The Revolution Season

After some time of playing thus (but who can tell time in a place that is timeless?), another figure resolved into form behind her. He stooped and looked over her shoulder at the string she was happily twining. He cleared his throat politely. "Having fun, are we?"

The girl (although she wasn't really a girl) hiccupped and fell backwards in surprise. She blinked up at the old man (although he wasn't really an old man) and grinned. "I guess. In a way. It's better than having your eye torn out and eaten by vultures, or having ice cream brought to you in a bowl."

The old man laughed. "Indeed. What are you doing?"

The girl sat back up and picked up the strings she had been twining. "Well, you know, I woke up tomorrow and thought that I'd been playing with these strings for a long time, and that maybe they wanted a break. Not that kind of break, the other kind. You know."

The old man nodded sagely. "Quite right. To everything there is a season and a balance."

"Exactly!" The girl shook her head furiously and went back to her string. Under her breath she began to hum a tune that, in one day and age, might have been recognized as "Blue Suede Shoes" if it were hummed backwards. Then again, it might not.

"Around and around
And around goes the circle,
All things must change
As the seasons go by..."

- Song of the Lord and Lady

Moonlight shone gently through the windows of Darkwing Tower in Audobon Bay Bridge. Outside, the lights of the city of St. Canard glittered like a billion diamonds caught in the strands of an inky-black spiderweb. Not much noise reached the tower at this hour; Most drivers had long since decided which side of the river to settle on for the night. Inside, a lone hero sat on the floor beside his open vault, lost in thought.

In his hands he held a pair of scientific safety goggles. Beside him was a large, red battery with straps attached to it in such a way that it might be worn on someone's back. Every so often he would look from the goggles to the battery, sigh, and look back to the goggles again. He twiddled their straps between his fingers.

"What are you doing up here, Dad?" the voice of a red-headed girl broke the still silence. Darkwing Duck startled and dropped the goggles. His daughter crossed the room from the rotating chair where she'd come in and looked over her father's shoulder.

Darkwing chuckled unconvincingly. "Oh, nothing, Gos." He tried to hide the goggles behind his back.

Gosalyn reached over and snatched them away. "You were moping again, weren't you?"

"Who, me?" Darkwing said. "Of course not! I was just...thinking." He clasped his hands behind his back and wandered over to one of the tower windows. The river spread before him, glowing bluely under the waxing moon.

"You know, it really hasn't been the same without Negaduck and Megavolt around. I mean, there's still crime to fight and villains to catch, but with the Fearsome Five split up, it just isn't like it used to be. There's no consistant organized crime in St. Canard anymore. Well, not unless you count FOWL. But that's not really the same thing."

He paused in thought for another moment. "Not that that's a bad thing, of course. I worked for years to clean up the crime in this city. But still...it just feels strange, having finally almost succeeded. Almost like I'm not needed here anymore, you know?" He shook his head with a touch of regret. "I'm starting to miss the good old days, when you could almost count on one of my old enemies trying something every other week. Megavolt and I were longtime adversaries, you know. We went back all the way to high school. Now there was a real live wire..."

"Yeah, I know," Goslyn said. "I still can't believe it took you that long to get rid of him."

Darkwing coughed and turned to his daughter rather uncomfortably. "Well, I didn't exactly get rid of him, Gos. You know that."

Gosalyn put her hands on her hips and cornered her father in the window. "All I know is that you never did say what really happened. You just kept saying that you'd tell me when I was older. Dad, today was my thirteenth birthday. I think I'm old enough to know the truth."

Darkwing started to mumble an excuse to avoid the subject again, then stopped and shook his head. "All right, I guess you're old enough for the details." He led Gosalyn over to his vault and unlocked the filing cabinet. The long drawer slid out in his hands. He leafed through folder after folder until he located the one he wanted and pulled it out. It was a very thick folder, filled with legal papers, newspaper clippings, photocopies and photographs. Darkwing held it in his hands for a moment before opening it. "You know Gos, it was actually your birthday that made me start thinking. Time sure goes by fast, doesn't it?"

"Just get on with it, Dad," Gosalyn demanded.

"All right, all right." Darkwing cracked open the folder and leafed through it to find a certain piece of paper. He pulled it to the top of the stack and began. "Of course I didn't know everything that was going on at the time, but as far as I was able to piece together later, this is what happened..."

Tall, coloured letters lit up the night in front of the St. Canard Palace. The theatre's marquee, the latest in laser technology, projected ephemeral holographic 3D words that circled around a central post, advertising the shows that would soon be playing. Coloured stripes of light crawled across the nearly-deserted streets in time with the words. Under the moonlight, the effect was almost hypnotizing.

Megavolt had never seen anything like it. "Cooool," he whispered to himself in awe as he watched the procession of words whirl around. CATS, JULY 23 - AUGUST 21... PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, AUGUST 23 - SEPTEMBER 15... LE MISERABILLS, SEPTEMBER 20 - OCTOBER 15... The frazzled rat shook his head and blinked. He was getting dizzy from watching the words go around and around.

He hadn't really meant to be in this area of St. Canard at all. He'd actually meant to be over at his favourite pub, the Old Haunt, celebrating the six-month anniversary of his most recent release from prison. The law had sent him to the electric chair to complete his sentence (again), but Megavolt hadn't really minded. In fact, he'd rather enjoyed it; it gave him a nice charge. For a little while afterwards he had actually considered stealing the chair and taking it home with him, but in the end had decided not to bother. After all, he could just build his own given enough time and the right parts.

But apparently the universe had other plans for Megavolt than the Old Haunt that night, because on the way there he had forgotten where he was going. It was the silliest thing; his memory, although prone to being rather spotty, wasn't usually quite that bad. But there it was - one second he was skulking along the shadows towards the pub, the next he'd taken a wrong turn and ended up wandering the alleys behind the St. Canard Palace. That was when he'd spotted the hologrammatic marquee, and all thoughts of the Old Haunt had evaporated right out of his mind.

"Boy, what I couldn't do with one of those!" Megavolt said excitedly to himself as ideas began to flood his inventive mind. "I could make the world's biggest billboard. You'd be able to see Copperhead battery ads all the way from space! No," he decided as he began to pace back and forth in front of the theatre. "Aliens might decide to come and take all the batteries. That won't do. Hmm...I could sabotage the electronic landing systems at the airport, and use this thing to direct the cargo planes into my own private airport!" He thought about that for a moment, then pounded himself on the head. "No, no, no! That won't work either. Knowing my luck, I'd get a plane full of superheros on their way to a convention or something. Besides, I don't have a personal airport. Wait, I know, I could modify the hologram generator to create gigantic hologrammatic copies of other things..." Small sparks of electricity began to sizzle off the metal plugs on his hat as a dozen more ideas began a war for space in his brain.

Suddenly a completely different thought struck the villain. He cocked his head with the air of someone listening to a faint sound, reached into a pocket, and pulled out his best friend and confidante. "What's that you say, Mortimer?" he asked the lightbulb with concern. "Jealous? What do you mean, you're jealous? Just because that thing is ten times taller than you doesn't mean -"

The lightbult made no sound.

"Ok, fine then," Megavolt told the lightbulb, putting it away with an annoyed sigh. "It figures. Well, I suppose there's only one thing to do. If that stupid hologram sign is going to make all the lightbulbs jealous, I guess I'll just have to dismantle it and take it home with me." Megavolt cackled, quite pleased with his solution. Pulling a length of electrical cord from the roll he kept on his belt, he swung it like a whip and let it snap around one of the struts supporting the marquee. In a moment the villain was shimmying up the cord. That laser marquee was as good as his!

Carefully keeping one hand on the cord, Megavolt studied the base of the sign. This didn't look like much of a problem. It was just a matter of setting up a flip-flop magnetic field around the bolts anchoring the sign so that they unscrewed themselves. Megavolt's whiskers started to wave gently in an electric field as he built up the proper charges around the bolts. This was actually one of his harder stunts, and he was rather proud of himself for having figured out how to pull it off.

Suddenly his concentration was shattered. Blue smoke pamfed into a cloud above the villain and roiled down into his face. Coughing, Megavolt swore vehemently to himself. Drat it! He knew exactly what was coming next. It was the same thing that almost always came next after he started stealing something, and he was getting very tired of it.

A confident and smug voice rang into the air.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night!
I am the ticket window that closes as you reach it!
I am Darkwiiiing Duck!"

The voice continued, sliding into a taunt as the smoke cloud cleared away to reveal a duck in a grey fedora, purple mask, and neatly pressed cape. "I had no idea you were into theater, Megavolt. I would have thought jailhouse rock was more your style!"

Heroic banter. That called for a witty riposte. "Come on - what's wrong with a little 'light' entertainment every now and then?" Megavolt called back to the vigilante.

Darkwing Duck's cape snapped in the wind as he stepped forward to point his gas gun down at the thief. "Show's over, Sparky," he announced.

Megavolt grimaced. "Will you quit calling me that?!" he yelled. "It really fries my wires! Here - eat bolts, Dipwing Duck!" He finished magnetizing the screws and sent them hurtling towards the hero like a swarm of metal insects. They pelted into Darkwing and knocked him backwards a few steps.

Cackling in a superior sort of way, Megavolt waved 'goodbye' to the duck. Suddenly he felt his cord slipping. He glanced upwards, and realized that he'd just unscrewed the strut from which he'd been hanging. "Oopsie!" he mumbled. With a creak and a groan, the strut ripped free of the side of the building. It tumbled towards the street, dragging the laser marquee and the villain along for the ride.

Darkwing Duck's face appeared over the side of the building, looking a bit unfocused. "I always knew you had a few screws loose, Megavolt! But this time...ah...NUTS!" he exclaimed as he came to his senses and saw the tangle of wires and smashed electronic parts in the street. Megavolt's insulated workboots were poking out of the pile. In a second, the rat had pulled himself out of it and was looking around foggily.

He spotted the laser marquee, or what was left of it, and realized what had happened. "No! Oh, no! It's broken!" Megavolt yelped. With a surly growl, he turned to point at Darkwing Duck on the roof of the theatre. "This is all your fault, Darkwing! You ruined a perfectly good photostrobotropic emulator!"

"No I didn't," Darkwing replied, looking annoyed at the false accusation. "You're the one who broke the photo...stycho...whatsis...whatever the heck it is!"

"I did not," Megavolt retorted.

"Did too!"

"Did not!" Megavolt snarled and started to build up a static charge on one of his fingertips. The finger began to glow blue as the familiar itchy, tingly feeling surrounded it.

"Did too, did too!" Darkwing hopped up and down a couple of times, shaking his finger at Megavolt. "Did TOO! You know your trouble? You never take responsibility for anything-"

He stopped and slapped himself on the forehead. "What am I doing? I've got to fetch that fanatical felon before he flees!" Darkwing started to level his gas gun at Megavolt again with his usual battle cry, "Suck gas, evil-doer!!"

"Eat electrons, Darkwing Duck!" Megavolt responded. The unearthly sound of a lightning discharge echoed through the streets. It barely missed the top of Darkwing's head as the hero ducked.

Darkwing stuck his head back over the side of the roof. "Missed me, you missed me!" he taunted Megavolt as he fired his gun at the villain. The gas cartridge slammed into the pavement a few feet away from the rat and exploded into a yellow cloud, totally enveloping him. "Ha!" Darkwing exclaimed. "Take that!!"

A few seconds later, Megavolt stepped out of the gas cloud, laughing madly. He had the remains of the laser marquee tucked under his arms. "Thanks, I think I will!" Giggling with wild abandon, Megavolt clambered up a telephone pole and started to skate away on the electrical lines. "See ya later, Darkwing-gater!" he snickered over his shoulder.

"Drat! Double drat!" he heard Darkwing's voice receding in the night behind him. "Gosalyn filled all the cartridges with laughing gas again. I'm going to have to have a word with that young lady..."

On the same night, across town at the docks, a small boat was silently slipping into the harbour. Several shadowy figures scrambled onto the pier and began to unload several crates bearing the mark of a dollar sign. One figure stayed in the boat to supervise them.

"Man, did we ever put one over on old Scrooge this time," one of the men chuckled as he started to heft a man-sized crate up to the waiting hands of a comrade. "The McDuck expedition in Greece is gonna come up short by a bunch of stuff. What's in this crate, anyway?"

"Beats me," his comrade grunted as he tugged the crate onto the pier. "All I know is, it's heavy."

"Shaddup, you two!" the man in the boat snapped. "It's none of your business what's in the crates."

Suddenly there was a quiet 'snick', and a flame the length of a hand sprang into the darkness at the edge of the pier. It jetted from the tip of a camping lighter held by the short stranger who appeared before them. Eerie shadows splashed across the stranger's face under the brim of his red hat as he smiled a mirthless, superior sort of smile. "Well, well, well, what have we here?" he wondered as he surveyed the scene.

The other figures on the dock whirled to face him. Some were struck by fear, others turned threatening. The supervisor pulled out a gun and pointed it at the stranger. "I suggest you leave right now before you get hurt," he said menacingly.

The stranger laughed. "I don't know who you boys are, but you're cutting in on my action. Don't you know who controls all the illegal cargo coming into these docks?"

The supervisor took a second look at the figure on the dock and gulped. His hand started to waver.

"That's right, you do recognize me, don't you?" The stranger grinned and whipped an uzi out of his black cape. He used it to motion the boatmen to finish unloading their cargo. "Consider yourselves lucky, boys. I'm going to let you live. But when you're finished here, I want you to go back to your boss and tell him that his cargo was confiscated by Negaduck."

Three nights later...

Dim moonlight trickled through the clouds onto the pier behind warehouse 3D. Three of the four assembled supervillains milled around the outside of the warehouse, grumbling to themselves and wondering why they had been summoned so late at night. The fourth stood alone on the landward side of the pier, pulled the dangles of his jester's cap in frustration, and announced his feelings loudly to no one in particular. "I'm BORED! We've been waiting here for ages! Anyone up for a game of water polo?" He turned to the others and pulled a round, base-ball sized object out of a voluminous pocket.

"Count me out," Megavolt said immediately, looking down at the lapping water with a shudder. "You think I like short-circuiting?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Bushroot agreed, looking around. "We don't wanna attract any attention, right?" He looked around nervously, wringing his leafy hands.

"Liquidator?" Quackerjack looked pleadingly at him and held out the ball.

The watery canine crossed his arms. "Statistics say seven out of ten supervillains who create unnecessary disturbances are attacked by Darkwing Duck."

Quackerjack's hat drooped. "Gee, you guys aren't any fun." He sighed and tossed the ball over his shoulder. It bounced onto the shore and exploded.

Suddenly a low voice growled from the shadows behind Quackerjack. "If I wanted a signal, I would've ARRANGED for one!" A hand reached out and grabbed the clown by the neck. "You knob! What are you trying to do, get us noticed?!"

"Negaduck!" the clown gasped in surprise. "Uh, no, I didn't think-"

"You never think!" Negaduck swore at him. He turned to glare at the rest of the Fearsome Five. "None of you! You're all knobs! All of you!" Grumbling to himself, Negaduck dragged Quackerjack over to the rest of the group.

"All right," he addressed the entire crew as he threw the clown to the ground. "Listen up! Do you losers have any idea why I've called you here?"

"Um...two for one special at the local Smuggler's Smorgasboard?" Quackerjack guessed as he stood up and dusted himself off.

Negaduck put his hands on his hips and scowled. "Not hardly. I called you here because I've got a job for you."

"Really? Like what?" Megavolt asked eagerly. "Theft? Larceny? Ripping the tags off pillows?"

"Inquiring minds want to know," added the Liquidator.

Cooly, Negaduck pulled a key from his double-breasted yellow jacket and clicked it in the side door of warehouse 3D. The door slowly swang open. "Step inside gentlemen," he said with a sarcastically genteel bow, "and I'll show you."

The inside was very dark. After a moment Negaduck flipped a switch and a dim lightbulb began to glow over in the corner to their right. Underneath it sat one tall, person-sized crate whose front panel had obviously been pried off and replaced. The Fearsome Five crowded around it as Negaduck walked beside the crate and pulled out his favourite crowbar. He tapped the wooden slats with it and posed a question. "Gentlemen, how much do you know about Greek mythology?"

The members of the Five looked at each other in confusion and mumbled a bit, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

Negaduck snorted in contempt. "That's what I thought. Well, I've been doing some research recently, so allow me to enlighten you on a few important matters. Turns out the ancient Greeks had more deities than you can shake a chainsaw at, and because they didn't want to offend any of 'em, they went around building all these little temples and shrines and groves to each and every one. These days most of the shrines and stuff are gone because of people like us, who stole anything worth stealing a long time ago. However..." he paused and smiled a rather evil smile. "...Due to the efforts of certain rich idiots like Scrooge McDuck, sometimes new, completely untouched shrines are uncovered. Complete with their treasures." He looked meaningfully at the crate.

The Fearsome Five brightened visibly.

"You mean you've got some priceless artifacts in there?" Bushroot looked at the crate with interest.

"Oh, it's priceless all right, but not for the reason you think," Negaduck purred. He reached over with the crowbar and gave the front panel of the crate a solid thwack. The panel fell forward and landed with a flat thud onto the floor, kicking up a small cloud of dirt. "Gentlemen, I give you Dementia, the goddess of insanity."

For a full five seconds the Five stayed frozen in place, half expecting some tall, ancient-looking woman to stride out of the crate. When nothing moved, they blinked and took a closer look. Inside the crate was a figure, all right. It was a female duck wearing a Greek tunic, but she wasn't moving - largely because she was only a statue. But what a statue! She had more sharp and odd angles than any Greek statue ought. Her hair was pulled up into an untidy, very un-Greek pigtail on one side, and flowed in a dishevelled mass down over her other shoulder. Her tunic was in some disarray, and she looked very much as though she were contemplating whether she wanted raspberry jam on her isoceles triangles. One of her hands clutched at her pigtail, while the other stretched out, palm cupped skyward, in a sort of invitation to join the insanity.

"Hey, she looks like you on a bad day, Megs!" Quackerjack snickered.

"Look who's talking," Megavolt retorted peevishly.

"So what are we going to do with it?" Bushroot inquired. "Are we gonna sell it?"

"Not in a million years," Negaduck said, wearing the smile of a cat who has caught a canary. "Because you see, this particular statue is magical."

"Magical? How?" the Five wondered as a group as they huddled closer to the statue to get a better look.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Negaduck chuckled darkly. In one rapid move he reached out, scooped something out of the statue's upturned hand, brought his palm to his beak, and blew. A silvery cloud of...something puffed into the face of the unfortunate Bushroot, who happened to be standing closest to Negaduck. His eyes took on a slightly unfocused glaze. The others stepped back quickly.

"What was that?" Quackerjack wanted to know.

"Why not ask Bushroot?" Negaduck's smile plainly said he knew something the rest of them didn't.

"Er...Bushy?" Quackerjack turned to the mutant plant-duck. "What-?"

"Listen!" Bushroot interrupted him, cocking his head. "Can you hear that?" He looked around the walls of the warehouse as though listening to a far-off sound.

"Hear what?" Quackerjack listened. So did the rest of the Five. They could hear nothing besides the normal night noises of the creatures on the banks of the river.

" The howling!" Bushroot whispered excitedly. "It's the were-carrots! They're calling me!"

"The what?" The rest of the Five exchanged looks ranging from amused to utterly quizzical. "What's he talking about?"

Bushroot started for the door. "I've got to go - they're throwing a party!" he exclaimed happily.

The Liquidator stepped forward to stop him, but stopped at Negaduck's touch on his arm. "Let him go," the crime boss ordered. "He'll be back soon enough. I didn't use enough dust on him for the effect to last very long."

Quackerjack stood in the doorway and watched the mutant scurry happily away from the docks. He snickered. "Looks like Bushroot's lost his marbles!"

"So what, exactly, is this stuff?" Megavolt wondered as he peered over into the statue's hand. Although no-one had been close enough to see it before, Dementia's palm was filled with a fine, silver powder. Curiously Megavolt stuck a finger into it and stirred. Nothing happened.

" Careful, you moron," Negaduck snapped at him "I highy doubt you want to breathe too much of that stuff." Megavolt quickly backed away from the statue, as Negaduck continued. "Like I said, this statue's magic. No matter how much of the dust you take out of her hand, it's always full."

"Well, this is great!" Quackerjack beamed. "Now we can make everyone in St. Canard appreciate the joy of sheer wackiness!"

"Oh, I've got much bigger plans than that," Negaduck informed him with a canny look. "What do you suppose would happen if we were to spread this stuff around at...oh, say, a movie theater or something?"

Quackerjack looked blankly at him. "Um...popcorn fight?"

Negaduck shook his head. "There'd be a riot, you idiot! And in the chaos, not only could someone rob the people blind, but someone else could use the distraction to get away with committing a robbery elsewhere without getting that Darkwing Do-gooder crashing down on their heads. Divide and conquer, gentlemen! That's the plan."

"Still tryin' to figure this out, D.W.?" The burly form of Launchpad McQuack peeked over the edge of the ladder which led to the raised platform that was Darkwing's "office" space.

"I just don't get it, Launchpad," Darkwing replied, still staring at the map. "It's driving me nuts! In the past week someone burned down the St. Canard Palace, someone robbed Uncle Vito's Pizzeria while the waiters ran around chasing the customers across the tables, and the policeman's ball was completely disrupted when the president of the First Bank and Trust came dog-sledding into the middle of the event and tried to claim the ice sculpture on the banquet table in the name of England!" He tapped different pins as he named off the different events. "From what the police said, that's only the weirdest of the weird happenings that have been disturbing St. Canard recently. AND, right in the middle of each disturbance, one of the local banks was hit! I don't like this, L.P. Someone's obviously using these disturbances as a distraction from the real crimes, but I can't figure out who!"

"Maybe they've been brainwashed by aliens, like in that movie Gosalyn made us rent the other night," Launchpad suggested, walking over to peer over Darkwing's shoulder.

Darkwing shook his head and frowned at his big friend. "Launchpad, will you please be serious? Aliens don't just go around brainwashing people so they can steal things. This is the work of a highly organized criminal mind! Or more than one, maybe. This could very possibly even be a crime ring! But who? It's too small potatoes to be FOWL. Ordinarily I'd say it was the Fearsome Five, but not even Quackerjack has the ability to make that many people go totally around the bend. I just can't figure this out!" Darkwing sighed unhappily and started to pace around the platform, rubbing his forehead in thought. "Maybe there's a new crime ring starting up..."

Launchpad watched Darkwing go back and forth for a couple of minutes before interrupting. "Hey, why don't you take your mind off the case for a little while with some dinner? I brought Hamburger Hippo's." He reached into the bag, pulled out a box of onion rings and offered them to the hero.

Darkwing impatiently waved his sidekick away. "Not now, Launchpad. Can't you see that St. Canard is in the middle of an emergency? People are running amok, there's a rash of burglaries, and I have to get to the bottom of it!"

"Well, yeah," Launchpad agreed, stuffing his beak with the onion rings. "Bud it'sh eashier t'think on a full stomach." He offered the rest of the food to Darkwing again.

The caped avenger ignored him. Instead, he turned back to the map and studied the colored pushpins for the hundredth time that evening. He slammed his fist on the table. "You know what the most baffling part is? There haven't been ANY clues at all at any of the crime scenes! Everyone we've talked to from those insane disturbances was too confused to see anything useful, and all the video tape from the bank security cameras keeps coming up blank, like it's been erased. And the guards are no help. Do you know what the last security guard I talked to said??"

"Er...what?"

Darkwing tugged his hat over his face in frustration. "He said he was Napoleon!"

Launchpad gave Darkwing a quizzical look. "Napoleon's a security guard now? Gee, I guess it would be kind of hard for a defeated general to find work." He sighed. "Woe, how the mighty have fallen."

Darkwing looked bleakly at his sidekick. "Launchpad, Napoleon's been dead for years."

"Oh. Er, right, heh." Launchpad scratched the back of his flight cap and tried not to look too embarrassed. "So are we gonna go out on patrol tonight?"

"No-o," Darkwing said thoughtfully. "I think tonight we're going to start staking out banks. That's where all the real action is, and if I'm really lucky, I'll finally be able to catch the perpetrators in the act! I just wish I knew what the heck they were doing to all those people to make 'em go stir crazy like that." The hero paused and went over a mental checklist of his gadgets, wondering whether any of them would be useful in keeping the same thing from happening to him.

"Okey doke," Launchpad nodded and swung himself back over the side of platform onto the ladder. "I'll just go get the Ratcatcher refueled, then." He disappeared down into depths of the lair.

Darkwing Duck took a final look at his map and resisted the urge to rip it into tiny shreds. By gander, if they didn't come up with a decent lead tonight, he was going to go stark raving insane!

"I'm going stark, raving mad over here!" Megavolt grumbled to Quackerjack. "I'm sick of laying low! If Negaduck wants to hit another bank soon, I wish he'd just tell us instead of making us wait." The newspaper crossword puzzle he'd been working to pass the time was frustrating him to no end. He felt like so many of the answers were just on the tip of his brain, but they kept dancing out of his reach. At last he just scribbled random letters and Greek mathematical symbols into the remaining blanks and tossed the paper over his shoulder.

He got up and paced over to the window of one of Quackerjack's hideouts, where he had come to pass the time with company and await Negaduck's orders. Shoving the patchwork curtain aside, he saw there wasn't much of a view outside - just a vacant lot filled with years of trash dimly lit by an old streetlight. Megavolt spent a few moments calculating how long it might take to go out and scavenge through the rubbish for useful spare parts, then decided it probably wasn't worth the effort. Besides, it looked like it was going to rain soon. With a bored sigh, he turned away from the window. "I'm sick of all this covert stuff," he complained. "Why can't we do something more shocking?" He punctuated his unhappiness with a small lightning bolt aimed at one of Quackerjack's big, plush stuffed gorillas. The toy disintegrated into a small pile of ash.

Quackerjack looked up from the toy soldier he was rebuilding and yelped. "Do you mind? That just happened to be the latest in my line of war toys - the Guerilla Gorilla! What do you think - pretty keen idea, huh? Or at least, it was until you barbecued it."

"Yeah, whatever," Megavolt sulked. "Look, I didn't come over here to watch you play Dr. Frankenstein. Can't we go do something fun?"

"But I've been getting so behind lately," Quackerjack explained. "I need to get my new line of toys ready for the new crime season. Besides, aren't you enjoying the bank heists? You have to admit, this new scheme Negaduck came up with is loads of fun!"

"Fun for you, maybe," Megavolt complained, crossing his arms peevishly. "You get to go out and start panics and stuff. I'm stuck with following Negaduck to the bank and magnetically blanking out all the security cameras. He won't even let me touch Dementia's dust. He said I'd probably waste it on the lightbulbs or something. Can you believe it?!" Glumly, Megavolt stumped back over to Quackerjack's beat-up sofa and started to sit down.

"Er, don't sit-" Quackerjack began.

Megavolt nearly disappeared into the couch as the seat gave way under him.

"-there..." Quackerjack finished, shaking his head. He trotted over to grab his friend's flailing hand and pull him out of the pile of lumpy cushions. "Well, I tried to warn you."

"Gyaaah!" Megavolt screamed at him. "Half the frame's missing on this thing! When did you start building traps into your furniture?"

"It's not my fault," Quackerjack protested. "I was running out of wood to make my toy soldiers, so I had to do some creative scavenging."

"Ow..." Megavolt winced, rubbing his back as he stood up. "I think I threw something out..."

The toymaker scratched his head, then shrugged and laughed. " Tell you what, if you're feeling up to it, I know something interesting we could do."

"Yeah? Like what?" Megavolt perked up a bit, then looked at his friend suspiciously. "This better not have anything to do with yo-yos or spring-a-lings."

"Not to worry!" Quackerjack put his finger to his beak and looked around secretively. "Shhh! Don't tell anybody I swiped this, but..." he giggled and pulled out a small bag of Dementia's silvery dust.

Megavolt's eyes bugged out. "What are you doing with that?" he demanded anxiously. "Negaduck said nobody-"

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him," Quackerjack grinned toothily. "Besides, I thought you were bored. We could go out, start a couple of fires, cause some random zaniness. Can you think of anything more fun than bringing people over to the wacky side of the force?"

"You're completely loony, and I can think of several things I'd rather be doing," Megavolt declared. "There's a half-built solid light and matter machine at home calling my name."

"There is?" Quackerjack cocked his head and listened. "I don't hear anything."

"Yeah," Megavolt told him, "and I'd probably have it finished by now if Negaduck didn't keep interrupting me. You can stay here and play with your toys all you want to, but I'm going home. If Negaduck wants us to hit a bank tonight, he knows how to find me." He headed purposefully towards the door.

Quackerjack watched him go and put his hands on his hips. "Well fine, be that way," he sulked after his teammate. "I've got a better idea anyway, so-"

The door slammed. Megavolt couldn't hear him anymore, so Quackerjack addressed his other best friend instead. "I've got a much better idea than just spreading random wackiness to keep him entertained, Mr. Bananna Brain," the clown chuckled to the stuffed bananna doll. "Have you noticed how utterly playfulpeople get when they get a good whiff of Dementia's Dust? This is the perfect way to get kids away from those horrible television sets and video games, and outside to play with my toys! Don't you agree?"

The doll drooped limply in his hand and continued to smile its usual goofy smile. "Absolutely," it 'agreed' in a voice that sounded amazingly like a high-pitched version of Quackerjack's.

The clown nodded. "And tomorrow there's going to be a perfect place to hit," he said, rubbing his hands together. "It's going to be so much fun!" His laughter echoed off the walls of his hideout.

The paperboy's bike skidded along the street, dodged around a cat, and ramped over a puddle of water splattered across the sidewalk. The bike landed on a banana peel, skidded again, and gave a near miss to a bed of begonias. Undaunted, the bike's rider reached into his basket and flipped the Saturday morning edition of the St. Canard Guardian onto the front porch of Drake Mallard. A small dog ran out of a nearby yard and started yipping at his tires. The paperboy rode on, determined to finish his route.

Herb Muddlefoot walked out of his front door, yawning and stretching. Looking down at his own front porch, he noticed that there was no paper there. However, there was a paper on his neighbor's door step. Well dag naggit, he thought to himself. That darn paperboy delivered our paper to Drake again. I'd better just go over and get it. This he did, completely forgetting that he had cancelled his subscription to the newspaper a month ago.

Inside the Mallard household, the morning was getting off to a noisy start as Gosalyn leaped out of bed and began to rummage underneath it for her favorite video game controller. "Watch out, world!" she whooped. "Here comes Gosalyn Mallard, the best Whiffle World player of all time! Nobody stands a chance against me!" Finding her controller (the really neat one with the joystick and the extra buttons along the side), she bounced back on top of her bed and began to slide her hands underneath the mattress for spare change. "Bam! Wham! Socko! I am SO gonna slay 'em!"

A very sleepy Drake Mallard appeared in her doorway, clad in a nightshirt. "Gosalyn, what are you doing?" he yawned. "It's Saturday. You always sleep in on Saturday. Not to mention, I could use some extra sleep this week. I still haven't got any good clues on this latest case, and it's really wearing me out."

"But Dad!" Gosalyn bounced a couple more times on her bed . "I can't sleep in today! Today is the video game championship tournament at the high school! They're having a Whiffle World IV deathmatch, and I can't miss it!"

"Oh, was that today?" Drake rubbed his eyes blearily.

"You know it was, Dad. They even announced it in the papers. So go grab some coffee already - we gotta be at the school by eleven to sign up for the tournament!"

"We do?" Drake didn't remember wanting to sign up for a Whiffle World IV tournament. He hadn't even had a chance to wrestle the game away from Gosalyn yet, so he'd never even played it.

Gosalyn ran over to her dad and shoved him in the direction of downstairs. "Yeah, we do! The grand prize is a pair of VR goggles and the latest super-enhanced game glove, and no way am I gonna miss out on that. Get me over there on time, and those goggles are as good as mine!"

"Okay, okay, yeesh!" Drake motervated himself downstairs under his own power, yawning widely. He hoped he'd have time for a decent-sized cup of coffee. "What time is it, anyway?"

"Seven A.M. If we hurry, we can beat everybody to the registration line." Gosalyn clattered downstairs ahead of her father and disappeared into the kitchen.

Drake stopped and just stood there for a moment, beak hanging on the ground. Seven A.M. ?? Gosalyn had gotten him up at seven A.M. for this? He was going to have to have a long talk with that young lady.

The paperboy's bike skidded along the street, dodged around a pothole and ramped over a pile of garbage strewn across the sidewalk. The bike landed on a spot of rotten food, skidded again and gave a near miss to a pile of rusty nails someone had dumped in their front yard. Undaunted, the paperboy rode on, determined to deliver the St. Canard Guardian come rain, come snow, or come The Really Bad Part of Town. He flipped the Saturday morning edition towards the balcony of an apartment and zipped on down the street, pedaling furiously to avoid the pit bull that leapt over a fence and started chasing him.

The paper flew at just the wrong angle and with just the wrong amount of spin. It rebounded off the balcony rail and sailed across the street to fly through a lighthouse window that had been left partially open.

Inside, Megavolt suddenly found himself awake and staring at the rolled up newspaper that had just bounced off his head. Immediately he rushed to the window and leaned out, trying to spot the paperboy. The bike could just be seen receding off in the distance. Angrily, Megavolt leaned even further out the window and sent a lightning bolt in the bike's direction. It missed as the bike swerved around a pothole ringed with scorch marks.

There were a lot of potholes with scorch marks in that particular section of the road.

"Sunday drivers!" the supervillain yelled after the paperboy. Leaning back inside, he snarled at the paper and noticed that it said the day was Saturday. He leaned back outside and shook his fist after the bike. "Saturday drivers!"

Slamming his window shut, Megavolt started to toss the rolled up newspaper into the pile of them that had been accumulating behind his television set. Then he stopped. There in the lower right-hand corner, in small print in the Daily Events box, he spotted a byline that commanded his whole attention.

Beakington High School Video Game Tournament - registration 11 AM, Whiffle World IV tournament from 12 PM - 4 PM. Competition open to all.

"Whiffle World IV tournament?" he exclaimed. "Hey, that would be the perfect chance to test my new solid light and matter machine! If I could bring the Whiffle Boy to life in the middle of the crowd, that would show everybody! They may say I'm mad, but at least they'll respect me for it!" Megavolt brightened up considerably. It looked like he'd have something to do with his Saturday, after all. No, wait...wasn't there something else he was supposed to be doing this afternoon? He racked his brains for a minute and finally remembered. Oh yeah, that's right. Negaduck wanted to pull a bank heist this evening. Darn it, why did Negaduck always have to be so bossy about everything? Everybody else got to have Saturdays off work. Why couldn't supervillains have Saturdays off, too?

Megavolt looked down at the newspaper and decided. So what if Negaduck wanted him to meet everyone at the warehouse at 3 o'clock? He'd just turn up a little late and complain about the traffic or something. After all, this was his favorite video game ever. What idiot would pass up the chance to test a new mad science gizmo against the Whiffle Boy? Better yet, why not actually enter the tournament? He'd make it to the finals, he knew he would, because wasn't he the elite god of Whiffle World? And at the end of the tournament, with everyone watching the finals, what better time to bring the Whiffle Boy to life? Then he'd be sure no one would miss the demonstration! "I'd better get over there quick," he realized, "if I want a good place in the registration line."

"I don't believe this!" Gosalyn slapped her hand over her face. "I'm standing in line behind a supervillain!"

She eyed Megavolt warily. The last thing in the world she'd expected to find at this tournament was her father's archnemesis. She had to admit, however, that it sort of made sense. Electric rat, electronic games...

Megavolt appeared a little more confuzzled than usual. He didn't quite seem to know what to make of the kids of all ages running around the school lobby. In fact, when one of the smaller ones accidentally ran into his legs and started crying, he'd actually apologized even though he hadn't done anything (for once).

Suddenly there was a puff of blue smoke, and Gosalyn's dad - or rather, Darkwing Duck - appeared in front of the rat.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night!
I am the power outage that dumps your high score!
I am Darkwiiiing Duck!"

Darkwing shoved his beak right in Megavolt's nose, wearing his most intimidating scowl. "And I've got my eye on you, Sparky! Whatever you're up to, it won't work."

"Don't call me that!" Megavolt snarled, grabbing Darkwing's beak and sending a mild electric charge through it. Darkwing was jolted backwards.

The villain ground his teeth. "Darn it!" he yelled, waving his arms in the air. "You're everywhere! Everywhere!! Why won't you ever leave me alone? Will you plague me to the end of my days?!?"

A teacher roughly the size of a gorilla approached, her high-heeled shoes clicking a no-nonsense tattoo across the lobby floor. She stepped between Darkwing and Megavolt. "All right, all right! What's going on here?" she asked sternly.

"That masked duck is harassing me!" Megavolt complained.

Darkwing grabbed Megavolt by the scruff of his collar as he addressed the teacher. "Ma'am, this person does not belong here. This garishly garbed gadabout is actually one of the most deranged psychos to ever sully the streets of St. Canard, and he belongs in jail, not in the lobby of a school!"

"Give it a rest, willya?" Megavolt shot back as he wrestled himself out of Darkwing's grip. "Like you're normal??"

"At least I took a shower this morning," Darkwing replied.

A couple of electric arcs slid angrily up the plugs of Megavolt's hat. "Ok, that's it!" he raged. A ball of blue electricity started to gather around his hand. "I'm gonna fry you!"

Gosalyn buried her face in her hand. She couldn't believe her father was doing this to her in public, even if nobody actually knew they were related.

"Gentlemen!" the teacher shoved the two futher apart. "Please remember you're in a school. What kind of role models are you presenting to the children?"

Darkwing immediately calmed down and looked sheepish. Megavolt looked confused again, and after a vague look around the room, he let his accumulated charge dissipate.

"That's better. Now look," the teacher continued, shaking her finger in Darkwing's face. "There's nothing against the law about entering a video game tournament."

"That's right!" Megavolt blew Darkwing a raspberry from behind the teacher's back.

The teacher turned to the villain and loomed over him. "But that doesn't excuse you for fighting in the lobby."

Megavolt seemed to shrink under the teacher's authority. "Uh...but he-," he stammered, pointing in Darkwing's direction.

"No, I don't care who started it," the teacher cut him off. "If you boys want to fight, you'll do it by competing in the tournament. Otherwise, out you both go." She turned an equally stern eye on both the hero and the villain. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly clear," Darkwing nodded meekly.

"Absolutely," Megavolt cringed beside him.

"All right, then. I'm glad we understand each other." The teacher spun on one heeled foot and strode off to calm down a fight that was erupting on the other side of the lobby.

Darkwing gritted his teeth and looked his archnemesis up and down. "All right, Megavolt, have it your way," he harumphed. "I'm entering the tournament so I can keep an eye on you. First stray spark I see, you're going down." Darkwing strode off towards the registration table, grabbing Gosalyn's hand and dragging her along behind him.

"Da-er, Darkwing!" Gosalyn protested angrily. "Hey! You're making me lose my place in line!"

"No daughter of mine is going to wait in line behind a supervillain," Darkwing told her, ignoring her struggle to pull free.

"But -!" Gosalyn looked back to where her spot had already been taken by a plump gosling.

"No means no!" Darkwing told her firmly, grabbing one of the registration sheets at the front table. "Now help me fill this thing out. Which level is more advanced, King of Whiffle or Whiffle Supreme?"

"Perfect," Megavolt thought to himself with dark anticipation as he watched them cross the lobby. "When I bring the Whiffle Boy to life, I can make him step on Darkwing Do-gooder."

The gym was a zoo of colour and sound.

A veritable cacophony of wheeps, bleeps, meeps, and catchy electronic music filled the gym of Beakington High; the Whiffle World tournament was well underway. Rows and rows of players floated between the game stations that had been set up as their names were called and new matches were arranged.

High in the rafters, Quackerjack dangled by his knees, toyed with a small baggie and pondered his best plan of attack. Would it be better to pick just a few targets for Dementia's Dust, or should he just start tossing it into the air and let the gods of chance have some fun? What would happen if he circulated it into the ventilation system? After giving each of these options the 1.5 seconds of consideration they were due, he finally he decided that he felt like doing things in a hands-on way today. Besides, he'd already spotted Darkwing Duck somewhere in the crowd. Because he was feeling really perverse, he wanted to see what the hero would do under Dementia's influence. Whistling a sprightly (and slightly off-key) tune to himself, Quackerjack tucked the bag of dust back into his pocket and did a back-flip down from the rafters.

"Super-gravity chicken lays an anvil on you. Too bad, Whiffle Boy," the video game announced calmly. The words 'YOU LOSE' appeared on the screen and flashed there like a taunt.

Darkwing Duck, the mighty masked mallard, the master of Quack Fu, the terror who flaps in the night (except when laid up with injuries), costumed hero of the masses (in his own mind), defender of St. Canard...was not having a good game. One might even say he was having the worst Whiffle World IV game of his career. Of course, one might also argue that it was his best. Both statements would be true, since before today Darkwing had never gotten a chance to test his skills against the programming of this particularly sadistic first-person shooter version of Whiffle World.

The shadowy hero of St. Canard threw the joystick to the floor and ground his teeth. His nostrils flared. His eyes acquired a reddish gleam and his foot gently scraped the floor as he looked at the video screen like a mad bull about to charge.

Gosalyn reached up and grabbed his shoulder. "Don't do it, Darkwing!" she pleaded with him. "If you wreck the game, they'll throw us out! Or worse," she gulped, "they'll make us pay for the damages!"

The maniacal gleam in his eyes faded, much to Gosalyn's obvious relief. "What's wrong with that stupid joystick?" Darkwing shouted, giving the item in question a swift kick before vacating the game station. "I'll tell you what's wrong. It's too sensitive! I bet if I'd been using your controller, I'd have stomped that game into the ground!"

A teenaged duck wearing a "Quack II" shirt ran excitedly past them.

