"Are you sure this'll work?" asked Negaduck.
Quackerjack proudly patted an odd-looking contraption. It looked like an electroencephalograph, complete with monitor. The electrodes dangled on a nearby couch. "Sparky and I built it together."
Megavolt gritted his teeth. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sparky?!"
Negaduck took a closer look at the device. "So, anyone hooked up to this do-hickey's mind will be scanned and the contents of his or her memory bank will appear on this screen?"
"Yup!" replied the jester. "We figured it would come in handy if we forgot something important."
Megavolt opened a panel on the side and pulled at some wires. "It'll be ready with some minor adjustments."
"Fine, fine, fine," the leader of the Fearsome Five sighed as he turned to the other two members. "As for you two, I want you to go to this address and bring back the occupant. Alive. Never mind why."
Bushroot and Liquidator shrugged and departed, neither wanting to argue with Negaduck.
******************************************************************************
Honker closed the front door to his house and went next door. He had distinctly seen his best friend slip in through a window. The young genius knocked on the door. "Gosalyn? Mr. Mallard?" He shrugged and crawled through the same window. Grimacing slightly, he sat down on a blue armchair and bonked the statue's head.
At the Tower, Darkwing was reading from a sheet of paper. "Reductionalizer. Converts a three-dimensional environment into one dimension. Could that be Negaduck's scheme? To turn this world into nothing but points, lines, and planes?" He didn't bother to greet Honker; simply pointed to his left. "Gosalyn's over there." The crimefighter scratched his head. "Hmm...nah. Negaduck's no geometry fan."
"I just came to this city to speak with Megavolt!" sputtered Neutralduck.
"Why?" asked Gosalyn, barely noticing the new arrival. "So you can help him get rid of Da--er, Darkwing?"
"Not at all. I just wanted to see the tron splitter."
"How do you know about that?" The redhead leaned forward. "Did you read Megavolt's mind like a brainwashing amoeba from the Green Lagoon?"
"No! I'm just...well, I could explain--"
"Then why don't you?"
Neutralduck took a deep breath. "All the matter in this universe is made of atoms, right?"
Gosalyn glanced at Launchpad and Honker. "Yeah."
"Atoms are composed of subatomic particles: the positively charged protons and the negatively charged electrons. The neutrons have no charge. These particles are in turn made of quarks, which are composed of trons -- positrons and negatrons."
"In the world, the positrons and negatrons are so well-blended that it would take an extreme amount of energy and specialized equipment to separate them," Honker recited. "The trons are not to be confused with the positively charged electrons and negatively charged protons of antimatter. When antimatter meets an equal amount of matter, the result is 100% pure energy. If pure positrons and pure negatrons met, it can be hypothesized the same reaction would occur. If an object were to be split into its positron and negatron components, they would remain in matter form. However, if a completely foreign tron, say, a positron entered the universe, the negatrons of our combined matter would immediately annihilate it. If combined matter were introduced into a pure-negatron or pure positron environment, the oppositely charged trons would be tempted to attack, but the same charged particles would prevent--"
"Whoa, Honk-man!" interrupted Launchpad. "You're making my head spin!"
"Where did that come from anyway," asked Gosalyn.
"Median Gray's paper 'On the Polar Nature of Matter'," Honker replied with a slight smile.
A look of shock rippled across Neutralduck's face, but he quickly calmed, grateful that basic acting had been an elective in college. "Now will you please turn off the hot lights?"
"That doesn't explain how you knew about that splitter," pointed out Gosalyn.
"I gleaned together rumors and information from various stories. And it involved a healthy dose of guesswork."
Honker pulled the issue of Sciencebills and left it open on the table.
Darkwing's face took on a look of triumph. "The Cross-Dimension Traveling Apparatus, donated by Median Gray last week," he whispered to himself. "Negaduck's trying to go back to the Negaverse--"
"I'm not planning anything! Stop threatening me!" cried Neutralduck. "I'm not working with anyone. I don't even know why I look like Darkwing! I didn't realize it until I put on this costume." He dropped to his knees. "I'm not a clone, I'm not an assassin. I'm just a regular guy!"
Darkwing folded up the paper and groaned. "Gos -- I mean, little girl I barely know, leave that duck alone. I'm pretty sure he's not one of the bad guys."
"Thank you," sighed Neutralduck. "For a minute, I thought you had broken our truce."
Gosalyn shrugged. "Just making sure." How many are there, anyway?
