"This is Magica De Spell," Negaduck said back at the hideout. They had picked the abandoned Golf course that had been Goony Golf until Darkwing Duck had foiled Lilliput's plans. "She's our new fearsome Five member."

"A girl?" Quackerjack thought. He didn't dare say anything out loud, but his child's mind protested. He didn't think a girl could do nearly as good as a boy in fighting Darkwing. Ammonia Pine hadn't been able to do anything to him, and neither had Splatter Phoenix. Darkwing defeated the Five, too, but at least they were men. Quackerjack thought, like most little boys did, that boys were always better than girls and that girls were dumb.

"I've heard of you," Max said, sounding and looking impressed. "You picked a great choice, Negaduck! She could really give those good guys a run for their money."

Negaduck faked a smile of thanks. He knew Max was kissing up to both of them.

Magica's smile was not as fake. She knew Max was pretending, too, but the expression "a run for their money" tickled her. She was going to make Scrooge run for his dime; he would have to fight to get it back. Max couldn't have known it, but he'd just made a friend of Magica with that one phrase.

For his part, Max was thinking only that if he had a sorceress on his side, he could hurt Bushroot more than he thought, and he could also get Heather to obey him a lot easier. All he had to do was get this witch to cast a spell on her. Maybe he could even get her to cause Heather to punish Bushroot for him.

The other four members looked at her, sizing her up. A sorceress? They all thought of Morgana and grinned at each other. Now they had a chance against her. Quackerjack was still skeptical because Magica was a girl, but he knew that only a sorceress had a real chance of defeating another sorceress.

Ma Beagle and her sons were surprised, and Magica was angry to see them involved in this. Negaduck hadn't said a word about them.

"You have these goofs on your side?" she demanded of Negaduck.

"Now wait just a minute, witch!" Ma Beagle said, "My boys may be goofs, but they've fought McDuck probably almost as much as you have, if not more!"

Negaduck decided he'd better defuse this situation before it blew up in his face.

"There's safety in numbers," he said to both of them. "The more enemies Darkwing has to fight, the more distracted he'll be. Launchpad knows these guys." He indicated the Beagles. "He'll have no idea we've got you on our side, and he's afraid of Morgana, and she's a Justice Duck."

"Launchpad?" Magica and all the Beagles asked, surprised.

"Don't tell me he's teamed up with Darkwing!" Ma Beagle crowed.

"Yeah, about a year ago. You know him?"

"He used to be Scrooge's pilot," Bigtime said.

"This'll be easier than I thought, boys," Ma Beagle said happily to her sons.

"Don't be so sure," Negaduck said. "He's shown a lot more promise as a crime fighter than I ever thought he would since he's been with my do-gooder double. I've underestimated him before. It would be a mistake to do that again."

Magica and the Beagles looked at each other. They thought it was impossible. They knew Launchpad from Duckburg. It was true that he always came through for Scrooge, but none of them could believe he was smarter than they thought he was, and they didn't think much of him. Negaduck and his team members didn't think much of him either, but they'd had experience with him over the past year that Magica and the others either hadn't, or had forgotten. Launchpad and Darkwing complimented each other's abilities in ways the Five had not anticipated. Launchpad had played a big part in helping Bushy turn against them. Negaduck had thought that was impossible. He had a feeling that with Launchpad on Darkwing's side, things could get more complicated for the bad guys than the Beagles and Magica thought, or would be willing to consider. He hoped their prior experiences with Launchpad would not come back to bite all of them. Even Negaduck had to admit that Darkwing's sidekick was becoming as hard to beat as Darkwing the longer they were together.

"Where have you guys been?" Gosalyn asked. She'd gone to the tower, thinking her dad and Launchpad had gone there when she woke up and noticed they weren't at the house. "Hi, Bushroot." Then she noticed the new people with them. She recognized them immediately from Launchpad's photo album. "You went to Duckburg without me?" she asked angrily. Then she did a double take. Darkwing had brought Bushroot and Launchpad's old friends to the tower? What was going on here?

"It's a long story, Gos," Launchpad said before Gosalyn could ask. "Guys, this is Gosalyn. She's my friend Drake's daughter and DW's apprentice. She's gonna be a crime fighter, too, when she grows up."