"Well, I'd let you use mine," Gosalyn sortof didn't offer as she clutched her joystick protectively, "but I spent all last week rubbing it with my rabbit's foot to make it lucky and if you touch it you'll disturb the vibes."

"Thanks ever so," Darkwing replied tartly. "It's so comforting to know you're behind me one hundred percent, especially when there's a criminal loose in the gym with us."

Another couple of guys trotted past in the same direction the first guy had gone.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk!" a new voice broke into the conversation. "It sounds like you aren't having any fun. That'll never do!"

"Fun? Of course I'm not having fun," Darkwing turned and snapped at the stranger. "This stupid game is-" He stopped and blinked. His eyes ran up and down the intruder, taking in the striped medieval tunic, the green tights, the short sword tucked into the belt, the medieval jester's hat...

"What are you supposed to be, an ad for "The Legend of Zebra"? Darkwing groused.

"Who, me?" the stranger bowed with a flourish. "No, no, I'm just the spirit of youth - an eternal lost boy, if you will! And because I can't stand the thought of someone not having fun, I have just the thing for you.

"Think of it as pixie dust!" he beamed as he reached into a pocket and brought forth a small handful of glittering silver dust. He held his palm out. "This is guaranteed to turn any party into a complete riot!"

"Just what do you think you're trying to do?" Darkwing snapped suspiciously. " That stuff's probably illegal. I oughtta-"

Whoof. A silver cloud puffed into his face before he could finish his sentence. "Don't worry, there's no charge. It's a completely free service," the jester giggled. He bowed again and started to leave, but was promptly knocked spinning to the floor by four more kids who shoved past.

"Dudes, you've gotta see this guy!" the leader of the kidpack told his followers as they ran past. "He is, like, smoking the boards!"

The jester picked himself up off the floor and, still giggling, hurried after the kids to blend in with the crowd that was building up around a game station at the far end of the row.

Gosalyn waved her hand in front of her father's eyes, which had taken on a slightly glazed sheen. "Uh...Darkwing? Hello?"

The crowd was already three people thick by the time Quackerjack got there. It was almost impossible to see anything, but he could hear the clicks, booms, and special music of several complex attacks executed perfectly in a row. A murmur of awe went up from the crowd as the video screen flashed brightly and triumphant music played. "I can't believe the dude's already on level twelve!" someone mumbled in admiration.

Quackerjack shook his head. "Obviously what we have here is some kid who spends far too much time indoors playing this atrocious video game," he decided. "A prime candidate for a dusting if I ever found one!," Quietly palming a bit of Dementia's Dust, the jester elbowed his way up through the crowd until he was just able to make out the figure in the middle of the crowd. He prepared to toss the dust, then stopped short and slapped his forehead.

"Hah! Victory! Semifinals, here I come!" the gamer laughed triumphantly as the victory scene began to play.

Quackerjack knew that laugh. It was the very peculiar, unbalanced sort of laugh that could only be cultivated after years of being cooped up in a laboratory with few other people to talk to. It was the sort of laugh that evolved from a decade of being haunted by strange voices and stranger ideas. It was the kind of laugh that psychiatrists pointed to to show that you weren't quite sane.

"The dust would probably be a waste on him," Quackerjack decided. "I don't suppose he could get much loonier. Besides, this just proves I was right. He spends way too much time in front of those brain-eating video games." With a toothy grin Quackerjack pushed his way through the front line of the crowd and applauded. "Bravo! Bravo, Megavolt! Well-played!"

"Thank you, thank you, no praise necessary, just send money," Megavolt started to reply as he turned to absorb the attention from the crowd. His eyes bugged a bit as he recognized Quackerjack. "What are you doing here, buddy?" he asked, a bit stunned. "I thought you hated video games."

"Oh, you know me, I'm always game for something interesting," he replied with an odd smile. He shrugged and turned to go. "Listen, if you get bored with this, come and find me."

Megavolt cackled again as he stood up and disconnected his personally modified joystick from the game station. "Stick around for the finals, Quacksie. I've got something special planned." He ran his finger meaningfully around a non-standard looking plug that had been fitted into the game controller.

"Do tell?" Quackerjack inquired politely.

"Well, you remember that-" Megavolt started to explain when a sudden yell erupted from a few yards away.

"DARKWING, DON'T DO IT!!!"

"Oh yeah - be careful, by the way," Megavolt mentioned offhandedly. "Darkwing Dip is here with that red-headed girl who hangs around him."

"You don't say?" Quackerjack sniggered with a touch of irony as they watched a purple-cloaked figure fire a grappling hook up into the rafters. The hook snagged and caught, and within seconds Darkwing Duck was swinging above the crowd, waving a bullhorn he'd pulled from somewhere.

"ATTENTION EVERYONE WHO IS A SUPERVILLAIN!" Darkwing's voice boomed across the gym, mostly clear enough to understand. "YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO SURRENDER YOURSELF BEFORE I MELT YOUR ELECTRODES WITH MY MUTANT POWER OF FIREBALL THROWING! YOU HEAR ME, MEGAVOLT??"

"Since when were you a mutant?!" Megavolt yelled back at him in disbelief.

The crowd around him gasped, and a panicked murmur went up as they realized who they'd been cheering for a minute ago. It only took one person to make a break for it, and then the rest of them followed - or tried to, rather. Unfortunately, when a crowd tries to flee, there are two possible results. The first, which is rather unlikely, is that they all attempt to run in the same direction, in which case most of them generally make it safely to wherever they were running. The other possibility, which is more likely, is that some people try to go left, others try to go right, and still others try to figure out how to teleport to Tahiti instead. This sort of panic usually results in mass rioting of the sort that chaos mathematicians write theses about. In this particular case, the crowd followed the norm and chose possibility number two.

In the blink of an eye, the nice, controlled chaos of a video game tournament was transformed into the frightening, uncontrolled chaos of a mass panic. As the kids dashed this way and that, one of them accidentally ran into Quackerjack's knees. He stumbled and smashed right into Megavolt, who happened to be falling the other direction for much the same sort of reason. When the pair hit the floor, a small cloud of silver dust exploded out of Quackerjack's pocket.

Megavolt sneezed and wiped silver specks off his goggles.

Quackerjack blinked at him and had only one slightly frightened comment. "Whoops."

Negaduck stood in the parking lot of Beakington High School and swore to himself that if he found either Megavolt or Quackerjack here, that he was going to do something drastic. Both of them were late for the meeting to which he had expressly ordered all the Five to be punctual. When the insane contingent of the gang hadn't shown, a small part of Negaduck had been relieved that he didn't have to deal with them. However, a much larger part was absolutely furious at being disobeyed, which was why he had ordered Bushroot and the Liquidator to stay put while he went out and searched for the demented duo personally.

He'd already tried the usual spots where he knew they could be found. Their hideouts were all empty, and the Old Haunt wasn't even open for business this early in the day. None of the toy stores or electronics stores had been robbed. Negaduck was getting more and more furious as he checked everywhere he could think of and kept coming up empty-handed. He'd long since passed the point of thinking of suitable punishments and tortures for them, and had already figured out a couple of particularly gruesome ways to kill them both. His hands were practically itching to try those ideas out, especially the second one which involved Megavolt and a tank full of water and pirhanas. Well, maybe that one wouldn't work if the short-circuiting killed the pirhanas first, so there'd need to be two separate tanks, one for the water and another for the pirhanas and their water, or maybe he could use a water hose or something first...

And then he'd heard the screams of the people running out of the school.

Gravel crunched under the crime lord's feet as he fought his way against the stream of people churning out the front doors of the school. With a dark frown he reached out, snagged a girl by the collar of her jacket as she ran past and dangled her in front of his face.

"What's going on in there?" he demanded.

"Fight! Big fight!" the girl said excitedly.

"What kind of fight?"

She took a deep breath. "It was really cool to watch at first, there was this guy in a mask and cape with a gun, and there was this other guy with a big battery on his back, but then the battery guy started throwing lightning bolts at the masked guy and the masked guy was running on the ceiling and there was smoke everywhere and the battery guy said he was going to get revenge for all the light bulbs or something, and then the Whiffle Boy came to life and started stomping on everything and then he pulled out his super-BFG and blew a hole in the ceiling and I couldn't stay to watch anymore because the teachers made everybody leave except for the guys who were fighting and-"

"All right, all ready!" Negaduck growled as he tossed the girl to the ground. "Looks like I've found one of my boys, and boy is he ever going to regret it!" The enraged duck stepped out of the stream of people and made his way purposefully into the school.

When some people talk about carnage, they mean that the walls and roofs of buildings look like swiss cheese, and that there are smoking piles of ashes everywhere. Other people's use of the word would describe random bodies littered about in varying degrees of unconsciousness. A few twisted souls might even add in a few 'normal' touches to the scene, such as a video game still playing its tinny electronic music as though nothing at all had happened.

Negaduck faced all of this and more when he opened the doors to Beakington High's gym.

Coughing, he waved a hand in front of his beak to clear away the smoke. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene, took in the sizzling and sparking piles of electronics that used to be video games, noted the scorch marks running along the ceiling and floor and the large smears of some unidentified blue, sticky-looking sludge that spattered the walls. He frowned and entered the carnage.

"Yoo-hoo," he called into the curiously still gym. "Come out, come out wherever you are!" He looked around for signs of motion.

He was greeted with a voice he hadn't been expecting. "Boy, that Megs sure knows how to make a party fun," Quackerjack said as he crawled out from behind a basketball backboard that had been blasted off its post. "I haven't enjoyed anything this much in weeks!"

"Is that so?" Negaduck purred in the dangerously amicable voice he used when he was going to pounce on someone. "And pray tell, where is he now? And why weren't you two at headquarters like I told you to be?"

"Oh, it was the most fantastic thing!" Quackerjack said eagerly. "Megavolt had this special gizmo he made to bring the Whiffle Boy to life, and all his weapons, too! And he was fighting Darkwing Duck!"

"Oh, really? That's nice, but it doesn't answer my question."

"Oh. Erm, well..." Quackerjack ran his finger around the collar of his tunic, even though it didn't fit that tightly. "You might say we got distracted," he mumbled.

"Distracted." Negaduck kicked an unconscious teenager out of his way as he approached the clown. His voice remained eerily calm. "Distracted. I had an incredibly brilliant, completely smooth plan all laid out for today, and now it's ruined because you two were distracted. Do you realize how much money I just lost a chance at?"

Quackerjack took a step backwards and offered a sheepish grin to his boss. "Um. You're not upset are you?"

"Upset?" Negaduck repeated in that strangely calm voice. "Upset? No, of course I'm not upset. I am FURIOUS! You twit! You moron! You KNOB!" Negaduck sprang forward, seized Quackerjack by the throat and shook him like a dog with its teeth wrapped around a chipmunk.

"..." Quackerjack choked, trying to pry Negaduck's hands away from his neck.

A low moan came from behind one of the smoking heaps of ex-electronics as a rather groggy Megavolt slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his head. "What's going on?" he wondered, looking around foggily.

Negaduck promptly dropped Quackerjack and headed for the fuddled rat. "You've got exactly one chance to explain to me what you are doing here instead of at headquarters where you're supposed to be, and it had better be good!"

"Well, there was this video game tournament," Megavolt answered before thinking. "And I was winning, but then Darkwing Duck went completely off his rocker and was going to melt me with his mutant powers, so I...um..." Megavolt paused for a moment as his brows furrowed in puzzlement. "That's when all the video games started yelling at me to finish him off, so I brought the Whiffle Boy to life and-

"I've heard enough," Negaduck decided as he got closer. "Since when is Darkwing Duck a mutant?" He squinted at the rat's bright yellow jumpsuit, then ran a finger across Megavolt's shoulder. When the finger came up covered in silver dust, Negaduck snarled. "And what's this?! Have you been getting grabby with Dementia's Dust after I specifically said-"

"It wasn't my fault!" Quackerjack interrupted. "It was Megs! You'd better check his pockets."

"You think so?" Negaduck narrowed his eyes and held out his hand. "Let's see 'em, loser."

Megavolt scratched his head. "What for?"

"Just turn 'em out, you dolt!" Negaduck said impatiently.

Shrugging, Megavolt reached into one pocket and produced a couple of loose wires, a handful of resistors and transistors, a bubblegum wrapper, a business card with a written reminder on the back to rob the place sometime, and a small screwdriver. He reached into the other pocket and fished out a bag of jelly beans and a smaller, plastic bag filled with silvery dust. Megavolt frowned in puzzlement. "How'd that get in there?" he wondered. "I don't remember picking any of that up at the candy store."

"You'd forget your own name if I didn't yell it at you so often," Negaduck growled. He turned to Quackerjack. "I don't know what your part in this was, but I'll lay skulls to cents you're not just an innocent bystander. Both of you are coming back to the hideout with me right now, and we're going to sort all this out." A cruel, anticipating smile flickered across his beak.

Quackerjack and Megavolt looked at each other and shivered. It looked like they were in for an interesting evening.

"Are you ok, Dad?" Gosalyn peered worriedly at her father, who was lying on his back on the sidewalk outside the gym, staring blankly up at the sky. Or rather, he would have been staring at the sky if his hat hadn't been covering his face. Gosalyn picked the hat up and fanned Darkwing's face with it. When that failed to wake him, she started slapping him until he groaned and blinked.

"What? Where? When? Why? Who? And sometimes how?" Darkwing sat bolt upright, looking around. "Megavolt! Where'd he go? Don't tell me he got away!"

Gosalyn nodded.

"Hoo boy," Darkwing muttered as he grabbed his hat and slapped it back onto his head, then winced. " Ow...what happened?"

Gosalyn pointed at a huge, gaping hole in the gym wall. "You got blasted through there after Megavolt brought the Whiffle Boy to life. Keen gear, that was really something!"

Darkwing gave her a bleak look. "Gos, whose side are you on?"

Gosalyn folded her hands repentantly. "Sorry. Anyway, don't you remember?"

"I remember he only got away with that because of the complete and utter failure of my mutant fireball power...which...I..." Darkwing trailed off in confusion. "I don't have any mutant fireball powers. Why would I think I had mutant fireball powers?" Hopping up, Darkwing started to pace in little circles on the sidewalk. "That doesn't make any sense," he muttered to himself. "Why would I think I had mutant fireball powers when I don't have any mutant fireball powers?"

"Maybe it's got something to do with the silver stuff that weird guy blew on you," Gosalyn suggested.

"Silver...?" Darkwing stopped, then looked down at his cape. Sure enough, he saw a silvery sheen glittering across his lapels. Carefully he took the cape off, folded it up and tucked it under his arm. "Gos," he said grimly, "I don't know what's going on here, but this is the first solid clue I've had towards solving this recent rash of robberies. Come on, we're going home so I can run some tests on this stuff...and so I can get this cape washed. There's nothing worse than a crimefighter with a dusty cape."

Quackerjack and Megavolt's shadows shivered and trembled on the warehouse wall behind them.

Fifteen paces away, Negaduck stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the pair . "Well, how about it, gentlemen? Care to explain everything from the start?"

Megavolt elbowed his friend in the ribs, hard. He'd been feeling rather shaky and irritable since the effects of the dust had worn off. "What were you doing?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. He was pretty sure that upsetting the video game tournament hadn't been his idea (well, not with the dust, anyway), so why had Quackerjack tried to frame him? Weren't they friends, more or less?

Beside him, Quackerjack twiddled his fingers and gulped. Ignoring Megavolt's question, he gave Negaduck an apologetic grin.

The crime lord didn't appear to be appeased. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "That's what I thought. You don't have a good excuse, and now you've probably given Darkwing Duck the clue he needs to stop my plans. Know what I think? I think you both need to be taught a lesson. What to do, what to do?" Negaduck began to pace in a thoughtful circle, hands clasped behind his back.

The pair cringed even further back against the wall. Punishments dealt out by Negaduck tended to be extremely unpleasant, if not downright permanent.

Whirling around, Negaduck whipped out an axe. He advanced on the trembling villains, grinning madly. "I could put creases in both your skulls!" Megavolt and Quackerjack tried to duck as their boss swung the axe up into the air. Suddenly Negaduck stopped and stashed the ax back away into his cape. "Naah," he decided. "That's too easy. It's also over too quick. "So instead, maybe I should..." he paused dramatically and smiled nastily at his victims, "...tie you up and make you both watch Barney until your brains leak out your ears!"

"No!" Quackerjack cried, throwing his arms up across his eyes. "Anything but that...that...that insipid creature!"

Negaduck shook his head, obviously enjoying their prolonged fear. "You're right, you two don't have enough brains between the two of you to make it any fun. But..." Negaduck smiled the nastiest smile of all, "I think I know what punishment fits the crime here." He snapped his fingers and barked an order. "Liquidator! Bushroot! Take these two losers down!"

Whimpering in panic, Megavolt and Quackerjack both tried to bolt. They almost made it to the door before Bushroot's vines whipped tightly around Quackerjack and the Liquidator sent a wave of hard water crashing down over Megavolt. The rat sizzled out and collapsed in a spectacular electrical arc. Quackerjack struggled against the vines, but they held tight.

Megavolt watched weakly as a small cloud of smoke rolled off him and drifted away. He was really starting to regret getting out of bed that morning. And to think he'd actually been having fun earlier...

"All right," Negaduck smiled cruelly as he padded over and grabbed the de-electrified rat by the arm. "Bushroot, hold our little toymaker there so he can watch. This is going to be quite a show."

"W-what are you going to do?" Quackerjack asked in fear as he struggled against the vines some more.

Negaduck stalked across the warehouse floor, dragging Megavolt behind him. With an expert flip of the wrist, he tossed his victim against the wall and held him down while he snapped a set of manacles into place. "I'm making an example. Watch and learn, Quackerjack," he turned and explained to the toymaker. "You're going to see why it doesn't pay to mess up my schemes."

Chuckling, Negaduck walked over to the Dementia's statue and scooped out two handfuls of her dust. As he approached Megavolt, he casually remarked, "You know, I've been wondering what a large dose of this stuff would do to someone. I think it's time to find out."

Megavolt's eyes went wide. A moment ago he'd been wondering where the manacles had come from, but now he didn't care. All he wanted was to be somewhere - anywhere - far, far away from here. If only he hadn't been shortcircuited a few moments ago! The other members of the Fearsome Five watched, frozen in shock, as their teammate frantically pulled at the manacles, trying to rip them out of the wall. "No!" he protested desperately. "Please! I'll do anything! Anything you want! Just don't-"

With a cruel laugh, Negaduck watched the dust pour between his fingers like so many miniature silver waterfalls.

Outside, Megavolt's scream echoed across the docks.

Over by the police scanner, Gosalyn sat playing a game of table football with Launchpad. She'd originally tried to use a real football, but Darkwing had made her quit after the football crashed into one of his computer monitors. The police scanner was quiet, but that was to be expected. Things never really seemed to pick up in St. Canard until at least seven o'clock.

The small, paper triangle came flipping towards Darkwing from Launchpad's direction and landed on the hero's bill. "Oops," Launchpad chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry about that, DW." The big duck stood up and started over towards his friend. "Can I have that back? If I don't beat Gosalyn in two more kickoffs, she's gonna make me do her homework again."

Darkwing handed the paper football back to Launchpad unhappily. "Launchpad, you are NOT going to do Gosalyn's homework...again??" He choked for a second, then turned to his daughter. "Gosalyn Mallard!! How many times have I told you that Launchpad is NOT your personal slave?!"

A loud boom of thunder rolled across the bay. Launchpad looked out the window quizzically. "That's weird," he commented. "The weather forcast didn't say anything about thunderstorms this evening."

Just then, a small timer on the chemistry table started ringing. Darkwing immediately turned his attention to the test tube of clear liquid that had been heating over a bunsen burner. Wiggling his fingers in anticipation, he grabbed hold of it with a pair of tongs and lifted it out of its holder to cool. "All right, let's see what you've got," he muttered, swirling it around. In a few seconds, he could see small bits of green residue circling around inside the liquid. That was it! That was the clue he needed!

Launchpad leaned over Darkwing's shoulder and peered quizzically at the vial. "Looks like a bunch of bugs swimming around in there," he observed. "Is that good?"

"Launchpad, do you know what this is?" Darkwing's tone turned very grim.

Launchpad shrugged cheerfully. "Beats me."

"Those green specks are distilled tricholorelectrillium sulfate." Darkwing looked meaningfully at his sidekick.

Launchpad looked blankly back at him and shrugged again. "Sorry, I didn't do too well in chemistry," he offered.

Darkwing frowned. "They never taught this in chemistry class, Launchpad. Trichloroelectrillium sulfate is a rare sort of hallucinogen. In small doses it causes people to be very hyper and to act abnormally. In large doses, it can be lethal." Carefully Darkwing plugged a stopper into the test tube. He didn't want any of that stuff spilling out. It was hard evidence, and when he caught the person (or as he suspected, people) behind this, he was going to give the police enough evidence to lock them behind bars for a very long time.

Launchpad rubbed his head as though thinking was giving him a headache. Slowly he began, "So what you're saying is...all those folks we've been chasing around all week were probably..."

"Probably drugged with this stuff," Darkwing agreed. "And I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that Megavolt knows all about it, since he was right there at the crime scene."

"But this doesn't sound like his style, D.W." Launchpad protested. "Stealing lightbulbs and taking over power plants, sure. But drugs??" he looked quizzically at the green vial.

Darkwing leaned against the chemistry table and put his beak in his hand. "You're right. It's not. But if my suspicions are correct, then the rest of the Fearsome Five are involved too. And that means Negaduck. This sort of thing would be right up his alley!" Inwardly Darkwing groaned. Great, just great. It looked like his other archnemesis was up to something even nastier than usual. Just how was he going to get something like this stopped?

"We need to find one of the Five to shake down for information," Darkwing decided out loud. "But that's easier said than done. If I know anything about Negaduck, he's making sure they lie low. I'm just going to have to draw them out somehow..."

"Dad! Hey, Dad!" Gosalyn came bounding over to tug on Darkwing's cape. She pointed urgently over at the police scanner. "Hey, you gotta come listen to this! Something's going on at the docks!"

Following his daughter, Darkwing went to the scanner and turned the volume up. It was right in the middle of a broadcast. "-code 12, repeat, code 12 -kzzzhhhhhhtt - large explosion, big fire, very dan-kzhhhhttt-os. Radio contact in the area is intermi---kzzzzzhhtt-to strong electromagnetic field in the area-"

"Speak of the devil!" Darkwing snapped his fingers. "That's gotta be Megavolt! He's the only one in St. Canard capable of generating a field like that. That thunder we heard a minute ago must have been him." Darkwing ran to the Ratcatcher, pausing only to grab his helmet and slap it on his head. "Come on, Launchpad, we've got to get over there before the police do! They could be in a lot of trouble if Megavolt's on some kind of rampage."

"Right behind you, DW!" Launchpad vaulted into the Ratcatcher's sidecar, ready for action.

"Stay here, Gosalyn!" Darkwing called back to his daughter as he revved the engine of the bike. "We'll be back soon!" Before she could protest, the Ratcatcher had already zoomed out of the tower.

Gosalyn stomped over to the window and watched the bike ride away on the bridge cables. "How do you like that?" she muttered. "I'm the one who tips him off to something happening, and he leaves me behind. I don't think so!" With a determined nod, Gosalyn started to search for her rollerskates. Then she chanced to look off into the distance and saw the huge smoke cloud roiling into the sky from the dock district. Every few seconds the cloud was suddenly laced with electric discharges as lightning shot from the ground to the sky. She watched a fireball bloom on the shore near the docks. A few seconds later, another huge boom rolled over Audobon Bay Bridge.

"On second thought," she decided, "maybe I should just let Dad handle this. I'm brave, but I'm not stupid."

The sound of the second explosion nearly rocked the Ratcatcher off the road. It wasn't that far from the bridge; the bridge and the docks were both right on the river. Darkwing expertly righted the bike before it skidded onto the sidewalk, and continued on towards the waterfront. How ironic, to think that the very villain he'd been wanting to find was practically on his own doorstep!

More static discharges flickered wildly overhead in random directions. They were followed seconds later by the hollow, unearthly sound that Darkwing had learned to associate with Megavolt's electrical attacks. Boy, something must really have the villain upset, Darkwing mused. Maybe the police had gotten there ahead of him, after all? He'd better step up the speed. Darkwing gunned the motor and poured on an extra twenty mph.

He was going so fast that he almost sped right past his target. At first he was focused on the end of the dock, where smoke was pouring out of holes in the roof of a slagged warehouse. But on his way down the ramp, Darkwing happened to glance over to his right. That's when spotted the fire that was beginning to rage up the walls of a building on the shore. The twisted and molten end of a gas main smouldered on the ground. On the other side of the building, a blue flickering light was competing with the orange flicker of the fire. Ah-hah! Darkwing thought. That's got to be Megavolt! Now to find out what that maladjusted miscreant is up to! He yanked the handlebars of the Ratcatcher around, skidded one-eighty degrees and made for the burning building.

The sight on the other side of the building was definately not what Darkwing had expected. He pulled up short to survey the situation.

It was Megavolt, all right, making his way slowly down the street along the waterfront. The villain's whole body was glowing blue with the aura of an intense accumulated static charge; Darkwing could feel the fine down of his feathers rising from the ambient static electricity. The air reeked of ozone and burning insulation. Instantly, Darkwing looked around to see if Megavolt was after someone.

Other than Megavolt, however, the waterfront seemed deserted. Darkwing blinked and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. What was going on here? Was his archnemesis just randomly destroying property because he was mad about what happened at the video game tournament, or what?

Another lightning bolt gathered in the the electric aura and ripped up into the sky, vanishing harmlessly into the clouds. The boom of thunder immediately hit the heroes and pushed the Ratcatcher sideways. Darkwing and Launchpad leapt off the bike and ducked behind the wall of another building that hadn't caught fire yet.

When they peeked again the supervillain was still there, leaning wearily against a streetlight and throwing sparks everywhere. Suddenly a blue line of current left Megavolt's hand and crawled up the streetlight post. The lightbulb exploded above him, showering bits of glass down around his ears, but he didn't seem to notice or care.

Although he thought that a tad odd, Darkwing decided he needed to put an immediate stop to the destruction. Gathering his cape for a dramatic entrance, he pulled out a smoke cannister and prepared to smash it to the ground, but stopped at the touch of Launchpad's hand on his shoulder. "What is it, Launchpad?" Darkwing said testily. "Can't you see I'm about to foil this felony in progress?"

Launchpad shook his head warily. "Something's not right, DW."

"Well of course something's not right," Darkwing snapped back at him. "There's a supervillain out there trashing the waterfront, and I'm going to go stop him."

"That's not what I mean," Launchpad said. "Look." He turned Darkwing back around just in time to see the supervillain stumble and fall. When Megavolt didn't immediately stand up, Darkwing blinked in surprise. Finally the rat did force himself back to his feet. He took a few faltering steps away from the streetlight. The static charge around him sparked and swelled like a living thing. This time Darkwing clearly heard Megavolt's howl of pain just before the charge leapt away in another massive lightning bolt. Another hollow thunderclap hit Darkwing, stunning him for a moment. In the distance, another house caught on fire.

When he looked again, Megavolt was on his knees, bent over and trembling. Behind Darkwing, Launchpad said quietly, "Uh, I don't think he's doing this on purpose, DW."

Darkwing could only nod in amazed agreement. What in the name of Great Gander was going on here? Before he was quite aware of it, he'd taken a couple of steps out into the street as he watched the catastrophe unfolding in front of him.

The aura around Megavolt was ebbing and swelling again, expanding even further outwards. Small feeder bolts were starting to arc off and burn scorch marks into the street. Darkwing watched as, with great effort, Megavolt pulled himself to his feet a second time. The villain looked up and around. They made eye contact. In a few seconds, Megavolt actually seemed to focus on him.

"Darkwing Duck!" Megavolt took a couple of stumbling steps forward. His voice was thin and ragged, and he actually sounded relieved to see his archnemesis. Or rather, he sounded desperate.

Darkwing quickly jumped back as a feeder bolt struck the ground near his feet. "Megavolt," he started, mustering as much authority into his voice as he could manage given how totally weirded out he felt. "What's going on here? Is this some kind of trick?" All of Darkwing's feathers were standing on end now as Megavolt staggered another couple of steps towards him. The ambiant static charge prickled painfully against his skin.

"Help me!" Megavolt panted hoarsely, "Negaduck, h-he...he...did... did this..." Suddenly the villain's entire body arched convulsively. He screamed again, a hollow, high-piched scream that chilled Darkwing through and through. Behind Darkwing, Lauchpad closed his eyes and covered his ears as the electric charge around Megavolt redoubled its size, and redoubled again, swelling like a gigantic bubble.

The buildings around them disappeared in a flash of blinding blue light. The biggest thunderclap of all hit Darkwing and Launchpad at the same time that sheets of electons hammered them. The world around them went blank, lost in a cacophony of light and sound. For a moment, Darkwing thought he was dead.

Then it was past, and he wasn't dead. Deafened by the roar of sudden silence, Darkwing picked himself up off the street a block away and looked around. He couldn't believe he'd been blown back this far. In a moment he spotted Launchpad a few feet away. His sidekick was also picking himself up and dusting himself off. "Wow," Launchpad muttered, holding his head and shaking it.

Then Darkwing looked down the street, and he wasn't surprised about being blown a block away anymore. Embedded in the street was a huge, shiny circle laced through with fractal lightning patterns. Fused asphalt. In the middle of the circle lay the crumpled supervillain, who was no longer glowing.

For a moment Darkwing just stood there, stunned. He had never, never seen anything like this in all the years he'd been playing the dangerous game of 'heroes and villains'. Of all the villains he fought, he'd been fighting Megavolt the longest. Both of them knew the drill, knew every step of the dance. Always, always it had been the same steps in the same dance. Villain begins plot, hero finds out about it and steps in to stop it. There's a fight, the hero wins in the end, the villain goes to jail for a while, then gets out and the next round of the dance begins. Same dance, same steps.

But apparantly Negaduck had just changed the choreography.

Darkwing and Launchpad walked over to Megavolt in dread. "Is...is he...?" Launchpad asked, unable to finish the sentence as Darkwing tenatively leaned over to check on his archnemesis.

"I don't know," Darkwing said uncertainly, feeling for Megavolt's pulse. At first he felt nothing, then a very faint beat. Unless that was a residual electrical pulse he was feeling? Then the villain twitched slightly, and Darkwing heard him take a thin, reedy breath. He noted the distinctive silvery sheen that dusted the rat's jumpsuit. Decisively, Darkwing hefted Megavolt over his shoulder. "Hurry, Launchpad," he ordered as he headed for the Ratcatcher. "We've got to get him to a hospital, quick. If they can save him, then we can still interrogate him to find out about Negaduck's operation! Somehow I don't think he'll mind ratting on that duplicitous double-crosser after this."

Police sirens wailed onto the scene as the Ratcatcher screamed out of sight.

The waiting room in St. Canard General was half-full, which was about typical for a Saturday evening. Launchpad had stretched himself out comfortably in one of the waiting room chairs, unwilling to join Darkwing's pacing in the lobby. It had been over three hours since they had raced Megavolt into the emergency room, and Darkwing was acting almost like it was one of his best friends in the hospital. Well, in a way, that was sortof what it was, Launchpad supposed. After all, you didn't match wits and fists against the same guy for nearly ten years without getting to know him pretty well. Before Darkwing had met Gosalyn and himself, DW hadn't had much in the way of friends, and he never talked about his family. Launchpad wasn't really sure he even had any left. So for about ten years, the only people who knew Darkwing were the police and the villains he fought over and over again.

Weird kind of family, Launchpad thought.

Darkwing sat tiredly down in a chair beside him, fidgeted for a minute, then stood right back up again. "I'm going for more coffee, Launchpad. You want something?"

Launchpad looked up from his magazine. "Uh, sure, how about a Koo-koo cola?" He fished in his pocket for change and handed it to Darkwing.

The caped duck took the change and hurried off towards the vending machines. On the way, he stopped by the nurse's station and exchanged a few quick and irritable words with the nurses there. When one of them stood up and started to come around the desk after him, Darkwing hastily apologized and continued on to the vending machines. Presently he came back carrying a styrofoam cup and an aluminum can.

"So, what did they say?" Launchpad asked, figuring Darkwing would tell him anyway.

"Hmph," Darkwing grumped. "Bossy nurses, think they're so smart..."

"Well, they are in charge here," Launchpad pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Darkwing said crossly.

"Well?" Lauchpad prodded him.

Darkwing sighed. "Well...he's still alive, and apparantly even stabilized. But he's not awake, and the doctors don't know when he'll wake up, or even if he ever will." Darkwing slurped his coffee glumly. "Darn it Launchpad, stuff like this isn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to beat up crooks, not save them from each other. If I didn't think Megavolt could tell me everything I need to know to stop Negaduck..."

"There, there, DW," Launchpad patted his friend on the shoulder. "You'll find him and put him behind bars. You always do."

"Yeah, I know, but...well, it's just different this time." Darkwing finished off the rest of his coffee in one gulp and crumpled the cup in his fist. He started to pace around restlessly again. "I hate hospitals," he grumbled. "I hate waiting. I hate this whole stupid thing!"

Launchpad stood up and stretched. "Look DW, why don't you go home and let Gosalyn know we're ok and stuff? Maybe do some more scouting out for Negaduck? Now that you know who you're after, maybe it'll be easier to catch him. I can stay here and call you if there's any news."

"But...I..." Darkwing stopped, obviously torn between wanting to follow Launchpad's advice, and wanting to wait for Megavolt to wake up. Finally his impatience won. "All right, Launchpad. I guess that makes sense. But you call me the minute you know anything, understood? I want to pick Megavolt's brain as soon as possible...if possible."

Launchpad nodded. "Sure, no problemo."

"Anything at all."

"I promise," Launchpad said, going over to Darkwing and gently shoving him towards the doors. "The minute I know anything, you'll know too. Now go tell Gosalyn we're safe. She's bound to be worried about us, what with all those explosions and stuff." He waved 'bye to his friend as Darkwing finally left the building.

Dusting his hands, Launchpad went to sit down again. He'd hated to do that, but he also didn't want to see Darkwing fretting himself into a nervous breakdown in the waiting room of a hospital. Heroes needed to be out doing heroic, exciting things like tracking down villains and stuff, Launchpad figured. That's why they were heroes. Sidekicks were supposed to do the boring drudge work, like fixing the hero's airplanes and waiting around for things to happen. That's why they were sidekicks.

Cracking open his can of soda, Launchpad started to pick his magazine back up, but then decided not to. Creative hairstyling was interesting, but he'd been reading about it for almost an hour. As he shuffled through the other magazines looking for something interesting to read, he accidentally bumped into a thin lady mouse in a business suit. She was also rummaging through the magazines in a tired, dejected fashion.

"Oops, sorry," Launchpad said.

"That's all right," the lady replied. "You know, I don't think there's anything left here I haven't read anyway. At least, nothing dated since last January."

"Oof," Launchpad sympathized. "Been here a while, huh?"

The lady nodded, running her hand nervously through her short brown hair. The hair might have been nicely styled this morning, but now Launchpad could see finger furrows running through it. "They brought my daughter in an ambulance a little while back," she told him as she wring her hands,"along with some other kids. There was some kind of fight at the video game competition they were at, and apparantly it got way out of line."

Video game comp-! Launchpad gulped as he guessed that this lady's daughter had been one of the innocent bystanders in Darkwing's fight earlier today. He smiled shakily. "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure she'll be ok. This is a good hospital," he offered. "This is where I always take DW when he gets hurt."

The lady smiled wearily. "Really? Whoever this 'DW' is, it sounds like he lives dangerously."

"Darkwing Duck," Launchpad amended as he presented his hand for a handshake. "Maybe you've heard of him? I'm his sidekick, Launchpad McQuack. I help Darkwing on all his cases...or well, most of them, anyway."

The lady smiled back and reached out to shake his hand. "Oh. Well, pleased to meet you, Mr. McQuack. I'm Evelyn Sputterspark."

Sputterspark? Launchpad thought. Now why did that name sound familiar? He returned the handshake. "Pleased to meet you too, Mrs. Sputterspark."

"Please, just Ms.," Evelyn told him. "I'm divorced. Sputterspark is my maiden name."

"Oh," Launchpad said again. "Er...that's a pretty unusual name, isn't it?" Where had he heard it before? Something told him that it was important. Maybe if he talked to this lady a while, he'd figure it out.

"There aren't many of us in St. Canard. If you look in the phone book, you can pretty much bet that all of us listed there are related." She smiled wryly. "Say, was that strange guy in the hat your friend? The one who left a few minutes ago?"

"Yeah," Launchpad admitted. "I uh...I don' t quite know how to say this, but..." Flushing with guilt, he laid out what he knew about the fight at the school and the reason it had happened. "...and so now DW's trying to track down the people who are really responsible for it, and for the recent robberies," he finished, hoping Evelyn wouldn't be too mad. He wasn't quite sure what to say next, but he was spared by a nurse who appeared beside them and addressed Evelyn.

"Ma'am? You daughter is awake, and she's asking for you."

Relief flooded through the mouse's thin body. "Oh, thank goodness! Is she all right?"

"I think she'll be fine," the nurse told her as she led the anxious mother back into the emergency ward.

Launchpad watched the two disappear behind large double-doors and gave his own sigh of relief. He hated it when innocent bystanders got caught up in Darkwing's fights. Normally the hero was pretty careful about not letting that happen, but sometimes there were still accidents. Launchpad was glad that this one didn't look too serious.

Grabbing a random magazine, he slumped into a chair and settled in for another long wait.

Another hour went by before Evelyn Sputterspark came back and relieved him from the "Poodle Lover's Monthly" for a few minutes. She wasn't as mad as she could have been. Her daughter, Andromeda, was going to be fine. She'd gotten a knock to the head, but it wasn't too serious, and she'd been moved to upstairs for observation. Did Launchpad want to talk to her? Andromeda was feeling better now, and could probably tell him more about what had happened.

Launchpad did, more because he wanted to make sure Andromeda was really going to be ok than because he really thought she could tell him anything about what had happened that he and DW didn't already know. He found the girl lying in bed staring intently at the television, which was tuned to "Animal Planet". She seemed quite all right except for a cut on her forehead and some residual dizziness. Andromeda turned out to be a fairly cheerful and talkative girl, and Launchpad spent quite a while chatting with her before deciding that he needed to get back to his vigil in the lobby. Before he left, Evelyn handed him a business card and made him promise to call her when - not if – Darkwing caught the criminals. Launchpad looked at the card and read:

Sputterspark, Cromley, and Beakwell
Prosecuting Attourneys

With a blank nod of thanks and a promise to call as requested, Launchpad pocketed the card. It didn't really register with him what a prosecuting attourney was, but he figured that Ms. Sputterspark would appreciate the peace of mind when she knew that she didn't have to worry about Negaduck being on the streets for a while.

He returned to the lobby. Hours ticked by. People came and went in the lobby. Launchpad went through his third can of soda and his sixteenth magazine and finally dozed off.

He startled when a hand touched him on the arm. Waking up, Launchpad found himself looking into the face of an unfamiliar nurse. Had the grave shift already come in? What time was it?

"Are you Mr. Launchpad McQuack?" the nurse asked him.

"Yeah, that's me," Launchpad yawned and rubbed his eyes. Muzzily he peered at the clock on the wall. It was past midnight. "Whazzup?"

'The person you brought in earlier this evening is awake," the nurse said. "He's up to a short visit if you want to see him now."

"Oh! Uh..." That brought Launchpad fully awake. Shouldn't he call Darkwing immediately? No, Launchpad decided. The nurse looked like she was waiting for an answer. If he didn't give her one right now, they might never get to talk to Megavolt before the hospital released him. "Yeah, sure."

"Follow me," the nurse beckoned him to follow and led him through the same double-doors that Evelyn Sputterspark had entered earlier. The nurse showed him through the small maze of corridors that was the emergency ward and pointed him to a small room that was curtained off. "I've already told him there's someone here to see him, but be brief. He needs rest."

"Uh, sure.." Launchpad trailed off uncertainly. Now that he was here, he wasn't exactly sure what to do. What would Darkwing Duck do? Appear in a puff of smoke beside the bed and try to scare answers out of Megavolt? No, Launchpad shook his head. He didn't think he could do that. What, then? Just...well...just do what he did best, Launchpad supposed. Taking a deep breath, he entered the room and pulled aside the curtain.

This was why Darkwing didn't like hospitals, Launchpad supposed, and looking at Megavolt, he had to agree. They'd stripped the villain of all his gear and put him in a white hospital gown. There were IV tubes sticking out of both of his arms, and wires hooking him up to a heart monitor which was beeping faint, rapid beeps. Launchpad shook his head. Lying there quietly like that, Megavolt almost looked like a normal person. It was suddenly harder to picture him as one of the most dangerous criminals of St. Canard.

Megavolt stirred and opened his eyes. His gaze fell across Launchpad.

Launchpad cleared his throat and ran his finger around his collar, feeling awkward. "Um...hi. How you feelin'?" It wasn't exactly what he wanted to say, but he couldn't think of anything better at the moment.

"Lousy, thanks," Megavolt replied faintly. "When I get out of here, I'm gonna make Negaduck wish he'd never heard of me."

"Er...yeah, right," Launchpad stepped all the way through the curtain and let it fall closed behind him. "Say, listen. What's he up to, anyway?" He stopped, realizing how blatant the question was. Way to blow an interrogation, he berated himself.

"Hasn't Darkwing figured it out yet, Launchpad? If not, he's dumber than I thought."

Launchpad coughed to cover up his embarrassment. "Well, I think we figured out most of it. But where's Negaduck's hideout? If we can find that, maybe we can shut him down for good."

Megavolt gave a small, ironic smile and a soft laugh as he closed his eyes again. "I don't think he'll be using that hideout again. I destroyed it when I melted out of the manacles. I think. The memory's a bit fuzzy, I was rather distracted at the time..." His voice trailed off.

