A few weeks ago I got over the writer's block that stopped this fic at the end of last chapter, and it quite suddenly occurred to me that I don't think 'snogging' is actually a very American word. It's more British/Australian. Tell me if you find the word unnatural in that context at all, and I'll swap it for 'kissing', 'making out' or something, since I'm already planning on changing a few things in the first chapter. BTW, thanks everybody for your reviews, and Aurora, you're responsible for me getting over the writer's block, so extra special thanks to you, even if during a very busy week at uni is a bad time to get over writer's block.
I've decided to stick with cartoon physics rather than real physics, with the result that Reggie actually makes use of his 'hammer space' (that area behind one's back that one keeps such assorted things as hammers, chainsaws and, in Reggie's case, watering cans) and a physical feat that is part of his canonical powers, but as far as I can tell is a violation of real physics (Law of the conservation of matter, to put a fine enough point on it).
Cygnet is the proper word for a juvenile swan, but I'm sure you all already knew that (and if you didn't, you just learned something).
Proper disclaimer: You can possibly think this lot belong to me, do you? Well, they don't. The plot might be mine, but the characters are Disney's. Whether you think this (or any) work of 'fan fiction' is illegal or not depends on your interpretation of 'fair use' under copyright law. If fanfic isn't fair use, it ought to be. Mind you, I also think the NSW age of consent ought to be the same for gay blokes as for straights, but it's not.
***
It was just another of many strange, probably doomed, and some might say stupid, schemes to take over St Canard. Once again, Darkwing Duck had been determined to stop it, and once again, the Fearsome Five had captured him trying to sabotage their scheme. Right now, having not gotten to the escaping part of the general pattern, Darkwing was in Negaduck's room of the hotel suite the Five had requisitioned.
It was strangely quiet in there.
There was nobody Darkwing could count on to rescue him, since the dinosaur (what was his name? Stegmutt? The mere thought of him was enough to give Reggie shudders, giving him no incentive to remember) and Neptunia were out of town, he'd broken up with Morgana, and the little red-headed girl (who wasn't so little anymore) and his sidekick Launchpad had already been captured (Negaduck was leaving nothing to chance this time around).
Reggie quietly weighed up the alternatives in his mind -- Jail--rest of life as Negaduck's bitch, Jail--rest of life as Negaduck's bitch. Jail won hands down, quite frankly. Reggie's first order of business then, was to distract Negaduck.
Starting an argument between Megavolt and Quackerjack was ridiculously easy. All he'd done was suggest to Quackerjack that he'd seen Megavolt fiddling with a light bulb a few days ago. Naturally Quackerjack was jealous, and of course Megavolt couldn't deny it, since he couldn't remember if he'd done it or not. After a few minutes of increasingly loud squabbling, Negaduck came charging out of his room looking annoyed and disheveled, and wearing a robe, not his costume. The red in his cheeks probably wasn't just anger, thought Reggie, with a sinking heart.
Taking advantage of Negaduck's blind rage, Bushroot slipped into Negaduck's room and locked the door behind him. He had only a few minutes before Negaduck tried to get back in his room, if that.
Darkwing was cuffed to the bed, and his costume was lying shredded beside it. Thankfully Negaduck had left the keys on the bedside table, but unfortunately Darkwing was unconscious. Reggie wrapped Darkwing in his trenchcoat, picked him up; thanking the evolutionary process for the strength cellulose gives cell walls; and walked over to the window.
The quick-grow vine/arm trick came in handy for lowering Darkwing to the ground, and Reggie quickly followed, dropping lightly to the second floor awning, once again thankful for cellulose, this time for its low mass as well as its strength.
Darkwing had left his motorcycle outside the hotel, and Reggie tucked him into the sidecar, and rode off.
***
Darkwing came to feeling remarkably sore, and not in a particularly good way. He shifted, attempting to sit up, and a bright flare of extra pain reminded him why he'd lost consciousness in the first place.
"*Ow!*" he found himself saying.
Dr Bushroot materialized in his fuzzy field of vision.
"You're going to be sitting gingerly for some time, Darkwing," he remarked as he rather surprisingly helped Darkwing to sit up.
"What's going on?" asked Darkwing, realizing that he was in the now little used bed in *his* hideout, and not in the Five's hideout.
"I rescued you," said the supervillain mildly.
"Why?" asked Darkwing, wincing as he shifted again.
"I need your help, and you can't help me if you're dead."
"That makes sense."
"Plus, you couldn't count on help from anybody else."
"Launchpad?"
"Negaduck's got him. The kid, too."
"Sh... Sugar!" 'swore' Darkwing, jumping out of bed. "Goslyn!"
"Oh, is that her name?" said Bushroot, unconcernedly.