The bluecoat looked rather pale. "But can I please go home?"
"Sure. I'll escort you," sighed Darkwing, knowing full well he couldn't hold the duck against his will. "Thanks a lot," he hissed to Gosalyn before stealing a glance at the open magazine.
"Inducing nervous breakdowns is what I do best," the nine year old said in a sweet voice.
"I'll say!" Launchpad agreed. "Your dad almost had a heart attack when he saw your room."
"Increasing entropy is your greatest talent," added Honker.
************************************************************************
Negaduck slumped on the couch. "What's taking those knobs so long?" He rolled over. "It's hard to sulk in a stay-pressed jacket." He sighed. "When I get to the Negaverse, I'm going straight to Anatidaeopolis and looking up Mom and Dad." He shuddered to think that such a sappy word like love could enter his vocabulary, but he definitely cared about his parents in the Negaverse. Negaduck hated almost everyone else: the Friendly Four, not to mention the police and common citizens of both Universes. He grudgingly admitted that he only thoroughly disliked the rest of the Fearsome Five, but only because they obeyed his every command, and hey, those superpowers did come in handy.
He hated Darkwing Duck the most. Negaduck knew perfectly well that he could never be as evil as he wanted to be as long as his goody-two-shoes double was around. Not guilt, perish the thought, but simply because Darkwing ruined his plans for turning this St. Canard to chaos. His evil was counteracted by good, but the good wasn't even pure good. Was that suggesting he wasn't pure evil? It was an unpleasant feeling. "I'm sure Dad's got a few suggestions on how to neutralize that law-abider."
***********************************************************************
"When I was looking up stuff about St. Canard," Neutralduck was saying. "I saw a photo of you. It made me realize that a civilian could never approach a supervillain and stay alive, so I borrowed a sewing machine and stitched up an outfit like yours. With a slightly different color scheme, so Megavolt wouldn't mistake me for you."
"So you noticed?"
"Not really. I didn't realize how much we looked alike until I saw you in the museum."
"Where did you go?"
"I lost my nerve." Neutralduck wrung his gray fedora. "I'm not cut out for the superhero biz. When the Four Villains of the Apocalypse ambushed me, my first instinct was to drop down and surrender. That mutant plant-duck ought to be labeled as a public hazard."
"Bushroot? That little shrinking violet? You are a novice."
"What was your first clue? Stop here."
Darkwing stopped the Ratcatcher in the back parking lot of a group of apartment buildings.
Neutralduck got off. "Thanks for the ride." He slipped in the back door, obviously so no one would see him in costume.
Pretty sharp, Darkwing thought. He decided to follow his lookalike. If he got caught, he could always make up some excuse.
No sooner than the purple-caped crimefighter entered the apartment, there was a scream. Darkwing rushed toward the open door at the end of the hall, gas gun in hand.
Bushroot and the Liquidator were just inside the doorway. A duck who looked exactly like Drake Mallard in a cream shirt and light blue sweater was using a Swiss Army knife to hack at several vines growing toward him.
Darkwing pointed the gas gun toward the superpowered supervillains. "Suck gas, evildoers! Or, in your case, suck combination weed killer and cement!" He squeezed the trigger. Nothing came out. "Drat! Of all the times to forget my cartridges!"
The Liquidator rose, until he was a seven foot pillar of water. "Opportunities doesn't wait for a welcome mat!"
Darkwing ran toward the kitchen, hoping for a novel idea, with the water-dog in hot pursuit. He spotted a door next to a set of shelves and yanked it open.
Fortunately for him, the Liquidator hadn't timed his tidal-wave attack right. The salesman-formerly-known-as-Bud Flood slid right through the open doorway.
Darkwing slammed the door shut, nervous that the watery canine would leak out, but luckily he didn't. "What a freezer. Airtight." He peeked into the foyer.
The other duck was about to run for the open door, but a potted plant stuck out a root to trip him. The Swiss Army knife, engraved with the initials "MG" fell to the floor.
Bushroot seized his opportunity to call up his ivy-vines once again. A branch wrapped around the kidnapped party's bill, another around his arms. "Negaduck wants to talk to you."
The duck nodded, resigned.
Darkwing went over his options. He could try to rescue his double, but who was to say that the Fearsome Five wouldn't try again when he wasn't around? He decided to follow Bushroot to Negaduck's hideout. Laying low, he watched the mutant plant duck exit the building and prepared to tail him at a safe distance.