"Huh?" Launchpad looked quizzically at the villain. "Manacles? Say, just what did happen to you back there, anyway? You blew up half of the waterfront!"

There was a long moment of silence. Just as Launchpad was deciding that Megavolt had gone back to sleep, there came a quiet, hoarse answer. "I was betrayed, Launchpad. And they're all going to pay."

Launchpad racked his brain, trying to think of any other questions that might be useful. It looked like Megavolt was starting to drift off again, and he didn't want to waste this chance. What else would DW ask?

Just then, the nurse came into the room and took Launchpad by the elbow. "Time's up, Mr. McQuack. Let's leave Mr. Volt to his rest now, shall we?"

"Sputterspark," came the rat's soft correction. "Not Volt. Sputterspark. Elmo Sputterspark."

Oh, yeah! Launchpad snapped his fingers. That's where he'd heard that surname before. Darkwing had talked about it back when he went to his high school reunion. Then Launchpad's jaw dropped as he realized...

For the first time in years, Megavolt had remembered his real name.

- Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence"

"He did what?" Darkwing looked incredulously at Launchpad as they sat in Drake Mallard's living room.

"That's right, DW," Launchpad explained tiredly. "Sorry I didn't get to ask him anything else. I kind of wasn't thinking straight." Really he wished he could go to sleep now, but Darkwing wasn't done.

"Launchpad, you said you'd call me first! You promised! I shouldn't have..." Darkwing trailed off and dropped his tirade when he saw Launchpad sigh remorsefully.

"Yeah, I know," Launchpad admitted. "I was going to, honest, but there wasn't gonna be any time. I had to do something right away." The big duck rested his head on his hand and sighed again. "I'm sorry," he repeated.

Darkwing walked over and patted his friend on the shoulder. "It's okay Launchpad. I know you did what you thought was best."

Launchpad brightened up a little. "You mean it?"

"Yeah," Darkwing admitted unhappily. "I guess I'll just have to go back over to the hospital tomorrow and hope Megavolt is still there." He took off his hat and tossed it onto the back of the couch.

"So did you have any luck tracking down Negaduck?" Launchpad asked hopefully.

Darkwing shook his head in dejection. "Nope. I went back to the docks to start off with, but there wasn't much left there that wasn't charred to a crisp. If there was anything there, it isn't there anymore. None of the low-life thugs in the bad part of town were willing to talk, either. It's like they're suddenly more scared of Negaduck than of me." Darkwing looked miffed.

"Well...no offence DW, but I would be too if I heard what he'd done to Megavolt."

Darkwing threw a mild glare at his friend.

Launchpad realized what he'd just said and tried to laugh it off. "Uh, yeah, well...you know what I meant, right?" He caught himself in a yawn so wide it felt like his beak was going to wrap around his head.

Darkwing caught the yawn and matched it. He rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, right. Tell you what, Launchpad," he said. "You look pretty tired, so you can crash on my couch tonight. Er...just don't sleep-crash it like you did last time, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks DW," Launchpad said, sincerely glad for the offer. He flumped onto the sofa as Darkwing made his way upstairs, and was snoring in less than two minutes.

The afternoon was bright as Darkwing Duck and Launchpad McQuack rode back to St. Canard General. Inside, they checked at the nurse's station and discovered that Megavolt (now also listed as Sputterspark, Elmo), was in fact still there, and had been moved to a room upstairs for observation.

Darkwing glanced around distastefully as he and Launchpad took the elevator up. "Still not used to hospitals, eh?" Launchpad asked him, noticing his friend's discomfort.

Darkwing shook his head ruefully. "You'd think as many times as I've been in them, I'd wouldn't mind by now."

"Don't worry, DW," Launchpad said. "This won't take long, and then you'll be back out on the streets putting Negaduck behind bars." The elevator doors slid open in front of them. Launchpad held the doors while Darkwing stepped out.

The corridor was shiny and white. Darkwing stood in the middle of it for a moment, trying to get his bearings. There was a nurses's station off to their left and a sign on the wall opposite the elevator. "Down here," Launchpad pointed off to their right. "The sign says room 312 is this way."

As they approached the room, they could hear Megavolt complaining loudly to someone - presumably a nurse. "How do you expect me to eat this? This stuff's worse than prison food! It isn't even warm anymore!"

They walked in to see the villain sitting up in bed, yelling at a large nurse who looked like she should have been on the Swedish wrestling team. The nurse loomed over him sternly. "Now look here, Mr. Sputterspark, you have to eat to get your strength back, and you have to get your strength before you can get out of the hospital. Do you really want to be here any longer than necessary?"

"Just give me my battery," Megavolt told her angrily. "I'll show you how quickly I recharge!"

The nurse looked at him with a mix of confusion and frustration. "That's-"

"That's all right ma'am," Darkwing broke in from the doorway. "I'll handle him from here. Trust me, I've been dealing with this guy for a long time."

The nurse looked the caped crime fighter up and down. "You're Darkwing Duck, aren't you?" Darkwing preened a bit under her recognition as she continued. "Yeah, I recognize you from that TV show, 'Heros of St. Canard'. You were bottom of the list. Ok, fine, sure, you can have him. He hasn't given me anything but trouble, and I've got other patients to see to. Good luck!" With an annoyed harumph, the nurse stalked out, pausing only for a moment in the doorway to tell Darkwing, "I'll be back in a few. Try not to trash the room while I'm gone, huh?"

"Bottom of the list?" Darkwing moaned as the nurse left the room. "What'd she mean, 'bottom of the - ahem. Never mind. I have work to do!"

Darkwing stepped into the room, throwing his cape back dramatically. "All right Megavolt, I've got a few questions, and you'd better have answers for me."

"Hi Drake," Megavolt waved casually to him. "Look at this - can you believe they're trying to make me eat cold oatmeal?"

"I don't care if they're trying to make you...er..." Darkwing's beak dropped. "'Drake'? Why'd you call me 'Drake'?"

"Well that's your name, isn't it?" Megavolt shrugged. Frowning, he turned to the bowl of oatmeal and pointed at it. A tiny electric charge leapt off his finger and scorched the mushy mess. A strange, roasted smell followed. Megavolt studied the charred oatmeal for a second, then dipped his finger into it and took a taste. He grimaced and stuck his tongue out. "Yeech. It's still not any better."

Darkwing's beak was still hanging on the ground. "I thought he forgot my secret identity!" he hissed at Launchpad in astonishment.

"I told you, DW," Launchpad said out of the corner of his mouth. "I think somethin' happened to trip his memory. Maybe all that supervoltage un-fried his brain or something."

Darkwing gathered his composure about him and stood up a little straighter. "Fine, then maybe we can get some real answers out of him." Going into full Authority Mode, Darkwing addressed Megavolt sternly.

"Forget the food, Megs. I want to know where Negaduck and the rest of the Fearsome Five are hanging out."

"Yeah? So do I," Megavolt's voice dropped into a snarl. "They ran out on me. And trust me, when I find 'em, they aren't going to be happy campers!"

Darkwing paused, taken aback for a moment. "You mean you don't know where they are? What about the drug stash - do you know where that is?"

"It doesn't exist anymore," Megavolt told him with a rather evil smile. "I blew up the warehouse and that stupid statue. So why don't you just take your beak out of my business and go home, Darkwing? There's nothing left for you to do. I'll handle everything myself as soon as I get out of here." He rubbed his hands together in wicked anticipation.

"But," Launchpad broke in, "But what if Negaduck finds a new base and stuff?"

"That's right," Darkwing agreed. "And where was he getting the tricholorelectrillium sulfate? If he wasn't making it himself, then he'll probably just get more of it and start all over again."

Megavolt's voice dripped venom. "No, he won't. I told you, I melted his precious magic statue, and now I'm gonna fix his wagon but good."

"Magic statue?" Launchpad wondered, but was ignored.

"No offence, Megavolt, but I wouldn't trust you to fix my little red tricycle," Darkwing shot back at him. "If you can't tell me where the Fearsome Five are hiding out, then I'll just have to make sure you don't leave here until I find them." Darkwing whipped a pair of handcuffs out of his cape, and before anyone could move, he'd slapped one cuff across Megavolt's wrist, and the other cuff to the bed. "There!" the crimefighter pronounced. "That should hold you for a bit."

Megavolt ground his teeth. "Ooh! Drat you, Darkwing Duck! You're always getting in my way! I can't do anything without tripping over you!" He glared at Darkwing and reached over with his free hand. The bowl of cold oatmeal went sailing through the air. GOOSH! Darkwing spluttered as it splashed across him and dripped down his beak.

The hero made a face. "Yeech, you were right. This stuff's terrible!" Wringing out his hat, and cape, Darkwing turned coolly to his archnemesis. "Don't forget, Megavolt, who saved your life yesterday?"

At that, Megavolt froze. He looked a bit sheepish. "Yeah...well...I guess I should thank you or something."

"Don't do me any favors," Darkwing said with a touch of contempt. "Come on, Launchpad, let's go. I can handle the rest of this case on my own, without any help from Sparky here."

Megavolt's enraged yell followed the pair out of the room. "DON'T CALL ME SPARKY!!" The nurses at the nearby station looked at them strangely as they walked past, and one of them sighed.

"Now he's done it," she grumped to one of the other nurses. "And we have to put up with that guy for the rest of the night. "

Launchpad trotted after Darkwing, trying hard to keep up with the furious hero's pace. "DW, don't you think you could've handled that a little bit better?" he asked as they hit the street. "I mean, the guy almost died yesterday, you know?"

"Launchpad, don't forget that Megavolt is one of the most despicable, evil, insane criminals you will ever meet. You don't treat people like that with kid gloves." Darkwing squinted in the bright sunlight as he scanned the parking lot for the Ratcatcher.

"Yeah, but..." Launchpad couldn't quite put what he meant into words. Yeah, the guy was pretty mean, he'd done a lot of crazy things, but...well, you just didn't treat sick people that way. Not even if they were your worst enemy. It wasn't what heroes were supposed to do.

Launchpad stopped a few paces behind Darkwing and yammered for a moment. "Um, hey, listen DW...I just remembered that I've got...uh..." He looked around at the various businesses around him for an excuse. "Uh, a hippo in the dry cleaners that I've gotta go pick up. I'll meet you back at the tower later, ok?"

Darkwing waved absently over his shoulder at his sidekick. "Yeah, sure, ok, whatever. I'll see you later, LP." The hero headed off towards the Ratcatcher, mumbling to himself. "All right, if I were Negaduck, where would I put my backup secret base?"

Behind him, Launchpad ducked around a corner and waited for Darkwing to disappear from sight, then he ducked back into the hospital. He couldn't quite believe what he was about to do, but for some reason it just felt like the Right Thing. He couldn't stop thinking about Evelyn and Andromeda Sputterspark. If all the Sputtersparks in St. Canard were related, then maybe he'd just found the one thing that could get Megavolt off the streets once and for all. After all, Launchpad knew that if his own family ever found out he'd gone criminal, they would've strapped him down in a basement somewhere and fed him nothing but brussels sprouts and liver until he renounced crime. He'd tried to bring ithe idea up to Darkwing last night, but had been ignored. Darkwing was sometimes too busy puzzling out clues and tracking down criminals to think about anyone except the criminals or their direct victims. But Launchpad couldn't forget the bystanders. It just wasn't his nature.

When he slipped back to Megavolt's room, he found the supervillain angrily trying to melt through the handcuffs with a small, focused arc of electricity. It kept sputtering out on him, as though he wasn't really charged enough to keep the powerstream going. "I'll fix him!" Megavolt was furiously muttering to himself. "I'll fix all of them! See how those traitors like it when they're frying in two thousand volts of power grid!" The electrical arc sputtered out again, and this time he couldn't seem to make it come back. "Darn it!" Megavolt gritted, shaking his finger like an empty spray can. "If I just had my battery!" He yanked at the 'cuffs with his bound hand, trying to pull free. They bent a little, but held fast.

In the doorway, Launchpad cleared his throat.

Megavolt's attention was instantly on him. "What do you want, Launchpad?" Megavolt snapped. "Are you and Darkwing Dip back for round three of my interrogation?"

"Uh, no," Launchpad shuffled his feet in the doorway. "It's just me - I mean, I'm by myself. DW had stuff to go take care of."

"Shouldn't you be with him?" Megavolt jerked angrily at the handcuffs again. "Or did he order you to stay and guard me?"

"N-no, it's nothing like that. I came back because, uh, well,,,it's just that..." Launchpad suddenly found that he didn't quite know how to bring up the subject he wanted to talk about. He decided that the direct approach was probably the easiest. "Um, listen. Do you uh, remember your folks? I mean, since you remembered your name and all, I was wondering..."

"My folks?" Megavolt seemed genuinely confused.

"Well, yeah. You know, parents, brothers, sisters..."

Megavolt stopped struggling with the handcuffs for a minute while he thought about that. "Family. Uh, well..." His expression slowly changed from a mix of confusion and anger to one of wonderment. "Yeah, I do," he said softly. "I haven't thought of them in years."

Launchpad pressed the matter further. "Do you remember someone named Evelyn?"

Megavolt's eyes squinched shut as he wrestled with his memory. "Evelyn? I think..." he jabbed at his forehead with one finger. "yeah, that was my younger sister. I think. She was...she was...really good at music. Uh...clarinet? Accordian? No...piano! It was piano!" Megavolt sighed and smiled fractionally at the memory. "She really should've been in the school band, you know. Well, if they'd had pianos in the band."

So he'd been right! Launchpad rocked on his heels a bit, wondering what kind of effect his next words would have. "Well, I met her downstairs yesterday. She's got a kid of her own right here in St. Canard General."

Megavolt stiffened. He tried to say something, but no coherent words would come out. Finally he managed to stammer, "K-kid? You've got to be joking! My sister is way too young to have a kid. She's, uh..." he started counting backwards on his fingers.

"Not much younger than you," Launchpad reminded the villain.

"But I'm-!" Megavolt protested, then realized something. "I'm...my...my ten year class reunion wasn't that long ago, was it? Geesh, time sure flies." The rat settled his head glumly in his free hand and stared at the ceiling. "Spend a few years having fun and spreading mayhem, and look what happens to the world around you."

Here was the moment of truth. Launchpad paused for a second to reconsider. What he was about to do could have very serious consequences. Then again, if he wasn't going to do it, why'd he bother coming back? He cleared his throat quietly. "Your niece's name is Andromeda. She's being released later today - would you like to see her before she leaves?" There, he'd said it.

Megavolt choked. "Y-you're kidding, right? I don't think she'd want to see me. Although..." he trailed off wistfully. "You know, it might not be so bad to see my sister again. It has been a while."

"Actually," Launchpad corrected him, chuckling as he remembered yesterday's encounter, " Andromeda thinks you're the bee's knees. Her mom told her a lot about you - well, from before you disappeared, anyway, and she decided that her Uncle Elmo was some sort of long-lost legend."

"Is that right?" Megavolt's face assumed a curious expression.

"Yup," Launchpad nodded. "I didn't have the heart to tell her what you've been doing for the past ten years. But I bet she'd really like to meet you." I just hope she isn't too disappointed, Launchpad privately thought to himself.

"Well...when you put it that way..." Megavolt said doubtfully.

"Tell you what," Launchpad said. "I'll just go ahead and bring her on down for a visit. The nurses probably won't mind." He left the room before Megavolt could protest. He still wasn't entirely sure about what he was doing, but darn it, it needed to be done sometime. And it didn't look like anybody else was going to do it.

Launchpad returned with a girl in a pink nightshirt riding happily on his broad shoulders. The girl's hair - the same auburn-brown colour as Megavolt's - was tied up into two long ponytails. She was dangling one in Launchpad's face as they came back to Megavolt's room.

The villain sat up a little straighter and tugged the sheets over the handcuffs so that they couldn't be seen.

"Stop that, Andromeda," Launchpad was laughing, " that - achoo!- that tickles!"

Andromeda Sputterspark giggled. "You're funny, Mr. McQuack! Are you really taking me to see my Uncle Elmo?"

"Yup," Launchpad told her as they entered the room. "Here we are." Carefully he set the girl down on the floor. "Are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine, Mr. McQuack," Andromeda told him impatiently. "I told you, I feel lots better now." She looked curiously over at the bed in the middle of the room. "Is that him?"

Launchpad nodded. "Yup." He stepped forward to make the official introduction. "Andromeda, this is your Uncle Elmo. Uh...Elmo," he stumbled over the name, unused to using it to address Megavolt, "this is Andromeda Sputterspark. She's eight."

Andromeda padded over to peer up at her uncle with wide, brown eyes. "You're my Uncle Elmo? I thought you'd have more hair."

Megavolt wasn't quite sure how to take that. "Uh...hi, kiddo. So, um...you're Evelyn's daughter?"

Andromeda nodded energetically. "Know what? Mom told me all about you! She said you were really, really smart. You know what else?"

"Er..what?" Megavolt eyed his niece rather nervously.

"I found all your old high school notebooks, and Mom let me keep 'em. There were lots of notes and stuff for really cool gadgets. Did you ever build any of 'em? I really liked the thing about the automatic electric homework machine. I could use one of those," Andromeda said hopefully.

"Er..." Megavolt thought for a minute, scratching his head. "I never got the homework machine to work right," he remembered. "It kept confusing history dates with radical cosines. I did build the carpet static electricity generator, though."

Andromeda giggled. "Carpet static? You mean like when I walk across the floor and zap our cat on the nose?"

"Yeah, something like that." Megavolt patted her on the head. "Say, you're pretty bright for a kid."

"I dunno," Andromeda said. "That sounds kindof lame. I mean, zapping Robber is fun, but what good is it? Can you get a lot of power out of static electricity? Could you launch a spaceship?"

Megavolt almost seemed offended by that. "Can you - can - now look here, I-" he spluttered. His hand slipped out from under the covers and was jerked back by the handcuffs. "Oopsie," he muttered, flushing red.

Andromeda stared at the 'cuffs. "Uncle Elmo...how come you're stuck to the bed?" she wanted to know. She traced a finger curiously along the molten line that stretched partway across the handcuffs. "Looks like somebody tried to melt through these."

"Um, well..." Megavolt stammered, flushing.

Launchpad cleared his throat and looked meaningfully at Megavolt. "You may as well go ahead and tell her," he said.

Andromeda turned expectant eyes at her uncle. "Tell me what?"

Megavolt sighed. "Well, kid," the villain explained, "see, I haven't gone by the name 'Elmo' for a really long time. I'm 'Megavolt' now."

"'Megavolt'?" Andromeda drew back in surprise. "The guy on the news in the bank robbery last month? That was you??"

"Yeah," Megavolt admitted glumly. "Go ahead and laugh, or run screaming, or something. Your mom probably will."

Andromeda's eyes sparkled as she leaned over the side of the bed. "My uncle is a supervillain?" she exclaimed. "Coooool!"

Megavolt startled and stared at her in disbelief. "You - you really think so?" he said hopefully.

"Yeah!" Andromeda nodded. "I always imagined you disappeared because you were working for a secret government agency, or got kidnapped by aliens or something. But this is WAY cooler!"

Megavolt seemed to perk up a lot at that. He grinned proudly. "Well say, it is pretty cool, and the fringe benefits are great! How'd you like to learn the business?"

Launchpad stepped forward and folded his arms, looming across the villain. "Forget it, Megavolt. I'm not letting you turn your niece into a juvenile delinquent."

Andromeda took a reluctant step back and looked shyly down. "Um...I don't think I'd be too good at robbing banks and stuff," she said. "I have to be in bed before nine." She paused. "Besides, I already know what I wanna do when I grow up."

"You do?" Megavolt asked.

Andromeda pulled a doll dressed in sci-fi clothing out of her nightgown and hugged it close. "Yeah. I wanna be a space explorer!" She held the doll out and zoomed it through the air. "I wanna go to different planets and talk to aliens and stuff. I think that'd be really neat!"

Launchpad and Megavolt exchanged a quirky look. Launchpad shrugged in amusement. "Well, everybody's gotta have dreams," he said.

"Can I call you 'Uncle Megavolt'?" Andromeda asked the villain. "That sounds a lot cooler than 'Uncle Elmo'."

"Yeah, sure, kid," Megavolt told her. He watched her curiously for a moment, then asked, "Say...what happened to your arm?" When she'd pulled the doll out, her nightgown had slipped down over her shoulder to show a large bruise.

Andromeda looked down, then hurredly tugged her nighty back up over her shoulder. "Um, I walked into a wall. It's ok." She zoomed her doll around the room a couple of times, fussing with its metallic silver dress. "I already know all about all the planets in the solar system," she told Launchpad and Megavolt proudly. "And my teacher's gonna loan me some books about quasars and black holes and stuff if I do good on my next science test."

Megavolt looked impressed. "Isn't that a little advanced for an eight-year-old?" he asked.

Andromeda grinned and bounced over to perch on the side of Megavolt's bed. "Not a lot of the other kids understand it," she told him, "but you know what? I already finished reading our science book, and I'm bored. So Miss Featherby has to give me other stuff to read."

Megavolt laughed. "Hey, you're a chip off the old electron! I had that problem when I was in school, too."

Andromeda giggled shyly at him. Launchpad smiled. His instincts had been right - Megavolt was hitting it off famously with his niece. Suddenly the prickles on the back of his neck went up. Something wasn't right.

From out in the hall, there seemed to be some commotion. The voices of a couple of nurses could be heard, sounding as though they were trying to calm someone down. An irritated female voice drowned out the nurses. "Don't hand me that! They said upstairs that someone carried my daughter down here, and I want to know where! I didn't give permission for her to go anywhere!"

"Uh-oh," Launchpad said. He hadn't thought Andromeda's mother would be here so soon. He'd better do something. "Uh...wait here," he said unnecessarily to the room's other two occupants.

Stepping outside, Launchpad immediately spotted Evelyn Sputterspark. The woman was the very picture of fury, from the stiffness of her stride to her hands clenched at her sides. Sheepishly, Launchpad waved to catch her attention. "Uh, over here, Ms. Sputterspark," he called.

Evelyn turned on one heel and saw him. "Mr. McQuack! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed. "Do you know that these people have lost track of my daughter? Of all the incompetant -!" she raged. "Have you seen her, by any chance?"

"Well, actually, she's with me," Launchpad admitted. "I wanted to introduce her to my friend."

"Oh - the one who overdosed on trisulfawhatsis?" Evelyn seemed to calm down a little. "Well...I do wish you'd asked me first, Mr. McQuack. You don't normally spirit someone's child off without permission."

"Sorry," Launchpad smiled ruefully at her. "But it's kindof special circumstances."

Just then, Andromeda came running excitedly out of the room. She nearly bowled her mother over. "Mom! Mom! Mom! You're never gonna guess who's here!"

Evelyn looked at Launchpad, then at her daughter. "Who, honey?"

"Uncle Elmo! It's Uncle Elmo!" Andromeda bounced up and down in her bare feet. "You've gotta come and see!"

Evelyn went ashen white. "You know better than to make jokes like that, Andromeda. Your Uncle Elmo's been dead for a long time." Her hand flew up. Andromeda flinched.

Hurredly, Launchpad stepped over and put his hand on Evelyn's shoulder. "She's tellin' the truth, Ms. Sputterspark. It's your brother. Uh...would you like to come in and say hi?"

Evelyn froze. "You mean...he's not dead? Is this some kind of prank, Mr. McQuack? If so, it isn't funny."

Launchpad gently took her by the shoulders and steered her toward her brother's room. "Why don't you see for yourself?"

Evelyn Sputterspark went stiff as a zombie as Launchpad guided her into the room. He stopped outside and pulled the door shut behind her and Andromeda. Just before he closed it, he whispered, "You guys probably want some privacy, so I'll be here outside if you need me." The door clicked shut.

Shaking like an aspen, Evelyn stared at her older brother. "Elmo?" she whispered faintly. "Is that really you?"

Megavolt gulped and nodded. "Yeah, it's me, Evelyn. So, uh...how have you been?"

Evelyn rushed forward and threw her arms around her brother. "Oh my god! My god! Where have you been all these years? We all thought you were dead!"

After a moment, Megavolt pushed himself out of his sister's tight hug and gasped for air. "Uh, ah, huhh, can't breathe..."

"Where have you been?" Evelyn demanded again. "We were worried so sick when you disappeared! Mom had the police looking all over the state for you!"

Twiddling his fingers, Megavolt avoided his sister's gaze. "I've just been out...you know, doing stuff," he mumbled.

"Stuff? Stuff?! What kind of an answer is that, I ask you? What happened to you, anyway?" Evelyn wanted to know.

"Just look at you here in this hospital! Are you doing drugs, Elmo? Is that how come you're here?"

"No, no, no," Megavolt protested. "You've got it all wrong!"

"Well something sure happened. Just look at you," Evelyn repeated. "You're a mess! You're so thin. Have you been eating? Are you married? Doesn't your wife feed you?" As she scrutinized her brother, she noticed the handcuffs. "And what's with the handcuffs, Elmo?" she demanded. "For god's sake, will you just tell me something? Anything!"

"I might if you'd let me get a word in edgewise," Megavolt gritted. A bevy of small sparks danced off his fingers and smouldered little holes into his bedsheet as he clenched his fist.

Andromeda gaped in awe. "Wow, that's cool! Can you do it again, Uncle Megavolt?"

Evelyn gasped in horror. "Mega...Megavolt?? That guy on the news? Elmo...for the love of god, what has been going on with you the last ten years? Don't tell me you..." she choked, unable to finish her sentence.

"That's right sis," Megavolt tried to fold his arms, forgetting the handcuffs for a moment. When his hand jerked back he pulled up a knee and draped his free arm across it instead. "You wanna know what happened? I'll tell you. Right before the school prom, one of my experiments was sabotaged and I gained these phenomenal electrical powers. I decided to use them to get revenge on everybody at school who had ever tormented me, especially the jerk jock who ruined my experiment. And then..."

"Then...?" Evelyn asked weakly.

"Then I...uh..." Megavolt thought really hard. "It's hard to remember what happened after that, I haven't thought about it in so long. I think... I spent a while learning how to control my powers and learning my way around the underground of St. Canard. I was in and out of jail a few times. Then a couple of years after I gained my powers, I first heard the pleas of the lightbulbs in slavery, and so I embarked on a crusade to set them all free. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish that, because I was in and out of jail a few more times. Things were pretty tough back then because I didn't have a permanent home. But one night I heard the siren call of the giant lightbulb in the lighthouse on the bay, so I took the lighthouse over and set up a lab inside. With a real base, I was able to work on perfecting my gear, create new inventions, spread the occasional bit of mayhem, rob the occasional bank - you know, the usual. Then Negaduck appeared in town looking for superpowered criminals for his gang. He decided I fit his bill (no pun intended), so I became part of the Fearsome Five, and the rest, as they say, is history." He shrugged as though the past ten years barely rated talking about.

"Can you do the thing with the sparks again, Uncle Megavolt?" Andromeda asked him.

"Not now," Megavolt told her.

Evelyn was slowly shaking her head back and forth. "To think...all these years...my own brother is a criminal. No wonder we never found you again. You were probably in prison all the time!"

"Weren't you listening? Not all the time," Megavolt told her unconcernedly. "Only when Darkwing Duck busted me. Anyway, it's not like I had much choice in robbing banks. Do you know how much it costs to power a giant electromagnet?"

"Elmo...why didn't you ever come home?" she asked in a half-strangled voice.

Megavolt flushed. "Well...I sortof forgot where I lived. And stuff. Um...actually..." he paused. "Now that I think about it, I don't think I wanted to go home."

Evelyn was quiet for a moment. Slowly she took her daughter's hand and pulled her towards the door. "Come on, Andromeda. We're going."

"But Mom!" Andromeda protested. "I wanna stay and talk to Uncle Megavolt! He's neat!"

"Andromeda Sue Sputterspark," Evelyn frowned at her, "don't argue with your mother."

Andromeda looked longingly back at her uncle. "Yeah, but-"

Evelyn's palm came down hard across her daughter's cheek, hard. "I said, don't talk back to me!"

"Hey!" Megavolt protested. "She didn't deserve that!"

Evelyn turned furiously back to her brother. "You stay out of this! What would a criminal know about the proper punishment for a child? What would you know about family? You never even called us! Come on Andromeda, we're leaving right now!" Dragging her daughter behind her, Evelyn stalked outside and slammed the door behind her.

A few moments later Launchpad peeked his head into the room. "Uh, gee..." he mumbled apologetically. "I guess it didn't go so well, huh?"

Megavolt looked past Launchpad, out into the corridor. Waves of confusion and anger were crashing against each other across his face. He opened his mouth and started to say something, then didn't.

"That's a real shame," Launchpad began. "Your niece is a really cute kid. Pretty bright, too."

"Yeah...she is," Megavolt nodded. A slow light began to dawn in his eyes. "Matter of fact...she reminds me of me at that age. A lot." Suddenly he was tugging at the handcuffs again, trying to work up enough of an electric charge to finish melting through them. "I've got to get these darn things off," he swore loudly. "Launchpad, for the love of pete, help me out here!"

Launchpad didn't move. "I don't think talking to your sister is gonna do any good right now," he offered. "You probably wanna give her some time to cool down first. She looked really mad."

"It's not that!" Megavolt screeched as he jerked against the handcuffs again, trying his best to snap them. "Why won't anybody listen to me?! Nobody ever listens to me!"

Launchpad came the rest of the way into the room and closed the door behind him. "Well, what is it then?" he wanted to know.

Megavolt stopped struggling against the handcuffs for a second as he fixed Launchpad with the sanest, most penetrating look he'd given anyone in years. "I have to get out of here and get revenge on Negaduck. Then I have to find Andromeda, make sure she's gonna be ok, and settle a personal score." He clenched his fist.

"Huh? The doctors said she's fine now," Launchpad told him.

"That isn't what I meant," Megavolt said angrily as he struggled to focus his energy into a decent electrical arc. A small blue aura finally sizzled up around his fingertip and leapt into the handcuffs. He took up where he'd left off on the 'cuffs earlier. "I think she's running into the same wall I used to run into."

Every single light in Megavolt's lighthouse had been turned on. Then, each in turn, they had been ritually smashed. The huge, carefully polished bulb at the very top had shattered very satisfactorily into ten thousand sharp, glittering bits.

Negaduck finished ripping through Megavolt's bookshelves. Scattered bits of advanced science theory, scribbled dessert recipes and comic books fluttered to the ground. "They say you can judge a person by the books they read," Negaduck muttered sadistically. "So it's only fitting his books should be as scrambled as his brains were!" The crime lord threw his chainsaw to the ground and pulled out his axe. CHOP! HACK! CRACK! Across from the bookcase, a rack of electronic equipment began to resemble nothing so much as a pile of junked spare parts. A moment later, the television set next to the rack added its parts to the pile.

Behind him, Quackerjack and Bushroot cowered in a corner, not daring to voice their thoughts. Yesterday Quackerjack might have made Mr. Banana Brain say, "Don't you think this is a little extreme, even for you, Negaduck? I mean, the poor sap's dead already - what good is this gonna do?" But that was yesterday, back when Megavolt had still been alive. Before Negaduck had proven exactly how seriously he took his business. So they hadn't dared to question their boss when he ordered them to come to Megavolt's home with him. However, they also hadn't expected this. It was as though Negaduck wanted to eradicate every last vestige of their former comrade.

"Take that! And that! And another one!" Negaduck snarled at the cables knotted together between two silver boxes as he hacked them apart with the axe. The cables snapped in two, showering sparks everywhere. That seemed to enrage Negaduck even further. "Lousy, rotten, no good son of a-!" he swore as he turned the axe upon the boxes. One of them crumpled open and a fluffed hamster ran out of it. The hamster shot past Negaduck's foot and under a scruffy recliner before the furious duck could draw a bead on it. Turning to the other box instead, Negaduck brought the axe down squarely upon it. It, too, crumpled open, revealing a series of vacuum tubes that shattered into dust. Negaduck gritted his teeth and turned to the half-finished positron emulsifier next to him. "I can NOT BELIEVE!-" WHAM! "-I LET-" WHAM! "-THAT LAMEBRAIN-" CRACK!"-DESTROY-" Ker-THWACK!"THE STATUE!!!" He took a final golf swing at the unfinished machine , sending it flying out the window. Small bits of chips and electronic components scattered in a sparkling arc behind it.

Behind him, his underlings didn't point out that he should have expected something like that to happen. After all, what could you expect if you gave an overdose of a hallucinogenic stimulant to someone who was normally wired anyway? It would have been more surprising if Megavolt's powers hadn't gone out of control, and considering his considerable destructive capability, they were lucky they had gotten out of the warehouse with their own lives intact.

For once in his life, the Liquidator had actually been useful. When the stray lightning had started flying and blasting holes in the floor, the rest of the Fearsome Five had had an attack of common sense and jumped down into the river. From there, the Liquidator had used his elemental command of water to throw a hardwater shield up across the surface of the bay. Perhaps he hadn't intentionally protected the others, but that was how it worked out because when molten slag started falling into the river, the hard water kept it from raining down on their heads while they made it to the far shore. Once back on land, the Fearsome Five had watched in varying degrees of awe and rage as the docks caught fire and blew up.

To say the least, Negaduck hadn't been at all pleased.

Everyone else had been much quieter since then.

Now, eyes glowing red in destructive fury, Negaduck turned to find something else he could smash to pieces. His gaze fell upon a Solid Light and Matter Machine prototype. He raised his axe and took aim.

In the corner, Bushroot started to hide behind the recliner. Panicking again, the hamster darted out from under it and ran up Negaduck's leg. Negaduck jumped in surprise, lost his balance, and fell forwards. His elbow bumped the switch that turned the machine on. He was promptly enveloped in a soft, yellow glow.

Bushroot and Quackerjack gasped as a second beam of light shot out of the machine through the window. It vaulted over the city of St. Canard and began to form into a giant figure. In a few seconds, the figure very closely resembled a giant Negaduck made entirely of pure light.

In Megavolt's laboratory/living room, Negaduck raised his hand to shade his eyes. Over the city of St. Canard, the light construct did the same. Negaduck stretched. So did the light construct. As it did, one of its arms crashed through a building. Bricks and bits of mortar tumbled to the street.

Negaduck froze. Softly he began to laugh. It was a strange laugh, a laugh full of irony. Quackerjack and Bushroot traded fearful glances. Negaduck slowly lowered his axe and chuckled evilly. His giant twin's axe cracked a split in the street outside. "Well, ain't that something," he said to himself. "That moron actually built something useful for once in his misbegotten life. And I'll lay you dimes to ducks he didn't have the foggiest clue what to do with it." Still laughing, Negaduck reached over and switched the machine off. Outside, the giant Negaduck promptly vanished.

"All right boys," he turned and addressed his henchmen as he gathered the S.L.A.M.M. up. "Change of plan. Follow me, and do exactly as I say!"

Bushroot and Quackerjack nodded meekly and fell in step behind him.

As they exited the building, Quackerjack allowed himself to fall behind just a bit. When he thought Negaduck wasn't looking, he took off his jester's hat and bowed his head to the lighthouse. "Sorry about that, Megsy," he muttered. "I didn't mean to." Then he quickly slapped his hat back on and hurried to catch up.

In Darkwing Tower, Darkwing Duck lay stretched out underneath his computer console, fiddling with electronic components. Spare parts lay scattered around him. On the monitor, the picture of a figure in a red shirt climbing up a tree flickered. "Drat this D.R.A.T.!" he muttered irritably, feeling around for a screwdriver. "The cost of these spare parts is definately coming out of her allowance. I'm never letting her near my computers with a milkshake again! How am I supposed to scan for Negaduck's backup secret hideout if the Darkwing Remote Access Terminal isn't working?" He found the screwdriver and applied it to the video card. Two tiny screws fell out of the console and bounced off his head. Darkwing winced.

Suddenly his comlink beeped. Startled, the hero sat bolt upright and conked right into the console. "Ow!" Darkwing shoved himself out from underneath the electronic mess, rubbed his head, and activated the comlink. "Yeah, what's up Launchpad?" he grumbled into it.

"Hey, DW, have you been listening to the police channels?" Launchpad's voice sounded alarmed.

"No," Darkwing explained testily. "Gosalyn spilled a milkshake into the D.R.A.T., and now all it'll pick up is Pellican's Island reruns." A laughtrack crackled across the computer speakers, right on cue.

"Well...go look outside!" Launchpad told him. "There's a giant Negaduck made out of light holding up the St. Canard First Savings and Loan!"

"There's a WHAT?!?" Darkwing choked, nearly dropping the comlink. He ran over to the window of the tower and leaned out. Immediately he spotted the glowing figure towering over the rest of the city. Launchpad hadn't been speaking figuratively; the giant Negaduck had quite literally torn the building up by its foundations and was shaking money out of it. Darkwing just stood there for a moment, absolutely dumbfounded. How in the WORLD had Negaduck managed to pull off something like that??

"DW, you still there?" Launchpad's voice echoed across the comlink.

Darkwing raised the comlink back to his beak. "Yeah, I'm here LP. Where are you?"

"I'm about a block away from the building," Launchpad said. "I was just gonna hit the bank before it closed, but then Negaduck showed up with the rest of the Fearsome Five and hit it first!"

"Stay there, LP!" Darkwing instructed him, snapping to the ready. He dashed to the Ratcatcher. "The D.R.A.T. will just have to wait - I'm on my way!"

When he arrived on the scene, Darkwing immediately wished he'd been able to come in the Thunderquack instead. From the ground, the giant, glittering Negaduck looked to be a good forty stories high. It seemed to be ignoring everything for the moment, instead concentrating on shaking every last dime out of the bank building. The police were already there. They had set up a security line a few blocks back from the bank, and it was there that Darkwing stopped the Ratcatcher and joined Launchpad. His sidekick looked glad to see him.

"Thank goodness you're here, DW!" the big duck trotted over to greet his friend. "The police can't do anything - they tried shooting at him, but the bullets just go right through him, and when they tried to negotiate, he just stepped on a couple of squad cars!"

"Whoa..." Darkwing stared up at the giant figure in awe. "Talk about growing ambition..."He looked around for clues, an idea, anything that might help him stop Negaduck. "How is he doing that??" Darkwing wondered. "Launchpad, tell me everything you saw."

Launchpad didn't even have to think about that one. "Like I said, I was on my way to the bank, when suddenly there was this shimmer in the air, and then Negaduck was here shaking down the bank." He scratched his head and looked around. "I swear, I never saw anything else!"

"Oh yeah? Then what's that?" Darkwing pointed up to the roof of a nearby skyscraper. A set of blades had just started whirling there, and a moment later a choppy, pulsing sound reached them. A blocky, patchwork-coloured helicopter lifted into view, trailing a large sack. "Quackerjack! Only he would build a helicopter out of a kids construction set," Darkwing said wryly. As he watched, the giant Negaduck reached over and started scooping money into the chopper's sack.

"We'd better hurry up and do something, DW!" Launchpad prodded his friend.

"Fear not!" Darkwing wrapped his cape around himself dramatically. "No villain can escape the scene of the crime when Darkwing Duck is on the case!" He looked around for ideas again, because despite what he'd just said, he didn't have a clue how to stop Negaduck. Nothing came immediately to mind, so he decided to wing it. "Launchpad, stay here and make sure the police stay out of my way!" he instructed his sidekick.

Launchpad gulped. "Uh, yeah, sure," he muttered as he watched Darkwing disappear from sight.

A couple of minutes and many stories later, a blue puff of smoke burst onto the rooftop of the building from which the helicopter had taken off. The helicopter was still hovering beside it; the sack looked about half full by now. Darkwing posed dramatically. "I am the terror that flaps in the night!" he yelled at Negaduck. "I am the coffee that stunts your growth! I am Darkwing Duck!"

Negaduck didn't appear to hear him, but the helicoptor pilot did. "Well, well, well - look who made it to the party!" Quackerjack leaned out to grin at Darkwing. Another beak and a nose appeared from the inside of the helicoptor next to him - Bushroot and the Liquidator. Quackerjack pointed to the roof. "Get him, guys!" he yelled. "It's PLAAAAAYTIIIIIME!!!"

Darkwing flattened against the roof as the Liquidator launched himself in a solid stream right over Darkwing's head. "Ha ha! You missed!" he taunted the dog as he jumped back up and pulled out his gas gun. "You might as well just give up now, Licky - you're going down!"

The Liquidator resumed his normal shape and began to circle his foe around the roof. "Four out of five supervillains recommend ducking," he informed Darkwing with a nasty smile.

"Huh?" Darkwing started to look around to see what was coming, just as he caught a set of false teeth right in the face. The teeth snapped around his beak and started chewing. Darkwing made a muffled sound of pain and pried the teeth off. "I suppose you think that was funny," he snapped at Quackerjack, throwing the teeth to the ground.

The clown laughed madly. "Hey, if you liked that, you'll love this! It's a riot!" A cute little yellow plastic animal arced over the side of the helicopter, bounced at Darkwing's feet, and flew up to eye level. "Pika!" it squeaked, then it unleashed a small lightning bolt at Darkwing. When the smoke cleared, Darkwing's face was charred black.

Quackerjack nearly fell out of the helicopter, he was laughing so hard. The chopper started to wobble in the air. Beside him, Bushroot grabbed the steering yoke and yelled at Quackerjack. "Hey! Pay attention to the controls or we're gonna crash!"

Using the distraction to recover, Darkwing took aim at the helicopter cockpit with his gun. "All right, fun's over," he growled. "Suck gas, evil-doers!"

A jet of water slammed the gun out of his hand and carried it over the side of the building. "Objects may be closer than they appear!" the Liquidator said, advancing on the hero.

Forlornly, Darkwing watched the gas gun fly out of sight. He wiggled the fingers of his empty hand. "I hate it when that happens," he gulped. "All right, Liquidator, bring it on!" Darkwing whirled into a quack-fu stance.

The Liquidator smiled a toothy smile and attacked.

