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Chapter Text

"How precious."

"No! Stop!"

"Do you see what I've become?!"

"I didn't mean for this to happen-"

"Now say goodbye, movie star!"

"Darkwing!"

"LP! No!"

"Don't worry, DW. We're comin'!"

"Heh, idiots."

"Mr. Starling, please don-"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Drakey, my name is not Starling. My name is NEGADUCK!"

"DW, come on! It's coming down!"

"LP, just go! Get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving without you!"

"Then you can die together."

"Wait-"

"You took everything from me. Now I'm taking everything from you!"

"DW!"

"L...P..."

"You aren't going anywhere, o fainting one."

"You can't die, Darkwing. People still need you."

What about me? I still need you!

"I love you."

"Launchpad! NOO!!"

" DRAKE!"

"LAUNCHPAD!" Drake screamed as he bolted upright in bed, but the pain in his body quickly sent him crashing back to the sheets. Whimpering in pain, he whispered, "Launchpad...Launchpad..."

"Drake!"

Forcing his eyes back open, the injured crusader was already hoping against hope to see his partner, but was met instead by the sight of Gizmoduck coming to his side, sans the gizmo suit.

"Fenton?" he mumbled in confusion. "I...what-"

"How are you feeling?" the other hero asked as he dropped to his knees beside the bed, eyes wide and wobbling.

"Like I got spit out by a volcano," he groaned, glancing down to see bandages covering his hands and arms over the distinctly charred layers of his uniform. Whatever room they were in, there wasn't much light to see by, but it was still plain that he'd been badly injured. "But...where's- where's Launchpad?"

Drake's heart sank at the sight of the way Fenton's face fell. Were those...tears in his eyes?

"I...Drake, do you remember what happened?"

Groaning again, the downed hero wracked his brain, forcing his mind back through the twisted strands of memory that had tangled his nightmares. "Launchpad and I, we...we were going to confront Ji...Negaduck," he corrected himself painfully. Even now, the thought tore at him.

"That's right," Fenton encouraged him.

"But...something went wrong. An- explosion..."

"Yeah. The building about came down on top of you."

Drake felt panic squeeze at his heart at the way Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera was looking up at him...almost with pity in his eyes. No! He didn't need pity from Gizmoduck! He needed his partner. He needed his Launchpad. His...

"F- Fenton, please," he begged in sharp bursts, reaching out a hand to the other duck's despite the pain in his fingers. "Tell me where Launchpad is. Tell me he's all right. I just need-"

"Drake-" Fenton began in a heavy voice, "Launchpad's not-"

"Mallard."

Drake Mallard had heard many different tones in Scrooge McDuck's voice, but never had he heard a tone of such seething, icy hatred as he did in that moment when the richest duck in the world interrupted Fenton's fumbled explanation. Looking to the door, he saw the old Scot standing in the entryway, practically vibrating with fury as he glared at Drake over the rims of his spectacles.

"Mr. McDuck-"

"I warned ye, did I not, lad?" the businessman interrupted yet again, his features twisted in hardened rage. "I warned ye not to go up against a madman like Starling unprepared."

"Mr. McDuck, please!" Fenton tried to intercede, moving to his feet to stand between them, even though he was beginning to tremble beneath that fixed gaze. "He's only just woken up. Maybe now's not the best time to start-"

"But yer kind never listens, do ye now?!" the old duck thundered, not even acknowledging that Fenton had spoken. He hadn't moved an inch, but Drake still felt like he'd crossed the room and struck him.

"I- what did I...please- where's Launchpad?" he tried to ask again, but the mere mention of his driver's name caused Scrooge McDuck's eyes to flare wide with wrath.

"Don't ye dare speak his name again, Drake Mallard!" the old adventurer snarled, the tip of his cane digging vengefully into the floor. "Ye're not worthy. I've never known much good to come from costumed kooks like you, but that lad trusted you, so I trusted ye, too. Maybe if ye'd proved yourself worthy of that trust, Launchpad would be standing here now."

Standing here now? He...he can't mean...

"Oh, God, please - what happened?" he pleaded once more, fighting both the agony in his body and the I.V.s holding him back in an effort to rise and go to McDuck. He would crawl to him if he had to, desperate for even a scrap of news. But even Fenton was soon moving to hold him down.

"Drake, stop! You're in no condition to be moving around right now."

"Launchp- he- where is he? I can't... please. Just tell me where my partner is!" he begged in desperation.

"Mr. McDuck!" Fenton kept trying to argue, to keep something from being said.

But Drake knew he didn't need to hear it when he saw the fire drain out of the old duck. Scrooge's shoulders slumped and he seemed to almost collapse in upon himself as his gaze dropped to the floor. Was...were those tears?

No...please no...

"I'm sorry, lad. I'm so- bitterly sorry," Scrooge said as he turned away from them. "I know you loved him," he said over his shoulder. Then he was gone, leaving Drake alone with Fenton.

No.

"No..." he whispered in terror, still struggling.

"Drake, I need you to calm down," Fenton pleaded with him.

"What happened?!" Drake demanded wildly, the panic clawing fiercely at the walls of his heart now. "Where's Launchpad? Fenton...tell me where my boyfriend is!"

"Don't- don't make me-"

"Please!"

He knew. Of course he knew. Perhaps he'd known from the moment he'd awoken in a bed alone with his partner's name on his tongue...had felt the loss of him. But now...maybe...just to delay the inevitable a little longer...

"Drake," Fenton hissed, eyes snapping tightly shut as several tears squeezed free of them, "he's gone."

"Gone?" Drake repeated, the word lancing through his breaking heart like a spear. He couldn't...he was really..."What do you mean?"

"He's...well, he's- the explosion...he...couldn't- get away."

Because Darkwing Duck couldn't save him. Because you couldn't SAVE HIM!

"No..." he whispered, then again, louder. "No. No! NO!"

He was screaming now, shoving Fenton away with strength he hadn't had only a moment ago. He was staggering up from the bed, tearing at the bandages, at the needles in his body. Then at his uniform, and even at his own feathers.

"Drake, stop!" Fenton pleaded with him. "Please stop!"

But he couldn't stop. If he stopped, it meant it was really over. That the man he loved was really-

...dead.

What was the point of this? What was the point of any of this? Why were they keeping him alive...if Launchpad wasn't here anymore?

"Launchpad! Launchpad!"

The former actor screamed in anguish as he beat his fists against bedposts, walls, any surface he could reach, raging until he had reopened several of his wounds, gradually reminding himself that he'd been blown up and was, for some ungodly reason, not dead...not lying in the dust with his partner.

And at that, all of the anger, all of the fight, drained out of Drake Mallard. Sinking slowly to his knees, he tore the mask from his face, flinging it clumsily away as tears began to pour down his cheeks.

"Launchpad...LP... Launchpad," he sobbed in heartbreak, arms wrapping tightly around himself as he crumpled to the floor. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry!"

Sorry for not protecting you...for bringing you into this in the first place...for thinking I could do this at all. You were only in danger...because of me...and now...

Drake flinched when he felt Fenton's hand on his shoulder, but he didn't pull away entirely. He couldn't say how long they remained like that, him sobbing helplessly while the other duck knelt beside him.

"I c-can't- say that I know how you feel...w-what it must be like to l-lose someone you love th-that much," he said in a voice thick with tears, squeezing Drake's shoulder a little tighter. "All I- can really say...is that- Launchpad was my friend...and he was a g-great guy. We're all gonna m-miss him, b-but...to you...he was more. I just...want you to kn-know...you don't- h-have to go through this alone."

Drake didn't say anything, couldn't bring himself to, but he let himself lean into Fenton when the other duck pulled him into a hug. And for all he knew, it could've been five minutes or five hours that they stayed like that, just crying together.

"Does...does Gos know?" he heard himself asking after a time.

"She knows," Fenton answered, his voice a little steadier. "She was here when I brought you back."

"Oh, hell," he breathed in misery. What it must have done to her to see that...

"She didn't see much," Fenton reassured him. "But we did have to explain. She's- with her friends right now. They're supposed to be sleeping. I can- bring her in in the morning. Hey, let me help you back to bed."

"Sure," Drake agreed vaguely, allowing the other duck to pull him up and help him back to the bed which, he supposed he could now assume, was in the mansion. "How...how long- has it been?"

"You've been down for the count for about twenty-four hours now."

Twenty-four hours. A whole day and night. Twenty-four hours he'd been useless. Twenty-four hours too late for his uncanny resilience to do him any good...to do Launchpad any good. Could...could he have saved his partner if he'd been stronger? Faster? Better? If he'd been able to get back up? If he'd just been a little more...Darkwing?

You could do this for real.

"He...believed in me," he whispered, his voice breaking.

"What?"

"Launchpad...always believed in me. He was the one who thought I could do this...and I couldn't be the hero he needed. I wasn't there for him when he needed me the most."

"Don't," the other duck said in a much sharper tone than Drake was used to hearing from him. "Don't do that to yourself. There wasn't anything you could've done. Launchpad made a choice...a choice to save you...because he wanted you to live. This isn't your fault."

If he said more, Drake didn't hear it. No matter how well Fenton meant, he didn't imagine he could ever believe those words. Negaduck had been after him, and Launchpad had literally given his own life to save Drake's. Launchpad had been more a hero than he ever would be, and already he was lost without him.

Launchpad...Launchpad...what can I do? What can I do?!

XxX

One Week Ago - St. Canard Market District

"I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the 2% milk in your soy latte. I...am Darkwing D-hey, watch it! You could put somebody's eye out with that thing!"

Lately Drake found himself wondering if the criminals got kookier just because there was a costumed crusader coming up against them. After all, wasn't a psychotic Easter Bunny with an egg launcher just a tad excessive?

"The Ratcatcher's going to need a whole new paint job after this," he lamented as he and Launchpad headed in for the night after dropping off the would-be arsonist with the police. "This egg's never coming out."

"No sweat, DW. Mr. McDee's good for it. No price is too great for the fight against crime," his partner declared. Though Drake couldn't help but smile at his boyfriend's enthusiasm, he also shot him an incredulous sideways glance.

"Are we talking about the same Scrooge McDuck? Because I don't-"

Whatever he'd meant to say was cut off when the street literally blew up in front of them. Drake's vision was consumed by smoke and fire, debris hurtling through the once grey, pre-dawn light as he was thrown from the Ratcatcher.

But rather than impacting against some painfully hard surface, he instead felt a pair of arms close around him, tight but gentle. He had only a moment to understand what was happening before he and Launchpad hit the pavement, skidding several feet. The sounds of the explosion didn't register in his brain anywhere near as sharply as the sound of his partner's pained grunt.

"Launchpad," he whispered fearfully as he looked up at the much larger duck, the cocky courage his uniform normally inspired stripped away by the look of pain on the pilot's face. "You- why did you do that? I could've handled it."

Despite the pain he was obviously in, Launchpad couldn't seem to help offering him a smile. "Sorry. Habit."

"We'll discuss your habits when we get home."

"Drat. Missed."

Scrambling up to stand protectively over his partner, Drake searched for the source of the voice. "Show yourself!" he demanded, half blinded by the smoke and choking on it. "You want Darkwing?" he coughed. "You've got Darkwing."

"How sweet. The actor thinks he's a hero. Well, I hate sweet!"

Actor? But...how could he know? Who was this person? Maybe it was just the shock of the explosion, but that voice was starting to sound eerily familiar. Where could he have heard it?

"Who are you?!" he called out into the smoke.

" Lame!" the voice snarled. "Darkwing Duck doesn't ask questions. He strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies!"

"Big talk coming from a capricious coward hiding out in the smoke!" he challenged, keeping his guard up while helping Launchpad to stand. Just what was going on here?

"Oh, I don't know. Call it an attempt to spare your fragile heart. After all, the moment you see my face, I can guarantee you're going to wish. You. HADN'T!"

"I am the terror that flaps in the night," he insisted. "Darkwing Duck fears nothing and no one!"

"We'll see about that," the voice near-growled, and at last a figure began to appear from the smoke. As the voice's owner came closer, Drake could see it was another duck. He was dressed in an outfit somewhat similar to his own, just...with a sort of inverted yellow and black color scheme. Over his shoulder, he was toting an honest-to-god bazooka.

Guess that explains the street blowing up.

"Just what is it you think you're trying to do?!" he shouted, a sinking feeling he couldn't identify starting up in his gut. Where had he heard that voice before?

"Hehe, well, the simple answer is I'm trying to kill you. But it's not going to be anything so quick as a rocket to your perfect face. No. No, your death is going to be excruciatingly slow and unimaginably painful. We're going to see just how much the poor sap who thinks he can be Darkwing Duck can take before he just...snaps," the other duck said, emphasizing his point with a snap of his own.

"Listen, pal. I don't know who you think you are, but I am Darkwing Duck," he said with much more confidence than he suddenly felt. Those eyes...he had seen them before...

" NO YOU'RE NOT!" the other duck shrieked, his maddened eyes sparking with a fury Drake couldn't comprehend. But then the uncannily familiar figure reined himself in, shaking himself off with a low chuckle before sneering at Drake and shifting his bazooka into firing position. "And hey, maybe I'm not, either, but at least I was. You? You'll never be Darkwing Duck...movie star."

And then, in a moment of horror and clarity, Drake realized where he had seen those eyes, that sneer, heard that voice before. He was not going to forget the crazed look on his hero's face as he tried to murder him anytime soon.

"Jim Starling," he whispered, horrified.

"No way," he heard Launchpad's voice just behind him, just as shocked, just as heartbroken.

" No!" Starling snarled at them, his sneer briefly flickering back into rage. "Jim Starling's dead. You killed him. Me? I am the terror that stalks the terror. I am the knife through your sad, pathetic heart. I...am Negaduck."

There was no way to quantify his horror in the moment his former hero fired on him. Had he been alone, Drake felt certain he would've just stood there and taken the shot, died on the spot.

Fortunately, he was not alone.

With a loud shout, Launchpad seized him in his arms again and threw them both out of the missile's path. As the small rocket took out a fresh stretch of road, filling the air with more fire and debris, the would-be hero forced himself to focus on his partner's arms around him, on the alley wall he had flung them both against to shield them from the explosion. He focused on the cold brick and the warmth of his boyfriend's hold, the security of it. He focused on Launchpad's breathing, on the pounding of his heart as he held him steadfastly against his chest, shielding Drake's body with his own.

"Drake, are you hurt?" his partner whispered urgently to him. Launchpad made a point of never using his name while they were out on patrol, committing himself to the identity and the mythos as only he could. The fact that he did so now spoke to his level of fear and worry.

But Drake Mallard couldn't focus on himself just then. Doing so risked bringing on a panic attack and that couldn't happen right now. Instead, he brought up a hand to touch the sleeve of Launchpad's jacket, the leather scraped through from his hard skid across the gravel. The bomber jacket was durable, no doubt, but it could only take so much. Drake ran his fingers just above the injury on his partner's right shoulder, blood beginning to seep through torn flesh and feathers.

"He hurt you," Drake said softly, his voice aching, the mere thought of his Darkwing persona far from his mind. Drop a building on him and he'd be okay. There was no physical agony he couldn't endure. But...Launchpad was hurt, and the cables of his own surety were straining with that knowledge. "He's- trying to kill me...and he hurt you."

"Don't mind about me. I can take it. Are you hurt?"

"Nope," he muttered, fingers digging into his partner's chest. "He can't- hurt me."

It was a lie and he was fairly confident Launchpad knew that, but what else could he do? Had to get back up.

"Oh, Draaaaakey!" Starling's voice sounded from somewhere far off. Drake couldn't say if that was literal distance talking or the sudden fog of his own mind. Then came the sound of another explosion. "Come out and play, Darkwing Duckling!"

"I...I've got to do something," he started to argue, pressing against Launchpad's chest, trying to wriggle free. "He's going to hurt someone."

But his partner was not to be deterred. Launchpad doubled down, holding him even tighter. "Uh-uh. No way. You are in no shape to be fighting right now."

"I'm not hurt, LP," he tried to insist, still struggling.

"I'm talkin' about your mind, Drake," Launchpad snapped. It wasn't often the burly duck was moved to real anger, but Drake supposed this qualified as just such a situation. "You go out there like this and he really is gonna kill you. That is not happening. Not on my watch."

"Terrorthatflapsinthenight," he reminded his partner in a grumble. "Gotta- get back up."

"Not if it's-"

"Peekaboo, Drakey."

The sound of Starling's unhinged voice snapped their gazes to the alley entrance, where he stood with his weapon primed, but unfired, clearly reveling in the fact that he could end them any moment he chose, but seemed to be choosing not to.

"Mr. Starling, why wou-"

"No, no, no, Darkwing Duckie. If we're going to do this, you're going to call me by my name. Every hero needs a villain, after all. Or did you plan to use the Darkwing Duck name to prance around dishing it out to two bit crooks forever?"

"But you're not a villain!" Drake protested, invoking Launchpad's words from more than a year ago. "You're-"

" Don't say 'hero'!" Starling snarled. "Especially not your hero. You ruined me. You wanted the title so bad you had to twist me into this to get it."

"I...it's not...that isn't-"

"Aw, so eloquent. Bad hero, bad actor. Is there anything you can do, duckling?"

"Stop!" Launchpad snapped at Starling, his tone drawing Drake's gaze up to him in shock. His partner was glaring at their former hero with a look that was so unLaunchpad-like, it was unsettling. "Stop it right now! Jim, I don't know what happened to you, but Darkwing did this for you...to honor what you stood for. There's no greater hero in this or any city and I'm proud to fight beside him."

"Launchpad..."

"Tsk tsk tsk. Et tu, fainting boy? And here I thought you were my biggest fan. Ah, well, let's see how inspiring you are when that drivel's bleeding out of your ears. Eat hot rockets, boys!"

The moment Launchpad was threatened, Drake didn't think. He just reacted.

"Hold on!" he shouted to his partner as he whipped out the gas gun, firing a grappling hook up to the roof of the building and pulling them up, narrowly avoiding Starling's shot. Their escape was obscured by the next explosion.

"DRAKE! YOU COWARD! COME OUT!" Negaduck's enraged scream echoed after them. "DON'T THINK THIS IS THE END OF IT! I'LL DESTROY ANYONE I HAVE TO TO GET TO YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME, DARKWING DUCKIE?! WHOEVER STANDS BETWEEN ME AND YOU, I WILL KILL THEM!"

Negaduck's words echoed in Drake's heart even as Launchpad struggled to pull him across the roof.

"Come on, DW. We've gotta get outta here. Negaduck'll have to back off if we're not around anymore."

Drake wasn't certain how true that was, but Launchpad had been right before. He was in no state to fight. Starling could knock him over with a dandelion right now. All they could really do was retreat for the moment and try to come up with some sort of plan. Although what any such plan could possibly be, he had no idea.

How? How did this happen?

XxX

The first thing Launchpad became aware of was pain. His whole body was one gigantic mass of it.

What happened?

"Ungh...Drake..." was the first word out of his mouth.

They had been...Duckburg...docks...Negaduck...fire...Drake!

"D- Darkwing!" he forced the name from his mouth, only vaguely aware that he didn't know what his situation was. He couldn't be using Drake's name.

Forcing his eyes open against the pain in his head, he found himself in some sort of storage room. No windows and just one door, the space was lit only by a few flickering bulbs. Except for his own injured ass, the room seemed to be empty.

Looking down at himself, he could see burn injuries in several places, but more than this, he felt...almost like the bones in his body had been shaken loose from each other. Whatever had happened to him, the only conclusion he could draw was that it had fucking hurt.

As if all this wasn't enough to be worrying about, he found that his hands and feet were chained.

"This is not good," he muttered slowly as he looked around the space yet again.

"Oh? What gave it away?" a painfully familiar voice asked as the door to the room opened, and when a certain ex-actor entered, Launchpad offered him as fierce a glare as he could manage in his weakened state.

"Negaduck," he half-growled up at his former idol.

"There now. See? At least you get it...and damn if that's not one of the strangest sentences I've ever uttered," he grumbled, the last almost more to himself than to Launchpad. "Why is it so hard for dear little Drakey to say my name?"

"Because he can't let you go."

"Say what? What's that supposed to mean?"

"He has to believe that the Jim Starling we idolized is in there somewhere."

"But you and I know different. Don't we," the slighter duck said with a pleased sneer.

"You hurt Drake," he said, his glare just as sharp. "For me, it's that simple. The man who was Darkwing Duck would never do the things you've done to someone who admired him. Darkwing, Jim Starling, doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, you stopped being a hero the minute you raised a hand to Drake. You are not Darkwing Duck."

It was just about the gravest insult he had, and Negaduck's eye twitched at his words, but whatever outburst might've been boiling beneath the surface was quickly contained when the villain sneered at him again.

"Maybe I'm not, but neither is your precious lover boy. And I promise you, LP, I haven't yet begun to hurt Drake Mallard."

Launchpad couldn't deny the small tremor of fear that ran down his spine at his former hero's words. Not fear for himself, but for Drake.

"Where is he?" he demanded.

"Lover boy? Hell if I know; he's probably back with McDuck licking his wounds. You don't remember what happened?"

The pilot closed his eyes to think back. He remembered the confrontation...explosions...fire...Gizmoduck and Boyd...the old building about to come down...Negaduck strangling Drake...he had to help him!

"You can't die, Darkwing. People still need you."

He'd thrown Drake clear...but then-

"Launchpad! NOO!!"

" DRAKE! "

He vaguely recalled the force of the blast throwing him against a wall, but nothing after that. Probably explained why his body felt like it had been through a blender.

"Don't strain yourself there, LP," Negaduck mocked.

"He's alive," he said with total certainty when he opened his eyes again, glaring defiantly up at their enemy. "He'll come for me."

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that one, sweet, simple Launchpad," the villain said with a condescending shake of his head. "I hope that last sight you had of your hero was a good one, because as far as he and the rest of those buffoons know, you died in that explosion. Nobody's coming for you. You're in my hands now."

Died?

The word repeated itself in his head, echoing louder with each new loop, a fresh ring of fear sounding with each thought. If Drake thought he was dead now...what must he be going through? Drake depended on him just as much as he depended on Drake. If he really believed he was gone...

"No. No way," he said, unwilling to let his thoughts stray down that path. "Drake's better than you ever were. I believe in him. He's not gonna fall for your trick. He won't give up on me. He'll find the truth. He'll never stop!" he insisted, unwilling to back down, despite Negaduck's clear advantage.

"Heh, we'll see," the ex-hero gloated with an ugly smirk, crossing his arms over his chest, and it was that movement that caught Launchpad's eye, because it revealed something dangling at his chest.

A silver ring hanging from a chain, the metal now even more tarnished than it had been when he'd first laid eyes on it twenty-four hours ago. But even through the damage, he could make out the simple heart etching on the band.

"That...that's mine," was all he could seem to make his mouth mutter through a fresh haze of confusion brought on by a new wave of pain.

"Oh? Was it? Bit of a cheapskate, your lover boy, if this was the best he could come up with for an engagement ring," Negaduck continued to mock him as he slipped the chain from around his neck.

"It's not cheap," he bit out. "It's special. But you wouldn't understand that."

"Heh, probably not. Whatcha gonna do about it? Want your little toy back?" he asked, dangling the ring before Launchpad's eyes. But much as he wanted it, he didn't make a move for it. Grappling for Drake's precious gift in his current predicament would do more harm than good.

Negaduck laughed as he settled the makeshift necklace back around his neck. "Guess not. I suppose an engagement ring's not gonna do you much good now. Y'know, I was planning to have Drakey here instead of you, but I think I like this better. I can dole out all the physical pain in the world on his pretty little head and it won't phase him, but his heart's nothing more than a fragile little glass sculpture. If I break that, then I break him. Any guesses on how I'm gonna do that?" he asked, leaning in uncomfortably close to him.

"You won't," he responded with more conviction than he actually felt, trying to keep the sinking feeling in his heart at bay. "He's too strong for that."

"You think so, sidekick?" the smaller duck pressed, walking two fingers up Launchpad's chest to tweak just above his heart. "You can't think of one...single...solitary little thing that would break Drake Mallard's heart beyond all repair?"

"N- no."

"It's you, LP," the ex-actor said in an eerily sing-song voice. "I'm going to hurt you. I can't attack your boy toy physically, but...if I hurt you...your suffering will break him."

"So how does that work with my being dead?" he pointed out.

"That's the best part, though, sidekick. You come back from the dead...only for me to kill you in front of him. The explosion really was too fast. This'll be so much more...intimate...so much more moving. He'll get to watch the light leave your eyes," Negaduck narrated as he lifted Launchpad's face up by his beak, forcing him to look up at him. "Then we'll see just how much of a hero your little movie star is."

"Stop calling me that," he snapped, only just managing to pull free of Negaduck's grip.

"What?" his captor pressed with a leer.

"Sidekick. I'm not your sidekick."

"But you are," the villain began to explain with an ugly, half-mad little laugh. "Y'see, Launchpad, you're an accomplice now. You're the object of Drake Mallard's torment, and you'll be my aid in the complete destruction of Darkwing Duck."

As Negaduck's words devolved into unhinged, full-blown villainous laughter, Launchpad McQuack couldn't deny the dread welling up in his gut. Worse than the idea of being used to destroy Darkwing Duck...was the idea that he could be used to harm Drake.

As they often said to each other, they had known the job was dangerous when they took it, and he supposed he had always known this was a possibility when he and Drake had become more than friends...more than partners. More than being the sidekick, he would become the love interest – the Morgana to Drake's Darkwing – and it would paint an even bigger target on him.

But the thought hadn't bothered him until this moment. Because he hadn't considered himself important in the equation. He never did. But now...well...he'd gotten his own determination from the same place his fiance had. He did his best to always get back up and do what was right. He was tough. He could handle pain...physical injury. What he couldn't handle...what would defeat him in the end...was the knowledge that he was being used to hurt the man he loved. He couldn't take that, he knew.

So he would have to keep faith with Drake Mallard. He had said he believed in Drake and he did. He knew Drake would find him. He just had to hold on until he did.

"So," Negaduck's voice was suddenly burrowing its way back into his fevered thoughts, drawing his attention to the fact that the maddened duck was pulling some sort of shock baton from his belt, "shall we get started?"

He didn't let himself scream when the first bolt of electricity knifed through his chest.

Drake...I know you'll come for me. Please find me in time.

Chapter Text

Scrooge McDuck didn't leave immediately after tearing into Drake Mallard. In fact, he regretted his harsh words to the young hero almost the moment he'd spoken them. Drake was in mourning for his partner and lover. He didn't need the bitter anger of Clan McDuck arrayed against him as well.

But rather than offer an immediate apology to the lad, he stepped out into the hallway and tortured himself with the sound of Drake's breakdown. While he and Fenton wept together and Scrooge stood in the dark just listening, he was approached by his housekeeper, whose face was shadowed further by her trademark Look of Disapproval.

"Was that really necessary?" Beakley asked him. "The poor boy will carry the guilt of this for years to come even without your blaming him for what happened."

"No. I know. I dinna mean to- it's just...Launchpad," he hissed, his beak clamping together for a long moment as he resisted displaying any other emotion. When he finally managed to master himself, it was with a long, defeated sigh. "He was one o' mine...that lad. It's Della all over again. At- at least with her, there was hope she might be found...and she was...but-"

The old agent's expression softened at this, a little of her own grief slipping through as she moved to rest a hand on his shoulder. "I know. He was my friend, too. And I know what it is...to lose family," she little-needed to remind him, her eyes guarded against the ravages of her own past heartaches. "But now isn't the time to be lashing out at one another. This will be difficult for all of us, Drake and Gosalyn especially. They have lost a great love and a wonderful father. Now is the time when we must support one another, as Launchpad surely would have wished."

"Aye. Ye're right. Come on. Walk with me, Bentina," he said softly, making certain the door to the room was closed before beginning to walk away.

"I don't suppose Drake has been told yet?" she asked him once they were several corridors away. "That there's been no sign of Starling since the explosion?"

"No, he hasn't. Perhaps best not to bring it up until we know for sure. Maybe then...if we can tell Drake that Launchpad died to save him and possibly even the world from Negaduck...it'll mean something."

If his housekeeper had meant to say more, she was interrupted by a brief flash of ectoplasm as Duckworth emerged from the wall to join them.

"Any news?" Scrooge asked him.

"I'm afraid there's been nothing, Sir. I've seen no sign of either of them, but I did tell you not to hope for too much. Not right away, at least. Thousands of souls make the passage daily. To find a specific two among those throngs is more of a miracle than even I am capable of. It will take time."

"Thought as much," Scrooge said with another long sigh. There was something horribly ironic in all of it. He was the richest duck in the world, and for all that, he couldn't buy even one more moment of precious life for one bright soul.

"There is, of course, the possibility that Launchpad was at peace with himself when he perished. In which case, he would be well beyond the reach of any conjurer."

"I could believe it either way with him. How've the kids been holding up?" he asked Mrs. Beakley. He hadn't seen much of anyone today, as he'd had the unhappy task of informing the McQuacks of their son's death, and the beginnings of making funeral arrangements for him.

"As well as can be hoped, I suppose. Della has been doing her best to keep them occupied, but...well...nothing lasts for long. I hear Lena's had a time of it keeping Gosalyn from sneaking off to see her father."

"Best to just let them sleep, then. It'll be light in a few hours. Then I'll be able to speak with Gyro about...identification."

"Should we have Dr. Adelie check in on Drake now or keep that until the morning as well?" she asked him.

"Probably best to leave the good doctor be for the night. If Drake needs anything, Fenton'll be able to help him."

"I'd like to get in touch with some old operatives. See if we can't figure out a little more of...Negaduck's movements prior to last week," Beakley said, shuddering a little with distaste at the name Starling had chosen for himself.

"Then do that as well. The more information we can gather, the better. I just wish we'd had more going into this."

But Negaduck was ruthless.

"If Starling did escape somehow, we'll do whatever we have to to see that he never hurts anyone again," Bentina Beakley vowed.

"I think I'll also have Donald put in a call to Paris. Because we don't know, it would probably be best to have Daisy and the girls safe at home," Scrooge mused.

"And do either of you plan to sleep at all while all of this is going on?" Duckworth asked, glancing dubiously between the pair of them.

""No,"" they answered together. Scrooge glanced at Beakley for a moment before giving a small, bitter laugh.

"There's simply- too much to get through," the housekeeper said.

"And if Negaduck is still out there, we cannae take the chance he may come for this family next," the old billionaire said with an air of finality. Starling's insane vengeance was fixed on Drake, certainly, but there was no telling how far he might take it. What fell under the heading of 'everything he loved' and what didn't. After all, with just one blow, he had already struck to the heart of their family, and though Fenton had reported that he didn't see how anybody could've survived that explosion, Scrooge was not as certain. The madman had already survived one explosion that ought to have killed him.

Scrooge was taking no chances this time. Not where the safety of his family was concerned.

XxX

Gosalyn couldn't tell at first what it was that had woken her up. The first thing she noticed was that she'd been sleeping cuddled up against Lena. She was at McDuck Manor...and when she remembered why that was, her heart broke all over again.

Launchpad was gone. Her Launchdad was dead.

While no one could see her, she let a few more tears slip from her eyes, knowing she would need to have them under control again by morning. She'd learned only too well that the only way to get by was to be tougher than whatever was hurting you. Perhaps she'd gone soft since meeting her dads, even letting herself cry this much.

Well, clearly she couldn't be making those mistakes anymore. Did she...even need to be prepared to lose both her fathers? Dad hadn't looked good when they'd brought him in.

None of them had seen her slip into the hallway at the sound of the commotion. Well, if no one was going to tell her what was happening, she was just going to find out for herself. So, tucked behind a curtain, she watched as Donald, Della, and Penumbra led the way down the hall, followed closely by Scrooge, Fenton, and Gyro, who was holding an inoperative Boyd in his arms. What they were arguing about, she couldn't quite tell, but following on the heels of the little group was-

Gosalyn couldn't stop the tiny cry that came when she saw Mrs. B carrying her dad in her arms, unconscious, his body covered with burns, scrapes, and cuts. As one, the group of adults turned to look at her.

"Ah, phooey," Donald muttered at the sight of her.

"Is...he's- is he-"

"No! No. It's fine. Everything is fine!" Della insisted as she came to kneel in front of her, blocking her view. Gosalyn fought to see past her as the pilot pulled her into her arms.

" Dad! "

"Get him out of here," Scrooge ordered sharply. As he and Donald followed after Beakley, Fenton and Penumbra came to stand beside Della, further blocking Gosalyn's view. Gyro rushed off in the other direction with Boyd.

"You weren't- supposed to see that," Fenton admitted awkwardly. "I'm sorry."

"Wh- what happened?!" she demanded, defaulting to anger to mask her terror. "What happened to my dad? What about Launchpad? Where is he?"

"Gosalyn, I...I'm so sorry," Fenton began, voice heavy as his shoulders slumped, and Gosalyn knew she didn't need to hear the rest. She had already been delivered that news one time too many in her life.

Gosalyn winced, cuddling up a little tighter against Lena to drive away the memory. She didn't want to think about what was lost. She wanted what she might still have...what she did have.

Looking up from the pallet she was sharing with the older girl, she looked around the room they had all wound up in, at the groups that had formed, because no one had wanted to be alone yesterday. Even less so when the time had come to sleep.

Webby and Violet were cuddled up together on the pallet next to theirs. Donald had fallen asleep in an armchair with Huey in his lap, while Della had taken up residence on a haphazard pile of cushions taken from the couch, her back resting against the wall while Dewey and Louie slept with their heads on her lap.

When Gosalyn heard someone approaching, she quickly snapped her eyes closed, only letting one eyelid crack open to look as Fenton entered the room. Della shifted awake as he approached her, holding her boys a little tighter.

"How is he?" she asked in a whisper.

"He's awake. Just resting now. Took it about as well as you might imagine. Oh, this is just horrible," the other hero muttered glumly as he glanced over his shoulder at Gosalyn and Lena. "Poor patito. Everything she's been through...and now this. Maybe if I'd gotten there sooner-"

Della interrupted him, but Gosalyn didn't really hear what she said. Her brain was on fire hearing that Dad was awake. She had to go see him! She had to-

But they'd try to stop her. How could she...

That was when she noticed Dewey's eye flick open, catching her own squint. Opening her eyes a little further, she caught his slow nod, which she returned. Then he yawned, blinking his eyes properly open.

"Mom?" he mumbled, reaching up for Della's arm. "What time is it?"

With Fenton and Della's attention safely focused on Dewey, Gosalyn gently wriggled her way free of Lena's arms, being careful not to wake the teen. Then she slipped out of the room the way Fenton had come in, hurrying down the corridor as quietly as she could.

Having tried several times over the past twenty-four hours to see her dad, she knew which wing of the mansion he was in. She knew where to go, and with no one to stop her this time, it didn't take her long to get there. Even so, she found herself hesitating just outside the door.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe she should wait until they-

No! None of that had ever stopped her before. It wasn't going to stop her now. Forging ahead, she pushed the door open with a determined grunt.

She was about to call out when she actually caught sight of her dad, and the sight stopped the words in her throat.

She knew her dad wasn't the tallest of ducks, but he still looked so small sitting on the white sheets of the large bed. His hat and mask had been removed, but he was still wearing his cape, sitting wrapped up in it as he stared blankly ahead. Occasionally he would shiver, fresh tears rumpling his already dirty feathers.

"Dad?" she whispered, feeling her throat begin to tighten against tears of her own.

Drake Mallard started in shock, his eyes going wide as he looked over at her.

"Gos," he mumbled, looking lost and helpless. "Oh, Gos...sweetie...I'm so sorry."

She didn't immediately run to him like she wanted to, stricken by the change in her father. Instead she moved slowly, not running until she was only two feet from the bed.

"Dad!" she cried out as she half-crashed onto the bed, though she was careful when she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whispered over and over again as he held her, ruffling her hair with his beak. "I couldn't-"

"No, I'm sorry," she returned, looking up at him, trying to be tough, for his sake. "I know how much you loved him."