TBC
Quackerjack proudly patted an odd-looking contraption. It looked like an electroencephalograph, complete with monitor. The electrodes dangled on a nearby couch. "Sparky and I built it together."
Megavolt gritted his teeth. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sparky?!"
Negaduck took a closer look at the device. "So, anyone hooked up to this do-hickey's mind will be scanned and the contents of his or her memory bank will appear on this screen?"
"Yup!" replied the jester. "We figured it would come in handy if we forgot something important."
Megavolt opened a panel on the side and pulled at some wires. "It'll be ready with some minor adjustments."
"Fine, fine, fine," the leader of the Fearsome Five sighed as he turned to the other two members. "As for you two, I want you to go to this address and bring back the occupant. Alive. Never mind why."
Bushroot and Liquidator shrugged and departed, neither wanting to argue with Negaduck.
******************************************************************************
Honker closed the front door to his house and went next door. He had distinctly seen his best friend slip in through a window. The young genius knocked on the door. "Gosalyn? Mr. Mallard?" He shrugged and crawled through the same window. Grimacing slightly, he sat down on a blue armchair and bonked the statue's head.
At the Tower, Darkwing was reading from a sheet of paper. "Reductionalizer. Converts a three-dimensional environment into one dimension. Could that be Negaduck's scheme? To turn this world into nothing but points, lines, and planes?" He didn't bother to greet Honker; simply pointed to his left. "Gosalyn's over there." The crimefighter scratched his head. "Hmm...nah. Negaduck's no geometry fan."
"I just came to this city to speak with Megavolt!" sputtered Neutralduck.
"Why?" asked Gosalyn, barely noticing the new arrival. "So you can help him get rid of Da--er, Darkwing?"
"Not at all. I just wanted to see the tron splitter."
"How do you know about that?" The redhead leaned forward. "Did you read Megavolt's mind like a brainwashing amoeba from the Green Lagoon?"
"No! I'm just...well, I could explain--"
"Then why don't you?"
Neutralduck took a deep breath. "All the matter in this universe is made of atoms, right?"
Gosalyn glanced at Launchpad and Honker. "Yeah."
"Atoms are composed of subatomic particles: the positively charged protons and the negatively charged electrons. The neutrons have no charge. These particles are in turn made of quarks, which are composed of trons -- positrons and negatrons."
"In the world, the positrons and negatrons are so well-blended that it would take an extreme amount of energy and specialized equipment to separate them," Honker recited. "The trons are not to be confused with the positively charged electrons and negatively charged protons of antimatter. When antimatter meets an equal amount of matter, the result is 100% pure energy. If pure positrons and pure negatrons met, it can be hypothesized the same reaction would occur. If an object were to be split into its positron and negatron components, they would remain in matter form. However, if a completely foreign tron, say, a positron entered the universe, the negatrons of our combined matter would immediately annihilate it. If combined matter were introduced into a pure-negatron or pure positron environment, the oppositely charged trons would be tempted to attack, but the same charged particles would prevent--"
"Whoa, Honk-man!" interrupted Launchpad. "You're making my head spin!"
"Where did that come from anyway," asked Gosalyn.
"Median Gray's paper 'On the Polar Nature of Matter'," Honker replied with a slight smile.
A look of shock rippled across Neutralduck's face, but he quickly calmed, grateful that basic acting had been an elective in college. "Now will you please turn off the hot lights?"
"That doesn't explain how you knew about that splitter," pointed out Gosalyn.
"I gleaned together rumors and information from various stories. And it involved a healthy dose of guesswork."
Honker pulled the issue of Sciencebills and left it open on the table.
Darkwing's face took on a look of triumph. "The Cross-Dimension Traveling Apparatus, donated by Median Gray last week," he whispered to himself. "Negaduck's trying to go back to the Negaverse--"
"I'm not planning anything! Stop threatening me!" cried Neutralduck. "I'm not working with anyone. I don't even know why I look like Darkwing! I didn't realize it until I put on this costume." He dropped to his knees. "I'm not a clone, I'm not an assassin. I'm just a regular guy!"
Darkwing folded up the paper and groaned. "Gos -- I mean, little girl I barely know, leave that duck alone. I'm pretty sure he's not one of the bad guys."
"Thank you," sighed Neutralduck. "For a minute, I thought you had broken our truce."
Gosalyn shrugged. "Just making sure." How many are there, anyway?