"Go get him, Licky!" Bushroot cheered from the helicoptor. "Yay!" The helicopter sank a little lower into the sky as Negaduck continued to pile money into the large sack. On the roof, Darkwing and the Liquidator disappeared into a muddy cloud of dust. This didn't last long. The scuffle ended quickly, with Darkwing trapped inside the Liquidator and running out of breath. He clawed frantically at the insides of the aquaeous villain, trying to break through for air.

"Ah-ha!" The Liquidator laughed. "This proves you should never, ever tangle with a professional!"

"So why don't you call one, Licky?" A rough, uneven voice called over to him from the next rooftop over. "You're gonna need one to save you from me, you traitor!" A bolt of lightning struck the Liquidator. Darkwing Duck vibrated from the shock as two thousand volts of electricity ran through the villain and him. The Liquidator exploded into mist.

There was a collective scream from the helicoptor. "AAAAAAAAH! IT'S THE GHOST OF MEGAVOLT!!" Quackerjack let go of the steering wheel and crawled over to hide behind Bushroot. Bushroot looked around, realized he was between Quackerjack and Megavolt, and zipped around to hide behind Quackerjack. As they pushed and pulled at each other, the helicopter wobbled and began to spin out of control.

Darkwing Duck picked himself up off the roof and shook the water out of his ears. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. But when he looked off to the right, sure enough - there was Megavolt with the goggles, yellow jumpsuit, battery, and all, looking as though nothing had ever happened. Except, of course, that he was posed on the edge of the building, attacking his former teammates. Darkwing shrugged. He wasn't overly happy about Megavolt's appearance, but as long as he kept the rest of the Fearsome Five busy, Darkwing wasn't going to argue. That just meant he could focus on Negaduck.

The giant figure of Negaduck reached down and scooped up another handful of money. But the helicopter was flying wild, so when it tried to pour the money into the bag, the the loot scattered everywhere. Negaduck finally looked up and seemed to notice what was going on. The giant dropped the remaining money and slapped its forehead.

Darkwing trotted over to get as far up in the giant Negaduck's face as possible. "I don't know how you're doing this, Negaduck," he yelled, "but the game's over! Put the money down and surrender quietly!" It was a bluff, and Darkwing knew it.

Negaduck didn't say anything, but a huge, evil grin sparkled around his beak. He lifted a giant hand and flicked Darkwing off the roof. Darkwing went sailing off and crashed to a stop behind Megavolt. The electric rat was too busy tossing lightning bolts at Quackerjack's helicoptor to notice him.

"How dare you steal my S.L.A.M.M. ?" Megavolt shrieked at the Fearsome Four. "That was my baby! I built it all out of parts I stole fair and square by myself!" He danced angrily on the ledge of the building and squeezed off another lightning bolt that barely missed the chopper. "Give it back!"

Darkwing crept over to hide behind an accessway as Megavolt confronted the other villains. In a moment he was glad he'd moved, as Negaduck reached over and backhanded Megavolt. The rat went flying past Darkwing and smashed into the half-wall opposite him. Megavolt slid down the wall and peeled himself off it, rubbing the back of his head. "Ooh, that smarts," the villain mumbled.

Darkwing pounced on him. "What were you talking about? What's a S.L.A.M.M.? Do you know how Negaduck's doing that?"

Megavolt looked up at him and nodded conversationally. "Oh, sure. He's using my Solid Light and Matter Machine. It transduces matter into energy and translates it into a solid equivalent form in a different location in space."

Darkwing looked at him blankly. "Uh...come again?"

Scratching his head, Megavolt thought for a second then tried the explanation again. "It makes giant copies of stuff out of light and projects them elsewhere, like a semi-solid hologram."

"Oh. So that means he isn't really here, then. He's hiding somewhere and using your contraption to do this remotely." Darkwing considered that unhappily, then asked the question that was really burning in his brain. "So how do you stop it??"

"We gotta find where Negaduck is hiding with my S.L.A.M.M. But he could be anywhere! Anywhere! All he'd need is a line of sight on the hologram in order to control it!" Megavolt grabbed Darkwing's shoulders and shook them frantically. "You gotta help me find him!!"

"Anywhere?" Darkwing disengaged himself from the rat's grasp and looked at him doubfully. "That's just a teensy bit wide of an area to cover, Megs. Don't you have any other ideas how to stop that big copy of Negaduck?"

"Well...I suppose zapping it with a positron emulsifier would solidify the light particles so much that they'd collapse under their own weight..." Megavolt pondered. "If that happened, then for a few moments you'd probably be able to see the beam that was generating the hologram and trace it back to my S.L.A.M.M."

Just then, the choppy sound of the helicopter grew louder. Waves of air beat at the pair as the helicoptor zoomed up past them and receded into the distance. The giant image of Negaduck dropped the bank building, dusted its hands, and sparkled into nothingness. There was no sign of any of the money it had shaken out of the building; the cash had all been stolen away.

Megavolt stared after them, then screamed in frustration. "Great! That's just peachy!! Now I won't be able to trace him until he uses the S.L.A.M.M. again!" The rat grabbed what was left of his hair and began to stomp around in little circles. "This is all your fault," he accused Darkwing.

"Me? How is it my fault?" Darkwing said angrily. "Now look here, I-"

"You're the superhero, you're not supposed to let villains get away." Megavolt jumped back up onto the roof's ledge and began to pace back and forth along it.

Darkwing flinched. Sure, why'd he have to rub it in? "I've still got you right here, Megsy," he pointed out with a certain amount of vindictiveness.

Megavolt didn't seem to notice the dig. "How am I supposed to get my revenge if I can't even find Negaduck??!" he complained to the clouds. "Am I even to be denied that small amount of dignity?"

Seeing his chance, Darkwing cleared his throat and made an offer. "Look, Megavolt, we've both got major bones to pick with that nefarious, no-good crook. What say we work together to find him and stop him?" Darkwing wasn't particularly thrilled with this deal, but what the hey? He'd worked with Megavolt a couple of times before, and the team usually worked all right until they'd accomplished their goal. Of course, there was always the potential for a double-cross, but in this case Darkwing was willing to risk it.

The villain considered this for a minute, then reached out to shake hands with Darkwing. "You're on, buddy." A dark look crossed the rat's face for a moment, and Darkwing revised his estimate of the chances for a double-cross upwards. He'd have to watch Megavolt very carefully to make sure that he didn't do anything drastic to Negaduck before the police took the crime lord into custody.

"So, uh..." Darkwing turned to look out across the city he'd just failed to protect. "Got any idea where to dig up one of those positron emulsifier thingies?"

To his surprise, Megavolt pounded his fist onto the roof ledge in frustration. "I HAD one - or most of one, anyway! I was hours away from finishing it. But Negaduck broke into my house and smashed it," he wailed. "He broke almost everything in my home! Even my filament collection! Is nothing sacred??"

"Could you build another one?" Darkwing asked him, ignoring the villain's outburst.

"Filament collection? No! Some of those filaments were one-of-a-kind-"

"No!" Darkwing interrupted crossly. "Positron emulsithingy!"

"Oh, that. Sure," Megavolt said, "if I had the right parts. But do you have any idea how hard a tron accelerator is to find? It took me months to track down one I could steal, and then I had to rebuild it!"

Darkwing sighed heavily. He had a strong idea where they would be able to find any kind of fancy parts Megavolt might need, but he wasn't especially keen on the thought. Nonetheless, he turned to his temporary partner and beckoned. "Come with me. I think I know of someone who can help."

It looked like a laundromat, the building a combination of grungy concrete and smudged glass. It sounded like a laundromat, with the rumble, swish, and whirr of overloaded washers and overheating dryers. It even smelled like a laundromat, with the peculiar, lemony smell that always seems to permeate such places.

Nevertheless, Darkwing had taken the precaution of blindfolding Megavolt before leading him here. He had also insisted that the villain leave his battery and goggles behind.

"Now remember, you are absolutely NOT to do anything unless I tell you to," Darkwing told Megavolt sternly as he led the villain through to the back of the building.

Megavolt looked around uncertainly, even though he couldn't see anything. "A laundromat?" the villain wondered out loud with a bit of contempt. "What - did you forget to pick up your spare cape?"

"No," Darkwing told him as he led Megavolt through the racks of clothes in the back room. "However, that gives me an idea. You need a better disguise." He perused the racks of clothes behind them, and finally found what he wanted. "This'll be just the thing," Darkwing said, scarfing a lab coat off of a coat hanger and handing it to Megavolt. He looked his nemesis over and frowned when he realized that he'd forgotten to make the villain ditch his distinctive-looking plug hat back at the bridge. They couldn't just leave it here in the back room - someone might find it. "Aw, nuts," he mumbled. "Wait right here - I'll be back in a sec."

Surprisingly, Megavolt did as instructed while Darkwing poked around the laundromat. Finally he found more or less what he was looking for - on one of the shelves in the back corner, someone had left a wide-brimmed crimson hat. Darkwing swept it up, carried it back to Megavolt, and slapped it on the villain's head. The two metallic prongs of Megavolt's original hat punched through the new hat's crown, but at least with the new hat and the lab coat, Megavolt didn't look so very obviously like himself anymore.

"What's all this for?" Megavolt complained.

Instead of answering, Darkwing led him up to a very large dryer mounted into the wall in the very back of the room. He swung open the clear, round door and pushed the villain inside. Fishing around in his pockets, the hero came up with a token just a bit smaller than the normal ones sold out front and fed it into the slot beside the machine.

"This is no ordinary laundromat," Darkwing finally told Megavolt as he stepped inside beside him. "This is actually a cover for a super-secret laboratory run by a super-secret government agency called SHUSH. If they knew I was smuggling a wanted criminal into their labs, they'd revoke my gadget-of-the-month club membership! So stay low, and stay quiet. You were never here, if you know what I mean, and I'll be keeping an eagle eye on you so don't try anything funny!" Darkwing finished his stern lecture and swung the dryer door shut. "Now...hold on to your hats!"

The tiny room began to spin. The floor dropped away underneath them, and in no time at all they found themselves spinning to a stop several stories below street level. The elevator doors slid open in front of them, and the elevator's occupants staggered unsteadily into the small lobby area of a SHUSH lab - home to the nation's most powerful secret weapons.

Darkwing finally reached up and untied Megavolt's blindfold. The rat staggered in a couple more unsteady circles, then his eyes grew very wide as he caught sight of a very large machine in the corner. "Hey," he began excitedly, "is that a cybertronic alpha wave generator-"

There was a loud bang behind the large double doors at the far end of the room. The doors burst open, and a stream of dozens of cats pelted through it and headed straight for the elevator. In moments, Darkwing and Megavolt were up to their eyeballs in fur. The tide carried them straight back into the elevator.

The cats were followed by a frantic young gander who waved his clipboard ineffectually at them. "No! No! Come back here!" he yelled. "I wasn't done recording your whisker modulation yet!" The gander realized where the cats had gone, and started waving to Darkwing. "Keep them in there, would you? That's just fine!"

"Experiment of yours?" Darkwing said testily as he fought his way out of the elevator and shook two cats off of his cape.

The gander shook his head. "Not quite exactly. I'm just a lab assistant. The cats really belong to Dr. Yap from the biology department. He's testing the vibrational input of the extended follicalage of felines to see if we can implement something like it in our sensory equipment."

"That's brilliant!" Megavolt's voice came from the elevator, muffled by the pile of squirming cats.

The gander blinked in surprise. "Amazing! Now they can talk! I had no idea the experiment would have such a side effect!" He started to scribble frantically on his clipboard.

"It didn't." Darkwing slapped his forehead. This was precisely why he disliked SHUSH labs. Insane. The whole lot of them was totally insane. He didn't doubt for a moment that Megavolt would fit right in. With a 'why-me?' sigh he reached into the elevator and yanked his charge out by the collar. "This gentleman is with me," he explained. "Is Dr. Bellum around?"

"Oh, sure, she's in her lab," the assistant offered. "Right around that way-" he started to point.

"I know where it is," Darkwing cut him off. "Come on, Dr. Sputterspark," he commanded, dragging Megavolt along behind him. "We need to talk to her as soon as possible." They left the lab assistant scratching his head and trying to figure out how to get all those cats out of the elevator.

"Hey, what's with using my real name?" Megavolt asked unhappily as they hit the hallway. "And I'm not a doctor."

"Oh, sure," Darkwing shot back. "Like I'm gonna go to all the trouble of slipping you in here incognito, then announce to everybody who you really are!"

"Well geez, you don't have to be so snippy about it," Megavolt sulked. Then they came to Dr. Bellum's lab, and Megavolt completely forgot to be insulted anymore. There were gadgets. There were lots of gadgets. His eyes went round again, and Darkwing lost his grip on Megavolt's sleeve as the villain tore across the room and plastered himself lovingly across a large machine with lots of big, shiny buttons. "A Lorraine coil! I haven't seen one of these in years!" he said with glee.

A precise, clipped female voice corrected him. "Well, actually it's a bit more advanced than a simple Lorraine coil. I've been making some adjustments to the EMF output, you see." From behind a computer terminal in the middle of the room stepped Dr. Sara Bellum, the head research scientist of the SHUSH weapons division. "It's a lot more powerful now," she proudly explained as she walked over to the console. "Would you like a demonstration?"

"You bet I-" Megavolt started to say.

"No. thanks Dr. Bellum," Darkwing stepped loudly on Megavolt's words. "We're here on some very specific business."

"Oh," Dr. Bellum said. "Oh, dear. What sort of business. Mr. Darkwing? Is it going to take long? I'm afraid I'm in the middle of some very delicate experiments right now, so I can't be of much assistance at the moment."

"That's all right," Darkwing told her. He indicated Megavolt. "This is my associate, Dr. Elmo Sputterspark. He's an energy expert, working with me on a special case. We really need to build a protein emil-...amis-...milli-..."

"A positron emulsifier," Megavolt broke in helpfully.

"Yeah, what he said," Darkwing finished, throwing a dark look at Megavolt. "And we need to do it fast. Do you think you have enough spare parts he can use?"

"A positron emulsifier?" Dr. Bellum said thoughtfully. "Well...I think so. Tron accelerators are a little hard to come by, but I think there's one in the boomerang beam that can be scavenged."

"Boomerang beam?" Megavolt asked curiously.

Darkwing slapped his head again. Now that he thought about it, maybe bringing Megavolt here hadn't been such a great idea. He broke in before Dr. Bellum could explain. "Look, we're in a hurry. Can you just point us in the right direction and let Dr. Sputterspark get to work?"

"Um...well, nobody's using lab number four right now," Dr. Bellum told them after a moment's thought. "Not since the explosion. It's mostly fixed now, but we haven't had a chance to start any new experiments in there yet so I guess you could work there. It's at the very end of the hall, by the biology department. You two can go on down, and I'll have one of my assistants get the tron accelerator for you."

"Thanks ever so," Darkwing said, shoving Megavolt ahead of him. He wanted to get the villain out of here ASAP, before he set off any weapons or picked up any of Dr. Bellum's screwball ideas. Heaven knew Megavolt had enough screwball ideas of his own.

He really needn't have worried. Megavolt seemed more than happy to have his own lab to work in. "This is great!" the rat said, rubbing his hands together. "Can you believe this place? And that Dr. Bellum...now there's a gal after my own heart," he sighed happily. "Do you think she has an unquenchable thirst for mayhem and destruction?"

"Sort of," Darkwing said, thinking of some of Dr. Bellum's previous inventions. He shook his head. "Forget it, Megs, she's married to her work."

Megavolt laughed. "Of course! I would be too if I had a job in a place like this." They found lab number four and switched on the lights. As far as Darkwing could see, it was just a big, white room with a long table in the middle of it. Lining the walls were counters stocked with all sorts of gizmos and devices. Some of them he recognized, some of them he didn't. But apparantly Megavolt knew what each and every single thing was. A couple of excited arcs jumped up the prongs of the villain's hat as he ran along the counters and discovered each device. An Egon loop, a flux aeon capacitor, a hydrostatic tank (which Megavolt carefully avoided touching), a brownian scale...

Darkwing quickly grew bored with watching his charge ogle the well-stocked lab. He cleared his throat and folded his arms. "So are you gonna start building that proton emulator or what?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah..." Megavolt stopped, remembering why they were there. "Ok, first thing's first. Hand me those wires over there." While Darkwing looked for the wires, Megavolt searched through the cabinets until he found one full of spare electronics parts and casings. He shuffled through the parts and spread some of them onto the table. Then he grabbed the wires absently from Darkwing. "Thanks."

Darkwing settled back and prepared to keep a vigilant eye on the villain.

Darkwing yawned.

They'd been there for several hours, and the positron emulsifier was still not complete. At last check, Megavolt was sure he could have it finished in another couple of hours if he could just get the power output to quit fluctuating. Darkwing shifted uncomfortably in his chair and wished the rat would just hurry up. He was sorely tempted to grab the machine and leave the moment it looked like it even might be working. Not only was he getting very tired of listening to Megavolt hum "She Blinded Me With Science" (and now the stupid song was stuck in his head), but in the past five minutes he'd almost fallen asleep twice. "Aren't you done yet?" he complained out loud.

Megavolt stopped his dissonent humming for a moment. "Quit asking!" he snapped. "You're driving me mad! MAD! If it was done, don't you think I'd have said so??!"

"All right, all right, keep your hat on, Sparky," Darkwing grumbled. "I was just asking."

"And don't call me Sparky!" Megavolt said irritably. "I hate that!"

Darkwing yawned again. "Fine, sure, whatever...Sparky." He almost wished Megavolt would try to start a fight or something. At least it would wake him up and relieve the boredom.

"I'll 'spark' you," Megavolt muttered under his breath as he tightened down a few more screws and arcwelded a diode into place with his finger. "How am I supposed to work with somebody staring over my shoulder? It's enough to drive a guy insane." He ground a few more screws into place, then tried to fit an electronic chip into the slot he'd built for it. It wouldn't fit; it was a millimeter off center. Megavolt screamed and threw the chip onto the table in frustration. "That's it!" he yelled. " I can't stand this anymore! I need a break!"

"You and me both," Darkwing muttered, yawning yet again. He really wished he had a cup of coffee or something. Wait a minute - coffee! If he knew anything about engineers and scientists, he knew that they would have a break room with a coffee maker in it somewhere nearby. He stood up, stretched, and mentioned this to Megavolt.

"Great idea!" Megavolt replied. "I'll go find it." Before Darkwing could say a word, the villain had zipped out the door.

Darkwing chased after him. As he stepped into the hall, he could see no sign of Megavolt. Geez, the guy could be fast when he wanted to! Briefly Darkwing heard echoes of footsteps bouncing down the corridor, then the slam of a door. Darkwing took off after the noises. As he sped down the hall, he heard a surprised yelp. Next thing Darkwing knew, Megavolt had reappeared around the corner and was beating feet straight for him! The villain skidded to a halt a few feet past Darkwing and hid behind him. He grabbed the hero from behind and held him up like a shield. "It's her!" he shrieked in Darkwing's ear. "It's her!!"

"Huh? 'Her,' who?" Darkwing asked in confusion.

"Well, bless my stars!" A female voice said from around the corner. A moment later, the voice's owner appeared - a mouse with long, wild blonde hair and glasses. She was wearing a lab coat stained with chemicals. "I don't believe it!" she exclaimed. "Elmo Sputterspark? After all these years!" The mouse was followed by Dr. Sara Bellum, who was holding a huge mug of coffee and nodding sagely.

Darkwing pried Megavolt's fingers off his arms and turned around to face the newcomer. "Do you two know each other?" he asked wryly.

"We certainly do!" the mouse replied. "I'm Dr. Leona Twiddlewhisker. Elmo and I were in the science club together in high school."

"Is that so?" Darkwing said with a sidelong glance at Megavolt, who nodded slowly. He suddenly seemed awfully red.

Dr. Twiddlewhisker laughed. "Oh, Elmo. You always were too shy for your own good. Come over here and say 'hi', at least."

Hesitantly Megavolt stepped around from behind Darkwing. He shuffled his feet and twiddled his hands behind his back as he muttered, 'Hi, Leona. How ya doing?"

"Not bad," she replied with a smile. "I'm one of the main researchers in the biochemistry department here. Currently I'm working with psychotropic drugs. How about you? What are you up to these days, Elmo?"

Megavolt laughed a little madly. "Well, I'm into weapons research at the moment."

Dr. Twiddlewhisker looked at him curiously. "Really? How long have you been doing that? I'd have thought SHUSH would've recruited a brilliant guy like you a long time ago."

"Well, er...I've been working freelance, mostly," Megavolt stammered.

"That's fascinating!" Dr. Twiddlewhisker replied. "You simply must come back to the break room and tell me all about it."

"Actually," Darkwing broke in, "he was working on a very critical piece of equipment that needs to be finished as soon as possible." He eyed Megavolt meaningfully.

"Yeah! That's right!" Megavolt nodded vigorously. "So sorry, gotta get back to work, time's wasting! Uh...see you around!" He grabbed Darkwing and bolted back to lab four.

"Would you mind explaining what that was all about?" Darkwing asked after the door slammed behind them. Megavolt was shaking in the middle of the room, clutching his chest and hyperventillating.

The villain turned and gave him a look of sheer panic. "That, that, that was - HER! And we, and then she-, and, and...AAAGH-!!!"

Darkwing shook his head. "You're not making any sense." He grabbed Megavolt by the shirt collar, slapped him briskly and dropped him onto the floor.

Megavolt put his hand to his head and took a deep breath. "Thanks, I needed that."

"Now, you wanna try that again?"

Megavolt gulped. "Right. Um." His fingers twined nervously together as he attempted to explain. "We were in the science club together, and we used to help each other out with homework and stuff. She was the only person who didn't laugh at me. And. Um..." Suddenly Megavolt's cheeks burned really red. "I, um...I was gonna ask her to the prom, but I never worked up the nerve, and then stuff happened. You know." He buried his head in his arm. "She probably thinks I'm a total weirdo now. If she finds out who I really am she'll probably call the police or something."

Darkwing paused for second in astonished silence. Then he broke out laughing. "You mean to tell me you had a crush on her? That's rich!" He laughed some more.

Megavolt looked up angrily. "Sure, go ahead and laugh! I didn't see you at the prom with a date either!"

That sobered Darkwing up immediately. "Yeah, well...that's none of your business," he grumbled.

Megavolt stood up and paced the length of the lab and back. "I never expected to see her again! I can't work in here knowing Leona is practically right outside my door! What if-"

There was a knock on the door, and Leona stepped inside without waiting for an answer. "I hope you don't mind the intrusion," she said to the room's occupants. "But it's been absolutely years since we saw each other, Elmo. I'm not letting you off the hook that easily."

Megavolt froze in midstride.

Leona walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, I'm talking to you, you big paramecium," she said with a half-grin.

Megavolt still didn't move, but a huge band of electricity arced up his hat. Leona jumped back a step. "What in the-? Elmo, what are you wearing on your head? Is that some kind of capacitor?"

Very slowly, Megavolt cringed and turned to face her. "Er...not exactly, I uh..."

"Fascinating! Can I see?" Leona asked, pulling Megavolt's headgear off before he could protest. "What do you use this for? It seems kindof impractical," she said, turning the haberdashery over in her hands. The two hats separated. Looking at one in each hand, she frowned. "That's odd. I don't see any wires or circuitry here, and nothing that looks like a power source. Did you develop-" she started to ask as she turned back to Megavolt.

She stared. Small sparks were playing along her old friend's whiskers as he watched her nervously. Slowly Leona fit the two hats back together and placed them back on Megavolt's head. "Elmo," she said conversationally. "Did you know that you're sparking?"

"And that's essentially what happened," Megavolt told the biochemist. She had lured - or more truthfully, forced - him and Darkwing back to the breakroom, where they were all currently nursing large cups of coffee. "After the accident, I became a walking giant capacitor."

"Absolutely fascinating!" Leona proclaimed, studying Megavolt closely. "So that carpet static generator did work! We all wondered what had happened when we found the parts blown across the room."

"It sure did," Megavolt agreed. "But things got pretty fuzzy after the accident. It's been really hard to keep track of things since then. In fact, there's stuff I hadn't thought of in years until yesterday." He proceeded to tell his old friend about the 'accident' with the tricholorelectrillium sulfate - Dementia's Dust. "It's really weird," he concluded. "And you know what else? Mortimer hasn't spoken a word to me since then." Megavolt dug into his pocket and pulled out a lightbulb. He looked sadly at it as he scritched it. "I wonder if he's mad at me?"

"Dr. Twiddlewhisker, you aren't going to tell anyone about this, are you?" Darkwing looked at her desperately. He could already see his Gadget of the Month Club membership drifting away.

Leona drummed her fingers thoughtfully. She seemed to be taking all of this extremely well, despite Megavolt's earlier fears. "Of course not. You know, Elmo - you don't mind if I call you 'Elmo' instead of 'Megavolt', do you? It feels too weird. Anyway, what you just went through reminds me a lot of the experiments I've been doing with dielectrillium sulfate." She dug around in one of her pockets, pulled out a small cylinder, and slapped it against the back of Megavolt's hand. There was a sharp hiss.

"Ow!" he jerked his hand back and sucked on it. "That hurt! What was that for?!"

"I'm testing a theory," Leona said. "Follow me!" She leapt up from the break table and started off towards her own lab. Darkwing and Megavolt exchanged a confused look and followed. When they caught up to Dr. Twiddlewhisker, they found her puttering in front of a small, round machine that was hooked up to a computer. As they watched, she inserted the little cylinder into the machine and flipped a switch. It spun into a blur, whirred softly for a few seconds, then powered down. Leona moved over to the computer and typed a few commands into the keyboard. The computer flashed the wait symbol, then displayed a few lines of text.

"I was right!" Leona exclaimed happily. "This is fantastic! This puts my research ahead by at least four months!"

"What?" Megavolt asked, peering over her shoulder.

Leona turned to him and smiled broadly. "According to this data, your metabolism took the trichloroelectrillium sulfate and broke it down into its constituent parts, which then corrected the misfiring across your synapses probably caused by your hyper-electric biochemistry..." she launched into a long technobabble explanation. It summed up with, "...and so that's why your memory cleared up, and probably why you don't hear your light bulb talking to you anymore! It's very much the same effect I've been trying for with dielectrillium sulfate - well, the memory part is, anyway."

"That's why?" Megavolt scratched his head.

"It's gotta be," Leona nodded emphatically. "Unfortunately, it's probably not permanant. With the samples I've been testing, the effects of a normal dose start to wear off after a few hours. Of course, you were given several times a normal dose, which is probably why you're still feeling the effects. It could start wearing off at any time." She flashed a dazzling smile at her old friend. "How would you like to help me out with my research? It's really time I started testing my experimental drugs on people, and you seem like a prime candidate."

Megavolt considered that. "I dunno. I don't like the idea of being a guinea pig," he told her unhappily.

"But it's for such a good cause," Leona wheedled.

Darkwing slid over and looked at the computer monitor. He tapped it a couple of times. "Wait a minute. You're telling me that psycho-boy here is only acting moderately sane because of the drugs? And he could go right back over the edge at any time?"

"Who you calling 'psycho-boy', you vigilante?" Megavolt growled at him.

"Well...yes," Leona shrugged. "I'm sorry, Elmo. But facts are facts. However, I really think -"

A shrill beep cut her off. Everyone jumped and looked around for the source before Darkwing realized that it was coming from his comm link. He flipped it open. "What is it, LP? I thought I told you-"

Launchpad's panicked voice filled the lab. "I hope you guys have that machine ready, 'cause Negaduck's at it again!"

"WHAT?!" Darkwing and Megavolt exclaimed in unison.

"Now he's rippin' up the police station and the jail!" Launchpad continued. "And worst of all - my favorite Hamburger Hippo stand!"

"Darn it!" Darkwing swore. "The positron emulsifier isn't finished yet!" He pounded his fist on the computer. "I knew taking a break was a bad idea!" Suddenly he was yanked over by his sleeve as Megavolt tried to grab the comm link away from him.

"You tell Negaduck we're coming for him!" Megavolt yelled at Launchpad. "Right now! And boy, is he ever in trouble!" He threw the comm link down and made for the door.

"I thought you said it wasn't working right yet," Darkwing said as he started after the villain.

A small, blue light arced between Megavolt's eyes as he smiled vengefully. "I'll make it work," he promised.

It was a harrowing ride to the jail, but they made it in record time. As they arrived, Negaduck - or rather, the hologram of him - had just kicked so many holes in the jail walls that the building resembled swiss cheese, and dozens of inmates were hitting the streets. The police were running around after them, trying to round the crooks up before they got away. The police station itself was already in ruins.

Darkwing looked over at Megavolt, who was standing up in the sidecar aiming the positron emulsifier at the Negaduck hologram. "Are you sure that thing will work?" Darkwing asked again. He was terribly nervous about this - after all, not half an hour ago Megavolt had been complaining that he needed at least two more hours to finish the machine.

"Just hold this stupid bike still," Megavolt complained as he sighted through the machine's viewfinder. "I can't get a decent shot!"

"What do you mean, you can't get a decent shot?" Darkwing spluttered, waving at the hologram. It was right there in plain sight, winding up for a running kick at the orphanage across the street. "The big lug is right there! Just how accurate do you need to be with that thing?"

Megavolt stopped and fiddled with one of the dials on the machine. "All righty...here goes nothing!" He flipped a switch.

Nothing happened. Megavolt tapped the switch a couple more times, but there was still no response. "Darn it!" he yelled. With an angry snarl he reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a screwdriver.

Darkwing folded his arms in disgust. " 'Nothing' is right. Well, that's just great! Now what are we supposed to do?" The hero swapped his helmet for his wide-brimmed hat and jumped down off the Ratcatcher. "I guess I'll just have to handle this myself! I-" His words were suddenly cut off by a small toy soldier which marched up to him and fired a rifle into his face.

"What the-?!" Darkwing spluttered, looking around. Several more toy soldiers marched past him, followed by rows of giant marching daisies. Two of them carried struggling convicts in their petals.

"Step lively there, fellas!" Bushroot ordered his flowers from the roof of a nearby fruit stand. "We've gotta get all these guys outta here before Darkwing Duck shows up!"

"Too late, Bushroot!" Darkwing declared, striking a pose. "I'm already here!"

Bushroot looked over and saw his erstwhile foe. He clapped his hands to his head. "Oh no! Hurry guys! We've got company!"

"What's that you say, Bushy?" Quackerjack bounded off a lamppost to land beside his compadre. When Bushroot pointed to Darkwing, he giggled. "Darkwing Duck? The more, the merrier!" He leaned over the side of the stand to wave to Darkwing and taunt him. "Hey Darkwing - nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!"

Darkwing turned red and raced after him. "You guys aren't going to get away with this!" he yelled after Quackerjack.

Quackerjack laughed again, "Oh, but we already have! See?" The clown flipped into the rubble of the police station and did somersaults across the wreckage. "These bozos won't bother us again for a long time! And you know what else? I dare you to look behind you!"

"Forget it, Quackerjack. That's the oldest trick in the book!" Darkwing gritted between his teeth as he pulled out his spare gas gun.

Quackerjack bounded to the top of the pile of rubble and pointed across the street to where one of the fire hydrants was turning itself on. "Don't say I didn't try to warn you," he cackled as a jet of water swept Darkwing off his feet. One of the resulting puddles resolved into the Liquidator.

"He's ba-aaack!" the Liquidator announced. "You just can't keep a good villain down!"

On the other side of the street, there was a loud boom and a large cloud of dust as the Negaduck hologram materialized a giant crowbar in its hand and viciously attacked the orphanage.

Suddenly Megavolt jumped up from the sidecar of the Ratcatcher, holding up his machine triumphantly. "I've got it!" he yelled. "I've GOT it!" He lifted the box and pointed it at Negaduck. "Take that, you backstabber!" he pressed the switch again. This time a purple beam shot out of the positron emulsifier and struck the hologram. The giant Negaduck glittered bluely for a moment, then instead of collapsing it began to swell.

Somehow that wasn't what Darkwing had been expecting. He turned and yelled over to Megavolt, "Hey! Is it supposed to do that?"

The rat's panicked face told him more than he wanted to know. "I'll take that as a 'no'," Darkwing gulped as Megavolt ran over and cowered beside Darkwing. The Negaduck hologram grew bigger and bigger and began to shower sparkles. "What the heck's it doing?" Darkwing demanded of Megavolt.

Megavolt clutched the machine protectively in front of his chest. "It modulated the wrong way! Instead of collapsing the photons, it made them lighter and stronger!"

"So what's that mean?"Darkwing asked, fearing the worst.

"It means the hologram just disconnected from its power source and is now running independently of its originator," Megavolt explained calmly. Then he dropped to his knees. "WE'RE DOOMED!!!"

"You mean now we're not only dealing with the original Negaduck, but also a copy that's fifty times bigger and stronger and has a mind of its own?" Darkwing asked in a rising panic,

Megavolt nodded. "That sums it up about right."

"Way to go, Megavolt," Darkwing grumbled. As they watched, the hologram finished growing, topping out at twice its previous size. It rubbed its hands together in anticipation and started to stomp randomly through the streets, showering blue sparkles behind it. Darkwing was starkly reminded of the cheesy Godzilla vs. Alien Slime Zombies movie Gosalyn had made him watch last week.

Beside them, Quackerjack jumped down to the sidewalk and stared up at the oversize hologram. "Wooooow," the toymaker breathed in awe. "That's really cool! How'd you do that?" He was joined by the Liquidator, who watched in consternation. Bushroot trembled behind them.

Megavolt snarled as he turned to face his former teammates. "Oh - it's you guys."

Quackerjack started at the sound of the rat's rough voice. "Meg-Megavolt??!" He stammered. "Hey, you're still alive! I almost didn't recognize you! Well I might've known you'd have something to do with this!" The clown seemed genuinely pleased.

"No thanks to you," Megavolt snapped at him. "You stole my S.L.A.M.M.! Where's Negaduck hiding with it?!!" He raised one finger, blue sparks of electricity glittering off it.

Quackerjack backed up a step, waving his hands at Megavolt. "We don't know! Honest! Negaduck just told us to be over here, and then his big light thingamajigie showed up once we got here! We don't know where the real Negaduck is right now!"

The sparks died down on Megavolt's finger. "Yeah, that sounds just like him," he snarled.

"Look," Darkwing said, "I hate to break up this little tete-a-tete, but that thing is going on the rampage! We've gotta do something, or there won't be anything left of St. Canard!"

"No city means no fuss, no muss...and nothing left to extort," the Liquidator said unhappily.

"No more toy stores?" Quackerjack asked sadly.

"No more anything!" Darkwing shouted at the villains. "Look, Megavolt - can you make that machine work the way it's supposed to in the next few minutes?"

Megavolt stuck out his tongue in concentration as he studied the positron emulsifier from several different angles. Finally he pronounced, "I think so."

"Ok, fine," Darkwing turned to the rest of the Fearsome Five. "You guys come with me. I've got an idea." All four of them trotted off, leaving Megavolt sitting on the sidewalk wielding his screwdriver against the machine like a madman.

"Ok - we've got to lure that Negaduck thing to the power plant," Darkwing told the villains.

"The power plant? Why? Won't that just give it more energy to draw from?" Bushroot asked reasonably.

Darkwing wrestled with an explanation for a moment. He certainly didn't intend to tell these guys that he'd gotten the idea from Gosalyn's Godzilla movie! Finally he said, "Just pay attention and keep up! We're just delaying it to give Megavolt time to fix that stupid machine."

The Fearsome Four stood beside Darkwing Duck atop the main building of the hydro-electric plant. "Are you sure this will get him over here?" Darkwing asked them.

"No," Bushroot answered truthfully. "But you said you wanted something that would get his attention. The way I see it, if Negaduck hates cute, fuzzy bunnies, then a Negaduck fifty times as big should hate 'em fifty times as much."

"Welllll...you've got a point there." Darkwing looked up at the giant, plush bunny they'd placed on top of the latticework towers. It was pink with sunglasses, and it carried a drum which it did not beat; Darkwing had already taken the drumsticks and beaten Quackerjack across the head with them when he tried to wind the toy up. "Do you think the moving spotlights will draw his attention to it?" he wondered.

"I think they already did," Bushroot pointed over the horizon. The giant Negaduck was heading their way. "Here he comes!" The mutant looked uncertainly at Darkwing. "So what are we supposed to do when he gets here?"

"Er..." Darkwing wasn't exactly sure. "We wait for it to come in contact with the power lines and overload," he explained confidently. Well, at least it sounds like a good plan, he thought to himself, wishing Bushroot would stop questioning him. He motioned the others to crouch down out of sight, and they all watched as the giant Negaduck came over the hill and stomped towards the towers. It snarled, shoved its sleeves up, and attacked the bunny. Pieces of fluff went everywhere.

"Mr. Bun!" Quackerjack moaned.

The hologram finished shredding the rabbit and turned around to face the people crouched on the roof of the building. A very evil smile glittered across its face as it began to laugh silently. It took one step towards them, then another.

Bushroot panicked, jumped up, and started to flee. "Run for it! He's spotted us!" he yelled. He didn't get very far; Negaduck grew an energy frisbee out of one hand and winged it at the mutant plant-duck. The frisbee struck full force, carrying Bushroot out of sight. Darkwing cringed in sympathetic pain.

"Need a stress break? Try a nice, refreshing jet bath!" the Liquidator recommended to no one in particular as he bravely stood up and aimed his most forceful jet of water at the hologram. More powerful than the spray of a fire hose, the water shot from the roof, plowed down a tree that happened to be standing in the way, and splashed harmlessly through the giant duck's knees. "Uh-oh,..." the Liquidator mumbled.

Negaduck reached over and yanked a handful of heavy cables away from their grounding support. The other end of the cables was still attached to the power generators. The hologram whirled the cables over its head and released them like a grappling line at the Liquidator. "Oh no - not again!" the dog wailed as the cables wrapped around him and filled him with untold watts of electricity. For the second time that day, he exploded into mist.

"Drat!" Darkwing spat. "He's picking us off one by one! Looks like it's up to us, Quackerjack." He rummaged through his coat and cape, trying to find the signal flare he'd stowed away. If nothing else, it might distract Negaduck and give them a chance to escape. "Do you have anything up your sleeves that might stop him?" he asked the jester.

Quackerjack shrugged helplessly. "I'm fresh outta stuff, McDuff," Mr. Banana Brain 'said.'

Darkwing sighed as he found the flare and loaded it into his gas gun. "All right then, cover your eyes. When the flash goes off, make a run for it. We'll try to meet up at...uh...the abandoned fish cannery."

"Why there?" Quackerjack wanted to know.

"Because!" Darkwing snapped, not having a better reply. "Just shut up and get ready to run!" He buried his eyes in his sleeve and pointed the gun towards Negaduck.

There was a huge flash before he could pull the trigger. He heard a hollow-sounding clap of thunder , and then Megavolt was there, screaming in rage at the Negaduck hologram. "It's the end of the line for you, buddy!" the rat ranted. "First you try to kill me, then you trash my house and steal my S.L.A.M.M., and now you're going after the power plant? I'm the only one who gets to take over the power plant! Take this!" There was another crackling hum of energy, as though a different beam was being fired. Darkwing chanced a peek, and saw a purple beam hit the Negaduck hologram. This time it started to shimmer. It looked surprised, then stomped over to Megavolt and tried to kick him.

But the enraged villain was expecting this, and readily sidestepped. Dodging Negaduck's feet, Megavolt bolted past the giant hologram and made his way to the massive energy transformers. Moving quickly, he pulled out two pieces of wire and hooked the prongs of his hat up to the electrical equipment. Negaduck whirled and started after him again. Megavolt lifted his machine high and aimed it at Negaduck. "Ok, maybe you can take a hit at normal strength," the rat yelled at him. "But let's see if you can hold together under a super-charged beam!" Flipping the switch of the positron emulsifier one last time, Megavolt was suddenly caught in the stream of a million volts of current as he filtered the power through himself. The electricity fed into the emulsifier and exploded outward into a gigantic purple beam which struck Negaduck's hologram squarely in the chest. With a silent howl, the hologram teetered and exploded into glittering motes of light.

Seconds later, the positron emulsifier exploded in Megavolt's hands. The shock of the current vibrated him away from the transformers until the wires hooking him to them snapped. He collapsed into a smouldering heap.

Darkwing blinked in astonishment. It worked! It finally worked! Megavolt had finally done what he said he'd do! Hopping down off the roof, Darkwing ran over to pick the rat up and dust him off. "Good going, Megavolt!" he exclaimed. "You got him!"

Megavolt shook his head and coughed, clearing smoke out of his lungs. "I'll bet this never happened to Thomas Edison," he mumbled dazedly. Shaking himself, he stood up and clenched his fist. "Darn it! We still didn't find the real Negaduck!"

Quackerjack wandered up behind Darkwing and offered a smile to his former teammate. "Hiya, Megs. Nice work there, pal. Er...it's nice to have you back." He stuck out his hand for a handshake.

Megavolt eyed it and refused to take it. Instead, he folded his arms and looked the other way. "I'm mad at you," he told Quackerjack. "You almost got me killed. In fact, I'm not talking to you."

Quackerjack took his hand back and looked at it as though it were a baby doll with two heads. "Is that so? Well, fine then! I won't talk to you either! It's not my fault Negaduck overreacted to my game!"

"Game?!" Megavolt grabbed Darkwing. "You tell him that that wasn't much of a game!"

"Er," Darkwing started to say.

"Oh, yeah?"Quackerjack yanked Darkwing away from Megavolt. "Well, you can tell him that he's completely lost his sense of humour!"

Darkwing raised a hand. "Excuse me gentlemen, but-"

Megavolt grabbed Darkwing back. "Oh, yeah? Well, tell him that being killed and having his stuff stolen makes a guy really GRUMPY!!"

Darkwing shoved both villains away from him as Quackerjack started to grab him again. "GENTLEMEN!" Darkwing yelled at both of them. "Look, I don't care if you aren't talking to each other, but leave me out of it. All I care about is finding Negaduck and stopping him from destroying any more of the city!"