"I...I asked him to marry me, Gos," he told her. "And he...he said 'yes'. He really was going to be your Launchdad."

The young duck felt something inside of her seize up at this. What she wanted to do in that moment was just melt into a helpless, sobbing puddle in her dad's lap, but instead she held herself together.

"He already was," she said firmly, though she wasn't able to stop the sniffle that came. Shaking her head, she swiped futilely at her eyes. "S- sorry, D- Dad. I know he'd- want me to be s-strong....to get back up."

Her dad shook his head, lifting a hand to stroke the feathers on her cheek. "Your papa wouldn't have wanted you to hide what you feel. You know that. He was always honest about what he felt...every day of his life. He'd want the same thing for you and me."

That was all it took for the floodgates to open. One moment, Gosalyn was staring up at her father, the next her vision was going blurry as tears began to pour from her eyes. Then she was howling in grief as she buried her face in her dad's chest.

Drake simply folded her into his arms, wrapping them both up in his cape as they held each other and cried.

Gosalyn didn't know how long they stayed like that, just sobbing together, but she cried until she couldn't anymore, until she and her dad simply curled up on the bed and fell asleep like that, both of them exhausted from crying and empty of tears.

XxX

Penumbra had been the one to bring Launchpad home.

After Scrooge had seen Drake Mallard into Doctor Adelie's care, he had come to find her.

"I've a favor to ask of ye, lass...if you think ye're up for it. It's a...last rites sort of affair...if yer people have that sort of thing."

He had sent her back to the site of Negaduck's attack. Officer Cabrera had been on hand to oversee the recovery of remains from the explosion, ensuring that every set was rerouted to the McDuck lab. For several hours, Penumbra had assisted the workers with the removal of debris in search of victims or, possibly, survivors. But the true moment of her task came when one of the workers had uncovered a set of remains that had likely belonged to her friend. Scrooge McDuck's instructions had been quite clear.

They had recovered as much of the body as had been physically possible and wrapped the remains in a clean white cloth. Then, with the sun rising over the city, the moon warrior had carried what was left of her friend to the lab beneath the bin.

"Given the circumstances, there's only so much we can do in accordance with Halakha, but we can do this for the lad. It's called Shemira."

Once at the lab, Gyro had taken what genetic samples he could from the remains, so they could know for sure. But then the carefully wrapped body had been taken to a separate room and Penumbra left alone to guard it while the others worked. She was to serve as Launchpad's shomeret ― his guardian.

"According to the laws of his people...those of his faith...a watch must be kept over the body from death until burial. If this- really is Launchpad, we've done the best we can to recover the body as soon after death as we could manage. Until we know for sure, all we can do is watch over him."

So that's what she was doing. Keeping watch at Launchpad's side until they had their answers. She had neither slept nor eaten since taking up her post, in accordance with the laws Scrooge had explained to her. By her own reckoning, it had been roughly thirty-five hours since her watch had begun. Della had come to check on her at least twice in that time, asking if she needed a break, which she kept insisting wasn't necessary. There was a time she would've demanded to know if her best friend thought she was weak, but she had grown to understand that it was simply Della's way of showing concern. What she really needed in that moment, though she had not said as much to Della, was a way to communicate with the dead.

"I have never...done this before," she said quietly, not truly certain who she was speaking to. They didn't know if this was Launchpad, and even if it was, he couldn't hear her. "Whenever one of my comrades perished in battle against a mite, there...was not typically anything left for a funeral of any sort. On the moon, we burn our dead, so that we might...rejoin with the dust of our ancestors. I suppose you are closer to that...though...they tell me that is not what your people would want."

Why was she doing this? Her words changed nothing. They could not undo what had happened. They could not redeem this fallen hero from death. All she could do now was watch over him. So why?

"I suppose...if I could say anything to you, my friend...it would be only how sorry I am I was not there to help. I know I might have been able to do something if I had been able to return to Duckburg in time, but...I wasn't...and I am...grievously sorry for it," she said, shifting from her guard's stance to sitting on the floor with her weapon in her lap.

"Mr. McDuck said it was traditional for prayers or songs to be sung by the shomeret," she continued, glancing between her laser pistol and the covered body on the table across from her. "None of my music really means anything to you and...I have no idea what your traditions are."

The only earth music she even knew Launchpad had enjoyed was that odd little Darkwing song she often heard him and Drake singing. She wasn't sure she could remember all of the words, but...perhaps it was the best she could do...as the song had meant so much to her friend.

"Daring duck of mystery, champion of right," she started singing awkwardly. "Uh...something about shadows...Darkwing holds the night. Somewhere some villain schemes, but their number's up."

She smiled sadly as she blundered her way through the next few lyrics. Perhaps this was a more fitting song for Launchpad than she'd thought. He had, after all, died defeating a dangerous villain.

"When there's trouble, call DW. Darkwing Duck. Let's get dangerous," she sang, sniffling a little at the line the two partners seemed to be forever declaring. "Darkwing Duck. Out of smoke and he appears...ehh, disaster and surprise? Who's that humming mind behind a shadowy disguise? Nobody knows for sure. Bad guys are out of luck."

They certainly were that. Particularly the one that was likely lying on one of Dr. Gearloose's slabs right now.

You truly did well, my friend...defeating a villain as vile as that.

"Here comes Darkwing Duck. When there's trouble, call DW. Darkwing Duck. Let's. Get. Dangerous," she half-sang, half-cried. Feeling wetness at her cheeks, she reached up a hand to touch her face, not sure what to feel at the sight of the tears on her fingertips. They weren't ever going to hear him speak those words again.

"B-better w-watch out...y-you bad- boys. Darkwing Duck," she finished, the last words a struggle to wrench from her throat without outright sobbing.

You were the hero, Launchpad. You. Not any of us. Because you paid the ultimate price to save someone you loved. No one can give more than that.

It was a struggle for the Moonlander to climb back to her feet, but she managed it, finally returning to her guard's pose. She was silent as she wept, but the tears did not stop flowing. Not for some time.

XxX

One Week Ago - Scrooge's Mostly Secret Underwater Laboratory

"So when was the last time you saw a street blown up with a bazooka?"

"Are you sure ye want me to answer that question, laddie?"

"Okay, fine. I suppose not," Drake returned in a voice caught somewhere between anger and worry. Launchpad watched him pace increasingly agitated lines across the lab floor while Doc Adelie looked over the patch job Drake had done on his shoulder. Mr. McDee had brought the doctor onto his staff for the group of vigilantes he'd suddenly found in his employ. Although, really, it was mostly for Drake, which Launchpad was grateful for. The old duck actually had a good heart, despite what he wanted others to think.

"Are ye absolutely certain it was Starling?" Scrooge pressed them, to which both men offered him a raised eyebrow.

"You- don't think we would know Jim Starling?" Drake asked him.

"Of course. Foolish question," their employer deadpanned. "But at that, no trace of the man was ever found, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. And what was it he was calling himself? Naggerduck?"

"Negaduck," Launchpad supplied, wincing just a little as Doc Adelie continued to clean grit out of his wound. "I don't- think there's any of Jim Starling left in him. He's...totally fixated on Drake. I'm no doctor, but...it looks to me like he's gone completely out of his mind."

"Well, I am a doctor, and- a medical doctor, thankyouverymuch, put your hand down this instant, Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera," the diminutive penguin chided McDuck Enterprises' youngest scientist, though there was still a note of warmth in her voice. "And I'm inclined to agree with Launchpad. I may not be a psychiatrist...yet, but from what I've read of the case file, it seems Jim Starling suffered some sort of psychotic break. The man had conflated himself with the character he played and when a connection that tenuous snaps under traumatic circumstances, the results are...well...you've seen the results," she finished before beginning to apply a fresh antiseptic to the scrape, her expression tight.

"And you're the focal point of that break," Scrooge said quietly, speculatively, as he looked at Drake. Launchpad's heart sank just a little when he saw the way Drake's shoulders slumped at that.

"I know," the former actor said with a despondent look. "He promised to destroy me. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way." Having said this, Drake looked to him with an expression that made Launchpad's heart ache.

"Classic vengeance story. Fortune knows I've seen enough of those in my time," Scrooge said, his own expression tired, but somehow...amused?

"Mr. McDee? Drake and I were wondering if it would be all right for Gosalyn to stay at the manor for a few days," Launchpad was the one to finally ask. "Just...while we try and get this figured out."

"Surely, surely, lad," the billionaire said with a dismissive wave, as if it were a foregone conclusion. "I'd've encouraged it regardless. Can't have the lass mixed up in all this, spitfire though she may be."

"That's what scares me," Drake said. "It was difficult enough to dodge her questions this morning before school. She'd go give Starling a piece of her mind if any of us would let her."

Scrooge sighed through a smile. "A piece of her mind and more than one piece of her fist. And curse me kilts if I haven't known more than one lass of her ilk in my time. Do you think Starling knows about her?"

"We don't know," Drake admitted. "We can't really rule it out. All we can say with any certainty right now is that he knows who Launchpad and I are, and that information could lead him to any number of things."

"But we'll get him," Launchpad said with supreme confidence as Doc Adelie finished up with the bandage she'd been applying, allowing him to hop up from her exam table. "No matter what he tries, Negaduck won't defeat Darkwing Duck. We'll bring him to justice in the end."

But Drake's expression as he approached him was less certain. Reaching out to take his hands in his, Drake stared down at their clasped hands for a long moment before looking back up at him. "So I suppose it would be too much to ask for you not to come with me on patrol for a little while?"

Launchpad's grip tightened as he stared hard into his partner's eyes. "That's definitely not happening. Why would you even ask that?"

Drake reached up a hand to touch his cheek. "It- it's different when we face crooks and crime bosses together. Of course we know it's dangerous; that's the whole point, but...this isn't like that. Starling wants me to suffer. Me personally. To get to me...he'll go after you...and I can't stand the thought of you being in danger because of me. I couldn't-"

Launchpad interrupted Drake by pulling him into a tight embrace, cradling him fiercely against his chest. "Come on, Drake," he said softly against the top of his head. "I'm just as tough as you are. Have I ever given you reason to think I can't handle anything evil throws at me?"

He felt Drake's beak shift into a smile against his chest. "Well, no-"

"Then now's probably not the best time to start doubting me. You're gonna need me on this one. We can't let fear or Negaduck or anything else drive us apart. So don't go asking me to hide in a closet when you know you're gonna need me out there," he told his partner as he looked down at him, relieved to see his expression shift into a warmer smile.

"Sometimes I think you missed your calling as a motivational speaker, LP. You could inspire whole armies."

"I don't need to inspire whole armies. Just you."

Launchpad was leaning in to kiss his lover when they were interrupted by a very loud ' ahem ' from Gyro, drawing their attention over to Scrooge and the two scientists. Scrooge's look was knowing, if a little exasperated, and Fenton was teary-eyed as he watched them, but Gyro just looked annoyed.

"Allow me to break up the party before this turns into another Darkwing lovefest in the middle of my lab. What we are probably going to do best moving forward is not to wait for this Negaduck to strike next. We'll need to be on the hunt for him, both in St. Canard and here. If nothing else, we know this would-be super villain got his start in Duckburg on the McDuck Studios lot."

"Oh, I can step up my Gizmoduck patrols until Penumbra gets back from Duckbai," Fenton offered, clearly enthused. "And Gandra- well, she's still busy with the Beaks trial, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind starting up a search grid in the cloud."

"It's a start," Gyro conceded.

"They certainly have a point, lads," Scrooge started as the two doctors began to discuss new patrol patterns. "Ye cannae allow yer next encounter to be on Starling's terms. The man may have lost his marbles, but ye cannae go up against an adversary who's out for yer blood unprepared. Desperate men will do desperate things. Ye've got to be ready for anything he might try."

"Don't you worry, Mr. McDee. We'll be ready," Launchpad said as he looked down at his partner again, sharing a confident smile with the duck he hoped to spend his life beside. "No villain is gonna get past Darkwing Duck and Launchpad."

XxX

"Why do you have so much faith in him?"

The night had been long and, if he were honest, Launchpad didn't remember most of it. It was just pain, pain and Negaduck going on and on about how he was going to destroy Drake. The pilot had mostly stopped listening to him, patiently bearing out each shock and each cut with grit teeth as he always did.

This latest question, though...it wasn't a stab at Drake. Maybe he could somehow get his former idol to understand...

"Because...he's Drake," he tried to answer, knowing that it wasn't anywhere close to enough outside of his own mind, and Negaduck let him know that with a hard blow to his gut.

"Drake, this. Drake, that. What does that even mean?" the ex-actor demanded with a flurry of fresh blows. "Is it just that easy to shift that tiny mind of yours? Did you switch your Darkwing mania from me to him? What?"

"No. That's not it," he insisted, glaring up at Negaduck through a black eye. He knew he couldn't often make himself understood, so he usually didn't try. But Drake...those feelings were something worth making understood. "Darkwing Duck...what we fight for...that was an identity we built together. Darkwing Duck spoke to both of us when we were kids and we wanted to help others who needed it hear that message. It's something we made together, but Darkwing Duck is not the reason I believe in Drake."

"Oh, no. Not another speech. I don't think I can take it!" Negaduck snarled, pulling the shock baton from his belt once again and digging it into Launchpad's midsection.

Worn down, he couldn't wholly keep himself from crying out as the electric current passed through him, but he had gotten started now and he wasn't going to stop.

"I believe in Drake because he's good and brave and kind. I believe in him because he stood up to become the hero neither of us had in real life."

"Still talking?" the former hero growled, digging the baton back into his gut, and though Launchpad screamed with the pain, he didn't give up on his words.

"I believe in him because he stayed when nobody else did...because he hears me...he sees me. I know I sound like an idiot most of the time, but- not to him. It's not hard with him like it is with everybody else. He understands me."

"I didn't ask for a damn monologue, you moron!" his captor shouted, digging the baton mercilessly into his side. When the maddened duck finally let up, Launchpad was left lying on the floor, gasping for breath. His next words were a struggle, but he was going to get them out if it killed him...and at this rate, it really might.

"But...but you did...ask," he coughed out. "So I'm telling."

"Hrrgh! You're exactly the same! Both of you! Don't know when to just lie down and die!"

This time Negaduck kept at the baton until Launchpad had about passed out. He was only distantly aware of it when the pain finally stopped, leaving him staring up at the villain in a daze. Negaduck sneered as he slapped the deactivated baton against his open palm.

"That's better. Just needed a little positive reinforcement. Eh, sidekick?"

But Launchpad absolutely was not going to leave it there. Lifting his head up as much as he was able, he locked eyes with his former idol.

"I believe in him...because he believes in me. And you really are gonna have to kill me first...cuz I'd rather die than break that faith."

Negaduck didn't respond in words this time. He just screamed in rage before pummeling Launchpad with the stun baton, sending current after current through his already ravaged body. His awareness gradually stripped away by pain, his focus narrowed to a point directly above him ― the tiny silver ring dangling from the chain at the insane duck's throat...swinging wildly with his movements...

Drake...

X

It had been nearly a week of trying to smoke Negaduck out. Freed of the constraints of having to maintain their average family life by Gosalyn only slightly unwillingly being kept safe at McDuck Manor, Drake and Launchpad had been able to go at the search hard, stopping only for Launchpad's strictly enforced daily naps at the hideout. But the brutal pace was starting to wear on both of them.

Maybe that was why neither of them thought to alert Gizmoduck when they found themselves following up on a police report the Ratcatcher's scanner only just picked up about fireworks near the Duckburg docks.

"Spot anything, DW?" Launchpad asked his partner as they pulled up alongside the first row of warehouses that marked out the docks.

"Not a thing," Drake grumbled as he hopped down from the bike, plainly exhausted. "It was definitely the docks, yeah? I mean, I know it was just at the edge of the scanner's range, but...I think I heard right."

"Pretty sure you did. 's'what I heard, too. We might need to take a night off, though," Launchpad pointed out. "Running ourselves ragged's not gonna help anything. Won't notice anything if we're too tired to see straight. Might also give me a chance to look at the Ratcatcher's scanner, make sure it's up to par," he said, more to himself as he started to open up one of the motorcycle's panels.

"Might not be a bad- Wait! Launchpad, don't!" Drake shouted as the panel came away in his hand.

Launchpad quickly jerked his hands back, the panel clattering to the pavement. "What? What's wrong?" he asked in a ruffled flurry. Half-expecting something to be wrong with the scanner, his gaze flicked into the compartment on instinct, but it didn't take his eyes long to fix on something that probably wasn't typically inside the compartment.

A little purple box.

"Buh?" was all that left his mouth as he continued to stare, his brain still trying to catch up with his eyes.

Drake sighed. "I guess there's no point in pretending you haven't seen it," he said as he returned to the Ratcatcher, reaching in to grab the tiny thing.

"I...I mean, I will if you want me to...pretend- I didn't- see anything," he struggled to get the words out. Was that...was Drake really...?

His partner shook his head, flushing beneath his mask, though he looked more dejected than embarrassed. "Damn it. I would screw this up."

"DW-"

"I've had this for almost three months now; I just...I couldn't figure out how to ask you. The timing was never quite right...and then this whole thing with Starling blew up...literally. I mean...how do I tell you what you've meant to me...that I'm only the man I am today because of you...that I just want to squeeze you tight and never let go! Oh," the vigilante winced, clutching the little box tightly in both hands as he fell to both knees beside the bike. "I knew I couldn't do this."

"Hey, hey, hey," Launchpad interrupted him before he could disparage himself further, climbing down from the Ratcatcher and moving to his knees in front of Drake. As he took his partner's face between his hands, he smiled at him. "None a' that. You don't have to overthink this, just...just ask me."

Drake's eyes grew a little watery beneath his mask, his own defeated expression shifting into an answering smile. Then he nodded and cleared his throat. "Right. You're right. LP...Launchpad...what I'm trying to say is I love you...and I want to be with you always. Will you be the Morgana to my Darkwing? Will you- marry me?" he finally asked, opening the little box as he held it out to him with trembling hands. Inside was a simple silver band with a tiny heart etching in the metal.

"Wait. Is this-"

"From that jewelry store heist we busted? Yeah," Drake admitted with a fresh blush. "The storeowner said the display was ruined anyway. So...I thought..."

"That's so nice. And of course I'm marrying you. Like you even have to ask," he returned with a grin. Drake looked like he just might burst into tears as he slipped the ring onto his finger. But then they both really started to look at it.

"Wait-"

"Not for nothing, DW, but was the box in the Ratcatcher when we got hit by Negaduck? It looks a little-"

"Oh, no!" Drake groaned in frustration. "It's silver."

"Uh...I don't get it."

"Remember how I said I've had this ring for three months?"

"Uh-huh."

"Silver starts tarnishing after awhile, and like a complete idiot, I didn't think to check for that. That's why it looks like that. Hrrgh!" he bemoaned, briefly pulling his hat down over his face. "This'll probably go down in history as one of the worst proposals ever."

"Hey, it's no thing, DW," Launchpad reassured his distraught partner as he pulled him into a fond embrace. "I mean, I already said yes, so it's not like it was a failure or anything. It's been such a crazy week, I bet we've both forgotten a lot of things."

Drake gave a self-deprecating chuckle as he briefly nuzzled their beaks together. "You're right. What do I have to be complaining about? The literal best duck in the world just agreed to be my husband. Let's go check on that tip and turn in for the night. We need a break."

Launchpad felt his face heat up as he looked at his fiance. "Actually, I-"

"How precious."

X

As he had before, so now did Negaduck break in on his thoughts uninvited, summoning Launchpad from the haze of memory and confusion with a bucket of cold water to his face. The pilot spluttered back to awareness with several coughs.

"No, no, no, sidekick. You don't get to pass out on me. I'm having far too much fun!" the mad duck crooned to him, reaching out a hand to ruffle his soaking wet hair. Launchpad glared up at him.

"Yeah, well, I'm really not," he bit out.

"We'll get there," Negaduck told him, roughly patting his cheek. "Because, at the end of the day, I suppose you two are exactly the same in another way. I can't physically hurt you, can I."

"Nope," Launchpad agreed. "Might annoy you now, but it was you who taught me how to keep getting back up...no matter what evil throws at me."

"I know," the ex-actor ground out. "But one thing the two of you didn't seem to learn is that Darkwing Duck works alone, and that's going to be your undoing. Maybe your own pain means nothing to you...but what about his pain?"

"What do you mean?" Launchpad rasped out, glaring heatedly up at his captor. Negaduck simply offered him a sneer as he took a few steps back from him.

"I think it's time for Negaduck to make a comeback...and tell Drake Mallard about how he left his own partner to die."

Launchpad's first instinct was to plead, to beg on behalf of his beloved's heart, but by now he knew that would only spur Negaduck onward. At this point, all he had was defiance. So, even though he knew he hadn't fully managed to keep the devastation from his face, he continued to glare at his former hero.

"He won't believe you."

"Oh, Launchpad, my sweet, guileless sidekick...what choice will he have when I show him this?" Negaduck taunted him, once again lifting the battered ring from his chest.

Launchpad swallowed heavily, a knot of worry and guilt beginning in his gut as his gaze shifted between the ring and Negaduck's maddened eyes. Barely managing to keep his voice steady, he said, "Y'know...I still don't think I was wrong before. You aren't a villain. You're a monster. And I've fought plenty and enough to know."

Negaduck's laugh was low and cruel as he responded. "Well, kiddo, monsters are created, not born. And LP...two can play at that game."

Launchpad remained defiant until Negaduck had left the small room, but once he was gone, he slumped in his bonds, left with nothing but the sound of their enemy's ugly laugh echoing in his ears as the encroaching feeling of guilt spread through him.

Drake...I'm so sorry. I know this won't be easy. Don't believe him. You can't believe him!

Chapter Text

The next time Drake woke up, it didn't take him nearly as long to remember where he was and...what had happened. The mere act of breathing was like nothing so much as a giant, uncaring fist squeezing at his heart.

"Launchpad..." he whispered the name on a broken breath.

The swift anguish drew a few fresh tears from him before he managed to regain control of himself, slowly sitting up in bed with Gosalyn still clinging to him in her sleep. Leaning down a little, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

Morning light was peeking in around the edges of the heavy blinds that covered the room's windows, further lighting up the medical equipment he hadn't properly been able to see last night. Really, it was almost a full hospital room set up.

He really had been that close to gone.

But...

"What is it with people and ripping I.V.s out of their arms?" he heard Dr. Adelie's put-upon voice as she entered the room.

"Dr.- Adelie?"

"Didn't occur to you I had you on a drip for a reason?" she grumbled quietly as she approached the bed. "It's dangerous and does nothing but complicate your recovery."

"I'm sorry," he apologized, absently running his fingers through Gosalyn's hair while the penguin began to take his vitals. "I wasn't really thinking clearly last night. I...I'm still not," he admitted.

The doctor slowed in her actions a moment to meet his unsteady gaze. If not wholly sympathetic, her look did become one of understanding.

"I'm sorry. I know you've had a difficult time. We all have. Bedside manner's never been my strongest suit, as you may have noticed. I tend to just keep soldiering through. That's how I deal with things."

"Suppose I can understand that," Drake returned while the doctor checked over the bandage job Fenton had done on his I.V. sites after his...episode. "I...don't think I know how to...deal- I mean."

"For that, I would suggest a shrink...which I will officially be in another few months," she conceded. "Though I really don't think you ought to wait that long," she advised as she continued with her checkup.

"I- I don't know what to do," he mumbled, biting back another sob as he held his daughter a little tighter. "I...I know I always seem like I know what I'm doing, but I really don't. I haven't since the day the studio blew up. I just- without him, I don't know which way I'm pointing."

I'm lost.

"Well, perhaps you seem like you know what you're doing, but I assure you the rest of the world's never known. If I can say nothing else of Launchpad McQuack, it's that he would want the world for his family. He wouldn't want you to fall apart. You've got to go on living. If not for him, then for her," the doctor said, nodding down at Gosalyn, who was beginning to stir in his arms.

"Mm...Dad?" she mumbled in confusion as she blinked up at him, and he had to watch her remember all over again as her face twisted in grief. She swallowed down a sob of her own before burying her face in his chest again, clinging tightly to him.

"Hey, Gos. Hey, sweetie," he greeted her, cradling her easily against him.

"Sleep well, Gosalyn?" Dr. Adelie asked with none of the usual bite such a probing question from her would've had.

Gosalyn shrugged awkwardly against him. "Guess I slept," she answered, her own voice devoid of its usual sarcasm.

"Now I know Mr. McDuck didn't give you permission to be in here until your father was awake, but...I see no particular reason to press the issue. He's awake now, and Drake Mallard remains ever the quick healer," she told them both.

"Thanks, Robyn," Drake said softly, not just for her leniency, but for her words, as well. It helped to be reminded that he couldn't just fall apart, either as Drake Mallard or Darkwing Duck.

Only...is being Darkwing Duck too dangerous? If it hurts my family...

No. Starling would've come after me either way.

"Gosalyn? D- Drake?" a strangely uncertain voice entered the room. The pair looked up to see Dewey standing in the doorway with Webby, looking just as uncertain as he sounded. Drake couldn't see what, but he was clutching something tightly in his hands.

"Yes, Dewey?" Drake asked him.

The middle triplet winced, clearly struggling with tears of his own for a moment before taking a step back. "I...maybe- maybe this isn't a good time-"

Webby shook her head, placing a hand on his shoulder. "No. Not later. Now."

"What is it?" Drake tried again, looking between the two of them.

"Well...Launchpad was having me hold onto it because he was worried about losing it. I was with him when he bought it," the young duck explained as he crossed the room, coming to lay a tiny box on the edge of the bed ― a box of purple velvet almost painfully similar to the one Drake had held out in his own trembling hands hardly more than a day ago.

"Oh," Drake gasped at the sight, unable to keep the small note of devastation from his voice as he reached out for Launchpad's last gift to him. His fingers closed around the soft velvet in a vice-like grip.

"It...I feel like it's right for you to have it...since...since Launchpad won't ever be able to give it to you himself," Dewey choked out, looking miserable for a long moment before fresh tears began to slide down his face. Webby moved up beside him to hug him as tears of her own started to slip free.

Drake tried several times to speak, but could manage nothing that wouldn't have been choked by another sob. Instead he clutched the little box against his heart, as if he could draw Launchpad's boundless strength and warmth from inside it. When he finally did manage to speak, it was with only a few small hiccups.

"This- must be what he was going to tell me about...before Starling came. I...you know, I- sort of accidentally proposed to him...that night," he said with a stilted laugh, a few new tears slipping past his guard. Gosalyn offered him a teary smile as she looked up at him, swiping briefly at the dried tear tracks on her face.

"You didn't tell me that part. How do you accidentally propose to someone?"

"By being a sleep-deprived moron," he somehow managed to deadpan. "It was...the last thing we said to each other...before...oh, Launchpad," he hissed, suddenly overcome by grief again. "Of course he had a ring, too. And I can't...even tell him yes now."

Dewey looked stricken at the fresh wave of sorrow he'd seemingly brought on. "I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't've-"

"No. I'm glad that you did," Drake rushed to reassure him, offering up a small, if pained, smile. Then he flipped the box open with his thumb, allowing them all to look down and see the ring Launchpad had chosen for him.

Like his, the ring looked to be silver, but it was much more complex than his had been. The band was composed of four separate bands, which came together to form a pair of wings.

It was beautiful.

"It's a puzzle ring," Dewey started to explain at the looks of confusion from the two girls.

"Oh," Webby said in understanding as Drake removed it from the box, the four pieces of the band falling apart in his hand. "I've read about those. They were supposed to be able to help people spot unfaithful spouses a long time ago, because the band would fall apart if you took the ring off and you might not be able to put the pieces back together before you got caught and horrifically executed. Oh," the girl gasped, only then seeming to realize what she'd let herself say. "I- I'm sorry...I didn't mean-"

Drake gave a tiny, tearful laugh at the young girl's fumbled explanation. Being very much in the same boat, he could understand how she could so easily let her words run away with her. "It's all right, Webby. I'm pretty sure that part's just a story."

"O- of course. Launchpad would never-"

"I didn't know about that part, but...Launchpad said he picked it for you because you like solving things," Dewey offered up meekly.

And he was right, Drake found himself thinking as he almost compulsively began to reconstruct the ring in his hand. He loved a good mystery, a challenging puzzle, and who knew that better than Launchpad McQuack? Launchpad knew...had...known him so well. They had fit together perfectly, like the pieces of this ring. Launchpad was perfect...and there would never be anyone else like him in all the world...not in Drake's world at least. It was a struggle not to start crying again as he put the engagement ring back together.

Could this ring...even be called that? It would never be able to serve that purpose now. Now...now it was all he had left of the man he loved. But it might just be too painful a reminder...to see the symbol of a future that would never be gracing his finger like it had any right.

"It's perfect," he finally made himself say in response to Dewey's hopeful expression. "Launchpad made the right choice...but I don't know if I can wear this."

"Dad-" Gosalyn started to protest.

"But...isn't that what he would've wanted?" Dewey insisted, looking ready to start crying again.

"I just don't think it would feel right," he struggled to explain to them as he gazed at the completed ring in his palm, seemingly whole...but so easy to break into pieces. The metaphor was a little too harsh for his fraying psyche. "I'm not saying I can't wear it. Just...maybe not as a ring."

"O-oh!" Webby started up in sudden excitement. "I should have some spare chains somewhere...if you were thinking necklace."

"You know...I think that might actually work," he conceded, offering the young duck as warm a smile as he could manage, remembering how Launchpad might've smiled for her.

"All right! I'll go see what I have!" Webby cheered, grabbing Dewey's arm and dragging him from the room.

"Wanna go with them, Gos?" he asked his daughter, nodding after her friends.

"Not completely, but I can take a hint," she said before hopping down from the bed.

"Thanks, sweetie. I just need to speak with Dr. Adelie a little more."

"Well, I'm off to supervise Webby's chaos. You are- still gonna be here when we get back, yeah?" she called over her shoulder. For the most part, she looked in control of herself, but Drake knew her too well at this point. The pain and worry she was concealing ran deep, and with everything that had happened, the last thing Drake wanted to do was worry her, but she also didn't need to hear any of this.

"Of course, sweetheart. I promise I won't go anywhere til you get back."

Mollified for the moment, Gosalyn nodded and followed after the other two young ducks. Almost the moment she was gone, the doctor began speaking.

"What's this chatter about going somewhere? Anywhere, for that matter?" she asked him as she approached the bed, a skeptical eyebrow raised as high as the vigilante had ever seen it.

"That's what I needed to speak to you about. Would you clear me to go out?"

Drake hadn't thought it was possible for Robyn Adelie's expression to go flatter, and yet he somehow watched it happen as she surveyed him.

"You know, I suddenly find myself wondering if this isn't the reason Mr. McDuck brought me on as a personal physician. You aren't actually in a hospital, so I don't actually have the power to bedrid you. The only person who can do that is McDuck himself, and he won't. Not unless it suits him," she sniffed. "I grant that you're healing faster than any other duck would in this situation, but that doesn't mean you're in any condition to go wandering about. Even so, I know better than to think that would stop you. The only thing that might stop you would be if you physically couldn't rise from this bed, and even then-" the penguin stopped short, visibly having to rein herself in from her tirade. When she finally managed to speak again, her expression was markedly cooler. "I suppose my point is that, if you're fixed on something, you'll go whether or not I say you may. So why are you even asking me?"

"Call it an olive branch," he mumbled unhelpfully. "I just...I have to know what happened."

"What happened?" she attempted to clarify.

"I have to know what happened at the docks that night. I need to know for myself...what happened to him. I don't know if I'll be able to rest again until I do," he admitted.

Robyn sighed as she looked at him. She shook her head, but the look she gave him was still one of understanding. "I suppose I can understand that," she conceded, repeating his words from earlier. "Though I would remind you to take care of yourself, whatever it is you need to do. Launchpad gave his life to save yours. Throwing that sacrifice away would be an exceedingly poor way to repay him."

"I know," Drake returned, swallowing heavily. "I just...I can't leave this alone. I need to know. I have to go back."

"I was hoping you'd say that, lad," Scrooge's voice suddenly entered the conversation. Doctor and patient looked to the door to see their employer standing there.

"Mr. McDuck-"

Scrooge held up a hand to stop him. "I owe ye an apology for last night, Drake. I was angry...and I've been known to let my emotions get the better o' me."

"All right. So...why were you hoping I'd need to go back?"

"Because there are some questions Gyro and Fenton have so far been unable to answer about what happened. I mean to start filling in the blanks, and for this I need you," the old Scot explained. "So...are ye ready to go back to the place where ye lost your partner, Drake Mallard?"

XxX

Gyro Gearloose had not slept once in the past sixty hours.

He had already been awake for twenty-four hours on a different experiment when Fenton had brought Boyd and Drake back to the manor aboard the Ratcatcher, the useless Gizmo armor shoved haphazardly into its bag. After a crash that would've done the late Launchpad McQuack proud, he had offered up a tearful explanation about Negaduck using some sort of EMP device. Leaving everything else to the family, Gyro had carried the inoperative Boyd to the lab and had not emerged since then.

He and Akita had always meant to integrate EMP shielding into 2-BO's design, but...well...then everything had happened. He was regretting not making time for those innovations now.

Boyd was lying motionless on a lab table while Gyro worked to repair his circuitry. Without the device itself, he couldn't know what Starling had done, but whatever he'd used had completely fried the little bot's inner workings. So far as he knew, Fenton had had no easier time repairing the Gizmosuit. His time was currently divided between working on Boyd and running checks on the DNA analyses he had running elsewhere in the lab.

Four bodies had thus far been recovered from the site of the dock explosion, all too badly burned for easy identification. Scrooge had intervened in law enforcement taking custody of the remains, having them rerouted to the lab instead. An ordinary crime lab could potentially take weeks to get the results they needed, but Gyro knew he could do what was necessary much faster and more efficiently than any garden variety forensic scientist. Part of him just...wished he didn't have to.

Of the four sets of remains, one was a particularly large duck that they were ninety-five percent certain was Launchpad, but DNA was the only way to know for certain now, and of course he had DNA profiles of all of them on hand.

No, it had nothing to do with cloning. Why on Earth would anyone ask that?

In truth, though, he was more concerned with the other three sets of remains. What both he and Scrooge McDuck wanted was to make absolutely certain Jim Starling was dead.

"Dr. Gearloose?" Fenton's hesitant voice broke in on the fevered calculations streaming through his mind. "Not that you asked or anything, but you are coming up on seventy-two hours without sleep," the former intern informed him as he set a fresh cup of coffee down at the work station.

"You're correct, doctor. I did not ask," he said without looking up from his work, reaching for the drink one-handed while attempting another restart on Boyd's central processing with the other. "But remind me to look into the possibility of intravenous caffeine delivery."

"I'll save you the time and effort on that one, Dr. Gearloose. I already tried it," Fenton admitted bitterly. "It doesn't work. And be aware that this is me cutting you off. I'm not bringing you anymore coffee until you've at least taken a nap."

"Then I may have to resort to pure adrenaline in the interim," he muttered, more to himself than to the other scientist. "I'm sure I still have a few shots of the stuff around here somewhere."

"Gyro, you need rest," Fenton scolded him with a little more confidence than he typically displayed. "If you keep going at this pace, you'll start to miss the obvious."

"Allow me to disagree with your assessment, Fenton," he snapped at his would-be colleague. "Has napping gotten you any closer to having the Gizmosuit operational?"

"No," Fenton conceded, crestfallen.

"Then I'll continue not to make the mistake of thinking that self care will in any way resolve our conundrum. I will not be sleeping until I have Boyd back online."

"Huey's been asking about him," Fenton told him with an air of defeat and sorrow.

For just a moment, Gyro held his breath, thinking he might've finally figured it out and they might have something different to tell the red triplet, but instead of the comforting whir of a startup, the exposed wiring merely gave a few angry sparks before dying away again.

"It seems he will have to keep asking," Gyro ground out, turning his attention back to the scanning equipment beside the work station. What was he missing? What was he not seeing here?!

"Dr. Gearloose...I'm sorry."

