The Prince of Darkness
A Continuation of The Slash Saga: My Funny Friend and Me and Birds of A Feather
By Roaming Tigress and Tammy Wraight who gave permission to use the character of Faith Mallard

Chapter Thirteen:
Triumphant

"Well, it's been twenty minutes . . . " Faith noticed, taking a look at her watch. "Think we should check to see who's the winner?" She was becoming more and more morbidly anxious.

"I should say so!" Negaduck shrugged, taking his handgun out from his jacket. As he opened the door with his wife standing behind him for protection, he got one of the biggest shocks in his life.

"Well, double-you-tee-eff, mate . . . " Faith muttered under her breath, her blue eyes so wide one would think they would've popped out of their sockets.

The off-white concrete floor was littered with splattered blood, tufts of fur and broken feathers. In the middle of the room laid the lion -- dead. Not only had the neck been broken, but his throat was brutally ripped open. What was once a noble creature was reduced to a bloodied mess in just a little over half an hour. The big cat fought hard right to the end, and a permanent snarl on his face suggested this. There was blood on his snout and claws, and it didn't belong to him.

"I don't believe this . . . " An equally astonished Negaduck gasped, taking a look around him. "Pinch me, just pinch me." He got what he asked for and jumped a little as Faith took him literally.

"Hey, watch the tailfeathers!" He whined, giving his feathery rump a rub. "They take forever to grow back!"

The lion's killer sat with his back propped up against the cage, badly wounded but alive and lucky. Numerous claw lacerations and bites covered Steelbeak's body, the worst one being one that ran to his right shoulder to the center of collarbone that was so bad that it exposed the bone. His now-damaged metal beak was tarnished with blood and his feathers were horribly tattered and missing in places, but most importantly of all, he was triumphant. He didn't care that his right pinky finger was missng, all that mattered was that he killed that damn animal to prove his worthyness.

"Looks like I won!" Steelbeak stated calmly, clasping a hand over his shoulder injury. He unsteadily got to his feet, smiling in spite of the pain he must have been in. He staggered over to his kill and gave the dead animal a kick.

"Goes ta show you what yas can do if youse put yer mind and heart to it."

"Oh, you can say that!" Negaduck laughed, impressed by his stoic attitude and bravery. "He sure got you good, though. Want us to take you to the hospital?" He seemed genuinely concerned, even if he was the one responsible for shoving him into the lion's den so to speak. In the corner of his eyes he saw Faith leave the room and then reappear a moment later with a needle and spool of thread.

Steelbeak shook his head and took a gentle hold of his head. "Nah. I do appreciate de offer, but . . . I t'ink I can manage." With what happened to him following his accident, he didn't want to go to one even in the condition he was in.

"I can't say I don't blame you, " Faith said, taking hold of Negaduck's cape and while he still wore it, she began to stitch up the tear. "Hospitals are such dreadful places. You have to wait for hours at a time just to have a second rate cigarette-smoking nurse look after you, even if it's an emergency!" She exclaimed, finishing her sewing job with a playful smack to her mate's rear.

"There you go, good as new!"

"Oooooh, nice job, baby! Wouldn'tve noticed it was ripped in the first place!" Negaduck exclaimed, examining his cape.

"I knew you'd like it!" Faith smiled, running a finger along his bill and giggling when he gave it a kiss. "Oh, you old devil, you!"

"That's me!" Negaduck laughed with a wicked edge, looking back at Steelbeak. "Guess it's time for you to be stitched up. Can't have you bleeding all over the place now, can we?" He was damn proud of his rooster.

It was then that Faith realized the full extent of the Steelbeak's injuries. She had been paying so much attention to her husband that she barely took notice of his presence aside from the mention of the hospital. As she came up closer to him she saw the fear in his eyes, and the pity she had for him came back with a vengeance. How can he be afraid of me while he just took on a lion? Fears and phobias are what they are, I suppose.

"There's no need to be afraid of me anymore, I'm not going to hurt you," Faith gently reassured, keeping a polite distance away from as to not make him any more uncomfortable. "Unless you hurt my Drakeybuns or any of my family; if you do that I'm going to have to kick your tailfeathers!" She added with a smile, helping ease his fear with her compassionate yet lighthearted approach to his plight.

"What she said, because hurting you is my job," Negaduck winked, going over to the wine cellar and bringing out a flask of brandy. Having no sort of antibiotic on hand, he used the alcoholic beverage to do the trick.

The sensation of the brandy being poured into Steelbeak's shoulder injury felt like the sting like a thousand bees. With a vicious hiss he took a snap at Negaduck as a knee-jerk reaction. Before the iron jaws clamped around the hands that were treating him, Faith quickly and firmly gripped hold of his beak and slammed his head down. She caused more pain to Steelbeak doing this, but her husband's safety was the number one priority and she ignored his agonized growls.

"Ah-ah! No bites!" The she-duck scowled, keeping her grip until her was finished stitching the wound. "I must say, for a guy, you're bloody good at sewing!" She remarked, believing Negaduck's homemade repair which she thought was better than any hospital job.

"Why, thank you!" Negaduck said with mock modesty, kissing her on her forehead. "Having said that, you do a better job at restraining this "brute" than whatever the Alligator Hunter does!"

Steelbeak's pain was really beginning to nag at him by now, but he hadn't had the energy to protest as another dribble of brandy was poured into a bite on his left arm.

"Youse didn't 'ave to do dis, guys . . . " He said weakly as exhaustion from the fight started to kick in. He rested a badly mauled hand to his beak, feeling that at least two of the plates were missing. He shuddered, feeling ugly again.

"No we didn't," Faith said casually, not seeing what he was hiding. "But we did." Moving her foot, she heard something metallic and reached down to see what it was. It was the missing beak plate, and she looked at it curiously, not recognizing what it was. She found another a few feet away, covered in dried blood and lion hair.

"Hon, did you unassemble one of your toys down here?" She asked, handing over the pieces of metal to Negaduck.

"No . . . " Negaduck shook his head, knowing what the pieces of steel came from. With a certain softness in his eyes that he usually only reserved for Faith, he stroked his face with one hand while he used the other to fish a screwdriver out of his jacket. When the repair work was done, Negaduck cleaned the dried blood off with an edge of his cape.

"There, you're handsome again!" He exclaimed, admiring himself in the reflection of the freshly polished beak.

"T'anks!" Steelbeak replied, feeling his pride come back to him now that his ugly side was once again hidden. With his vulnerability gone, he was ready to take on the world -- the Steelbeak everyone was familiar with.

"Not a problem. I do have another challenge for you . . . " As Negaduck said this, a cloud of blue smoke started to appear in the center of the room.

"Destroy Darkwing Duck!"

Most characters mentioned in this chapter are © Disney. However, Faith Mallard belongs to Tammy Wraight. If you steal or copy her, expect to die a horrid death.