Megavolt and Quackerjack sniffed and turned their backs to each other. "Fine!" Quackerjack said.

"Fine!" Megavolt replied.

"Well...fine!" Quackerjack said again.

"Fine!" Megavolt replied again.

"Fine!" Quackerjack started to repeat, but Darkwing broke in with a frustrated yell. "WILL YOU TWO KIDS JUST KNOCK IT OFF??!" He grabbed Quackerjack and shook him. "Ok, Quackerjack, where were you guys supposed to meet Negaduck? I wanna know, and I wanna know right now!"

Quackerjack shook his head smugly. "I'm not supposed to tell. It's a secret."

"Oh yeah? Well I can think of four really good reasons why you should tell me." Darkwing counted his fingers as he closed them into a fist and held it up in front of Quackerjack's face.

The clown gulped. "Those are pretty good reasons. We, ah..." He gulped again and ran his finger around his collar nervously, glancing sidelong at Megavolt. Finally his nerve broke. "Please don't make me tell!" the jester pleaded, throwing himself at Darkwing's feet. "If I do, Negaduck might do something worse to me than he did to Megavolt!!"

Darkwing couldn't believe his eyes. Of all the reactions he'd expected, Quackerjack grovelling at his feet wasn't one of them. "Well, I, er..." the hero began uncertainly.

There was a manic laugh from beside them. When he looked over, he saw that Megavolt had started digging in his pockets. In a moment he came up with his lightbulb. "Mortimer!" the rat exclaimed, stroking the lightbulb lovingly. "I thought you weren't talking to me any more! What's that you say? Negaduck is probably hiding out at the top of the Canard Tower? Well, of course, that makes perfect sense! From there, he'd have a line of sight to anywhere in the city!" Megavolt turned to Darkwing, happily scritching his pet. "You know, Mortimer's one of the smartest lightbulbs I've ever trained."

"Hoo boy," Darkwing groaned and buried his face in his hand. "Here we go. I knew it was too good to last."

Sparks crackled around Megavolt's hat as he smiled a toothy, unpleasant smile and cracked his knuckles. "Come on, Darkwing. I think it's time we paid a little visit to my former boss."

Negaduck stomped back and forth along the perimeter of the room hidden at the very top of the Canard Tower. It was one of the most clever hideaways he'd conceived yet - inconspicuous, yet right on top of all the action. Best of all, no one even suspected that the room even existed, so he had no fear that someone might accidentally stumble in on him. The room was fairly barren except for a small table in one corner which held Megavolt's hologram machine, and the piled-up contents of the St. Canard Savings and Loan vault in the other. He'd have to launder the money, of course, in order to keep it from being traced. And best of all, none of those bozos in the Fearsome Five - or Fearsome Four, rather - would have the slightest clue where the loot had disappeared to, so they wouldn't pester him with demands for their share. Whine, whine, whine - that was all those idiots ever seemed to do.

Negaduck stopped pacing and chuckled to himself. Boy, the looks on those guys faces when he'd put an end to Megavolt-! He'd almost have given up their shares of the loot for a photograph of it. What a kodak moment! And best of all, he hadn't heard any more whining from the remainder of the Five...er, Four...whatever. It was almost worth having lost the statue and Dementia's Dust. And the fiendish device he'd discovered in Megavolt's lab was just priceless beyond words. Negaduck hadn't had so much fun in years! He could practically feel the power consolidating in his fists already. Darkwing Duck probably thought he was going to try to destroy St. Canard. Well, it was true that he meant to enjoy his fair share of mindless destruction, but Negaduck's plans went far beyond that. With his newfound toy, Negaduck knew he could utterly subjugate St. Canard. It would be just like in the Negaverse. People would call him Lord Negaduck! He would hold the power to crush them in his fist at a whim! He could lay waste to their schools and stomp the justice system completely into submission. Negaduck laughed cruelly. He could already taste his sovereignty!

Of course, there was just one tiny problem, and it wasn't Darkwing Duck this time. Or maybe it was. Negaduck wasn't sure, but he did know that he'd somehow lost control of his energy twin this last time. He wasn't quite sure how it had happened. One moment he'd been happily crowbarring the orphanage to bits. The next, there was a purple flash, the lights on Megavolt's machine had started flickering wildly, and a loud alarm pitched at just that shade of annoying had filled the room. Negaduck had resisted his first impulse to beat the machine into submission, and had instead unplugged it. The noise had ceased, but the energy construct had still been stomping around outside his window. Negaduck had stared after it in impotent rage as it took off across the city out of his control. A quick scan of the streets with binoculars showed that Darkwing Duck was indeed down there, tangling with the remainder of the Fearsome Five - Four - whatever. He seemed to have some sort of partner - a scientist maybe, judging by the labcoat? It was hard to make out from this distance, but Negaduck decided that whoever the guy was, he needed to be kidnapped or killed. If he'd come up with some way to disrupt Negaduck's power, then he was definately a threat.

Negaduck watched Darkwing storm off with the remainder of the Fearsome Five, then zoomed the binoculars down on the guy in the labcoat, who was sitting on the street fiddling with a machine. Something bugged him. Something about the scientist seemed awfully familiar...but who among the living did he know that specialized in technical wizardry? Negaduck was still racking his brains on that point when he saw his subject raise a finger and throw an arc of electricity into the machine. Negaduck nearly dropped the binoculars as he realized who it must be. No way! How could that menace still be alive? Maybe those idiots in the Five hadn't been completely up their collective trees when they came back babbling about a ghost-! Negaduck looked again and knew there could be no doubt. It was definately Megavolt. Without that stupid-looking battery the rat always carried strapped to his back, Negaduck hadn't recognized him. The crime lord ground his teeth in fury. How DARE he! Not only had that moron NOT died gracefully like he was supposed to, but now he was going and teaming up with Darkwing Duck! Negaduck decided that he had to come up with something suitably crafty to spring on those two.

Slightly earlier...

The argument echoed across the hills from the hydroelectric plant as twilight decended.

"I say we go back into town and fry him right now!" Megavolt yelled at Darkwing.

"That's a stupid idea!" Darkwing yelled back. "We can't just go waltzing up to Negaduck's front step! He'll make mincemeat out of us - we've got to have a plan!"

"This is all the plan I need," Megavolt told him angrily, clutching the positron emulsifier close to his chest. "If Negaduck tries to use the S.L.A.M.M. against me, I can use it to short circuit the hologram again. Then, when I'm close enough, there'll be a Negaduck barbecue." He chuckled madly.

"Suure, Sparky," Darkwing said sarcastically. "That's a brilliant plan. There's just one teensy problem. Have you forgotten that your stupid machine is broken now?!"

Megavolt looked down at the positron emulsifier. It was still smoking from the energy overload. "Guess you got a point there," he realized. "But it doesn't matter! I can get this fixed in a jiffy, and then it's bye-bye Negaduck!"

"Dream on," Darkwing said. "You can't take him down by yourself. But please, feel free to try if you like. I'll be more than happy to scrape your remains off the pavement - again."

Megavolt shook with rage. "All right, fine! I'll show you!" he screamed. "Just stay out of my way!" He turned and left.

Darkwing sighed in contempt as the villain departed. Beside him, Quackerjack started to back away. "I think I'll be going now," the toymaker said. Darkwing made a grab for him, but missed. Quackerjack disappeared behind a row of hedges and vanished.

"Great," he muttered. "That cretinous clown is probably going off to warn Negaduck or something. Well," he decided as he pulled out his comlink and flipped it open. "Might as well contact Launchpad. Something tells me we're getting ready to have a major fiasco on our hands."

Soon afterwards...

"That's it, come to papa," Negaduck chucked softly as he watched Megavolt scurrying along the streets towards the Canard Tower. "You're in for a big surprise, Sparky." He fondled the remote control in his hand. It had only two buttons - 'on' and 'off'. At the moment the control was set to 'off'. With a snicker, he switched on the S.L.A.M.M. and thumbed the remote control to 'on'.

Across the city, the familiar giant replica of himself sparkled into being. Negaduck made it turn towards Megavolt, wave, and hurl an insulting gesture. When Megavolt screamed in rage and raised the machine he was carrying, Negaduck only laughed. He waited for the purple beam to shoot at his twin.

"That's it, Negaduck!" Megavolt shouted with feeling. "This time, you're toast!!' He flipped the switch on the positron emulsifier and hoped that his patch job would hold. The purple beam fired straight towards the sparkling construct...and bounced right back towards him!

Megavolt yelped and leapt backwards. The street exploded in front of him, leaving a small crater. The rat peered at his machine, then at the Negaduck hologram. "Impossible!" he exclaimed in fear. "Solidified photons can't reflect tron beams!"

"That's right, Sparky," Negaduck's voice chuckled from somewhere nearby. "Still haven't lost that old grasp of the obvious, I see."

Megavolt looked frantically around for the source of the sound.

"Death becomes you, Megavolt," Negaduck continued to taunt him. "It seems to have given you more fashion sense. That is, if you're trying for the 'geek of the month' award!"

"Come out and show yourself!" Megavolt yelled to his surroundings.

Negaduck's evil laughter roared across the streets. "Oh, I'll show you where I am all right. Look behind you!"

Megavolt whirled around and did a double-take. Standing right behind him was a second giant hologram. "GYAAAAH!" he screamed in panic. "That's impossible!"

The second Negaduck smiled and dropped a building on him. "Sayonara, sucker!" Negaduck's laughter reverbrated through St. Canard again as the dust cloud cleared. "Heh, heh, heh...that's one menace out of the way."

Suddenly the roar of the Thunderquack filled the streets. The airplane dived down out of the clouds, did a double spin and suddenly dropped down a hundred feet into the canyons of the city streets. It skimmed the ground, nearly ran into the history museum, and took a sharp ninety-degree turn upwards along the walls of the Dogbert Building.

"Well, well, well," Negaduck chuckled. "If it isn't Darkwing Drip! Come on down - you're the next contestant on Name That Grease-Stain!" The giant holograms materialized huge baseball bats and swung them at the Thunderquack.

The plane dodged just in time to avoid being knocked to Istanbul. Inside, Darkwing hung onto his seat with a deathgrip. "Did you see that Launchpad?" he said in astonishment. "Now there's two of them!"

"Yeah, and they're getting ready to double-team us," Launchpad gulped. "Look!" He pointed out the Thunderquack's window at the holograms, which were both taking aim with their identical bats.

"That's strange," Darkwing mused as Launchpad did another barrel roll with the Thunderquack. "Look - they're moving exactly the same way, except opposite - like mirror images of each oth-urk!" Darkwing's stomach nearly dropped away as Launchpad suddenly pulled out of the spin.

"Who cares," Launchpad retorted. "As long as they don't hit us!" He yanked the yoke of the plane back, climbing just enough that the next bat attack whiffed under them with inches to spare.

"We've gotta find the real Negaduck. Launchpad, do a fly-by of the Canard Tower." Darkwing ordered. "Maybe if we're lucky, we'll spot Negaduck there."

"Righty-o!" Launchpad turned the wheel again and pulled the Thunderquack into a tight spiral around the building. After the sixth pass, Darkwing told him to stop.

"That's fine, Launchpad," Darkwing said, looking rather green. "I don't think he's there." The knuckles clutching his seat were pale.

"You OK, DW?" Launchpad said apologetically. "Sorry, I sometimes forget you don't like hard curves."

"Better that than getting splatted," Darkwing gulped. He tried a couple of deep breaths to focus, then had a sudden thought. "Hey! Launchpad! Turn on the Thunderquack's spotlight and shine it at those overgrown science project rejects!"

"No problem-o," Launchpad reached over and flipped a switch. The Thunderquack's bright halogen beam snapped on and cut a swath through the darkness. The first Negaduck they shined the light at ducked, then turned its baseball bat into a chainsaw. The air around them vibrated as it took a swing at them. Launchpad turned the Thunderquack into another barrel roll and avoided having their wings shaved off by just a hair.

"Hurry Launchpad! The other one! Point at the other one!" Darkwing yelled.

Launchpad swung the Thunderquack around and pointed the spotlight at the other Negaduck. Suddenly they were both dazzled as the light blasted right back into their faces. "That's it!" Darkwing crowed. "I was right! Launchpad, open the hatch!"

"What are you gonna do?" Launchpad asked as he flipped another switch. The hatch of the Thunderquack popped open. Wind roared past them, whipping Darkwing's cape backwards as he stood up and set one foot on the plane's nose.

"Just this!" Darkwing loaded a special charge into his gas gun and fired it at the second Negaduck. The projectile sped right through the image, and suddenly a small explosion rocked the sky behind it. Pieces of the image began to fall away as the mirror behind it crumbled into shards.

Launchpad cheered. "Way to go, DW! But what about the other one?"

"Well, I-" Darkwing began, then he noticed movement down on the street. "Say, I wondered when he'd show up," he said as he peered over the side of the Thunderquack.

Megavolt was rubbing his head as he crawled out from under the rubble of the destroyed building. As they watched, the rat pulled his dented and battered machine from under a pile of cinderblocks. Screaming incoherently at the remaining Negaduck, Megavolt stabbed the switch. Nothing happened. The rat shook the machine, cursed and stabbed the switch several more times. A bright purple light finally welled up in the machine's barrel, then shot out and hit the hologram squarely in the forehead. The giant Negaduck staggered and shrank, then collapsed inward upon itself. A trail of golden sparkles hung in the air for a few moments between the place where the hologram had been and the roof of a nearby skyscraper.

"That's it!" Darkwing leaned forward eagerly. "Launchpad, set us down on the roof over there! We've got him this time!"

"Righty-o!" Launchpad saluted, and the Thunderquack took a sharp dip in the air. It sped up the side of the building, hovered in mid-air for a moment over the skyscraper, and then landed heavily on one corner of the building. In the middle of the roof, Negaduck was standing next to a portable box on a tripod that Darkwing could only assume was the S.L.A.M.M.

Darkwing leapt out of the Thunderquack, gas gun at the ready. "All right Negaduck, show's over and you're nowhere in the credits!" he shouted.

There was a click as Negaduck released the safety of the machine gun he pulled out of his cape. "Guess again," the villain sneered as he aimed it at Darkwing. "I'd say the credit's all mine in this case." He squeezed the trigger, and suddenly Darkwing was dancing around a hail of bullets.

The hero dodged behind the Thunderquack, trusting its steel plating to protect him. Quick as he could, he leaned out and fired off a gas cannister at Negaduck. It hit the ground at the villain's feet and exploded into a grey cloud. "All right!" Darkwing cheered. "I think I got him!" He crept out from behind the Thunderquack, alert for any more incoming bullets. Instead, all he heard was the sound of Negaduck coughing uncontrollably.

"Uh, DW," Launchpad began, leaning over the side of the Thunderquack.

"Go ahead and call the police, Launchpad," Darkwing told him. "This case is as good as finished."

"But DW," Launchpad tried again. "Negaduck's gonna-"

What he was going to do became immediately obvious as a golden glow shimmered through the dissipating cloud of gas. Suddenly a giant hologram was towering over their heads. Its grin matched Negaduck's as the crime lord brought the hologram's fist squarely down on the Thunderquack.

The airplane teetered on the edge of the building and fell. Launchpad yelled in panic, trying to punch up the engine as the plane plummeted down ninety stories.

"Launchpad!" Darkwing cried. He hesitated, torn between checking over the side of the building and turning to face Negaduck.

Suddenly the access hatch to the roof burst open and Megavolt ran up through it. He stopped and leaned against the air conditioning unit mounted on the roof, panting. "Why'd... (gasp)...they...(wheeze)...have to...(pant)...make this...(huff)...darn building so tall...anyway?" he complained.

Darkwing backed up a step, looking at the hologram over his head. "A little help over here please!" he yelled at his old nemesis.

Megavolt looked up, saw the construct, and face-faulted. The he snarled and pointed at the S.L.A.M.M. in Negaduck's hands. "That's my baby you stole!" he yelled. "Give it back!"

"In a pig's eye," Negaduck laughed at him. "Say Megs, you look kind of stressed out. How about a nice little vacation - one way air fare provided courtesy of Negaduck Airlines?" He reached down with one hand. Above him, the hologram reached down and scooped up Megavolt. They wound up for the pitch.

Megavolt clenched his fists. "Oooh! Darn it! I didn't want to have to do this!" Covering his eyes with one hand, he spread his fingers and peeked just enough to aim a finger at the S.L.A.M.M. "I'm sorry, baby," he murmured. An electrical bolt sparked off his finger and arced into the machine. Power arcs leapt everywhere as it fizzled, sparked, and finally exploded. Smoke rolled out of the casing. The hologram disappeared, dropping Megavolt back to the roof.

Darkwing breathed a sigh of relief and took a moment to check over the side of the building. To his relief, he saw that Launchpad had gotten the Thunderquack revved before he hit the pavement, and was now slowly limping it back up. It sounded like one of the engines had gone out.

"You knob!" Negaduck snarled at Megavolt. "Do you know what you just did? You just destroyed my easy way to take over St. Canard!"

Megavolt advanced on him, arcs jumping madly up his hat. "No more games, Negaduck," he growled. "I'm sick of you calling me a knob, I'm sick of you treating me like dirt, and I'm not gonna take it any more!" The blue aura around his hat swelled and discharged into a large lightning bolt that blasted straight at Negaduck.

Behind them, Launchpad brought the Thunderquack back up and set it heavily down on the roof.

The unharmed crime lord stepped away from the charred spot and smiled sweetly. "Sorry Sparky, you'll have to do better than that." He lifted his feet and showed Megavolt the insulated soles strapped to the bottom of his feet. "Never leave home without 'em," he grinned.

"You...you...you KNOB!" Megavolt yelled in frustration. He gathered together the biggest static charge he could muster. A blue aura sparkled around him, crackling with sheer electric energy. He raised his hands. "This is for trying to kill me!" A hot lightning bolt sizzled and tore into Negaduck. The crime lord was actually jolted back a step as the rubber soles melted off his feet. Negaduck stared in shock and started to bring up his machine gun to fire.

"And this is for stealing my S.L.A.M.M. and making me destroy it!" Another lightning bolt ripped into Negaduck. He dropped the machine gun and clawed the air in pain as the voltage screamed through him.

"And THIS is for trashing my house!" Another bolt of lightning crashed into the cornered duck. He groaned and finally collapsed into a shaking, smoking heap. "And THIS is for-"

"Megavolt, STOP!" Darkwing jumped between them, holding up his hands. "Any more and you're gonna kill him!"

"That's the idea," Megavolt snarled at him. "Step aside, Darkwing! This is between me and Negaduck."

"Hold it!" Launchpad hurried over to join Darkwing. "Megavolt, listen! If you kill Negaduck now, they'll put you back in prison for a long time, maybe even for life! If that happens, then how are you gonna check on your niece?"

"Niece?" Darkwing asked in bewilderment. "What niece?"

"My niece?" Megavolt hesitated as he considered Launchpad's words. Electricity continued to sizzle and hum around him.

"Yeah!" Launchpad persisted. "Remember? You were pretty concerned about her back there at the hospital!"

"Huh? Launchpad, exactly what are you talking about?" Darkwing demanded.

"Later, DW," Launchpad waved the hero's question away.

"What's to stop me from just barbecuing all of you and leaving?" Megavolt demanded.

"Don't even think about it," Darkwing told him, pulling a fully loaded seltzer bottle out of his cape. He pointed it at his old foe. "I came prepared."

After a few long moments, Megavolt lowered his hands. His blue aura crackled, fizzled, then melted away into the ground around his feet. He clenched his fists and kicked the roof. "You got me," Megavolt admitted reluctantly. He slid a look of sheer hatred at Negaduck. "But you better promise me something, Darkwing. Promise me you'll make sure Negaduck gets put away for life - or even gets the chair. I'll even be a witness in court if you want."

Darkwing Duck blinked in astonishment. "Did I miss something?" he said.

"Just promise!" Megavolt whirled on him.

"Er...yeah, right...I'll do the best I can," Darkwing told him, feeling very much like he'd come in on the second reel of a movie. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

Megavolt stared down at his clenched fists. "I've just got this creepy deja-vu feeling," he said. "I've gotta go check on something."

"You're doing the right thing, buddy," Launchpad said, coming over and clapping Megavolt on the shoulder. "You'll see."

- Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

"He wants to WHAT?" Darkwing asked the prison warden incredulously.

The warden scratched his head and straightened his blue uniform jacket nervously. "I dunno Mr. Darkwing. I mean, it's highly irregular and all, but since he's only in minimum security until the trial, I thought it might be ok to ask. The judge said it was ok, anyway." The warden shrugged. "If it's ok with you, that is. That's why we contacted you - uh, ok?"

Darkwing harumphed. "Ok, ok, ok! I'd better go have a talk with him and see what he's up to."

"All right, Mr. Darkwing," the warded nodded. "Right this way, please." The warden pulled a large ring of keys out of his pocket and led Darkwing Duck into a long corridor filled with small, barred jail cells. The low ceilings and the grey cinderblocks in the walls made the whole place feel just a little too cramped. They walked down the corridor, through two locked doors, and finally stopped at a cell near the very end. It was probably the highest security they could have in this area of the jail. Inside the cell, Megavolt sat on the edge of the hard, narrow bed with his arms crossed and fingers drumming impatiently.

Darkwing strode right up to the bars and put his hands on his hips. "All right Megavolt, what's this all about?" he demanded. "The warden said you wanted to see me about getting back into the labs at you-know-where."

Megavolt jumped up and grabbed the bars in front of Darkwing. "You gotta get me back in there!" he declared. "It's my only chance!"

Darkwing looked him up and down impassively. "Chance at what - getting your hands on one of those highly improbable yet strangely functional superweapons? In your dreams, Megavolt. That was a one-time only deal, remember?"

The rat shook his head vehemently and stamped his foot. "No, no, NO! That's not it at ALL!" He let go of the bars and paced frantically around his small cell. "You don't understand! If she sees me here, I'll be completely humiliated!"

Darkwing cocked his head, not quite sure what Megavolt was talking about. "Her, who?" he asked.

Megavolt stopped and waved his arms like he was trying to shake his fingernails off. "LEONA!!! Who did you think I was talking about, Shirley Temple???"

Darkwing took a step backwards in surprise. "Your old girlfriend?" He started to snicker.

At that, Megavolt froze and turned extremely red. "She's not my girlfriend!"

Darkwing broke into an outright laugh. "You're right, what was I thinking?" he chuckled. "No girl in her right mind would go out with you. Of course, I sincerely doubt the sanity of most of Dr. Bellum's colleagues."

Megavolt rushed to the front of the cell and grabbed the bars again. Sparks started to fly off his hands. "You-! How dare you insult the honour of my old science clubber...club... mem...thingie...WHATEVER! It's unforgivable! Why, I oughtta fry you right here!"

The warden stepped forward and tapped the bars with his wooden club. "Careful there, mate," he said. "I could have you slapped into higher security before you could blink an eye. Don't forget you're only on this side of the jail because you agreed to testify against Negaduck."

Megavolt let go of the bars and stepped back, looking darkly at Darkwing. "Well...I guess I could forgive you this time..."

"Listen Megs, is there a real point to this?" Darkwing asked, studying his fingernails. "You've got five seconds to convince me this isn't just some scheme, or I'm out of here."

The rat glared at him for a second, then sighed between clenched teeth. "I've been thinking," he said.

"Now there's a special event," Darkwing said sarcastically.

"Will you let me finish?" Megavolt shrieked. "I've been thinking about that memory thing Leona said she was working on. The dielectrillium sulfate experiments."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"I...um..." Suddenly Megavolt seemed to find his shoes very interesting. He cleared his throat and continued, addressing his feet. "Well, I've been thinking about...she said she needed somebody to test it on..."

Darkwing blinked in surprise. "You mean you actually want to volunteer for one of those crazy SHUSH projects?? Boy, I always thought you were insane before, but now I'm convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt!" He laughed loudly.

Megavolt shook his head furiously. "Nonono! That's the whole point!"

Darkwing stopped laughing. "You're actually serious?"

Megavolt trudged back over to the jail bed and sat down heavily, chin in his hands. "Like I said, I've got stuff I gotta check on when I get out of here. I don't think I can do it the way I am now. Right now I'm lucky if I remember my own name. My real one, that is." He absently made as if to take off a pair of safety goggles, but of course he didn't have his on; they'd been left back at Darkwing Tower along with his super battery pack. Fuzzily, Megavolt blinked at Darkwing and scratched his head. "Say, did you ever get the feeling you were missing something?"

Darkwing started to make another sarcastic reply, but bit it off. He wasn't used to seeing Megavolt being this thoughtful or serious. It rather unsettled him. "What's the deal?" he wanted to know. "No way am I agreeing to anything without knowing what's going on."

Megavolt looked up and started to say something, then didn't. He started to say something else, then didn't. Finally he shook his head and said, "It's private family stuff. Look, I don't expect you to understand, but there's something I've gotta do."

"There you go with that 'family' thing again," Darkwing said, perplexed. "You and Launchpad. What the heck's going on??"

Megavolt shook his head again. "Nothing you need to worry about, Darkwing. It's not like you have a family, so you wouldn't understand."

"I - now wait a minute, how do you know I-" Darkwing spluttered before he caught himself. He thought of Gosalyn, and shuddered at how close he'd just come to mentioning her. "Never mind," he shook himself. "Anyway, I think it would be better if we could get Dr. Twiddlewhisker to come here instead."

"Give a guy a little dignity, won't you?" Megavolt complained. "Can't I get out on furlough for just a day or something until my hearing comes up?"

The warden shook his head as Darkwing replied,"Absolutely not! No way, huh-uh, nope, no, nyet, nein, not. I am NOT going to be responsible for letting you back into the SHUSH laboratories. So you can just forget it."

"Remind me why I'm doing this again," Darkwing grumbled to Dr. Leona Twiddlewhisker as he watched her pick up the pen. On the table in front of her lay a release form that already carried the jail warden's signature. The warden sat on the other side of the table, shaking his head as though he couldn't believe it either.

The mouse smiled and rubbed her hands together. "It's for a very good cause, I can assure you, Mr. Darkwing. Let me just sign this paper, and then we'll be all squared around to release Elmo into SHUSH security. I really think it would be much better for him, don't you? I mean, these jail cells are so horribly tiny. Don't you worry one bit, we'll keep a good eye on him. I'm so glad you called us."

"It isn't him I'm worried about," Darkwing muttered as she scrawled her signature onto the paper. "I can't believe I'm going along with this. Don't you realize you're about to take one of the most dangerous, destructive, psychotic criminals in St. Canard into the very heart of the most dangerous, top-secret research facility in the nation - and keep him there?"

Leona smiled even more broadly. "Oh, I'm sure it's not all that bad. You just never knew him before he became a criminal."

Darkwing cast a sidelong look at the scientist. "Ohhh, you'd be surprised," he told her. "Anyway, if he gives you any trouble, call me. I don't trust Megavolt any further than I could zap him, and if you're smart, you won't either."

Leona patted Darkwing on the shoulder. "I'm sure it'll be all right. You'll see," she assured him. Her voice carried a glow of excitement. "This is such a fantastic opportunity! I can't wait to get started with the experiments!"

"Yeah, well...good luck," Darkwing told her as he leaned on the table in disgust. "You're gonna need it." He wasn't sure who he felt more sorry for - the SHUSH scientists or Megavolt.

Security guards flanked Leona and Megavolt front and back and to both sides. Their footsteps echoed down the corridor as the guards led Dr. Twiddlewhisker and her charge to a specially prepared room of the SHUSH underground testing labs. They stopped at the doors and steered Dr. Twiddlewhisker over to a box mounted at eye level on the wall beside the doors. "Look in there, please," one of the guards said flatly to her. "Retinal scan. This will grant you the authority to enter this room from now on." He looked Megavolt over impassively. "Doors are bolted securely from the outside with magnetic locks, quadruple security bolts, and are lined with explosive charges. Any attempt to improperly open the doors from the inside will result in an explosion that will blow you into next Wednesday. Guards will be posted outside the doors at all times. Dr. Twiddlewhisker, if you want to exit the room, just push the button beside the door on the inside. The button will recognize your thumbprint and open the doors."

"Gee...they really think I rate that much security?" Megavolt stared at the guards in awe. "I'm flattered!"

"Oh, never mind them," Leona replied, peering into the box. A series of green lines played back and forth across her face and eyes. One of the guards inserted a keycard into the box and punched a few buttons.

The box hummed for a moment, then anounced in a clear, female voice, "Identity recognized. Authorization granted. Have a nice day, Dr. Twiddlewhisker." The bolts clicked and slid back, and the magnetic lock released. The doors swung open.

As they stepped into the moderately-sized room, Megavolt found himself underwhelmed. He'd been expecting something a lot more...well, he wasn't sure, but the frilly bedsheets tossed across the twin bed in one corner definately didn't fall under his idea of 'lab'. Neither did the fluffy rug that had been thrown beside it. A dinged desk had been dragged to the far wall, and that looked ok. So did the small refrigerator that hummed right next to it, and the television set that sat on the desk, but still...this just wasn't how he'd pictured a SHUSH testing lab at all. In fact, it reminded him a lot more of a bedroom. Maybe there was something more lab-ish behind the door in the far side of the wall? Megavolt stopped in the main doorway uncertainly. "Are you sure this is the right place?" he asked. "Where's all the test tubes and wires and stuff?"

Leona grabbed him by the hand and dragged him inside. "I'm sorry Elmo," she said, "but this was the best I could do on such short notice. I wasn't exactly expecting to set up living quarters, you know, so it was all kindof done in a hurry. This is mostly old stuff from my dorm room from when I was in college. I pulled it out of storage in my basement. It might be a little dusty, but it should still work ok."

Megavolt shrugged. "That's all right. At least it's better than that stupid jail cell. I still can't believe you didn't mind coming to get me."

"You should find everything you need in here, but if you're missing anything, let me know," Leona told him.

The villain looked around the room and thought. "How about a charged super-cell?"

"Not required for our experiment," Leona told him firmly.

"Darn it..." Megavolt slumped in semi-feigned disappointment. "So, how's this gonna work, anyway?" he asked.

"The scientific way, of course," Leona replied. "We'll do some memory tests tonight. Beginning tomorrow, I'll start giving you small doses of the experimental drug, and we'll continue with the memory tests. We'll have to do all the testing in this room, of course. My bosses wouldn't let me take you back into the main lab."

"That's it?" Megavolt asked with a small, mad giggle. "Somehow I figured there'd be more to it than that."

"Oh, you're right, I almost forgot," Leona said, digging through the pockets of her lab coat. She came up with a notebook and a pen and tossed them at Megavolt, who promptly dropped them and had to scramble to pick them up. "I want you to start keeping a journal. Record at least one page of any thoughts or memories that happen to surface, especially if they relate to your past. It'll help me to gauge how well the drug is working outside of the standard test conditions."

"You want me to what?" Megavolt yelped, dropping the notebook again.

"You heard me," Leona replied. "Keep a journal. It's not hard. You just write down a word, then write a word after that, then another one after that. Before you know it, you have a whole page of words. The important thing is not to quit writing once you've started."

"I know what writing is! But you want me to do this by hand?" Megavolt protested. "Can't I even get a dictophone or something? A computer with voice recognition software? I hate writing things down by hand!"

"Just do the best you can," Leona said. "I'll leave you for a bit to get settled in, and go ahead and write your first journal entry while you're at it. In a bit I'll come back, and then we can start with the preliminary memory tests."

"This isn't fair!" Megavolt protested furiously. "You never said anything about having to write!"

Leona shrugged and grinned. "Sorry, Elmo. All's fair in love and psych." She laughed and walked out of the room, waving over her shoulder. "See you in a bit." The doors slammed shut behind her, leaving Megavolt scratching his head in the middle of the room.

Journal Entry #1

Half an hour later Megavolt still lay on his stomach on the bed, squinting fuzzledly at the notebook. He hadn't written anything else, but the end of the pen had been chewed off and there was a black smear across his nose.

In the middle of a deep, wide river there stood a tall, craggy island. At the top of this tall, craggy island stood a strong, thick fortress. In the middle of that strong, thick fortress, in a deep, dark cell, Negaduck sat brooding.

"At least they put me in solitary confinement this time," he muttered darkly to himself, "so I don't have to listen to all the other knobs and yokels in here." He thought back to the last few moments of his freedom. He'd been so close this time! St. Canard had been right in the palm of his hand! And then Darkwing Duck had showed up again. Negaduck shook his head and ground his teeth. No! That wasn't what infuriated him. He'd been expecting that do-gooder Dipwing to show up eventually; he always did.

"That blasted, brain-fried, no-good excuse for a felon!" Negaduck smashed his fist into his palm. "That electron-brain! How DARE he show up and turn against me? Doesn't he realize I could make his life even more miserable than it already is? I could make him wish he'd never been born!" Negaduck's teeth were beginning to hurt from all the grinding, and of course that only made him even madder. "Of all the stupid things that loser ever did, this has GOT to be the STUPIDEST!!!"

The crime boss raised one hand and glared at the manacles that were attached to his wrist. The guards had taken all the stops out this time - he had been thoroughly searched, and now there were chains attached to each arm and both of his legs. Their clanking echoed noisily off the small cell walls as Negaduck grabbed one chain and jerked it straight in an imitation of a garrotte. "Oh, he's gonna pay for this one," Negaduck chuckled softly, evilly to himself. "If Sparky wants a war between us, then a war is exactly what he's going to get. They have to open the door sometime to let my lawyer in, and when they do..." Negaduck chuckled again. "They'll be in for quite a little surprise. And then when I've taken care of Megavolt, I can start planning how to take over St. Canard again."

The empty blue chairs in Drake Mallard's living room shuddered, whirled, and jerked to a sudden stop. Drake Mallard jumped up from one of the chairs, stretched, and ducked as Gosalyn's hockey stick went whistling over his head. His hand shot up and caught the stick in mid-swing.

Gosalyn stopped dead in her tracks.

"Young lady, what have I told you about playing hockey in the house?" Drake yelled at her. "Remember the story about the problem child, the sports equipment, and the one-way trip to Siberia?"

"Sorry Dad," Gosalyn replied, slipping her brand-new VR goggles off her head. "But these VR goggles are super spiffy neat, and if you're actually holding something in your hands, you can really feel the action!" She wiggled her fingers in the game glove that Darkwing had bought for her along with the goggles to make up for ruining the tournament. "It's Whiffle action like you've never felt it before! You wanna try it?"

Drake tossed the hockey stick into the hall closet as he walked past Gosalyn towards the kitchen. "That's all right Gos, I've had enough action for one weekend. Actually, I was thinking about taking a break for a while, maybe heading down to the river to do some nice, relaxing fishing and thinking."

Gosalyn gave her father a strange look. "Are you feeling all right, Dad? It's not like you to relax in the middle of a case." She tugged off her game glove and tossed it onto the couch.

"There's not much of a case at the moment," Drake told his daughter as she followed him into the kitchen. "Negaduck's behinds bars again, and this time they're trying to put him away for life, no parole."

"They've tried that before," Gosalyn pointed out. "It never works."

"Oh, I think they'll be able to make it stick this time, "Drake replied calmly. He reached into a cabinet and pulled down a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a bunch of banannas. "There's a star witness who can testify that Negaduck is responsible for attempted premeditated murder. as well as giving all the details of this latest scurrilous scheme." He flipped a knife out of a drawer, caught it neatly in one hand, and began to make sandwiches.

"Murder? Who?" Gosalyn asked suspiciously.

"Would you believe Megavolt?"

"Megavolt?" Gosalyn exclaimed in disbelief. "HE'S your witness?" She slapped her hand over her face. "Boy Dad, you're really losing it if you think any jury'd believe that scatter-brained menace! Number one, he can't remember anything for more than three days. Number two, even if he did, he'd probably lie."

"Er...well..." Darkwing paused. "You've got a point there. But Negaduck's trial is coming up in a couple of weeks, and I think this time there's enough other proof to make it stick. Besides, if that SHUSH experiment works, Megavolt should be able to remember all the important details. And I'm not entirely sure why, but he seems to be working with the law right now."

"What SHUSH experiment?" Gosalyn demanded. "You don't mean to tell me that they're using that loon for a test? We're doomed! He's gonna blow up the whole lab and set off a doomsday weapon or something!"

"No, no, no, it's not like that," Drake tried to calm his daughter down, although he wasn't particularly calm about the idea himself. "It's just a memory experiment or something. It's supposed to be harmless. Although where SHUSH is concerned, 'harmless' is relative..." he trailed off thoughtfully. "Anyway, it's a long story, Gos. Maybe someday I'll tell you when you're older, but for now, I just want to take it easy for a bit. Wanna come fishing with me? I've got plenty of food." He tossed the sandwiches into the air, snapped them into wax paper wrappings, and caught them neatly in a basket jiffed off the kitchen table.

Gosalyn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like I'd want to spend all day sitting in a boat staring at the river. Get real, Dad!"

Drake shrugged and patted her on the head. "Suit yourself. Just leave the house in one piece, would you? I'd like to have a roof to sleep under when I get back. Hmm...maybe I should call Launchpad and see if he wants to go fishing with me."

"You're gonna just lay back on the river and fish while Megavolt is mixed up with SHUSH?!" Gosalyn demanded. "Shouldn't Darkwing Duck be over there keeping an eye on things?"

"It's all right Gos," Drake explained. "I told you, it's all taken care of. Nobody has better security than SHUSH, and they're keeping an eye on him until his hearing comes up this week. After that they might let him go free, but trust me, the minute Megavolt is allowed to step outside SHUSH security, Darkwing Duck will be there to keep the situation under control. So don't worry. Besides," he grimaced unhappily, "I already tried to post myself as a guard, and J. Gander threatened to revoke my gadget of the month club membership. So I guess there's not much to do except wait."

Gosalyn nodded to herself as Drake left the house. "Yup, that's the only thing that could explain it."

The next day

"That's er...rather interesting, Elmo," Leona said uncertainly as she studied the sheet of paper in her hands. She held it sideways, squinted at it, then turned it upside down. "I can't quite make this out. Are those 'threes' or 'fives'?"

"Neither. They're 'sevens'," he told her, leaning forward from his seat on the bed and resting his head on his fist. He couldn't seem to help staring at the scientist. She wasn't classically pretty, but there was still something about her that he couldn't put his finger on, something that kept drawing his attention. He caught himself staring, blinked, then decided he didn't care.

"Oh, I see." Leona put the paper onto Megavolt's desk and jotted a couple of notes on her clipboard. Presently she peeked over the edge of the clipboard and cocked her head. "Is something wrong? You keep staring at me. Do I still have blue stains in my hair?"

Megavolt blinked at her for a moment, then gave a rather unbalanced laugh. "No! Um. Sorry."

Leona breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, that's good. One of Dr. Yap's experiments got out of hand again last night, and I got a whole tube of blue glue dumped on my head. I thought I'd never get it washed out." She grinned with a bit of embarrassment.

"I did something like that one time," Megavolt told her. "Except it was rubber cement, and it got all over me and stuck me to the top of the building."

"How terrible! How did you get out?"

"Easy," Megavolt shrugged. "The police came and peeled me out."

"Police? What were they doing there?"

Megavolt scratched his head. "Um...I don't quite remember. I think I was fighting Darkwing Duck again or something. Hey, you wanna see something really cool? Watch this!" He lifted a finger and pointed at the trashcan in the corner. The tip of his finger started to glow blue as he gathered a static charge around it. In a moment the charge arced to the trashcan, which disintigrated into ashes. Megavolt cooly blew smoke off the end of his finger. "Pretty good, huh?" he grinned.

"Er...yeah," Leona agreed, blinking at the pile of smouldering ashes. "Why'd you do that?"

Megavolt started to answer, then stopped. He thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "Hey, when you're a supervillain you develop a taste for mayhem and destruction. It comes with the territory. "He grinned again. "You should see what I can do when I have my battery! Say...you know, I can't seem to find it anywhere. Wish I could remember where I left it." He scratched his head and peered around the room, as though he might find it just lying about in one of the corners. "I don't suppose you know where it is?"

"Sorry, not a clue." Leona made another note on her clipboard and hastened to change the subject. "So far it looks like you are making some gradual improvement in your memory from what it was yesterday. But you say you can't remember things as clearly as you did a couple of days ago?"

"It's driving me NUTS!" Megavolt gritted. "I know there was something really important I wanted to remember, but I just can't remember what it was!" He stood up and paced a frenetic little circle around the room, came to a stop beside the slagged trashcan, and kicked at the pile of ashes in frustration. The small, molten core of plastic that hadn't disintigrated went rebounding off the wall and slammed into his chest. "OW! Rotten, no goodnik piece of-" he snarled at it.

"Oh, by the way," he added in a much calmer and somewhat out of breath voice, "do you have any idea why I'd write 'Don't forget Andromeda' in my journal?"

Leona, who had been watching him with great interest, tapped her pen against her cheek and considered the question. "Something to do with space, maybe?" she offered at length. "There's a constellation and a galaxy both called 'Andromeda'."

"I don't think so," Megavolt shook his head firmly. "Not especially my thing. I'm more into time travel."

"Time travel?" The scientist sat back in her chair and adjusted her spectacles. "Well, that's interesting. Did you know that someone brought a time machine to SHUSH labs a while ago for safekeeping? It's a funny-looking thing, really. Whoever built it made it look like a giant toy top."

Megavolt grinned and pointed proudly to himself. "You mean the Time Top! I built that! Hey - they brought it here? No wonder we never found it again!"

"YOU did that??" Leona exclaimed in astonishment, dropping her pen. "That's extraordinary! Not even Dr. Bellum has been able to figure out how it works, or even what principles it operates on, and she's an authority in the field of time travel!"

Megavolt shrugged happily. "Oh, that's easy. It works on the super-string relative time principle. I could show you if you want."

"I know Dr. Bellum would sure like to see that," Leona nodded, still amazed. "But...why make it look like a top, of all things?"

