Nestled away in a not so little corner, just south east from the center of St. Canard sat a vision of paradise no one would have thought possible -not even the residents of the city herself. It wasn't that citizens didn't believe such things were possible -in other cities- it just that this happened to be St. Canard, the largest cesspool for debauchery, corruption, and maliciousness on the west coast. At the same time though, crimes like petty theft, carjacking, jewelry store robberies hardly ever happened. Reason being, St. Canard had the second highest number of lunatics and madmen in the country, which kept all the normal crooks either far away, or in their homes. Maybe that's why the people of this fair and twisted city proudly revered St. Canard City Park with awe and tenderness, because for some reason the odd balls who existed in the shadows of day and night had left it alone, or maybe it was because people feared the plants themselves.
Wrought iron archways sat along the perimeter of the park marking the main entrances for the east, west, south, and north sides of the grounds. Behind the gothic gates, giant Evergreens framed well kept stone walkways running throughout, leading to grassy clearings, a rose garden at the south end, and the occasional gazebo if you knew where to turn. The best thing about having a park this large in St. Canard was that you could always find a place to hide, or at least a place to be inconspicuous and undisturbed. If a person paid enough attention they would notice several trails off the beaten path leading to things like small ponds, hidden benches, and picture perfect picnic areas.
It was in one of the many off beat clearings that the stressed out masked mallard had taken refuge, laying with his hands behind his head, gazing at the deep blue sky. Stretched out on the shady grass with all the varieties of vegetation around you really made you feel like you were somewhere else entirely, which is exactly where he wanted to be.
Drake closed his eyes and inhaled deeply taking in the sweet smell of flowers and pine, the fresh air carried in from the bay, the sound of the wind through the trees, birds chirping, distant children laughing, two men arguing . . . Two men arguing?
He sat up abruptly and trained his keen eyes in the direction of the sound. Soon enough, up the deserted path lumbered a tall, heavy set man in a jump suit. His tan fur and blue coveralls were covered in grease and spots resembling mustard. His companion, who materialized shortly after, was a duck of less than average height -or was he just slouching?- and athletic build, who's dark red shirt appeared rumpled, but his pants, in stark contrast, looked pressed. The two were arguing over something that Drake couldn't discern from the snippets of dialogue he could actually translate into real English, but the tone in their voices was clear enough: these two meant trouble.
He watched them cautiously, hoping that they might pass by without noticing him at all, the big one looked angry enough to start swinging. He really didn't want to have to fight these two off, he didn't like to draw attention to himself in the daylight hours -a single father who was able to fight off a guy four times his size like in a Jackie Chun movie? Far too suspicious. People would get curious and start asking questions, or worse, gang up on him.
To his surprise, the two men failed to notice him. Apparently their argument, which sounded like the topic might have been motorcycle racing until the death threats started, really was that interesting or at least absorbing. Drake smiled sardonically with a contemptuous humph. They just had to stop in front of him to start threatening each other didn't they? Perfect. Just perfect.
He followed their angry, mindless banter as best he could and snorted, these two were real idiots. While he had never seen the tall one before, his guess was that the guy spent more time in bars than garages. His words were slurred and he was blinking a lot. Drake frowned disgustedly. It wasn't even 3 o'clock in the afternoon. If ever he saw a candidate for alcoholics anonymous it was this guy, and God help the poor sap who landed the task of taking his crutch away.
A quick, volatile movement pulled his attention away from the semi-truck of a man to the by far shorter duck, whom he guessed was no taller than five feet, six inches. His shirt sleeves were rolled up haphazardly, he had a damp spot down his front and on one elbow, and a napkin in his breast pocket. His faded black jeans, upon closer scrutiny, looked like he had spilled something on one leg and not bothered to clean it up. It also could have been that he had never noticed, as he seemed to be having trouble collecting his thoughts and was mildly off balance. The man's eyes had a cloudy haze over them typical with substance abuse, or in his case, drunkenness.
Drake blinked, then flat out stared, half of him went ice cold and the other half . . . the other half, well, it sort of felt like a warm sickness sliding down the back of his throat. He swallowed the sensation and ran his eyes over the duck in full. He simply couldn't believe it, Reginald Bushroot disowning plants for the rest of time would been less surprising than this.
The disheveled duck finally noticed him gawking at him and frowned like he had just caught a foul stench in the air. For a moment the two just ran their eyes over the other, attempting to process that they really were at the same place, at the same time. Two sets of fire blue eyes locked. The unruly duck raised a finger towards him and opened his mouth to say something. He didn't get the chance.
Drake's shock wore off and he blurted out, "Are you drunk?"
He spoke to the man above him like a scolding parent would a rowdy teenager. The other closed his mouth and lowered his hand. His unfocused body language giving away confusion and annoyance as cloudy blue eyes glared down menacingly at Drake.
