"The Bride Wore Black"
Act II
"I'm exhausted!" announced Darkwing three days later as he flopped down onto his living room couch.
"So am I!" said Gosalyn, searching under the couch cushions for the remote control and consequently dumping her father off the couch.
"You? Why the heck are you exhausted? I'm the one who's been stopping all those crimes lately!" said Darkwing.
Gosalyn scowled. "Hey, you think it's a piece of cake going to school day in and day out? All that work-- it's terrible!"
"At the last parent-teacher conference your teacher told me you sleep through every class except lunch!"
"Yeah, well... lunch can be a real strain!" said Gosalyn, refusing to give up. "But, hey, you stop crimes every night, not just lately!"
"It's more than every night... it seems like I'm doing it every minute! Even during the day, something keeps popping up, and I haven't had any chances to get some rest. So give me five minutes to catch a quick catnap--" said Darkwing as he sat back down on the couch, but time was against him.
"DW!" cried Launchpad, running into the room. "Robbery at the St. Canard Compass Factory!"
Darkwing sat up and gave his daughter a 'See, what did I tell you?' look. "The Compass Factory? Why the heck would anyone rob a Compass Factory?" he said in disbelief.
"I dunno. Maybe they've got a terrible sense of direction and they're really absent-minded, so they wanted to get a lot of compasses at the same time to guarantee that they wouldn't lose their only compass!" offered Launchpad.
Darkwing paused. "It was a rhetorical question, Launchpad," he said tonelessly.
"Oh."
Wearily, Darkwing stood up and made his way to the chairs in the corner of the room. "Well, no matter. C'mon, LP, let's get--" he sighed even more wearily, "--dangerous."
Minutes later, Darkwing and his sidekick were speeding along the streets of St. Canard in the Ratcatcher. "So, let's see, so far the First, Second, Seventh, and Thirteenth National Banks have been hit, the local jewelry stores have been cleaned out, the grocery stores, pharmacies, and Quik-Marts have been robbed, and the Rubber Tree Plant has disappeared. What could be doing this?" he speculated.
"Ummm... Ants?" suggested Launchpad.
"Launchpad, even forgetting the lack of motive and the fact that insects have no need for money, everyone knows an ant can't move a Rubber Tree Plant!" said Darkwing.
"Sorry, DW. Y'know, it's funny, but it seems like all of these robberies are being committed by creepy things-- you know, like spiders and rats and stuff like that."
"You know, now that you mention it, that's right," said Darkwing. He pulled up at the Compass Factory, which had dark clouds gathering above it. "Why do you think that is?"
"DW -- who d'ya think of when you think of creepy things?"
"Hey, hey, hey, you better not be implying that Morgana would-- You know she's gone straight! She's a member of the Justice Ducks, for crying out loud!" said Darkwing furiously. He shushed Launchpad and they crept inside, then Darkwing exploded a blue smoke cartridge. As he stepped out of it, he got as far as "I am the Terr- OOF!" before a huge pair of grey wolves pounced on both him and Darkwing.
"Uhhhhh--Nice doggies?" said Launchpad nervously.
"Whatever you do, LP, don't let them know you're scared!" hissed Darkwing. "Aw, what a cute wittle pooch!" he said out loud. The wolf, snarling, bent lower towards Darkwing with his jaws open. Darkwing suddenly brought both his arms up, knocking the wolf off of him. He leapt up and made a run for it.
"Go, DW, go!" yelled Launchpad encouragingly. The wolf that had been sitting on his chest got up and ran after Darkwing too.
Nearby, in a dark alcove, a shadowy figure stood. "Oh, Dark, why do you always have to put up a fight?" said Morgana to herself as she absently rubbed the surface of the foof bomb she held in her hand. She watched her wolves silently, trusting them to do the job she'd charged them with.
Darkwing made it nearly two hundred feet before he was caught. The wolf very gently took the fabric of his jacket in its mouth and dragged him, kicking and screaming, towards the alcove where Morgana was standing. It growled softly out of the corner of its mouth, and Darkwing quieted down a little.
