Disclaimer: I do not own Darkwing Duck™ or any character, location or event from that said show.
Last time on The Duck Knight Returns
- Negaduck takes Deputy Director of S.H.U.S.H. hostage.
- Negaduck and his associate plot to take a secret S.H.U.S.H. fortress.
...
The Duck Knight Returns
Ch 3. A Duck In Wonderland
St Canard, 'Old Haunt' district.
"Hey! Batter, batter, batter. Swing! Batter, batter, batter. Miss! Batter, batter, batter."
"Tank. You're meant to do that to the otherteam!" an irritated Gosalyn reminded her partner in crime, yelling from the plate.
"Strike one!"
"Oh bull…! I'm trying to deal with this clown here!"
"Strike one," the umpire repeated.
Gosalyn silently cursed. She hadn't meant to take her eye of the pitcher. It was a mark of how Tank Muddlefoot could irritate her. Not that is was particularly difficult. Gosalyn Mallard had the spirit to match her mischievous green eyes and fiery red hair, cut short and uneven to belie her natural beauty. The desired attention only encouraged Tank. He added an egyptian walk to his chant, pacing up and down the sideline.
Muttering angrily under her breath, Gosalyn swung at the second incoming ball.
"Strike two!"
"I don't want to see that!" she yelled at Tank,
"You'll be seeing a lot more of it if you strikeout," he said, swinging his tail feathers.
Gosalyn shock herself to loosen tense muscles. Gripping the steel pipe in her hands firmly she prepared for the next pitch.
"Right."
The pitcher let fly. The ball came slightly low, screamingly along faster than before. Gosalyn swung in low semi-circle, clipping the ball and sending it spinning out of control high and to the right. To the dismay of the fielding team it impacted off a tower of crushed cars and ricocheted, reversing direction to strike Tank's tender nether-feathers.
No home run, but enough for Gosalyn to reach second base: a stolen doormat from a quiet suburban home. Two of her compatriots managed to come home off her swing.
The laughter and cheers from both teams was uproarious. Tank was down, rolling in the dirt. Gosalyn Mallard never managed to disappoint. The noise echoed through the corridors of piles of crushed vehicles and mountains of rusted steel. She imagined the salvage yard was in fact a stadium and the echoes were the cheers an awesome crowd.
"I don't strikeout," Gosalyn reminded Tank later as she jogged home for a run.
…
His fake S.H.U.S.H. I.D. sparked and sizzled. The guard handling it was instantly stunned. Using the momentary distraction, Negaduck jumped the second guard, jabbing a spot under his chin to incapacitate him and render him unconscious. The warden, his mind still catching up to events, instinctively reached for the sidearm he carried as a younger security operative. When it failed to materialise on his belt his mind switched targets. The grenade launcher the fake agent had handed over.
Uncertain of the probable results, the warden snatched the weapon, raised it to the impostor's beak and pulled the trigger. Unfortunate for him the weapon had been unloaded as per regulations when handing a sidearm over to weapons check.
His conscious mind barely had time to register it was miffed when Negaduck snatched the weapon from his hands, reversed it and used it to club the warden over the head.
Extra security would be on their way. Negaduck loaded a canister into his grenade launcher and fired down the corridor. An air-contact mix of expanding, doughy, foam blocked the path of any rescuer. Another canister, another possible blind spot blocked.
The technicians within the command room had watched in horror as Negaduck attacked the warden. Totally unable to respond. They were unarmed and under strict orders never to intervene in event of an intruder. Keeping this heart of the facility secure was to be their only concern. So they could any watch through the transparent door, constructed to repel all manner of explosive devices, and make repeated calls for backup no longer capable of reaching them.
They could only watch and call for backup as Negaduck removed a disk device from his recovered ammo belt. They could only watch and call for backup as he affixed it to the entry. They could only watch and call for backup as the sonic charge shattered the hardened, explosive proof barrier.
…
Alarms shrilled throughout the facility. S.H.U.S.H. staff realised the danger had far from passed. In the medical wing doctors and nurses ignored the alert and focused on Director Grizzlikof who was in their care. Not so the warden's aide or the (false) agent standing next to him.
"Intruder alert. Intruder alert. Central control is under attack. Security and medical teams respond."
"No! This is more daring than anything F.O.W.L. has attempted before!"
