh, fine I guess. Long time no see. What brings you here?" Bushroot asked, while Spike went over to investigate Quackerjack, sniffing carefully at his unusual shoes and puffy pants.

The nudge of Spike's nose near his rump made the nutty duck jump a little. "Hey! I don't like anything with sharper teeth than my wind-ups anywhere near there, pal," he warned, wagging his fingertip at the animated fly trap before turning back to Bushroot to answer. "I was wondering if you might be interested in a little 'reunion' of sorts with your old pals from the Fearsome Five. A new caper for old times' sake."

"A reunion," Bushroot repeated, his face impassive. "Hmm, let me think about that. Uh, no." He turned back to his bench.

Quackerjack pouted. "But you don't even know what I've got planned."

Bushroot's beak pursed into an irritable frown. "I know that the last time I was a part of the 'Fearsome Five', our 'fearless leader' stole our powers from us with a magical artifact and then turned on us and left us to rot. I know that I had to work with that obnoxious, arrogant caped buffoon that flaps his mouth in the night to get said powers back, and still wound up in a jail cell to escape from yet again at the end of it all, which took an extra couple of days that left five of my growing plants under-watered and nearly dead by the time I got back to them," he informed him bitterly. "So you can forget about it. I've got better things to do." His frown deepened. "Like wash my hair, or clip my leaves."

Ignoring Bushroot's clearly unwilling tone, Quackerjack hopped up onto his bench and sat on the end of it, swinging his legs back and forth, unmindful of the fact that he nearly up-ended a rack of test tubes which Bushroot had to scramble to move to a safe spot. "Aw, but that was Negaduck, not me!" protested Quackerjack. "He's not even involved. This is just us. The Fearsome Five minus one. No Negaduck. Believe me, Megsy and I aren't too happy with what he tried to pull either."

"Then wouldn't we be the 'Fearsome Four'?" Bushroot pointed out, much like Megavolt had. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder over to where Liquidator was snoozing—de-formed into a barely noticeable pool under the tree, apparently fast asleep now—and then added, "What did Liquidator say?"

"I didn't talk to him yet. I was hoping you could tell me where to find him. Do you know where he lives? He always just kinda showed up, I guess Negaduck knew, but I never asked."

"I see him sometimes," Bushroot answered noncommittally; he figured if Liquidator wanted to get involved he could speak up for himself.

"So since it's just us, are you game?" Quackerjack pressed.

"Depends on what the 'game' is." Bushroot resumed measuring out his fertilizer while Spike began to nibble on the heel of one of Quackerjack's clown shoes as they hung in front of him.

He didn't seem to notice, and continued trying to recruit his former compatriot in crime. "The game? It's the game everyone's always talking about: Whiffle Boy!"

That was enough to get Bushroot to set his flask back down and do a double-take. Like everyone else who knew Quackerjack, Bushroot knew how much he hated the popular video game, its star, and its whole genre of electronic entertainment wholly on the basis of said game and star. "What?"

"We're going to whack Whiffle Boy once and for all!" He bounced off the table, grabbing Bushroot by the shoulders, bouncing with excitement. There was a tearing noise as he did, as Spike still had his shoe, but Quackerjack was oblivious to it. "Megsy is in, so how about it?"

"You and Megavolt are going after a video game star," Bushroot repeated, making sure that he had understood the crazy toymaker correctly.

Quackerjack nodded an enthusiastic yes, his eyes wide and teeth bared in a big grin.

The unnerving look made Bushroot think that not only was Quackerjack becoming more unraveled as time went on, but that he was taking Megavolt, whose own sanity was questionable at best, right over the edge with him. "Uh, I don't know how to break this to you, Quackerjack, but Whiffle Boy is a fictional character. How can you attack something that doesn't exist in our reality?"