Upon hearing this, the scientist's fingers stilled on the keyboard.

"What?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect Boyd. I was supposed to keep an eye on him...and now this. Two of our friends are badly hurt...and one is gone. I...I've never screwed up this badly before. I failed them. I'm just...so sorry."

"That- isn't on you," Gyro interrupted him haltingly, finally looking over at him, his feathers already ruffled with tears once again. "Granted, EMP is a contingency we ought to have prepared for, but we didn't. Now we have to deal with the consequences of that choice. What happened to Launchpad was not your fault. Neither was what happened to Boyd. Now get back to work on the armor. Gizmoduck needs to be on patrol again by tonight."

It was the most sincerity Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera was going to get from him, and the former intern seemed to know this, taking it for what it was. He nodded, smiling through his tears as he started to head back to his own work, leaving Gyro to continue working on Boyd.

He had never been close with Launchpad McQuack (in fairness, he was not close with most people), but in a lot of ways, the pilot had been some sort of anchor for this odd little family. Now that he was gone, they were all beginning to feel the strain of that loss.

And then there was Boyd...

Snarling under his breath as he continued his work, Dr. Gyro Gearloose swore an oath.

Jim Starling...Negaduck...whatever you call yourself...it matters little to me. You murdered a good man...and you messed with my boy. You have fucked with the wrong scientist. Even if you're somehow not dead yet, I will have your deceased corpse in my lab, and I will dance on your remains.

XxX

Both Donald and Mrs. Beakley had argued fiercely over whether it was necessary for Gosalyn to see the place where Launchpad had been killed, but had quickly been forced to let their objections go when neither Drake nor Scrooge had opposed her desire to accompany her father. Part of Drake certainly would've preferred if she hadn't wanted to come, but he knew by now what she could and couldn't handle. Plus, he wasn't exactly going to object to keeping her close by. Back in civilian clothing, he and Gosalyn joined Scrooge and Della aboard the billionaire's helicopter to fly to the site.

The blast radius had consumed approximately three and a half warehouses within the dock proper, along with bits and pieces of several others. Not even taking into account the demolished buildings, the area looked harshly different in the light of day than it had in the night, but that was true of a lot of Drake's experiences as Darkwing Duck.

Gosalyn reached for his hand as Della landed the helicopter just outside of the police barrier. Drake had to remind himself not to grip her hand too tightly. It was a struggle not to show how much pain he was still in as they climbed down from the chopper. Dr. Adelie's painkillers were beginning to wear off and, with every move he made, Drake felt a twinge from one of the myriad burns that covered his body.

A crew of workers was still digging through the last of the rubble in search of survivors, though none had been found thus far. Casualties, if nothing else, had been minimal. Officer Cabrera was already there, waiting to let them through.

"It's almost a miracle more people weren't hurt with an explosion this big," the officer commented as the group moved through piles of rubble.

Scrooge sighed in response. "Enough were, Officer."

Enough...

"So what can ye tell us about what happened?" Scrooge asked him.

Still clutching Gosalyn's hand in his, Drake's other hand traveled to the chain now at his neck where Launchpad's ring hung. He couldn't really recognize the place where his final confrontation with Jim Starling had taken place, but it didn't take much to think back.

Has it really only been two days?

"We were...responding to a report we'd intercepted about a fireworks disturbance here. At first, we thought it might've been a bad tip, but...then Starling did show up...

X

"How precious."

Drake's gaze was drawn away from Launchpad at the sound of Jim Starling's voice. Peering into the gloom of the warehouse building he'd heard the voice from, he could just make the man out, standing casually in an open bay door up on the second story, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the frame.

"Got a best man yet? That would really make the headlines. Superhero and arch nemesis bury the hatchet for one special day."

"Starling," he called out, doing his best to keep his voice even in spite of his growing dread.

Even in the dim light from the scattering of streetlamps, he could almost swear he saw the man's eyes glint.

"We're gonna keep doing this? Really? What do I have to do to convince you that person is dead? Cuz I'm willing to get pretty drastic here."

"Mr. Starling, please-" he tried again, taking a few cautious steps forward with his hands raised.

"Wrong answer, Duncewing, but I can't say I wasn't looking forward to this," he said with a twisted sneer. Then he pulled a remote from his jacket.

"No! Stop!" Drake cried out just as he hit the detonator. The building next to Starling's shook as a deafening boom tore through the night. Then the old warehouse went up in a massive ball of smoke and fire.

The two crimefighters were close enough to the blast to be thrown back against the Ratcatcher, the heat from the fire scorching their clothing. Drake looked back in time to see Starling laughing madly as he leapt from the building, the fire already beginning to catch and spread.

"Oh...my...Darkwing," was all Drake managed to mutter as he beheld the conflagration.

"You can't reason with him, DW," Launchpad told him, glaring at the violent display. "He's not the person that we knew."

"But-"

"Hoo-hoo-ho!" Starling laughed in wicked exhilaration as he sprang up from the fall he'd just made. "That first step is a doozie. Better watch yourself, Duckie. Care to step inside my office?" he offered, stepping back into the now flame-tinged shadows of the unsteady building with a smile that was all malice. That smile was the last Drake saw of him before he disappeared into the darkness. Squaring his shoulders, the vigilante struggled back to his feet.

"DW, no," Launchpad protested, reaching up to grip his arm. "Don't go in there. It's his game now. Don't play."

"I don't have any choice, LP," he said, looking to his partner's worried expression with a sense of resignation. "I did this. Negaduck exists because of me. If I don't stop him, he'll end up hurting someone."

"Oh, Darkwing Duuuuuckling!" Starling's voice sounded from inside the building. "Time to come play hero!"

"Please," Launchpad tried again, desperate. "He's gonna have you right where he wants you. If you go in there-"

"I know," he interrupted his partner, pulling him into a rushed, harried kiss...just in case they never had another chance...if this was the last time he was going to see the man he loved. He held Launchpad's face between his hands for that single intense, fiery moment, memorizing the passion in the kiss before letting him go and slipping out of his reach."But that doesn't mean I don't have to go. Call Gizmoduck. Let him know what's happening. I'll see you on the other side, love."

Then he was turning, running into the building. He heard Launchpad shouting behind him, but he tuned the sound out, heading straight into the billowing plumes of smoke.

The dull orange glow of the fire was already growing brighter inside the gloom of the warehouse, many flammable objects beginning to catch and burn. It wouldn't take the fire all that long to spread.

"Here we go," Starling's voice came from behind him just before a hard blow was delivered to the back of his skull. "Now the real fun can begin."

Drake was rolling onto his back almost as soon as he'd hit the floor, looking up at the duck looming over him.

"Please don't make me do this," he tried again peaceably as he staggered his way back up. "I don't want to fight you."

"Heh, you actually think you can fight me, Drakey?" the ex-actor mocked with a sneer as he held up his fists. "Try me."

Drake let Starling throw the first punch, blocking his strikes with relative ease. He kept on the defensive as the two of them moved back and forth across the space, the scent of smoke already heavy in the air.

"Why are you doing this?" he pressed as they fought. "What are you trying to prove?"

"Prove? Prove nothing! I just want you to suffer," the former idol snarled as he rained down blow after blow, which Drake simply blocked. "I want you to know what it feels like to lose everything. The first thing you lose is your childhood. Do you see what I've become?!" he snapped in a moment of pure, unhinged rage. Grabbing Drake by the throat, he lifted him up and tossed him across the room.

Drake landed hard, but it still took him only a moment to shake himself off, looking back to see Starling glaring at him, eyes alight with madness as he bore down on him.

"You did this. You wanted to be Darkwing so bad, well...now you get everything that goes with it. Your very own arch nemesis. This is what the people want, isn't it? Grim and gritty? They want the dark in their Darkwing? Only too happy to oblige!" he shouted as he started to kick Drake in the chest.

"Jim," he coughed out, doing nothing to stop the beating, "I didn't mean for this to happen-"

" Shut your face, kid! " he snarled, delivering a particularly severe kick. "I'll get you to say my name, even if I have to force it from your dying beak," he hissed as he withdrew the detonator from his pocket once again. "Now say goodbye, movie star!"

Before Drake could even shout out a plea, the wave of the next explosion rocked the building. But it didn't come down around their ears. Another building?

"Are you crazy?! You'll kill us both!"

Jim Starling just laughed, eyes wild as he lifted Drake into the air once more. "Am I crazy? Am I CRAZY? Just a little redundant, wouldn't you say, Darkwing Duckie?"

"Darkwing!"

Drake looked over at the sound of Launchpad's voice, feeling fear grip his heart in a vice when he saw his partner rush into the warehouse. Beset from all sides by explosions, the building was quite thoroughly on fire by this point. On fire and unstable.

"LP! No!" Drake cried out just before Starling stopped his breath with a fresh squeeze.

"Don't worry, DW. We're comin'!" the pilot shouted, shoving the warehouse doors open with storkulean strength. And in over his head flew Gizmoduck and Boyd.

"Fear not, fellow warrior for justice! The cavalry has arrived!" Gizmoduck declared.

"Don't worry, Mr. Darkwing. We're here to help," Boyd said, beginning to spray some sort of coolant on the flames.

"Heh, idiots," Starling ground out with a chuckle. Then he slipped some sort of gun from his belt. It wasn't a normal gun, but it also wasn't quite like the gas gun, and Drake really didn't want to know what it did.

"Mr. Starling, please don-"

The ex-actor cut him off by flinging him against a wall, practically vibrating with anger as he took aim at the two heroes.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Drakey, my name is not Starling. My name is NEGADUCK!" he shrieked as he fired. The weapon unleashed some sort of energy pulse, striking both Gizmoduck and Boyd.

"No!"

Gizmoduck cried out as he went crashing to the ground, his armor malfunctioning and falling to pieces all around him. Boyd seized up briefly, making a small choked noise before shutting down and dropping like a stone. Already Launchpad was racing to help them.

"What did you do to them?!" Drake demanded, struggling back to his feet.

"Just a little harmless electromagnetic pulse. Hehe, let's see your precious gizmobuddies help you now."

"Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no!" Drake heard Fenton half-crying in despair as he fought to gather up the scattered pieces of the gizmosuit. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Launchpad lift Boyd into his arms and carry him from the burning building. At least the others would be safe,

Only...Launchpad wasn't staying outside the building.

No.

The moment Boyd and Fenton were clear, he was racing back inside, dodging falling debris and skirting around pools of flame.

Dammit, Launchpad.

"DW, come on! It's coming down!" his partner shouted to him.

"LP, just go! Get out of here!" he shouted back, desperate. But the look his fiance gave him was some sickening combination of anger and determination.

"I'm not leaving without you!"

"Then you can die together," Starling hissed in his ear just before delivering a double-handed blow to the side of his head, sending him crashing to the ground hard. Then the man was on top of him, hands closing around his throat again, really aiming to choke the life out of him this time.

"Wait-"

"You took everything from me," Starling growled in his face. "Now I'm taking everything from you!"

Already his vision was growing dark around the edges. Was the last sight he saw really going to be the hateful face of Negaduck?

"DW!"

"L...P..." he whispered, close to gone.

But then he heard the sound of a heavy blow landing, followed by a cry of outrage. The weight pinning him down vanished along with the hands at his throat. Then he was being gathered up in strong arms, cradled against his lover's broad chest as if he were something precious. Looking up through the haze of the smoke and his own near asphyxiation, he saw his partner's adoring, relieved smile.

"Launch...pad..." he coughed out, reaching up to touch that tender smile.

"Come on. We're getting out of here."

"Lead- the way."

For a moment, all he could see was that beloved smile. But then he saw Launchpad's face twist in pain...felt the current of energy pass through both of them as Negaduck attacked Launchpad from behind. He felt the impact as the larger duck crashed to his knees.

"You aren't going anywhere, o fainting one."

For an instant, he saw that terrifying look of resolve in his partner's eyes...saw his smile...his love and devotion. Launchpad McQuack would move heaven and earth for his sake...and he saw their end in those eyes.

Then Launchpad was kissing him, whispering to him.

"You can't die, Darkwing. People still need you."

What about me? I still need you!

But he didn't get the chance to ask or argue, because in almost the same breath, he was flying through the air, thrown from Launchpad's arms. Fenton was barely able to break his fall. And much too quickly, he was dragging him away from the collapsing warehouse.

"No...no!" he cried out, struggling against Fenton's hold on him, against his own injuries. "I can't- I've got to- Launchpad!"

Looking back into the inferno he'd just been delivered from, he could see Launchpad, on his knees where Negaduck had dropped him. He didn't seem to see the man approaching him from behind. His eyes were only for Drake.

"I love you," he said, his words clear as a bell to Drake's ears despite the raging fire.

"No! Let me go! Let me go!" he screamed at Fenton. "I have- to save him!"

And it was in that moment he saw what Negaduck was actually doing.

Pulling out the detonator one last time.

And his words were just as clear as Launchpad's.

"Say goodbye."

"Launchpad! NOO!!"

" DRAKE! "

Then the night was bathed in flames and Darkwing Duck knew nothing more.

X

"I think...I heard him call my name...just after Starling set the last charge off," Drake heard himself saying, only then realizing that he'd dropped to his knees before one of the last tangles of debris ― one the workers hadn't reached yet.

The place where Launchpad and Starling had last stood.

Before he was properly aware of it, Gosalyn was in his arms, hugging him tight. Holding back his tears, he held her just as tightly.

"I couldn't- do anything," he hissed in misery, his throat threatening to close up on him. "He needed me- to save him...and I couldn't even do that."

"But he saved you," Gosalyn cried into his chest.

"Aye, lad," Scrooge said as he came up behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "If nothin' else...allow him the dignity of his choice. Ye'd have done the same fer him had yer places been exchanged. Would ye wish that on him now? To stand in yer place wishin' he could've saved yer life?"

Scrooge continued speaking when Officer Cabrera addressed him, but Drake didn't hear what they said. He couldn't say what it was that drew his gaze to the opposite bank of warehouses, but he found himself looking up to the rooftops just the same. And what he saw there froze his blood and stopped his heart.

Negaduck.

No. No! It can't be! How can you be alive...while he's not?

"Dad? What's wrong?"

The man was staring right at him, his wicked smile growing wider by the moment.

Peekaboo, Drakey.

"Drake? Drake!"

They were surrounded by fire. The building was going to collapse at any moment. Launchpad!

"No," he whispered in horror, trembling.

"Drake! Look at me!" he heard Della's voice distantly. But then she was seizing his face in her hands and shaking him. "Snap out of it!"

"He shouldn't be up yet," he heard Fenton's mother advising in a cross voice. "Why you thought it a good idea to bring him out here is beyond me."

Drake blinked several times, looking over Della's shoulder, back to the place where he'd seen his enemy. But there was nothing there.

"What is it, lad?"

"I...I thought I saw...no. Never mind. Maybe I really am too tired for this," he conceded.

It was impossible. Negaduck was dead. He'd died with Launchpad.

"Maybe we should head back?" Della suggested.

"I...actually...could you fly us back to St. Canard?" Drake found himself asking. He couldn't really explain why. Maybe he just wanted a taste of something that was a little normal...to be away from the city where Launchpad had died.

"I- I mean, I'm not gonna leave you there by yourself or anything. You can't really get around on your own right now," Della pointed out with a somewhat nervous glance toward her uncle.

"No, I know. I just...I want to see home again."

Even if Launchpad wasn't there. Even if nothing was ever going to be the same again.

"Uncle Scrooge?"

"It's all right if ye want to go, lass. I can make my own way back. I still have a few things to discuss with Officer Cabrera."

Della nodded her agreement before shifting to help Gosalyn get Drake to his feet. Together they helped him back to the helicopter. The flight to the hideout wasn't all that long, but Gosalyn still fell asleep while they were in the air. Della stepped in immediately when Drake attempted to pick her up, insistent on carrying her back through the passageways that led back to the house on Avian Way, carrying the little girl all the way up to her room and laying her in her bed.

"Thank you...for all your help," Drake said, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

"No thing, Drakester," she returned, wincing at her slip of the nickname she knew he hated, but seemingly unable to help herself. Looking back down at Gosalyn, she continued, "It- really is the least I can do. I know I haven't always- done right by Launchpad. He was always there...whenever any of us needed him...and I was ungrateful for the longest time. Looking after you guys now...the way he did for my boys and my uncle...if that's all I can do for him, then I'll do it."

"And he'd appreciate it," Drake said as he entered the room, coming to stand beside the bed. "I appreciate it. I don't know what these next few weeks will be like...but at least none of us have to go this alone."

"Got that right. I'll crash on your couch for a whole month if I have to," she said with a tiny salute. "Speaking of which, do you need help getting to bed or-"

"No, I can manage. I just want to stay with Gos a while longer."

"Sure, no problem. I can get myself set up on the couch," she said before heading out. Somehow, he got the impression he might need to intervene before she caused too much chaos (she and Launchpad were more alike than she probably liked to think) but, for now, he really did just want to stay with his daughter a little longer.

I don't know what I'm going to do, he thought helplessly as he reached down to gently ruffle her hair. I swore when I signed those adoption papers you would have the absolute best I could give you...and you deserve to have two parents who love you, not half a broken one...even if that half does love you with everything he has left. I don't know...but we'll figure it out.

Drake's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door closing...and then the lock clicking into place.

"Della, what are you-"

But it wasn't Della Duck he found standing there when he turned toward the door to his daughter's room.

No.

Standing beside the now-locked door, leaning against the wall and leering at him like a man holding all the cards, was Negaduck.

"Welcome home, Drakey."

Chapter Text

In all the time Drake stood frozen, staring at Negaduck in horrified shock, the world could have easily come to an end around him for all he noticed its passage.

"Going out on a limb here," Negaduck started some time later, his smile just as ugly, "but you don't look all that happy to see me."

"How?" Drake finally made himself ask.

"Well, to quote you, movie star...I'm incredibly strong and resilient. I believe you got that from somewhere. Oh, right. Me," he said, moving slowly toward them. "I don't plan on dying, duckie. Not until I see the light leave your broken eyes."

What could he do? Della was downstairs and he and Gosalyn were alone. Defenseless. How could he protect her? Right now, all he could really do was keep Negaduck talking.

"I already died, Negaduck. Two nights ago. Sorry you missed it," he rasped out. He moved to try and stand between his enemy and Gosalyn, but Negaduck was quick to scold him.

"Ah, ah, ah," the ex-actor told him, tapping a knife strapped to his belt. "You're fine right where you are. Wouldn't want to wake the little angel with our squabbling, would we," he finished as he came to the other side of the bed, leering at Drake just over Gosalyn's head.

"Negaduck-"

"There. Now you're finally getting it. I told you I was willing to go drastic. Too bad it took your poor sidekick's life to make you understand."

"Don't say that," Drake hissed at him. "Launchpad was never my sidekick. He was my partner...my best friend..."

"Your dearest love?" Negaduck asked with a mocking sneer. "Please. I may throw up. Y'know, you'd think you'd learn. Not just from me, but from literally any superhero there's ever been. What hero hasn't had some lunatic come after the people he loves most? That's why only fools are heroes. As far as Launchpad and dear little Gos here are concerned, you signed their death warrants the moment you chose to love them."

Drake swallowed heavily at those words, knowing Launchpad would've hated the truth he was about to give voice to, but it was a truth nonetheless.

"Maybe you're right. I hadn't...loved anyone before Launchpad." Nor did he imagine he would love anyone after him. He had given his heart so completely to the pilot, it had been ruined for any other lover. There was no one like Launchpad McQuack in all the world and there never would be again.

"Not anyone? Not one single soul?" the villain pressed him with an interested smirk. "That sounds like a long and boring deep dive into the tragic backstory of Drake Mallard. Time for a yawn, ladies and gentlemen. But then, I suppose only that kind of emptiness could latch onto a childhood hero the way you did."

"That's probably true," he conceded. If he had to bare his soul to this madman, if he had to further injure his own heart to keep him talking...to keep him from hurting Gosalyn...he would do so and gladly.

"Wanna tell Dr. Negaduck about it?" his enemy asked with a simpering smile, leaning his elbows on the furthest edge of the bed, no more than a few inches from Gosalyn's arm.

"What do you want? Your basic sob story? I've got plenty. Which would you like? The deadbeat dad? The single mother? The emotionally unavailable parents? Perhaps one of them's abusive? Clinging to the show as some fucked up substitute father figure? That lonely, lonely nerd with no past and no future? The boy who couldn't let himself love because he knew that love could never be returned? I could give you any story you like and we both know it wouldn't matter," he regaled. There had to be some way he could alert Della without waking Gosalyn. If Gosalyn woke up, she would no doubt throw herself right at Negaduck...and Negaduck would not exercise restraint.

"No. It wouldn't," his enemy said slowly, obviously turning something over in his mind and relishing it as he thought. "Whichever detail is the real story, the fact is you probably had everything a brat could desire, but that never mattered. It couldn't...because the truth is there's something fundamentally wrong with you. Isn't there."

"Yes," he heard himself answer, as if in a trance. It was something he'd always thought of himself, certainly...deep down...but it was another matter entirely to hear the words from someone's mouth ― from the mouth of someone he had once relied on and looked to for guidance.

"There's something about you that's just inherently unloveable, and people know that when they look at you. They know your love will hurt them. Perhaps Launchpad knew it, too. He was just too stupid to know how bad for him you were," Negaduck narrated.

"No," Drake hissed out in argument. "He wasn't stupid. He was just too good...too wonderful...to admit that he was wasted on me."

"Because your love is poison. Everything your heart reaches out to dies," the ex-actor said with a crooked smile. Some part of Drake, some indelible piece of his childhood heart, knew he had no hope of separating Darkwing Duck and Jim Starling...and now Negaduck. And in that stripped down, laid bare child's logic...if Darkwing Duck said these terrible things about him...then they must be true.

No good.

"I'm...no good," he whispered, the words echoing from somewhere deep inside of him. Was this part of his act? He didn't think he was acting anymore. Had he ever been?

"That's right. So how long will it be before this little angel pays the price for your love?" Negaduck asked, reaching out to ruffle Gosalyn's hair in a twisted mimic of Drake's earlier gesture.

"Mm...Dad," she mumbled in her sleep, leaning into the touch. Negaduck's sneer only grew wider as he looked at Drake, who could only look on in horror.

"What do you think this room would look like painted in her blood?" the villain asked suddenly, drawing the knife from his belt. "I doubt she has enough for me to do all four walls with, but maybe her and Della Duck both. It could be a real work of art."

Drake didn't think in the moment he saw the knife move. He simply reacted, his hand flying out to seize Negaduck's wrist in an iron grip, grappling with him just above his sleeping daughter.

"You can't hold me back forever, Drakey," his enemy warned him, still somehow keeping his voice low. "One day soon I'll overtake you...and swallow you whole."

Drake couldn't even throw out a comeback, so focused was he on preventing the madman's strike. But he was right in the end. He couldn't hold Negaduck back forever. Only Gosalyn's heart didn't wind up being the ending destination of that knife.

His own arm did.

The pain was sharp and instant, a bolt of fire and agony where the blade entered the meat of his upper arm, just above his elbow. He managed to hold back his own scream, but he could do nothing about the sound of the blade entering him, and he supposed it was that which woke Gosalyn. Gaze sliding away from Negaduck, he looked to the sound of her horrified gasp, seeing a look of real fear in her eyes as a few drops of his blood dripped down onto her blanket.

Well, no point in not waking Gosalyn now.

Drake let out a half-mad cry of his own as he lunged for his enemy across the bed, carrying them both clear of Gosalyn. Shoving Negaduck to the floor, he pulled the knife from his arm and threw it with all his might against Gosalyn's door. Then he planted himself squarely between Gosalyn and Negaduck, his arms flung wide to prevent any kind of attack.

"I won't let you have Gosalyn!" he cried aloud, breathing hard and just on the verge of hysterical. Negaduck only sneered knowingly as he surveyed him.

"But you- gave me your lover?"

Drake froze at those words, a pained gasp escaping his beak. Suddenly he wasn't even present in the room. He was being dragged away from a raging fire, looking back to see Launchpad still trapped inside.

"You left him to die."

No. No. No.

"He was loyal to you until the very end and you let him die in agony...burnt to death!"

No! No! No!

He was trembling. His blood ran cold, but he could feel the heat of the fire...could see Launchpad's smile...

"I love you."

Launchpad, no!

"Poor, poor Drake Mallard." Negaduck's voice was right at his ear now. "You've fought for such a long time, but now your strength won't save you."

"Drake?" he heard Della's voice from somewhere distant, heard a fist pounding at a door. "What's going on in there?"

"Dad? Dad, get up!"

Get up? When had he- Somehow he had come to be on his knees before his enemy.

"What will you do?" Negaduck asked as he took Drake's face between his hands. "What will you do...when there's no one left to die for you?"

"Drake, this isn't funny anymore. You're really starting to scare me!"

"Go ahead, Drakey," the villain encouraged, wild, unhinged eyes gazing directly into his. "Cry for help. Even though you know they can't save you. Nobody can save you."

"I'm not messing around here, Drake. Open this door or I'm gonna kick it down!"

From among the fear and fire and panic, a single sight emerged. Drake saw it hanging from a chain around Negaduck's neck, just like the one he now wore.

His engagement ring.

The ring he had slipped onto Launchpad's finger less than forty-eight hours ago, now further tarnished by ash and fire.

The ring his fiance had had on him when he-

"Where did- you get that?" he barely managed to force the words from his dry throat, fingers grasping for the ring at his own chest. Negaduck sneered before pressing his beak right up against Drake's ear.

"I took it from your beloved's cold, dead finger."

In that moment, everything else disappeared from Drake's mind, his vision going red as the pieces of Launchpad's ring broke in his fingers. He didn't care what he had to do. He didn't care how long it took him. He didn't even care if it killed him. Whatever it took, he was going to see Negaduck dead at his feet. He hardly even noticed the ugly look of triumph in the villain's maddened eyes as he witnessed whatever transformation was happening on Drake's face.

"I'll kill you."

That catalyzing moment was shattered suddenly by the sound of Gosalyn crying out.

"DELLA!"

With an angry roar, Della Duck actually kicked the door in with her prosthetic limb, barreling into the room like the disaster duck she was.

"Negaduck?" she choked out in shock.

The villain paid her no mind. He simply sneered as he stepped back from Drake, moving toward the open window.

"See you next time... Darkwing," he hissed before mounting the sill and leaping out. A crash echoed from somewhere below as Della raced to the window.

"I'll kill you," Drake whispered as if the man still stood before him.

"He- he was- how did he even-" Della sputtered uncomprehendingly as she stuck her head out the window.

"I'll kill you."

"Dad?" Gosalyn called softly as she climbed down beside him. "Dad, are you okay?"

"I'll kill you. I'll kill you."

"Della, he's bleeding. Negaduck stabbed him."

"Oh, no," the adventurer mumbled, shutting the window before coming to kneel beside them. Removing her scarf, she pressed it to the bleeding wound in his left arm. "Here. Keep pressure on it."

"I'll kill you. I'll kill you," he choked out, voice barely audible as he clutched the now bloody scarf against his injury. "I'll kill you."

"It's not safe here. I don't know what I was thinking, bringing you back. Come on. Help me get him up, Gos. We'll call the doc. I'm taking you back to the mansion."

Drake complied only vaguely, allowing himself to be hauled to his feet and led back through the house, down to the secret passage. But all the way back to the hideout, his mind was consumed with only one thought.

I'll kill you, Starling. I don't care if it takes the last breath in my body. Negaduck...I will KILL YOU!

XxX

Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera knew he wasn't the most competent of ducks. More often than not, the good things that came his way were things he simply stumbled into. The internship, Gizmoduck, his relationship with Gandra, this little family. The point was that he screwed up a lot.

But now...

He didn't know if he'd be able to stop reliving those few minutes between receiving Launchpad's call and their arrival at the docks. Maybe if he hadn't just barreled headfirst into the situation, if he'd taken time to think. He had known Negaduck was a dangerous enemy. Perhaps if he'd been better prepared, he would've been able to help Drake, wouldn't have been a useless pile of scrap when his friends needed him...and...Launchpad wouldn't have needed to do what he'd done to save Drake's life?

He wasn't going to know either way. He had screwed up. He had failed as a hero, and now Launchpad was gone and Boyd was as good as. If it had been Penumbra or even Lena on hand to help them, they would've been fine. Neither of them would've been taken out by a stupid EMP burst. What was he without that armor? Even inoperative, it was the only thing that had saved him and Drake.

"No! Let me go! Let me go!" Drake's screams pounded at his ears as he struggled to drag the man away from the burning warehouse. They were still too close. The building was about to go! "I have- to save him!"

Launchpad was still inside. Maybe he could go back- no! There was no way. If he even tried, they would all three die. Fighting Drake's maddened bursts of adrenaline every moment, he fought to drag him back to where he had dropped the pieces of the Gizmosuit.

I can't get to him without the suit. There's nothing I can do.

Nothing but save Drake...see that Launchpad's last act wasn't for nothing...

Just...a little...farther...

But then he heard one last charge go off.

"Launchpad! NOO!!" Drake screamed as if he were being physically torn apart.

And that possibility was only an instant away for both of them. Not daring to look back, Fenton scrambled to reach for the first piece of armor he could get at ― a piece of the chest plate. Slamming the armor down in front of them as a shield, Fenton caught sight of the massive gush of flame as it burst up and outward, further shattering the darkness. He ducked behind the impromptu shield with Drake just before the flames washed over them.

They weren't completely spared the damage from the fire, but Fenton hardly noticed his own burns. He was too focused on the sound of Drake screaming, and then, at the last, the sound of Launchpad's final scream.

" DRAKE! "

Drake had suffered far worse injury than he had. He couldn't say whether it was those injuries or the shock or even his own grief that had caused him to pass out, but whatever the case, Darkwing Duck was blessedly unconscious by the time the explosion had spent its initial fury.

Fenton had been left completely on his own with no way of calling for assistance. Even the Ratcatcher's electronic equipment had been taken out by Negaduck's earlier shots, but the bike itself had still been able to run. Knowing he needed to get gone before law enforcement showed up, he had hauled his remaining friends onto the motorcycle with his gizmo gear and hurried them away from the scene.

Once again, the extent of his help had been his armor, and now he couldn't even get that to work. It seemed that their enemy's weapon had been more than simple EMP. Whatever it was that Negaduck had done, neither he nor Dr. Gearloose could figure out how to undo. Still there was no Gizmoduck patrolling the streets. With most of them incapacitated or occupied in some way, the task had fallen to Indy and Lena.

They all preferred not to involve the Sabrewing family if it could be helped. Though painfully familiar with evil and greatly confident in her power, Lena was still just a child, and her father was only just starting to become comfortable in using his own powers again. But now it truly could not be helped. So while the father and daughter pair kept the streets safe, the rest of them searched for answers. But the answers they had thus far found were not in any way comforting.

"None o' them?" Scrooge McDuck repeated in agitation as he stared them down over the tops of his spectacles.

"None," Dr. Gearloose confirmed through grit teeth as he showed their employer the results on his tablet. "I don't have results on the fourth set of remains yet, but one can tell merely from build that it couldn't be Starling. I can't even yet tell you if it really is Launchpad or not. I have identities on the first three. All dock workers, so you can send them along to the authorities, but for all we know, we haven't yet found Starling's body or-"

"Or he's still alive," Scrooge ground out, glaring at the screen in front of him. "And if that's so, we need to be widening our searches again. I will not have that madman on the loose."

"With all due respect, Sir, I really don't see how he can be alive. No one could've escaped that explosion," Fenton cut into the conversation.

"That's what we all said the last time Jim Starling was reported dead," Scrooge pointed out. "If we'd done our due diligence then...perhaps none o' this would be happening now. I'll not take even the slightest chance he's still alive and free to do harm to my family. So I dinna care if we have to scan that site for the man's atoms. I will have confirmation of his death one way or the other. So ye had best get back in touch with that dear m'ma and that lady friend o' yours. We need fresh search grids and-"

"Negaduck is alive!" Della declared as she burst through the elevator doors, followed closely by Drake, Gosalyn, and Dr. Adelie.

"What?" Fenton and Gyro demanded together.

"How do ye know that, lass?" Scrooge pressed, though there wasn't a great deal of surprise in his expression.

"Because we saw him just now. He attacked Drake," she explained as Dr. Adelie helped Drake into the lab and over to the exam table the doctor had permanently set up in the space. Della's bloodstained scarf was pressed against Drake's left arm.

"Where? What happened?" Scrooge asked as he moved to meet his niece.

"Avian Way," Drake choked out in a voice that drew all of their gazes to him. Fenton didn't quite know how to describe the look in his fellow vigilante's eyes. Drake Mallard was like a man possessed, staring at something only he could see with something that wasn't quite fear, but wasn't quite rage either. "Don't know- if he was already there...or if he snuck in while I wasn't paying attention, but he was there. He was in Gosalyn's room."

"Any other injuries?" Dr. Adelie asked tersely as she peeled back the blood stiffened fabric, revealing a small trickle of blood still flowing from an ugly knife wound in Drake's upper arm.

"No," he answered after a long moment, the tone truthful, but the pause deceptive.

"This is what I get for letting you all talk me into allowing him to go out. This man could hurt himself in a shop full of pillows," the doctor muttered in frustration as she examined the wound. It looked like it should've been painful, but Drake didn't even react as she poked and prodded. He just continued to stare straight ahead, the fingers of his uninjured hand worrying compulsively at the pieces of puzzle ring clanking discordantly around his neck.

"¿Estás bien, estrellita azul?" Fenton asked quietly as he came over to Gosalyn, dropping to one knee beside her.

Gosalyn nodded, her face largely free of distress, but there was worry in her eyes as she looked at her dad. "Hijo de puta ni siquiera me tocó."

While Fenton was fairly certain Drake was keyed in to the rougher points of Gosalyn's language whenever she slipped into Spanish, it was telling that he didn't react to this. Perhaps Gosalyn had been hoping for a reaction.

"He...he would've killed her," Drake said, not looking at any of them. "He was going to- he would have killed her!"

"Dad? I'm right here," Gosalyn gently reminded him as she moved in close to him, despite Dr. Adelie attempting to complete her exam.

Drake looked down at Gosalyn as if he hadn't seen her. Reaching down his free hand, he patted the top of her head. "I know, sweetie. I know."

"It isn't too deep," the doctor ultimately declared, going for some fresh supplies. "Shouldn't be any nerve damage. We'll get it cleaned and stitched up."

"I just- I don't get it," Fenton ground out in frustration, running a hand through his hair as he began to pace. "I saw that building go up. How could he have gotten away?"

"Well, figure out how he did it the first time, and it may lead us to the how of it this time," Scrooge pointed out.

"The man just won't die," Drake growled in a voice that, once again, drew all eyes to him. It wasn't anything like his own voice and nowhere near the sort of voice he used when he was Darkwing. Even though he was hearing and seeing it right in front of him, Fenton still didn't know how to classify what it was he was actually witnessing. Something was happening inside of Drake Mallard and he couldn't understand what.

"Dumb question, maybe, but...Drake, are you all right?" he ultimately heard himself asking.

Drake stared grimly ahead, still not reacting to what must have surely been a painful stitch job. When he spoke again, it was in a heavy voice laced with sorrow and fury. "Fenton, in the past forty-eight hours, I've watched the man I loved burn to death in my place...and watched his killer attempt to murder my daughter...and that same man was once someone I respected and looked to as a hero. What do you think the answer to that question is?" Drake turned the question back on him as he finally locked eyes with him. And as his fellow crimefighter stared directly into him, Fenton finally understood what it was he was seeing.

Obsession.

Negaduck was alive while Launchpad McQuack was not. Neither Drake Mallard nor Darkwing Duck would rest until that was not the case, and Fenton now found himself fearing what the cost of that might be in the end.

"We've searched both cities exhaustively this last week and haven't found a thing," Gyro was the one to finally speak into the silence following Drake's words. "We only found him when he wanted us to. Further efforts to locate him may well venture into the drastic."