"This is Captain Doberman. Detain all members of the Director Grizzlikof's motorcade. Lethal force is authorised."
The aide's eyes bulged as he locked them with the false agent. Recognition of how they had been duped was instant. He reached for his side-arm.
The intruder was faster on the draw. Unarmed, powerful green vines shot out from her outstretched arms. Security personal were thrown like rag dolls. Extra security personal approached from down the corridor. She slid on her knees into an open supply room. Bullets puncturing the door frame an inch behind her. The security team believed they had her trapped and advanced to finish, mistaking who was predator and who was prey.
The woman raised a palm to the ceiling and concentrated. Impossibly, her form transformed into a bolt of lighting. Traveling through the lighting system. Emerging behind her pursuers.
The light bulbs blew. Momentarily disorientating the defenders. A wave of the woman's hand and water erupted from a faucet, a directed wall slamming men around.
…
The medical team watched in horror but could do nothing. A credit to their professionalism, they never halted from their efforts to revive Director Grizzlikof. To their extreme relief, the mysterious and powerful woman left them to their efforts. The now disarmed security detachment she left locked in a ward room. Wind-up teeth guarding the door. The havoc she would raise had only just begun.
For the remaining S.H.U.S.H personal an ominous alert sounded over the base comm.
"Central Control is breached. Central Control…."
…
Negaduck removed a re-breather from his beak, exchanging it for a black cloth to mask his eyes. He striped himself of the agent suit. Underneath he wore clothing infinitely more recognisable. The yellow pea-jacket. The black cape. Not his customary red turtleneck sweater; it would have been too difficult to disguise under the collar of a white shirt. So just a v-neck sweater. Nonetheless, as he stood in the centre of the command and control room, lording over the numerous unconscious technicians he reflected to himself, "It's good to be back."
He got to work. Using the command consoles he shut down every piece of security equipment from patriot missile batteries to cameras. Then he opened every door, every cell, every ventilation shaft; every barrier everywhere.
The air forces fighters on their way to provide air support demanded a response, alarmed by the sudden loss of communication.
A wicked idea came to Negaduck. He never could resist an opportunity to show off. "Why hello there. Sorry to have to tell you boys, but you're be late to the party. No cake for you."
"Who is this? Identify yourself."
"I am the lecturous liar, the erroneous executor of evil, the callous corrupter, the scandalous scourge known as Negaduck! That's one word. No hyphen."
Ignoring further, increasingly demanding calls to reveal his true identity, intent and fate of S.H.U.S.H. personal; Negaduck instead planted his mysterious blue cube on top of the control console and pressed his thumb feathers to it. The cube began to glow blue.
As Negaduck left the room the computers behind him sparked, sputtered and shutdown. Even the lighting. The EMP detonation prevented anyone from reversing his actions.
…
The female assailant accompanying Negaduck kicked open a grate in the ventilation system. From a small container at her waist she tossed in a clump of soil containing a seedling. Next she added water, pouring the life giving liquid from a glass she found in the kitchenette.
Great, angry plant vines grew with impossible metabolism. Snaking through the facility ventilation, emerging from similar shafts behind her as she kicked open a medical waste disposal unit and threw away the glass.
…
"Cops!"
The kids playing ball dropped steel pipe bats and scattered. The lookout jumped down from atop a digger and ran. A patrol car had just pulled up to the salvage yard and the owner was with them, unlocking the gate and commanding they prosecute all trespassers.
"Come on Tank."
But Tank was still pained by his aching nether feathers. "It hurts to run!"
Gosalyn forcefully tugged him into a run. "Move it you dope!"
Between corridors of crushed cars and minced metal mountains they ran, navigating the maze of a yard to the break in the barbed wire fence.
The siren of the patrol car howled as it plunged into the maze after them. Calls over the loudspeaker for the kids to desist resisting arrest were ignored. Too many kids running in too many directions, cops could never round them all up. So it was every kid for themselves. Leave the stragglers to be cornered. While the owner of the lot….
The owner entered his office and retrieved his shotgun and released his vicious guard dogs.
…
It was a bad day to be in the employee of S.H.U.S.H.
Power was out. The interior of Wonderland were plunged into red emergency lighting. Vines as thick as tree trunks spilled out of vents and maintenance spaces between the walls, pinning down anyone they could reach. wind-up teeth and miniature tin soldiers, no mere toys, patrolled the corridors.