The jester-garbed duck let out a beleaguered sigh. "You're just like Megs sometimes, always over-thinking things." He pulled the same flyer he had shown Megavolt out of his pocket and held it up. "We're going to nab him here. He's making a personal appearance to sign autographs." Quackerjack giggled with mad glee. "We'll never have a better chance to get him and get revenge!"

"Brant Strongbill?" Bushroot repeated dubiously. "And Whiffle Boy is your pet peeve, not mine. I don't care about video games. I don't even play them."

Quackerjack threw an arm around Bushroot's shoulders. "See, I always knew you were a super-villain of taste."

Bushroot was not convinced. "But what did Brant Strongbill do to you, other than play Whiffle Boy?" He paused for a moment, and then added, "And okay, he starred in some other really bad movies, but I'm not sure that's worthy of using our super-powers to avenge our sensibilities on. Especially if it'll bring Dark-ego Duck out to harass us."

"No no no, you don't get it, Bushy! Brant Strongbill is Whiffle Boy." A zealous look filled the toymaker's eyes. "Now we know who his secret identity is, and I can finally get even with him for ruining my toy business now that I know where to find him."

After staring back at Quackerjack for a long moment, Bushroot decided that the energy it would take to debate the reality of Quackerjack's conviction with him would be wasted, and instead went with the simpler smile-and-nod approach. "I see."

"So what do you say, will you help us?"

"Why should I?" The wary look on Bushroot's face intensified.

Quackerjack eyed the plant-duck with hopeful exuberance. "Because you're my buddy?"

"I thought I was his 'Buddy'," Liquidator's voice chimed in from behind. Bushroot and Quackerjack both turned to see the water dog forming into a languid stretch underneath the banana tree. He yawned and then glided over to join them.

"Funny," Quackerjack quipped back, making a face at Liquidator's pun on his real name before glancing at Bushroot. "You didn't tell me he was here."

Bushroot shrugged. "You didn't ask that; you asked where he lived. Besides, he was asleep."

"But, the Liquidator is wide awake now, and intrigued by this fascinating plan involving the infiltration of a convention of pre-teens and video game nerds fresh from their arcades and mothers' basements so that we can attack," he struck a dramatic pose emulating Quackerjack's nemesis, "Whiffle Boy!"

Quackerjack either did not realize that Liquidator was making fun of him, or simply did not care. "It'll be a blast, guys! Just like I was telling Bushy here, it'll be like the old days of the Fearsome Five again."

"But with less chainsaws and threats of gratuitous bodily harm," Liquidator finished.

Bushroot cast the water dog a curious look. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to hear all the whiffle-whomping details." Liquidator turned toward Quackerjack. "But, I'm still waiting to hear one important one—what's in it for us if we go along with this?"

Quackerjack pulled Mr. Banana Brain out of his pocket. "Fun and games, James?" he had the doll suggest.

Liquidator and Bushroot exchanged unconvinced looks. "Are these games profitable to today's on-the-go super-villains?" asked Liquidator.

"There'll be plenty of easy pickings to get loot from at the convention. If there's one thing I know about video game fans, it's that they have money to burn, or they burn it all on their stupid brain-rotting games and sequels that do the same thing as the original with snappier graphics." Quackerjack frowned, his tone laced with bitterness. "The kids probably have rich parents, the ones who should've been buying my toys for them in the first place."

Picking up the flyer from where Bushroot had set it aside on the table, Liquidator read it over quickly. "It's at the Hotel Swanlord? 'Simple luxury, with elegant taste. From Whiffle Boy to fan boy, here you're all family,'" he said, parodying their snooty television ad.

"That's a yes then?" Quackerjack nearly bounced with enthusiasm.

Liquidator held up a hand. "Ah, ah, ah, read the fine print; I've committed to nothing just yet."

"And I think you should be committed," Bushroot said with a shake of his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I'll sit this one out. Like I said before, I'm not interested in video games. There's nothing there for me. Good luck with your whiffle-whacking." He gave Quackerjack a dismissive wave, and returned his attention to his lab bench.