"So go drastic," Drake snapped. "We have to find him. It doesn't matter what it takes. And if you can't find me Negaduck, I'll search every square inch of both St. Canard and Duckburg on my own if I have to. I am not going to let him hurt anyone else."

"It's not that simple, lad," Scrooge said, eyeing him warily. "Dinna ye think if it was, we'd have found that rapacious rapscallion by now? If there was a way fer me to just snap my fingers and-"

"Actually, there might be a way," a new voice joined the conversation.

All of them looked over to see what they'd been too preoccupied to notice before. Lena and Indy Sabrewing had arrived in the lab. Save for the blue glow of her eyes, the teenaged duck was "dressed down", and Indy was as innocuous-looking as ever, but it was to him that they all looked, as he was the one who had spoken.

"Indigo?" Drake pressed sharply when he didn't immediately continue.

"There might be a way to locate Jim Starling quickly, but...frankly, I don't think any of you science types are going to like it very much."

XxX

"Miss me, sidekick?"

The voice came to Launchpad through a haze of lingering pain and thirst. Blinking up at his captor in the dim light of the makeshift cell, he did his best to throw a glare at him.

"Not- not really," he coughed out.

Negaduck sighed as he walked into the room. "Tut, tut. How you wound me, o fan of mine. And after I came all this way just to give you the good news."

"What did you do?" the pilot demanded in as menacing a voice as he could manage, though there was fear slowly coiling up around his spine.

"Moi? I didn't do anything," the villain insisted in an ugly imitation of innocence, spinning in a circle before plopping down to sit just across from him. "Well, nothing but offer up a few well-chosen words in your beloved's ears. I just thought you'd like to know that Darkwing Duck has vowed bloody vengeance against his arch nemesis, Negaduck."

"You- what...what did you do to him?" was all Launchpad could manage to say, the fear taking hold as Negaduck continued to survey him.

"Oh, you should've seen it, LP. The pain in his eyes, the way his little heart just broke. You simply can't imagine," the ex-actor recounted with a hideous sort of glee. But then he focused in on Launchpad once more and that now familiar sneer worked its way onto his face. "Oh, wait. You don't have to imagine it. I made a little present for you," he said as he pulled a phone from his jacket. Unlocking the device with a clear sense of delight, he began to play a recording from it.

"Going out on a limb here, but you don't look all that happy to see me," Negaduck's voice sounded from the phone.

" How? "

"That- that's Drake's voice," he couldn't stop himself from mumbling. In just one word, he could hear how hard the past two days must've been for his partner. He could hear the shock, agony, and terror all in a single instant.

"Well, to quote you, movie star...I'm incredibly strong and resilient. I believe you got that from somewhere. Oh, right. Me. I don't plan on dying, duckie. Not until I see the light leave your broken eyes."

"I already died, Negaduck. Two nights ago. Sorry you missed it."

"Drake," he whispered. The words were meant to be biting, he didn't doubt, but there was something so hollow in them...so utterly defeated...and he was the cause of that.

"Ah, ah, ah. You're fine right where you are. Wouldn't want to wake the little angel with our squabbling, would we."

Little angel? Where...where was this happening?

"Negaduck-"

"There. Now you're finally getting it. I told you I was willing to go drastic. Too bad it took your poor sidekick's life to make you understand."

"Don't say that," Drake's voice hissed, the ache of it lancing directly through Launchpad's heart. "Launchpad was never my sidekick. He was my partner...my best friend..." Drake's voice stumbled over those last few words, and the amount of pain, of loss they contained was staggering.

"Your dearest love? Please. I may throw up. Y'know, you'd think you'd learn. Not just from me, but from literally any superhero there's ever been. What hero hasn't had some lunatic come after the people he loves most? That's why only fools are heroes. As far as Launchpad and dear little Gos here are concerned, you signed their death warrants the moment you chose to love them."

Gos here? Wake the little angel? Was...had Negaduck entered their home? Whatever the case, the villain was far from finished torturing him.

"Maybe you're right. I hadn't...loved anyone before Launchpad."

What- Drake, no! You can't believe that.

"Not anyone? Not one single soul? That sounds like a long and boring deep dive into the tragic backstory of Drake Mallard. Time for a yawn, ladies and gentlemen. But then, I suppose only that kind of emptiness could latch onto a childhood hero the way you did."

"You-" he started to snarl at Negaduck.

"Shhhh," his enemy scolded him. "We're nowhere near finished."

"That's probably true."

There was something calculated in Drake's voice now. He knew Drake well enough by now to know the tones of his voice. He had a plan, but...but there was pain underneath those words, too.

"Wanna tell Dr. Negaduck about it?"

"What do you want? Your basic sob story? I've got plenty. Which would you like?"

Launchpad winced inwardly as he listened to Drake's words. Of the many threads his partner offered, he knew which ones were the truth. He could hear the hardened nonchalance Drake was going for, the biting, bitter sarcasm, but he could also hear the truth beneath it. Some part of his lover, no matter how small or well-concealed, truly believed these words...and it was breaking Launchpad's heart to hear it.

"That lonely, lonely nerd with no past and no future? The boy who couldn't let himself love because he knew that love could never be returned? I could give you any story you like and we both know it wouldn't matter."

"No. It wouldn't. Whichever detail is the real story, the fact is you probably had everything a brat could desire, but that never mattered. It couldn't...because the truth is there's something fundamentally wrong with you. Isn't there."

"Yes," Drake answered, his voice trance-like, barely present.

"No," Launchpad whispered, near tears.

"There's something about you that's just inherently unloveable, and people know that when they look at you. They know your love will hurt them. Perhaps Launchpad knew it, too. He was just too stupid to know how bad for him you were."

"Drake, that's a lie!" he couldn't keep himself from crying out. This had already happened. There was nothing he could do to change it.

" No. He wasn't stupid. He was just too good...too wonderful...to admit that he was wasted on me."

Launchpad hadn't known it was possible for his heart to mend and to break all in a single moment. To hear how highly Drake thought of him...but then to hear just how little he could value himself, almost in the same breath...

"Because your love is poison. Everything your heart reaches out to dies."

"No...please...don't listen to him! He's lying!" he pleaded in heartbreak, not knowing what else he could do to help the man he loved.

"I'm...no good," he heard Drake whisper...heard Drake believe.

"That's right. So how long will it be before this little angel pays the price for your love?"

Then he heard Gosalyn murmur sleepily over the recording, confirming his fears.

"What do you think this room would look like painted in her blood? I doubt she has enough for me to do all four walls with, but maybe her and Della Duck both. It could be a real work of art."

Heartbroken, angered, and afraid, Launchpad glared fiercely at his former hero over the faint sounds of a scuffle.

"You can't hold me back forever, Drakey. One day soon I'll overtake you...and swallow you whole."

"Negaduck, I swear, if you've hurt them-"

"You'll what?" the mad duck fired back with a crooked smile that was entirely too gleeful. "What can you do? You can't help them. You can't even help yourself. You're useless."

Launchpad would've responded, except he heard Drake speaking again.

"I won't let you have Gosalyn!"

The naked fear, the desperation in his voice...already on the edge, the pilot felt his heart shatter just that little bit further.

Drake...

"But you- gave me your lover?"

No.

Drake didn't speak, but Launchpad heard the tiny, pained gasp that was strangled from his throat. Even though he couldn't see it, he didn't need help imagining the look of horror and guilt that must have twisted his partner's face in that moment.

Oh, god.

"You left him to die. He was loyal to you until the very end and you let him die in agony...burnt to death!"

"That's not true. Drake- I'm right here. I'm not dead."

But you would've been, an ugly voice at the back of his mind pointed out. He'd been ready to give his life for Drake's...and he would've left him like this.

"Poor, poor Drake Mallard. You've fought for such a long time, but now your strength won't save you."

Della's voice sounded somewhere in the background, but then he heard Gosalyn's voice.

"Dad? Dad, get up!"

"What will you do? What will you do...when there's no one left to die for you?"

Drake hadn't spoken throughout any of this, but Launchpad could still hear him. He could hear tiny, stilted cries that sounded nothing like Drake, but that he also somehow knew was him. Sounds of shock...denial...horror. It was Drake struggling not to lose himself...and he was failing.

"Drake, this isn't funny anymore. You're really starting to scare me!"

"Go ahead, Drakey. Cry for help. Even though you know they can't save you. Nobody can save you."

"I'm not messing around here, Drake. Open this door or I'm gonna kick it down!"

But Della's threat was not the next thing Launchpad heard.

No.

The next thing he heard was Drake, his voice small and achingly vulnerable as he whispered, "Where did- you get that?"

"I took it from your beloved's cold, dead finger."

The ring!

"Drake!"

"I'll kill you."

It wasn't loud.

The words were spoken in little more than a whisper, but in that one sentence, everything changed. Something inside of Drake had shattered, and Launchpad was terrified that even he might not be able to repair it.

"Do you hear that?" he became vaguely aware of Negaduck's voice at his ear. "That's the sound of a man with nothing left to lose. Does that sound like a hero to you, sidekick?"

Launchpad shook his head slowly, not even looking at his captor. "No...not...I'm not-"

"Not what? Not my sidekick? You are," he insisted, pulling Launchpad's face back toward him. "I'd even go so far as to say you're the villain in this case. Because if you think about it, you're the reason he's like this."

"No! I- I didn't...I never-"

"This has nothing to do with me, LP. He went off the deep end because you gave your life for his. In his mind, he isn't worthy of that sacrifice, so the only way to atone for that is to give up everything that he is to destroy me. So, in the end, it will be you who destroys Darkwing Duck. I won't have to lift a finger...though I promise you I will. That part will be much too much fun to miss out on."

Anything Launchpad could've possibly responded with in that moment was stopped in his throat.

I...I did this...to him. Drake...

Tears were streaming silently down his face before he was even aware of them. Whether Negaduck left him alone with his anguish or not, he didn't know. He only knew he was crying, his heart begging for forgiveness.

Drake...please...I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't mean for this to go so wrong.

"I didn't...you can't...don't give up. Darkwing...DW...Drake! You can't give up," he sobbed helplessly into the gloom, terrified that he already might have.

XxX

"Now, I believe ye're all well and aware o' how I feel about magical solutions," Drake heard Scrooge saying as he moved to join Indy.

"Well aware, Mr. McDuck," he returned, unable to keep back the tiny bite in his voice. "But have any of your other solutions done us any good so far?"

He didn't look back to see the old Scot's response, but it wasn't difficult to imagine his expression from the tiny, defeated 'No,' he answered with.

"Drake, I want you to understand that this may not work," Indy told him outright, indicating that Drake ought to sit down in front of him. "My abilities are still only at about the level of a grad student and...I'm not sure if the connection between you and Starling is strong enough for what I have in mind."

"What do you have in mind?" Drake asked, automatically dropping to his knees in front of the amateur sorcerer as he would have before his sensei back in his quack fu training days.

"It's a spell of connection. Simple enough I won't mess up, but...it's the connection part I'm not sure about."

"You don't think I'm connected to this man?" Drake asked with a raised eyebrow. Indy just glanced at him sideways as he flipped through his phone.

"Well, that's the complicated part, isn't it. He played Darkwing Duck and Jim Starling was your childhood idol, but in terms of actual interconnectedness, that's a connection that exists only in your mind. Have you ever truly known Jim Starling as a person?" Indy asked him, looking down to properly meet his gaze.

Drake sighed in exasperation. "About that you're probably right. But what about Negaduck? I think we could safely say I'm connected to him at this point."

"That's really the only reason I think this could work at all. We just...don't know where exactly Negaduck stands in his mind. So we're just going to have to..."

"Get dangerous?" Drake suggested when Indy didn't finish, for which he earned a hesitant look from the other man.

"Not the words I'd apply to this situation, but I suppose I'll have to concede that arena to you. So let me begin by asking, are you capable of clearing your mind right now?"

"Yes," he answered, his voice firm, but as he closed his eyes to go into meditation, he heard a disbelieving snort from Robyn.

"I don't tend to call you on your bs, Drake Mallard, but that one I'm going to have to."

"Don't need a second opinion tonight, Doc," he snapped back, not even opening his eyes.

"Normally, I'm inclined to agree with the good doctor," Scrooge put in. "But in this case, I'm forced to concede to you, Drake. This cannae be allowed to continue. Just remember...the lad would be none too pleased wi' me if I let ye get yerself killed."

Drake took a deep breath in and out, nodding once. "Noted," he told them all. "But if I could have some quiet right now, that would be much appreciated."

Thankfully, the response he received was silence. After several minutes of allowing himself to sink into a meditative state, he heard Indy's voice from somewhere above him.

"I know this isn't ideal, but I need you to focus on an image of Negaduck free of emotion."

Ideal? Honestly, he didn't even know if that was possible. Even so...even so, he had to try...for Launchpad.

He couldn't say how long he spent in that effort, but the image he arrived at was from the fight at the docks...before everything had begun to collapse. It was a memory of his enemy standing above him...when he had accepted that neither of them was likely to make it out of there alive. For that one moment, he had felt something like peace.

He couldn't say what had cued Indy into his moderate success, but the next thing he became aware of was the hummingbird's hands at his temples, warmth immediately spreading between them from the points of contact.

"Iunge," the professor intoned, his normally much higher voice dipping into a richer, more rolling tone. "Unum ad ali."

In his mind's eye, the image of Negaduck was replaced with one of himself...Darkwing Duck...reflected in a mirror...

"Iunge. Unum ad ali."

Then...suddenly his eyes go wild...twisted by the same madness he'd seen in Starling's eyes...

"You can't hold me back forever," the reflection says, beak curling in a sneer.

"Iunge. Unum ad ali."

"One day soon, I'll overtake you...and the darkness will swallow you whole."

Before his eyes, the purple bleeds away, leaving only the black, yellow, and red of his enemy.

"You know they can't save you. Nobody can save you."

"DRAKE!"

"I'll kill you."

Before he even knows what he's doing, his hands are breaking through the glass, reaching for the reflection's throat. And as they grapple, everything goes black.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"You are not Darkwing Duck."

"Drake! Drake! DRAKE!"

"DAD!"

Drake snapped out of the waking nightmare with a strangled cry, finding that he was literally strangling himself. He was lying with his head in Fenton's lap while Gosalyn and Indy had struggled to wake him. When she saw he was awake, Gosalyn threw her arms around him in a desperate hug.

"Don't ever do that again!" she shouted at him, burying her face in his chest.

"I- I'm sorry...pumpkin," he mumbled. Not really knowing what else to do, he just hugged her back. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you...you really need to not do that again. That was scary," Fenton told him.

"I'm guessing it- didn't work anyway?" he asked, glancing over Gosalyn's head at Indy. The hummingbird shook his head.

"No. It worked. But you were only connected to him for a moment. If I'd left the connection active any longer, you would've been lost."

Drake shivered as he hugged his daughter, wondering how much of that had been him and how much had been...Negaduck.

"I'll find another way. Something that doesn't involve linking you directly to him."

"Well, when you do, I insist you do it elsewhere," Gyro's voice suddenly entered the conversation. "This lab is rated for scientific experimentation. Your magical fiddle faddle is quite beyond its capacity."

Looking to the lab at large, Drake found that it looked as though an earthquake had hit it, equipment scattered everywhere, one of the emergency seals had even slammed into place over an apparently broken window. Manny and Lil Bulb were already busy trying to clean up the mess.

"I- wh- wha..."

"Told you it was scary," Fenton mumbled.

"Everybody in one piece?" Della asked. "I...I need to go check on Penny real quick."

As Della hurried off, Scrooge moved in closer, offering Drake a worried if disapproving look.

"Hope ye dinna plan to try a stunt like that again, lad."

"Well...not exactly like that, no," Drake said after a long moment of glancing between him and Indy. "But we can't quit now."

Scrooge sighed, shaking his head. "I've nae wish to say this in front o' the wee lassie, but now it just might be the only way to get ye to listen. Do ye know the old sayin' about revenge, Drake?"

"That it's a dish best served cold?" he offered up with a bitter laugh.

"No, lad. It's said that when ye embark on a journey of revenge, ye had best dig two graves."

And damned if Scrooge McDuck hadn't hit the nail on the head. Drake just held Gosalyn all the tighter, refusing to meet her gaze. After all, he would probably do better to start building that distance now. Gosalyn would be better off without him.

Wouldn't she?

Chapter Text

Penumbra wasn't immediately aware of the chaos when it began.

She knew she was beginning to feel her hours without sleep, but she was also, as Della would say, one stubborn Amazon (she still wasn't completely certain what all of the words meant in a sentence together, but Della had made it seem like a good thing). The point being that she had no intention of resting until she had discharged her duty.

But this meant that she was too exhausted to notice that something was happening until she actually heard the sounds of equipment crashing to the floor outside of the room she was set up in. The floor on which she stood seemed to rumble and shift for only a moment before falling still once more. Gripping her pistol tightly, she stuck her head out of the door in search of signs of trouble. She spotted nothing offhand, and was just starting to consider investigating further when she heard Della's voice echoing down the hallway.

"Penny!" her friend shouted when she finally appeared at the far end of the corridor.

"Della?" she called out as the other woman ran toward her. "What's going on? What has happened?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Just Drake and Indy and some crazy magic experiment," the duck insisted, stopping just short of crashing into her. "Are you all right?"

"I...of course," she answered, looking at Della oddly for a moment. "Why were they experimenting?"

"Because Indy was trying to connect Drake's mind to Negaduck's."

"But- he...isn't he...?"

Della gave a deep exhale, standing on tiptoe in order to get her hands up on Penumbra's shoulders. "Well, dear bestie, unfortunately, this is where things get complicated. Turns out Negaduck survived the explosion. He attacked us."

"He attacked you?" Penumbra demanded, gripping her pistol even tighter. "He murdered Launchpad, hurt Drake, attacked you...and he still lives?! Where does this scoundrel hide himself? I'll-"

"Whoa there, Penny. That's, ah...that's the part we still don't know. It's what they were trying to figure out. Before you go out on crusade, though, you really look like you could use a nap," Della told her. "I came back to make sure you were all right and, sweetie, gotta be honest here, you really don't look it."

Penumbra sighed as she took a step back into the room. "I will be fine, Della. I cannot be lax in this duty, especially now that we know that our enemy is not yet apprehended. I owe Launchpad this much."

"Penny, do you really think he would want you to beat yourself up for his sake?" Della asked as she followed her into the room.

"Well...no," the moon warrior conceded.

"Fifteen minutes, Pen. That's all I'm asking for," Della said, moving to the opposite side of the little room.

"But I can't-"

"There can be more than one guardian, you know," she said as she dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor, patting her lap. "Come on. I can keep watch for fifteen minutes while you recharge."

Penumbra debated this for several agonizing moments, looking between her two friends before finally nodding her acceptance.

"Fifteen minutes," she conceded as she moved to sit down with her former roommate, passing her her pistol. "No longer."

"I'll wake you up on the dot," she agreed as she took the weapon in hand, patting her lap once more. "Now park it right here."

The warrior eyed her friend oddly for a long moment before shrugging and pulling her helmet off. She didn't understand quite what it was, but she felt a kind of softness somewhere deep inside her as she laid her head down in Della's lap.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll even sing...for both of you," the duck said quietly, running a gentle hand through Penumbra's hair. Then she began to sing...that same tiny lullaby she had given voice to on the very day they'd first met.

Look to the stars, my darling baby boy

Life is strange and vast

Filled with wonder and joy

Face each new sun with eyes clear and true

Unafraid of the unknown

Because I'll face it all with you

Penumbra didn't hear the end of the song. By the time Della came to it, she was fast asleep. Smiling softly down at her friend, Della continued to stroke her hair, just humming the lullaby the second time around. Somehow she felt she could see Birdie McQuack singing the song to a little Launchpad.

As the image cemented itself in her mind, Della found her gaze moving more and more to the body on the table.

"I'm sorry," she ultimately heard herself saying, her thoughts harkening back to her years alone on the moon, speaking into a camera in an effort to communicate with her boys. The difference now was that she couldn't know if Launchpad could hear her. "I promised I was going to try to do right by you...and I'm already failing. I couldn't protect Drake and Gosalyn when they needed it...and...Drake...I don't know if any of us know how to help him now. He just...he needs you, Launchpad. I know that- can't change what happened. I just...I wish there was some way we could help him know you're still with him. That...nobody's ever really gone."

But she didn't know what to do. There was no way she'd be able to convince Drake to give up his pursuit of Negaduck. Not while he was still such a clear and present threat to all of them. But so long as he continued down this path, it was plain to all of them that he was in danger of losing himself. As it stood, there was virtually no way to win. Not unless she could come up with some way of apprehending their enemy on her own. For now, it seemed all she could do was help everyone keep going.

So if she let Penny sleep a little longer than fifteen minutes before waking her, well...who was really going to know?

XxX

"I just- I don't know. You didn't see the look on his face."

"But you're Gosalyn, Breaker of Windows. When has disapproval ever stopped you?" Dewey asked her. After Della, her dad, Indy, and Lena had dropped her off at the manor, she'd immediately gone to regroup with Violet, the triplets, and Webby. This would've been the point where she typically disobeyed any dumb orders given by the adults, but...well...the world looked a little less typical in the light of this particular morning.

"This is different," Gosalyn mumbled as she turned to look out the triplets' window, seeing Della's helicopter already far in the distance. "He's different. Before this whole thing started, we were- always together. All three of us. There was nothing we couldn't take on as a family. But then...I don't know; I guess Negaduck freaked them out." She wasn't saying she couldn't see why. Negaduck was a complete nutjob. He wasn't like Bulba or any of the dupes from F.O.W.L. they'd fought. He wasn't even like Bradford. After last night, it was easy to see that this duck had pretty much lost what mind he'd had. "I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not shook. Waking up to see your dad bleeding onto your blankets'll do that to you."

"Well...I guess Negaduck's not like anybody else in the Darkwing rogues gallery," Dewey admitted.

"Just who is this guy anyway?" Gosalyn found herself asking. She supposed she could've asked before, but...prior to the showdown at the docks...she'd been a little too angry with her dads for essentially cutting her out of what was typically a family activity for them.

"Jim Starling," Dewey began with only the slightest hint of his typical dramatic flare. "The man who was Darkwing Duck."

"Starling was the actor who originally played Darkwing in the old TV show," Webby explained, looking up from the weaving project she was working on.

"Adored by fans of the show worldwide...including one Drake Mallard...and one Launchpad McQuack," Dewey continued, the mention of Launchpad casting a pall over the assembled young ducks and preventing the middle triplet from launching into his full theatrics. "The two young ducks idolized the man who played their hero. Ultimately, Drake would follow in Starling's footsteps, becoming a stunt actor before landing his dream role of the masked mallard himself."

"And that's how he and Launchpad met?" Gosalyn asked. She did know something of this story, but the particulars involving Jim Starling had never been a topic either Drake or Launchpad was eager to discuss.

"Just so. But obviously Starling was none too pleased with the notion of being replaced, so he attempted to sabotage the production and take over as Darkwing. This led to a confrontation of two duck knights. One good. One evil," Dewey recounted. "I witnessed the climactic clash myself."

"Starling overloaded a generator onset," Louie supplied when it seemed Dewey really might just keep going. "Took out a decent-sized chunk of McDuck Studios in the explosion."

"And when they were unable to find his body among the resultant rubble, he was officially declared dead," Violet picked up the thread.

"So that's what Scrooge meant by 'the first time'," Gosalyn said quietly, almost more to herself.

"Exactly," Dewey said. "But you don't wanna try and find out because of some vague promise you made to a less than stable Drake Mallard?"

"It's...a little more complicated than that, Dew-bro," she tried to explain. "I mean- I tried to argue for sticking with him back at the bin, but...

"You said we were in this together!" Gosalyn shouted at her dad as he pulled his costume on. "Why are you shutting me out now when you need me more than ever?"

Tying his mask on, Darkwing sighed heavily. "This...isn't like anything we've ever faced before. I let Launchpad give his life for mine. I'm not going to let the same thing happen to you."

"Dad-"

"Gosalyn, please," he interrupted her, and she couldn't quite explain why, but something in his voice silenced her...the desperation...the utter hopelessness. "Negaduck...isn't like any of the other villains we've faced. There's no plan...no endgame. All he wants...is for me to suffer. He's already killed one person I love. You'll be next. He won't exercise restraint because you're a kid. He will kill you...if you give him the chance. Do not give him that chance," he ordered her as he laid his hands firmly on her shoulders. "I'm asking you to stay out of this. Will you promise me that?"

"But I can't-"

" Promise me, " he begged her, his fingers digging into her shoulders.

"All right! All right," she finally conceded. She just couldn't take that look in his eyes. "I promise."

"What do you promise?" he pressed her. "I need to hear you say it out loud, Gosalyn Mallard-McQuack."

And that was what did it — the reminder of the name she might have had...had Negaduck not stolen it from her.

"I promise not to get involved."

"Good," he said, breathing a sigh of relief. "That's my good girl."

"Well...I promised I wouldn't get involved."

"And those were...your exact words?" Webby asked her.

"Yeah. So?"

"Pretty vague promise, that," Louie pointed out. "I mean, what was it you promised not to get involved with? The actual hunt for Negaduck? Researching his background? Helping get Gizmoduck and Boyd back online? Solving the mystery of Starling's first survival? Doing anything we can to make sure your dad doesn't go off the deep end for good? Just sayin'...loooootta ways you could interpret that promise."

Nodding thoughtfully for a moment, Gosalyn grinned as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Well...you're not wrong, Louie Duck."

"I rarely am in matters of semantics," he said with a matching smirk as he examined his nails.

"All right, Gosalyn," Huey's voice joined in on the conversation for the first time, much harder than any of them were used to hearing from him. "If you're about finished with your identity crisis, did you all want in on the studio plans Uncle Scrooge just sent over?"

"Studio plans?" Louie asked as the kids piled over to have a look at the laptop the oldest triplet was working on. "Like... McDuck Studio plans?"

"Yup," Huey answered without looking up from the computer. "Obviously, after the whole F.O.W.L. debacle, Uncle Scrooge isn't keen on going outside of the family for help. So now that we've got to figure out how Negaduck survived his first explosion, he sent me the schematics for that first building to see if we can't work it out. So the question now is...what other ways are there off of that soundstage other than through the stage door?"

"Obvious answer's the back door," Gosalyn murmured as she observed the images on the screen. "That and the roof exit."

"Except that both of those are under surveillance," Violet pointed out. "The whole lot is. If Starling had left via any of those routes, he would've been observed."

"From these schematics, it looks like the only other way out of that building would be the sewer line," Webby noted, a single finger tracing the pipeline down from the soundstage.

"That's a no go, too," Huey said with a small shake of his head. "The police report on the incident said that nothing was found down there after cleanup."

"Whoa. Scrooge sent you the police report, too?" Louie asked in mild amazement.

"Nope," Huey said, still not looking at them.

"Then...how did you get it?"

"Boyd got it for me last week when he started patrolling with Gizmoduck."

"Legally?" Louie pressed, intent.

"Decidedly not."

"My own brother...illegally hacked into a law enforcement database," Louie whispered, nearly teary-eyed. "I'm so proud."

"Normally, this would be the part where I freak out in some way, but we really don't have time for that anymore," Huey ground out, fingers flying over the keys as he examined the schematic from every conceivable angle. "Negaduck hurt my best friend...and he killed a member of our family. At this point, I'm right up there with Drake. I'm not waiting around for him to make the next move. So we've gotta take the fight to Negaduck."

Huey's intensity cowed anyone who might've responded into silence, reminding them all once again of the seriousness of their situation. Gosalyn, of course, had never really forgotten, and as she watched the oldest triplet scan hurriedly through the many different facets of the plans over and over again, something occurred to her.

"Hold on," she said, hand reaching out for Huey's shoulder. "Maybe they didn't find anything...because they didn't look far enough."

"How do you mean?" Huey asked, finally glancing over at her.

"I mean they were looking for a corpse of him," she explained. "Not a living, breathing duck who could move through the sewers under his own power. I mean that when that report was filed, it was still a missing person case, not a criminal investigation. Everybody's been operating under the assumption that the police report is right, but it can't be."

"That's gotta be it!" Dewey cheered. "Way to Gos for it, Gosalyn!"

"It actually does fit," Huey muttered as he studied the schematic with fresh eyes. "And of course there's no surveillance down there, so nobody would've seen him make his escape. I'll call it in. Maybe there's something similar in one of the buildings that went up."

Gosalyn smiled inwardly as she took a step back. Perhaps this would satisfy the spirit of her promise to her father, if not the letter of it. After all, the sooner this was all over with, the better off Drake Mallard would be.

Right?

XxX

"So, if I may, what exactly is the new plan?" Drake heard Della asking as he led the way up to Gosalyn's room.

"The new plan is a more...roundabout way of tracking," Indy started to explain. "This method won't involve a direct link to either mind. It may take a few tries, but it will be safer."

Personally, I'm not overly concerned with safety at this point, Drake would've very much liked to say out loud, but refrained from it, knowing they would all likely cut him out of the hunt if they knew exactly where he was mentally.

"So that's why we're starting off in the last place we saw him?" Della continued to question.

"Safety, and ease of cast. Lena and I are still developing our rapport for dual casting."

"I'm good with the hard-hitting, battle magic type stuff that's good for patrolling," Lena took up the explanation as the two magic users had a brief look around the room. "But I'm still iffy with all this precision work. Any chance to sharpen the skills," she said, jokingly rolling up her sleeves.

"Well, then I'm happy to serve as your guinea pig," Drake said with a laugh that was only half-forced as he moved toward the window he'd watched Negaduck disappear through only last night. He looked down to the street below for a few moments before turning back to the father-daughter pair with a tired smile. "What do you need me to do?"

"We're going to need your mask," Indy explained as he moved to sit in front of Drake. Lena quickly came to sit beside her father while Della moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

"My mask?" Drake clarified in confusion as he dropped to sit in the little circle. "What's my mask going to do?"

"We've seen that direct connection is too dangerous. So what I'm thinking of trying is a spell that taps into probability points within the fabric of reality. Casting the spell on your mask would allow you to utilize that power while still being able to take a step back from it when necessary."

"Tapping into probability points?" he asked with a raised eyebrow as he untied the mask. "Not for nothing, but...what does that actually mean? What's it going to do?"

"If my thinking is correct, it will allow us to tie into the unseen threads of connection that bind reality together. It will be a very...scenic route way of going about this but, ultimately, it should lead us to Negaduck without significant threat to your psyche."

"Well...all right," Drake agreed as he handed over the mask. Indy wrapped one length of fabric around his hand before offering the other end to Lena to tie around hers.

"What do you say, my Lady Sabrewing? I understand you and the girls have come up with some good rhymes in the past," the professor offered up with a smile in his daughter's direction.

Lena's smile as she looked up at her dad became almost tearful and, for just a moment, Drake was reminded of Gosalyn. The resemblance wasn't helped when the young sorceress nodded resolutely a moment later, tightening her grip on her length of the mask.

"With the hands of love and kin, we connect our paths through thick and thin," Lena said aloud, her smile literally glowing when Indy smiled his approval. Then, as they began to chant together, her eyes glowed blue and his glowed yellow.

"With the hands of love and kin, we connect our paths through thick and thin."

Power built between the two in the form of growing light, sparks of blue and yellow traveling down their arms to meet upon the length of purple fabric as green light.

"With the hands of love and kin, we connect our paths through thick and thin."

The green energy swirled briefly around the mask before ultimately sinking into the cloth, sparking only a few more times before fully settling. It looked no different than before when Lena and Indy both unwound their ends, but it did feel just a little warmer in Drake's hand when they passed it back to him.

"And...nothing I need to do?" he asked, gaze shifting from the mask to the magic users.

"Nothing but put it back on," Indy said with an encouraging nod.

"All right," Drake returned with a slow exhale, quickly tying the mask back in place. Nothing about it really felt different, save for that added feeling of warmth.

"Oh, that- that's different," Della's muttered comment quickly told him otherwise.

"What is it?" he asked as he looked up at her.

"Your eyes," Lena told him, pointing toward the mirror on Gosalyn's closet door. "I...you're just gonna have to see it."

Going to stand before the mirror, Drake soon understood what it was they meant. Where his own eyes would normally be visible through the holes in the fabric, all that could now be seen was a bright green glow.

"That's...interesting," he mumbled, tilting his head to the side as he surveyed himself.

"Does anything look different?" Indy asked him as he and Lena climbed to their feet.

"No," he said, and it was true, but then he began to notice..."Oh."

"What is it?" Della pressed, hopping up off the bed.

"It's a sort of...green trail, almost," he tried to explain as he followed what he was seeing. "Like a mist in the air..."

Following the trail, he moved back to the window, seeing the strange substance flow through the glass and down to the street below. Opening up the window, he didn't give much thought to his actions before climbing out onto the roof and sliding down the tiles.

"Drake, hold on a-"

Indy's warning was cut off by Drake's yelp as he jumped from the building, his cape snagging on the drain pipe only briefly before he tumbled to the concrete.

The vigilante stubbornly bit down on his cry of pain as he huddled there on the ground. Normally, a fall like that would be easy for him to absorb and hop back up from, but he was still recovering from being blown up. Already, his body was protesting the day's activities.

"Better get used to it," he warned his already ragged body. "Got a long road ahead of us."

"Dr- I- Darkwing, are you all right?" Della called down to him.

"Fine, Ms. Duck," he called back. "I'm on the trail."

"We'll, ah- take the stairs, I think," he heard Indy saying, Lena sighing in annoyance in response.

"What happened to 'Let's get dangerous'?"

If Indy responded, Drake didn't hear it. He was focused on following the odd little trail of green mist-like energy. He barely waited to hear the sound of the front door opening before beginning to follow where it led.

Where was this mist even taking him? What was it going to lead him to if not to Negaduck? Maybe he'd jumped into Indy's plan a little too quickly?

But then...nothing else had worked, had it.

"Whoa there, Darkwing Doof," Lena's voice suddenly snapped into his awareness, a hard grip at his elbow preventing him from walking forward.

"Lena, why did you-"

"Because you were about to step right out into oncoming traffic."

"Oh," he mumbled, only then seeing the cars actively speeding through his odd little trail. Where were they? How far had they gone?

Didn't matter. Keep following the trail.

He followed the strange mist until he found it dissipating through a gate at the end of a driveway.

"I...it's gone," he whispered as he reached a hand through the gate, uncomprehending.

"Where even are we?" he heard Della asking.

"A...much higher end neighborhood," Indy answered.

"Is it?"

"This from a lady whose uncle owns half the planet," Lena ribbed with only a little malice.

"Well, there's a callbox. Suppose we can always just ask where we are," Della pointed out with a chuckle.

Through the daze of searching out further strands of green in the late afternoon sunlight, Drake soon became aware of a voice he knew he'd heard before coming from the callbox.

"Yes?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, Madam, but we've gotten ourselves a little lost," Indy was the one to say. "Could you tell us where we are?"

"Really? You don't know where you are?" the female voice asked with a hint of skepticism. "The Darkwing cosplayer in your midst says otherwise."

"I'm not a cosplayer," Drake answered without thought. Why? Why did he know that voice?

"Look, I'm sorry, guys. Normally I don't mind you all coming to my house. It's just- things have been a little strange for us since the Bulba incident. I'd really appreciate it if you could just-"

"Wait," Drake interrupted her, his gaze finally zeroing in on the callbox beside them. "You're...Sparrow. Kath Sparrow?"

"Well, of course, I...hold up. Is that...Drake? Drake Mallard?"

Drake swallowed heavily. "You...know me?" was all he could seem to ask, unable even to put up his typical pretenses for the sake of his secret identity. Kath Sparrow actually knew his name?

"Oh, I- sweetheart, of course I do. I've had literal years of learning to recognize a face under a mask."

"But...how do you know me?"

"Do you think just because Jim didn't know about the Boorswan project, the rest of us didn't? I really- you know what. Why don't you all come inside," she said just before the gate started to swing slowly open.

"Well...guess probability might have some idea what it's doing after all," Della said, leading the way up the walk to the well-appointed, if modestly sized house. "So who is this Kath Sparrow anyway?"