In the garage things, agents accompanying Director Grizzlikof revealed their true colours, attacking the guards pre-emptively. Underneath their suits and ties were the uniforms of the infamous F.O.W.L Eggmen and a great deal of conventional firepower. Outside the helicopters which escorted the motorcade shot down the facilities own gunship and began to attack exterior defences.
Worst was the cell block. With every door in the facility open previously captured F.O.W.L. agents and mutants wasted no time exacting revenge on their jailers.
...
Negaduck entered a high security storehouse, the heart of and purpose of Wonderland. Inside was the stuff of conspiracy theories. The various confiscated gizmos and weird science inventions S.H.U.S.H. had acquired over the years. Everything S.H.U.S.H. wanted buried. Buried deep.
His partner in this caper was waiting for him. "It's just like in the Negaverse. The S.H.U.S.H. in this world have been experimenting on superpowered beings. You'll find the Fearsome Five in the research section deep underground. It runs off a separate power grid."
She stopped beside a large ray device, distinctive due its three green bulbous markings and a colour coded control mechanism.
"Hello, Grandpa," she whispered to the Ram-rod.
Negaduck climbed the railing. As if singing a child's nursery melody, Negaduck recited the hymn, "Yellow, blue, red, blue, purple too, blue, purple, green and yellow," punching in the corresponding colours on the command console as he did so.
The green bulbs glowed. The Waddlemeyer Ram-rod came to life.
…
Dr Reginald Bushroot obeyed the guards and remained in his cell. Stood with his leaves planted against the wall for the duration of this crisis. He didn't like all this gunfire. Plants did not enjoy loud noises and he feared for his safety should the fighting approach.
He wondered who the guards were shooting at and prayed they would just go away. The clicking of Quackerjack's signature attack teeth raised the possibility of a jailbreak. Probably Quackerjack's rehabilitation therapy wasn't going so well. How could it when the individual in question considered wackiness his personal super power?
Ha! What therapy? Reginald had been denied visitation to Dr Nathan Swan for a period of fourteen months. Not since he had been transferred here, away from Blackwing Island Penitentiary and his beloved fruit garden. Here Reggie was kept in the constant darkness to limit his strength. He was kept in isolation if you discounted the mockery of the guards or the scientists taking samples. Reggie accepted he had harmed innocent people. It had not been his intent, but he had. Yet he did not deserve this. All he ever wanted was a little dignity. A little love. And the right to conduct his experiments for the betterment of mankind. At least during his stretch at Blackwing Dr Swan had managed to award him a fruit garden. Now. Here….
His garden would be flowering this season, he knew.
He heard the guards yell, "Vine!"
"Take it down, take it down!"
"Cut it in half."
"We're pushing them back! Hit those vents."
"Grenade! Fire in the hole!"
"Mine those vents. I want to be ready for the next wave."
Reggie heard and recognised the plant creature's pain as a hail of bullets cut it in half. Ten years ago would have been outraged. Now he wept both in gratitude of the vine's sacrifice and the hopelessness of it. A brave root was clearly risking its stalk to rescue him. And while he longed to feel the warm sun against his green skin again, to photosynthesis, Reginald knew he was no longer the same Bushroot interred here. What a disappointment he must be to the noble vine.
He also wept because, "They are so going to blame me."
Sure enough….
The cell door and a guard captain entered. He wore a flamethrower and a nasty glower.
"I burned your little fruit garden to cinders the day you arrived here, Bushy. I enjoyed it. Now call off your pet or I'll do the same to you."
"No," now Reggie truly cried, such was his pain. "They were innocent. I didn't do this."
The guard raised the gas nozzle. "Last chance Bushy. I fry you; your telepathic link to the beanstalk is broken. It stops. My men won't be plant food today so call it off."
Reggie wasn't even listening, His grief caused him to block out the words. He fell to his root-ish knees and waited for the end.
It would not come today. Reginald was granted a reprieve.
The entire facility began to shake. A terrible rumble and the screech of twisting metal were overpowering. The ceiling began to open out like an invisible force was drilling through.
Or not invisible. There was definitely a rainbow glow to the expanding hole.
"What the hell?"
"This place is coming down around us!"