"That wasn't my idea," Megavolt folded his arms and suddenly looked angry. "I wanted to make it look like a photomat. Quackerjack was the one who insisted on making it into a top. He was handling all the mechanical moving parts, and that stupid doll of his sided with him when we voted, so he won. As usual."

"Oh...I see," Leona said, trying to hide her amused smile behind her clipboard.

"What's so funny?" Megavolt asked defensively.

"Nothing, nothing at all," Leona said. "It sounds like your partner was awfully manipulative."

"Who, Quacksie? Nah. He's loonier than I am." Megavolt flopped back onto his bed with his arms behind his head. "All he does is go around spreading mayhem with those stupid exploding toys of his. Actually, it was kind of fun. You know, there's just nothing quite like skating the power lines of St. Canard at night with a giant teddy bear at your back, stolen loot in your arms, and the scent of voltage on the wind. You should try it sometime."

Leona broke into a genuine laugh. "I can't imagine."

"Yeah, those were the days..." Megavolt trailed off. "Of course, I'm not speaking to him anymore. That jerk blamed the whole video tournament fiasco on ME! Can you believe he'd do something like that? Some friend!" He stared at the ceiling unhappily.

"Doesn't sound like much of a friend, if you ask me," Leona said. "Sounds more like those goons who were head of the science club in high school. Do you remember them? Always pretending they were your best friends, then ripping off your science project ideas. They got my best ideas two years in a row that way. I was such a sucker." She shook her head at the memory.

Megavolt frowned and thought. It seemed like he did remember something. "Say," he began slowly. "Are you talking about that brilliant idea for using lightning bugs to power lamps that got...um...second place in the science fair that one year?"

"First place, and it was my junior year. You were a senior," Leona agreed bitterly. "And the year before that, my tests for measuring the intelligence of iguanas got second place for Helmut Schnauzer, the club president."

Megavolt nodded fiercely. "I do remember that! I do! And you never told anybody why you were so upset!"

"Yeah, well..." Leona cleared her throat, stood up, and tucked her clipboard under one arm. "It was a long time ago, Elmo. Listen, I've got some stuff to take care of in the lab, so I'd better go. If you remember anything else from back then, why don't you start writing it down? Maybe it'll help you get the rest of your memory back. Maybe you'll remember why you wrote 'Andromeda'."

"Why the hurry all of a sudden?" Megavolt asked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and hopped back up.

"No hurry," Leona said evasively. "I just have work to get done, that's all. That's why SHUSH pays me, you know?" She punched the exit button and backed out the door when it opened. "See you tomorrow, Elmo."

"Hmph. Yeah, see ya," Megavolt muttered as the door shut and the locks engaged behind her. "Don't bother with small chitchat or anything." He flopped back down on the bed and grabbed the notebook out from underneath it. Might as well get this over with while he still remembered anything. He pulled the pen out of the ring binding where he'd stuck it and flipped to the next blank page, then sat chewing thoughtfully on the end of the pen before he began.

Journal day 2

"Darn pen!" Megavolt growled, shaking it fiercely. It did no good - the pen was well and truly out of ink. He ran an electric current down the pen in a fit of pique, watched it melt in his fingers and threw it onto the floor. "Great! How am I supposed to finish writing all this stupid stuff down if I don't have anything to write with?" he wondered grumpily. As he looked around the room his gaze fell upon the small college desk, and he realized that he hadn't bothered to look in the drawers yet. He'd been too busy brooding over everything that had happened lately. Maybe there was a pen in one of those drawers.

Opening the top drawer of the two, Megavolt discovered that it was stuffed with kleenex, paper clips, a small mirror, several twisty-ties, a stapler, and other assorted useful office-type supplies. There was a box of unsharpened number 2 pencils (but no sharpener) and three black-capped ink pens. Pleased with the discovery, Megavolt grabbed one of the pens and started to go back to his journal. Then he paused. If the top drawer hadn't been cleaned out yet, what about the bottom drawer? What might be in there? Curious, he set the pen down and opened the second drawer.

The contents seemed to be a stack of paperstuff. At the top of the stack was a textbook titled "Elements of Bio-organic Chemistry As Applied to Discrete Mechanisms in a Symbiotic Community". Megavolt tossed it over his shoulder and went on to the next thing in the stack, a manila folder labeled "The Zulu Culture". He leafed through it briefly, discovered it was full of class notes about some aboriginal tribe in Africa, and tossed it aside as well. There was a three ring binder filled with notes from a basic psychology class, then a sheaf of looseleaf papers that seemed to be study notes and example problems from a calculus class. Several of them were wrong, he noted, absently picking up the pen and correcting them. When he looked in the drawer again, he found that he'd come to the bottom of the stack. The last thing left was a thin lavender notebook with the words PRIVATE!! THIS MEANS YOU!! scrawled on it in big, blocky letters.

"Well, well...this looks interesting," he murmured as he pulled the notebook out and flipped to the first page. "Let's just see what we've got here..."

It was a journal. It took Megavolt a couple of seconds of reckoning from the dates on the journal to realize that it must have been written in Leona's freshman year in college. A bit of skimming confirmed this. The first few entries were about Leona's first experience with a roommate, missing her home and family, how the classes were both easier and more difficult than she'd expected. There was a bit of a rant about the number of false fire alarms that kept going off in the dorms at two in the morning. Megavolt chuckled when he got to the entry complaining about how some frat boys had made a panty raid on her floor. Briefly he wished that he'd gotten to go to college. A panty raid sounded fun. Come to think of it though, if nothing had happened to him to jolt him out of his normal life, the Elmo Sputterspark who would have gone to college would never have dared to go on a panty raid. Megavolt laughed wryly to himself. Maybe he'd gotten the better end of the deal after all.

He flipped through a few more pages. There was complaining about the loud music the people downstairs from her always played at three in the morning. There was a full three pages about what a great time she'd had the previous night at the campus ice-cream shop, and how many friends she'd just made. There were another two describing a night when a thunderstorm cut all the power to the dorm making it impossible to study, so everyone had come out into the hallway with candles and musical instruments and there'd been an impromptu concert. It sounded like a nice little community, and for another fleeting moment Megavolt found himself wishing he could have been a part of something like that. He flipped over a couple more pages, then stopped when he caught his name in the middle of one of the journal entries.

"She mentioned me?" Megavolt stopped flipping and began to actually read this entry instead of just scanning it.

January 5

The writing meandered onto other topics, but Megavolt ignored the rest. Slowly he closed the journal, feeling very odd. "She actually...if I'd asked her, she would've said yes..." he mumbled. He threw the journal down onto the floor, leaned against the wall, and banged his head against it several times. "I was such an IDIOT! She would've said YES!" He banged his head on the wall a few more times, then stepped back, watching little points of light dance in front of his eyes. "Uh...gee, that kinda hurts. Remind me never to do that again," he mumbled to no one in particular just before he fainted onto the floor.

"All right, now see if you can repeat yesterday's memory sequence back to me," Dr. Twiddlewhisker told Megavolt.

Megavolt sighed and ticked the words off on his fingers with a look that clearly said how bored he felt. "A baloo is a bear. To wuzzle is to mix. A younker is a young man. Sculch is junk." He shook his head. "For pete's sake, Leona. Everybody remembers those. We only had them on the scholastic aptitude tests every single year from middle school through high school."

"Yes, but you remember that. That's the point." Leona grinned and scribbled another note on her ever-present clipboard.

Megavolt shrugged and changed the subject. "My hearing's coming up in a couple of days. What are you gonna tell the judge?"

"I think it's a little early to say yet, but if things keep progressing the way they have been, then I think I'll be able to tell him that your memory is reliable enough to be trusted in court." Leona gave a nod of satisfaction as she put the clipboard down on the table and started to gather up the injection paraphernalia that she'd brought into the room. "They may even let you go free until Negaduck's trial. I don't know if I can declare you cured of being criminally insane, though. We'd need to do a lot more experiments and testing before I could do that."

"That's good. I guess." Megavolt didn't sound overly happy.

Leona looked at him curiously. "What's wrong? I thought you wanted your evidence to stand up in court?"

"I do!" Megavolt slammed his fist on the table. "I'm gonna get back at that rotten, no-good sadistic double-crosser if it's the last thing I do!"

"Then what's the problem?"

"It's...I..." Megavolt suddenly found he didn't want to meet her gaze. "Never mind. It's stupid." It wasn't what he meant, exactly, but he couldn't quite figure out what he did mean.

Leona went over to sit down beside him on the bed. She looked at Megavolt with some real concern in her eyes. "Elmo, what is it? If something about the experiment is bothering you, you need to tell me."

He flinched. "No, it's not that...I mean, in a peripheral way it is, but not exactly, but it's more like..." he stuttered. "No, never mind. Like I said, it doesn't matter." He swallowed hard and wished he'd never said anything to begin with.

"Elmo." It was just one word, spoken flatly, but Leona accompanied it with a Look that said very clearly 'if you don't tell me what's on your mind right now I'm going to kick you in the shins. Or something'.

Megavolt cringed under The Look. He remembered it. Leona had used it on him before back in high school, on the day he'd come to the before-school science club meeting with a black eye. She had cornered him after the meeting and given him the third degree about it. He hadn't been able to withstand The Look then, and he found himself giving way before it now, too. "It's just..." he studied the floor so he wouldn't have to look at her any more. "I'm starting to remember stuff I'd rather not remember. You know. About my family. And stuff. Um...and I remembered why I wrote 'Andromeda' in my journal. She's my niece."

Leona gave him an understanding look. "It's ok. You've got a lot of ground to recover, and it isn't going to be easy. I suggest you keep writing down whatever you remember. But if there's anything you'd rather just talk about...?"

Megavolt's thoughts were whirling murderously in his head. He really wasn't comfortable with the turn this conversation had taken. Why had he let it get this far? Why couldn't he just tell her to shut up? He was Megavolt, a known and feared supervillain. He was the greatest villian in St. Canard! Even Darkwing Duck admitted that they were archenemies. So why couldn't he just tell Leona to mind her own business? He would. That's exactly what he'd do. He wasn't the same person Leona had known in high school, and maybe she wasn't the same person either but he didn't know, and he didn't know how to treat her anymore, and it was really frazzling his nerves. He'd just tell her to cut the chitchat and get on with whatever she had to do for the experiment today.

Steeling his resolve, Megavolt opened his mouth and heard himself say, "Do you still like mushroom, pinapple, and anchovies on your pizza?"

"What?" Leona blinked in surprise. "Well...yes, but what-"

Megavolt slapped his hand over his mouth. "No! That wasn't-! I- never mind! Just...get out of here!" He stood up and towered over his old friend. Blue arcs of electricity started to curl around his fists. "Go on! Get outta here and leave me alone!" he half-shrieked at Leona. "Get out of here before I fry you!"

Leona hastily gathered up her equipment and backed towards the door. "Take it easy, Elmo," she said in a soothing voice. "Just...turn the voltage down, all right? I'm leaving. See?" She backed up to the button beside the doors and thumbed it. The bolts on the doors slid back with a heavy click and the doors opened. "Just calm down, all right? I'm leaving now."

A small bolt of lightning chased her out of the room. "GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!" Megavolt screamed after her.

The two guards outside the door leapt inside as Leona scurried out of the room. They levelled their guns at the villain. "All right, hands in the air!" one of them barked.

Leona slipped back inside the room, hiding behind one of the guards. She tugged on his elbow. "That's not necessary. It was part of the experiment. Just leave the test subject alone - everything is going according to schedule." She would have sounded more reassuring if her voice hadn't been trembling.

The guard looked at her uncertainly. "Are you sure, Dr. Twiddlewhisker? It looked like he was going after you."

"Everything's under control." She threw Megavolt a frightened, uncertain look over her shoulder as she hurried the guards outside. "This was just a temporary setback, I'm sure. I'll uh, talk to you tomorrow, Elmo." The doors clanked shut behind her.

For the next hour Megavolt did nothing but pace the room in a circle, pounding his fists against his head and cursing himself.

Journal Day 5

Friday

For the first time since the experiment had begun, Leona knocked before coming in. Her voice carried through the doors, a little higher-pitched and more tense than normal. "Elmo... can I come in?"

"Um...yeah, I guess," Megavolt replied, steeling himself. He put down the makeshift screwdriver he'd fashioned from the office supplies he'd found and rubbed his eyes tiredly; he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the previous night.

Leona stepped inside rather timidly. "Are...are you feeling any better today?" she asked. She was staying right beside the door instead of taking her usual seat on the bed or at the desk. She looked half ready to bolt right back outside.

Megavolt stood up and cleared his throat nervously. "Um...yeah. Listen, about yesterday, I just-"

Leona held her hand up and shook her head. "No, that was my fault. I...I wasn't very professional, and I apologize. You..." she paused and took a deep breath. "You...aren't the same person you were ten years ago, and I just wasn't acknowledging that fact. And besides that, I was crossing professional boundaries I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have taken advantage of the fact that we used to know each other, and I shouldn't have pushed you, Elmo. I'm sorry."

Megavolt's mouth hung open, stuck on the apology he'd just been about to offer. "You...what?"

"If you want to end the experiment now, I'll understand," Leona continued. "I'd hate to do it, but after yesterday..."

"No! Uh..."Megavolt trailed off uncertainly, not quite sure what to say from there. His mind was whirling in confusion, trying to wrap around this sudden twist. He'd been almost sure Leona would have the guards come in here with her today, but now here she stood, alone, apologizing to him? He turned back to the desk and began to fiddle with the electronic circuitry spread out across it.

Leona finally stepped a little further into the room. She motioned towards the electronics. "Had the t.v. apart again, have you?"

Suddenly Megavolt remembered that it had been Leona's t.v. in college. Maybe she actually cared that he'd disassembled it. He cleared his throat. "Don't worry, I can put it back the way it was."

"I know," Leona replied quietly. She sat her clipboard down and pulled a small hypodermic syringe filled with a familiar-looking fluid out of the pocket of her lab coat. She motioned for Megavolt to give her his arm. Her movements were suddenly very clipped and precise. Very professional.

The sudden change in her demeanour was too radical. Megavolt thought he was going to snap again. "Look, would you just cut it out!" he half-yelled at Leona. "I'm the one that should be apologizing to you for trying to kill you yesterday!"

Leona looked at him with a tightly-controlled calmness. "I don't think you were trying to kill me. If you had been, I wouldn't be standing here right now."

"How do you know? I could've just missed," Megavolt said, then mentally slapped himself for saying the wrong thing again.

Leona shrugged and motioned for his arm again. "Look, let's just forget about it, shall we? There's work to do today, and dwelling on the past won't get anything done."

Megavolt held his arm out of reach. "No! I...don't do this to me, Leona! I mean it!" He retreated across the room and sat down on the bed, crossing his arms glumly on his knees. "I..." he found he didn't quite know how to begin, so he took a deep breath and plunged straight into the thoughts that had been circling round and round in his head since the previous day.

"Look, this is just too weird, ok? I mean, it's been years since anybody really gave a flying faraday about me. I just...I don't know what to do. Things aren't simple anymore, and since I started remembering my family, I know there's something I've gotta go handle. Two things, actually. And you..." Megavolt looked Leona dead in the eyes with real feeling. "You're the only person besides my sister who ever..." he choked on the words and couldn't finish the sentence.

Slowly Leona sat the syringe on the desk beside the electronic parts. She had a very odd expression on her face as she took a couple of steps towards Megavolt. Maybe it was confusion, maybe it was something else. He couldn't tell, so he just continued. "I could've broken out of here anytime I wanted if I'd really wanted to. Magnetic locks are child's toys to someone with my control over electricity. I've lived through explosions before. But..." he stopped, gulped, and continued. "For once in my stupid life I'm trying to do things the legal way so I won't have Darkwing Duck and the rest of the law on my back when I get out of here. I'm gonna have a big enough fight on my hands without having to deal with Darkwing in the middle of it."

"Elmo...what are you planning to do when you leave SHUSH labs?" Leona asked in a tight, somewhat frightened voice.

His reply was just as strained, if not more so. "I've got to visit my family."

Several miles across town, hidden in the old, unused sections of St. Canard's sewerways, a mad toymaker sat on his mountain of toys and cackled gleefully. He was all alone except for the bananna-shaped doll that sat on the arm of his makeshift throne. The toymaker held a pair of pliers in one hand and a dolly in the other.

"A few twists here and a bit of adjustment there, and she's all set," Quackerjack smiled. He fiddled with the doll a few more moments, then set her down on the ground in front of him. The key in her back began to turn. The doll took a few steps forward and flung her arms out in front of her. A tinny 'voice' from the box in her chest said 'Won't you play with me?' as she continued walking forward. After a couple of feet she stopped, her head split open, and a mini-cannon popped out. The boom resounded throughout the sewers.

"Hee hee hee! Oh, this is my best creation yet," Quackerjack said to Mr. Bananna Brain. "It's perfect! Why, my Crazy Crissie doll is so cute, how could any little girl resist playing with her?"

"Who are you kidding?" the doll 'said' back to Quackerjack. "She's just like all the other dolls you built this week."

Quackerjack folded his arms and sniffed. "Is not! This one has red hair. The other ones were blonde." However, he slid a peek over at the doll and had to concede the point. "Oh, all right. You're right. I guess there's only so many variations of an exploding dolly you can do before they all start looking the same." He put his head glumly in his hand. "Well, what do you want me to do? I haven't been able to think properly since last week."

He hopped down off his throne and began to pace around his hideout, circling around stacks of various finished toys and toys in progress. "Everybody went off to play by themselves," he grumped. "Bushroot and the Liquidator went home, and Negaduck got his own playpen in the maximum security prison. And I'm stuck here all by myself! It's not fair!" He paced along the escher-esque bridge he'd built with an erector set, circled back around and confronted the doll on the toy throne. "I'm bored!"

"You could always invite Darkwing Duck to play," the doll 'suggested'.

Quackerjack thought about that for a minute, then shook his head. "Nah, he's no fun. Darkwing Duck's a party pooper. I know what I need - someone I can really party down with! Somebody who knows how to have fun! Somebody like..."

The doll stared blankly at him. "Somebody like Megavolt?" it 'offered'.

"Yeah, somebody like...no, no, NO!" Quackerjack shook his head angrily. "I'm not talking to Mr. Electron. I tried to make up with him earlier, and he was mean!" Quackerjack paced a little more, then did a handstand and started walking that way to try and clear his mind. Sometimes, he found, he could think better when he looked at the world from upside down. "On the other hand, nobody throws a curve ball like Megavolt does, either," he pondered. "I've never seen anybody else take out all the windows on two sides of a house with the same pitch." Quackerjack chuckled madly at the memory.

"Maybe he was just having a bad day, Ray," Mr. Bananna Brain 'said' to his owner.

Quackerjack laughed with relief. "Yeah, I'll bet that's it. Hey, I know! If I go bust him out of prison, he'll probably feel better and come out to play with me. Mr. Bananna Brain, you're a genius!" Quackerjack flipped back onto his feet, snatched the doll up, and began to sort through a few of his favorite explosive toys. "Boy, this is gonna be so much fun," he crooned happily.

The explosion rocked the jail.

"Not again!" the warden groaned as he ran to investigate. "We just got this place patched up from when Negaduck attacked it!" He barrelled down a hall and skidded around a corner just in time to be flattened by Quackerjack on a pogo stick.

The clown stopped and bounced up and down a few times on the warden's chest. "Say, can you tell me where Megavolt's cell is?" the clown asked the warden. "I'm a bit lost. You guys have rebuilt the place since the last time I was here."

The warden wheezed. "Get...off..me!"

"Oh - right," Quackerjack said. He bounced the pogo stick onto the floor and started to hop expectant circles around the warden. "So, how about it?"

The warden cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled back the way he'd come. "HELP!"

Quackerjack promptly pulled out a set of chattering teeth and tossed them at the warden. The teeth clamped around the warden's nose and mouth, effectively stifling the shout. "That's not playing nice," Quackerjack told him. "I just asked you a simple question."

"Grrr...you're both loony!" the warden muttered out of the side of his mouth. "I wish that government agency would just take you off our hands too!"

Quackerjack gasped. "What? You mean Megs isn't here?"

"That's right - the government has him in some kind of ultra-high security place somewhere in town," the warden told him angrily. "His hearing comes up tomorrow and they might let him out then."

"Well geez!" Quackerjack exclaimed. "Why didn't you just say so to begin with?"

"You're not going anywhere, mate!" the warden said, prying the false teeth off his face. "You're under arrest for attempted jailbreaking!"

"Sorry charlie," Quackerjack said, bouncing away. "I'd love to stay and play, but if Megavolt isn't here then I'm leaving. But here, you can have one of my toys to play with instead!" As he left, he tossed the Crazy Crissie doll over his shoulder.

A second explosion rocked the jail as Quackerjack made his getaway.

At roughly the same time, across town...

Heavy doors clanged open in the maximum security prison. Footsteps clicked through winding halls down into the solitary confinement zone. There was the chingle of a keyring, and then a single, brilliant beam of light split the darkness in Negaduck's cell. A guard's shadow briefly blotted out the light. "Your lawyer is here to see you," the guard informed him gruffly before stepping aside to make way for a thin, reedy-looking weasel.

Negaduck looked up at the balding man who stood clutching a briefcase in the doorway and smiled suavely. "Well, well, well, it's about time you showed up. What took you so long?"

The weasel adjusted his square spectacles and peered at Negaduck before entering the cell. "Sir, I'm not sure you appreciate the gravity of your situation. I'm told the person you allegedly tried to kill has agreed to testify against you in court, and he has very strong backing for his story." The lawyer adjusted his spectacles again and rubbed his neck a little nervously.

"Oh he has, has he?" Negaduck sneered. "That's very interesting. I think I'm going to have to have a little talk with him when I get out of here."

The lawyer cleared his throat. "Uh...yes. Be that as it may, this makes it rather difficult for our side of the case."

"Oh, I don't think so," Negaduck said casually. "Is that the briefcase I asked you to bring?"

The lawyer looked down at the case and nodded. "It is, although why you wanted it is unclear to me. Sir, it's completely empty. What good is an empty briefcase to you?"

Negaduck gave an evil chuckle. "Allow me to show you." He reached over, grabbed the briefcase from the lawyer, and before anyone could move to stop him he hit a secret switch beside the middle latch. Two jets of dark fumes shot out of the side latches, filling the room with a dense cloud. Negaduck smiled and breathed deeply of the smog while the lawyer and the guard retched and sank helplessly to their knees. "Just like the air back home in the Negaverse," Negaduck said fondly as he grabbed the keyring from the guard and released himself from the manacles.

Quick as a blink, he used the chains to truss up both the lawyer and the guard, then he tossed the now-spent briefcase onto the floor. "Well gentlemen, I hate to reminisce and run, but I have business to attend to. See ya!" Negaduck laughed madly and dashed out the door, still clutching the keyring.

Saturday

"What's up, Dad? Kindof early for you to be going out on patrol, isn't it?" Gosalyn asked her father around a mouthful of Fruity Flakes as Drake Mallard strode across the living room and perched on one of the revolving blue chairs. The bright sunlight of mid morning was creeping through the windows and splashing a bright patch on the couch, where Gosalyn had been sitting watching cartoons.

Drake yawned and blinked. "Well, it would be if I was actually going out on patrol, but I'm not. If you remember, Megavolt's hearing is today, and I've got to be there to testify and make sure nothing gets out of hand. Or rather, Darkwing Duck needs to be there."

"Oh. Hey, sounds interesting - can I come?" Gosalyn asked. "You might need some backup. I'll bet Megavolt is planning something really nasty! He probably stole something from those loony scientists at SHUSH and is gonna hold up the courtroom and escape or something."

Drake looked at her sternly. "If that's the case, then I certainly don't want you there mixed up in the middle of it, young lady."

Gosalyn scowled, then wheedled the best way she knew how. "Aw, come on, Dad! It'll be educational. I've never been to a court hearing before." Not that she cared whether it was educational or not, but it was the most sure-fire excuse to sway her dad.

Drake started to protest again, then looked thoughtful instead. "Well...that's true. I guess it wouldn't hurt you to see the justice system in action. Besides, I don't really think anything is going to happen. As it so happens, I talked to J. Gander Hooter day before yesterday, and he said there weren't any strange occurances or thefts this week. As hard as it may be to believe, Megavolt might actually be on the up and up for once."

"You really think so?" Gosalyn asked as she shoved her bowl of cereal aside and hopped into the lounge chair beside her father's.

They looked at each other. "Naaah," they agreed.

"He's probably up to something or other," Drake nodded. "But with me there, that malevolent miscreant won't get away with even the most miniscule plan. Come on, Gos...let's get vigilant." He smiled in anticipation and punched the Basil statue on the table, activating the chairs.

Darkwing Duck stared incredulously at Dr. Twiddlewhisker. "You WHAT??!!" he screeched. Various random people passed by in the background of the courthouse lobby, completely ignoring the hero's apoplectic outburst.

Leona Twiddlewhisker calmly folded her hands behind her back. "You heard the judge, Mr. Darkwing."

"Yes, but...I mean...this is insane!" Darkwing spluttered. "Just because they're letting Megavolt go free with supervision doesn't mean that I approve of you being the babysitter! No offence Dr. Twiddlewhisker, but you just don't seem to grasp how dangerous that fanatical felon is! You need the keen eagle eye of Darkwing Duck to discern any dangerous deviousness that deviant might attempt."

"Darkwing's right!" Gosalyn piped in from behind her father. "Megavolt's sneaky, and you SHUSH guys are too busy with your experiments to see past your own noses."

Dr. Twiddlewhisker looked curiously at Gosalyn. "Who are you?"

Gosalyn started to snap a reply, then realized she couldn't identify herself without compromising Darkwing's secret identity. Instead, she fudged. "I'm...uh...just a random passerby who happened to hear the conversation. That doesn't matter! What makes you think you can handle Megavolt if he decides to blast his way out of your test lab and zap everybody into zombies or something?"

Dr. Twiddlewhisker cleared her throat a bit self-consciously. "It has already been made readily apparant that Mr. Sputterspark is not an entirely stable individual. His destructive abilities and inclinations have been thoroughly documented. Believe me Mr. Darkwing, we are prepared for anything he might attempt. And I might add," she noted, peering at the hero over the rims of her glasses, "your concerns are entirely unfounded. Mr. Sputterspark has indicated to me his intentions to conduct these proceedings in a completely peaceful and legal way."

"And you believe him?" Darkwing said, looking at Dr. Twiddlewhisker as though she belonged in the loony bin with her patient.

"I have no reason to believe otherwise," Dr. Twiddlewhisker said tersely. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I think our ride back to the lab is waiting outside." She turned abruptly and departed, leaving Darkwing and Gosalyn standing alone in the lobby.

Gosalyn pulled a face after the doctor. "Boy, they'll fall for anything, won't they? No wonder half the gadgets they come up with are so screwy!"

Darkwing rubbed his chin moodily. "Either Dr. Twiddlewhisker is up to something, or she's just incredibly naive. Either way, I think SHUSH will benefit from some extra surveillance, Darkwing Duck style."

"Excuse me," a voice tinged with a German accent caught Darkwing's attention at the same time as a finger jabbed his shoulder. "Vould you happen to know vhen der hearing ov a Mr. Megavolt iss comink up?"

"You just missed it," Darkwing said before turning around. "They're just leaving now to go back to-" He turned, finally caught a look at the questioner, and wondered where he'd seen someone with that prominent bill before. The beard, glasses, and three-piece suit were rather throwing him off. "Say, who are you?" Darkwing questioned the stranger suspiciously.

"Ach! No vun important," the stranger said, clapping him on the back. "I'd love to stay und get to know you, but I haff places to go und people to free. Thanks for der info!" The stranger laughed madly and dashed out the door.

Darkwing stood frozen in confusion for a moment, then did a double-take. "That was Quackerjack!" he realized, slapping himself. Quick as a blink he made for the door, then pulled up to a halt as he watched Quackerjack's giant rollerskate car roll past, chasing after the SHUSH van disguised as a laundry truck. The mad toymaker waved gleefully to him from the top of the skate as he went by. Darkwing started to chase him, but was bowled over by Gosalyn crashing into him from behind.

"Hey! Why'd you stop?" she yelled.

"He's getting away," Darkwing growled as he untangled himself from his daughter. "Great! This is just great! It sounds like Quackerjack has some kind of plan to break Megavolt out of SHUSH, and if those two get back together we'll have twice the trouble on our hands. Come on, we've got to get after them! To the Ratcatcher!" He zipped out the door, dragging Gosalyn behind him.

In the back of the SHUSH van, Dr. Twiddlewhisker leaned back with a sigh of relief. "Well, I'd say that went remarkably well," she commented to Megavolt. "You're basically free now. As long as you don't leave town and stay under supervision, everything should be fine. You aren't planning on leaving town, are you?"

"Who, me? Nope," Megavolt shook his head. "Like I said, I've got stuff to do."

Leona gave another sigh of relief. "That's fine, then. Give it another two weeks, and all this should be settled."

"I'm afraid there is just one problem, though," Megavolt told her, standing up.

"What are you talking about?" Leona said. "Elmo, sit down, we're still moving."

"That's the idea," Megavolt said. "Look, I'm sorry about this, but there's just some stuff a guy has to do by himself. You're too much of a goody-two-shoes to let me go, Leona, so..." Small sparks of electricity started to dance from his eyes.

"Elmo, what are you doing?!" Leona started to stand up in alarm. "What about doing things legally? You said-"

"I know what I said!" Megavolt snapped at her. "That was before the judge assigned me a babysitter!"

Leona shook her head in protest. "But-"

"Just forget it, all right?!" Megavolt yelled. "Look, I promise not to kill you, ok? Just...just...never mind! Forget the whole thing!" The sparks in his eyes swarmed together into a stream of electricity that arced into the dashboard of the van. The vehicle took a sudden swerve in the road. The driver gave a surprised yelp and let go of the steering wheel, which continued to turn without his guidance. Megavolt stared at the wheel from the back of the van and turned the van onto the freeway heading north.

"Elmo," Leona began, looking rather frightened, "if you'd just calm down we can get this worked out-"

A small lightning bolt sizzled off Megavolt's finger and blasted a hole though the back of the van. "See ya, Leona," Megavolt waved to her over his shoulder as he climbed over to the new exit. "It's been fun – sort of. Don't worry about the van - it'll keep heading north until it runs out of gas. You should be ok as long as you don't run out of road. Oh, and don't bother trying to contact anyone over the radio, 'cause I short-circuited it."

"Elmo, wait-!" She stretched out to grab his arm, and missed. The car behind them suddenly swerved and slammed on its brakes as the notorious supervillain jumped onto its hood, scrambled for balance, and went flying in a semi-controlled path that landed him somewhere along the side of the road.

Leona stared at the empty, blasted hole in the door.

Megavolt was gone.

Quackerjack's rollerskate car followed the van as far as its northward turn onto route 99. Then there was an explosion from the van as it crossed an overpass, and Quackerjack watched Megavolt escape out the back of the van and do some unplanned traffic surfing before making it to the side of the road, where he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and hopped over the guard railing to disappear from sight.

"That looks like fun!" Quackerjack giggled. "Leave it to Megs to come up with all the neat games. I wanna try!"

The driver of the station wagon beside his car was extremely surprised when a madly laughing clown bounced off his windshield, did a somersault in the air, vaulted off the crashbar of the jeep in the lane beside him, and landed in a handstand on top of the delivery van behind it. The driver of the delivery van leaned out to see what had hit his vehicle and nearly swallowed his gum when he saw the clown riding the roof as though it were a surfboard. The clown grinned down at him, waved, and donned a pair of sunglasses. "Surf's up!" Quackerjack laughed.

Suddenly Quackerjack did a double-take and motioned frantically in front of the van, where his unmanned rollerskate car was weaving erratically across the road. "Look out! Wipeout!" the clown yelled, abandoning the van just before it careened into the hearse which had just collided with the skatecar.

Quackerjack tumbled to a safe stop beside the road, hopped back up, and watched the ensuing multiple car pileup with rapt glee. "Now that's what I call fun! I really must find Megavolt and congratulate him on inventing such a wonderful game!" He looked around and finally spotted Megavolt's bright yellow jumpsuit receding into the distance on the road below the overpass. Quackerjack shrugged, chuckled, and leapt over the guard railing to follow.

Darkwing Duck sat fuming in traffic behind a major wreck. By the time he managed to get the Ratcatcher around the lines of grouchy motorists (ducking a couple of tacos that someone threw at him as he skipped through the line), there was nothing left for him to find but the tangle of cars that had snarled up traffic. Quackerjack's rollerskate car was there, but there was no sign of the disguised SHUSH van.

Negaduck watched the whole fiasco on a television tuned to channel 3 news in the window of an electronics store. Live footage shot from a news helicoptor detailed the events as fire trucks and ambulances rushed to the scene. The camera zoomed in to show the original wrecked cars, among them Quackerjack's empty skatecar.

Negaduck resolved to find Quackerjack for questioning.

Megavolt stood at the entrance to a ritzy-looking housing development with a fancy sign naming it "Aviatrix Park". He looked down at the crumpled up page he'd torn out of a phone book and double-checked the address. No doubt about it, he was in the right place. It looked like his sister had really moved up in the world. Nervously he shoved the paper into the pocket of the red trenchcoat he'd acquired on the way here. Together with the crimson wide-brimmed hat, it really looked rather spiffy, he thought. Maybe even respectable. At least, he hoped it did.

He'd been torn between coming here or looking up his parents first. It had been a tough decision, but eventually cowardice had won out over revenge. Better to tackle the easier topic first, Megavolt thought, and then worry about getting even with his father afterwards. Even after all he'd been through in the past ten years, just thinking about that confrontation gave him phantom pains in his left arm. He absently rubbed that arm, trying not to think about the six weeks it had been in a cast the last time he'd tried to stand up to his dad.

No, finding Evelyn and checking up on Andromeda was going to be much easier - at least, that had been his reasoning when he still stood in the phone booth several miles away. Now that he was actually here, Megavolt was suddenly finding that this was going to be a lot more difficult than he'd thought. Evelyn's parting words kept repeating themselves in his head. What would a criminal like you know about family? You never even called us! How was he ever going to make Evelyn understand?

Taking a deep, nervous breath, Megavolt started to walk past the entrance sign and into the expansive streets winding through the wide yards and clustered trees. In some respects, the place really did seem like a park.

He pulled up short as a familiar clown vaulted over from behind the sign and landed at his feet. "Well what in the world are you doing here?" Quackerjack greeted him happily and gasped. "No, wait - don't tell me. You found a nice, juicy target for a knockover somewhere in there. Boy, I gotta hand it to ya Megs - you're not one to sit still and let life pass you by! Always on the move, that's what I like about you. By the way - that was a neat game you invented back there on the freeway. But if you want traffic-surfing points, you gotta play with style. Remind me to give you some tips sometime."

Megavolt stood rooted to the ground, absolutely speechless for the whole duration of Quackerjack's greeting. Finally he managed to splutter, "What the -? You...Quackerjack-! Geez-o-pete, what are YOU doing here??" He slapped his hand over his face in disbelief. "Of all the-!"

"Aw, come on Megs," Quackerjack pleaded with him. "Don't be like that. Forgive and forget, ok? I went to a lot of trouble to break you out of jail, y'know."

"I wasn't in jail," Megavolt pointed out to him dryly.

Quackerjack shrugged as though it didn't matter. "I still tried - close enough. It counts."

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Megavolt planted his hands on his hips and frowned at Quackerjack. "Look, for your information, I'm not planning a heist."

"No?" Quackerjack looked curiously back over his shoulder at the large, wealthy-looking houses that dotted the landscape behind him. "Well, silly me! I should've known you'd have something more fun in mind. So what's the plan?"

"None of your business!" Megavolt gritted his teeth, and tried not to scream too loudly at his friend. " Just get lost, willya?! I didn't ask you to follow me! Can't a guy get any privacy in this city?!"

Quackerjack looked at him like a puppy who had just been kicked. "But...I just thought..."

"Well, whatever you were thinking, just quit it," Megavolt snapped at him through clenched teeth. "I want to be alone. Get it? ALONE. A-L-O-N-E!" His fist trembled as he seriously thought about punching Quackerjack into Low Earth Orbit. His nerves were already stretched almost to their breaking point. In other circumstances he might not have minded the intrusion, but right now Quackerjack was absolutely the last thing he wanted in his face.

A petulant expression dropped over the clown. "Fine, be that way then," he pouted. "See if I ever ask you out to play again. And here I thought we were friends." He started to sulk away.

Megavolt sighed and grabbed Quackerjack by the tassels of his hat. "Oh, for the love of Tessla! We are friends, ok? But I just...look, I can't talk about this now. I'll see you later. Maybe after all this is over."

"After what's over?" Quackerjack asked, looking confused.

"Later!" Megavolt growled, shoving Quackerjack back out towards the street. "Go on, shoo!" He watched Quackerjack walk a little ways away, stop and turn back around. Impatiently Megavolt shooed him away. Quackerjack waved innocently back and continued on down the street. When Megavolt was satisfied that the clown had gone, he turned back to the houses and tried again.

"Celebrity Death Match, round one," he mumbled to himself. "In one corner, the mighty supervillain Megavolt. In the other, his thick-headed little sister, the Irrascable Evelyn." He tugged his wide-brimmed hat down a little more tightly onto his head and stepped into the residential park.

The address wasn't difficult to find; three blocks and a sharp right turn later, Megavolt found himself staring at the mailbox in front of the long driveway of 129 Nezumi Avenue. One car was parked there - a Jaguar. As Megavolt stood there ogling it, a small breeze sprang up, chilling the sheen of sweat that sprang up on his skin. It was all he could do to keep static electricity from playing in nervous arcs around him.

The house was huge, an English Tudor affair with two wings. It looked like it should hold a huge family. Suddenly Megavolt realized he had no idea how many kids Evelyn had, or who she'd married. Or even what had happened to the husband, considering that Evelyn was using her maiden name. Was he still around? If so, Megavolt sincerely hoped he was nothing like their father. He wouldn't be held accountable for his actions if Evelyn had gone and married something like that.

Well...there was only one way to find out. Steeling his resolve, Megavolt walked up the driveway, approached the front door, and raised his hand to the brass knocker.

A minute later he still stood there, hand still raised, knocker completely untouched.

This isn't working, he thought. Come on, you knob! It's easy! You just reach out and knock the door down - no, you knock on the door, and then wait for someone to answer. It's simple! Come on, you've faced down Darkwing Duck how many times? You survived Negaduck! This should be a piece of cake!

After another minute of standing there, he decided to take a walk around the house to case it out instead. That was probably a better idea, anyway. Maybe he could pick up some clues as to what he was dealing with here. As he crossed the yard, late summer-blooming flowers winkled at him from their tidy beds along the front side. A high, sturdily built picket fence closed off the sideyard, and presumably the backyard as well, but the locked gate built into the fence deterred him not at all. He was up and over it in a jiff. Peeking around the corner into the huge backyard, he saw it was mostly empty except for a pair of trees and a large doghouse. He quickly ducked back around the corner into the sideyard, half expecting a big, nasty doberman, a pit bull, or worse to come bounding out to attack him, but nothing happened. Relieved, Megavolt started to walk out into the yard to get a look at the house from the backside.

The back door swang open, clattering against the side of the house. Quickly Megavolt nipped back into the shadows and watched as his niece came bounding down the steps of the wooden deck and down into the yard. Her mother's tired voice drifted out after her. "Andromeda Sue Sputterspark, what have I told you about banging the door like that?"

"Sorry Mom!" Andromeda yelled over her shoulder.

Now there was an explosion of movement from the doghouse, as a small, white mop of a dog shot out of it and plastered itself across Andromeda's feet. The girl tripped, caught herself neatly on both hands, and rolled onto her back holding the doggy in the air. She giggled. "Keppler, you silly thing." She jumped to her feet and airplaned the dog through the air, running in circles around the yard. "So what are we today, Keppler? Captain Duck and Mr. Bock? How about Ham Solo, and you can be Chewie? No, wait - I know! I'll be Lister, you can be Rimmer, and I'll bring Robber out here and he can be the Cat!"

Keppler woofed in her arms, sniffed the air, and started struggling to be put down.

"Whatsa matter?" Andromeda asked the dog, setting him on the ground. "You don't wanna play Red Dwarf?"

Keppler gave a couple of nervous woofs and started making for the side of the house, whuffling in the back of his throat. Andromeda followed curiously. "What is it, boy? Didja smell a squirrel or somethi-"

The dog rounded the corner and ran right into Megavolt's feet, rebounded onto the ground, then started woofing furiously at the intruder. Megavolt cringed as his niece, following on the dog's tail, stopped and stared right at him. For a second she looked as though she might scream in surprise.

"Shhhh!" Megavolt hissed at her frantically. "Don't yell! Nobody's supposed to know I'm here!"

"Uncle Megavolt!" Andromeda looked absolutely floored. "What are you doing here?"

Megavolt wrung his hands nervously. "Um. That is, I, uh...well... actually, I came to see you and your mom, but I wasn't sure she'd want to see me again, so I thought I'd just surprise her."

Andromeda giggled behind one hand. "Most people who visit use the front door."

Megavolt smiled weakly at her. "Yeah, well...this way it's a bigger surprise."

"That's for sure," Andromeda agreed. "Boy, was Mom ever mad the last time she saw you. I never saw her that mad before, even when that judge threw out her case in court."

"Um. Yeah. I kindof figured she would be. Your mom always had strong opinions about everything," Megavolt said, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he wondered, "Judge?" Somehow he couldn't picture Evelyn sitting behind the defendant's bench in a court. "What , did she get a speeding ticket?"

"Nope, Mom's a lawyer," Andromeda said proudly. "She's really good, too, and she makes zillions of dollars."

"Really?" Megavolt looked around at the house again in awe and nodded. That certainly explained a lot. "So what does your dad do? Is he a lawyer too?"

Andromeda shook her head. "I think he's raising ostriches on a ranch somewhere outside of San Ganderos, California. I don't get to see him much."