"She was another actor on the old show. She played Morgana Macawber. She started off in Darkwing's rogues gallery, but underwent one of the better redemption arcs in nineties television and wound up becoming his love interest. Sparrow and Starling were actually married for a little while after the show ended," Drake rattled off.

"Wait, wait, wait," Lena butted in. "You're saying this woman was actually married to Jim Starling?"

"For a time," Drake answered as they came up to the front door. "But, well...celebrity marriage, I guess."

"The mask leading us here begins to make a little more sense, I think," Indy commented.

The woman who greeted them at the door had aged a little more kindly than Jim Starling had. Her tall frame had filled in a little more in the many years since Drake had first seen her on television, but she was all around looking well. Her long black hair was only just beginning to go grey at the temples, pulled back into a loose ponytail. She smiled kindly at Drake as she stood aside to allow them into her home.

"I'm sorry I never had a chance to come down to the lot before McDuck canned the project. I'd really been meaning to. Since you weren't likely to ever get to speak to Jim about things, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind the next best thing. I know your costar got to do a whole interview with Danny about playing Megavolt. We all knew Jim wouldn't take kindly to the new movie, but the rest of us really were very excited about it," she told him as she led the group through the house, ultimately winding up in an open plan kitchen-living room area.

"I...thank you," Drake returned quietly. It hadn't occurred to him there might've been others who had actually cared about the project. The only other person who had gotten this excited about his work was...Launchpad. "No matter how it came out, my work on First Darkness...really meant a lot to me."

"So I see. I mean, well...then I started seeing your face plastered all over the news during the ramrod incident and I knew who you were...Darkwing. I hope you know the outfit suits you."

Drake scratched awkwardly at the back of his head a moment, glancing shyly down at his feet. "I can't- tell you how much that means coming from you of all people. I never thought I- I'd- waitwaitwait," he suddenly tripped himself up. "If you knew it was me...do you think any of the other actors might've realized?"

Sparrow gave a small laugh and waved the notion off with an amused smirk. "Really, I'm probably the only one of us from the old guard who could possibly see the face under that purple mask. Oh, Jim," she said, her face flushing a little with whatever it was she was remembering. But there was also a little sadness in her look.

"Actually, Ms. Sparrow...Jim Starling is what we came to talk with you about," Drake found himself saying, even though it wasn't necessarily true. Even they didn't know why it was they'd been led here. But this certainly seemed the likeliest way to proceed.

"I...why?" she asked, looking around at all of them now. "What's there to say now? It's been more than a year since...since he..."

"He's not dead," Drake said heavily.

Sparrow shook her head slowly, focusing her attention back on him. "What- what do you mean?"

"Have you heard about the arson cases around the city this week? About the explosion over at the Duckburg docks a few nights back?"

"I...yes. You- you're not saying-"

"I'm afraid I am. Jim Starling was responsible for all of them."

"...How?" the actress asked him after several moments of shocked silence. Drake drew in a long, shuddering breath before beginning to explain.

"I don't know if even you could've predicted how badly he would react to being replaced. He...actually tried to kill me that day. But...somehow he escaped that explosion alive...and he reemerged a little over a week ago...calling himself Negaduck. He's fashioned himself as my arch nemesis...and he's vowed to destroy me. I'm not- really sure how much of his old life he even remembers. He just...hates me."

Kath covered her beak with her hand as she moved away from the little group, toward a small shelf beside her television set that was lined with framed photographs. One in particular seemed to be of her and a younger Jim Starling at some sort of cast reunion. She was significantly taller than her costar and she had him hefted up in her arms in a fierce hug as they smiled for the camera. Drake felt something inside of him crack when he saw the way she reached for the image.

"Ms. Sparrow, we understand that this must be very difficult to believe," Indy started to say.

"It- it's really not," she said, her outstretched fingers slowly curling into a fist as she withdrew her hand, both hands falling in fists at her sides. "I wish I could say you're all crazy and I don't believe a word you've just said, but...I suppose of anyone you could possibly ask, I knew Jim best. If his...myriad issues finally drove him over the edge...he absolutely would style himself as Darkwing Duck's archenemy. And now you want help apprehending him," she said as she turned to look back at them.

"He's- become a very dangerous threat," Drake offered up in a tight voice, something painful clawing at his heart. "He's...already killed several innocent people trying to destroy me. One of them...Launchpad...he was...he was my Morgana," he barely managed to get the words out before his throat closed up on him, tears threatening to escape once again.

"Oh," he heard the actress whispering. Almost before he knew it, she was standing in front of him again, taking his hand in both of hers. "Drake...I'm so sorry."

"If there's anything you can think of that might be of any help...we're pretty much at the end of our rope here," Della offered up.

Kath sighed as she dropped Drake's hand, looking despondent. "I'm really not sure what I can tell you that you don't already know. If Jim's- completely lost his mind, this is out of my depth. I left because I had to. Because he was never going to let the past go...because he was never going to get himself together. I loved him, but...I could- no longer delude myself into thinking that would be enough to save him."

"That's never an easy thing to admit...that someone needs more help than you can give them," Indy said, his voice gentle. Something tense in Kath's shoulders seemed to ease on hearing his tone, but then she blinked in confusion, taking a long look at the other three.

"I'm sorry. You all are...?"

"Apologies, Ms. Sparrow. My name is Indigo Sabrewing, professor of archeology at Duckburg Central University. And this is my daughter, Lena Sabrewing," Indy introduced them both.

"Della Duck," the pilot said with a small nod. "Pilot and niece of Scrooge McDuck."

"Ah. Hello."

"If I may, where would you say you stand on the subject of magic?" Indy asked her.

Kath raised an eyebrow before shrugging. "If you'd asked me that a few years ago, I would've said there's no trick a good special effects coordinator can't make look real, but now, well...I don't imagine I was the only skeptic the Shadow War converted."

"Then that will make things easier."

But whatever explanation the professor began to offer up, Drake didn't hear it. His vision literally went red as a bolt of searing agony fired through his brain.

"Call Penumbra. We're getting out of here. Right now."

"Doctor...Doctor Gearloose...I- I don't feel so good."

"Tell your little gremlins to drop their weapons or he dies."

"You...you monster!"

"That's the last time you fuck with me...sidekick."

"Drake!" he heard Della shout, and it was only when he felt her hands on his shoulders that he realized he had dropped to his knees, crying out in pain. "Drake, what happened?"

"Something...something's wrong."

XxX

An inch from tearing his feathers out was a constant state of being for Gyro Gearloose, but now he might actually go through with it. He had made zero progress toward getting Boyd operational again; nothing he'd attempted had worked. And now it seemed he'd even failed to bring Launchpad home.

He'd finally gotten conclusive DNA results from the last set of remains and they were not a match for the genetic profile he had for Launchpad McQuack. It was yet another unlucky dock worker who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Delivering the news to Fenton, the scientist let out several curses in languages even he wasn't certain he knew. "How does a washed-up, bat shit insane old actor outmatch the world's most brilliant mind?!" he snarled as he shoved a tray of tools off his work station in a rage.

"Ah...Dr. Gearloose," the former intern started uncertainly as Lil Bulb hopped down to pick up the tools, "perhaps we might chalk this one up to the fact that you never took that nap?"

"Hrrgh! If I can't crack this one, I might as well lie down and die with that stiff in the other room!" he snapped, his entire frame trembling as he slammed his fists against the table. Boyd's unresponsive body jerked an inch or two with the force of his anger and that awkward facsimile of movement only served to remind him of how badly he was failing his definitely real boy.

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the tears that were suddenly fighting to escape, he banged his head against the metal surface, reaching out a hand to touch the little bot's arm.

I'm sorry...2-BO. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix this.

"How do you fix something that stays broken no matter what you do?" he heard Fenton lamenting somewhere behind him.

But it was the way he said it that lodged in Gyro's brain, the gears suddenly beginning to turn in a different direction.

"A thing doesn't stay broken. An engineer just doesn't know how to fix it properly. But even you aren't that incompetent. I'm not that incompetent," he said, lifting his head up to look at the unmoving Boyd yet again. "But what is it that might maintain a status quo despite all possible efforts to change it? Doctor," he started, flicking his attention back to the other scientist, "how do you know this is EMP?"

"Uh...observable phenomena? I was hit with a pulse from Negaduck's weapon and the suit immediately deactivated and fell apart. Same thing with Boyd. That and he actually told Drake it was EMP."

"And yet we should be able to repair this tech after an EMP strike. It's like...something we can't see keeps...breaking things down," he said slowly, eyes widening as he stared at Fenton, things beginning to click into place. "What was it the last time I came up against something I couldn't see?"

"Those...ah...whatwasit, those- Gyropudlians...you told me about?" Fenton returned with a helpless shrug.

"Exactly. But there are none of them in my lab. I've made certain of that. So then...what is it that's too small to be seen but can still have an effect on the world?"

He and Fenton seemed to happen upon the answer at the same time, eyes widening as they stared at each other. Gyro snapped his fingers as Fenton clenched his hands into excited fists.

"Nano tech!" they crowed together.

"We've been looking at this all wrong," Gyro said as he scrambled for a microscope, carrying it over to the lab table. Reaching for one of the exposed wires in Boyd's chest, he drew it under the scope. Sure enough, beneath the microscope's powerful lens, he could see thousands of tiny bots crawling over the wire. "There you are, you nasty little beauties, you."

"But...nanobots are typically programmed to build things. Aren't they?" Fenton asked, moving in to have a look when Gyro took a step back.

"Typically, yes. Your girlfriend's nanites excepting, they've never been produced in significant enough quantities for a proper study to be made. But a nanobot is a simple machine. Just about the simplest there is. Basic programming commands would be self-replication and building. I don't suppose it would be all that difficult to alter that base command from 'build' to 'destroy'. Hrrgh, these little beasts could be all over my lab by now," he ground out as his eyes darted around the space, more than half-expecting something to jump out at them.

"Except that we've had no issues with things breaking these last few days," Fenton pointed out. "These little guys could've destroyed the lab a hundred times over by now and we wouldn't have known until it was literally collapsing in on us."

"True," Gyro conceded. "Perhaps the command is to simply...keep things broken...to maintain a sort of off-base status quo. It shouldn't take much to sweep them from the lab and get both Boyd and the suit back in working order."

"Dr. Gearloose-"

"But how did Starling even get his hands on this kind of technology? Did he know what he had?"

"Dr. Gearloose-"

"I suppose he could've simply-"

"DR. GEARLOOSE!" Fenton shouted for his attention, drawing Gyro's gaze back to his suddenly distraught face. "Not to interrupt your musings, Doctor, but I have to point out...what else around here was broken recently?"

Oh, no.

"The bay window," he whispered in horror.

He remembered thinking just a few hours ago that he was grateful Indy and Drake's little magical mishap hadn't done more damage than it had. Rather than actually shattering the window, Drake's meltdown had warped its frame, forcing an automatic closure of the emergency pressure seal. After the initial incidents with 2-BO, Gyro had installed the auto seal protocols on the off chance those few seconds could prevent disaster. Now? Now that hair trigger just might spell disaster. If nanobots had been working at a damaged pressure seal for the better part of twelve hours...

"Call Penumbra," Gyro said slowly, quietly, his gaze fixed on the sealed window as he carefully gathered Boyd in his arms. "We're getting out of here. Right now."

"Bad news, Penny," Fenton's voice was soon sounding overhead. "The body isn't actually Launchpad's. But, ah, if you could head out to central now, that would be appreciated. We need to evacuate right now."

Fenton didn't need to be told to gather up the suit. It was already in the bag by the time Penumbra was hurrying into the central hub.

"What's happening?" she asked, pistol drawn as she scanned the area for any sign of danger.

"Well...if our luck holds out and Fenton and I are wrong, nothing is happening. Unlikely, I might point out," he started to explain, still keeping his eyes fixed on the window as he began to sidle over to the elevator. "The more likely scenario is that nanobots have been chewing away at that blown pressure seal for several hours now and there's only so much punishment a damaged seal can handle before-"

And because the universe had such a cruel and ironic sense of humor, just before Gyro could reach for the elevator controls, the seal between the reinforced wall and the emergency hatch went with a small, disheartening pop, sending a jet of water spraying violently into the room.

The moment that seal went, the other watertight hatches slammed into place over the other windows and all of the doors went into emergency lockdown, including the elevator. Under normal circumstances, these failsafes would prevent flooding, but now the system had them trapped in a rapidly filling stone and metal mausoleum.

"Of course," he snarled under his breath, shifting away from the elevator and toward the rack of emergency diving cylinders that was situatee beside the sealed doors. "And of course I just had to send Manny for the takeout."

"I can force the doors if necessary," Penumbra told him. "That is within the bounds of my strength."

"No good," Gyro told her as he strapped one of the small wing tanks to his arm, tossing a second one to Fenton and another to the moon warrior, who only just managed to catch the unfamiliar gear. "We can't know how long that seal will hold up. We don't know what the damage looks like now. If we attempt to escape via the elevator or even the shaft, there's an only too real possibility of trapping ourselves in a tiny metal coffin if the seal goes too quickly for us to get out. Too many unknowns in the equation. There's only one way out now. Straight out...and straight up," he said, moving to the section of wall that was farthest from the failing hatch, but still within sight of it.

"Dr. Gearloose, Penny doesn't have the same training we have!" Fenton reminded him before showing the Moonlander how to affix the wing tank to her arm. Already, he had to shout to be heard over the roar of the water.

The only reason Gyro had survived the destruction of his lab the first time was because Manny had been here to swim him out of the flooded compound. Even then, he had barely survived the desperate swim to the surface, his lungs burning for air. Following the Shadow War, Beakley had insisted that emergency bailout dive gear be kept in the lab and those who worked in it be trained and certified in emergency procedures. Penumbra, unfortunately, had never been through that training. So while Fenton gave the warrior a crash course in the use of the wing tank and the accompanying regulator, Gyro grabbed a set of cords from one of the cabinets and slipped off his vest, tying Boyd securely to his chest with the resulting makeshift sling.

"All right!" the scientist began to explain as Fenton led Penumbra over to his chosen position, sloshing through the water. "How this is going to work is, when I tell you, I'm going to need you to shoot out that failing hatch with that disintegrator pistol of yours, assuming it hasn't already failed. The result of this will be approximately seven atmospheres of pressure forcing its way into this hub as it floods. It's 200 feet to the surface and the oxygen in these wing tanks will disappear very quickly at this depth, so there won't be any time for dillydally. Having lived your life in a lower pressure atmosphere, I fear there's also a possibility you might be of a greater susceptibility to oxygen toxicity."

"Toxicity?" the moon warrior pressed him with a raised eyebrow.

"Oxygen becomes toxic to carbon-based lifeforms when breathed at too great a depth. 200 feet is at the limit of the depth one can safely expect to breathe oxygen. Your own limitations may be even less than that, but we don't exactly have time to wait on another solution!" Gyro pointed out, noting that the spray of water was growing wider.

"Hop in, Lil Bulb!" Fenton said to the little bot, patting his bag. Lil Bulb quickly scrambled up into the suit bag, zipping it closed behind him.

"Even if we can still manage to breathe oxygen at this depth, we are still going to experience nitrogen narcosis when the pressure hits. I don't know if Della's taken you out drinking yet, but the gist is that you'll feel like you've been shotgunning hard alcohol for about an hour. The point is that no matter how dizzy you feel, no matter what happens, the second you're able you swim out of here and straight for the surface! Staying even a few minutes too long at this depth could prove fatal. And now, unless you want to be thrown against the wall when the hatch goes, everyone flat on the floor!"

Fenton continued to give Penumbra diving tips about breathing normally and pressure equalization as they all shifted down as flat as they could manage on the floor with the water pouring in all the faster. Positioning his regulator over his beak and biting down on it, he clutched Boyd even tighter against his chest, well aware that the force of the water rushing in could rip the little bot from his arms. Already the cold water was swirling up to his chin.

"Penumbra," he spoke into the regulator, glancing to his side to make sure the other two were in position, "we're ready when you are."

The moon warrior did not rush herself in taking aim at the rapidly failing hatch. She kept her gun arm steady, exhaling slowly through the regulator before making her shot. And with that single shot from the disintegrator ray, the hatch was gone and the sea was rushing in.

Despite equalizing his ears, Gyro still felt them explode with pain as the pressure of the depths burst into his lab. For a single harrowing moment, his mind was sent back to the last time he'd been swallowed up in a deluge of water. But he hadn't had breathing gas then. As he drew in his first grateful pull of bottled air, his moment of sheer terror and panic was instantly driven away by the woozy light-headedness of narcosis.

There was nothing to worry about, was there?

No. No! Yes! Yes, there definitely was something to worry about. He was breathing oxygen at an incredible depth and this air supply wasn't going to last forever. If he spent much longer wasting time down here, he wouldn't be leaving.

Somewhere out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Fenton helping a clearly dazed Penumbra to the destroyed window, though he obviously wasn't much more lucid himself. Not wholly able to stop himself from giggling, he struggled through the water like a fish flopping around on dry land, just barely making it to the window.

Except...in his painfully inebriated state, he couldn't help but feel like he'd forgotten something...

Boyd!

Somewhere in the onslaught of water, the little bot really had been torn away from him. Fighting to swim back into the flooded lab, he searched desperately for the best part of himself.

There!

Back at the work station. Boyd had become fouled in a tangle of exposed wiring when the explosion of pressure had destroyed one of the computers. Gyro tried to swim back, but found himself stopped by a hand wrapping around his arm, pulling him back.

"No!" he heard Fenton's voice through the hiss of a regulator. He looked over to see the other scientist shaking his head fiercely. "Too dangerous."

"Boyd!" he cried into his own regulator, barely remembering not to spit it out.

"Go!" Fenton snapped at him, handing him the straps of the gizmosuit bag. "I'll get him."

Then he was shoved from the window. Taking only a single worried moment to watch Fenton swim to Boyd, he began to haul the bag up through the water, following after Penumbra. Fenton and Boyd would be right behind them.

They had to be.

Fenton, for his part, was no more lucid than Gyro. At no point did it occur to him that Boyd didn't actually need to be rescued. He knew only that Boyd was his friend and he was not going to fail him again. So he spent precious minutes untangling the little robotic boy from the wires he'd become snared in.

The would-be hero felt just how much energy he had spent as he carried Boyd from the flooded lab. He was dangerously exhausted, but he knew he couldn't stay here. The wing tank couldn't possibly last much longer. So, holding his little buddy tightly in his arms, he began to kick his way to the surface.

The narcosis passed fairly quickly as he ascended, but Fenton's first indication that something was wrong was a brief, stinging pain in his hips. Halting his upward ascent, he fought against his body's natural buoyancy to stay in place. The awkward motion quickly brought on the same pain in his knees and elbows.

Pain in the joints. That was an almost sure sign of decompression sickness — the bends. In his efforts to bring Boyd out...had he spent too long at depth? 

If those few extra minutes of breathing oxygen so far beneath the surface had allowed too much nitrogen into his system, his body needed time to expel the deadly buildup naturally. Otherwise the excess could literally froth his blood into a milkshake when he reached the surface.

Only...he was breathing from a bailout cylinder. There was no way it could last any longer than five minutes or so, and by his own estimation, he was still some 90 feet from the surface.

It was a choice that was no choice at all. Ascend and risk the harmful, even fatal, effects of decompression sickness...

...or drown.

Doing his best to breathe evenly despite his fear, Fenton maintained his position until he felt the air in the tank begin to grow thin. Then he shot for the surface.

I'll have to take my chances with decompression sickness.

Fenton felt the tank go bone dry at about 40 feet. Remembering the scuba certification classes Bentina had made him sit through, he fought not to hold that last lungful of air, expelling the last of the bottled gas as he kicked like mad for the surface. Holding his breath was a good way to rupture a lung.

20 feet...15...10...come on, Fenton! Just a little farther!

God, but he needed to breathe. He wasn't going to make it!

Then, just when he felt like his lungs would finally surrender to the biological imperative to inhale, he broke the surface, spitting out his regulator and gulping the sweetest lungful of air he'd ever breathed in his life.

Except now that he'd survived, there were somewhat more pressing matters to attend to.

"Fenton!" he heard Gyro shouting as he fought the urge to just slip back beneath the waters of the bay. Goddammit, but he was tired.

"Doctor...Doctor Gearloose," he mumbled faintly as his two companions swam to him. Once Gyro had reached him, he relinquished Boyd to his arms while Penny caught him in her own. "I- I don't feel so good."

His entire body was aching now, but the pain in his joints was becoming unbearable. His head was beginning to feel like it might split with pain and an unpleasant feeling of nausea was creeping up on him.

Gyro didn't need to see much to understand. Fenton saw his eyes widen in shocked realization as he looked at him.

"You stayed too long," his mentor whispered in horror. "To get Boyd out...you stayed down there too long. Penumbra, come on. We have to get him to shore."

Penny immediately began to haul his trembling body through the water. He tried to offer up a few feeble kicks of his own, but the motion was just too painful. His mind falling into confusion from the deadly mix of nitrogen bubbles in his system, his thoughts began to focus in directions he couldn't quite help...and he began to realize...

The lab...nanobots...Boyd...the gizmosuit...EMP...the Ratcatcher!

"Gyr-...Dr. Gearloose," he faintly heard himself calling as he was laid out on dry land, the sky overhead going red and gold with the light of the setting sun.

"Fenton, you need to stop moving," the other scientist scolded him. "If you don't conserve your energy-"

"No- the bots...the nanobots...the Ratcatcher-"

"Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera, we are not-"

"Catcher was hit, too. The Ratcatcher- it's still...back at the mansion!" Fenton barely managed to force the words from his beak before losing consciousness altogether.

XxX

No one had really had time to repair the front gates of the mansion in the days since Fenton had crashed the Ratcatcher through them. The inhabitants were mostly of the mind that the gate was a paltry portion of their defenses. The security system, both physical and magical, could handle anything that was thrown at it.

As such, nothing stopped Negaduck when he strolled up to that broken gate, examining the callbox with an amused smirk.

"Oh, dear. Looks like it's broken. Guess nobody bothers with proper maintenance anymore," he said with relish as he continued his stroll up to the front door.

Chapter Text

"It's just as the kids thought then," Scrooge said as he surveyed the recently uncovered drain grate in the blown out warehouse's floor. "Must be how he's been getting around both cities undetected."

"Sewer scum. Appropriate for what this one's done," Officer Cabrera commented, but then she sighed. "I suppose someone's going to have to say it first. I don't doubt it's crossed your mind, but...given the size of this grate and the fact that no other remains have been found...is it possible that Launchpad...might still be alive down there somewhere?"

Scrooge gave an answering sigh as he looked up at her. "Ye're right. The thought has crossed my mind more than once today. But I'd- scarce allow myself such hope after everything that's happened. And Drake...if we suggested such a possibility and turned out to be wrong...I dinna believe he'd survive it. I cannae do that to the man Launchpad loved."

"And...if it should prove to be a possibility?" she pressed him.

"We'll...explore the possibility further once we get a solid answer from Gyro. Perhaps start a few discreet investigations into..."

Scrooge jumped briefly when he felt something buzz in his pocket.

"Ach! Curse this crazy contraption," he grumbled as he pulled the cell phone out. He didn't think he'd ever get used to the device, but the boys hadn't been wrong in pointing out how necessary it was to upgrade from the flip phone. After all, it appeared this call was from the bin. Gyro, perhaps? Maybe they would finally get the closure they needed here. Accepting the call, he placed the phone up against his ear. "Hello?"

"Mr. McDuck!" Gyro's harried voice came over the line. If Scrooge didn't know better, he would say he sounded almost...panicked. "We need med evac from the bin right now! Fenton's unconscious. I don't know if he-"

"Hold on, slow down," Scrooge spoke over the hysterical scientist. "Whatever's wrong, I'm certain Dr. Adelie can handle the situation with her equipment in the lab."

"That's just it. The lab's underwater!" Gyro snapped at him.

"I'm- well aware o' that, Gyro. That would be the point of its location."

"No! I mean it's flooded! The lab is gone!"

"I... what? Lad, what happened?"

"There's no time to explain. Fenton needs help now! We had to use Beakley's bailout system and Fenton was bent in the escape."

A cold lump of understanding and fear travelled down the billionaire's spine at Gyro's words. The bends. Decompression sickness. A diver's worst nightmare. And if Fenton had gotten bent ascending from 200 feet, his case was much worse than normal. Every minute now was crucial.

"Foolish lad. Fenton'll need recompression therapy then."

"What?" he heard the crack of Officer Cabrera's voice close at hand, sharp as the firearm she carried.

"I'll have Dr. Adelie meet ye at the bin. In the meantime, I'll get a pilot sent out." Della was still in St. Canard and even Duckburg General might be too far from the bin for their emergency evac team to be of any use to Fenton now, but there was one more option.

"What's going on?" the policewoman demanded, stopping just short of getting up in his face.

"Mr. McDuck, before you hang up, there is- one other thing I should tell you. This is much more complicated than either of us has time for, but...the same thing that compromised Boyd and the gizmosuit also compromised the Ratcatcher. It may have gotten into the security network of the manor."

"What?" Scrooge demanded, the fear in his gut quickly boiling into outright terror.

"I don't know that for certain. It was the last thing Fenton said before he lost consciousness. It may be nothing."

"Hrrgh. Only if our luck changes," Scrooge ground out. Never one to trust to luck, even he had to admit that theirs had been acutely rotten this last week.

"Just give them a call and let them know to be on their guard."

"Right. I'll speak to ye when I can," he said before hanging up. His first instinct was to call Beakley and warn them. But the literal few minutes it would take could mean the difference between life and death for Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. He couldn't leave the boy's life in the balance with his own mother standing right here.

And, as if his thoughts had somehow shattered her patience, Officer Cabrera actually reached out to seize the collar of his coat. "McDuck, you tell me what's happened to my pollito right now!"

"Well, hopefully nothing will happen to him if ye let me make this next call, madam. I'm sorry, but every second counts now," he told her, barely waiting for her to release him before dialing in the next number.

"Hello?" the normally chipper voice of a young woman answered a few moments later.

"Loopy, lass, I really hope you all are in now."

"Mom and the boys just touched down. We're still waiting on Dad. What's up?"

"I know this probably isn't what ye wanted to hear so soon after arriving, but we've got an emergency on our hands."

"Shoot, Mr. McDee. What's going on?"

The old duck couldn't deny the pang in his heart on hearing the nickname. Launchpad had been almost inordinately proud to pass the use of it onto his little sister. "I've no real time to explain the situation, but you remember Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera?"

"Gizmodude? Definitely."

"He's in need of immediate recompression therapy. I believe ye understand how critical speed is now. None o' my people are close enough to be of any use to him, but the airfield is near enough to my money bin. Can the Silver Crescent handle another quick flight right now?"

"I can be in the air in five."

"Ye also might tell Birdie and Ripcord to be on standby to fly straight to the manor."

"Expecting trouble?"

"Usually. But right now, I cannae say. Just let me know when ye've got Fenton to the hospital."

"Will do," she said before hanging up.

Just as Scrooge was readying to phone the mansion, though, yet another call popped up on his phone.

Della.

"Lassie-" he started off somewhat impatiently, but it took his niece no longer than normal to interrupt him.

"Uncle Scrooge, we've got a problem."

"I'll say we have. Ye need to be getting yerselves back to the mansion."

"But- wait. You're not there now?"

"I'm not. Had to follow up on a lead."

"Then how do you know?" she pressed him.

"Gyro had suspicions. Complicated. How did you know?"

"Indy and Lena cast some sort of probability spell on Drake. We were following up on one of its leads and Drake had some kind of meltdown. Something might've happened to Fenton. Uncle Scrooge, he...he thinks something's going to happen to the kids."

The old adventurer growled low in his throat, clutching the phone tightly in his fist. "Something did happen to Fenton. It's being taken care of now, but I swear, if that vile villain lays even one wretched finger on those children, he will rue the day he first drew breath," he vowed. "Where are ye now?"

"Getting a ride back to the tower. We're going to get back as fast as we can. Is Duckworth at the manor now? He might be able to stop Negaduck."

Scrooge groaned in frustration. "Unfortunately, no. Got no way to reach him, either. He's searching the veil for Launchpad's spirit. We'll just have to trust to Bentina, Donald, and the kids to handle this themselves until we can make it back."

Della gave an answering noise of frustration. "Not that I don't trust them to handle themselves, but...this creep's honestly not like anything we've ever faced before. Uncle Scrooge...my boys..."

"I know," Scrooge returned with a pained sigh. "Believe me, lassie, I know. Look, call Donald. Tell the lad what's happening. I'll call in some reinforcements of my own and get meself back to Killmotor. Della...we will get there in time," he said firmly.

"Right. Of course," she answered, still plainly shaken. "I'll see you there," she said before hanging up.

"All right," Scrooge McDuck began as he put away his phone. "Officer Cabrera, we need to get to my mansion as fast as possible. Can ye do for us?"

With a look that seemed to spark fire just in its making, the policewoman drew herself up to her full height, her hands clenched into fists. "Mr. McDuck, if Negaduck had a hand in harming my boy, I will gladly help you crush him. If not with the full weight of the law, then certainly with my own fists."

"That's exactly what I like to hear, Officer. Now let's get a move on."

XxX

Gyro Gearloose did not do guilt.

What had guilt ever done for him, after all? What but leave him broken in the wreckage of a city he had meant to protect. But that useless feeling could not change what had happened. So he had turned away from it. He had spent his life trying to do better without acknowledging how each failure chipped away at him...right up until the moment 2-BO had chosen his own programming.

That moment had changed something inside of him, fundamentally altered something in his own programming, and now, as he watched Dr. Adelie fix an oxygen mask to Fenton's beak, part of him wished it hadn't. Because seeing the naive young hero in this condition after rescuing Boyd...he couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for it.

"Stupid...fool-headed...moron of an intern," he grumbled in abject misery, falling back on his old insults as he watched Robyn Adelie direct Penumbra in getting Fenton strapped to a stretcher. "You didn't have to do this. We could've gone back for Boyd anytime. It's your fault," he hissed, but even as he spoke, glancing down to the little bot lying motionless on the rocky surface beside him, he knew he was still grateful for what Fenton had done.

"So did Scrooge say who exactly it was he was sending?" he heard Robyn asking, drawing his attention away from his inoperative creation.

"Not to me. I'd have thought he would've told you when he called you in."

"Nope, but I hope this pilot understands what sort of time constraints we're working against here. Fenton's in bad shape."

"Oh, I- I think she knows," Gyro found himself saying when he heard the sound of a plane engine overhead. Turning his eyes to the sky, he saw an old school biplane come soaring from the clouds, its paint job black with stripes of pink and silver. He had met Loopy McQuack only briefly the last time Launchpad's family had been in Duckburg, but the Silver Crescent 's paint job was impossible to forget.

The biplane's pilot didn't take the time to circle the bay for a smoother landing. At her speed, Gyro wouldn't have really been surprised if she'd simply nose-dived straight into the water, but she somehow managed to bring the plane in for a landing in the water just beside the bin. The propellers had barely stopped spinning before the pilot was climbing from her seat, shoving her flight goggles up onto her helmet, which was doing little to contain her mop of red and blonde highlighted hair, already struggling to escape from its braids.

"How's he holding up?" Loopy McQuack called to them as she emerged from the cockpit with a length of nylon cord.

"Not well," Robyn called back. "We need to be in the air five minutes ago."

"Got it. Let's get a wiggle on then."

At Robyn's instruction, Gyro and Penumbra carried Fenton's stretcher down the rocky slope the money bin was situated on. Moving ahead of them, Robyn leaped the small distance between land and the plane's wing, only just grasping the hand Loopy reached out to her. As the four worked together to pass Fenton up onto the wing, Lil Bulb blinked steadily on Gyro's shoulder all the while.

Once Fenton was safely on the wing, Loopy began to lash the stretcher to it for the flight over.

"Lil Bulb," Gyro started, his voice only mildly unsteady as he glanced over at his creation, "I want you to stick with them until Fenton wakes up."

The little robot chirped questioningly, blinking a few times.

"Just...make sure nothing happens. And give him a hard smack upside the head if I'm not there to do it," he said, lifting up his hand for Lil Bulb to hop down onto. "Will you do that for me?"

The bot nodded, offering a salute and a series of blinks before hopping down onto Gyro's hand. The scientist then held him out over the water, allowing him to jump the short distance to the wing and tuck himself into the stretcher with Fenton.

Once Loopy had the stretcher secured to the wing, she looked up at Robyn. "In or out, doc?"

"In," the doctor answered firmly as she climbed into the tiny passenger's seat forward of the cockpit. "Fenton is my patient and I'm sticking with him. Though I do have to ask how you plan to land this thing at Duckburg General."

"Well, nowhere to use for a runway, so it's gonna have to be a water landing," she said as she climbed back into the cockpit, passing the doctor a pair of goggles. "They still have that little pond out back, yeah?"

The doctor's normally taciturn features went slightly ashen at this. "Maybe I shouldn't have asked," she said as she pulled the goggles on, quickly strapping herself in.

"Call us if anything happens!" Gyro called out to them as Loopy got the plane going again.

"I'll keep you-" The rest of Robyn's words were cut off by the roar of the engine as the propellers got up to speed, swiftly carrying the biplane out onto the bay. Loopy sped along the surface of the water for several tense minutes before finally gaining enough speed to take to the air. She travelled a good distance up into the sky before finally circling back in the direction of Duckburg and the hospital. But almost the moment the plane was out of sight, Gyro heard the distinctive clopping of his lab assistant. When he and Penumbra glanced to the far end of causeway, it was to see Manny standing there with several bags of takeout in hand.

'What happened?' the sealed man-horse of the apocalypse clopped before hurrying toward them.

"You really need a cellphone. You know that?" he asked the eldritch creature in exasperation. "There are only so many hours in the day I have to waste on explanations, though you might consider shedding the professor's seal. It's looking more and more like we could do with an apocalypse."

'So,' Manny clopped awkwardly once he'd reached them, 'dumplings anyone?'

"We'll have to eat and explain on the way, unfortunately," Gyro said, his gaze flicking from the man-horse down to the water, then to Boyd and the gizmosuit bag before finally lifting to Killmotor Hill. "Because where we can do the most damage right now is up at the manor."

"Damage?" Penumbra asked him. "Don't you mean the most good?"

Manny gave several exasperated clops that Gyro couldn't pull any particular meaning from as he glared in the direction he was almost certain he would find his enemy.

"No," he growled low in his throat. "No, I do not."

XxX

Gandra didn't immediately pull her attention away from her grids when she noticed that she had an incoming call.

It was easy to forget about the outside world when working in the cloud, and it was even easier to forget when Fenton wasn't on hand to remind her to take regular breaks. She was faintly certain she was nearing the twenty-four hour mark since he'd messaged her the news that Negaduck was still at large, and she hadn't logged off once in all that time. When she noticed the name Cabrera in the notification, she finally responded, figuring it was Fenton checking in.

"Suit, I really hope you've got more data for me, because I-"

"It's not Fenton, Gandra."

"Maria?" she started in surprise when she heard the officer's voice. Glancing up, she saw Fenton's mother's picture attached to the chatbox she'd activated. "What's going on?"

"There isn't much time to explain. I need you to drop whatever you are doing and head straight to Duckburg General right now. "

"The hospital? But- why?"

"Fenton is being flown there right now."

"What? Why? " she pressed.

"I do not have all of the details, but there was an accident at the bin. The laboratory has been destroyed. My pollito is needing some sort of recompression therapy. Someone should be with him."

"What about you? Where are you going?" she asked as she began to shut everything down, leaving the call for last.

"With any luck, to arrest this rat bastard Negaduck," the policewoman snarled through the connection. "McDuck and I are on the way now."

"You found him?" she demanded.

"Not exactly," the billionaire's voice came over the line a bit more distantly than Officer Cabrera's. "He's simply making another appearance ."