"The Liquidator's loose!"
"Fall back, fall… agh!
"The flush system isn't working!"
"Get the electro-cannons, its the only way to stop him!"
A great flood rushed through the corridors, engulfing men and sweeping them along with it. The guard captain turned his flamethrower on Liqi, burning off a ton of steam. But nothing could stop this tide. Liqi just kept coming, dousing the flames and submerging the man in water. Drowning him like a rat.
"On top of liberty, call now and we'll throw in murder and revenge as our free gift to you," the slippery mutt commented to Reggie. His voice was distorted as if under water.
"Let them go."
The order came from Negaduck. Negaduck in the flesh. After five years Reginald never believed he would see the cruel, psychotic, criminal mastermind again and he had been thankful for it! Now the rainbow glow levitated him gently down into his cell. A divine saviour. A demon in masquerading as an angel.
"I'm running a tight schedule," Negaduck commented. "You can go free Megavolt and Quackerjack or you can slosh around the facility, offing everyone you meet until they finally organise against you. Then where will you be?"
The villain laid out Liqi's options. Coolly. As if scarcely mattered which Liqi chose. Reggie didn't think Liqi knew Negaduck holding was a Gas Gun behind his back. Lightly fingering the trigger.
"They kept me in a goldfish bowl! They did things to me!"
"They did things to me too. And I'm going to deliver to you the monster responsible. I'm going to deliver him, and I'm going to lay out an assortment of sharp objects, and I'm going to turn my back. Chill out to a little classic rock on my iPod and bear no witness to - whatever it is that should happen next. But first, I want to him know thatIwant him to know we're coming. Which tends to work best when the witnesses are alive."
Negs took Reggie by his leafy palm and pulled him into the rainbow light. The feeling of free-floating disorientated him some and he ended up head over heels.
"It's a limited time offer, Liquidator." Negaduck managed to sound bored.
Liqi relented. "Coming up next on 'I Shouldn't Be Alive, Astonishing Tales of Survival."
He let the men trapped inside his watery body go. Two were in need of CPR preformed by their squad mates. They were all still alive. Just barely.
"Thank you," the guard captain muttered weakly.
While Liqi scoured the prison for the unaccounted Fearsome Two, Reggie asked, "Why do you have Darkwing's Gas Gun?"
Negaduck eyed the weapon and grunted. "Spoils of War. Darkwing Duck didn't need it anymore."
…
Gosalyn and Tank were almost to break in the fence when they heard the cry.
"Help! Help me! Get them away from me!"
"Sound's like the cops got…."
Tank stopped when he realised the cries were accompanied by the barking and snarling of a dogs. Both of them looked back.
Gosalyn turned back and ran to help.
"Aw nuts," Tank muttered, giving freedom one last glance before following.
Gosalyn and Tank rounded a rusty metal mountain and spotted them. One of the younger delinquent boys, on his own and backed into a corner by five bullish dogs. He tried to fend them dogs with a piece of scrap metal but the pack managed to flank him and knock him to the ground. Defenceless, he could only curl into ball as the dogs tore into him.
Tank took up a heavy iron bar and surged forward but Gosalyn restrained him. Instead she took up a hub cap and a light pipe, banging them against each other yelling at the top of her voice. Approaching steadily and making as much noise as possible. Tank followed her lead. The packs' attention turned. The dogs were weary of this new threat and backed away from them to regroup. Attempts to flank them failed as Gosalyn and Tank kept their backs to scrap steel walls or to each other. They advanced to stand over the injured boy, urging him to stand and yell if he could. He did.
The pack lined up and barked. Each side formed ranks and tried to intimidate the other. Each side searched for an advantage, a weakness to exploit.
The dogs were called off with a whistle.
The scrap yard owner approached casually. He was a large boar with tattoos etching his pink, bald scalp. Dogs running around his patched jeans. He reached into the pocket of his reflective yellow safety jacket with a red strip across it, taking out a handful of shells. Making a show of loading them into his shotgun.
"You punks just stay right there. We'll see what the cops make a' you"
…
The attraction/repulsion ray generated by the Waddlemeyer Ram-rod, the rainbow glow, raised Negaduck and his Fearsome Five like a hand ascending the faithful. The Eggmen were assembled and waiting. Many of the escaped convicts also.
