Future Imperfect
By: SilverKnight
Y'know, I think about things sometimes. I wonder if good things go bad for a reason, if they ever come out all right in the end, and if I'll ever live to see it happen. I hear a bell toll in the distance, and absently check my watch. 7 pm. Got an hour left.
But mostly, though, I just think about DW.
Autobahn Bay's a really pretty sight from way up here. Really serene and quiet; it almost makes me forget just how messed up everything's gotten. I mean, it used to be the three of us--well, four of us, countin' Honk-man--fightin' crime, savin' the day, and drivin' each other nuts. It worked pretty well for a while, too. Now, it's all different. There's no 'us' anymore. No DW, no Gos, no Fearsome Five (sheesh, who knew I'd actually miss those jokers), no SHUSH, no FOWL, no Thunderquack, no Ratcatcher, no 537 Avian Way, no spinnin' chairs, no home, no freedom, no nothin'.
Just me.
Me an' Darkwarrior Duck.
Sheesh, what a dumb name.
I lean on the stone railing an' look down at the bridge. It's completely empty. Wouldn't be all that surprised if a tumbleweed bounced across the road. It would fit in. I sigh suddenly, droopin' my head. It's just not the same without him in the Tower, barkin' orders and talkin' to himself while pacin' around, usin' all those big, confusin' words. Since Gos up an' left, I found out the hard way that it's a lot colder up here when yer alone. Maybe DW used to think the same thing, too, before we showed up.
I miss DW.
Sure, he had his flaws, like bein' a grand-standin', glory-hoggin' press-hound that always wore a weird hat, but underneath it all, he was still a nice guy that only wanted to help. He put his tail-feathers on the line every night to keep people safe, and yeah, he did want a lot in return, but when push came to shove, he picked savin' the day over his ego. He'd throw a fit about it afterwards, but he did that a lot, anyway, so it's not really worth mentionin'.
I guess, on some level, Darkwarrior only wants to help people, too. I mean, there's gotta be a bit of the ol' DW in there somewhere, right? Darkwarrior can't be all that's left.
Darkwarrior. Man, that sounds stupid. And, believe me, I know stupid.
I don't get it; I just don't. I know he was sad that Gos ran away--heck, I was heartbroken, too--but to turn out like this? What happened? What did I miss? Maybe I shoulda never taken him out to fight crime, and then he woulda never gone whacko and took over the city. ...Nah, if I hadn't of done that, he woulda just wasted away in the Tower, and then St. Canard woulda been over-run by supervillains.
I look at the city, focusing on Darkwarrior's main base right smack dab in the center, and then ask myself what's worse: a psychopathic supervillain, or a psychopathic superhero?
At least with creeps like Negaduck, you knew what they were after. Ya may not have always known how to stop 'em, sure, but at least ya had a clue. Darkwarrior ain't so simple. He really thinks he's makin' the city a better place by controllin' everyone's lives and makin' em afraid to live 'em.
Maybe my mistake was sayin' that right to his face. "C'mon, DW, that's no way for a person to live."
I'm pretty sure he didn't even hear me. I know he stopped really listenin' to me a while back, if he ever did in the first place. "It's Darkwarrior, Launchpad."
I kept myself from sighin'. People called me thick-headed. "Look, Darkwarrior, I hate to tell ya this, but...I think ya might be goin' a little bit too far with all of this stuff." I waved my arms around at the new building, and I remembered my first thought of it bein' that there wasn't enough stone. "I mean, why'd we have to move here? What's this place got that the Tower doesn't?"
"The Tower was for Darkwing Duck," he replied simply, flipping through papers. "In case you haven't noticed, LP, I'm no longer him."
"Yeah, no kiddin'," I muttered under my breath.
He whirled to glare at me, his red eyes glowing underneath the brim of his hat. I gulped and took a step back. "What was that?" he asked.
"N-nothing," I answered hastily. He already had a few screws loose; I didn't want him knockin' out any more over me. 'Specially not at me, which he was kinda prone to do from time to time.
He grunted and turned back around. "I didn't think so."
Now that I think about it, in a way I knew it was all over right then. Up 'til then, DW never turned his anger on me, never once tried to scare me away, even when he didn't know me an' like me.
When he turned an' gave me that really creepy look that made me think he was dreamin' up ways to kill me, I couldn't think of a time when I'd been more scared of a person. (That includes Morgana and Paddywhack. Yeesh, that clown still gives me the creeps.) Ya can't be friends with a guy yer afraid of. Or, I guess, ya can't be friends with a guy that wants you to fear him, and I couldn't do that. I didn't wanna be afraid of him. I wanted to be his friend, like I'd been for years; when he was hurt, or talkin' all those big words, or when Gosalyn was gone an' he was scared outta his mind tryin' to find her. Never saw him more determined.
'Til Darkwarrior Duck rolled around, that is.
Y'know, I really don't like that name.
Never got why he changed it. I told him I didn't like it that much; Darkwing sounded better. He didn't listen to me, an' changed it, anyway. 'Course, by then I guess the name didn't matter anymore. He sure wasn't the Darkwing I knew.
One day, I finally got up the nerve an' told him that. Probably shouldn't have, but I did anyway. "What's happened to ya, DW?"