"That *creature* has my teenage daughter. Could you at least fake a little concern?"
"I'll help you attempt to rescue them, but I'm not faking concern for anyone. Worst he'll do to her is try to kill her."
"Oh, like that's a real comfort."
There was an awkward pause, which was brought to an end by Darkwing asking sheepishly,
"Bushroot, could you get my spare costume for me? It's in that closet over there."
***
"Hey, Reggie! Where you been? Negaduck went to look for you, and he took Sparky and The Liquidator, and Darkwing Dunce managed to escape," Quackerjack enthused at Reggie.
"I went for a walk, I needed some fresh air, QJ."
"Oh, OK," said the toy-maker.
Reggie watched Darkwing sneak around the edges of the room while he kept Quackerjack occupied, and pick the lock of the cage Negaduck was keeping the kid and Launchpad in.
For a loss of what to do now, he said "Hey, look, they're escaping!" and when Quackerjack turned around, belted him over the back of the head with the watering can Reggie usually kept in his hammer space, and joined Darkwing, Launchpad and the kid for the sprint out of there to re-group.
***
"Let me put this bluntly, Bushroot. I don't trust you," said Goslyn.
"Who distracted Quackerjack while your dad picked the lock? Who got your dad out of there in the first place? You owe me your father's life, and quite possibly your own." pointed out Bushroot, rather needlessly in Darkwing's opinion.
"Gos, I really think he has reformed," said Launchpad.
"Reformed, McQuack? That's nothing to do with it. I need protection from Negaduck, and since serving an Apprehended Violence Order on a supervillain isn't to do much good, Darkwing Duck's protection is my best chance, and he's going to be awfully reluctant to protect me if I let anything happen to either of you if I could help, or was running off to rob banks or Gardening centers every few weeks. I need the protection more than I need to stay in the Supervillains' Guild." There was a Supervillains' Guild?
"Why do you need protection from Negaduck?" Goslyn asked.
"How old are you, Goslyn?"
"She's 14, Bushroot," said Darkwing, wincing as he lowered himself into a chair.
"What's wrong with you, Dad?" Goslyn asked, noticing the wince.
"I dropped him on his tail when I lowered him out the window, not on purpose, though," said Bushroot, with a dismissive gesture.
'Thanks for sparing me that explanation, Bushroot,' thought Darkwing, shooting him a grateful look.
"So, why do you need protection from Negaduck?" Goslyn asked again.
"Little ears are sometimes too delicate for the whole truth, Kid. Can we just say Negaduck is a very nasty guy, and has no problems being just as nasty to his associates?"
"I'd prefer the whole truth, but if that's all I'm going to get, it's going to have to do, isn't it?"
"Maybe you should mind your own business, and go home and do your homework," said Darkwing, a little snappily.
"But Honker was going to help me with it, and he can't this afternoon, he was going to the movies with Marcus Swan."
"Negaduck is still in control of this city, what makes you think that the movies will be open?" asked Bushroot.
"The movie wasn't the point, the point is, even if Honker won't admit it, it was a *date*, like a going out date. Just because they can't go the movies, doesn't mean they won't still want to spend the time together."
Rather unexpectedly, the transporter chairs flipped, producing Honker and a blindfolded cygnet about Honker and Goslyn's age.
"We there yet? " asked the cygnet.
Honker pushed his glasses back up his beak, and replied, "Yes, you can take the blindfold off now."
"Honker, Marcus, what are you doing here?" asked Goslyn.
"Well," started Honker, "I thought that y... Mr Darkwing could use a little help,"
"And Marcus? Why'd he have to come?"
"Well, I already said I was spending this afternoon with him, not you, and..."
"You couldn't resist showing off that you know Darkwing Duck personally and know how to get to his hideout," said Bushroot. "Am I right?"
"What are *you* doing here?" asked Honker, who apparently hadn't noticed Bushroot before he spoke.
"Helping," said Goslyn.
"How much help is a supervillain going to be?" asked Marcus, who hadn't spoken before then.
"Lots so far. I already owe him my life, and he's only been on our side a few hours," said Darkwing.
***
Once the good guys stopped arguing about Reggie, they got down to business, and hammered out a plan. Completely unsurprisingly, it worked, without him going anywhere near Negaduck. The Fearsome Four were in jail (although nobody was counting on them staying there), and Darkwing was for some reason putting together a greenhouse for him in the tower. It was the best Reggie had ever felt at the end of an adventure, and as a result to him it kind of felt incomplete.