"Oh. Well, that's...unique." Megavolt scratched his head in surprise. He was a bit relieved. The absence of Andromeda's father was a twist he hadn't expected, but it made things slightly easier. "What about your grandparents? Are they still around?"

"I never really get to see Dad's side of the family, but I guess they're around somewhere," Andromeda replied. "Gramma Sputterspark moved away, but Granpa Sputterspark still lives in St. Canard." She reached down and scratched Keppler behind the ears. The little dog was still whuffling irritably at the intruder.

"Can you make him stop that?" Megavolt asked, resisting the urge to kick the dog.

"He likes you," Andromeda replied happily, patting the dog down the sides.

Megavolt eyed Keppler suspiciously. The dog eyed him back. Somehow, Megavolt didn't think those bare teeth meant the dog was smiling.

Andromeda grabbed the cuff of her uncle's sleeve. "Hey, you wanna come play with me? It'll be great! We can be Y-Men, travelling to the home planet of the Hive, and you can be, um...not Thunderstorm, she's a girl...um...who else does lightning?" The girl's face twisted in thought. "No, that's not right. You remind me of somebody, but I can't remember who. Hey, can you do the cool thing with the sparks again?"

"What, this?" Frowning slightly with concentration, Megavolt held his finger and thumb a couple of inches apart and made a couple short arcs of electricity crawl up between them.

Andromeda giggled and clapped. "That's so cool!"

"Thanks," Megavolt smirked, relaxing just a touch. The more he saw of his niece, the better he liked her. She appreciated talent.

"Come back and play with me," Andromeda tugged at his sleeve again.

"Maybe later," Megavolt told her, wondering whether he ought to introduce his niece to Quackerjack sometime. Those two would have a ball together, he thought. "Don't you have any brothers or sisters to play with?"

Andromeda's long ponytails flopped as she shook her head. "Nope. O solo mio."

"Oh. Sorry. Bet that gets kindof lonely, just you and your mom in this big house," Megavolt said, edging away from Keppler. The little dog kept its glittering black eyes fixed on him.

Andromeda shrugged. "Yeah, sometimes, I guess. But I've got Keppler and Robber to keep me company, so it's not so bad. And Stacey too." The girl pulled her space doll out and hugged it tightly. "Someday I'm gonna be just like her and go on real adventures, not just pretend ones."

"Sure, why not?" Megavolt chuckled. "A bright kid like you shouldn't have any problems getting into space."

Suddenly an idea dawned on Andromeda and her face lit up. "Hey, could you help me build a spaceship, Uncle Megavolt? I bet a genius like you already has designs for one somewhere, right?"

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Er, well, not per se...although I don't see why not..." His mind immediately started drawing up prototype designs before he mentally slapped himself. "Um. Wouldn't your mom be mad, though?"

Andromeda visibly wilted. "Please?" She wheedled. "We could hide it at your house. Mom wouldn't have to know."

"Well..." Megavolt started to agree again before he remembered that he no longer really had a home. "Um, no, that won't work either. My place got smashed up. We'd have to get Dr. Slug to loan us his hideout, since it's the only other decent working lab I know of, and then we'd-" suddenly he broke off and really did slap himself upside the head. "What am I saying? That won't work, either! Dr. Slug's lab got smeared in a freak explosion of oatmeal last month!"

Andromeda snickered. "'Dr. Slug'? Boy, you sure know some weird people."

"Yeah, well, it comes with the territory when you're a supervillain," Megavolt told her a little proudly. "We're the few, the proud, the much-abused..."

Suddenly Megavolt remembered of one of the most important things he'd come here to find out. He tensed again as he realized that it was probably going to be harder than he'd originally thought. No, scratch that - he hadn't actually thought about it at all until now. This was probably going to be a lot harder. Megavolt cleared his throat a bit self consciously and tried to ignore the dog making low, growly noises at him. "Um...Andromeda...mind if I ask you a question?"

"Sure," she shrugged.

"Well, um, not to change the subject or anything," Megavolt said, "but it's sortof important. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I came to see you."

Curiosity sparkled in Andromeda's wide, brown eyes. "Whatcha wanna know?"

"Well...um. This probably sounds weird, but...you know that bruise you had on your arm back in the hospital? And you told me you ran into a wall?"

Suddenly Andromeda looked a little more guarded. "I dunno. I don't remember." She held her doll tight against her chest.

Megavolt sighed in frustration. "Don't lie to a pro, kid."

"I'm not! I..."

Megavolt levelled his best imitation of the patented Leona Twiddlewhisker Look (tm) at his niece. After several seconds, Andromeda sat on the ground and started fiddling with the blades of grass, avoiding her uncle's eyes. "What about it?"

"I saw you playing out there a few minutes ago. You're not that clumsy."

"So I slipped."

"I don't think you did," Megavolt told her. "I bet you ran into a fist or something, didn't you?"

"What makes you think that?" Andromeda ripped up a long, thin weed and started peeling the leaves off it.

"Because..." Megavolt coughed slightly. "Because I used to give that 'wall' excuse to people a lot, too, when I was your age."

"You did?" Andromeda looked up in surprise.

Megavolt nodded and leaned against the house, staring up at the sky. He gave a small, bitter-tinged laugh. "I had a reputation as one of the clumsiest people in school. It was pretty pathetic, actually. And I couldn't tell anybody what was really going on because I didn't think they'd believe me. Not to mention, if word got back to Dad, I'd probably have ended up in the hospital for a month."

Andromeda gave him a long, measuring look before replying. "Mom's not usually that bad," she said slowly. "Um. The bruise on my arm was because she shoved me into the corner of the china cabinet the other day. But it was an accident - she was having a bad day! The guys at her office were messing up her case somehow, and some of her stuff was missing."

"Uh-huh. There's always a good excuse, isn't there?" Megavolt nodded in complete understanding.

"So what?" Andromeda said, peeling another weed. "What's anybody gonna do about it? Make me go live with my dad? I don't wanna move to San Ganderos."

Megavolt stuffed his hands into his pockets and considered. "You could always do what I did, and run."

Andromeda gave him an 'I can't believe you said that' look. "Yeah, right. Run where? I'm only eight years old, and I don't have any neat superpowers like you do. Mom would just call the police and they'd find me, and then I'd be grounded for the rest of my life with no allowance."

Megavolt looked at her sheepishly. "Um. Yeah, guess you've got a point there."

Andromeda stood up and scooped Keppler into her arms. "Look Uncle Megavolt, thanks for worrying about me and stuff, but it'll be ok. Honest."

Megavolt reached over and ruffled her hair. "You're a tough kid. I like that."

Andromeda gave him a half-smile. "Well, whatcha gonna do - whine and complain about stuff all the time, or just take it as it comes and do something when you can? Someday I'll be old enough to go away to college or something."

"Are you sure you're only eight?" Megavolt started to say, but was interrupted when Keppler finally decided he'd had enough of the stranger. Loud howls completely disproportionate to his size poured out of his throat and drowned out any further conversation. Andromeda tried to clamp her hand over the dog's muzzle, but Keppler wriggled out of her grip and continued howling.

The back door clattered open again, and the sound of high-heeled shoes on wooden steps could be heard when Keppler paused for breath. Evelyn Sputterspark's voice carried over the howling. "Andromeda, what are you doing to that dog? Where are you?"

Andromeda's eyes widened. "Oh no! Mom! You better hide!" She started to carry the dog around into the backyard proper, trying to head her mother off.

Megavolt flattened himself against the house, silently hoping he wouldn't be found just yet. He wasn't ready to face his sister again, he knew he wasn't, and he found it was taking every ounce of control he had to keep from just bolting out of the yard. If he could just wait until Evelyn was gone...

"Andromeda, what are you doing to that poor dog?" Evelyn was asking her daughter.

"Nothing, Mom," Andromeda tried to explain. "Keppler just smelled a squirrel and went after it. It's ok, it got away."

"Well, all right then. Say - what's that sound? For the love of pete, don't tell me the electric meter is shorting out."

Megavolt looked to the left and right, trying to spot the houses's electric meter, and didn't see it. Finally he realized that he'd lost control of his static charge again, and arcs were dancing their merry way up the metallic prongs of his hat. Drat it! Normally he liked being able to do the jacob's ladder effect (that was really why he'd kept his original, odd-looking hat), but not now, for Edison's sake!

"Stay back, 'Dro, honey. This could be dangerous." The sound of footsteps in grass swished around the side of the house and stopped.

Megavolt smiled weakly and waved to his sister. "Um. Hi, Evelyn. Again."

Evelyn stared at him as though he were a martian. "You... What are you doing on my property?" she demanded. "Did you come here to steal something? Is that it?"

"No!" Megavolt waved his hands at her in denial. "Nonono! Just give me a chance to explain!"

Evelyn gave her daughter a shove towards the house. "Andromeda, go back inside. It's dangerous out here."

"But Mom-!" Andromeda protested.

"Now!" Evelyn raised a threatening hand to her daughter. Andromeda edged away, threw a 'what ya gonna do?' look at her uncle, and fled into the house.

Evelyn planted herself squarely in front of her brother. "All right, Elmo. Or Megavolt, or whatever you're calling yourself these days. You have five seconds to explain what you're doing here before I call the cops on you for trespassing."

"I just wanted to come and see you and Andromeda! Honest engine!" Megavolt held up his hand in the Universal Engineer Scout's oath.

"You waited ten years for this?" Evelyn said with a disapproving scowl.

"Look, everything I said before was true, mostly," Megavolt tried to explain to her. "Come on! I had to leave home! You know what Dad would have done to me!"

Evelyn's face grew even darker. "Sure, I know. You left me all alone to deal with him, remember? Why do you think I got married and got out of there as soon as I could? I just wish Bernie hadn't turned out to be such a finklebrained putz. At least the alimony helped put me through college. See? Take a good look, Elmo!" Evelyn threw her hand in a sweeping gesture at the house and the backyard. "This is what honest, hard work gets you! So I don't want to hear you blaming your failures on Dad!"

Megavolt stepped back, waving his hands feebly and retreating before the verbal assault. "Evelyn - I'm sorry! I just-"

"You bugged out on me when I needed you the most, Elmo! After you disappeared, Mom and Dad split up. Mom went to Cape Caninival to be close to her work - I hardly ever got to even talk to her anymore! And Dad just got worse and worse without Mom to keep him in check." Evelyn's eyes smouldered with a long-caged mixture of fury and betrayal. "'I'm sorry'? That doesn't even begin to cover it! Do you have any idea how long I kept waiting for you to come back? Do you have any idea what it was like thinking you'd been kidnapped and left for dead somewhere? Do you?" She advanced a step on her brother.

Megavolt retreated another step backwards. "Um...," he started, not quite knowing what to say, but feeling like he needed to say something.

"You were the bright one of the family! You were the genius! You were the one I thought would be able to get out and make it big somewhere and help me get out! But look at you - you're just a petty crook! An absolute waste! You abandoned us! Didn't you even care?? No, don't answer that. Just...go! Leave!" Evelyn flung her hand out, pointing to the street beyond the front yard. "I've got nothing more to say to you! And stay away from my daughter, too!"

"Right. Um. Sorry to bother you," Megavolt stammered, retreating all the way out the gate. Evelyn slammed it shut behind him. The lock clicked into place in front of his nose.

Megavolt rubbed his head and sighed as he slowly wandered back out into the street. The whole encounter had gone more or less as he had figured it would. That still didn't make it any less depressing, nor make Evelyn's digs at him hurt any less. And the worst part of it was that he knew he'd earned every single word. "And the winner of the Celebrity Deathmatch, round one...Evelyn Sputterspark," Megavolt mumbled unhappily to himself.

Still...Andromeda's words came back to haunt him. Whatcha gonna do - whine and complain about everything, or take things as they come and do what you can? It was a surprising insight for a kid her age, and Megavolt pondered it as he left the premesis. Maybe he'd already done everything he could here. Maybe there just wasn't a way to apologize to Evelyn enough for the past, and maybe she'd never forgive him. Andromeda seemed...well, maybe not entirely happy where she was, but she seemed like she'd be all right, at least. He hadn't been able to change a thing here. So what had all the SHUSH experiments been for? What had the whole ordeal been for?

Megavolt straightened and pounded his fist into his palm as he reached a final resolution. Maybe there wasn't anything he could do about his sister and his niece, but he still had a score to settle with his father, and he most definately could do something about that. "Celebrity Deathmatch, round two," he murmured to himself. "The Mighty Megavolt vs. Darth Sputterspark! But this time, I'm the one with the force!"

A pair of eyes hidden in the bushes of the neighboring yard watched Megavolt depart with new determination in his stride. "Vell, vell, vell, verry interestink," Quackerjack mumbled to himself, going into his 'psychiatrist' voice. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "No vonder der gentleman vanted time to himself. I vonder vhere he's headed now?" Quackerjack laughed and slipped back into his normal voice. "Silly Megavolt - he should know he can't keep secrets from me!"

Darkwing Duck nearly threw the hovering messageplane into the wall of Darkwing Tower. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN MEGAVOLT'S GONE??!" he screamed at the person on the tiny monitor screen.

J. Gander Hooter's small, balding head shook wearily. "Just what I said, Darkwing. A few minutes ago the team from the transport van called us from Miniapples to tell us."

"Miniapples?!" Darkwing spluttered. "But that's miles north of here! What are they doing in Miniapples?? Just what are they trying to pull?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," J. Gander repeated, adjusting his spectacles. "My people didn't do it on purpose. Shortly after leaving the courthouse, the villain blasted his way out of the van and left it on an unstoppable trip. Apparantly they were only just recently able to halt the vehicle."

"Well that's just great!" Darkwing muttered. "I told you something like this would happen! I told you he couldn't be trusted! But did anyone believe me? Nooo!" He turned and paced a few furious lengths along his platform, pounding his fist into his palm. "Darn it! I knew I should have kept looking for him around that traffic accident!"

Gosalyn excitedly hopped up from her nearby perch. "I guess that means you gotta go out and look for him. Come on, Dad!" She started to trot towards the Ratcatcher.

"Ohhhh, no you don't, young lady." Darkwing reached out and scruffed his daughter by the back of her shirt. "How many times do I have to tell you - this isn't some game! Megavolt's a dangerous villain, and I don't want you in harm's way! That's my job."

Gosalyn pulled an irritable face at him. "You always say that, Dad! When are you gonna give up and admit that you need me? I may have promised to put off being Quiverwing Quack 'till I'm older, but that doesn't mean you can just keep shuffling me off!"

For just a moment, Darkwing grew quiet and put his arm on his daughter's shoulder. "You're right Gos - I do need you. I need you alive and safe and unharmed. Don't you see? You're what keeps me going. Sometimes you're the only thing. If anything happened to you...well, I'd just go out of my mind, I think."

Gosalyn looked mildly repentant. She sighed. "Yeah, I guess. But can't I just come and watch? Please?"

"Well..." Darkwing seemed to melt just a little.

"I swear I won't get involved," she held her hand up by her face.

"I've heard that one before," Darkwing muttered before he finally gave in. "All right, you can come. But I'm calling Launchpad and we're taking the Thunderquack. I have a feeling we'll be able to spot Megavolt better from the sky, and besides - you'll be safer up there."

Cars and trucks rumbled past Quackerjack. He stood on the corner of the sidewalk, looking back and forth between the two bus stops planted catty-corner from each other, and wondered which one Megavolt had gone through. He knew his friend had come through here, because up to this point, following him hadn't been that hard. The harder part had been staying out of sight. It wasn't that he didn't want to just hop out and ask Megavolt what was going on, but he had a feeling it would be a lot more fun to just follow him and find out by watching. Why, it was just like the movies! Except that in the movies, the superspy never lost track of his target just because the target had put a trenchcoat on over his yellow jumpsuit and blended into the crowd as they mixed on and off of the buses at a major intersection.

"So which way did he go?" Quackerjack asked Mr. Bananna Brain.

"How should I know, Joe?" the doll 'replied. "Why don't you flip a coin?"

"Great idea!" Quackerjack agreed. He pulled out a quarter and tossed it into the air. It described a perfect juggler's arc and landed in his other hand, heads up. Quackerjack grinned. "Ok, left it is, then," he said as he stuck the double-headed quarter back into his pocket and climbed onto the roof of the bus headed in his chosen direction.

Forty-five minutes later, he climbed off the bus at the other end of its route. Nowhere had he seen Megavolt, but he'd had plenty of time to think of more twists on the traffic surfing game. In fact, it had evolved in his mind into something almost completely different which he was now calling Traffic Wars. About halfway through the ride, he had put the finishing touches on a plan for mounting rocket boosters and a cowcatcher on his skatecar when he rebuilt it, and by the time the bus reached the end of the line, he was trying to figure out the best way to turn a pickup truck into some reasonable facsimile of a ship. Maybe mount cannon along the sides of the bed? He whistled a sprightly pirate tune as he envisioned pickup trucks broadsiding each other, and the crew in the back thowing planks from bed to bed as they began to board the enemy truck. All this would happen while going seventy miles per hour on the freeway, of course.

Quackerjack was still humming the pirate song when he hopped off the roof of the bus and discovered he was in one of his regular haunts. As a matter of fact, speaking of haunts, there was the Old Haunt itself, standing forlornly at the end of the street. Whistling lightheartedly, the clown jammed his hands into his pockets and headed towards the bar. All that planning was making him thirsty, and anyway, maybe he'd get lucky and find Megavolt there. After all, it was one of few places they both hung out on occasion. And even if Megavolt wasn't there, maybe he could find someone to try the Traffic Wars idea out on, and they could get a team started.

The bar was still fairly deserted, having only been open for a couple of hours yet. The evening crowd wouldn't really start coming in for another hour or so, after it started getting dark. Somewhat disappointed by the general lack of people around, Quackerjack seated himself at the bar and ordered a pinapple and pistachio milk. The bartender, having become used to Quackerjack's bizarre requests by now, made no comment as he sat the yellow glass down in front of the clown.

"Hey, where's the umbrella?" Quackerjack demanded. "I thought these things were supposed to come with umbrellas and little plastic monkeys?"

"You're thinking of marguaritas, pal," the bartender told him.

"I want an umbrella," Quackerjack pouted.

"Forget it," the bartender told him. "You ain't paying enough to get an umbrella."

"I WANT AN UMBRELLA!" Quackerjack jumped on top of the counter and started to hop up and down.

"I'll give you an umbrella, you knob!" a voice snarled from the doorway. An umbrella with a sharp point sped towards Quackerjack. It pierced through the shoulder of the clown's clothing and carried him off the bar, pinning him neatly onto the dartboard on the wall.

Quackerjack dangled there in shock, staring at the short figure silhouetted in the entrance. "Negaduck?!" he gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in jail!"

"I got out early for good behaviour," Darkwing's evil twin said sarcastically. "So I thought I'd just come here to hang out with the rest of you knobs and celebrate."

Quackerjack nodded eagerly. "Well that's great! I know just the thing. I've got this nifty new game I call 'Traffic Wars'-"

"Shaddup!" Negaduck yelled at Quackerjack. He stalked across the room, grabbed a chair, and hopped up on it so he could loom over the dangling clown. " I figured you'd turn up here sooner or later. I've only got one question for you, and you better have an answer!"

Gulping, Quackerjack nodded weakly. "Uh, sure, whatcha wanna know?"

Negaduck lowered his face until he was beak to beak with Quackerjack. "I want to know where I can find that misbegotten excuse for a supervillain, Megavolt."

Quackerjack held up his hands and grinned feebly. "I don't know. I was following him earlier, but then I lost him."

"That's not the answer I was looking for," Negaduck said softly. He reached into his cape, pulled out a brand-new chainsaw and started it up. It buzzed lethally.

Frantically Quackerjack started babbling whatever he could think of to stop Negaduck from using it. "But, but, but I know where he's been! He has a sister on the other side of town, and this sickeningly cute little niece! He was there not long ago, talking to them!"

Negaduck lowered the chainsaw a fraction. "Visiting family, huh? Isn't that sweet?" he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "That still doesn't tell me where he is now."

Quackerjack shook his head helplessly. "I told you, I don't know! I lost him!"

Negaduck growled and hefted the chainsaw. He wound up and started to swing. Quackerjack flinched and tried to wriggle out of the way as the chainsaw came within inches of his neck. When the buzzing seemed to stop about three inches away, Quackerjack risked a peek out of one eye. Negaduck had stopped in mid-swing, and was looking thoughtful. "Family, eh?" he pondered. "Quackerjack, how close did they look?"

The clown shrugged - or tried to. It was difficult, considering he was pinned to the dartboard. "About three feet, maybe?"

The chainsaw waved in front of his face. "That's not what I meant, you dolt! How much did they...care about each other?" Negaduck spat the word as though it was poisonous.

"Um..." Quackerjack thought about what he'd seen, and tried to figure out the best way to present it to his boss. "He seemed pretty fond of the little girl. And he was real interested in talking to his sister."

Negaduck started to chuckle. He swung the chainsaw in Quackerjack's direction. Chips of wood and cheap plasterboard flew as the saw plunged into the dartboard and cut him down from the wall. Still chuckling, Negaduck powered the chainsaw down and put it away as Quackerjack picked himself up, trembling, off the floor. "Close enough," Negaduck smiled unpleasantly. "Looks like I don't have to find that pea-brained twit after all. I can use his family to make him come to me!" He dropped into a maniacal laugh. "Come on, Quackerjack. You're going to show me where these two princesses live."

The bus ride to his second destination hadn't been a long one. Megavolt had been so caught up in thought on the ride that he nearly missed his stop, and it wasn't until he was off the bus that he realized he'd actually paid for the ride. Or for that matter, that he'd even gotten on the bus like a normal person to begin with, and that nobody had even given him a second glance. What a bizarre day this was turning out to be!

As he walked down the sidewalk, he glanced left and right, taking in the sights of his old neighborhood. Parts of it he recognized, parts he didn't. The vacant lot he remembered being on the far corner was no longer there, having been replaced with a Hamburger Hippo stand. A couple of the houses appeared to have been torn down, and the bright purple house that he knew for sure he remembered, because he'd passed it every morning on the way to wait for the schoolbus, was now a demure beige. The minimall strip down the street was still there though, and Haverty's, the mom and pop hardware store that he'd frequented so often, still sat in the space third store from the right. The sight of the old store comforted him slightly; it was nice to know that some things didn't change.

Briefly he wondered if he could find a new superbattery if he stopped inside; the owners had been known to stock some pretty strange things at times, and on occasion they'd even special-ordered some things for him. After a moment of thought, he decided it was probably pointless to look. After all, he'd had to design and build the giant batteries he was used to wearing on his back himself. A common hardware store probably wouldn't just have one sitting around. He'd just have to do without the extra backup.

However, the thought did give him a notion. Stealthily, Megavolt slipped around to the back of the minimall strip and found the emergency power generator he'd suddenly remembered was back there. He fiddled with it a bit and spent the next couple of minutes soaking up as much electricity as he could hold, revelling in the itchy tingle as the charge zinged through his fingers and up his arms. As always, the power was seductively ennervating. When the blue arcs finally stopped playing into him and started randomly crawling over the generator, he sighed and let the powerstream go. He hadn't garnered nearly as much energy as he would have liked, but for now, it would have to do. Megavolt gave the power generator a fond pat and left.

He'd been wrong earlier, he thought wryly as he strode along the route he'd once taken every day to get home from the schoolbus stop. Seeing Evelyn and Andromeda was actually the harder part of his mission. This part was going to be much easier. Sparks crackled around his fist as he pounded it into his palm in anticipation. Revenge was so much easier than redemption. He may have failed at one, but he was more than prepared for the other. He'd waited years for this opportunity! Or, well...he would have if he'd remembered to think about it. Whatever. All Megavolt knew was, he had a score to settle, and he was determined to do it now, before anyone could catch up to him and stop him.

Memories of his father looming over him with clenched fists arose in his mind, ghosts of an earlier life. Back in the old days he'd been a thin, scrawny poindexter of a kid, unable to put up any kind of real resistance. He'd generally ended up taking the brunt of his father's moods for mostly that very reason. Evelyn hadn't actually been on the recieving end that often, both because he'd kept trying to protect her, and because she was a girl; their father hadn't been bent on making a 'Man' out of her. A couple of angry arcs slid up Megavolt's hat. He'd show his father a real 'Man', all right. If fisticuffs was what it took, then he'd show Arnold Sputterpark how much of a 'Man' he'd become!

Lost in furious thought, Megavolt almost didn't notice when he reached his old home. Somehow, it looked a little smaller than he remembered. The begonias that his mother had kept planted outside the front porch were gone, concreted over where the driveway had been widened. A half-assembled Mustang sat on blocks on the far side of the driveway. Beside it sat a fully restored 1957 Edsel. Megavolt walked over to it and kicked the tires experimentally. The car sagged a little. He snorted in contempt; the thing obviously needed suspension work.

Slowly he became aware that the sound of a television on high volume was blaring from inside the house. That meant his dad was actually home . How fortunate, he thought dryly. I don't have to sit around and wait for him to come back, or bother to track him down. Judging by the commentary on the tv, it sounded like the elder Sputterspark was watching a martial arts tournament. Well, that seemed about par for the course. Megavolt stood there for a moment, trying to decide whether he wanted to just bust through the door and surprise the old man, or stay outside and call him out, making his father come to him. Or better yet, whether he'd just prefer to blast a hole in the wall, surprise the old rat, AND make his dad come outside to face him. That seemed like the best idea of all, Megavolt nodded to himself, smiling grimly.

Ka-ZOOOOOORRRRRRK! The front wall exploded inwards as the lightning bolt crashed into it. Through the gaping hole, Megavolt saw his father look up in shock from his recliner. The television set, caught in the brunt of the blast, teetered on the edge of its stand. CRASH! Bits of glass flew everywhere as it landed screen-side down on the floor. A small cloud of smoke rolled up from the television casing as the sound of the tournament spazzed and died.

Arnold Sputterspark slowly got up from his recliner and drew himself up to his full height, a good twelve inches taller than his son. He looked at the ruined television set, snarled, and looked back up to lock eyes with Megavolt. "Don't you freaks from the power company know how to do your jobs?!" he yelled through the hole in the wall, shaking his fist. "I'm gonna sue!!"

Megavolt held up a fist of his own, a static charge glowing bluely around it. "Oh - so sorry!" he yelled back. "Next time, I won't miss! I was really aiming for you - Dad!" He sent another charge arcing out at his father, who reflexively ducked to avoid it.

Arnold stood back up and took another look at Megavolt. Finally recognition dawned in his eyes. "Elmo," he said flatly. "Well, well, well. Evelyn called and told me you'd turned back up. She sounded hysterical, and frankly, I didn't believe her. We gave you up for dead a long time ago." He took a step towards the blasted wall, looking...well, not quite as muscular as Megavolt remembered him being, but still thoroughly capable of handling himself in a scrap. The villain noted his father's thinning silver-grey hair, and realized that time must have been getting on for him, as well.

"Believe it! I'm back, and I'm here for revenge!" Megavolt drew himself up to look as menacing as he possibly could.

"Revenge? For what?" His father seemed genuinely surprised, not to mention annoyed.

"For what? FOR WHAT??!" Megavolt screeched, unable to believe his father didn't know. "Get out here and fight me, you creep! I'm finally ready for you!"

The light of understanding slowly dawned across Arnold Sputterspark's face. "Ohhhhh," he chuckled. "Now I get it. You're mad because I spent all those years trying teach you how to stand up for yourself." He laughed raucously. "Oh, this is too rich!" Still laughing, the senior Sputterspark took off his shirt and tossed it into a corner out of sight. He walked over to the blasted front wall and stepped outside through the hole. "Well, Evelyn tells me you've become a real freak over the past few years. A supervillain, huh? Never thought my own kid would turn into something like that. Especially not you. You were always all brains, no backbone. Well, come on then, kid. Show me what you've got." With an ironic grin, Megavolt's father shifted with easy familiarity into a martial arts ready stance.

"My pleasure," Megavolt growled, pushing his sleeves up. "Let mortal combat begin!"

"I don't see why we've gotta go to Miniapples first," Gosalyn complained as the Thunderquack streaked north through the airways. "We should be looking for Megavolt, not playing ferry for some stupid scientists!"

Launchpad gave a cheerful shrug. "Well, J. Gander thought it would be the quickest way to get 'em back down to St. Canard. Besides," he lowered his voice and glanced over at Darkwing, "he threatened to revoke your dad's Gizmo of the Month Club membership if we didn't."

Darkwing stared out the window of the Thunderquack with an expression that plainly said he agreed with Gosalyn. "I don't CARE if J. Gander thinks Dr. Twiddlewhisker can help get him under control. I don't need help to pull the plug on that egomaniacal electron!" He buried his chin unhappily in his hands. "This is blackmail!"

"Aw, don't sweat it, DW," Launchpad reassured him. "We'll be there and back in two shakes of a cat's tail. You'll never even know we left St. Canard."

"Yeah, sure, right," Darkwing muttered. "This is insane. Remind me to never, ever get mixed up with SHUSH on purpose again."

Gosalyn and Launchpad exchanged a look and nodded.

The Thunderquack continued to speed on towards the distant city.

The doorbell at the residence of Evelyn Sputterspark chimed pleasantly. After a moment, when no one answered, it chimed again and was followed by a sturdy knock. "Candygram!" a saccharine voice called through the door.

Finally an eye peeped through the small window set high in the door. The door lock rattled, clicked, and turned. Evelyn opened the door and bestowed a surly look upon the clown standing on her doorstep.

Quackerjack gave her a toothy grin and did an impromptu little dance as he held out the large box of candy. "Candygram for Evelyn Sputterspark!"

Evelyn looked at the box and didn't touch it. "Who's it from?" she wondered suspiciously. "If my no good brother thinks he can make up to me with something this lame-"

Negaduck chuckled darkly as he grabbed the woman from behind and slapped a chloroformed cloth across her face. "As it so happens, this present comes with a little poem," he told her. "Ahem.

' There once was a lawyerish rat
Who fell into a forcible nap.
Her megadolt brother
Who came round to save her
Fell into a horrible trap.'

I made that up myself," Negaduck said rather proudly as Evelyn struggled and finally succombed to the chemical.

"That's terrible! You need to work on your rhymes," Mr. Bananna Brain told him.

"What?" Negaduck snapped at the doll, realized what he was doing, and shifted his glare to Quackerjack, who shrugged and grinned innocently. Negaduck gritted his teeth. "Everyone's a critic! Bah, never mind. Just help me find that little girl." He tossed Evelyn's unconscious body at the clown and stomped into the house. "I've got big plans for both of them," he said, laughing savagely.

"Let mortal combat begin!" Megavolt cackled maniacally as he unleashed a powerful lightning bolt at his father. This time the bolt struck, and the senior Sputterspark staggered backwards, taken off balance.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Megavolt laughed at him. "I should have done this years ago! Take a good look, Dad. I'm powerful now!"

Arnold recovered and moved towards him, fists at the ready. "What do you call that?" he demanded as he advanced.

"An accumulated negative static charge," Megavolt replied, gathering another one in his palms. "Here's a quick science lesson for you, Dad. Opposite charges attract, and like charges repel!" He threw the second charge into a fan around his father, lifting him off the ground and levitating him there. "For example, right now your polarity is reversed, so the ground is repelling you and you can't even reach me." Megavolt laughed maniacally again as he dangled his dad in midair. "Nyah nyah! How d'ya like those apples?"

His father smiled craftily. "Kid, you still got a lot to learn. Old and crafty beats young and stupid any day." Deftly the old man unbuckled his belt and whipped it through the air. The solid metal buckle zoomed around like a guided missile, cracked Megavolt solidly upside the head, and stuck to him. The younger Sputterspark staggered back and lost his concentration. The electromagnetic field dissipated, dropping the elder and the belt buckle to the ground.

"See, now that's what I'm talking about," Arnold complained as he reached out and grabbed Megavolt by the collar. "You got no backbone, kid. No staying power! Why, I used to take hits four times that hard in barfights without even flinching! You got no muscle on you!" Casually he threw his son to the ground and stepped on his chest. He leaned his weight on that foot as he loomed over Megavolt and poked him in the nose. "Gotcha pinned kid, same way I always pinned you down before. Gonna do anything about it this time?

Fear briefly replaced the rage in Megavolt's eyes. Inconcievable! How could it be possible that a normal old man with no superpowers could take him down so easily? No way! He wasn't going to take this lying down! Looking over to the driveway, Megavolt spotted the Edsel sitting there and decided he needed an ally.

A stream of electricity flowed from his eyes into the car, which started its engine with a cough and a rough growl. The headlights suddenly seemed more like hooded eyes as the car turned itself around in the yard and headed straight for Arnold Sputterspark. "Go get him!" Megavolt half ordered and half cheered.

"Great cheese in a bucket!" the old rat swore as he jumped out of the way.

The car swerved and missed Megavolt by mere inches as the electrified rat sat up and scurried to the side of the yard. He pulled himself to his feet against the chain link fence and watched the car chase his father across the yard. Gasping, he took the moment of respite to take stock of the situation. There was a tickle near his eye where the belt buckle had hit him; when he reached up to brush it away, his hand came away smeared with a little blood. Megavolt narrowed his eyes and swore to pay his father back for that - for that, and for every other scrape, cut, bruise, and broken bone that had ever been inflicted on him or on Evelyn.

"All right, that's IT!" Arnold stopped running from the car and waited for it to reach him. When it did, he deftly clambered up onto the car's roof and jerked the hood open. Plunging his hand deep inside the engine's innards, he yanked hard and came up with a handful of wires. The car stalled and rolled to a stop. Arnold threw the wires onto the ground with the air of someone who has been righteously offended. "That's IT!" he shouted. "NOW you're messing with my car. NOW it's personal!"

"Like it wasn't personal before?!" Megavolt retorted, wiping the blood off onto his coat. Furious sparks began to dance off his fingers and roll off his hat as a faint blue glow started to flicker around his whole body.

"Before, I was just playing around with you," Megavolt's father told him with a dark calmness. "But kid, you just graduated into a whole new ballgame." He hopped off the car, cracking his knuckles.

"That's fine by me," Megavolt snarled as the charge around him grew in intensity. "From now on, the kid gloves are OFF."

The pair advanced on each other.

True Mortal Combat commenced.

The Thunderquack skimmed the skyline heading towards St. Canard, the SHUSH team safely ensconced inside. Leona Twiddlewhisker's face was plastered right alongside Gosalyn's against the clear dome of the airplane.

"See, I told ya," Launchpad remarked cheerfully to Darkwing and Gosalyn. "Back before you can say 'Jack Robin'!"

"I do hope Elmo hasn't gone and done anything unfortunate," Leona said. "This is all my fault. I was supposed to keep an eye on him, and he just slipped right out of my hands like I wasn't even there."

"I kept trying to tell you," Darkwing said, trying not to sound too smug. "Megavolt is a supervillain. You can't trust a word he says."

Leona crossed her arms and looked at Darkwing as though she wanted to slap him. "Look, will you just lay off? You've been saying that sort of thing for the whole trip, and I'm getting a little tired of listening to it. You don't know half of what's going on here!"

"I don't NEED to know all the details," Darkwing informed her airily. "A notorious criminal escaped out onto the streets, and that's all I need to know. As soon as we find Megavolt, I fully intend to put him back behind bars where he belongs."

"If you're going to do that, then you might as well arrest me, too," Leona replied huffily. "I was supposed to be the one keeping anything like this from happening."

"No offence," Darkwing told her, "but I sincerely doubt you could keep a centipede in line. You're far too trusting."

Leona started to snap a reply at him, but was cut off by Gosalyn's arm waving in front of her nose. The girl was pointing at a lightning bolt that had just flickered over the horizon, briefly splitting the deepening twilight of the completely clear sky. "Did you guys see that?!"

Apparantly they had, since everyone was already staring in the same direction. Darkwing hopped up and down in his seat. "There! I told you! I'll lay you two to one odds that's Megavolt now, probably knocking over a bank or something. Launchpad, take her over and let's get a good look at what that morally bankrupt maniac is up to!"

"Right on it, DW." He yanked the steering yoke of the Thunderquack a little too enthusiastically to the left and accidentally did a barrel roll before righting the plane and setting it in the intended direction.

Anxiously the plane's occupants scanned the ground, searching for another blast of lightning, another spectacular display of power arcs, anything. There was nothing. Darkwing frowned and flipped on the Thunderquack's radio, hoping to detect an area of static. Sometimes, he'd found, the best way to pinpoint Megavolt was to look for the disruption his electromagnetic field tended to cause. "Search pattern Z, Launchpad," he ordered.

The Thunderquack zipped back and forth over the city as ordered, describing huge zig-zags through the sky. The police band broadcasts seemed fairly active, but they were all about standard muggings, holdups, and doughnut checks. Nothing seemed connected to their target, and neither did they detect any random patches of static. Tension built in the Thunderquack's cockpit as minutes passed and they found nothing unusual. Finally the agent who'd been driving the SHUSH van tapped Darkwing on the shoulder. "Uh, say, what's that down there? Do you think it might be something?"

Darkwing followed the pudgy duck's finger down to spot a flickering light in a residential area. It looked like all the lights in one of the houses were flickering on and off in unison.

"Could be," Darkwing agreed. "Launchpad, take us closer to that house!"

As the Thunderquack came around and drew closer, everyone could see that the front wall of the house had been blown in, and there was still smoke curling off of the charred and splintered wooden bannister that had once stretched across the porch. The front yard itself looked like the remains of a battlefield; great swathes of grass had been scorched away, and two completely junked antique cars lay in the middle of the yard. One of them looked like it had been dropped from a great height and landed on its roof. The remnants of a chain link fence were draped across the other, partially fused into the car's metal body. As they hovered over the house, the radio erupted into full static.

"Whoa! Major battle zone!" Launchpad said, looking impressed.

"I'd call this a big 'bingo'," Gosalyn said.

"I don't get it," Darkwing said with a look of bafflement. "What would Megavolt want out here in suburbanville?"

Launchpad suddenly looked rather guilty. He exchanged a glance with Leona, whose look of concern seemed to confirm his suspicions. "Um...I think I know, DW," Launchpad admitted hesitantly.

"You do?"

"Oh dear, I was afraid of this," Leona muttered as she surveyed the damage to the yard and house. "I should have brought more security with me to the courthouse, I just knew it."

"What's going on here?!" Darkwing yelled at the both of them.

Launchpad and Leona looked at each other again. Launchpad cleared his throat. "Well, it's like this. Remember when I tried to tell you about meeting Megavolt's sister in St. Canard General?"

Darkwing nodded, vaguely remembering. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, I kindof went and reintroduced them." Launchpad rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, his face showing the realization that he might have made a huge mistake.

"You what?! Well, that finally explains what you two kept hinting at. Launchpad, do you realize what you've done? You've put innocent civilians in harm's way! What on earth posessed you to remind Megavolt he has family!?"

The big duck shrugged, unable to really define his reasoning. "I dunno. It seemed like the thing to do at the time?"

Darkwing slapped his hand over his face. "All right, never mind that. The damage has already been done. Launchpad, set us down and stay in the Thunderquack with Gosalyn. Make sure nobody goes anywhere; I'll handle this from here. And whatever you do, DON'T get any more bright ideas!"

"Sorry DW," Launchpad said glumly as he plopped the Thunderquack down into the front yard, crushing the remains of the two cars.

"Dad, I wanna come too!" Gosalyn protested.

Darkwing fixed her with a stern glare. "In this case, absolutely, positively not! Trust me Gosalyn, it's never a good idea to get involved in someone else's domestic dispute."

"DW's right this time, Gos," Launchpad said unexpectedly, putting his arm around Gosalyn's shoulder. Just think how you'd feel if somebody butted in when you and your dad were having a fight."

"I'd pound 'em into the ground!" Gosalyn said, then realized what Launchpad was getting at. "Oh, I guess I see your point. But in that case, isn't it dangerous for you to go in there, Darkwing?"

"Absolutely," the hero nodded, cocking his hat forward. "But somebody's gotta do it, and since I'm the superhero, that 'somebody' is me."

"Us." Leona stood up and addressed him in a tone that would brook absolutely no argument. "Elmo's still my responsibility after all, no matter what's happened."

Darkwing started to argue, then realized he wasn't going to get anywhere and time was wasting. "All right, fine, whatever. Come on then, Dr. Twiddlewhisker. Let's get dangerous!"

As they stepped into the living room through the blasted hole in the wall, the first thing the pair noticed was the punch holes and the scorch marks running along the walls. The marks stopped at just about the same place that the carpet turned soggy. Darkwing almost tripped over the half-melted garden hose that ran from the living room back out to the yard. Small spatters of dark red decorated the wall in some patches. The hero studied these more closely, then drew back in distaste. "Gruuuesome," he commented in a weirded-out sort of way.

Leona adjusted her glasses as she looked around for signs of life. Carefully she stepped over the wrecked remains of a bookshelf and peered under a turned-over recliner. She motioned to the hero. "Mr. Darkwing, come over here and help me turn this thing over. Someone's under here!"

With a couple of determined heaves, the pair got the chair off to the side and discovered the prone body of an elderly rat. Blood was trickling out of his nose and from the corner of his mouth; it looked like he was missing a couple of teeth.

Darkwing leaned forward over the old man. "Is he-?"

"No," Leona said, peeling open one of the semi-conscious rat's eyelids. "But he definately needs a doctor. Just from the look of things, I'd say he has a couple of broken bones, at least."

Darkwing's brows drew down in a frown. "You do realize, of course, what this means."

Leona sighed. "I know, I know. Assault and battery is a serious offence. I suppose Elmo's going to get locked up for life for this."

A hand reached up and grabbed Leona's wrist. "No, he ain't." Arnold Sputterspark's eyes fluttered open under their own power. He grunted as he forcefully shoved himself up onto one elbow and tried not to wince. "You two better leave my boy alone, see?"

Darkwing couldn't believe his ears. "But-"

"Forget it!" the elder Sputterspark growled at him. "This is family business! Whoever you are, you can just keep your beak out of it!"