"Hey! Here, puppies!" yelled Launchpad from across the room. The wolves looked up-- he was holding two huge raw steaks. Their jaws dropped, and Darkwing fell to the floor. Both of the wolves reached Launchpad and pounced onto him, licking his face in gratitude. Then they allowed themselves to be pushed off of his chest and set about to devouring the steaks.
"Quick thinking, LP!" said Darkwing, brushing himself off. "Let's get some collars and leashes, and we'll take care of these boys!"
Unseen, Morgana gritted her teeth and smacked her hand to her forehead. She waved her hands and both the wolves disappeared in mid-chew. She was quick to follow.
"Whoa!" said Launchpad. "I told you something weird was going on. Let's get out of here!"
"I'm with you, pal," said Darkwing. They quickly went back to the Ratcatcher and started home.
"That's it! That's the last straw--it's time to pull out all the stops!" cried Morgana. "Archie, get a message to Darkwing, can you do that, sweetie?"
A large, hairy spider crawled out of Morgana's hair and grumbled ill-naturedly.
"Oh, thank you! You're so wonderful! Now, here's what you say..." She whispered his instructions in the spot where his ear would be, and then sent him scuttling off to complete his mission. He grumbled the entire way.
"This time nothing will stop me from taking a nap," said Darkwing as he stretched out on the couch. "Not Gosalyn, not Launchpad, not even-- Beth?" Beth hadn't set foot in the house since she'd found out about Morgana, about three days ago. Darkwing, although he felt bad, expected this, so he was more than a little surprised to see her quite suddenly walk out of his kitchen.
"Oh. Hello," she said coolly.
"Hi," he said, trying to be cheerful despite the fact that he was exhausted. "Haven't seen you in a while."
"Hm... You're right, I haven't been over in a while. I'd lost track," she lied. "I just came by to make sure Gosalyn was okay." She looked from side to side a little too much, avoiding eye contact with him altogether. The real giveaway, though, was her tone of voice. It was a little too nonchalant. She obviously wanted more than anything for him to think that she didn't care about him anymore, but her chilly attitude towards him was so out of character that he started to feel sorry for her. She seemed to be in a lot of pain.
"You've been busy?" he asked, trying to begin a conversation. He felt a tickling on his leg, and reached down to brush it away.
"Well, I--" began Beth, but stopped as soon as she saw what was on Darkwing's leg. Then she shrieked, loudly.
As she started to scream, his hand made contact with the object crawling up him. It was very, very big, and furry. He looked down and saw Archie. "GAH!" he said, pulling his hand back and flinching. He started shaking his leg as hard as he could to fling it off.
"Oh, I hate spiders! Spiders are the worst lifeform on the planet!" Beth was saying as she backed into a corner as far from Archie as she could get. She hugged her knees to her chest.
"Was that Beth that screamed?" called Gosalyn, running downstairs from her room. She saw Archie, clinging for dear life to Darkwing's leg. Darkwing, meanwhile, had a rolled up magazine that he was preparing to bring down from above his head. "DAD! NO!"
"Beth? Are you okay?" asked Launchpad, a little bit delayed in his reaction to her. He was coming in from the front yard, and he ran to her side as fast as he could. "What's the matter?" She refused to answer him, afraid that if she opened her mouth she'd just gag from disgust. She pointed at the spider crawling up Darkwing's leg. "Eeeeeeeww!" said Launchpad, and flattened himself against the wall to get away from it.
"Whattaya mean, 'No'?" asked Darkwing, freezing with his arm raised in the air.
"I mean, no! Dad, it's Archie!" said Gosalyn, coming over and taking Archie into her hands. Beth, in the corner, gasped and passed out. Launchpad started fanning her. "You know, Morgana's Archie?"
"Right, right, I recognize him now. What does he want?"
Archie, recovering from his near-death experience (which, incidentally, seemed to happen every time he sent Darkwing a message from Morgana-- He was starting to wish she'd do her own dirty work), grumbled quietly out of the corner of his mouth.
"What?" said Darkwing, scratching his head.
