Electronic Ink

Chapter 4

By Eoraptor

AN: set after the TV series, and including some events from the Boom Studios Comic. DarkWing Duck and associated characters created by Tad Stones and are property of The Walt Disney Company.


"That was waaaaaay too easy," Quiverwing Quack shook her head as she retrieved her cantilevered pulley arrow and closed the window behind her. "You'd think a guy who's smarter than most of the population of St. Canard, and a known associate of Darkwing Duck would know enough to lock his window at night…"

She walked away across the bedroom and shook Honker in his bed, "Hey Honk, wake up I got something to show you."

When that didn't get much more than a grumbling for five more minutes, she leaned back and kicked his bed with one booted foot, "Wake Up!"

Honker jerked and mumbled, fumbling around for his glasses. When he realized that there was a dark hooded shape looming over him, he did what came natural; he tried to leap out of bed, got his webs tangled in the comforter, and fell to the floor, clacking his beak in front of a pebbled red leather boot.

"Ya done yet, Honk?" She cocked a head at him and tugged her deep hood back, revealing her masked face and familiar red hair.

Honker pulled on his glasses finally and blinked upwards at her, "Gosalyn?"

"Duh, who else could get in here unnoticed?"

"What the heck is all the screaming about?"

Pfft pfft pfft pfft…

Tankard H Muddlefoot found himself pinned to the now-open bedroom door by four crossbow bolts before he had even seen the newest masked weirdo draw something from beneath her all-encompassing blood red cloak.

Her voice dropped an octave and she glared at the unwanted intruder, compact crossbow still poised at him, but now somewhat lower and a bit to the right, "You didn't see anything, scumbag. Got it?"

Tank freed himself by ripping his night clothes off at the arrow-points and falling all over himself to get the heck away from the heavily armed weirdo before she decided to piece something he was more attached to than his Iron Dukken concert shirt.

"Wow…" Honker mumbled as he watched his older brother take off like a goose with his tail on fire. Then he looked up, since the act of drawing her crossbow had caused Gosalyn's disguise to slide back, revealing the leather bodysuit and gear harnesses beneath the cloak. "Whoa… serious gear! Where did you get it Gosalyn?"

"I know, way wicked huh?" the teen's voice returned to its normal half-husky-half-squeaky tone as she spun and holstered her crossbow with a click, "Morgana totally hooked me up!"

By way of demonstration, she gave her shoulders a flick, kicking the cloak fully back and revealing the long bow strung loosely over her other arm. "I got all my trick arrows, plus places to hold ropes, and smoke capsules, zip cuffs, my iDuck, the works!"

Honker took it all in through his thick lenses and nodded in agreement. It was a fit-out worthy of Batdog or Darkwing Duck himself.

It took him a moment longer to realize his next question, seeing as it was still just past dawn after a night spent nearly getting killed by lobster mobsters and then chewed out by Mister Mallard. "Why?"

"Too strike fear into the hearts of evil doers everywhere!" Gos affected a goofy eerie-sounding voice as she flipped the hood up, sinking her face into shadows.

Honker scratched his head for a moment at that in obvious confusion. "Like… for the bounty money?"

"Yeah! Geeze Honker, keep up with the group!" she jeered at her besty and shook her head, turning to yank the crossbow bolts out of the door one at a time, and boy were they in there hard! "Turns out Dad's not a total dope… all the costumes and spooky entrances and dropping on top of someone with a grapple hook actually serves a purpose."

Honker sniffed through his usual morning stuffy nose and nodded at that, "S- So, if Morgana gave it to you is there some sort of magical incantation to change back?"

Honker had only the most general understanding of the magic that Mister Mallard's girlfriend used. He knew that it had something to do with complex mathematics and the interactions of various fouls smelling chemical concoctions and magical words, but his ability to peer deeper into the workings of mysticism pretty much stopped there. He was a goose of science, not spells.

"Huh, you know, that's a good question… I didn't think to ask." Gos tossed back the hood because while she wasn't getting hot inside it, just as Morgana had promised, it was pretty cumbersome the way it hung down across her bill.