The bluecoat looked rather pale. "But can I please go home?"
"Sure. I'll escort you," sighed Darkwing, knowing full well he couldn't hold the duck against his will. "Thanks a lot," he hissed to Gosalyn before stealing a glance at the open magazine.
"Inducing nervous breakdowns is what I do best," the nine year old said in a sweet voice.
"I'll say!" Launchpad agreed. "Your dad almost had a heart attack when he saw your room."
"Increasing entropy is your greatest talent," added Honker.
************************************************************************
Negaduck slumped on the couch. "What's taking those knobs so long?" He rolled over. "It's hard to sulk in a stay-pressed jacket." He sighed. "When I get to the Negaverse, I'm going straight to Anatidaeopolis and looking up Mom and Dad." He shuddered to think that such a sappy word like love could enter his vocabulary, but he definitely cared about his parents in the Negaverse. Negaduck hated almost everyone else: the Friendly Four, not to mention the police and common citizens of both Universes. He grudgingly admitted that he only thoroughly disliked the rest of the Fearsome Five, but only because they obeyed his every command, and hey, those superpowers did come in handy.
He hated Darkwing Duck the most. Negaduck knew perfectly well that he could never be as evil as he wanted to be as long as his goody-two-shoes double was around. Not guilt, perish the thought, but simply because Darkwing ruined his plans for turning this St. Canard to chaos. His evil was counteracted by good, but the good wasn't even pure good. Was that suggesting he wasn't pure evil? It was an unpleasant feeling. "I'm sure Dad's got a few suggestions on how to neutralize that law-abider."
***********************************************************************
"When I was looking up stuff about St. Canard," Neutralduck was saying. "I saw a photo of you. It made me realize that a civilian could never approach a supervillain and stay alive, so I borrowed a sewing machine and stitched up an outfit like yours. With a slightly different color scheme, so Megavolt wouldn't mistake me for you."
"So you noticed?"
"Not really. I didn't realize how much we looked alike until I saw you in the museum."
"Where did you go?"
"I lost my nerve." Neutralduck wrung his gray fedora. "I'm not cut out for the superhero biz. When the Four Villains of the Apocalypse ambushed me, my first instinct was to drop down and surrender. That mutant plant-duck ought to be labeled as a public hazard."
"Bushroot? That little shrinking violet? You are a novice."
"What was your first clue? Stop here."
Darkwing stopped the Ratcatcher in the back parking lot of a group of apartment buildings.
Neutralduck got off. "Thanks for the ride." He slipped in the back door, obviously so no one would see him in costume.
Pretty sharp, Darkwing thought. He decided to follow his lookalike. If he got caught, he could always make up some excuse.
No sooner than the purple-caped crimefighter entered the apartment, there was a scream. Darkwing rushed toward the open door at the end of the hall, gas gun in hand.
Bushroot and the Liquidator were just inside the doorway. A duck who looked exactly like Drake Mallard in a cream shirt and light blue sweater was using a Swiss Army knife to hack at several vines growing toward him.
Darkwing pointed the gas gun toward the superpowered supervillains. "Suck gas, evildoers! Or, in your case, suck combination weed killer and cement!" He squeezed the trigger. Nothing came out. "Drat! Of all the times to forget my cartridges!"
The Liquidator rose, until he was a seven foot pillar of water. "Opportunities doesn't wait for a welcome mat!"
Darkwing ran toward the kitchen, hoping for a novel idea, with the water-dog in hot pursuit. He spotted a door next to a set of shelves and yanked it open.
Fortunately for him, the Liquidator hadn't timed his tidal-wave attack right. The salesman-formerly-known-as-Bud Flood slid right through the open doorway.
Darkwing slammed the door shut, nervous that the watery canine would leak out, but luckily he didn't. "What a freezer. Airtight." He peeked into the foyer.
The other duck was about to run for the open door, but a potted plant stuck out a root to trip him. The Swiss Army knife, engraved with the initials "MG" fell to the floor.
Bushroot seized his opportunity to call up his ivy-vines once again. A branch wrapped around the kidnapped party's bill, another around his arms. "Negaduck wants to talk to you."
The duck nodded, resigned.
Darkwing went over his options. He could try to rescue his double, but who was to say that the Fearsome Five wouldn't try again when he wasn't around? He decided to follow Bushroot to Negaduck's hideout. Laying low, he watched the mutant plant duck exit the building and prepared to tail him at a safe distance.
TBC