"There will be time enough later for the whole story," Maria's voice cut back in. "Right now I just want you to get to that hospital! "

"I'm on my way now," she said. "Fair warning, a few traffic laws might get broken in the getting there."

"Then consider yourself officially pardoned for any crimes you may commit in the next ten minutes."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to pull that bank job on the way over, then," she deadpanned before cutting the connection, logging fully out of the cloud and coming to back in Fenton's basement.

"Dammit, nerd," she growled aloud as she hurried out of the house.

Fenton...if you've gotten yourself killed without that damn armor, I'm gonna kill you myself. You'd better still be alive when I get there.

XxX

"Hey, Webbs, what are you working on anyway?" Gosalyn asked as she glanced over at the project the younger duck seemed to have been working on all day. It had gotten just a little too long to be one of her usual friendship bracelets.

"Oh, well, you know how I usually make bracelets," she said, nodding at the purple and green one currently wrapped around Gosalyn's wrist. "This is...well...something I wanted to do for Drake."

"How do you mean?"

"I gave him one of my old chains to use for a necklace...so he can wear Launchpad's ring always...but...I thought of something else to do...to remind him that he's still part of a family. And once I got going, I just couldn't stop, so I'm weaving a necklace with five different sections," she began to explain as she laid the partly woven cord out for Gosalyn and the others to see. "This first end is for Launchpad's family, the McQuacks. I've got pink for Loopy, blue for Ripcord, green for Birdie, and red and black for the twins. This next section is-"

"The three of us," Gosalyn said softly, understanding the three strands of purple, brown, and green Webby had woven together perfectly.

"That's right. And then your section connects into ours. The McDuck-Duck Clan. Red, blue, and green for the boys, aqua for Della, navy for Donald, gold for Scrooge and then it connects into the next part of the clan. That's black and pink for me and Granny, and yellow, blue, and peach for May, June, and Daisy. And the Sabrewing section's what I'm working on now. Violet gets violet, of course. Then I've got lavender and fuchsia for Indy and Ty, and sky blue for Lena. And I'm really close to getting it done," she said as she gathered up the loose strands she still had to weave together.

For a long moment, Gosalyn didn't really know what to say. Part of her wasn't certain she or her dad would ever be able to look at the thread representing Launchpad without crying, but...another part was suddenly wondering if maybe...this wasn't what Drake had been trying to tell her from the very start...back before she'd even really begun thinking of him as her dad. And now...maybe it was something he needed to hear, too?

"That...that's really cool, Webby," she ultimately managed to pull the words from her throat, feeling it tighten against the tears she knew she still had inside of her.

"You think so?" the younger duck asked, her smile a little nervous as she glanced back up at her. "You think he'll like it?"

"Yeah," she answered. He might need a few days to adjust to the idea of it, the weight of it, but she didn't doubt Drake Mallard would come to adore that little token of family. But before she could say anything more, Donald and Mrs. B were rushing into the room.

"Kids! Are you all right?" Donald immediately demanded.

"Yeeees," Louie answered slowly.

"Is there- any particular reason we shouldn't be?" Huey asked.

"A clear and present threat from Starling," the housekeeper told them. "Our security system has likely been compromised. Webbigail, this is not a drill. We need to move to a more secure location."

Webby was instantly on her feet and at Gosalyn's side, her eyes darting around for threats.

"Don't worry, Gos. Nothing's going to get past me," Webby informed her, looking ready to karate chop the next speck of dust that looked at her friends wrong.

"Uh...too late," Dewey said nervously from his place by the window. Looking out where he was pointing as she moved toward him, Gosalyn was met with the sight of Negaduck standing right on Scrooge McDuck's front lawn, sneering up at the manor as he surveyed it.

But then the former actor's gaze suddenly fixed on hers, peeking out the window, and Gosalyn couldn't deny the drop of sheer terror that ran down her spine when those unhinged eyes locked with hers.

She could see his shoulders shaking as he laughed. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone, tapping on it and staring pointedly up at her as he brought it to his ear. A moment later, her phone was buzzing.

"Hello," she heard his voice on the line while also watching him speak down below. "Might I be addressing Miss Gosalyn Mallard, daughter of Drake Mallard?"

"Don't 'Miss' me, you sorry excuse for a superhero," she snapped, keeping eye contact as she spoke. "I should probably ask how you have this number, but I'm not going to like the answer, am I."

"Mm, probably not. I understand you're an intelligent girl, Gosalyn. So are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

"Depends on what those things are. Though it's only fair to warn you I'm more likely to choose the hard way."

Negaduck threw his head back and laughed. "You've got a lot of fight in you, kid. I like that. What are you doing with that hack of a hero?"

"Same thing I did with my grandpa. Deflate his ego when necessary and make sure he sleeps. He's my family, you creep, so don't think I'll be forgetting any of this."

"That assumes you live long enough to have any memory worth speaking of."

"Is that supposed to scare me?" she mocked, though even she couldn't deny the small knot of fear growing in her gut. She could never forget the maddened glee in his eyes as he stood over her dad. "Gonna have to do better than that, Negadork. So what's the easy way?"

"The easy way is you give yourself up to me now, no questions asked, and no one else has to get hurt. Wouldn't that be what your hero daddy would do?"

"And the hard way?" she pressed, glaring down at him.

"The hard way is that I go through every last one of your little friends to get to you. I won't kill them either. I don't think you want to see what I'm going to do to them."

"But how will you get to us? McDuck Manor's equipped with the best security system money can buy," she tried to bluff. But Negaduck just laughed in response, shaking his head as if scolding her.

"Going to play that game with me, Gosalyn? If that oh-so-vaunted security was working now, I'd be dead twenty times over trying to climb up here. The only thing standing between you and me right now is the people you care about."

He will kill you...if you give him the chance. Do not give him that chance.

Her dad's words echoed in her thoughts as she looked down at their enemy's unhinged smirk. He had her neck in a noose and she didn't doubt he knew that. She couldn't just surrender herself to him. That might actually kill Drake. Only...what could she do?

"Well, them and a few stories of brick and mortar," Negaduck conceded with a half-hearted shrug. "So I guess you have until I get up there to make up your mind," he said, making like he was going to hang up.

"You got my name wrong," she got in before he could drop the line.

"Did I? How's that?" he asked in annoyance as he looked back up at her.

"The name's Gosalyn Mallard-McQuack. I'm the daughter of Drake Mallard and Launchpad McQuack!" she snarled at him before ending the call, continuing to glare down at him. Not much to her surprise, he didn't look particularly intimidated as he let his phone drop to his side. Instead he offered her a leer of excitement and a tip of his hat before striding the rest of the way up the walk, disappearing from sight as he moved through the front door.

"Gosalyn?" Webby's uncertain voice sounded just behind her.

"Well, surprising no one, his terms include my unconditional surrender," she said as she turned to look at all of them. "Me...in exchange for not hurting any of you."

"That will not be happening," Mrs. Beakley said firmly.

"Yeah. The only way he's taking you is over our dead bodies," Donald declared, slamming a fist against his palm. Mrs. B offered him a dubious sideways glance at this.

"Of course, that isn't exactly Plan A."

"Come on, you guys. Who knows this mansion better than we do? This is our home turf. We'll set up a trap for him," Dewey said.

"Then we'll have Negaduck in custody and this whole thing'll finally be over!" Webby cheered.

"We'll have to be careful," Violet advised. "Starling may be delusional, but he isn't unintelligent. Nor is he one to give up easily."

"Well, isn't that just his luck. Neither are we," Dewey said, his gaze ultimately turning to Gosalyn. "We won't let anything happen to our Gos girl."

Gosalyn smiled in both fondness and exasperation as she looked at her friend. Dewey. Her first friend among them, really. Sometimes she still couldn't believe she had such amazing people in her life. For the longest time, it had been just her and Grandpa. But then she'd crashed into Dewey, Drake, and-

She swallowed heavily at the sudden pang of memory...at the piece of her family that was lost. Nothing could ever fill Launchpad's place in her heart...just as nothing could ever fill Grandpa's place. But right here, right now, she was still part of a family; and they were willing to fight for her. That was worth everything. Perhaps she'd needed to hear it as much as Drake still did.

Whatever the case, if the situation got too hot, she was not going to let her family do something crazy for her sake. They would have to come up with something brilliant.

"Thanks, guys," she said as she looked around at all of them. "So what's our play?"

XxX

He had heard Launchpad's voice.

It wasn't the first time, either. He had heard it when Indy had connected him, however briefly, to Negaduck's mind. Or at least he'd thought he'd heard it. It was difficult to say what had happened in that moment.

Now, though...now he was certain he had heard it. In the crush of voices that had come through Indy and Lena's probability spell, he had distinctly heard Launchpad's among them. But...what did that mean? Some of what he'd heard was happening right now. Some, he hoped at least, hadn't happened yet. But Launchpad...was some of it from the past? How could it be otherwise unless...unless...

No! He couldn't let himself start thinking like that. He was at least aware that he could barely trust his own mind right now. If he let his thoughts go in that direction, he might actually lose it, and the others needed him in fighting form right now. As Kath drove them through the busy streets of St. Canard, back to the tower, he knew they were all steeling themselves for a fight, Della and Indy worried for their children and Lena worried for her sister and best friend. Indy had already had to remind Lena that just because the physical security surrounding McDuck Manor was down, it didn't mean its magical barriers were. Teleporting was not an option.

But...worried for Gosalyn as he was...his mind could not seem to let go of the fact that he'd heard his partner's voice. As his gaze shifted between relatively normal and the strange flashes of red from before, his heart kept reaching out for the memory of that precious voice.

Launchpad...I'm so sorry.

Why? he could almost swear he heard his lover asking.

Because I couldn't...I wasn't- strong enough to save you.

Drake...what I did was my choice. You can't blame yourself for what happened.

I can and I do! he snapped inside his own mind. You wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place if I hadn't-

If you hadn't what? Had an arch nemesis? Become Darkwing Duck in the first place? Been cast to play Darkwing? Without any of that...would you and I have even met?

Maybe not...and maybe you would be safe now. Maybe if you'd never known me-

But...if I'd never known you, I never would've loved you. Safe or not, that...that's no life at all. Drake...my love...a life without you just isn't worth living.

So how do you think I feel right now?! I- what...what- can I do? In a world without you, I'm just-

Drake, you can't believe you're...wait. DW, can...can you hear me?

"No," he ground out in despair, banging his head against the window in an effort to drive the voices away. Fucking hell, he actually was going to lose it. That couldn't happen right now.

"Hey, Drake, are you all right over there?" he heard Della's voice from the seat beside him.

"Yeah. Sure," he grunted, fingers digging into his knees. When his vision redshifted yet again, he clung to the somewhat sharper state of mind, attempting to block out his own thoughts.

DW, hold on. You've gotta listen! I think we might actually be-

Shut up. Shut up shut upshutupSHUTUP! he scolded himself harshly. I can't do this right now. Not now.

"Anything new?" Indy asked from the front passenger seat.

"No," Drake said, struggling to calm his breathing. "It's just- difficult to sort out what I heard before."

"Well...don't worry about it too much in the interim," Indy said, glancing over his shoulder with a look of concern. "Because...not for nothing, but I'm not above making you remove that mask."

"Not yet," he half-growled, resisting the urge to press his fingers against the fabric. "Not until I know Gosalyn's safe."

"Darkwing," Kath interrupted before the situation could devolve into an argument, "I've driven through here often enough, but I've really never seen-"

"It's fine," Drake insisted. "It's this next bank of old storage lockers on the right. Just do what I told you and we'll be fine."

"And you literally want me to just...drive straight at the door?" she confirmed.

"Yup. It's all fine. Trust me."

"Hrghh, this is taking too long!" Lena snapped. "I'll just teleport us up there."

"Lena," her father scolded her sharply, "you know why we can't do that."

"Ugh, fine. Yes. Stupid mask spell," she grumbled, already plainly over the spell she'd been proud of just a few short hours ago.

"This one?" Kath asked as she took the turn Drake had indicated.

"Uh-huh, D91," Drake reminded her.

"Ooh, all right, I'll trust you, Drake, but if anything happens to this car, I'm sending the bill to McDuck."

Just before Kath reached the storage unit marked D91, she muttered, "Well...let's get dangerous, I suppose," and gave a tiny cry of terror before swerving and driving straight through the large door...only to send the car onto a downward sloping incline, heading underground.

"Okay, I've never seen it work before. Guess I gotta admit it's kinda cool," Lena conceded begrudgingly.

"What...what just happened?" Kath asked in mild shock as she glanced around the tunnel they were now heading down.

"Cleverly concealed holographic entrance," Drake explained. "Can't exactly drive a car into the hideout the same way you can the Ratcatcher, so this tunnel passes underneath the bay to the base of the tower. From there, it's a straight shot up."

"Oh, well, that's...now I know that," Kath mumbled, somehow continuing to keep the car moving forward until they reached the end of the tunnel — a lift that was only big enough for a single vehicle.

"Honestly, part of me wishes we could teleport there," Della said as the lift rose through the tower. "The chopper won't be nearly fast enough.

"We won't use the helicopter," Drake declared as they finally arrived at their destination. Before Kath had even shut her car down, he was hopping out of the vehicle.

"You mean- take the Thunderquack?" Della demanded as she scrambled after him.

"That's exactly what I mean," he said, heading for the staircase that led up to the roof and the tiny hangar where the custom built plane was parked. Normally, he would've loved to see the reaction of someone who was just seeing the tower for the first time, but they were on a bit of a tight schedule just now.

"But...would Launchpad have been okay with that? Are you okay with it? I mean- I've never flown her before. The Thunderquack's your baby...yours and Launchpad's."

"Be that as it may, you're literally the only one of us who can right now," he pointed out. "The Thunderquack will get us back to Duckburg in half the time it would take us in the chopper. And we need to get back there now," he reminded her as she followed him up into the hangar.

"Okay, yeah, you're right," she agreed. Then she called back down to the others, "Come on, you guys! We launch yesterday!"

Whatever the response was, Drake didn't pay it any mind. His thoughts were already on the other side of the bay with Gosalyn, needing to know she was safe and desperate to ignore the fact that he was most probably losing his mind.

XxX

"Oh, Gosalyn Mallard- McQUA-ACK!" Negaduck's voice gave a sharp crack as it echoed down the hallway, projected from the top of the staircase. "Come out and pla-ay."

Gosalyn held her breath as she listened to his footsteps draw closer...closer and closer...right up until he moved past the door she and Huey were crouching behind.

"Not that I don't just love the anticipation of your terror, little orphan brat, but this is getting more than a little old."

Huey glanced out into the hallway for a signal she couldn't see from her own vantage point, but when he gave her a nod and stepped back from the door, she had her own cue. Jerking the door wide open, she leapt out into the hallway a little ways behind him.

"You don't have to shout, Negs. I'm standin' right here," she threw out her challenge. "Oh, and definitely not an orphan, by the way."

Negaduck sniffed in annoyance as he whirled to face her. "There won't be anything left of your family by the time I'm through with you anyway."

"We'll see."

Gosalyn held her ground as he advanced on her, but before he could reach her, Dewey's voice ricocheted through the hallway.

"SMOKE BOMBS!"

Then the space was filled with purple and blue smoke so thick it hid Negaduck from her sight. Which meant, of course, that he couldn't see her either.

"Really, kid?" the ex-actor snarled, the sounds of his flailing drawing a small chuckle from Gosalyn. "You're gonna use smoke bombs against me? ME?"

"You betcha," Dewey's voice sounded from somewhere in the smoke. Continuing to back up, Gosalyn caught sight of Webby's heat goggles within the smoke.

The tiny ninja of a duck gave an enraged battle cry as she launched into action. This was followed by an indignant shout from the would be supervillain.

"FOR LAUNCHPAD!" Webby roared.

Moments later, Negaduck was sent bowling out of the dissipating cloud of smoke, rolled up in an oriental rug and bound with a curtain rope. A triumphant Webby and Violet followed just after him.

"Yes! Woo-hoo! We got him!" Dewey and Louie were both cheering as they appeared from hiding. Out of the corner of her eye, Gosalyn noticed Huey emerging from his own hiding place only halfway.

"Nice knot work, Violet," Webby complimented her friend.

"All in a day's work," the senior junior woodchuck stated with a smile.

"James Starling," Mrs. Beakley began as she and Donald approached from the end of the corridor, a stun baton in her hand, "It gives me no pleasure to arrest you on behalf of S.H.U.S.H."

"No way it's that easy," Gosalyn thought she heard Huey mutter.

"Are you morons finished?" their captive demanded, and when Gosalyn looked down at him, rather than looking angry or even mildly annoyed, he was leering up at all of them in his typical unhinged fashion.

Oh, no.

"My turn."

The next moment, the sharp end of a switch blade tore out of the rug imprisoning him as Negaduck easily cut himself free. As Violet moved to try and re-secure him, she didn't see that blade coming straight for her.

But Webby did.

Shoving the hummingbird clear, Webby threw herself directly in the weapon's path, crying out in pain as it sliced across her shoulder.

"WEBBIGAIL!" Mrs. B cried out in horror, still too far away.

Gosalyn faintly noted the look of shock on Violet's face as Webby collapsed into her arms, but she was more focused on the new device their enemy was pulling from within the tattered remains of the rug that had so lately imprisoned him — a little grey and red machine of some sort that lit from within as it primed.

"LOOK OUT!" Gosalyn shouted, rushing to pull the two girls out of the line of fire. But with them clear, it left Dewey and Louie as the next targets, completely vulnerable when a beam of light emerged from the device, bathing them in its stark brightness.

Dewey yelped in fear as he reached for his brother's hand. Louie tried to reach for the nearest door frame, but whatever energy it was that was pouring from the tiny mechanism quickly enveloped them, sucking them in as if they had been pulled into a vortex.

"Dewey! Louie!" Huey cried out.

"BOYS!" Donald shrieked, terrified and angered.

"Now do I have your attention?" Negaduck asked them, dusting himself off as he climbed to his feet.

"You let them go RIGHT NOW!" Donald screamed, livid. Hardly waiting for Negaduck to tuck the device back into his suit, the enraged duck actually threw himself straight at him.

What followed was an all out brawl as the two opponents struggled for the device. They rolled across the floor and threw each other against the walls as they traded ugly blows. At one point, Donald seemed to gain the upper hand when he broke a vase over the ex-actor's head and nearly got his arm twisted up behind his back. But then Negaduck laughed.

"Y'know, Donnie, this might work in your favor if I were any old bum off the street. Only I'm not," he declared definitively as he bodily threw the other duck over his shoulder, slamming him into the ground. Hard. "I can take anything you can dish out and more."

He then took the opportunity to slam his opponent's head even harder against the floor, leaving Donald in no condition to rise from it.

"Uncle Donald!" Huey cried out, snarling in rage as he threw the door all the way open, but Gosalyn seized him in her arms before he could tear at the mad duck.

"No!" she shouted at him, holding him as tightly as she could. If Donald's berserker rage had failed against their enemy, Huey's couldn't hope to do much better. As she struggled to hold him back, both Webby and Violet drew knives of their own, despite Webby's injury.

Negaduck was prepared for them, though. Digging a knee harshly into Donald's spine, he laid the tip of his blade against the downed duck's carotid artery, ready to cut it at the slightest provocation.

"Tell your little gremlins to drop their weapons or he dies," he warned Beakley, who dropped slowly to one knee as she tossed her stun baton just out of reach.

"Girls," she told Webby and Violet in an even voice, never taking her eyes off of their opponent. Reluctantly, the two cast their weapons aside. Quite a few of them, Gosalyn couldn't quite help noticing.

"What did you do to them?" Gosalyn demanded, still fighting to hold Huey back.

"Your little friends?" the villain asked, his gaze shifting slyly from Beakley back to her.

"Where are they, Negaduck?!" she snarled.

"Oh, you'd be surprised how much tech F.O.W.L. still has lying around. You just have to know where to look," he said as he withdrew the odd little device from his suit once more. "After all, they went through several phases of plans in their plotting against you guys. This thing, for instance, this is a prototype Solego circuit."

"Prototype? What does that mean, exactly?" Gosalyn pressed.

"It means it didn't quite break the wall into other dimensions. It just creates little pocket dimensions off of this one. So if one of us were to, say, oh, I dunno...accidentally destroy it," he threatened casually, squeezing the device a little tighter, "the pocket dimensions it's created would also be destroyed."

"Along with whatever's contained inside them," Huey whispered in horror, finally falling still in Gosalyn's arms.

"Bingo," Negaduck said with a dark chuckle, gaze flicking warningly between her and Mrs. B once again. "So what's it gonna be, duckling? You...or your friends?"

Gosalyn hesitated for several painful minutes, her gaze shifting between Negaduck, Mrs. Beakley, and Webby and Violet.

"How...how do I know you'll let them go...if I go with you?" she asked him.

"Mm, you don't. But, really, what choice do you have?"

"No...don't!" Webby pleaded with her, wincing as she struggled to stand on her own. "Doing this won't make anything better, Gosalyn."

Either way, Gosalyn was never going to know what her choice in that moment might have been, because it was also the moment the section of corridor between Mrs. Beakley and the rest of them was obliterated as the Thunderquack crashed through it.

Of course, Gosalyn didn't know that was what was happening as it was happening. All she could see was the walls shattering violently into debris as something smashed through them. With a shout, she threw both herself and Huey backwards to avoid the worst of it. Violet and Webby were close by, though they hadn't managed quite the distance she and Huey had, being closer to ground zero of whatever had just happened.

"Children? Children!" Beakley's panicked voice called out from the other side of the rubble. But it wasn't her they saw emerge from it.

No.

That was Negaduck, clearly enraged as he dragged himself from the pile of debris.

"All right. Fine," he snarled. "Now we're doing this the hard way."

He'd been injured. Gosalyn could see that from the streak of red that marred the side of his yellow suit. But that didn't stop him from activating the device.

"Gosalyn! Grab my hand!" Huey shouted at her. Looking back at him to take his outstretched hand, she saw he'd managed to grab onto an undamaged door frame.

"Webby!" she shouted down to the other young duck, whose hand was just a little too far out of her reach. Webby looked back in mild panic. She had none of her tools on her now. Particularly not her grappling gun. What could-

But then she saw a lightbulb go on behind her friend's eyes. Webby reached into her pocket and pulled out the woven cord she had finished only a few hours ago, flinging the other end to Gosalyn.

She grabbed the cord and held on tight as the light from the little machine washed over them. The pull of it instantly began to suck her and Violet in, but Webby held tight, to her friend's hand and to the cord that was now their only anchor.

"HOLD ON!" Gosalyn shouted over the growing roar of the vortex, which only seemed to grow stronger the longer it was active. Holding onto Huey's hand, there wasn't anything she could do to pull Webby and Violet in, and Webby was in much the same position, holding onto Violet and to the cord. Gosalyn watched the hummingbird attempt several approaches to try and climb the odd duck chain they'd created, but as close as she was to the actual device, the pull on her was just too strong.

And Webby was holding onto the cord with her injured arm.

"Hold on. Just hold on!" she tried to encourage her friend, even though she could see just how hopeless this situation was.

There's got to be something!

But there wasn't. Gosalyn watched with sick fear as the determination in Webbigail McDuck's eyes slowly shifted into dread. When her hand slipped a little ways down the cord, that dread melted into acceptance, her eyes locking onto Gosalyn's.

"Give it to him," she said before letting go of the cord.

"NOO!" Gosalyn screamed as she watched her two friends disappear into the vortex. The moment they simply winked out of existence, the machine shut down, leaving her staring at Negaduck's grimly amused face.

"Now then...where were we?"

Gosalyn was seriously considering a berserker rage of her own, but her thoughts were brought grinding to a halt by a voice echoing from the wreckage now embedded in the building — a voice speaking words she knew, but that sounded nothing like the man who ought to be speaking them.

"I am the terror that hunts in the night." The words pierced the dissipating smoke and debris as a figure emerged from them. "I am the honey badger that rips out your throat. I...am Darkwing Duck!"

And he was. He looked the same, but even in the now dim light, Gosalyn could see the horrifying difference. The eyes of his mask were glowing a frightening red. She couldn't see any sign of Drake Mallard beneath that mask.

"Dad?" she whispered in fear.

"Oh, yeah," Negaduck near moaned, entirely too excited by the situation. "Now that's a Darkwing Duck I can get behind. Hehe, take that however you want."

But Darkwing didn't respond to him. Not in words, at least. Removing the gas gun from its holster, he actually fired its grappling hook directly at Negaduck, one of its wicked-looking claws latching into the villain's shoulder. He cried out sharply as Darkwing retracted the length of cable, dragging him across the rubble toward the duck knight.

"I told you I wouldn't let you have Gosalyn," Darkwing said, his voice cold and deadly quiet. "I warned you."

"So do something about it," Negaduck spat in his face, sneering, though he was clearly in pain.

"Well...if you insist," Darkwing hissed before tearing the grappling hook from his shoulder, drawing blood and a fresh scream from him.

But Negaduck didn't go down. He leapt into the fight with unbounded glee, giving just as bad as he got from Darkwing as they battled back and forth over the cluttered ground. And with every blow, Gosalyn watched her father slip a little further away from her...a little further into the madness consuming his enemy.

"Curse me k-...what- what in Glasgow's good name is happening here?" she heard Scrooge demanding, only vaguely noting the arrival of him, Officer Cabrera, Gyro, Penumbra, and Manny. She should say something...tell them...Solego...the circuit device...but she couldn't make her mouth work for the horror of watching her dad devolve slowly into a beast.

Darkwing's moves became progressively more violent as he drove Negaduck to the breaking point, but the thorough ass-kicking he was being served seemed only to drive the ex-hero to greater heights of inane delight. With every blow that landed, he laughed, until Darkwing ultimately had him pinned against a wall, slamming his head against the unyielding surface over and over again.

"Let's see if you can laugh when your brain's crushed into paste against this wall!" Darkwing snarled, the red glow of his eyes almost seeming to go brighter, harsher.

"Hehe, going to kill me, duckie?" Negaduck snickered through a split beak. "I don't think you can."

"I said I would kill you and I meant it!" he growled, fingers moving to close around his enemy's throat. "You will never hurt anyone again. Not on my watch."

But it wasn't true. Negaduck was hurting them now, just with his words, with what his actions and manipulating were turning her dad into. Darkwing Duck could defeat Negaduck here and now, save her friends and end this nightmare, but...

...she would lose him.

Right before her eyes she was losing him and she couldn't stand it anymore. She couldn't let it go on.

"STOP!"

Darkwing froze upon hearing her scream. Neither he nor Negaduck looked at her, but every other eye in the room did turn to her. She didn't care about that, though. Right now her attention was only for the hero she was trying to save.

"Don't do this," she pleaded with her father, tears flowing unbidden down her face. "This isn't you. You're not a murderer."

"You are. You are," she saw Negaduck hissing in his face. It was only with extreme effort he seemed able to tear his attention away from his enemy and focus on her.

"Gos...Gosalyn," he started, voice heavy and unfamiliar as it dragged from his throat, "he's-"

"I know," she interrupted him, clutching Webby's last present tightly in her fists. "I know who he is. I know what he's done. I know he's the reason Launchpad's not here anymore. And I know you can beat him...but...then you'll get hurt. You won't be the same anymore...and I couldn't- take that," she choked out, taking a long moment to wipe the tears from her face before looking back into her dad's unfamiliar red eyes. "So I'm going with him."

"What-"

"No!"

"Gos-"

"You can't-"

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she heard Huey's voice through all the sudden outbursts, felt his hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah," she reassured him. If she had learned anything about Negaduck in all of this, it was that he couldn't resist a spectacle. He was still a performer at heart. He wasn't going to just kill her. He would make some big show out of it. They would have time. "You guys'll come for us. Or we'll find our own way out. We always do." Then she passed him the cord, being as gentle as she knew how to be as she closed his fingers around the precious strands "You know what to do."

"Yeah," he echoed her, taking the woven cord firmly in hand.

Darkwing, for his part, did not seem to understand what she'd said. He was staring at her, his hold on Negaduck's neck just as unforgiving.

"Gos..." he whispered, the lost tone of his voice at odds with the violence in his grip.

"This isn't gonna happen, Dad," she told him, trying to reassure him with her eyes. "I'm not gonna let you go down like this."

Of course, she didn't know how exactly she was going to force Darkwing Duck to release Negaduck if he didn't want to, but that solution soon presented itself in the form of the last part of Scrooge's back up.

The McQuacks.

Ripcord and Birdie McQuack had appeared among the others at the top of the staircase, along with Launchpad's younger brothers, Jet and Kyte. Once Birdie seemed to understand what it was she was trying to do, she urged Ripcord forward, and he moved in to wrap his massive arms around Darkwing, separating him from Negaduck.

"No. Wh- what are you doing?!" Darkwing protested, starting to struggle as he comprehended what was happening.

"Help him," Gosalyn said to them, to all of them.

Negaduck had dropped to the floor, coughing as the air rushed back into his lungs. She couldn't wholly identify the look on his face as he stood up, pulling out the circuit device once more. The sickening exhilaration was still there, but it was tempered by a kind of angry annoyance.

"Think you're gonna save him, you brat?" he demanded in a quiet, threatening voice. "It's not gonna happen. You'll get to watch all of them go before you."

"No! Let me go! Let me go!" she heard her dad screaming. When she turned to look at him, it was to see him struggling his hardest against Ripcord's hold on him. "GOSALYN!"

Find me, Dad. I know you can.

The last sight she had of him before everything went up in white was the look of horror on his face, plain to see even through those terrifying red eyes.

Chapter Text

Drake couldn't explain how the probability spell worked. It seemed it was different each time it came online. First it had been like a trail he'd followed. Next it had been like a puzzle of faulty recordings playing in his brain. Now?

Now it was like a super magnet drawing him in, pulling him inexorably toward an exact pair of windows on the side of McDuck Manor. And on approach in the Thunderquack, there was only one possible plan of attack.

"Crash it," he said to Della.

"I- you mean-"

"Third floor, fourth window from the left," he told her, reaching out to grip her arm while keeping his gaze fixed on the spot. "Crash. It."

"Yus! Now we're talking!" Lena cheered.

"You all might be certifiably insane," Kath mumbled faintly.

"Won't disagree with you," Indy said, though there was resolve in his voice, apparently prepared to trust Drake's instincts on this one.

"Drake, are you sure?" the pilot pressed him, to which he nodded.

"Make Launchpad proud."

"Well...I'dbelyingifIsaidIhadn'tthoughtaboutit," she bit out as she snapped her flight goggles into place. "All right people, strap yourselves in. This is my kinda crazy! LET'S GET DANGEROUUUUS!!" she roared as she threw the Thunderquack on a collision course. Drake braced himself only a little before they went crashing straight into the house.

The windshield, thankfully, remained intact, though it was covered with debris.

"Anyone hurt?" he called out as he undid his restraints. Della was already shaking herself off, though still caught up in her own restraints.

"Hoo, that was awesome!" she cheered. "Oh, god, Uncle Scrooge is gonna kill me."

"Nope."

"It appears not."

"Shaken. Very shaken. But I'll recover."

"Then let's get a move on," he said, heading toward the exit hatch. When it didn't open, he could only assume it was blocked somehow. Something was happening outside. He could hear it, but he couldn't pinpoint anything more accurate.

"Come. On. Stupid. Hatch. Open!" he snarled as he shoved his shoulder against it.

LP, you know I adore this plane, but if it stops me from saving our little girl, I'm going to dismantle it screw by screw.

But...why would the Thunderquack stop you from rescuing Gosalyn?

"No! Nonononono! Don't answer! You can't answer!" he shouted in horrified frustration, his vision suddenly redshifting again.

"Drake-" someone attempted to speak to him, and he could no longer tell if it was Della, Indy, Lena, or Kath.

Giving one last harrowing cry of effort, Darkwing threw himself against the hatch, the unnatural burst of strength finally allowing him to shove it free. The sight his shifted eyes picked out through the haze of smoke and debris was Negaduck advancing on his daughter.

Time to give this madman a taste of his own medicine.

"I am the terror that hunts in the night," he declared, prepared to do things a hundred times worse than the simple nuisances his usual words promised. "I am the honey badger that rips out your throat. I...am Darkwing Duck!"

Unfortunately, his enemy didn't seem to recognize his peril, because he looked entirely too excited by what he saw in him.

"Oh, yeah," the ex-actor all but moaned as he eyed him up and down. "Now that's a Darkwing Duck I can get behind. Hehe, take that however you want."

And that he was definitely not going to stand for. Whipping out the gas gun, he fired its grappling hook at his enemy, more than a little pleased when he saw the hook sink into him. That pleasure was only compounded when he began to retract the cable, forcing a sharp cry of pain from Negaduck as he dragged him over the rubble.

"I told you I wouldn't let you have Gosalyn," he said, something cold and harsh deep inside him beginning to crawl out. "I warned you."

"So do something about it," his enemy spat at him, the look in his eyes as egregiously unhinged as ever, despite his obvious pain.

He was just going to have to push that pain threshold past the breaking point.

"Well...if you insist."

With that, Darkwing Duck let all the hurt and sorrow and rage that was inside him out. The bitter, black hate that scalded his veins and squeezed at his heart found release through his fists as he proceeded to pound his adversary without mercy. Every blow he dealt only served to send him further into that blind rage.

This is what I feel. This is what you did to me. If I can return even a fraction of this pain, whatever happens to me will be worth it!

No! No, it won't! that unrelenting voice at the back of his mind cried out, desperate. Nothing's worth this, DW! Especially not me. I don't want you to be like him...because of me. I can't accept that.

Darkwing felt something inside of him crack at the sound of the achingly earnest and familiar voice. God, Launchpad's voice was so entrenched in his mind he could even conjure the exact words his partner would say.

Drake...please. Please...don't do this.

Drake? Heh, Drake isn't here anymore. He died...on the docks that night. He tried to save his partner, who walked through fire for him...but he wasn't strong enough to do the same. Drake's gone!

Drake...

But he had meant what he'd said, and with every blow he struck to his enemy, Darkwing Duck let Drake slip further and further away. It soothed the agony in his fragile soul, but it didn't seem to have much of an effect on Negaduck himself. The assault only seemed to push the villain further over his own edge, drawing maddened, maniacal laughter from his broken beak.

"Let's see if you can laugh when your brain's crushed into paste against this wall!" he snarled, ramming the older duck's head against the wall as hard as he could, holding nothing back. And despite his obvious injuries, Negaduck did manage yet another chuckle.

"Going to kill me, duckie?" he mocked him, clearly inviting him to do just that. "I don't think you can."

"I said I would kill you and I meant it!" he growled, fingers tightening around Negaduck's throat, threatening to strangle him. "You will never hurt anyone again. Not on my watch."

It was the reason he gave, but even he knew it wasn't true. Whether it was the hero's way or not, all he wanted now was vengeance. He was going to make his former hero pay for every drop of Launchpad's blood, no matter what it cost him in the end.

"STOP!"

The sound of his daughter's desperate cry froze the falling hero where he stood. He couldn't bring himself to look at her, but he couldn't help but to hear her.

"Don't do this," she sobbed quietly, her plea echoing the impassioned words from his own heart. "This isn't you. You're not a murderer."

"You are. You are," Negaduck hissed in his face, goading him, practically begging for the killing blow. It took everything he had not to land it.

"Gos...Gosalyn," he started heavily as he turned his eyes to her. It was so hard...just to speak..."he's-"

"I know," she interrupted him, tears flowing steadily down her face, though she somehow kept her voice level. "I know who he is. I know what he's done. I know he's the reason Launchpad's not here anymore. And I know you can beat him...but...then you'll get hurt. You won't be the same anymore...and I couldn't- take that," she told him as she wiped the tears from her face. But then her words stopped making sense. "So I'm going with him."

That...no. He really must have lost it, because he couldn't have heard what he'd heard. There was no way- Gosalyn would never say anything like that. Because she knew that if Negaduck got his hands on her...

Other things were happening around him, but he couldn't bring himself to focus on them. All he could do was stand there, his enemy choking to death in his grip while he tried to understand just what it was his daughter had said.

"Gos..."