Gosalyn didn't get offended at the implication that she wasn't already a crime fighter. She had helped her dad and Launchpad on countless cases, but she knew she was nowhere near ready to be considered a real crime fighter yet. Besides, telling the truth would risk giving away Darkwing's true identity.

"How does your father feel about that?" Scrooge asked.

Gosalyn wasn't sure how to answer that, so Darkwing stepped in.

"Oh, Drake knows I'd never let anything happen to Gos. Besides, she's got a mind of her own. She'd find a way to help me, with or without Drake's approval. He figures as long as I'm supervising her involvement and he knows where she is, it'll be OK. Drake knows I'd never let her do anything dangerous, and that I'll do everything I can to protect her. I love her like my own daughter."

If Gosalyn had been dressed as Quiverwing, they could have kept her identity a secret, but since she was dressed in her usual clothes, that was impossible.

Gosalyn took the kids on a tour of the tower. They were all fascinated by the room that she used as a kind of play room. Some of her sporting equipment and video games were kept there and the boys took an immediate liking to her when they realized she was interested in a lot of the same things they were. Even Webby was interested in some of these things now; she'd grown in the past year and was no longer thought of as the little tag along she once was.

Scrooge looked around the tower with fascination. Darkwing kept up with the state of the art crime fighting technology. Scrooge wondered how Darkwing could afford all this, but didn't ask. He didn't think he knew Darkwing well enough.

Darkwing contacted the rest of the Justice Ducks while Scrooge supervised the children's observation of the tower. He didn't want them breaking anything.

As they waited for the Justice Ducks, Darkwing listened to the conversations going on between Launchpad and the others, feeling as if he had missed a lot somehow. He remembered Launchpad talking about some of the things they were talking about now, such as going into space with the short-lived TV hero Major Courage, but he'd dismissed it as Launchpad trying to entertain Gosalyn. "Why would I think that?" he thought now. "I'm looking at the cave duck LP said he went back in time to meet. Why would I think the rest of his stories weren't true?"

Darkwing felt a twinge of guilt. It was his old pattern again of underestimating LP to make himself more important. Launchpad wouldn't lie; he knew that. He wasn't good at lying; his face and body language were an open book. Darkwing had never really had a reason to doubt his stories.

He had thought earlier that some of his bravery and confidence had rubbed off on Launchpad, as if LP hadn't been brave before. There had been times when Launchpad had shown a lack of confidence; a good example was when he was trying to learn the double reverse paddle drop boom boom kick. There were also times when LP was scared, but it was only natural. No one was fearless all the time. If Darkwing had been able to give LP courage and confidence, that was great, but he had been arrogant and unfair to assume that LP didn't already have those qualities. Darkwing hadn't given them to him; he'd just helped him bring them out more.

As Launchpad laughed and talked with the kids, he looked at Darkwing a few times and saw him frowning slightly. He wondered what DW was thinking. Part of him was wondering if DW might be feeling jealous of the adventures Launchpad had had with the kids and Mr. McD, but another part thought, more accurately, that Darkwing was feeling guilty about something. Launchpad knew DW was harder on himself at times than anyone else could be.

No one knew it yet, but there was more trouble coming for the heroes. The Fearsome Five and their new friends were completely unaware that they had two more allies. In Flintheart Glomgold's office, he was having a meeting with another enemy of Darkwing's. In fact, it was the villain's hero Negaduck wanted to meet.

"I've been following the recent developments concerning the Fearsome Five and the Beagle Boys, Mr. Bulba," Glomgold was saying. "I've been thinking they could be used to our advantage."

Taurus Bulba sat glaring at Glomgold, who sat calmly behind his desk. Bulba, sitting across from him, was completely unimpressed by Glomgold's failure to be intimidated by the cyborg. In fact, the steer was annoyed that he wasn't scaring this rich duck, who had managed to find him and have two of his goons bring him to his office by using Bulba's overheating circuits to their advantage. They had made him angry enough to overheat and then somehow managed to immobilize him long enough to get him to Glomgold's office.

"What do you mean?" Bulba demanded. "You and I have no common interests. I've never even met you before today and I have no use for you."

"But you could, and I do have a use for you. I'm willing to pay any price for your services."

"What services?"