The tall one blinked like a lost kid, then saw Drake sitting on the grass. "Hey, what are you doin' down there?"
Needless to say, nobody acknowledged him. Even if they had heard him, neither mallard would have cared enough to answer him.
"You call me the idiot, complain about me doing stupid stuff, and you're wandering around drunk in public? How stupid is that! Just watch, come tomorrow I'll find out some rookie landed you in jail."
The duck managed to compose himself, which was a task in itself because his feathers were turning red with anger. He balled his fists and hovered over Drake.
"I am not drunk!"
Drake instantaneously leapt up to push back, going beak to beak. "That is one of the biggest lines I've ever heard. You smell like the inside of an ash tray and scotch!"
The duck huffed. "I'm surprised you know what any of that stuff smells like at all."
"A-ha! You admit it." Drake shouted triumphantly, jumping back so he could stick his finger in the other's face.
"I didn't admit to jack," the duck said, swatting Drake's finger away.
"I said scotch, not whiskey."
The duck smacked his head painfully and groaned. "I cannot believe you just said that."
Drake's brain caught up with his words, followed shortly by an arrested look. "Er, ooh boy, that was bad, wasn't it?"
"You think! That was -ooh, hold on." The duck put his hands on his head and blinked a couple of times trying to steady himself.
Drake flashed him a pleased smile. "Not drunk, huh?"
"Shut up."
Voice dripping with over acted mockery, Drake said, "Too plastered to think of a decent come back?"
"How 'bout you shut the hell up before I stuff you in a trash can."
"Hmm, still not up to your usual par, but I'll give you credit for trying."
About ready to blow, the duck grated his teeth together. "Dammit, Duncewing -oof!"
Drake elbowed the surly duck hard in the stomach, hissing, "watch it will ya?"
"You dumb duck," he wrapped his arms around his middle in an attempt to keep from falling over, "if I'm as drunk as you think I am -WHY THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO THAT? . . . if I throw up, it'll be on you."
Drake rolled his eyes. "Lovely, Neg -guh!" Drake doubled over, a sadistic grin grew on his attackers face, a balled fist at his side.
"Watch it will ya, Drakey?" The chaos loving mallard said mockingly, as Drake sank to his knees grumbling maliciously.
"Hey, I didn't elbow you this hard!" He said in gasps.
The horribly twisted smile grew brighter. "I know."
"Why you . . ." Drake sprang up and pinned his antagonist to the ground, who caught off guard, had the wind knocked out of him.
"Drake, you dork, get off me." He muttered, eyes partially closed.
"Not a chance."
"No, really, get off -NOW!"
A moment later Drake found himself flying into a bush as the scoundrel ran for the nearest trash can, hands over his bill. He sat up out of the bramble and watched the mess of a man lose the contents of his stomach.
Feeling a little guilty, Drake simply said, "oh, uh, sorry," just loud enough for the other to hear.
The sickly mallard came back, glared at him, then dropped to the ground flat on his stomach, mumbling a string of indecipherable words.
Having watched the two ducks argue in silence, the big man squinted his eyes and spoke up. "Hey, what kind a joke is this? You laced my drink wid somethan didn't you? I'm seeing double."
Drake looked at the man. "What are you talking about?"
The big guy looked perplexed. "What you mean, what am I talkin' about? I'm sayin' I'm seein' two of ya . . . a duck in red on the right and a duck in red on the left."
The two mallards, looked at each other, then stared absently at the large guy. Dressing alike, or coming very close to it had never really been a big deal with them. Usually, they saw what they wanted to see, choosing to blatantly ignore what -for some reason- only they noticed, but for this gargantuan to think he was seeing things . . .
When neither duck answered, he tried again. "How come there's two of you when there wasn't before?"
Drake rolled his eyes. "Because I was lying on the grass before you got here."
The big man seemed even more lost. "But you're still lying on the grass, or the you on my right is."
The duck "on his right" sat up and put his head between his knees, "you've got to be kidding me."
Drake smiled cheekily, "uh, you are aware that some people just look alike, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Wait, so there really is two of you?"
"Uh, yeah," Drake said mockingly.
The large man frowned. "So . . . you guys are brothers?"
"Oh, hell no!" The messy red duck shot his head up, his face a mixture of loathing and offense.
Drake scoffed at the other's outburst. "Thank God for small favors."
"Um, okay, I guess that works. You two don't look alike anyway, you look the same, but not really, only you do . . . uh," a small light seemed to click, "Oh! Like twins, you two look like twins."
Drake smacked his forehead and ran his hand down with a half moan, half groan, this guy was about as intelligent as paint. He glanced at the man beside him, the guy looked like he was having stitches pulled the hard way. Of course, in typical Mallard fashion, he was anything but quite.