"This isn't gonna happen, Dad. I'm not gonna let you go down like this."

Still not fully understanding what was happening, he was suddenly forced into comprehension when a large pair of arms wrapped around him, pulling him away from Negaduck.

"No. Wh- what are you doing?!" he shouted, beginning to struggle.

Oh, god, it was Launchpad all over again! He was going to be made to stand by and do nothing while his life was stripped away before his eyes.

"No! Let me go! Let me go!" he shrieked, fighting his hardest, but nothing he did could force those arms to loose their hold. "GOSALYN!"

There was nothing he could do. Nothing but watch as his perfectly calm and composed daughter disappeared in a blaze of white.

The scream that tore from his throat once Gosalyn was gone was wordless. It was a sound beyond anguish, beyond anger, or even sanity, and many of the others would later tell him how it had frightened them, but he didn't know any of that in that moment.

All he knew was that Gosalyn was gone.

"BRING HER BACK!!" he screamed at Negaduck, screamed until his throat was raw. "YOU BRING HER BACK RIGHT NOW!"

But his nemesis just sneered at him as he pocketed his device, every inch the duck with the upper hand, in spite of the fact that he was clearly struggling to stand.

"I told you, duckling," he said as he began to back away from them, toward the hole that Darkwing and Della had just carved through the side of the mansion. "I told you I would take everything from you. Is it my fault everything decided to make it easier?"

"Malicious miscreant," Scrooge snarled, brandishing his cane like a sword. "What have ye done with the wee lass?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, you'll find out soon enough," Negaduck scolded as he continued to back away. "Just know that if anything happens to me on my way out, you'll never see her or any of the other brats alive again."

The billionaire's expression went hard on hearing the mad duck's threat, though his eyes were filled with dread. "The boys...Webby..."

"That's right. Try anything and they die here and now."

"Negaduck," Officer Cabrera warned, clearly considering challenging the threat as her hand hovered near the gun at her hip.

"No, no, no, Officer. Really think you're ready to gamble with the lives of Scrooge McDuck's family? Any of you?!" he called out to the group at large, to Penumbra and Gyro, who had hands on their weapons, to Manny and the twins, who all looked ready to commit violent murder. But every last one of them stood down when faced with the threat to the youngest members of the clan.

And at the last, Negaduck looked to the group crawling from the wreckage of the Thunderquack, a pair of familiar eyes locking onto his for the first time in what had to have been years.

"Kath?" he called out in wicked amusement. "Oh, Kath, Kath, Kath. Don't tell me they dragged you into this, too. Well...what do you think of your Dark now, Morgie baby?"

"Jim..." the actress uttered in shock. "What...what happened to you?"

"Happened? Little movie star there happened," the villain mocked while Darkwing continued trying to escape the iron grip that was still holding him fast. "Ah, well. You'll get used to the idea," he said.

"I WILL FIND YOU!!" Darkwing shrieked at him, never having once ceased his struggles to get free, despite his lack of success. This drew nothing more from the ex-actor than his typical knowing sneer.

"Oh, I hope so," he said, keeping his eyes on Darkwing as he continued his backwards retreat. "We'll see who you really are when we come face to face again."

Then he was gone, vanished through the twisted tangle of wreckage that had once been a wall.

Darkwing continued to struggle, his cries now broken and stilted.

"Drake," a familiar voice started, "please stop."

"He took her!" he cried out, caught somewhere between anger, sorrow, and hopelessness. "He took- my little girl!"

"I know," the voice's owner attempted to calm him, reaching out a soothing hand to touch his face. "I understand."

"Understand?" he bit out, his voice breaking. "How could you? You...will never understand."

"Me? I don't understand? Are you serious, Drake Mallard-McQuack? If anybody understands...the pain of losing a child...I do. At least you'll have the chance to get yours back."

Then he felt a pair of hands reach around the back of his head, beginning to untie the mask.

"No. No! You can't- I still need that!" he protested, struggling all the harder. Even so, it wasn't long before the simple length of cloth was slipping free, normalizing his vision, and he was able to understand why that voice was so familiar.

Birdie McQuack. Despite her own loss, she was looking at him with perfect compassion and understanding.

"Birdie," he whispered, hardly able to meet that warm, painful gaze. "I lost him. I lost Launchpad. I'm- so sorry."

"It's all right," she told him, lifting her hand once again to cup his cheek in her palm. "You're all right."

"No. No, it's not. I told you...I promised you...I promised he would always come first, but I couldn't-...I failed him. I failed them both!" he hissed in anguish, tears he didn't know he still had beginning to squeeze from his eyes without his permission. And damn him, but he couldn't stop himself leaning into the comfort she offered.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, so certain. "I could never have asked you to make that promise...but you made it anyway. Made an impossible promise to an exhausted mother. Heh, Launchpad would've been upset with us both if he'd known. But...my boy only did what he always does. Give everything he had to give for the sake of what he loved most of all. None of us could've changed that about him."

But I...I'm not worth that kind of sacrifice, he wanted to argue, to scream, but he couldn't make his mouth work. When Ripcord finally released his hold on him, all he could manage to do was collapse into Birdie's waiting embrace, and he couldn't help but to let her cradle him in her arms...this woman he had no right at all to ask for comfort from.

And as she held him and let him cry, he couldn't help overhearing a few of the other tears being shed.

"Mom!" Huey shouted as he ran to Della, who caught him up in her arms.

"Oh, Huey," she returned, her voice strangely quiet as she hugged him tight, kissing the top of his head. "You're all right. You're all right. But...your brothers? What happened?"

"And Vi? And Webby?" Lena pressed as she and Indy joined them, their expressions twisting in worry.

But Huey couldn't seem to make himself speak. He just shook his head, burying his face in Della's chest.

Before anything more could be said, a fresh commotion began to emerge from beneath the wreckage of the Thunderquack.

"Could use a little help down here," came the harried voice of Scrooge's housekeeper.

"Bentina!" Scrooge called out, hurrying forward with Penumbra and the others to help lift the wreckage and debris from over the older duck. Before long, the former spy was crawling out from beneath the tangled mass, pulling a barely conscious duck with her.

"Donald!" Della cried, dropping to her knees beside the two as Beakley laid the badly injured duck out on the cluttered floor.

"Della...the boys...I- I'm sorry," was all Donald managed to get out before falling unconscious altogether.

"It seems more than one of us will need a trip to Dr. Adelie," Scrooge sighed gravely as he climbed back to his feet. "And I imagine we'll be including Negaduck in that number once we're through with him."

XxX

It wasn't the first time Launchpad had questioned his own mind. He dreamed so deeply and imagined so vividly it was sometimes difficult to remember what was and wasn't real. When he first heard Drake's voice in his thoughts, he was reasonably certain it was just that...his thoughts...his own way of reaching out to soothe his partner's hurt...

...but then he'd begun to understand that something different was happening. He didn't know how, but he and Drake were somehow connected, and Drake was actively rejecting that connection.

And while it hurt to be shut out like that, it didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as having to listen to his beloved sink into violence and rage and despair...and being unable to do anything to help him.

Drake...what can I do? I don't know what to do!

Wrapped up in guilt, exhaustion, hopelessness, and pain, both physical and emotional, Launchpad could do little more than lie there in the cell. He couldn't say how long he'd been drifting in and out the next time he became aware of Negaduck. For all he knew, an hour or a week were both equally likely possibilities.

"Good evening, sidekick," the villain said with a low chuckle. "Have good dreams last night?"

"Can't dream if you don't sleep," he pointed out bitterly.

"Tut, tut, tut. Such a sour attitude...and after I went to all this trouble to bring you back a little companion."

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, his normally strong voice thin and sharp.

"I'm talking about my moment of triumph, LP," he coughed out with a sweeping gesture as he entered the room. Was that Launchpad's imagination or did he sound...weaker than usual?

As he moved closer, the ex-idol pulled something from inside his jacket ―a tiny red and grey device the pilot felt sure he wouldn't be able to make sense of even if he wasn't traumatized and half-starved.

"Okay, I give up," he finally conceded after several minutes of glancing back and forth between Negaduck and the little gizmo.

"Shocker," the villain mocked. "Allow me to dumb it down for you. Might you remember a certain ramrod device invented by a certain orphan girl's grandfather?"

"She's not an orphan," he fired back. "She has family."

Negaduck just stared dubiously down at him for a long moment. "Really? That's what you're focusing on? Not the fact that I have a miniaturized dimensional gateway in the palm of my hand? Or that I have said orphan brat and all her little friends trapped in said device?"

"Gos?" he whispered in shock as he stared at the device. She...she was really inside that thing? Not that it was impossible to apply Solego's ideas to conventional inflation theory or to what Thaddeus Waddlemeyer had actually achieved, but-

No! Focus! Gosalyn's in danger!

"That's right," Negaduck said snidely, giving the suddenly precious device a casual toss between his hands. "Your darling girl, all those little children you love so much...they're all locked tight right here in my hands, each boxed up in their own little pocket dimension."

The Solego Circuit wasn't complete then. The kids...their very existence was tied to that little cube...at the mercy of one of the most vile villains to have ever existed.

"So close...but as always, just out of your tiny grasp," the fallen hero mocked as he pocketed the device once more. "Every inch of my game board perfectly in place, all of you right where I want you...positioned to die at the exact moment it's most lethal to that Darkwing Dupe's fragile little heart!"

Negaduck started to laugh then, a burgeoning build of villainous laughter that was a match for any of the original Darkwing's rogues and worse. And as Launchpad watched the man grow more deranged with every harsh burst of cackling, as he remembered the sheer agony that had gripped Drake's heart as he'd fought against him, remembered his vow to destroy Drake...

You hurt my family. You hurt Drake!

...something inside of him just snapped.

"You...you monster!" he cried out as he attacked.

When Launchpad threw himself at Negaduck he saw nothing...thought, heard, felt nothing except that his family was in danger, that they were in danger and he had to do something. His own broken body had no meaning. He knew only that he had to fight.

Negaduck yelped in surprised outrage when the pilot threw his chained fists at his unprotected face, the blow giving a satisfying thunk as it landed in his eye. The force of it sent the smaller duck flying across the little room, crashing hard against the wall. But when Launchpad attempted to go after him, he immediately found himself tripped up by the shackles that bound his feet, leaving him only able to crawl toward the villain.

The ex-actor was already attempting to right himself, shaking himself off as he struggled to sit up.

"You little idiot! If you think you can get away with-"

But Launchpad didn't let him finish. The moment his captor was within reach, he was grappling with him, struggling to get at the pocket where the device was hidden.

"You. Let them. Go. Right now!" he demanded as they fought, rolling back and forth on the floor and trading awkward blows.

"If you think- you can get the drop on me...where your precious Darkwing Dip couldn't...you're going to die even stupider than I thought you were...and that was already pretty stupid!" Negaduck snarled.

"Don't- think anything," Launchpad growled back. "But I know I'm not gonna let you hurt those kids!"

Briefly, after a hard blow to the side of the shorter duck's head, the pilot managed to reach in close, feeling his fingers brush against the little cube. But Negaduck quickly jerked the prize away, sending it skittering to the other side of the cell. And when he turned to try and crawl after it, he felt Negaduck's elbow dig painfully into his spine, drawing a sharp cry from his beak. Then the villain was rolling past him, moving to crouch above the tiny prison. Launchpad heaved himself to his feet, ready to struggle that final distance, but his enemy forced him to a standstill when he held his foot over the Solego device.

"One more step and I crush them all. Right here. Right now."

"You- you wouldn't-"

"Wouldn't I?" Negaduck spat at him. "It would be easy. Like squashing a bug."

Launchpad raised his bound hands, but the villain quickly tested his resolve by lowering his foot to the device, not yet applying pressure, but ready to.

"Don't!" the word jerked from his mouth like a shocked gasp as he dropped to his knees. "I give. Just stop."

"Better," his captor snipped at him. "Now, before I lift my foot from this little toy, I'm going to need you to go stand against that wall," he said, nodding toward the farther wall that separated them.

Growling low in his throat, Launchpad did as he was bid, keeping his eyes fixed on Negaduck all the while.

"Gos," he called out as their captor lifted the tiny device into his fist, "Dewey...Webby...I dunno if you can hear me, but I'm gonna get you outta there. I promise!"

"How precious," Negaduck said with a glower as he backed his way out of the cell. "But if you think you'll get another shot at this, you're wrong. That's the last time you fuck with me...sidekick." Then he was pulling out an old-fashioned gas gun, just like from the old series. "Now...suck gas, traitor."

It didn't take long for the fired round to start spewing its contents into the room, the cell quickly filling with gas once Negaduck had sealed it up. Launchpad didn't have much time to think about any sort of actual plan before his vision started going dark around the edges, the gas getting to him.

Gos...Drake...I'm not gonna let you down this time. I'm not . I'm not...I'm not...I'm...

XxX

Fenton had been rushed directly into recompression therapy upon arrival at Duckburg General. Doctor Adelie and Lil Bulb were currently with him in a hyperbaric chamber that resembled nothing so much as a high-tech steel pipe about the size of a dumpster.

The doctor was busy monitoring the various machines he was hooked up to. The only way to see into the chamber was through a small acrylic window in the entry hatch, which the young scientist's mother was currently standing at, a tight look of worry on her face as she rested her hand against the window. Gandra had been there when they'd arrived, occupying a similar position, but when she'd learned that only Gyro could give her the full story, she'd headed swiftly out of the observation room.

"How is he?" Drake asked Loopy, well aware that his almost-sister-in-law at least understood how all this hyperbaric medicine worked.

Shifting to stand from where she'd been leaning against the observation room's wall, the young astronaut cracked her shoulders as she began to recount events. "Well, I got him here quick as I could. They got him off oxygen and on a drip. Pretty sure there was a shot of adrenaline before they actually went into recomp. Fenton got bent coming up from 200 feet, so what that chamber actually does is press them both down to that depth. Then the pressure gets gradually reduced over the next few hours so his body has the time it needs to expel the nitrogen buildup naturally. At this point, it's too early in the treatment to tell whether it's effective or not. Best case scenario, he beats this thing. Full recovery. Worst case...worst case is life in a wheelchair. Either that or...he doesn't beat this thing."

"How long?" Scrooge was the one to finally ask. "How long between his ascent and actually getting the lad into the chamber?"

"By the timetable Gear boy gave us? Thirty minutes."

Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of the deadly nitrogen bubbles foaming in Fenton's blood. Was it too late? Was the damage already done? Was one more person going to meet their end because of Negaduck? Because of him? God, if Fenton died because of him-

"Hey, don't let it bother you too much, Drake-man," Loopy comforted him, offering up a light punch to his shoulder. "Fenton's tougher than he lets on. He can beat this thing."

"He will," Officer Cabrera said, her voice thin but sharp as her fingers curled into a fist against the acrylic surface.

"Indy!" a new voice shouted as its owner burst into the observation room. Drake looked back to see Tyrian Sabrewing cross the room in little more than three strides on his way to his husband, who had been verging on catatonic ever since emerging from the crashed Thunderquack.

"Ty..." the slighter hummingbird mumbled as he was swept into his husband's embrace, his usual eloquence deserting him.

"Are you all right?" Ty pressed.

"'m not hurt," was all Indy could seem to answer, clinging tightly to the larger male for a long moment.

"And...and Vi? Is it true?"

"She- she's...Negaduck has her. I didn't- see what happened. Ty..."

"What about Lena?"

"She's fine. She's back at McDuck Manor with Bentina and the others. Ty...our...our baby!" Indy choked out, barely keeping back a sob.

"It's all right. It'll be all right," Ty soothed him, holding him tightly. "We'll get her back. Somehow."

As he watched the two men embrace, Drake felt something inside of him twist in grief and despair. He couldn't deny the tiny kernel of jealousy in his heart. He had had that once, had known such an embrace...but now it seemed he would always be reeling from the loss of it.

"None of us really saw what happened to them," Scrooge started. "Save for Gosalyn. She just...disappeared in a blaze of white light. What little explanation we were able to get from Huey is that the blackguard has them trapped in an incomplete Solego Circuit...sealed inside of a pocket dimension like so much data on a computer."

"And we know how we can track him in order to save them," Drake pointed out, his tone going a little sour as he glanced between Indy and the last two people in the room, Birdie and Ripcord. "So I'm a little confused as to why we're still standing around when there's something we can do."

"Drake, I already told you I wasn't above removing that mask. So that's what we did," the magic user scolded him as he disentangled himself from his husband, finally managing to compose himself. "It's become too dangerous."

"Wasn't that the point of it in the first place?" he demanded. "So it wouldn't be dangerous?"

"It was. But for some reason, it's failing. I have no idea what's causing that shift you keep going into, so it would be irresponsible of me to let you continue."

"Irresponsible?" Drake repeated with a bitter laugh. "I'm not really here for responsible at this point. All I want, all I- need...is to destroy Negaduck. Kill him and save my daughter."

"And that's exactly why the lassie did what she did," Scrooge put in, a hint of warning in his voice. "Because she knew ye wouldn'a survive becoming a murderer. It's not what ye are, lad."

"How do you know? You don't know that," Drake fired back. "People barely know who I am anyway. What difference would this make?! Besides, my own survival in this isn't really my top priority," he bit out, realizing too late that, in his anger, he'd revealed something he probably shouldn't have, and the stricken looks all around the room quickly confirmed that.

But Scrooge McDuck's look shifted into something different. It was the quiet fury Drake had seen in his eyes the night he'd regained consciousness.

"So this is what we're come to, is it? Ye're perfectly willing to just throw away the sacrifice yer partner made for ye? Launchpad gave his life to save yours."

"McDuck-" Officer Cabrera started as she tuned back into the conversation, but Drake didn't let her finish.

"I know that!" he shouted. "You're telling me that cuz you think I don't know? I was there. I watched it happen. I saw the moment he decided my life was more important than his. I just- I don't want anyone else to have to make that choice for me. Not for me!"

I'm not worth it!

Of all the people in that room who might've reacted violently to his statement, he honestly hadn't expected it to be Birdie, which was why he was more than a little shocked to find himself reeling from the blow when she delivered a hard slap across his face.

"Now you listen to me, Drake Mallard-McQuack," the tiny red-headed duck snarled as she glowered at him through narrowed eyes. "I'm a fairly easy-going woman. There's a lot I'm willing to tolerate. What I'm absolutely not going to tolerate is you insulting my baby boy like that."

"I- wh- wha..."

"My Launchpad- adored you. I can't begin to describe the love he felt for you. But if you value yourself so little...if you think the person he loved more than anything in this life isn't worthy of that love...that sacrifice...then you couldn't have thought much of his love, and you insult his memory."

Her words were a slap to the face a thousand times worse than any physical blow ever could have been, and she held his gaze while she spoke. But when she'd finished speaking, she pulled something from her pocket, holding it out to him with a steely glint in her eyes.

"My...mask?" he mumbled, not in any way comprehending.

"I may not know much about magic, but I do know what a man on the edge looks like," she told him, the length of purple fabric just lying in her hand. "I'll even give it to you...if you can honestly look me in the eye and tell me that any of this is what Launchpad would want."

Drake sighed as he shook his head. He knew he was close to gone, but he was not so far gone as to be able to lie and say that any of this would make his partner happy. His hand twitched briefly, but he didn't reach for the length of cloth.

"Believe me, Drake, I want those children back just as badly as you do," Scrooge told him. "And if I thought it would help, I'd let you put that mask back on, but Birdie's right. Throwing away what Launchpad died to protect is nothing less than an insult to his memory. We'll find some other way."

But there wasn't another way. Negaduck had thus far eluded them. The combined knowledge, wealth, and technology of Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, Darkwing Duck, Gyro Gearloose, Gandra Dee, and Scrooge McDuck had all failed to locate him. Only one method had come anywhere close to succeeding, and that method just happened to be the most dangerous.

Well...maybe it was time to get dangerous.

For the last time.

But of course he couldn't say that to any of them, so thankfully he was spared having to when Della and Penumbra entered the observation room.

"Donald's all right for now. He's asleep. Daisy and the girls just got here."

"Right. Robyn'll probably want to have a look at him when she gets out of the chamber. At the lot of ye, for that matter," Scrooge noted as he looked around the room. "About fifty percent of this room's occupants have been either nearly drowned or blown up today."

Drake used the distraction brought on by Della's entrance to slip out of the room, carefully pocketing the length of purple fabric he'd snuck from Birdie's pocket. He had learned many tricks in his efforts to emulate his hero. Sleight of hand was just one of them. And while no one had noticed that particular trick, he had not been as unobtrusive in his departure.

"He should'nae be alone right now," Scrooge said once he was gone, though he didn't plan to do anything to prevent his going.

"Yeah," Loopy agreed as she headed for the door. "I'm on it."

"Though I suppose it's better the lad not hear what I have to say," the old duck began, his head hanging only minutely.

"Uncle Scrooge?" Della pressed him.

"It's...difficult...to know how to put this. We did...try our best to retrieve Launchpad's body...to do for him in accordance with Halakha."

"And we appreciate that," Ripcord said, voice astonishingly quiet for such a large and typically boisterous man. In fact, Scrooge thought it might've been the first time in all of this he had heard Launchpad's father speak.

"But...as it happens...the body we'd thought to be his...turns out not to be. The site has been searched quite thoroughly at this point...and no other remains have been found."

"What are you saying?" Birdie asked him.

Scrooge gave a long sigh before lifting his eyes to meet the bereft mother's gaze.

"I'm sayin'...that there's a very slender chance that Launchpad's not dead."

XxX

"Five more minutes, guys! Just to be on the safe side!" Huey called up to the McQuack twins before pulling his head back inside the window.

He and Gyro were currently in a makeshift workshop space in the mansion preparing to work on Boyd. Kytoon and Jet McQuack, meanwhile, were up on the roof with a device that Gyro had hastily constructed for the sole purpose of breaking down the subatomic reactions that powered the nanobots. Once the bots were out of the picture, they could at least start to repair Boyd.

Even if they couldn't do much of anything else.

Huey hadn't quite known what to do with himself since watching his brothers and friends disappear in blazes of white light. One moment, all he'd want to do was break down and sob and the next, it would be a struggle not to let the Duke free. He hadn't found his way back to the clarity of purpose solving Negaduck's mysteries had given him, not after seeing the damage he could do up close. For the moment, all he could seem to do was be an extra pair of hands while Fenton was down.

"How's it looking?" he asked as he returned to Gyro's side. The scientist was practically glued to a microscope examining one of Boyd's exposed wires.

"Looks like we're in the clear," he muttered. "Not one iota of activity from these little hellspawn. We'll finally be able to get Boyd back online."

Huey could do little more than pace furtively while Gyro worked, waiting for any possible instruction that might be forthcoming.

"What are we going to do once he's up and running?" he mumbled, more to himself than to Gyro. "Everything we've tried to find Negaduck so far hasn't worked. What are we gonna do? How are we gonna get the others back?!"

"Hi, I'm Boyd. A definitely real boy."

At the sound of his friend's voice, Huey's attention jerked back in the direction of Gyro's makeshift worktable to see the scientist hugging his creation tightly.

"BOYD!" he cried out in relief, hurrying to join the embrace. The little bot returned their hugs, albeit with a confused sort of enthusiasm.

"There," Gyro bit out as he pulled back. "It should've been that easy from the word go."

"I...did I miss something?" Boyd asked, glancing between the two of them. "What's going on?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Gyro asked him.

"It was..." Boyd's voice fell off as he tried to think back, his expression going inward. "Fenton and I...we were going to help Drake and Launchpad. But I...we...I can't- memory...not stored. What- what happened?" he pressed, looking more and more worried as his gaze darted back and forth between them.

Gyro sighed heavily as he reached out a hand to rest it on Boyd's shoulder. "Boyd...Launchpad didn't make it out."

Huey felt his friend's metal limbs stiffen in shock when he heard the words, and when he saw the stricken look on the other boy's face, he felt certain that if he'd been able to shed tears, he would've been.

"Was...was that my fault?" Boyd asked in a tiny voice. "Did Launchpad die...because of me?"

"No," Gyro insisted firmly, hugging them both for only a moment before pulling back yet again. "The actions of Negaduck are his own. Launchpad's death is not on your hands."

"But I- I could've helped."

"So could any of us, had we been there. This does not change who is truly at fault for it."

"But...what about Drake- and Fenton? What happened to them?"

"Drake is- fine," Gyro answered, and even if the stilted response didn't give away the less than truthful nature of the statement, Huey didn't doubt that Boyd could pick up on his own sub-visual physiological responses to it. "But Fenton-"

"Looks like our bot buddy's all right now!" Kyte called up to the roof as he climbed in through the window, winding up in a less than graceful heap on the floor. But when he managed to disentangle himself from himself, he quickly turned his attention to Boyd. "How you feeling, little man?"

"All of my systems are at optimum function. But I-"

"I assume your brother will be taking the same route you did," Gyro sniped at the first McQuack twin. "If so, would you please remind him to be careful with that device? We'll likely still need it."

"Hey, Jet!" Kyte called out the open window.

"Yeah?" his brother's voice answered from outside.

"The doc says don't drop the doohickey!"

"What?"

"I said the doc says don't drop the-"

"Oops."

The unfortunately timed utterance was followed by something tumbling past the window, but when Gyro slapped an aggrieved palm against his forehead, Boyd was rocketing off the table, straight out the window.

"Hwow. Nice catch, little man."

Then Boyd was hovering just outside the window on his rocket boosters, hefting a machine that was nearly twice his size above his head.

"Well, at least we know all of those systems are in working order," Gyro said as Boyd flew the device into the room. His voice was its normal cool, straight-laced tone, but the look he offered Boyd could almost be counted as a smile.

"Sorry about that, Doc," Jet grunted as he pulled himself in through the window. Once he was inside, Huey hurried to shut it. No sense in it being open any longer than it had to be.

"GEARLOOSE!" yet another voice joined in. The sudden burst of anger drew every eye in the room to the door to find Gandra Dee standing there with literal lightning in her eyes.

"Gandra? I thought you- ulgh!" Gyro choked when the other scientist launched herself at him, her hands going for his throat.

"They said only you could tell me what happened down there, so you tell me what happened to my suit!" she demanded.

Gyro made several attempts to choke out words, but nothing could get past her furious throttling.

"Uh...Gandra? I'm sure he'd love to answer you, but you choking the life out of him doesn't exactly make that feasible," Huey pointed out tentatively.

"Huughh, fine," Gandra groaned, finally releasing her sometime colleague. "Start talking."

"Dr. Gearloose," Boyd started in a nervous voice as Gyro coughed, "what does she mean by 'down there'? What happened to Fenton?"

Gyro's expression went grave once again as he looked at Boyd. When he'd finally recovered himself enough to speak, he began with a sigh.

"It turns out that the weapon Starling was using against us was some form of nanotech. But rather than running a base program of construction, it seems the core function of this particular breed was destruction. Once you and the Gizmosuit were hit with them, they maintained the effects of Starling's weapon, keeping you both out of commission no matter what we tried."

"But that- that can't be," Gandra tried to argue. "Who else could even have nano technology?"

"You tell me, mother of nanites," Gyro fired back. "The fact remains that Jim Starling somehow got his hands on them, and bringing the Gizmosuit down to the lab allowed them to infest it without our knowledge."

"Then why did it take them three days to destroy the lab? A proper nano swarm could do that in just under an hour."

"Because they weren't destroying it. They were only keeping Boyd and Gizmoduck out of the game. What happened to the lab...seems to have only happened because Drake and Indy accidentally did some damage to one of the window pressure seals during an attempted spell. If I've understood what I was seeing correctly, these bots were not doing active damage, merely maintaining a structural unsoundness that was already present. And a pressure seal can't exactly handle being structurally unsound with the weight of the entire ocean bearing down on it. Everything happened quickly once that seal went. The emergency system left us trapped with no easy way out, so we had to bail from two hundred feet. Fenton...remained at depth too long when we were trying to get out. He's currently undergoing recompression therapy...which I assume is going well, otherwise you wouldn't be here," Gyro finished, the last directed bitingly at Gandra, who looked very much like she wanted to slap him.

"He'll be fine. He'll pull through. He has to," she near-growled in response, her eyes briefly squeezing shut. "In the meantime, where's the Gizmosuit? We need to get it back online."

"Right here," Gyro said, nodding down at the bag beside the work table. "Did he code it to you?"

"Technically yes, but I wouldn't use it unless I had no other choice," she said, moving to dig the helmet out of the bag, staring at the faceplate a long moment before speaking. "More I want to get a look at these nanobots."

"Do you think...it might be possible to reverse engineer a signal? If we can get one active again, I mean?" Huey found himself asking.

"We wouldn't even need to do that, really," she said as she pulled a tool from Gyro's belt, eliciting an indignant squawk from him. "If we can just get a working schematic of the thing uploaded to the cloud, it would tell us everything we need to know."

"Well, if you science types wanna get started on that, Kyte and I can make a donut run," Jet suggested. "Looks like this'll be a long morning."

Huey didn't quite get how they could just do that. Shake off the events of the previous night as if they were nothing. But then, Jet and Kyte were members of the McQuack family. Maybe they could use just a little of that crazy stupid lucky optimism right about now?

Anything had to be better than the last three days.

XxX

"Tea?"

The scent of apple and chamomile filled Kath's nose as she looked up to see Scrooge's housekeeper setting a tray down on the table in front of her.

"Oh- yes. Thank you...Bentina, was it?" she clarified as she took the offered cup of tea.

"Bentina it was," the woman confirmed as she took a seat beside her, taking the second cup of tea from the service and adding just a drop of honey to the steaming liquid. Kath added more of a spoonful to her own cup, plus a few splashes of milk before beginning to blow gently on it. "I realize how completely mad this must all seem."

"Not so mad as you might think," she returned with a faint laugh. "I suppose to- to get by in Hollywood, you have to have a bit of a taste for madness."

"Well, you seem to be adjusting better than most. I imagine this will come quite out of nowhere, but I thought you were brilliant in 'The Shadow of Zorro'."

Kath blinked in surprise as she looked to the largely stoic housekeeper. She still looked fairly roughed up from last night's fight, but she'd at least taken the time to redo her hair and patch up her injuries. The absolute last thing she'd expected to find in a woman like this was...a fan.

"I didn't know anyone even saw that old thing," she said with a mildly embarrassed chuckle before taking a sip of her tea. "Most of the Darkwing fans only go so far as 'The Last Mouseketeer' and 'The Tempest'. I was a baby back then."

"'The Tempest' was wonderful as well, but I saw 'Zorro' a long time before I'd even heard of Darkwing.  Sombrita de la Vega was a proper heroine. She...very much spoke to me at the time."

"I think she could've done even better if I'd truly understood the character I was playing, but I'm glad she spoke to at least one person."

Bentina Beakley said nothing to this. She simply nodded, raising her teacup as if to Kath's health, then  took a drink.

"I can't TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" Lena screamed as she barged into the living room, followed closely by the being the others called Manny. Her eyes were glowing blue and an angry wind seemed to fill the space around her. "We should be out there looking for them!"

"Indeed, Miss Sabrewing?" Bentina asked as she set her tea down, her expression cool, but steady.

"Yes! We're supposed to be this massive family of super heroes and sorcerers and super geniuses and secret agents and eldritch horrors and we're just sitting here letting Negaduck get away with this?!"

"Tell me then, young woman, have you even the faintest idea of where to begin looking? All of our efforts to locate Starling have thus far resulted in failure."

"Then I'll just go out there and tear the city apart until I do find him!" the girl shrieked, blue fire gathering threateningly in her fists.

It was almost like watching the strange red light from the mask overtake Drake. But rather than be unnerved by the sight, Bentina Beakley appeared completely unfazed. She rose from the couch and went to place a hand on Lena's shoulder.

"And do you truly believe that is what Webbigail would want? What Tyrian, Indigo, and Violet would want? To watch you become Starling in the effort to take him down? To become Magica De Spell?"

Kath didn't know what Lena's connection to Magica De Spell might be, but the mere mention of her name instantly caused the fire to go out in the teenaged duck. The blue light dimmed and the wind died away, leaving her standing there with a look of shock on her face. And Kath couldn't have said if it was her or Lena who was more surprised when Bentina dropped to one knee to pull her into a brief hug.

"I...I wasn't...I didn't think-"

"No. I don't imagine you did. And I can't blame you. You are not the only one here who's worried for the children. But rushing off without a plan will cause nothing but harm," Bentina explained as she got back to her feet. "Especially against an adversary such as this. Now, if you have a plan, we'd all be more than willing to listen, but as it stands-"

"Actually," Lena started slowly, a different light sparking awake in her eyes as she turned her gaze to Kath, "I might."

"Oh?" Bentina pressed, her own gaze shifting between Kath and Lena.

"The spell my dad first tried on Drake. He thought it didn't work because Drake didn't have enough of a connection to the actual Jim Starling for it to be safe. But...we've got someone here who might be as connected to Jim Starling as it's possible to be."

"What...what do you mean?" Kath asked, looking between the two of them. The horse creature was clopping anxiously, almost as if he were speaking, but she couldn't draw any particular meaning from it.

"Before Dad tried that mask spell, he tried a spell to connect Drake's mind to Negaduck's, to see if it was possible to get any sort of read on where he might be. The spell worked, but..."

"But what?" she prompted.

"But Negaduck was too strong within that connection. If my dad had let it stay active, Drake might've lost his mind to it. But you...you know him better than anyone. You might be able to maintain a connection long enough to get what we need."

"I...maybe? I don't know. It's been years since I...we..." she struggled to find the words, not sure how she was feeling about any of this.

"Please, Kath," Lena begged her, looking more vulnerable and desperate than Kath had seen her in the brief span of time she'd known her. "Everything else we've tried has failed. We might never get another shot at this. He'll hurt them. He'll kill them if we give him the chance. My best friend...my sister...please help me find them."

"He...he wouldn't..."

But she could no longer say that with any kind of certainty. She had seen what he had done, what he was capable of now. She had seen how many lives he had shattered.

Several moments of silence stretched out between them all in which Kath Sparrow tried to figure out what to say. She had never been called on to do something of this magnitude before. As an actor, she knew she had been something like a hero to many children, to many women all around the world. But this was different. This was actively stepping into danger...into a situation where there was no way to know the outcome.

But if Jim could no longer remember what it was they had all once believed in, perhaps she needed to remember it for him.

"All right," she agreed. "Let's get dangerous."

"Well," Bentina started with an approving look, "perhaps causality knows what it's doing after all."

Chapter Text

"Gos...Dewey...Webby...I dunno if you can here me, but I'm gonna get you outta there. I promise! "

"Ungh...Launchpad?" Gosalyn mumbled as her eyes blinked slowly open.

At first, she couldn't make any kind of sense of what she was seeing. She seemed to be drifting through a shapeless cloud of mist, threaded through with strands of color that made no sense together. Occasionally, a piece of furniture or a scrap of rug would drift by.

"Dad? Launchpad?"

No one's here. Not even me.

But...she had heard Launchpad's voice. Hadn't she? Only...he was dead.

Was she dead, too?

No. Couldn't be. But...what had happened?

"Gosalyn?" another familiar voice drifted through the mist. "Can you hear my voice?"

"Violet?" she called out, struggling to look around her, but only really succeeding in twisting in space. "Where am I? Where are you?"

"Good. I finally got through. Better than we have been doing," the hummingbird's voice came through again, calm and even. "Do you remember what happened, Gosalyn?"

"I...Launchpad's dead," she choked out, fighting back tears as she curled into a little ball, drifting, spinning. Everything was out of control.

"That is true, and I'm sorry, but that was three days ago. What more than that can you recall?"

Struggling through her haze of anguish and confusion, Gosalyn fought to grasp at memories, each of them like flimsy bits of straw slipping through her fingers.

...Dad standing between her and Negaduck...

...his mad eyes promising pain as he stared up at her through the window...

...Dewey and Louie screaming as they disappeared into a vortex...

...Dad's eyes...glowing red...

Find me, Dad. I know you can.

"The circuit!" she gasped out as the remembered burst of light filled her mind, her eyes snapping open. "We're trapped inside the circuit!"