Negaduck's spirited partner in this dastardly caper set the Ram-rod to stand by and jumped down from the controls. "We found it!"
Newly freed, Quackerjack was relieved and grateful to the Eggmen who sprung him from this horrid place. More than willing to be escorted to their leader. He was amazed by the young lady giving orders, wind-up attack teeth and tin soldiers following in her wake.
"Nice toys! Who built them?"
"You did," she answered.
"I that I would remember think! Wait…."
Neptunia, former highly thought of hero, stepped forward. "Never thought you would be the one to get us out. The Justice Ducks abandoned us."
"I'm not here for you," Negaduck emphasised.
Negaduck's partner led the assembled horde of scum and villainy to the Negagate. Any remaining resistance she efficiently demolished with an assortment of killer plant vines, wind-up teeth and stunning bolts of lightning.
"How is she controlling the plants?" Bushroot also inquired to Negaduck but fearsome leader declined to offer explanation.
Negaduck turned to his living battery ally. Megavolt. Having been deliberately kept de-powered during his incarceration the rodent had to yank a few power cables to consume the facilities electricity. It strained him immensely but soon the ring began to hum and energise. A green glow emanated from it and illuminated the room. Once again a pink vortex was generated.
Even unsure as to the nature of the device, recently freed Reggie Bushroot, the Liquidator and Megavolt were awed.
It was Quackerjack who offered, "Oh! It's either a StarGate knock-off or a dimensional portal!" and promptly started fidgeting with his prison uniform pockets. Jumping on the spot. Going red in the face.
Megavolt first noted he was acting odd. Odd-er.
"What? What is it?"
Quackerjack hopped from foot to foot. It looked like he was holding something in. Holding it in until it was ready to explode. He signed the cause of his discomfort with a hand gesture. Making a chat, chat, chat motion.
"Oh, right."
Quackerjack was without his doll. The doll had given Quackerjack freedom to say what he could not. Present counterpoints to his own thoughts and hold wacky conversations with himself.
Megavolt acted as a stand in for Quackerjack's missing companion, Mr Banana Brain, whom the guards had thrown away. Even allowing Quakers to move his jaw in sync to his ventriloquism.
"But why would S.H.U.S.H. have one of those? Oh, that feels so good. You know the heavenly relief you feel when you haven't used a restroom in a very long time. I've been bottling this in for over a year, you have no idea how the relief to just relax and let it flow."
One of the Eggmen nudged his buddy. "He is not riding in my car on the way out."
Static and then a transmission came from the radio in Negaduck's jacket. He removed it, "This is Negaduck. Wonderland is breached. We have the Negagate secured on this side."
"Negaduck, we've done it! The resistance has taken Looking Glass, we've secured the Negagate on this side!"
Their plan hinged on taking both ends of the Negagate at the same time. Good, so the Friendly Four had led the resistance to victory. The S.H.U.S.H. base in the Negaverse had fallen.
Megavolt gave Bushroot a nudge, "Hey, does that sound like Quackerjack to you?"
The young woman with the fiery red hair, green eyes and the spirit to match her mentor; the young woman who pummeled enemies with watery jets, attacked them with false teeth and commanded killer vines stepped close to Negaduck.
"We'll take the vital components for building a new dimensional portal and destroy this one behind you. The Negaverse will finally be beyond the reach of J. Gander Hooter."
"No it won't," the young woman stated.
"It will be. Once I burn S.H.U.S.H. to the ground."
"Make Gander pay. Make him pay for everything." Tears welled in her eyes. It was a painful topic for the young girl who was once all sweetness. "Don't let what happened to our world happen here too. Do it for me. Dad."
"DAD?!" the Fearsome Five repeated.
Negaduck stood with NegaGosalyn on the verge of the vortex. Each of them tried and failed to maintain a strong facade. Finally, NegaGosalyn relented and hugged her father.
"Hey, hey, hey! I said no mushy stuff in front of the guys. I have to protect my evil image."
"There you go. Always thinking with your ego."
"I'll be alright, kid. You're the one jumping into the fire. Quackerjack is going to need your help to keeping the Negaverse from finally tearing itself apart."
"I will?" Quackerjack tapped Megavolt on the shoulder. The electric rat sighed, but allowed it.
"The Negaverse you, you dummy."