Quackerjack pouted. "Aw, but you'll miss all the fun!"

"What fun?" countered an incredulous Bushroot, "You tormenting a bad actor in front of a bunch of kids in costume with fake laser guns?"

"That doesn't sound like fun to you?"

Bushroot and Liquidator exchanged looks once again, their expressions indicating that they did indeed not think that was the grand fun time Quackerjack seemed to think it would be.

"Well, what if I gave you real laser guns to fire back with? I could make a zapper better than Whiffle Weenie's any day, especially with Megsy's help."

"You still haven't given us the bottom line," Liquidator pointed out. "Revenge might work for you, but we want loot, loot, loot!"

Bushroot nodded along with the water dog. "What kind of seed money are you talking here? What's your plan?"

Pleased that the other two super-villains seemed to be coming around, Quackerjack smiled confidently as he explained. "We sneak into the convention, undercover so no one recognizes us, until the opportune moment when we strike and grab Whiffle Boy. Then we make him pay, with his money and his hide!" His grin widened to one more maniacal.

Liquidator sneered. "Just remember to save the dresses for Megavolt, and leave the tasteful outfits to us."

Quackerjack beamed, thrilled. "So does that mean it's a 'yes' for you two?"

"The offer is valid for as long as it amuses me, and has potential for profit," Liquidator confirmed. "What are we supposed to do once we're undercover amongst the throngs of adoring Whiffle Boy fans?"

"We wait for Whiffle Boy to make his appearance and then," the clown duck's serious façade dropped in favor of a gleefully maniacal look, "it's playtime!" He bounced up, and grabbed a startled Bushroot, who was not expecting the sudden move, by the shoulders. "We grab him and take him prisoner, and then he's at our mercy, him and all of his money." Quackerjack then relaxed, releasing Bushroot, and started pacing in front of him and Liquidator while the startled plant-duck gave him an irritable look for his exuberance. "You two and Megavolt can help me keep the area secure, and keep jerks like Darkwing Duck from nosing in on my revenge. And once we've got Whiffle Boy, we can demand a huge ransom. Those adoring fans won't be able to stand letting anything happen to their hero," he said mockingly, "so you can probably shake them down for everything they've got. And he'll have to pay us his royalties too, ooh, that's a nice sum I'm sure." He shrugged. "But you guys can have most of that, as long as I get to handle Whiffle Boy himself and exact my revenge without interference."

Considering the plan and its payoff, Liquidator and Bushroot nodded to one another. "All right," said Liquidator, "I'm game for your game, but the following terms and conditions apply: I set the ransom amount. None of the rest of you know marketing like the Liquidator!" He folded his watery arms with confidence. "Bushroot, Megavolt, and I split the profits thirty-thirty-thirty percent, you get Strongbill's—I mean, Whiffle Boy's—hide and the final ten to cover your expenses. Once we have him, we keep Whiffle Boy locked squarely away until the loot is in hand and don't do him any permanent damage until we've got it all." He frowned. "No one'll pay anything if they see you chew his arms off with your teeth, or stick a G.I. Mole grenade in his beak."

"Sure," Quackerjack agreed. "I've waited this long for revenge, I can hold off until we all get what we want out of it." He turned toward Bushroot. "What about you, Bushy? Are you going to come wet your whiffle with us?"

With a nod Bushroot replied, "Yeah, all right. But I'm warning you now, if I wind up mulched, weed-whacked, or whiffle-stomped because I agreed to go along and help you with your stupid grudge, I will send a grove of angry conifers to your front door as soon as I re-grow."

"Oh, relax, Bushy! It'll be a blast!" Quackerjack stepped between him and Liquidator and threw his arm around the plant-duck's shoulder and then the water-dog's in an impulsive show of camaraderie, his gleeful grin taking on a dangerously sinister look. "Especially for Whiffle Boy!"