"I'm curious, honestly now, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE LOOKING AT?"
He was seething, positively teed off and barked out the first sentence that came to mind, instantaneously regretting it when he realized what he had just admitted to. Even Drake was shocked by it and looked at him curiously. They grimaced when their portly "friend" noticeably caught on. Of all people, why him? Why not someone like Launchpad, or Megavolt, who would forget five minutes later?
The big man's eyes grew wide. "Oh, I get it. So I'm not seeing things."
"Uh, no." Drake said.
"Oh, okay -why didn't you tell me you had a twin, Steve?"
Drake swallowed hard to keep from laughing, snorting instead. "Um, yeah, Steve, why didn't you tell him?"
"Can it, Dip."
The big man looked hurt. "I thought we were friends."
"Steve" smiled grimly, which people had a bad habit of interpreting as friendly. Drake was snickering. He smiled at his evil twin, earning him a patent sneer in reply.
"Uh, we are friends, Lanton, and I would have told you about Drakey -eventually, if the topic ever came up . . . in hell," he added under his breath. A calculated look appeared on his face. No, not even then.
Lanton smiled, "oh, okay," then chuckled, "Drakey is sure a funny name."
Drake ground his teeth. "It's Drake, not Drakey!"
"Oh, but to me you'll always be Drakey, dear brother." The word "brother" came out sounding like the type of warm, I love you statement one has whispered in their ear seconds before being thrown out a ten story window.
"Nice to know you care." Drake said nicely, refraining from the urge to punch him.
Lanton started laughing. "You two are real funny. You really sound like you hate each other."
"I know, convincing isn't it?" Drake retorted dryly.
"Damn, he's dumb," mumbled the mallard menace.
"Oh, yeah." He agreed quietly. "Well, this has been loads of fun and I hate to say it, but I promised Gos I'd pick up some ice cream at the store, so I better get going."
Cold blue eyes narrowed at him, making him feel like a skunk for skipping out and future road kill all at once. Drake flashed an uneasy grin and shrugged. The blue eyes went arctic and the hint of another sneer started to form. The now uncomfortable mallard glared at the other, as if to say "what?" and turned to leave, but was stopped by Lanton's big hand coming down on his arm like an ax.
"Oh, you can't leave now."
"I can't?" Drake's feet turned to lead.
Lanton beamed at him. "Of course not, we was headed back to my place for a barbecue."
"Ah, well, that's very nice of you, but I really should be going, really." He tried pulling free of the man gently, but ended up grunting and groaning trying just to move the beefy fingers. A husky chuckle floated up from the lawn and Drake suddenly wanted to be free of this guy more than anything else in the world. Not that his struggles did any good, or that Lanton could be counted on to notice.
"Nonsense, Tiffy will want to meet you and she can't meet you if you're not there."
Drake mouthed "Tiffy?" towards his mirror image on the grass, who merely shrugged, a frightful smile on his face.
"Come on guys." Lanton said, practically picking the sadistic duck up with his free hand.
The chilling smile dropped from his face like a brick. "Hey you knob, what do you think you're doing?"
"Yeah, how 'bout going easy on the grip, big guy?" Drake interjected, doing his best to keep from being pulled alongside his twin.
The two shared a split second "aw, crud" before Lanton took off down the path, nearly adding a few inches to the length of their arms. After about five minutes of being dragged yelling down city streets, causing numerous bystanders to stare at them, each mallard decided that this city was beyond useless as no one even moved to help them, not even the cops.
Drake supposed he could understand the people's hesitance, Lanton after all, was about twice the size of the average person. One of his hands alone covered the whole of his hand and half his arm, but the cops not doing anything was just pathetic. Darkwing Duck would have at least tried to help and Negaduck, well, he would probably ignore him, or duct tape him to the hood of a bus, or something equally odd. Unfortunately, he was Darkwing Duck and Negaduck was . . . wait a minute, that's it! He opened his mouth only to be cut off by a very irate plain clothes pyromaniac.
"No, you can't have a stick of dynamite, it'd kill us before him, and no I don't have a knife, chainsaw, pickax, or even a toothpick, so don't ask."
Drake felt useless. "So, we really are stuck," he said somberly.
The two stared at each other in dawning horror and stared punching, kicking, and yelling for help with renewed vigor. They would never admit it, but at that instant they were of the same mind and determination to free themselves before being sucked into the bowls of the hole Lanton called home. Instead, all their efforts went to waste as they turned onto a residential street and became caught in the cosmic pull one house in particular emitted. Identical shouts of terror echoed down the deserted lane when they understood where it was Lanton was leading them: 0300 Rauwolfia Drive.