"That's right. This isn't properly a dimension. It's just a small pocket off of reality. It's a space of thought and energy."

"Where- where are you guys?" she pressed, struggling once again to look around, to orient herself, but only succeeding in spinning in place.

"Webby and I are deeper in. We haven't been able to find Louie and Dewey, but I have little doubt they are even deeper in than we are. We each seem to be pushed further in when someone else becomes ensnared in Starling's web. Are you alone or was Huey pulled in with you?"

"It's just me. I...I came here on my own. I surrendered," she said, beginning to wonder if maybe it hadn't been a stupid plan after all.

"Why?" Violet asked her, the even tone of her voice breaking for just a moment. "Why would you do that?"

"You guys didn't see my dad," she answered quietly, the ugly memory easily reminding her of the why. "What Negaduck was turning him into. It was the only way I could get them apart."

"I suppose I can understand that. What's done is done. It seems the best thing we can do right now is to find one another."

"So...if you're further in, how are you talking to me?"

"I'm speaking to you in thought. I have entered a state of deep meditative trance to keep myself oriented. I had been attempting to maintain a link with the dimensional gateway when your arrival pushed us further in. It was all I could do to keep from being separated from Webby."

"Is she all right?"

"All right as she can be. We've done what we can for her injury. All I can do for the moment is keep us in place. You'll have to come to us."

"How can I come to you when I don't even know where I am?"

"Well, as you may have noticed, this would-be dimension only partly adheres to the laws of physics. It's essentially a bubble of potential energy. If my thinking is correct, you ought to be able to shape matter to your will."

"Right," she started, closing her eyes to shut out the unsettling space around her. Just create herself a place to be.

Well, right now the most basic form she could reach for in her mind was solid ground. Blocking out the feeling of drifting and floating, she pictured herself standing tall, stretched her feet out as if to step onto a floor...and all at once, there she stood, solidly in place.

Yes! she cheered inwardly, not opening her eyes for fear of sending herself spiraling again.

"Okay. I've got ground, at least."

"An excellent start. Now for an actual locale. Something simple, perhaps. Simple or familiar. Your bedroom?"

But that wasn't the first place Gosalyn's mind went to. She had already had several bedrooms over the years and each one was now associated with a different kind of pain—the earliest the loss of her parents, then her grandpa, and now Drake's confrontation with Negaduck. Bedrooms had never provided much comfort for her.

No.

What her mind sought instead was the idea of somewhere defensible. A place they could use to fight back.

Her mind sought the Hideout.

Her thoughts formed it easily, shaping the space that Drake and Fenton had built together...the place where she had first met her dads. It was the first place she had felt safe in a long time.

Breathing slowly, in and out, she opened her eyes...

...and grinned in relief to find herself standing in the Audubon Bay Bridge tower.

"I did it," she whispered, swiping briefly at her eyes, even though there was no one there to see if she may or may not have been crying. "Vi, I've got us a base."

"Excellent. Do you see a door?"

She was about to reflexively answer yes when she actually looked around, realizing that the many doors that led off of the main space had not made the jump from her thoughts. When she looked out the massive bay windows, all she could see was the swirling, unshaped fog of the interdimensional void. So far as she could see, the only door anywhere was the main entrance to the tower.

"I don't get it," she started as she moved to examine the door. "There should be lots of doors in the headquarters, but I can only find one."

"I'm not surprised, but relieved that there's even that much. Gosalyn, that is the dimensional gateway. If we can manage it, that will be our way out of here. You'll need to maintain a solid connection with it."

"All right, shouldn't be too hard," she muttered, more to herself than to Violet as she looked around the space once more. "Then how do I find you guys?"

"What sits opposite of the door?"

"Windows," she answered, looking uncertainly back at the strange play of color and dark that lay beyond them. "Just a whole wall full of windows."

"We will be in the exact opposite direction of the gateway. I am keeping us in our present location, but you will need to find a way to bridge that gap."

"Right...sure...piece of cake," she mumbled as she looked around the space, grinning when her eyes alighted on one of the numerous weapons' cases. Heading toward it, she reached in and pulled out a grappling gun. "I think I've got it," she announced aloud as she moved toward the bank of windows, hesitating only a moment before unlatching one. Steadying herself against the frame, she took aim out at the emptiness.

If Dad's going to find us, I need to find you guys first. This has to work.

Closing her eyes, she drew in another slow breath. Then, opening her eyes on the exhale, she let the grappling bolt fly from its housing, straight into the void.

To her, it felt like the hook flew on forever before finally latching onto something, but when it finally did, there was no mistaking the feeling of the catch. Giving several sharp tugs to make sure the line was secure, she detached the slender spool of cable from the gun and tied it to the window.

"We're out here, Gosalyn. Right now, you're the most stable link to the gateway, so you'll have to maintain all of this. You'll have to come and find us."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that was how it was gonna go down," she answered as she hurried about the space gathering supplies. A first aid kit, some rope, more grappling guns, her crossbow...who could say if there was anything here that could actually hurt them, but it was much better to have and not need than to need and not have.

Once she was ready, she climbed up onto the window sill, hesitating for just a moment on the threshold between being and half-being.

"Well, Dad," she started with a heavy swallow, "can't say it better than you. Let's get dangerous."

Then she took the secured cable in hand and stepped out into the interdimensional void, prepared to follow wherever it lead.

XxX

"Drake, where are you gonna go?"

Drake groaned in frustration when he heard Loopy's voice at his back. They really just weren't going to let him out of their sight, were they.

"To get my daughter back."

"The question stands," she said as she gripped his shoulder, her words just as much a weight on him as her hand.

"I don't know," he ground out, slapping the hand away as he turned to face her. "Okay? I don't know! I mean, it's not like we'll have to wait long for Negaduck to pull something. Never seems to take him more than twenty-four hours to find some new way of pulling my world apart. If I keep walking long enough, I'll probably just stumble into his next scheme. But I can't just sit here and do nothing!"

The look the younger McQuack fixed him with in that moment was equal parts pity and heartbreak, and it was so out of place on her normally easygoing features, it really did stop him short.

"Can I tell you something?" she asked in a thin voice. "Something I never had the chance to tell my brother?"

"What?"

"I went looking for him," she started to explain as she led Drake off to the side of the hallway to sit on a bench. "After he ran away. When I regained consciousness and Mom and Dad told me he was gone...I snuck out of the house to try and find him."

It wasn't exactly a pleasant thought—the mental image of a ten-year-old Loopy McQuack stumbling through the darkened city streets, crying out for her big brother, who by that point had probably been on the other side of the planet.

"Didn't find him, obviously. All I succeeded in doing was freaking my folks out. Not that any of us ever really stopped looking for him, but that night, running off half-cocked like that...when I was barely recovered...all it did was cause more pain. My own recovery took even longer, and Mom and Dad had already been tearing their hair out for about a month looking for Launchpad while I was in a coma. Probably took a decade off my mom's life when she found my bed empty, too. If you run off now...all it's going to do is cause more pain."

"I hear you," he said with a sigh, "but it's not as if I have parents or a partner to care if I don't come back."

"But you do still have a family," she reminded him, laying a hand on his knee. "Or do you plan to tear an even bigger hole in it?"

"That's not really how I view this. My plan is to burn the edges so Negaduck can't fray that hole any bigger."

"And Gosalyn?" she pressed him. "What happens to her if you don't come back?"

"She'll be fine. She's tougher than both of us. She'll get back up again. But me...I guess I'm not as strong as I thought," he said, glancing down at his hands. "I finally found the one thing I can't get back up from. I get what you're all trying to do, but...I don't think there's going to be any coming back from this," he admitted.

"Then I'm definitely not gonna let you go off on your own," she told him.

"Yeah. Kinda figured that was what we were heading toward," he said with a sigh, briefly reaching into his pocket before reaching across to rest that hand on her shoulder. "So I do what I have to now."

When Loopy realized he was holding the mask in the hand that was now pressed against her shoulder, her eyes widened in shock. But when she opened her mouth to speak, to cry out, Drake delivered a sharp, decisive jab to the back of her neck with his other hand, arms already opened wide to catch her as she collapsed quietly into them, unconscious.

"Sorry, Loopy, but this isn't up for debate anymore," he apologized as he leaned her carefully against the back of the bench, as if she had just fallen asleep there. "I can't let anybody else try to stand between me and him. They'll only get hurt. I'm sorry."

Then he stood, removing his Waddle watch and placing it beside her before pulling out his phone and sending a brief message to Scrooge's email, knowing it would be some time before the old Scot noticed it. And, having made his goodbye, he laid the phone with the watch and headed out of the hospital.

He would need to return to the mansion for his suit, but once that was taken care of, he was not going to stop until either he or Negaduck or both of them were dead.

XxX

"Why didn't he come up?"

The question was out of Gandra's mouth before she could think better of asking. She kept her eyes focused on the schematics that were uploading to the cloud, but her true attention was fixed on Gyro Gearloose, waiting for his response.

"Hm?"

"When you and Fenton and Penumbra had to bail...you and Penumbra came straight up, but he didn't. Why? What was he doing down there?"

Gearloose gave a pained sigh as he looked up from his own bank of data, over to where they had Huey and Boyd working on new search grids just to give them something to occupy their minds with. Then he shifted his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his beak for a moment before turning his gaze back to her.

"The truth is...Fenton went back to rescue Boyd."

"I...what?"

"When we blew the window to escape, the water tore Boyd away from me. I tried to go back, but Fenton sent me out. He went after Boyd himself, but in so doing he stayed at depth too long."

"But...why would he do that?" she demanded, more of the universe, of the one person who could not answer her, than of Gyro Gearloose. "Boyd could've been retrieved any time. He wasn't in any actual danger. Why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said, continuing to speak even as he turned his attention back to the data stream. "It's worth mentioning that we were all suffering the effects of nitrogen narcosis at the time. We were barely in our right minds, so it would be easy to say that he just wasn't thinking clearly, but...what I think is more likely is that- having lost one friend this week...perhaps he didn't want to fail another."

And that was Fenton all over, wasn't it. Thinking of everyone else before giving even a thought to himself. They were going to have a long talk when he woke up.

"Yup. That's pretty much him," she bit out.

"I do have to concede to being...grateful...for what he did," Gyro admitted haltingly, "no matter what the outcome has been. But of course I couldn't say any of this in front of Boyd. He already feels bad enough for everything that's happened. For the moment, at least, he really doesn't need to know that it was him Fenton stayed for."

"Right," Gandra conceded with another furtive glance at the two boys, feeling any resentment that might've been taking root in her heart melt away as she watched them. It didn't matter that Boyd was a robot. Fenton couldn't love him more if Boyd was his own son. He was so proud to be able to show him the ins and outs of fighting crime. He never could've left him behind, no matter what the circumstances might've been. "Guess the only thing we can do is take this Negajerk down."

"On this we are in complete agreement. So, any light to shed on the subject?"

"Afraid so," she said as she got her first good look at the full schematic. "I didn't want to believe it, but...this is my design."

Gyro narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. "So...what? You just gave your design to F.O.W.L.?"

"No! But I was their prisoner for about a month there," she reminded him. "Wouldn't surprise me if Bradford handed over all of my materials to Black Heron. The tweaks I'm seeing here definitely look like something of hers. Honestly, only she would do something so messed up with my tech. How they got from her to Negaduck, I couldn't guess, but Huey's reverse signal idea won't do much good. No matter what Heron did to these little guys, I'm still the base signal source for them. She didn't bother to override that. It's just one more dead end," she ground out in frustration.

Letting out a growl of his own, Gyro coded up a lab table for the sole purpose of being able to kick it in frustration. "Stupid egging super villains! Why?! Sometimes I think it would just be easier to go dark side."

"You don't mean that," Gandra snapped back at him.

"Don't I?"

"No, you don't, the former F.O.W.L. agent said to the former intern of Dr. Akita," she pointed out with an ugly, pained smile, and it took little more than that to defuse him.

"All right, fine," he conceded with a sigh and a shudder. "You're right. But what are we supposed to-"

"We've got some kind of proximity alert on mansion security," Huey was suddenly calling out to them. When he pulled up the feed from one of the mansion's many cameras, the footage revealed Drake on approach on his moped.

"Oh! Maybe there's news about Fenton?" Boyd guessed with a hopeful smile.

Gandra very much doubted it. If there was anything new to report, she imagined the others could've easily done so from the hospital. Even so, Drake must be here for a reason. So, offering up the best encouraging look she could muster for the boys, she nodded.

"Maybe. You guys wanna go find out what's up?"

"Sure. We'll let you know what's happening," Huey said. Then he and Boyd logged off, vanishing from the digital scape.

Gyro groaned as he dragged a hand over his face, displacing his glasses. "Oh, to be young and naive."

"I dunno," Gandra said, still looking at the spot the two boys had disappeared from. "There might be something to be said for trying to see the best in a situation...if I've learned anything from that damn suit."

If Gyro had planned another 'biting' comeback, he never got the chance to say it, because a video call notification suddenly materialized in the space between them.

"It's the girls," Gandra said when she noticed the 'June Duck' on the notification. When she opened the window, May and June appeared within it.

"Hi, Gandra," June started with an uncertain wave.

"Hey," the scientist returned as kindly as she was able. "Where are you guys? Fenton mentioned McDuck was flying Daisy back from Paris."

"We got in about an hour ago. It was- straight to the hospital from the airport. Daisy's in with Donald right now," May explained, looking off the screen with worry in her eyes.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay. Yeah?" she tried to encourage, receiving a faint nod from the distraught girls. June didn't quite succeed in holding back a sniffle.

"What are we at now? Five literal apocalypses?" Gyro deadpanned. "If none of those could kill Donald Duck, I imagine he'll be fine."

"O- of course," May agreed, trying to smile. "Who's worried? Not me. But that- that's not the reason we called."

"Then what's happening? It isn't- Fenton...is it?" Gandra made herself ask, relieved beyond words when both girls shook their heads.

"We haven't heard anything about Fenton. But...Penumbra told us what happened in the lab. That it's been nanites this whole time."

"That's true. Having looked at them, I can only conclude that Bradford gave my nanite serum to Heron to screw around with."

"That is true," June admitted with a wince.

"We don't know how Negaduck would've gotten ahold of them, but we might know of another lead you can follow if you can get access to the necessary files," May continued.

"What?" Gyro pressed. "What files?"

"F.O.W.L. kept detailed lists of potential agents...and failing use as agents, likely targets," May explained, shuddering at who knew how many ugly memories. "If that was how Negaduck came into contact with F.O.W.L., there would be record of it in those files...or in Black Heron's personal logs."

"And if we can find out what F.O.W.L. knew about Negaduck, that might include his hiding place," Gandra concluded. "Thank you, girls. This might actually help. We'll do some digging, see what we come up with. Let us know if anything changes."

"Sure. Good luck," June said before ending the call.

"S.H.U.S.H. confiscated all of F.O.W.L.'s assets following the library incident," Gyro noted.

"Yup," Gandra acknowledged as she opened a new window.

"So do we plan on wasting time asking Beakley to go through the legal channels to get those files?"

"Nope," she responded simply, entering stream after stream of code into the portal.

"Care to elaborate?"

"S.H.U.S.H. has this bizarre notion that they have some kind of right to my work because of my brief time with F.O.W.L. So I keep my backdoor mole into their secure servers on hand...just in case I need to get back something that belongs to me. Might take a bit longer to find what we need, but we need that information now."

"Well...what Bentina and Fenton don't know won't hurt them, I suppose," Gyro muttered more to himself, settling in to watch her hack her way into the second most secure network in the world.

XxX

"Drake!"

Drake looked up in surprise as he removed his helmet, seeing Huey, Boyd, and the McQuack twins enter the garage. He'd been hoping to get through this without further incident, but it seemed the universe was not going to make it easy for him.

"Boyd. Good to see you up and running," he greeted the little bot as they approached, offering him a tired smile.

"It's good to see you, too, Drake. I- I'm sorry...about Launchpad."

Even the small reminder was like a knife to his already mangled heart, but he did his best not to let that show outwardly, reaching out a hand to rest it on Boyd's head. "It wasn't your fault."

"Did something happen? Back at the hospital?" Huey pressed him in a worried voice.

"No. Nothing's really changed. Fenton and Donald are getting the care they need right now."

"Then...why did you come back here?" the eldest triplet continued to probe, his tone becoming slightly more suspicious.

"I need the Ratcatcher...and my uniform. Thought it might at least be good to get another search going. It's better than waiting around for his next attack," he explained as he went to retrieve one of the spare outfits he stored in Launchpad's old living space.

"But...the computer systems aren't back online yet," Huey tried to argue. "You should at least give us time to get them on their feet again."

"I don't need them. I know the city well enough not to need auto-mapping, and I have my phone if you guys need to get in touch with me," he lied.

"I can fix it," Boyd volunteered. "I'll just restore base functions while you change clothes."

"Right...sure..." he agreed absently as he stepped behind one of the curtains, unable to come up with a valid reason for them not to do it. With the Ratcatcher's automated functions offline, they wouldn't be able to use the system to track him if the notion entered their heads. He supposed he would just have to do with turning the system off once he left.

"Need an extra set of eyes out there, Drake?" Kyte asked him. "Jet or I could-"

"No," he snapped, his tone much sharper than he'd meant it to be, and when the silence following that single word of protest became oppressive, he had no choice but to stick his head out from behind the curtain. Kyte looked like he'd physically struck him, and Jet and Huey looked no less hurt. He didn't know how long he could bear to look at either of the twins. They looked so much like Launchpad...sounded like him...

"Look, Kyte- I'm sorry. It's not either of you. I'm just not ready to have anyone else on that bike with me. Every time I look at you...I'll see him."

It was not, strictly speaking, a lie, even if it was not the full truth. But it wasn't until Drake had ducked back behind the curtain to finish changing that Kyte spoke up again.

"I know that- you knew Launchpad better than we ever will. We weren't even old enough to remember when he left. But...growing up...he was a legend to Jet and me. He was a hero."

"He was," Drake rasped out, his movements growing still as he stared at the makeshift curtain, his throat going tight with bitter anguish. "He- still is. Nothing can take that away from him. Not even Negaduck."

"No. But...you aren't the only one who lost someone, Drake."

This latest was actually from Jet. And it stung all the more for it. Jet was the quieter of the twins, and even though he and Kyte spoke in very similar voices, Drake found he had always been able to tell them apart...perhaps in subconsciously knowing the exact tones that were different from Launchpad's voice.

Jet and Kyte...and Loopy...they had all lost their brother twice.

"I know," he choked out, fresh tears pouring silently down his face as he clutched his mask tightly in one fist.

"The difference is you wanna fight this battle alone...and you don't have to. He wouldn't've wanted you to."

"Well...we don't always get what we want. Do we," he exhaled on a shuddering breath, swiping feebly at his face to wipe away the signs of tears. "I wanted- to live a life with the man I loved...and the family we built together...but that can never happen now."

"Drake?" Huey's voice entered hesitantly into the conversation. "Webby made something for you."

"What?" he started in confusion, finally coming out from behind the curtain. Huey was looking down at something in his hands.

"She was finishing it- right when Negaduck came. It's a cord...to hold Launchpad's ring with," he explained in a plaintive voice, offering up the carefully woven treasure with trembling fingers. "There's a strand for every member of the family."

And as Huey explained this, Drake began to see the disparate threads within the patterns they formed throughout the cord, each and every one of them ultimately connecting to him and Launchpad.

"Oh...Webby," he whispered, pressing the cord against his heart.

"When Negaduck- pulled her and Violet into the vortex, she tried to use it to help anchor them both to Gosalyn and I...but she was hurt...couldn't hold on...so she had to let go. And before Gosalyn was taken...she gave it to me to give to you. They all- wanted you to have it. To remind you..."

"Remind me?"

"That you really aren't alone. That you're just as much a part of this family as Launchpad was. That...that losing you would be just as devastating to us," the young duck told him, eyes wobbling and bright with tears.

Drake gave a single long sigh to prevent his throat from closing up with the emotion that threatened to choke him. Then he dropped to one knee and pulled Huey into a hug, letting him cry into his chest while a few more silent tears slid down his face. This time, he didn't bother with wiping them away.

"Launchpad...never told any of you why I became Darkwing...did he," he found himself saying sometime later, when the tears had subsided and they were both breathing a little easier.

"N- no," Huey admitted, scrubbing ineffectually at his face.

"Well...I want what any hero wants. To make a difference. I wanted to be the hero I never had," he began to explain as he reached back to undo the slender chain that held Launchpad's ring. Being careful not to lose even one piece of the puzzle ring, he put it back together before looping it onto the cord. "And I have done that...but...I never had anything in my life I was afraid of losing...not before Launchpad and Gosalyn...not before all of you. And this...it's too painful to lose."

As Drake spoke, he looped the cord securely around his wrist several times before tying it off, the ring held firmly against the pulse point in his wrist.

"I don't ever want it to happen again...something this unfair...and while Negaduck is free, that possibility is all too real. Negaduck- only exists because of me, so I have to take responsibility for what I've done. And if I have anything to say about it, nobody else will ever have to go through this. Nobody else will ever have to feel this pain. That's why I'm going back out there. Right now, I'm just going to scout, but if I need backup, I'll call you."

Huey looked ready to cry again when he met his gaze, but it seemed he was empty of tears. Instead he pulled Drake in for one last hug.

"We shouldn't let you go," the young duck mumbled against his chest. "None of us should be alone right now."

"Hey, nobody's alone when they've got a phone," he tried to reassure him. "Besides, you guys need to be getting mansion security back up to capacity."

"Right...sure."

"Drake?" Boyd called to him, drawing their attention to the Ratcatcher. "It's ready now."

"Thanks," he returned as he climbed heavily to his feet, then one last time to Huey, "I will get them back. The girls...and your brothers. I promise I will."

"And...if you need us?" Kyte pressed as he walked toward his bike.

Drake hesitated only a moment upon reaching the Ratcatcher. Then he turned to look at all of them with a tired, grateful smile, the emotion genuine despite the lie he was about to tell them.

"I'll call."

Then he turned away from them, tying the mask in place before putting his helmet on and revving the motorcycle to life, gunning his way out of the garage.

The red shift didn't immediately reassert itself as he headed down Killmotor, more like drifted in like a fog around the edges of his vision, and from that fog manifested strands of red energy, each one weaving together to form a ribbon of light. That ribbon twisted out ahead of him, winding into the city beyond the hill, guiding him onward. The morning around him was bright and beautiful, but his thoughts were growing increasingly dark and ugly.

You want Darkwing, Negaduck? I won't disappoint you. I'll give you dark like you've never seen before.

XxX

The man-horse was clopping again, and the anxious rhythm of it was doing nothing for Kath's nerves.

"Yeah, I know it's complicated, but I saw Dad do it before, so I'm pretty sure I can do it now," Lena said in response to the creature's obvious agitation.

"Manny, if Lena says she can do this, I am willing to trust her," Bentina put in.

But their reassurances seemed to do little to calm him. Manny continued to clop ever more worried things out in whatever pattern it was he was using to communicate with.

"Yeah, sure, whatever you want. Go ahead and call him, but don't think I'm just gonna wait around for Daddy's permission like a good little girl," Lena huffed as she plopped down on the floor in front of Kath.

"I take it he's not...fond of this plan?" she asked, trying her best to put it mildly.

"He's really not, but I don't think it's so much me he doubts as he does the circumstances. He was there when this all went south the first time. And we all saw where that led."

"So...what happens if it doesn't work?"

"Then we lose nothing by trying."

"And...if it does?" she pressed.

"Then you'll be able to see into Negaduck's mind."

"And if- the same thing happens between us as happened with Drake?"

"Don't worry. If it happens again, I'll kill the connection. I'm not gonna let anything happen," she said firmly, drawing in a calming breath as she rested her hands on her knees. "Okay, you need to start with clearing your mind. Breathe with me."

Kath did as instructed, mirroring the younger duck's posture and breathing slowly in and out. They did this for several minutes, until she felt her anxieties beginning to seep away.

"Now I need you to come up with a memory of him that's as free of emotion as you can manage."

That was difficult. Even her earliest memories of Jim were tinted by notes of sorrow and regret...longing and nostalgia...even on the first day she'd met him, coming in to do a test reading while the writers were still figuring out the part of Morgana...he'd had such a good sense of humor in those days...been willing to do whatever needed to be done to tell a good story...

"I like this one, you guys," he said to the other crew members on the soundstage, grinning up at her from the dip she'd swept him into. "She can keep up."

She hadn't known him then...but she remembered thinking she could respect him...and that...that was probably as close to neutral on Jim Starling as she could get.

And that was when she noticed Lena's hands at her temples, a warmth beginning to seep between them as she chanted.

"Iunge," she intoned. "Unum ad ali."

In her mind, she sees him as he was...all in costume, waiting for her between takes...reaching for her...his beak at hers, his hands in her clothing, fingers mussing her feathers...

"Mm...too bad they can't show this on TV," he mumbles against her with a small laugh, fingers slipping beneath her skirts.

"H- hair and makeup's going to k- kill us," she whimpers, moaning in pleasure at his touch, her body rolling against his.

"Iunge. Unum ad ali."

"What are they gonna do? Shoot the scene without us?" he teases, putting those wicked fingers to good use. "We both look better after a good tumble anyway."

"Ungh...Jim..."

"No, no, no. Still on set, remember?" he continues to tease, drawing her closer and closer, but not letting her reach her peak. "Call me Darkwing."

"Unh...ah...Darkwing!"

"Iunge. Unum ad ali."

"It's why we had such great chemistry...even as enemies...because we were fucking between takes," his voice hisses in her ear.

"Jim," she whispers in shock as his arms twine around her. When she tries to look around, he traps her, holding her in place. All she can see is a few flashes of yellow.

"Miss me, honey?"

"Jim, what have you- how could you do this?!" she demands, really staring to struggle now.

"Sorry, Jim doesn't live here anymore."

"What are you trying to prove, Jim Starling?!" she snaps, struggling to get free. "All these people...these innocent people who never did a thing to anybody!"

"I'm not answering to that name, Morgie baby. If you want something from me, you know how to get it. Though I don't suppose I'd have any trouble getting you to scream my name."

"You- you wouldn't," she hisses, a brief shudder of pure terror stealing across her heart.

"Wouldn't I? What makes you think your life is any more important to me than all the other bridges I've burned? I don't know why they dragged you into this, but I'm going to make you wish they hadn't."

And that really is the last straw. She had thought it had been when he'd refused to go to therapy, but never in any of their fights, her cajoling or his moping, had he ever legitimately threatened her. This really is a step too far.

"All right, Starling," she snips in a low voice as she goes still in his arms. "You want to be Darkwing Duck so badly, then I suppose it's time I remind you of who I am."

With that, she shifts her stance just slightly, braces, and bodily throws him over her shoulder, just like thousands of times before on set.

He doesn't look so much shocked as surprised as he hits the ground, and that surprise quickly morphs into a pleased sneer as he stares up at her.

"I am Morgana, child of Macawber, keeper of the secret words, servant of the Forbidden Archive, and master of the Dark Fire! If you choose to defy me, then the blackest night shall be your grave!" she declared in a booming voice, the old lines coming back to her with ease.

"Glad to see you decided to play," he says with a leer. "You wanna dance? Let's dance!"

Then he's up, his hands moving for her throat, but she easily intercepts him, her hands gripping his as they grapple. But as they struggle, her hands begin to glow with an eerie blue fire.

Lena?

I've got you. You've got this. You know what we need.

"Where are you hiding?" she demands.

"Oh, no. It's not gonna be that easy, Kath!" he growls at her as he pushes back, the madness in his eyes only burning brighter.

But she doesn't bend before him. She holds fast, and as she pushes back, she begins to catch tiny flashes of things...

They want grim and gritty, do they? Happy to play the part.

...a heron cackling madly as she types away at a keyboard...

If only Bradford knew what he was missing out on. You truly are too mad to be believed. A villain after my own heart.

...two pieces of the world sliding apart...like they don't quite fit together...casting off crackling strikes of energy...

Yes! It's working!

...a dark sky...a breath of noxious air...

Jim Starling.

...Drake, standing in the middle of a destroyed street in his Darkwing costume, his expression shattered...

No! Jim Starling's dead. You killed him. Me? I am the terror that stalks the terror. I am the knife through your sad, pathetic heart. I...am Negaduck.

...a burly, red-headed duck flinging an injured Drake clear of a burning building...

Say goodbye.

...a yellow clad arm stretching out, snatching him backward...into darkness...

As far as I'm concerned, you stopped being a hero the minute you raised a hand to Drake. You are not Darkwing Duck.

...Drake, eyes glowing red and features twisted with rage as he struggles against Ripcord's hold on him...

I WILL FIND YOU!!

Negaduck pushes back against her with a snarl of pure rage, the connection between them twisting deeper in, gutting like some nightmare creature's wicked claws.

"So," he bites out, his breathing ragged, "you get one little taste of power and suddenly you think you're some sorceress? You want in on this? Fine."

And at this, he ceases fighting against her, stops trying to throw her off. Instead, he squeezes tightly, dragging them even closer together...and into all of this comes a third mind.

Lena.

And she can hear her screaming.

NOOO!!

...darkness seeping in, bleeding through...

I AM THE DARK FORCE AT THE CORE OF ALL THINGS!

...inky blackness crawling over her vision, lines of blue and purple energy crackling through it...

She tries to break the connection herself...can't...

"Lena!" she cries out. "Let go! You have to let it go!"

"I can't!"

She sees the young woman sobbing rivulets of black, her head encircled by a corona of blue fire...and just beyond her is Negaduck, laughing maniacally, his eyes beginning to glow...and she begins to understand...

Neither of them will lose to the other. Their sense of self is too strong for that. But with Lena as the bridge between them, they are simply bleeding into each other. All three of them.

She isn't attuned enough with Lena to know what fear haunts her, but she can see the darkness in Negaduck that prevents her from pulling away...the primal fear of turning off the light.

Only...Lena's fear is very real...and if Negaduck can keep that conduit open, he really will be unstoppable.

She can't let that happen.

Reaching for Lena, she pulls her into her arms, pulls more of that bleeding power to herself.

"I've got them, little witch girl," Negaduck snarls after them. "Your best friend and your sister. I'll burn them, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

For a moment, Lena's eyes glow blue...then purple.

"No!" she sobs, struggling in Kath's embrace against something she can't see. "No, this can't happen!"

"Lena," she whispers to her, hugging her tight, feeling that awesome power burn through her, "it's all right. You can stop now."

And all at once it all goes flying apart.

The connection shatters and, for a single, harrowing moment, she's falling through darkness. But then a hand reaches for hers, clad in blue and glowing, and she almost doesn't recognize Lena when she looks up at her.

"Thanks," she says with a relieved smile, but that joy is quickly tainted by regret. "I- I'm sorry. I think I hurt you."

"Ms. Sparrow? Ms. Sparrow?! KATH!"

Kath drew in her first gulp of air with a gasp and a choked cough. Hacking roughly for several moments, all she could manage to do was lie there, struggling to pull air into her lungs.

"Kath? Can you hear me?"

Bentina. That was Bentina's voice.

"Lena?" she whispered, her voice hoarse and rough in her throat. "Where's Lena?"

"She's here. She's all right. You're the one I'm worried about just now. For a moment there, I was worried we'd lost you."

Eyes slowly blinking open, Kath looked up to find herself lying in Bentina's arms.

"What...what happened?"

"I'm rather wondering that myself."

"I didn't...I don't-" she started, beginning to sit up.

"Not too quickly," Bentina warned her, helping her to return to something like a sitting position. Looking just across from them, she saw Manny similarly supporting a half-conscious Lena. Mixed in with the typical pink of the younger duck's hair, she could see a very distinct streak of black.

"Your...your hair..." Lena mumbled faintly, trying to point.

Slowly returning to the point of her own body, Kath took stock of herself, realizing that her long hair had come undone from its ponytail at some point during the struggle. But more than this, the few strands of grey that had only just been starting to go at her temples had gone distinctly, perfectly white, as if painted in two single, sure strokes.

But her hair wasn't the only thing that was different. Glancing down at her fingertips, she could see faint sparks of lavender energy dancing upon them. Something was different in her; something was awake, and she didn't know if she yet had the courage to name what that something might be.

"Kath...what happened in there?" Bentina pressed.

She didn't know. She couldn't say. She was just exhausted. But it hadn't been for nothing. As she leaned to rest in Bentina's hold, she could only whisper one thing.

"I know where Negaduck is."

XxX

Launchpad was pulled from unconsciousness by the ugly sound of Negaduck's laughter.

"Oh, these idiots are just too much," he cackled in a high pitch. "Well, guess the jig's up on this one. Suppose it couldn't last forever."

"Buh...wha-" he mumbled as he started to blink his eyes open. When he looked around the space, it was to find himself in some sort of control center. Negaduck was sitting in a rolling chair at a computer screen, rocking back and forth as he laughed. But when the villain saw he was awake, he rolled quickly over to him.

"Aw, look who's finally awake. You have a nice nap, sidekick?"

Whatever Launchpad might have said was quickly forgotten when he tried to move, finding his hands and feet even more thoroughly chained than they had been before. His feet were bound together in some sort of heavy duty anchoring mechanism, keeping him thoroughly locked to the floor, while his hands were held in an equally heavy duty pair of cuffs, all of it keeping him perfectly suspended between the ceiling and the floor.

"What- what is this?" he started, making an effort to struggle against the restraints, though it soon became apparent that this was one situation he was not going to be able to just bust his way out of.

"Well, you were getting to be just a little too much of a problem. Besides, I wanted you to have the best seat in the house for this finale."

"What's going on?" he pressed, glaring down at the unhinged duck.

"Well, those little pals of yours keep trying to get inside my head to see where I'm hiding. Might've worked a little bit just now, but it doesn't matter. They're too late to stop this from happening. Dipwing's on his way to us right now."

"So where are we then?"

"Oh, nowhere," Negaduck answered casually before giving his chair a spin. "Why do you think none of your little friends have been able to find me?"

"I...what? What do you mean?"

"Just what I said," he continued, head still wobbling a little when he finally came to a stop. "And I'm really gonna enjoy watching the geek squad figure that out."

"So how's anybody gonna find us if we're nowhere?"

"Seems like your dunce has a little trick up his sleeve. Oh, wait. That's right. You haven't seen the new and improved Darkwing Duck yet, have you," Negaduck crooned in wicked delight before rolling back to the console, quickly calling up some sort of security feed on the computer screen.

The footage whatever security cam Negaduck had tapped into was of Drake, but Launchpad could already see the single, harrowing difference their enemy had spoken of.

Even beneath his helmet, the eyes of the mask Drake was wearing were glowing an insidious red.

"Drake," he whispered in pained horror.

What happened to you?

"He's standing on a ledge there's no coming back from, and I know that better than anybody," he said with obvious relish, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter as they watched Drake race through the streets on the Ratcatcher.

"What's wrong with him?!" he demanded, trying once more to break free of his restraints, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good.

"Can't pretend to know how it works, but there's some kind of magic at play out there. That's what I got from Kath at any rate. I dunno if it's working like it's supposed to, but I do know that I like it. You heroes think I'm bad? Just wait. Wait to see what this one turns into."

"Drake!" he couldn't stop himself from crying out, despite knowing it  was useless.

"Darkwing? I'm not sure if it really suits what I'm seeing here," Negaduck speculated, completely ignoring his outburst. "What else can we come up with? Darkwraith? Dark Avenger? Ah, doesn't matter. I'll think of something. The only thing that matters to me is that your precious Drake's on his way here now with a fire in his eyes. A fire only my blood is going to quench. So...let's watch Drake Mallard die, shall we."

Launchpad didn't acknowledge his enemy's taunting. All he could focus on in that moment was Drake. Outwardly, his love was emitting nothing but rage. But all the pilot could see was the pain that rage sparked from — the desperate grief that drove him to ever more horrifying extremes.

Drake...I'm losing you, he realized with a horrified sinking in his chest. I'm losing you and I can't do anything about it.