"Your technological services, of course. There is another galvanized being, a super hero."

"I'm not a super-"

"No, I know, you're a super villain. But this super hero could use a challenge. He's been able to do too much good in Duckburg, and all for that scoundrel Scrooge McDuck!"

"What does this have to do with me?"

"I'll pay any price you ask for getting him out of the way. If you can eliminate Gizmoduck, then the Fearsome Five, the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell can carry out their plans more easily. They'll be distracting Darkwing and his friends and you can have a chance at surprising Darkwing. The advantage to me is that if these villains succeed, Scrooge will lose his fortune, making me the richest duck in the world."

"You will be rich and I can get my revenge on Darkwing and that little girl."

"Exactly, so do we have a deal?"

Bulba couldn't pass up this chance. He'd been biding his time since the last battle with Darkwing. He had promised revenge and had just been waiting for the chance to exact it in the best way possible.

"I will do it for a million dollars. That should be enough to get me the accessories I can use to make sure I have a chance at killing both Darkwing and this Gizmoduck person, and still I can make a profit."

"You've got a deal," Glomgold said, pulling out his checkbook.

"But before I kill Darkwing," Bulba thought with an evil grin, "I'll make sure he watches what I do to Gosalyn."

Morgana was the first Justice Duck to arrive. She stared at Bushroot until Darkwing explained the situation. She looked at them both skeptically, but didn't challenge Bushroot. She fascinated Webby and the boys as much as Bushroot did. They were eager to see her do magic. But it was Stegmutt who captured Bubba's full attention. Tootsie could talk, kind of, but Stegmutt was fully articulate. This was only natural, since Stegmutt had been a duck before Dr. Fossil transformed him to a dinosaur.

Scrooge listened to Darkwing explaining their situation and the plans they had worked out so far to the Justice Ducks, feeling slightly guilty. He had a trick up his sleeve that even Darkwing and Launchpad didn't know about. He wondered if he should tell them.

"No," he thought. "If I tell them and one of them is captured it might be possible for the villains to make them talk. I think Launchpad already suspects part of it. If he knew for sure, it would risk putting him in more danger than we're all already in. I've got to do my part in keeping Magica and the others from succeeding and this secret is the best way I know to keep Magica's mischievous mitts off my fortune, and the most important ingredient to that accursed amulet of hers!"

"Just like before," Darkwing was saying, "we've got to divide and conquer. Fortunately this time we don't have to deal with the psychics, but Morgana's going to have to deal with their sorceress."

"Sorceress?" Morgana asked, having no reason to suspect the sorceress's identity. Her tone was curious, but unconcerned.

"Yes, and Mr. McDuck here has dealt with her before."

"Wait a minute," Neptunia said. "Where's Gizmoduck?"

"He's handling something for me in Duckburg," Scrooge said. "It has to do with this business, but he can play his part better in Duckburg than he can here."

The adults had no idea the kids were listening. Darkwing and Scrooge had ordered them to go back to 537 Avian Way. Of course, they would have to take the long way. No one could know about the spinning chairs and where they led. That would give Darkwing's identity away faster than anything.

"Don't worry,:" Gosalyn had whispered to them once they got outside. "I know this tower better than I know my own room. We can hide and listen, then find a way to help."

"But-" Webby began. She didn't want Uncle Scrooge to be mad at them.

"It's just like we do at home, Webby," Dewey said reasonably. We always find a way to help Uncle Scrooge."

"Yeah," Louie said. "He only thinks he doesn't need our help. Remember the Lost World?"

At Gosalyn's blank look, Huey explained that Scrooge and Launchpad had been captured by some cave ducks and the kids had had to help them escape.

Gosalyn found a hiding place for them and they listened to the grownups' plans, then quietly started adding to them and making plans of their own, building on what they'd heard Scrooge talking about with Launchpad and Darkwing in the Thunderquack on the way from Duckburg.

Morgana's face paled when Scrooge told her the sorceress's name. She hadn't seen her in years and thought she never would again.

"Did you say her name was Magica De Spell."

"Yeah, he did," Darkwing said, sounding concerned. "Morg, what's wrong? Do you know her?"

"You might say that," Morgana said weakly. "In fact, in some ways, I might know her better than anyone. She's my mother."