The engraving omitted a soulless demeanor, sucking the remains of a decade old vampire. The gears that have been tinkering in my head for months roared to life, as the headlights finally secluded my being into an evident shadow of the phantom. Such an imbecile I had pruned myself into! Chopping away the dead leaves of loyalty and intelligence, for the sake of a mere fantasy.

"Wow, maybe he is a potato head." I snapped my eyes into a vicious snare for the coy, clashing worlds against the thoughts of Megavolt's character. "Don't you dare speak ill of Posey!"

"I'm saying it how it is, Veggie."

"Lab rat."

"Oh, now look who's doing the name calling." Words threatened a forest fire, until it had been doused by Liquidator's freezing flame. All it took was a single glance, and I concluded his judgment depleted my will. I cleared a fog that infested within my speech, and blinked into a much more mature thought. "There's words-"

"-so you don't know how to read?"

"Would you-...I meant on this thing, a print." I cradled the needled device back into Megavolt's view, and a half vision for the dog near the back. "Right here, on the rim. What does that say?" The rat decided to take the hint, despite whiffing his eyes away for a momentary annoyance. I cracked my face back from succumbing a juvenile smile, as the rodent's features dropped into a ready grave. "Fiendish Organization of World Larceny."

"Commercially and significantly, known as F.O.W.L." Back in earlier years, even Negaduck grew the suspicion that he was never very fond of what the organization stood for–granted, they were too idiotic and soft on his standards. That speaks volumes for a higher being feared by so many, and dreadfully, myself included. For every penny Spike needed more soil at the mere mention of the name, I probably wouldn't be where I stood in the criminal realm.

If I ever truly was one, I detested revisiting the thought.

"So, maybe he got into some hot water. Wouldn't be much of a surprise."

"That, dear associate, is precisely the steep in our charts. Taurus Bulba is the product, brought back to new, by this corporation."

"And that can tell us how Darkwing got into this mess, maybe even why I found him so close to Liquidator's territory." I couldn't stop my roots from blossoming a dying violet petal; my mind wished to ramble on its own accord. The rat lingered his gaze at my presence, tangling his whiskers like a mysterious delicacy on a deceiving menu. "I still can't see why we couldn't just dump him to the police, if you're so uppity about this."

"I could, if we all wanted to end up in cuffs. Who do you think they'll blame for all of this?" Megavolt gave a silent scoff of distaste, like a burnt wedge had itched his tongue with a bitterness I often found myself sheltered in. The chilling sliver of a river perked my thoughts; Liquidator's stance never wavered, and neither did his tender countenance. When I finally mustered the courage to flicker a gander, the shapes that formed the ridges of his brow raised with a feline curiosity. He didn't have to say it, but that didn't mean I had to acknowledge it.

I'd leave it to dust as my last resort plan, as it would likely come to, knowing my butter luck.

Honker always thought that he understood the controversies of fear, and its case of side-conditions if anyone were prone to its addictive tendencies. Yet, this dose nearly ripped the very heart out of his shrinking chest. He would have lost his voice to sound if Gosalyn hadn't gagged him; she flipped off her light, and grazed her eyes at the sight below them. Steelbeak had been pacing a track into the ground, snapping his head at every henchman who glanced at him in a fanatical eye. "Look, I don't care if you were all to flip dis place on its turn-around; dere's somethin' behind dese walls!" A few of the make-shift soldiers corked away their faces, as others found entertainment in ordinary objects to a bored child's eye.

The rooster grabbed one of the slaves, choking the rims of his collar. The corners of his eyes burned a pulsing red, as if pollen had condemned war in the battlefield across allergy season. "If anot'er one you comes back empty handed, your heads are on my next pike."

"Um…boss?" Steelbeak nearly hissed a tongue, throwing aside the previous, cowering, victim. "Unless it has some'ting to do with Taurus Bulba, don't say nothin' unless you wanna clear your guts from the hallway."

The poor coward in a mastermind's make-up grasped the back of his neck, as if holding it could prevent the twitching nerves. Steelbeak had already begun to prowl forth, pondering an unarticulated pursuit. Honker hadn't gone on many adventures, but he went on enough to be aware of the uncharacterized nature of the rooster below them; an intelligent, patient, thief morphing himself into the shells of brash and thoughtless action. If the give-away of Bulba hadn't been enough to capture the child's intentions of investigation, this surely would have. The boy discerned a crackling grip on his wrist; Gosalyn must have felt his bones whimpering, inheriting a skepticism to ever follow through with her guidance. Maybe, if it had ever been possible, she had been rattling her own brain in what to do.

"I-It is, boss. The sedatives." Much to Honker's dread, Gosalyn couldn't help her typical, tyrannical, curiosity. "What's that?"

"A depressant, normally administered in health-"

"Speak English, Honk!" The boy flickered a notation at the beasts below, as if the predicament hadn't been enough of an excuse for the lack of elaboration. His dear friend, being the neurotic jumper she was, hardly seemed to care. Honker breezed a huff, before hissing a more concise answer: "The stuff that knocks people asleep in those crime films you watch."

"Wha-give me t'ose you dimwit!" As the eggman wistfully portrayed a selected few of small, tubed, devices, the foul went for the kill. In his attempts to retrieve them, the pharmaceutical equipment sprayed themselves into the air, bouncing off floors like store-quality mattresses. Trying to catch at least one would have been catching a Babe Ruth ball.

Honker lost track of the cursing Steelbeak revealed, feeling a bite manifest onto his arms. It took everything within the boy's starved might to not react boisterously, especially when he came into the likes of a familiar spider. Archie had been ravenous clawing, yelping, biting, anything to finally gain some sort of publicity.

Honker was prepared to stuff the arachnid in an airlock bag, until he finally understood the rationale for such commotion; Gosalyn had abandoned her post of hiding, leaping down below him at the pace of a hunted rabbit. The boy nearly tumbled to his doom, as he could only helplessly watch her inch closer to the rooster and his men.

If there was ever a day to die, that day would have been it.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long wait, and for how short this chapter is. I just wanted to at least get something on here for the sake of the progress in this story arch. Hopefully, the quality is still up to standards, thank you for reading and sticking with this project! I hope it was an enjoyment to read! I'm not one for always keeping to goals, but I'm going to keep trying in staying on top of this story, stay tuned!