"Sir, may I point out that your offspring has caused you numerous injuries?" Darkwing told him impatiently. "Even if you don't-"

"What, this?" Arnold swiped his arm across his nose and mouth, wiping the blood away. "Nah, I had worse when I was in the marines. I can take it." He started to stand up, only to find his ankle buckling underneath him, so he changed direction and landed in a seat on the overturned recliner. "Kid actually didn't do too bad, for once," the old rat chuckled dryly. "He's finally starting to get a backbone."

Leona and Darkwing both stared at him as though he were an alien. "You mean you're not going to press charges?" Darkwing said slowly.

Arnold shrugged. "Nah. What's the point? I haven't seen my boy in years. That'd be a heckuva welcome home present, now wouldn't it?"

Leona's eyes went wide. "Do you actually mean to say that you two have made up?"

Arnold Sputterspark laughed in her face. "What? You have got to be kidding me, lady! Maybe one of these days the kid will quit being such a geek and actually make something out of himself, but until then?" He laughed some more. "Always knew I should have sent him to military school."

The scientist seemed a little disappointed, but she tried to hide it. "Oh. Well...where is he now? I need to check on him."

The old rat shrugged unconcernedly. "Beats me. I lost track of him after he head-butted me into a wall. Have you tried looking down in the basement? Kid always used to run down there and hide after we had one of our practice sessions."

Leona gave him an angry frown that said exactly what she thought of those 'practice sessions', and left the room. Darkwing followed. "I can NOT believe this," he muttered, trying to cover up his confusion. "What kind of a freakazoid family is this, anyway?"

Leona just shook her head as she located the doorway that led to the steps going down. Darkwing tried to shove his way in front of her, but she shoved him back and shook her head furiously, pointing to herself. Cautiously she decended, leaning down to try and get a peek into the dim room below. Darkwing, furious at being shoved to the rear, practically breathed down her neck. His gas gun was held beside him at the ready.

From the far end of the basement, the sound of a ham radio could be heard. The machine scanned through channel after channel, picking up various bits of conversations between truckers, weather trackers, and other ham radio enthusiasts.

Leona went a little further down the stairs, purposefully making them creak a little. When nothing happened, she decended a little further, until she could see the whole room.

The ham reciever was set up on a table at the other side of the room from the stairs. Megavolt was indeed there, sitting with his back to them. He straddled a chair that had been pulled up to the table, and appeared to be fiddling listlessly with the radio dials. Somehow he carried the air of a disspirited teenager.

"Elmo?" Leona ventured quietly.

"Hi Leona," Megavolt said without enthusiasm. He didn't bother turning around.

Darkwing started to spring forward, but the scientist grabbed him by the cape and held him back. Once again she shook her head furiously and pointed at the stairs and then at him. Darkwing frowned and folded his arms. "Look, if you think-"

"Do you guys mind? Upstairs or downstairs, pick one." Megavolt said in the same flat tone of voice. "Blocking the stairs is rude."

Startled, the hero and the scientist vacated the steps and approached the supervillain. They gasped when he finally turned around to look at them. One of his eyes was swollen almost completely shut, and he carried his right arm a little awkwardly, as though it had been dislocated. A rag was clutched in his hand, bloody from where he'd apparantly been holding it against one of his numerous cuts.

"Elmo..." Leona said after a moment of shocked silence.

"Yeesh," Darkwing muttered under his breath. "Even I never cleaned his clock that bad."

Megavolt laughed a little, then winced and clutched at his ribs. The laugh turned into a cough; when he brought his hand away from his mouth, it was stained red. "Serves me right," he gasped with a touch of irony. "I forgot about Dad's left hook."

"What the heck's going on here?" Darkwing demanded. "Megavolt, there better be a good explanation for this, or I'm arresting you no matter what your father says."

"Oh, just leave him alone!" Leona snapped at Darkwing. "For pete's sake, hasn't he been through enough tonight already?"

"Family business, Darkwing," Megavolt told him. "Like I said before. You just weren't listening."

"I-" Darkwing trailed off, not quite sure what he'd been about to say.

Leona laid a hand on Megavolt's shoulder - the one that looked unharmed. "Feel any better now?"

"Yes. Sort of. I guess." Megavolt paused for a moment and thought. "Not really. Somehow I thought getting even with Dad would fix things. But you know what? He's still up there, and none of my old stuff is down here. He got rid of everything except the ham radio! Can you believe it?!" For a moment a spark of rage animated the rat as he slammed his good hand down on the table. Then it faded away, and Megavolt buried his head in his arm.

Darkwing looked at the villain, then looked at his gas gun. He sighed as he put it away. "I really ought to haul you in, I suppose," he said, "but I just haven't got the heart right now." He looked distinctly uncomfortable, like he'd been caught somewhere he really didn't belong.

"Thanks, Mr. Darkwing. I knew you were a real hero," Leona smiled at him.

"Yeah, well," Darkwing muttered, brushing imaginary dirt stains off his cape. "Don't let this get around, or it'll ruin my reputation."

Leona turned back to Megavolt. "Come back upstairs with me to the kitchen, and we'll get an icepack on that eye before we leave, and then we can get someone to check you over for broken bones."

Megavolt started to turn back to her, wiping his eyes. "That's ok, I-"

Suddenly the ham radio, which had been relatively silent, crackled into life again as a familiar baritone voice cut across the airwaves. "Calling all villains, calling all villains! Or more specifically, calling one villain!" the voice laughed maniacally as everyone in the room started and stared at the radio.

"Negaduck!" Darkwing and Megavolt chorused with wide eyes.

"How'd he get out of jail?" Darkwing spluttered angrily.

"Megavolt, you dim-witted buffoon, I know you can hear me out there," Negaduck continued sharply. "So listen up! I've got your sister and your niece with me here at the Marstech Research Corporation. We're having a nice little tea party, and you're cordially invited to join us . Be here in one hour, or the girls get it!" More cruel laughter punctuated the threat before the transmission cut out.

"That's not fair!" Megavolt protested indignantly. "You're not supposed to take hostages against fellow villains! It's against the code! Although I guess the code is subject to interpretation," he added thoughtfully. "What does he think I am, some kind of hero?"

Darkwing jumped at the threat, glad for a chance to be back on familiar footing. "That nefarious, no-good nihilist! Not only is he supposed to be behind bars, but now he's taking hostages? No way! Not while I'm around! Even if they do have the misfortune to be related to you, Megavolt, Darkwing Duck does not sit around on his duff and let innocent bystanders fall prey to the perfidious plans of perpetrators!" He stopped and blinked in amazement at the amount of alliteration he'd just managed to achieve.

Megavolt blinked at him. "You're going after them?"

"Of course!" Darkwing snapped. "It's a hero's job to rescue people and stop crooks. You know that!"

Megavolt stood up and shook his hand. "Thanks, buddy. That means a lot."

Darkwing snatched his hand back and wiped the blood off of it. "Yeah, well, don't think this makes us friends or anything." He turned to go, and stopped when Megavolt started to follow him. "What? Don't tell me you're actually coming too?"

Megavolt nodded. "I may not be a hero, but that's my family out there, Darkwing. That makes this family business. " He lifted a finger and blew a few sparks off it. "I recharged a few minutes ago, and I'm ready for anything."

"But what about your injuries?" Leona interjected worriedly.

"It's all right," Megavolt reassured her. "I'm tougher than I look, really." He reached over to pat her on the head and winced, realizing that he'd just used his injured arm. "Well, mostly, anyway," he amended. "Come on, we better go - we haven't got much time before Negaduck decides to put my family in a nuclear accelerator and dissipate their molecular structure or something."

Gosalyn folded her arms and stamped her foot on the grass. "No way, uh-uh, NOT! I am NOT staying here while you go do exciting stuff like rescuing hostages! Especially not with him tagging along," Gosalyn pointed up at Megavolt, who was already shifting impatiently in the Thunderquack's back seat.

Darkwing gave her a pleading look. "Come on Gos, there isn't enough room in the Thunderquack's cockpit for everybody, and it'll be even worse when we get the hostages back. Look, this is important. Somebody needs to stay here and keep an eye on Mr. Sputterspark. Please, Gos? For me?"

"But-!" Gosalyn eyed Megavolt suspiciously.

"Hurry up!" the villain yelled at Darkwing. "We haven't got all night, you know!"

"Please?" Darkwing repeated. "I'd ask Launchpad to do it, but he's flying the plane, and..." he dropped his voice conspiratorially and said behind his hand, "I need Dr. Twiddlewhisker to keep Megavolt from bleeding all over the inside of the cockpit. I don't wanna clean that up, do you?"

Gosalyn made a disgusted face. "Yeew. All right, all right," she grumped. "But you're gonna make this up to me later. I want a copy of Whiffle World V when it comes out next week!"

"Sure, sure, anything you want Gos," Darkwing said in relief. "Thanks."

"For the love of heaven, will you please cut the chatter and get in here?" Megavolt screeched from the cockpit of the Thunderquack. Beside him, Leona finished wrapping a towel around a bag of ice and tried to get him to hold still while she put it over his eye.

"Hold your horsepower, I'm coming!" Darkwing scrambled into the cockpit, waving at his daughter. Gosalyn waved back and sighed as the Thunderquack took off and left her standing in the yard beside the SHUSH van driver. She gave him a baleful look. "Come on. I guess we better go call an ambulance or something."

"Marstech Research Corporation...that sounds familiar for some reason," Darkwing pondered as they sped towards the center of town. "Wasn't there an article in the paper about them recently?"

"I never saw anything," Launchpad said unhelpfully.

"That's because you never read anything except the comics," Darkwing told him.

Launchpad laughed and scratched the back of his flight cap. "Oh, yeah."

"I know something about Marstech," Leona said from the back seat. "I heard Dr. Bellum talking about them in the break room a while back. They're a new private business dedicated to weapons research and military technology. Occasionally they come into conflict with Dr. Bellum's department."

Darkwing looked at her askance. "What in the world is the private sector doing in weapons research?"

Leona pushed her glasses up her nose and shrugged. "Same thing as any other business, I suppose. Trying to make a profit. Say, I don't suppose you have a first aid kit in here?"

"In the glove compartment." Darkwing grabbed it and flipped it to her without even bothering to look. "What kind of weapons research are they doing?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," Leona turned her attention to the first aid kit, shuffling through it for bandages. "Dr. Bellum wasn't very specific. I think they were working more on defensive types of things, though. I'm really not sure, sorry."

"That's unfortunate," Megavolt broke in, looking worried. "What if Negaduck has some ultra-mega-super-mondo superweapon waiting?" He flinched as Leona reached over and dabbed at his cuts with an alcohol-soaked bit of cotton. "OW! Cut it out!"

"It wouldn't hurt as much if you'd just hold still," Leona told him firmly. After a few moments she put the first aid kit aside and addressed Darkwing again. "Do you happen to have anything like a long piece of cloth or something in here?"

Darkwing shook his head. "Sorry, fresh out."

The scientist looked around and spotted Launchpad's long, white scarf. Before the pilot realized it, she'd whipped it off his neck. "Pardon me, but I need to borrow this for a while," she apologized as she tied it around a startled Megavolt's shoulder and slipped his arm into the makeshift sling.

"Hey, that's my lucky scarf!" Launchpad protested.

"Would you cut it out already?" the rat tried to slap her away. "I told you, I'm fine! Negaduck's the one we should be worrying about! He's probably..." Megavolt gulped as he suddenly grasped the entire situation. "...he's probably got something especially nefarious in mind for me when we get there." The rat went a couple shades paler.

"Look, you knew the risks when you decided to come, Megavolt," Darkwing told him sternly. "Don't tell me you're backing out now."

Megavolt shook his head, although he no longer looked as certain as he had earlier. In fact, he was starting to look downright scared. "No, but you know Negaduck. He'll find the biggest, nastiest weapon in that place and make the biggest, most lethal trap he can out of it!"

"Well, that's true," Darkwing agreed, looking not one bit fazed. "But so what? I've beaten Negaduck lots of times! There isn't one single trap or weapon he can come up with that I can't defeat!"

"I hope you're right," Megavolt said, trembling, as he stared out the front of the Thunderquack's dome." Because we're here, and it looks like he's ready for us!"

The Marstech Research Corporation building stood just outside of downtown St. Canard, a sleek, black skyscraper reaching like a monolith into the night sky. It looked like the sort of place that might open a hatch on the roof, raise a platform to the clouds, and set loose a swarm of tactical missiles. It looked like the sort of place that might click iron shielding plates over the windows, thrust the muzzles of long guns out through specially protected openings, and decimate anyone who tried to approach the building too closely.

Negaduck was standing on the roof with a large and convoluted cannon-type weapon pointed at his caged hostages. It looked like Negaduck meant business.

As the Thunderquack approached the building, a shimmering yellow force field spiralled up from the ground and encased it. Unable to pull up in time, the plane hit the force field, bounced, and ricocheted off in a tailspin. Launchpad struggled with the plane's controls and managed to right the Thunderquack just before they slammed into the ground. He poured more altitude between them and the pavement, wiping sweat from his forehead as he muttered, "Whew, that was close!"

Negaduck's voice blasted through an electronic bullhorn that appeared in his hand. He didn't sound happy. "Darkwing Duck! Oh, for the love of-! Why do you always have to stick your nose in where you're not wanted? It's not you I'm after, hero! It's Megavolt! He better be with you, or the hostages get it right now!"

Inside the Thunderquack, all eyes turned to the villain, who looked as though he'd rather be anywhere but where he was. "What?" he yelled at them defensively. "What do you expect me to do, go charging in there through that force field?"

With a sigh, Darkwing flipped open the Thunderquack's hatch and dragged Megavolt up by his coat collar for show. "I've got your boy right here, Negsy!" Darkwing called over the side of the plane.

"Hey! Put me down!" Megavolt complained, struggling to get free.

Negaduck chuckled. "That's more like it. Tell you what - if you just hand him over to me, I'll let the hostages go. That's a fair deal, wouldn't you say?"

Megavolt grabbed Darkwing's sleeve and looked at him with wide eyes. "Don't do it! You can't trust him! He'll do horrible things to me!"

"Will you just calm down?" Darkwing said irritably, peeling Megavolt off his jacket. "I'm not going to just hand you over without a plan. Do you think you can take down that force field?"

Megavolt stopped panicking for a moment to look down over the side of the plane at the shimmering energy. He threw an experimental zap at it and watched in dismay as the electricity bounced off the field and took out a lamp post below. "Not without an anti-neutrino phase coil," he replied unhappily. "It looks like that baby's built out of kevlatrons! Pretty impressive, actually."

"Ah, ah, ah, that's not nice," Negaduck's voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "No fair trying to break in without an invitation!" Several rows of hatches opened in the sides of the building, and a swarm of black and yellow round, vaguely bee-shaped robots buzzed out of it. They flew out through the force field as though it wasn't there.

"I love this place," Negaduck laughed madly. "All this lovely, state of the art weapons technology all in one building! As a matter of fact, I liked it so much, I bought the company!"

The Thunderquack's dome snapped closed as the robotic bees swarmed around the plane. A series of sharp, metallic clicks sounded on the outer hull. Looking through the dome, Darkwing watched the 'bees' attach themselves to the plane and start to melt their way through to the inside.

"Gyaah!" he panicked, tugging at Launchpad's sleeve. "Get 'em off! Get 'em off! Get 'em off!"

Launchpad narrowed his eyes. "Right!" He flipped the Thunderquack into a tight corkscrew roll that should have sent the robots flying away. Instead, they stayed locked in place and continued to bore their way inside.

"They're magnetically attached!" Leona gasped, looking at Megavolt. "Do something!"

Megavolt thought for a second, then put his hand flat against one of the metal walls of the cockpit. For a second, a blue electric charge hummed through the plane. The robots shorted out and went spinning away as Launchpad finished the tight roll and pulled the Thunderquack level.

"Nice teamwork, guys," Darkwing complimented them, wiping his brow.

"Thanks," Launchpad and Megavolt nodded at the same time.

The Thunderquack's engine coughed, spluttered, and died. The plane stalled in midair and began to plummet. "Uh-oh, looks like the engine shorted out!" Launchpad yelled.

All eyes turned to Megavolt again, who flushed red with embarrassment. "Uh...oopsie," he mumbled.

"Don't worry!" Launchpad reassured his passengers. "When it comes to crashing, I'm the best! If you don't believe me, just ask Scrooge McDuck."

"If we live that long!" Darkwing's fingers were pressing permanant grooves into his seat where he was clutching it. "Quit yapping and look out!" He stared in panic at the rapidly approaching ground.

"One Launchpad McQuack Special Crash Landing, coming up!" the pilot stuck his tongue out in concentration as he glided the Thunderquack into the street, where it skidded for five blocks, slid up a tree, and flipped over to land on its roof.

"Just like old times," Launchpad chuckled fondly to himself as he punched the button that opened the Thunderquack's dome. The passengers spilled out into the small yard below in various states of shock and disarray. "See? No problem!"

"Mom, I don't wanna play in the washing machine anymore," Darkwing mumbled, staggering in little circles. Leona caught him and held him steady while he came to his senses. Darkwing looked in dismay at the upside-down plane in the tree as Launchpad clambered down to the ground after them.

"Great! This is just GREAT!" he yelled. "Way to go, Sparky! And just now how are we supposed to get up there to rescue them? Now we're stuck with a ground assault!" Darkwing ground his teeth. "I should have left you back at your father's house."

Megavolt cringed and looked like he wanted to disappear into the ground. For once, he didn't even protest being called 'Sparky'.

Darkwing turned and poked him in the ribs. "Look, you just stay put here and stay out of trouble. I'll try to get in from the ground level and get the hostages out."

"That's insane!" Megavolt told him. "It's sheer lunacy! (And believe me, if anybody would know about lunacy, I would!) How are you planning to get through that force field?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll think of something," Darkwing replied with a determined frown. He hitched his sleeves up and headed back towards the Marstech building with Launchpad in tow.

"This is nuts," Megavolt muttered. "He's gonna get them killed!"

"So what are you going to do about it?" Leona asked him pointedly.

"Who, me?" Megavolt pointed at himself questioningly.

"You. Why'd you bother coming if you weren't planning on doing something?"

"Well yeah, but even I know better than to try a frontal assault on Negaduck when he's this well armed!" Megavolt explained.

As if to prove his point, a series of laserblasts stitched a row in the ground in front of Darkwing and Launchpad as they reached the Marstech building again. The heroes yelped and danced around them. Negaduck's voice echoed through the air. "If you want to make yourself part of this weenie roast, Darkwing, then by all means make yourself at home! But if that dimwitted bulb brain doesn't have enough backbone to show his nose in the next fifteen seconds, you're not the only person around here who's going to get barbecued!"

Leona looked alarmed. "What are you gonna do? You can't just stand there and let your family get toasted!"

Megavolt returned her panicking look, plus interest. "Yeah, but the second I show my whiskers over there, he's gonna try to kill me! This time he's got the firepower to do it, too!"

Leona glanced back at the building, barely able to make out the three figures on the top. She watched in horror as Negaduck reached over and began to fiddle with the cannon pointed at his hostages. A high-pitched whine filled the air. "He's firing up that weapon, whatever it is! Darn it, if only we had more time to come up with a plan!"

Megavolt snapped his fingers, looking relieved and inspired. "Time! That's it!"

"What?" Leona gave him a blank, panicked look.

"Can you get me back into SHUSH labs?" Megavolt asked as he grabbed Leona's arm and took off running down the street.

"Well, yes, but what-"

"The Time Top! You told me it was in storage there, right?"

"Oh...yes, yes it is!" Leona nodded, catching on.

"The Time Top is our only chance," Megavolt declared decisively as they ran.

"Good idea," Leona agreed. "There's just one problem." She dug her heels into the street and pulled them both to a skidding halt.

"What?" Megavolt asked her irritably.

She pointed off to the right. "The lab's that direction."

"Oh. Details, details," he said, turning around and heading the proper way.

On top of the Marstech building, the long, silvery cannon-mounted gun whined at a nearly ear-splitting pitch. Negaduck closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he took in the sound. "Ah, would you listen to that?" he asked his hostages. "Reminds me of the Lacy's Domination Day parade back home in the Negaverse."

"You better let us go!" Evelyn Sputterpark spluttered from inside the cage. "Any minute now the police or the army or somebody real is going to get here and slap you down so far you'll have to climb your way back up to tie your shoes!"

"You think so?" Negaduck purred. "And just how are they going to get through all my perimeter defences? In case you hadn't noticed, not even St. Canard's most headstrong hero was able to get through the force field." Negaduck peeked over the side of the building and watched Darkwing pacing the perimeter as he tried to figure a way in. Quackerjack was on the other side of the force field, cheerfully taunting him. "And even if he did, he'd still have to deal with all my weaponry."

"All what weaponry?" Evelyn demanded. "All I see is a laser and some big thingamajig that looks like a reject from a sci-fi movie set!" She stamped her foot and grabbed the bars of the cage.

"Why, my dear...all this weaponry." Negaduck smiled a fraction and pushed the button of the remote control in his hand. The building rumbled beneath him as walls turned and slid aside to allow rack upon rack upon rack of missiles to slide forward and lock into place. Evelyn gasped as Negaduck laughed at her. "You see? Not one person can take a step within five miles of this building without being blown to smithereens, if I press this switch." He tapped threateningly on a green switch at the bottom of the remote.

"You - you monster!" the lawyer raged. "When I get out of here, I'll sue you personally!"

Negaduck laughed in her face. "What makes you think you're getting out of here?"

Andromeda tugged at her mother's skirt. "Mom! Make him let us go!"

"I'm trying, honey," Evelyn told her daughter between clenched teeth.

"Mom!" Andromeda kept pulling at the skirt. "I'm scared!"

"I know!" Evelyn yelled at the girl, shoving her back. "You think I'm not?"

Andromeda backed up against the bars on the other side of the cage. "Will Uncle Megavolt come for us?" she whimpered quietly.

Evelyn went livid. Her hand shot out and came across her daughter's cheek, hard. "I told you never to mention him around me again! That worthless, no-good traitor - he won't help us! Don't you understand it's his fault we're here??!"

Negaduck watched the exchange through hooded eyelids, laughing quietly. "You know, I like your style, lady," he told Evelyn. "It's almost gonna be a shame to kill you."

Evelyn turned on him. "Oh, yeah? Let me out of here, and I'll 'style' you!" she raged.

"Now, now," Negaduck said contrarily. "It wouldn't do to let the rodents out of the cage before I finish my tests. I've been rather curious as to what an 'auto-inversion spring cannon' does," he said, patting the gun that was aimed at them. "Unfortunately, the instruction manual seems to be written in Japanese, so I guess I'll just have to play with it and see what happens.

"Speaking of which, I think time's just about up for you two," Negaduck continued. "Looks like your brother isn't coming to rescue you, after all. It's a pity, since he was the one I really wanted to kill. Guess I'll just have to settle for you two instead." He sighed in mock shame, then laughed. "Boy, I can't wait to see his face when I finally catch up to him and give him the blow-by-blow account!" His finger twitched over the rows of buttons lining the control panel of the cannon gun.

Suddenly there was a crackle in the air. The stench of ozone swept over the rooftop as a vortex of electricity swirled and arced in midair, and was slowly replaced by a huge red, white, and blue replica of a child's toy top. The top ground to a spinning halt, and the hatch in the top popped open. Megavolt's head popped out. "Did I make it? Did I make it?" he wondered frantically.

Negaduck stumbled backwards in surprise. "You - what the heck? How did you do that?" he spat. "How did you get through my defenses without setting them off?"

"Fantastic! Right on time!" Megavolt beamed. "It's quite simple really," he explained. "I went back to SHUSH and redesigned the Time Top so that it could not only travel through time, but also translate its location through space as well. It took a few weeks, but with the rebuilt equipment, I was then able to translocate from a point across town in the future to this moment, here." He hopped the rest of the way out of the Time Top, looking rather less injured than he'd been a few minutes ago. Launchpad's scarf fluttered around his neck.

Andromeda looked up through the bars of the cage. "Uncle Megavolt! You DID come to save us! I knew you would!" Suddenly her eyes grew wide. "Hey! Now I know who you reminded me of!"

Evelyn's eyes grew as wide as her daughter's. "You have got to be kidding me," she said in sheer disbelief as she slid down the bars of the cage and sat down heavily. "A time machine??"

"All right, Negaduck," Megavolt said as he drew an electrogun out of his pocket and pointed it at the crime lord. "I'm giving you one kilowatt-second to let my family go, or you're toast!"

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Negaduck purred, lightly tapping the 'fire' button of the cannon. "That might make me slip and press this button, and then I'm afraid something very unfortunate would happen to these girls." He gave Megavolt a cruel, 'what you gonna do now?' look.

Megvolt's finger twitched on the trigger. Long seconds passed. Finally he lowered the gun. "I guess you got me there," he admitted slowly.

"Darn straight!" Negaduck laughed at him. " It's about time you admitted you've lost, Sparky." He pulled a machine gun out of his cape and motioned Megavolt towards the cage with it. "Go on, you're going to join your family in a trip to the great beyond."

"Some rescue," Evelyn muttered.

Andromeda watched with wide eyes as her uncle slowly and dispiritedly walked towards the cage. She shook her head in denial. "This can't be right. You've got a plan, right? Something?"

"Go on, hurry up," Negaduck urged him. "I haven't got all century, you know."

As Megavolt reached the cage, he winked at his niece. He stood up straight and tossed the electrogun at Negaduck. "Here, catch!" he shouted.

Reflexively Negaduck dropped his machine gun and reached out to catch the incoming weapon. As he did, Megavolt shouted "NOW!", and the top half of Leona Twiddlewhisker appeared out of the Time Top's hatch, holding something that looked like a cross between a rifle and an electric frying pan. She pointed it at Negaduck and fired.

"Don't move, sucker!" she snarled, as a white heat flash sizzled towards the duck and staggered him backwards. The scientist blinked. "You moved. Oh well, I've always wanted to say that, anyway." She took aim at the evil duck again.

"How are you gonna get us out of this cage?" Evelyn demanded of her brother. "It's locked!"

Megavolt chuckled. "Oh, come on. You think I haven't blasted through my share of locks in the past?" A small charge built up on the end of his finger as he aimed it at the cage lock.

Andromeda bounced up and down. "I knew it! I knew it! I knew you'd come rescue us, Uncle Megavolt!"

Evelyn stood with her hands on her hips. "Something's wrong here. Crooks don't help people, Andromeda. Elmo, what are you really up to? This is some kind of plot, isn't it? You got one of your crooked friends to pretend to kidnap us so you could come and 'rescue' us and get back in good with the family, didn't you? Am I right?"

Megavolt stopped in mid arc and blinked at her. "WHAT? Are you crazy!? I'm up here risking my life for you, and you have the nerve to accuse me of setting this up? I oughtta just leave you here for that!"

"No!" Andromeda reached through the bars and tugged at his sleeve. "You gotta get us out, please!"

"Yeah, well...that's what I came here for," Megavolt finished blasting the lock. The door to the cage sprang open. "Come on, let's get out of here before Negaduck recovers and fires that anti-inversion spring cannon."

"What would that do?" Andromeda asked as she clambered out of the cage.

"Beats me," Megavolt shrugged. "I had one once, but the instructions were in Japanese."

Evelyn climbed out of the cage behind her daughter, but didn't follow as the others turned to make for the safety of the Time Top. Instead she reached forward and snatched her daughter back to her.

"Mom!" Andromeda protested.

"What are you doing?" Megavolt screeched at her. "Any second now Negaduck is gonna-"

A white, feathered hand reached out, closed around Megavolt's throat, and jerked him backwards. A second hand joined it as Negaduck pulled Megavolt to the ground and sat on him. "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, Sparky," Negaduck growled as his fingers constricted tighter and tighter. "I'm gonna finish what I started a week ago, only this time I'm going to stick around and make sure there are no survivors!"

"Elmo!" Leona shouted from the Time Top, holding her gun uncertainly.

"Get back to the Time Top," Megavolt choked to Evelyn and Andromeda. "Move it, willya? Time's wasting!"

Evelyn stood still, clutching her daughter. "This isn't real," she said weakly. "This can't be happening. This is a dream or something, and any second now I'm going to wake up and go downstairs and make a cup of coffee..."

"Mom, come on!" Andromeda pulled at her mother, trying to get her to move. "We've gotta get out of here! Hurry!"

Negaduck and Megavolt rolled together on the ground as the rat tried to make Negaduck let go of his throat. Negaduck's grip wouldn't be broken, so Megavolt tried sending a wave of voltage through him.

"Forget it," Negaduck spat at him as the electricity passed harmlessly through him. "I'm really ready for you this time, Sparky! I'm so grounded, you'd have better luck hurting a rubber ball dipped in glass!"

Leona beckoned to the other two girls from the Time Top. "Come on!" she yelled. "Hurry up and get over here so we can get out of here!"

Evelyn took a hesitant step forward, then stopped again. She looked around as though she might see other support coming over the side of the building. "You don't seriously want me to get in that thing do you?" she said hazily. "It might explode or something."

"Mom!" Andromeda said again, trying to pull her towards the time machine.

The struggle on the ground ceased as Negaduck continued to cut off Megavolt's air. The rat gasped weakly and clawed one last time at the duck's hands before going limp. Negaduck laughed. "Finally! I was beginning to think you'd never give up!"

Quietly, Megavolt reached down, undid his belt, and swang it through the air. The heavy metal buckle knocked Negaduck on the back of the head and knocked him forward, making him let go. Megavolt sat up and gasped, sucking in as much air as he could. He coughed. "I can't believe I actually did that," he mumbled to himself, thinking of his father as he refastened his belt.

Andromeda screamed.

Looking around, Megavolt saw that Negaduck had been knocked forward into the control panel of the anti-inversion spring cannon. The control panel was now sizzling and sparking, and the weapon was gathering a bright, green glow around its barrel.

The cannon was still pointed at the cage.

Andromeda was still in front of the cage, being held tight by her mother.

Evelyn was frozen in place, looking at the weapon like a deer caught in headlights.

"LOOK OUT!" Megavolt yelled, throwing himself forward at the pair. Andromeda reached out to grab his hand. She slipped out of her mother's grasp and they rolled away just as the cannon fired.

A green beam of light shot out of the cannon and enveloped Evelyn Sputterspark and the cage behind her. The control panel of the cannon exploded, and the green light crawled backwards along the cannon's barrel to envelop that too - as well as Negaduck, who was still leaning fuzzledly against it.

"MOM!" Andromeda yelled, trying to go back to her.

"No! It's too late!" Megavolt picked up his niece and ran back towards the Time Top. "We've gotta get out of here NOW!"

The green light grew and eclipsed the figures it surrounded, turning them into vague, dark blurs in the middle of a corona of light. The figures started to shimmer like heat waves on asphalt. They blurred, distorted, and finally smeared out of sight.

The anti-inversion spring cannon remained behind, sparking and fizzling. The green light around it faded as smoke started to roll out from under the control panel. Flames licked out into the night.

"Mom-!" Andromeda whispered, looking back in disbelief as Megavolt threw her up to Leona.

"Hurry! When that thing blows, it's probably gonna set off all the missiles below us!" Megavolt yelled at them.

Leona nodded as she grabbed Andromeda and retreated into the Time Top. Megavolt clambered inside after her and closed the hatch just as the cannon exploded. A final burst of green energy arced out and hit the Time Top as it whirled out of sight. The top stalled for a moment, then revved back up and disappeared.

Seconds later, a series of gigantic explosions blossomed around the top of the Marstech Research Corporation. Debris rained down onto the streets of St. Canard as the top half of the building simply disintigrated.

Inside the Time Top, Andromeda sat on the cushioned bench that ran around the inside and sighed.

Leona put her arm around the girl's shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

"I tried," Megavolt said glumly from the control seat of the time machine. "Really, I did!"

"I know," Andromeda said sadly. "Thanks for rescuing me, both of you guys. But I wish..." she turned and buried her head in Leona's shoulder.

Megavolt and Leona looked at each other and shook their heads, though for different reasons.

"So, where - and I guess when - are we going?" Leona asked.

"About three weeks in the future. I thought it might be a good idea to lay low in Kukamonga for a while," Megavolt replied." He glanced at the control panel and frowned. "Hey, that can't be right! The chronometer isn't supposed to be spinning that fast! Neither is the odometer!"

"You what?" Leona gave him a worried look. "You mean something's wrong?"

Megavolt pounded his head in frustration. "This isn't supposed to be happening! Hold on a second, I think the instruction manual for this thing is around here somewhere." He started pushing buttons until a hatch slid open to reveal something akin to a glove compartment.

"Ah-hah! Here we go," Megavolt reached inside and pulled out the thick sheaf of bound notes that he and Quackerjack had put together when they'd first collaborated on the Time Top. "Now let's see...chronomolecular structure, string snarls, time flux..."

As he leafed through the pages, a loose piece of paper fell out and zig-zagged its way through the air to hit the floor. Leona reached over and picked it up. "Elmo, what's this? It looks like it's written in Japanese."

Megavolt looked up from the manual. "Huh?"

Leona squinted at the squiggly writing, slowly picking out the kanji and kana written across the top. "An-tai in-vaa-shyan su-pu-ri-ngu ka-naan..." she nearly dropped the paper. "Elmo, I think this is about that anti-inversion spring canon!"

"Oh, so that's where I left the instructions," Megavolt wondered, then his eyes bugged out. "Wait a minute - you can read that??"

"Well, some of it. I taught myself some Japanese so I could communicate more easily with SHUSH'S oriental scientists when they came to conference with as a while back," she said modestly.

"What's it say?!" Andromeda looked at her like she was a Red Cross worker handing out blankets.

Leona shifted uncomfortably under the attention and turned back to the kanji. After scanning it for a couple of minutes, she said, "As near as I can tell, it's some sort of chrono-inversion device. It scrunches up the chronotrons that keep a person flowing properly through time and inverts them - rather like going through a black hole."

"So what's that mean?" Andromeda demanded.

"It means your mom probably got sent to some time back into the past," Megavolt said. "Or maybe the future. It's hard to say."

"You mean she's not dead?!" Andromeda perked up.

"Well...relatively speaking, if she went backward, then depending on how far she was sent into the past to our relevant place in time she might be," Megavolt said throughtfully. "On the other hand, if she was sent into the future then she might not even be born yet, relatively speaking. But if you mean 'did the cannon kill her' - well, in a word, no."

"Then we can go find her!" Andromeda cheered.

"Well...we can if I can figure out why the Time Top is going faster than it's supposed to," Megavolt told her.

The lack of an immediate 'yes' didn't seem to bother Andromeda. "That's ok! Even if we can't go back and find her immediately..." a light dawned in her eyes. "We're on a real adventure, aren't we? Just like on tv! And you're just like the Doctor!" She pointed at Megavolt, who sat there in his crimson hat and coat with a scarf draped around his neck.

"Who?" he said.

"No, that's not quite right," Andromeda puzzled. "This is all turned upside down. Ohm. That's it! You're Doctor Ohm, and me and Leona are your companions!"

Megavolt chuckled and rumpled his niece on the head. "That's pretty good. I like that," he told her. "'Doctor Ohm'...it has a certain spark to it."

Leona folded her arms. "That's fine, just don't forget I'm the only one with a PhD around here."

"Details, details," Megavolt said lightly as the Time Top hurtled through time and space on its way to...somewhere.

"...and that's what happened." Darkwing Duck shuffled through the end of the stack of papers in the file and closed the folder.

Gosalyn whistled. "Boy, that sure explains a lot. I mean, no wonder you didn't want me to go in his dad's house at first! But how did you know about all that stuff about Megavolt's past, huh? Did you piece all that together too?"

"Well, not exactly," Darkwing admitted. "A long time ago I got a package in the mail that said 'do not open until after I'm gone'. It was from Megavolt, but at the time I didn't even know who 'Megavolt' was, so I just put it up and forgot about it. After we got home from cleaning up the mess when the Marstech building exploded, I remembered the package and dug it out again. Inside was this." Darkwing shuffled to the very bottom of the papers in the file and pulled out a wirebound notebook. When he flipped it open, Gosalyn saw that a note had been scribbled in very messy handwriting on the inside front cover. A couple of attempts at a beginning had been made and crossed out at the top, and the final result was a short message at the bottom. To Darkwing Duck and Launchpad McQuack - thanks for everything

"Megavolt wrote down everything that had happened to him in here," Darkwing said. "I guess he spent so much of his life being misunderstood that he wanted somebody to know the real story."

Gosalyn grabbed the notebook and flipped through it. "So you're telling me that Megavolt disppeared in a broken Time Top and now he's travelling randomly through time and space with a scientist and a kid my age? What about Negaduck and his sister?"

Darkwing spread his arms. "No clue. I guess they both got zapped somewhere in time, but if so, it hasn't had much effect on the present. At least, I don't know of any historically recorded attempts of Negaduck trying to take over the world."

Gosalyn planted her chin in her hand thoughtfully. "Boy...I dunno. Thinking about time travel gives me a headache. I usually start dozing off whenever they start talking about it in school."

Darkwing took the notebook, replaced it in the file folder, and shoved the whole thing back into his filing cabinet. "So there it is, Gos. Now you know why Megavolt and Negaduck both disappeared at the same time, and now you know why I didn't want to tell you all the details until you were older. It was a pretty ugly case."

Gosalyn nodded. "I guess. But I still think you could have told me back then. I wasn't that naive, you know."

"I know, I know," Darkwing nodded. "I guess it's just...a parent likes to think their kid is still innocent sometimes."

Gosalyn gave him a half smile. "That's stupid, but I guess I know what you mean." She leaned over and hugged her dad.

Darkwing echoed her smile as he hugged her back.

"So are you really thinking about retiring?" Gosalyn wondered.

Darkwing sighed. "Part of me is. Before too much longer I'll have St. Canard totally free of crime - well, major crime, anyway. After that, what's left for a superhero to do? Arrest jaywalkers? It's either that, or find another city to protect, and I don't want to move. St. Canard is my city, you know?"

Gosalyn snorted. "If I know you, you'll be fighting crime as long as you can still move. There's always new stuff coming up."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Darkwing admitted. "Although it just won't be the same..."

The pair stared moodily out at the clear, moonlit night.

Suddenly a crackle broke the still silence. The stench of ozone swept through the air, and a vortex of whirling energy spun into Darkwing's hangar bay below. Darkwing and Gosalyn ran over to watch as the energy solidified into a spinning red,white, and blue top.

Darkwing looked astounded. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle," he swore under his breath. "Speak of the devil..."

The hatch of the Time Top popped open, and the top half of Megavolt's body popped out, looking around. "Did we do it this time?" he wondered.

"Megavolt?!" Darkwing yelled at him half in shock, and half in annoyance. "What the heck do you think you're doing just appearing in my secret hideout like that?"

The rat's eyes swept around the hangar and found Darkwing on the platform above him. "Darkwing Duck! It's you! It's really you! I DID it! Say - what's the date? This is after I left, right?"

"You left about four years ago," Darkwing told him.

"Oh, good," Megavolt exclaimed happily. "Then I'm not tangling up the superstrings." He hopped out of the Time Top and clambered up the ladder to where Darkwing stood with Gosalyn.

Darkwing headed him off at the top. "And just where do you think you're going? What's the big idea just barging in here like this?" Darkwing yelled at him, waving his hands in the air. "Don't you know a man's lair is his castle?"

"Sorry," Megavolt said. "But you gotta come help me. I finally found my sister, and she's with Negaduck, and I can't beat him alone. You're the only person who's ever consistantly beaten Negaduck. You've gotta help me!"

"Negaduck?" Darkwing started to say, but Megavolt grabbed his jacket sleeve and started to drag him down the ladder.

"Hey! You leave my dad alone!" Gosalyn yelled down at him, starting to follow.

"Huh?" Megavolt stopped in mid-clamber and blinked at her. "Oh, that's ok, you can come too. There's plenty of room - I've been doing some modifications to the Time Top. It's dimensionally trancendental now."

"It's what?" Gosalyn and Darkwing chorused in confusion.

"Um...it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside," Megavolt explained.

"Keen gear!" Gosalyn said. "This I gotta see!" She jumped down off the platform, skipping the ladder completely.

"Young lady, you - I - " Darkwing spluttered. "I...you say you found Negaduck?" he asked Megavolt.

The rat nodded. "That's right, and boy is he ever gonna be hard to beat. Somehow he managed to get a crate of Zylonian hand grenades, and he's threatening to take over Atlantis!"

"Zylonian...hand grenades? Atlantis?" Darkwing said, unable to believe his ears. "What in the world are Zylonian hand grenades? Well, never mind," he said, grabbing Megavolt and heading towards the Time Top after Gosalyn. "There's an evil-doer to thwart, and time's wasting!"

In a place that wasn't a place, a young girl who wasn't really a young girl screwed up her face and peered thoughtfully at the tangle of strings she'd woven together. She examined it from one angle, then another, then nodded and balanced the whole mess on top of her head, where it perched like an untidy bird's nest. Then she went off in search of her colleague.

She found him sitting beside a stream with strange eddies whirling at counterdirections throughout. The old man (who wasn't really an old man, if you remember) was gazing intently into the stream, but as the girl approached he looked up and smiled. "Hello Dementia," he greeted her.

"Tiddledy-bobbins," she replied.

"All done with your string then, are you?" the old man inquired.

Dementia nodded so fiercely that the bird's nest of string slid off her head. She caught it before it hit the ground and held it out to the old man. "There's lots more where this came from. String gets born you know, like little baby mice. All over the place. But this bit's all done, so I thought you might want it. You know, to play with or put on your mantle piece or something."

Chronos nodded his head sagely and accepted the tangle. He admired it from several sides. "Yes, you've done a very nice piece of work here," he complimented her. "But of course, like all things, it's a work in progress. I believe I shall find some amusement in helping it to grow. Yes, indeed. A work in progress." Smiling his timeless smile, Chronos carefully set the bundle of string down to float on the river that was his domain.

End...

And a new beginning

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