***
Still more to come, but I'm trying to make the end of each chapter as resolved as possible so if I don't get the next one out for yet another 14 months (the gap between the first chapter and this one), it won't be too much of a problem. I probably need a beta reader, but as I'm hardly a prolific writer, and, apart from a few words that elude me, a good speller, the only thing I ever bothered to have betaed was my contribution to the 'Snape Fuh-Q fest', but I think, in the long run for this fic, I probably need one. Any volunteers?
I've decided to stick with cartoon physics rather than real physics, with the result that Reggie actually makes use of his 'hammer space' (that area behind one's back that one keeps such assorted things as hammers, chainsaws and, in Reggie's case, watering cans) and a physical feat that is part of his canonical powers, but as far as I can tell is a violation of real physics (Law of the conservation of matter, to put a fine enough point on it).
Cygnet is the proper word for a juvenile swan, but I'm sure you all already knew that (and if you didn't, you just learned something).
Proper disclaimer: You can possibly think this lot belong to me, do you? Well, they don't. The plot might be mine, but the characters are Disney's. Whether you think this (or any) work of 'fan fiction' is illegal or not depends on your interpretation of 'fair use' under copyright law. If fanfic isn't fair use, it ought to be. Mind you, I also think the NSW age of consent ought to be the same for gay blokes as for straights, but it's not.
***
It was just another of many strange, probably doomed, and some might say stupid, schemes to take over St Canard. Once again, Darkwing Duck had been determined to stop it, and once again, the Fearsome Five had captured him trying to sabotage their scheme. Right now, having not gotten to the escaping part of the general pattern, Darkwing was in Negaduck's room of the hotel suite the Five had requisitioned.
It was strangely quiet in there.
There was nobody Darkwing could count on to rescue him, since the dinosaur (what was his name? Stegmutt? The mere thought of him was enough to give Reggie shudders, giving him no incentive to remember) and Neptunia were out of town, he'd broken up with Morgana, and the little red-headed girl (who wasn't so little anymore) and his sidekick Launchpad had already been captured (Negaduck was leaving nothing to chance this time around).
Reggie quietly weighed up the alternatives in his mind -- Jail--rest of life as Negaduck's bitch, Jail--rest of life as Negaduck's bitch. Jail won hands down, quite frankly. Reggie's first order of business then, was to distract Negaduck.
Starting an argument between Megavolt and Quackerjack was ridiculously easy. All he'd done was suggest to Quackerjack that he'd seen Megavolt fiddling with a light bulb a few days ago. Naturally Quackerjack was jealous, and of course Megavolt couldn't deny it, since he couldn't remember if he'd done it or not. After a few minutes of increasingly loud squabbling, Negaduck came charging out of his room looking annoyed and disheveled, and wearing a robe, not his costume. The red in his cheeks probably wasn't just anger, thought Reggie, with a sinking heart.
Taking advantage of Negaduck's blind rage, Bushroot slipped into Negaduck's room and locked the door behind him. He had only a few minutes before Negaduck tried to get back in his room, if that.
Darkwing was cuffed to the bed, and his costume was lying shredded beside it. Thankfully Negaduck had left the keys on the bedside table, but unfortunately Darkwing was unconscious. Reggie wrapped Darkwing in his trenchcoat, picked him up; thanking the evolutionary process for the strength cellulose gives cell walls; and walked over to the window.
The quick-grow vine/arm trick came in handy for lowering Darkwing to the ground, and Reggie quickly followed, dropping lightly to the second floor awning, once again thankful for cellulose, this time for its low mass as well as its strength.
Darkwing had left his motorcycle outside the hotel, and Reggie tucked him into the sidecar, and rode off.
***
Darkwing came to feeling remarkably sore, and not in a particularly good way. He shifted, attempting to sit up, and a bright flare of extra pain reminded him why he'd lost consciousness in the first place.
"*Ow!*" he found himself saying.
Dr Bushroot materialized in his fuzzy field of vision.
"You're going to be sitting gingerly for some time, Darkwing," he remarked as he rather surprisingly helped Darkwing to sit up.
"What's going on?" asked Darkwing, realizing that he was in the now little used bed in *his* hideout, and not in the Five's hideout.
"I rescued you," said the supervillain mildly.
"Why?" asked Darkwing, wincing as he shifted again.
"I need your help, and you can't help me if you're dead."
"That makes sense."
"Plus, you couldn't count on help from anybody else."
"Launchpad?"
"Negaduck's got him. The kid, too."
"Sh... Sugar!" 'swore' Darkwing, jumping out of bed. "Goslyn!"
"Oh, is that her name?" said Bushroot, unconcernedly.
"That *creature* has my teenage daughter. Could you at least fake a little concern?"
"I'll help you attempt to rescue them, but I'm not faking concern for anyone. Worst he'll do to her is try to kill her."
"Oh, like that's a real comfort."