She struck a few theatrical poses and uttered the few magical words she had picked up over the years to no effect. "Huh… guess not."

She then proceeded to yank down the zipper on the neck without further consideration just to make sure it would actually come off her at all, since not all of Morgana's spells worked out as planned.

"Gosalyn!" Honker blushed wildly in embarrassment and quickly averted his eyes.

"What? It's just the tape I had on last night…" the redheaded Miss Mallard was honestly a bit surprised that she had not also been gifted with any kind of magical undergarments, and her chest was still bound down with the athletic tape she had put on under her hockey jersey last night when they planned on going after the bikers.

She looked up to see Honker looking anywhere but at her and scratched her head in confusion. "What? It's not like you never saw me in a bra before Honk…"

Honker just blushed harder and kept his weak eyes resolutely closed, "Y- You're not wearing a bra."

The tomboy looked down at the open front of the leather jumpsuit again, not understanding what the problem was, "Well, mine are getting worn out! And you know how dad is about taking me clothes shopping any more… Ugh!"

Honker sighed hard. Sometimes he wondered if his best friend of the past seven years even realized that she was a girl.

Speaking of his mother… "You know my mom would take you shopping any time you asked, right?"

"Eyurgh! Gag me with a spoon! The last time I went shopping with your mom I had to… well let's not go there… me and pink don't mix." The redhead shook her head resolutely and shivered.

Seeing that, for whatever reason, she was making Honker uncomfortable, she zipped her jumpsuit back up and snorted, "There, you can look now."

The young gander looked back finally and let go a small sigh of relief. Shaking off the last waves of embarrassment he gave the outfit a more clinical examination though his slightly fogged glasses. The fog prompted a question, "Isn't that… hot inside?"

Quiverwing Quack looked over herself and shook her head. She realized she should at least have a little sheen of sweat on her forehead and under her tape, since this was a full body leather suit after all, but… "Nope, Morgana said she enchanted it so I'd never be too hot or cold."

"Hmmm, should come in handy in case Isis Vanderchill ever breaks out of jail," Honker nodded and took off his thick glasses to defog them.

"Yeah, never need faux fur the way dad does," she snorted and rolled her eyes at the way the egotistical duck had numerous versions of his four button blazer, including one specifically outfitted for 'arctic operations.' "Oh Hey! Morgna asked if you thought you'd want to be the Arrow Kid again! Maybe she can come up with something for you too?!"

"Huh?" Honker was momentarily taken aback at Gosalyn's sudden eruption of enthusiasm.

"You know… sidekick? Arrow helmet? Carry the quiver around?" She looked down at her thigh where the quiver was fastened and suddenly reconsidered that, "Oh yeah, it's attached now and I'm not three foot tall any more, don't need someone to carry it around for me…"

Honker nodded in agreement with that sentiment. "Plus, I'm two months older than you… Maybe I really shouldn't be called the kid anything either."

The two of them sat on Honker's bed and pondered that for a good long while. Then they heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Oh crud, it's mom!" Honker sniffled. "Either she'll think you're some girl who snuck into my room, or she'll think you want to hurt me like Ammonia Pine did!"

"Oh please!" Gosalyn rolled her emerald eyes derisively "What girl would sneak into your room?"

"You did!" He nearly shouted at her in frustration, as well as irritation at her estimates of his ability to attract the fairer sex.

"Yeah but that's different!" she blew a raspberry at him, "Still, better make myself scare. If she does recognize me, it might finally blow dad's cover."

Quiverwing rolled backwards and somersaulted off the backside of the bed. As she did so, she grabbed her longbow from the floor and yanked her pulley arrow out, notching it into place. By the time she was upright again, she'd used the upper leaf of the bow to open the window and let fly, all in one fluid motion, vanishing into the burgeoning dawn just as Honker's bedroom door opened.

"Oh, you're awake… I thought you might still be asleep dear," Binkie Muddlefoot cooed as she came into the room, "And your window's open too? Didn't you get chilly overnight dear?"

Honker's teenaged brain was already reeling from his best friend putting him through so many emotions this early in the morning, so he just fell backwards, insensate, when his mother asked him why there were scraps of Tank's clothes on his bedroom floor and holes in his door.