"What is it, boy? Is Morgana in trouble?" asked Gosalyn, listening closely.
Archie grumbled louder, although not in an attempt to relate Morgana's message; this was just general grumbling. There were few jokes that Archie hated more than the old Lassie "Is Timmy in trouble?" variation. He swallowed his distaste and repeated what Morgana had told him to say.
"Someone fell into Devil's Gorge and has a compound fracture of the lower mandible?" translated Darkwing, scratching his head.
"No, Dad! Morgana's in trouble! Some of your old enemies are holding her hostage in the Bean Cannery!" said Gosalyn. Archie grumbled in agreement.
"How did you figure that one out? Everything he says sounds the same to me!" said Darkwing, perplexed.
"When you're my age, you mumble a lot, Dad," said Gosalyn. She set the spider onto the ground and said, "Lead the way, Arch!"
"I'm sorry- it's just that spiders freak me out," Beth was saying to Launchpad, having recovered somewhat.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Me, too. So, you're afraid of slugs, beetles, and spiders?" he asked as he helped her to her feet.
She looked sick. "Can we please talk about something else?"
"Launchpad, are you coming, or aren't you?" asked Darkwing, pausing on his way out the door.
Launchpad started to follow them, then looked back at Beth. "Well, I..."
Darkwing sighed. "You can bring Beth along if you want, I guess..."
"Following a spider around town, no, I don't think so," said Beth. It was a good excuse, she thought, to get away from him. Although deep down inside she admitted to herself that she wanted him to know she was avoiding him because of him, not just a spider.
Darkwing was a bit irritated by this. "Well, fine. It's not like I need you there. I don't need either of you!" he said. The last part slipped out before he even considered it.
Launchpad blinked, and then looked down at Beth again. "I think Beth and I are gonna go out and get milkshakes," he said. "Hamburger Hippo, like usual? How's that sound?"
"Great," she said, smiling up at him. They went out for milkshakes often. They usually talked a lot when they did, basically getting to know one another better and better. Both of them enjoyed this immensely.
"Chocolate?" he asked, as he always did.
Her reply was her usual one. "Darn straight."
"I want a milkshake too!" said Gosalyn.
"What? You're not going to help me?" asked Darkwing.
"Aw, Dad, I want a milkshake! I haven't had one in weeks!"
"You got one last night!" he said.
"Um, no, I didn't. You're so tired you're remembering things wrong." Gosalyn took the only way out of this lie that she could think of, which of course was another lie.
He looked pensive. "Well... I guess you're right. Oh well, fine, you can all go get milkshakes. I can take care of this alone." He had, of course, realized that rescuing Morgana single-handedly was a great way to get her forgiveness for the other night. He dashed out the door after Archie, in the direction of the Bean Cannery.
"Help," said Morgana airily, tied to a chair. "Oh, help-- Am I at all convincing?"
Eek and Squeak, the two bats fluttering above her head, squeaked a resoundingly negative answer.
"Well, I've never done this before. How am I supposed to know how to call for help?" she said, a bit irritably. They squeaked some more. "Sorry. I'm just nervous, darlings. How's this: Heeeeeelp, oh, heeeeeelllllp me!" she cried, drawing each word out as much as she could.
"Don't worry, Morgana, I'm here!" yelled Darkwing, making his entrance with a bit less flair than he normally did. No blue smoke, no announcement prior to his entrance-- He just ran right in. He looked worried. Morgana couldn't help smiling- he was sweet, when it mattered.
"Oh, thank goodness, Dark darling! It's been terrible! Look out for the traps," she added. He looked around him and saw a few badly hidden traps, such as a precariously perched axe and a wire that would trip a bomb. He disabled both as quickly as he could, while making his way to Morgana.
He was nearly there when he stepped on a small button that had escaped his attention, and a large sandbag promptly fell on him from above. He collapsed with an "oof!"