There was an awkward pause, which was brought to an end by Darkwing asking sheepishly,
"Bushroot, could you get my spare costume for me? It's in that closet over there."
***
"Hey, Reggie! Where you been? Negaduck went to look for you, and he took Sparky and The Liquidator, and Darkwing Dunce managed to escape," Quackerjack enthused at Reggie.
"I went for a walk, I needed some fresh air, QJ."
"Oh, OK," said the toy-maker.
Reggie watched Darkwing sneak around the edges of the room while he kept Quackerjack occupied, and pick the lock of the cage Negaduck was keeping the kid and Launchpad in.
For a loss of what to do now, he said "Hey, look, they're escaping!" and when Quackerjack turned around, belted him over the back of the head with the watering can Reggie usually kept in his hammer space, and joined Darkwing, Launchpad and the kid for the sprint out of there to re-group.
***
"Let me put this bluntly, Bushroot. I don't trust you," said Goslyn.
"Who distracted Quackerjack while your dad picked the lock? Who got your dad out of there in the first place? You owe me your father's life, and quite possibly your own." pointed out Bushroot, rather needlessly in Darkwing's opinion.
"Gos, I really think he has reformed," said Launchpad.
"Reformed, McQuack? That's nothing to do with it. I need protection from Negaduck, and since serving an Apprehended Violence Order on a supervillain isn't to do much good, Darkwing Duck's protection is my best chance, and he's going to be awfully reluctant to protect me if I let anything happen to either of you if I could help, or was running off to rob banks or Gardening centers every few weeks. I need the protection more than I need to stay in the Supervillains' Guild." There was a Supervillains' Guild?
"Why do you need protection from Negaduck?" Goslyn asked.
"How old are you, Goslyn?"
"She's 14, Bushroot," said Darkwing, wincing as he lowered himself into a chair.
"What's wrong with you, Dad?" Goslyn asked, noticing the wince.
"I dropped him on his tail when I lowered him out the window, not on purpose, though," said Bushroot, with a dismissive gesture.
'Thanks for sparing me that explanation, Bushroot,' thought Darkwing, shooting him a grateful look.
"So, why do you need protection from Negaduck?" Goslyn asked again.
"Little ears are sometimes too delicate for the whole truth, Kid. Can we just say Negaduck is a very nasty guy, and has no problems being just as nasty to his associates?"
"I'd prefer the whole truth, but if that's all I'm going to get, it's going to have to do, isn't it?"
"Maybe you should mind your own business, and go home and do your homework," said Darkwing, a little snappily.
"But Honker was going to help me with it, and he can't this afternoon, he was going to the movies with Marcus Swan."
"Negaduck is still in control of this city, what makes you think that the movies will be open?" asked Bushroot.
"The movie wasn't the point, the point is, even if Honker won't admit it, it was a *date*, like a going out date. Just because they can't go the movies, doesn't mean they won't still want to spend the time together."
Rather unexpectedly, the transporter chairs flipped, producing Honker and a blindfolded cygnet about Honker and Goslyn's age.
"We there yet? " asked the cygnet.
Honker pushed his glasses back up his beak, and replied, "Yes, you can take the blindfold off now."
"Honker, Marcus, what are you doing here?" asked Goslyn.
"Well," started Honker, "I thought that y... Mr Darkwing could use a little help,"
"And Marcus? Why'd he have to come?"
"Well, I already said I was spending this afternoon with him, not you, and..."
"You couldn't resist showing off that you know Darkwing Duck personally and know how to get to his hideout," said Bushroot. "Am I right?"
"What are *you* doing here?" asked Honker, who apparently hadn't noticed Bushroot before he spoke.
"Helping," said Goslyn.
"How much help is a supervillain going to be?" asked Marcus, who hadn't spoken before then.
"Lots so far. I already owe him my life, and he's only been on our side a few hours," said Darkwing.
***
Once the good guys stopped arguing about Reggie, they got down to business, and hammered out a plan. Completely unsurprisingly, it worked, without him going anywhere near Negaduck. The Fearsome Four were in jail (although nobody was counting on them staying there), and Darkwing was for some reason putting together a greenhouse for him in the tower. It was the best Reggie had ever felt at the end of an adventure, and as a result to him it kind of felt incomplete.
***
Still more to come, but I'm trying to make the end of each chapter as resolved as possible so if I don't get the next one out for yet another 14 months (the gap between the first chapter and this one), it won't be too much of a problem. I probably need a beta reader, but as I'm hardly a prolific writer, and, apart from a few words that elude me, a good speller, the only thing I ever bothered to have betaed was my contribution to the 'Snape Fuh-Q fest', but I think, in the long run for this fic, I probably need one. Any volunteers?