-DwD-

"What a simpering, indolent, utterly plebian concern…" The whispered cursing seemed to come from nowhere. "He lacks the intestinal fortitude to grasp the true roots tragedy and pathos. Pathetic."

As Darkwing snoozed on the single twin bed left over in the tower from his long-gone single solo heroing days before he had ever crossed paths with Gosalyn Waddlemeyer or Taurus Bulba or Launchpad McQuack; in the shadows something was moving and slithering.

"Still, all of that is completely irrelevant to my current plight. I am wondrously liberated from that insidious gulag inside of that Suburban Haven of Unusual Spy Hegemonies; I still need to find someone who can reconstitute me… I obviously can't accomplish anything in my current form."

A smear made up of red and black slowly oozed and shifted its way across the floor in the shadows of the upper deck.

"Blast it all! In this impotent incoherent form merely traveling is an insurmountable obstacle! Darn it darn it darn it…" A buzzing interrupted the stain's diatribe. It turned its attention, in whatever way it was even able to pay attention to the outside world with no eyes or ears, to the buzzing.

The annoying, insipient buzzing turned out to be the same miniscule flying toy monoplane which had signaled its freedom the first time.

"OW!" Darkwing sat up when he was once again stabbed in the skull by the flashquack.

"Ya know," He considered the toy replica of the Thunderquack and rubbed the back of his head, "If they're going to start using this thing again, maybe I better get Honker to recalibrate it. It's no better at Landings than Launchpad is."

The smear of red and black ink which had once been redacts and top secret stamps and part of a photo knew this was its chance. That infernal trogoladitic duck would be on the move because of that kitsch communicator, and that meant that it could be on the move too, far faster than its own sluggish slitherings could suece out.

The stain was fortunate when Darkwing came up to the computer pedestal to check in on the message via the flash quack, and quickly attached itself to the underpinnings of his bourgeois cape.

"Director Grizzlikov? Twice in one week? You're on a roll!" Darkwing addressed the big screen as he turned off the flashquack.

"Yes," The big bear gave an irritable snort on screen. "Much as it pains me to admit… we've had an escape tent from our level B holding facility."

"Level B?"

"Da… is where we are to be holding super-powered villains who are dangerous to themselves and otters. Was set up after Quackwerks prison deals were suspended and paroled supervillains were to be reincarnated."

"Reincarcerated."

"Da, is what I am saying. Reincorporated."

Darkwing clapped a hand to his face and tried not to sigh audibly, "So, who escaped?"

"Maximum security terrarium number 207z… Camille Sanderson, Class B ship shafter." The officious bear read from his tablet.

"Shape shifter," Darkwing automatically corrected. "Waitaminute… terrarium…? Camille the Chameleon?"

"Da. This is person who freed self and others. Escaped by imitating medical personnel responding after escape attempt injured guardlinks."

Darkwing shook his head as he tugged up his fedora, dusting it in a self-deprecating manner, "And you need me because I'm the only person to ever catch her."

"No!" the director of S.H.U.S.H. barked irritably, "We are needink you to contact Honker Muddlefoot. He is person who understands Chameleon Camille body to detect her reliably before she leaves area."

"Honker?" DW deflated noticeably, "You want me to call Honker Muddlefoot for you? You never hear of a phonebook, Grizz old grizz? Or maybe try friending him on Facequack?"

"Just to be contacting boy," Grizzlikov growled loud enough to vibrate the cabinet containing the computer terminal. "S.H.U.S.H. will be handlink the rest."

The screen winked out leaving Darkwing Duck to stew over once again being S.H.U.S.H.'s messenger mallard. With a sigh, he doffed his fedora and spun to go down to the secret passage back to the house. No reason to trot out the Rat Catcher and ride it across town in broad daylight if all he had to do was ask Honker to call Grizzlikov and Bellum.

The dark smear of ink and paint clinging to the tail of Darkwing's comical affectations considered this. Camille the Chameleon, a shape shifter… this could prove to be somewhat catechizing indeed…


AN: So the villain(s) finally make their presence known to the reader…

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