"Oops, I really thought he'd see that one," mumbled Morgana. "Oh, well. Serves him right for not wanting to marry me in the first place." She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she was starting to feel a little guilty. He was so valiant, so trusting, and she really did love him. After watching his numerous attempts to wriggle out from under the bag, she rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. The sandbag lifted itself up into the air, freeing him.
He sprang to his feet (or at least, made a nice attempt at springing to his feet), and cried, "Morgue, darling, I've done it!"
"Indeed you have," she said. She snapped her fingers again and the rope that held her to the chair fell away. She stood up gracefully and, seeing his stunned look of incomprehension, smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Dark... I'll explain later!" she said. Then she tossed the Foof bomb at his feet.
"Well, that went well," she said, and then, looking downward, added softly, "I guess." She suddenly realized that she wasn't even entirely sure why she'd done this. If she needed reassurance that he loved her, well, making him her mindless slave wasn't going to help. "I, ah, I guess we'd better get him back to the house. Eek, Squeak-- You can carry him, can't you?" The bats looked at each other and moaned, then each one grabbed his jacket at the shoulders and started to lift him into the air.
Suddenly the door swung open, and Gosalyn, Launchpad, and a very reluctant-looking Beth stepped in. "Hey, DW, we gotcha a chocolate milkshake--" Launchpad trailed off as he fully took in the scene before him. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"Oh-- Well, he, I... ah...," Morgana stuttered, trying desperately to think of an excuse. She stepped away from Darkwing awkwardly, and her bats dropped him in surprise.
"Morgana, what's going on? Did something happen to Dad?" asked Gosalyn.
Beth, who had been staring sullenly at the floor, suddenly looked up when the name "Morgana" was mentioned. Her eyes grew wide. Morgana was tall, shapely, absolutely gorgeous, the kind of woman any man would drop dead for. "Oh, geez," Beth said under her breath as she looked her "rival" over slowly, "like I ever had a chance."
The only one who heard this, interestingly enough, was Morgana, who was keenly aware of everything that was going on in the room at that moment. She stared back at the brown-haired woman, looking her over every bit as carefully as she herself was being looked at. The woman was thin, a bit dull-looking perhaps, but pretty, in a self-conscious way. Whoever this was, she was glaring at her as though she knew exactly what had happened.
"Well, you see..." Morgana paused again. She couldn't think of anything to say but the truth. She swallowed her unease, telling herself that Gosalyn would understand. "We've been having a few communication problems lately, and well..."
Gosalyn interrupted her. "You mean you made him into a zombie? What kind of a girlfriend are you!" she exclaimed furiously. Launchpad frowned and clenched his fists. Beth looked at her with an expression of cool dislike, vaguely apathetic about all the events going on.
"Well, this was a mistake," muttered Morgana to herself. They were waiting for her to tell them that it wasn't what it had seemed, and that there was some other explanation she hadn't mentioned yet. She had no other explanation, and as she saw it, no other choice, either. She reached into her handbag.
Beth's mind, for once, was working faster than her mouth instead of vice versa. She was able to think, very clearly, "Hey, she's got a bomb!" in the instant that she saw Morgana's hand slip out of her purse. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened to announce the observation, but by that time it was too late. The milkshakes slipped out of their hands and splattered on the floor of the Bean Cannery. Their eyes went completely blank, and so did their minds.
"Now how in the world am I going to get all of them home?" said Morgana aloud. Eek and Squeak looked at each other and groaned again.
A few days later the wedding preparations began. Deep down inside Morgana didn't feel so great about the whole thing. She tried to pass it off as pre-wedding jitters, but this felt less like nerves and more like... well... guilt.
The conversation that she'd had with her aunt hadn't helped much:
"Are you sure that I'm doing the right thing?"
"Oh, right, schmite. Right and wrong don't matter these days, dearie... All that matters is that you're happy," Aunt Nasty had answered.
Morgana didn't even know if she was happy at this point. "But that's not what I asked!" she said. "Am I right, or am I wrong?"
"You're perfectly in the right!" Aunt Nasty dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "Now, to a Normal this might not look right. If you're thinking that way... Maybe you've been spending a little too much time with that kind..."
Morgana held her tongue.