"Don't make a habit of this," Megavolt warned.
"Go on. Misbehave, or I'll ground you," Negaduck winked.
"Ugh! Alright Daddy. If you say so."
…
The yard owner kicked an old crate vertical and sat down on it. Shotgun resting on his lap. Eyeing the kids. Waiting for the cops to, "get off their arse," as he put it. The dogs stayed close to him.
Gosalyn studied him. Studied the dogs. Studied the mountains of scrap enclosing this dead end.
"Climb."
"Huh?"
Gosalyn pointed crumpled pipe leading up to an twisted railway car. her head to the scrap behind them. There were obstacles. Jagged pieces of metal and wire, but, "We can climb this."
"He has a gun."
"I'll take care of it."
Tank began to climb, helping the boy they rescued. "I knew you were going to say that. I hope you got your tetanus shot, kid. "
Gosalyn followed, taking a slightly altered path. Jumping to grab the leading edge of a rail container and using her strong arms to pull her body up.
The man stood, knocking his crate over. Angered the trespassers would try to escape. He and his dogs ran forward to stop them.
"Hey! You stay right there! Stop! Damn punks are gonna' inflate my health insurance premiums."
Gosalyn surveyed the junk within reach, identifying what might be useful. A length of rusty chain caught her attention but it was stuck under a heavy pile of refuge. It would not be tugged free.
"Stop right there little girl!"
Gosalyn turned and used the hub cap, flicking it from at her wrist like Frisbee down at the man. Pancake-ing his pink snout. He cursed and sputtered.
"A shwear A'll ake' ou' pay!"
Gosalyn threw more items at him and his dogs. A propane tank, large industrial nuts and bolts, a drive shaft, a train wheel; the man had to retreat back a few steps under the onslaught. With Gosalyn throwing away the base it rested on, the junk pile shifted and caused a slight avalanche. Gosalyn heard the shift, looked up and gasped. Falling junk threatened to crush her.
She leapt and rolled out of the way. A rusty avalance fell upon the container, followed by an iron girder riding the wave. It punched the spot Gosalyn had been standing, indenting the steel container.
The man saw Gosalyn's trouble and smirked. "Got you now girly." He climbed up to fetch her, leading with the barrel of the shotgun.
"Hold it right…."
Gosalyn slapped the barrel away using the pipe she picked up earlier, rapping the man across the knuckles in a dirty hockey trick. He didn't drop the weapon, but his hand stung badly enough he did not immediately raise it again either. While he was momentarily disabled, Gosalyn picked a discarded coil of wire and dropped it over his head. The coil stuck fast around his shoulders, preventing him raising his arms. A simple push and he fell off the container onto the waiting dogs below.
The shotgun accidently went off when he landed. The dogs yelped and scrambled, those he landed on limping away. The blast injured no one but it did attract some attention sought by neither of them.
Gosalyn jumped down and kicked the weapon out of the mans hands. He swore and struggled to rise with the coil holding his arms. He was a turtle on its back.
"Keen gear! Take that, punk."
The patrol car pulled into the dead end. Gosalyn sprinted but knew it was pointless when the loudspeaker called, "Don't bother Gosalyn Mallard. We know where you live."
Two officers got out of the car. One, a rabbit, helped the yard operator who had managed to rise to his knees. The second, an spotted orange cat, marveled at Gosalyn's handiwork. "Darn it, Gos! Now we're gonna' have to take a ride to see Morgana. I don't wanna' go see Morgana. Don't nobody wanna' go see Morgana."
"You could take me to see Launchpad."
"You're too smart for Launchpad. Where's your partner in crime, Tank?"
"I want her charged with assault!" the yard operator squealed.
"Shut up!" the rabbit ordered. "I told you not to grab your shotgun, you twit!"
"I ought to charge you for firearm offences," the cat added. "I would have if I didn't think tangling with Gos here was punishment enough."
…
NegaGosalyn stepped through the vortex.
Negaduck shoved a set of the portal blueprints into the hands of Quackerjack and directed Megavolt and he strip any tough to replicate gizmo.
"You can reduce carbon emissions by switching of the light when you leave."
Reggie agreed with Liqi. "Yeah, how are we getting out of here?"
"Oh," Negaduck smirked. "Anyone here have trouble swimming?"
"In a desert?"
...