"Darkwarrior, Launchpad, it's Darkwarrior!" he snapped.
I didn't bother hidin' the annoyed frown. "C'mon, DW, look at'chaself! Look at the city! It's got no crime! Ya wiped St. Canard clean! The only people left are...I dunno, litterbugs, jay-walkers, and those people that pull the tags off of mattresses!"
"Matress-tag pullers!" he exclaimed, holding his hand up. "Have to remember to go after them, too."
I sighed and pushed his hand down from his face, tryin' to get his attention. "No, DW, yer not listenin' to me."
"Say something worth listening to, Launchpad, and I will," he retorted, tuggin' his hand away like I were a disease.
I ground my teeth. Now he was makin' me mad. Darn it, I was fed up--well, fed up, an' really, really worried. "Ya wanna listen to something? Fine; listen to this. The people yer tryin' to protect don't want'cha bossin' 'em around about what they should eat, or how they should drive! They want ya to protect 'em--and ya have, really, really well. So, just, I dunno, give it a bit of a rest or somethin', will ya?"
He slowly swivled his chair around an' looked at me under the bill of his hat. He had that 'I'm killin' you in my head' look in his eye again. It was then I realized that I just broke the numero uno rule of the 'new, improved' St. Canard--never, ever question Darkwarrior Duck. "A rest?" he repeated quietly. "You want me to REST, is that it?"
It was downhill from there, and I knew it. "Well, uh, yeah. I mean, ya already took out Negaduck, Bushroot, Liquidator, an' all the other major bad guys around town, so, uh..." He stood an' glared at me. My mind went blank, my jaw flappin' uselessly.
"Do you think the criminals of St. Canard rest, hm, Launchpad?" he demanded as he stalked forward. I stumbled backwards, tryin' to keep some distance between me an' him. He was my friend, but I knew when I got a serious bruisin' comin' my way, and this was definitely lookin' like one of those times. "Do you think jay-walkers, litterbugs, those little punks that rip the tags off of mattresses will ever stop committing those crimes?"
I gulped. "But, uh, DW, they're not even really, um, bad crimes--"
"They have a law against them, don't they?" he shot back.
I shrugged, side-stepping a table. "Well, yeah, but there's also a law against stealin' an ox, too, an' nobody's done that for--"
He yanked me by my scarf so I was eye-level to him. His lenses were even scarier up close than they were far away. "Who are you, Launchpad, to say which crimes are important, hm? I am here to fight all crime, not simply the ones you find reprehensible."
"But, puttin' a guy in jail for a year because he jay-walked?" I blurted out. I figured that if I was goin' down, I might as well get everythin' off my chest while I was at it. "Ten years because of a parking violation? Puttin' someone to the Chair before arrestin' them? It ain't right, DW!"
For a second, DW just gawked at me. Scared witless but not wantin' to show it, I put on my best poker face an' waited for his inevitable blow-up. It's a shame I'm really bad at poker. "...I see," he finally growled. "Do you want to know what I think, Launchpad?"
"I'm guessin' I don't," I answered warily.
"I think you've gone soft," he hissed, sticking his finger into my chest painfully. "You're just not tough enough to cut it. That's what I thought when I first met you, Launchpad. I should've acted on my instincts then, instead of letting you waste years of my time with your nonsense," he snarled. He took a step forward, an' I took a step back, my shoulders hittin' the wall. I've never been clausterphobic, but I was gettin' close to it. "You're nothing but a bumbling, pea-brained nobody; a failure as a sidekick, a pilot, a friend, and a sentient lifeform--if you even qualify, which I doubt you do. You're a disgrace," he spat. "Get out of my sight, before the robo-guards put you in the Chair!" He wheeled on his foot an' stomped back to his seat.
Stunned, I did as he told me to. I went back to the Tower, an' let his words chew me up for a good while. I won't lie to ya--that hurt. It was like he knew everythin' I was afraid of bein', an' told me that's what he thought of me just to get to me. But, he'd never do somethin' like that. No way in a million years DW would ever be that cruel to his best friend.
I ball my hand into a fist. But, I'm not his best friend, or his sidekick, or his anythin'. An' he's not DW. He's the most horrible person I've ever seen in my life.
Darkwarrior Duck.
I hate that name. I think that maybe a part of me wants to hate him, too, but I just can't. DW's gotta be in there somewhere. He's gotta be. The bell tolls again, an' I lift my head to stare at the city again. 8 o'clock. Curfew time. I start to hear the soft buzz of the robo-guards as I head back inside an' grab my tool kit. That cab ain't gonna fix itself.
I miss everybody; Gos, Honker, Binkie, Herb, even Morgana, kinda. But, most of all, I miss DW. 'Darkwarrior' may be a kook, but I'm not leavin' the Darkwing that's under it. Somebody's gotta be there to protect him, even if it's from himself. When he threw me out, I could've left the city an' gone somewhere else--Duckburg, back with my family, to any other place in the world--but I'm not ditchin' him, 'cause I'm the only person in the world he's got left. No matter how bad he gets, or how many people he kills 'cause he's 'protecting St. Canard', or if he thinks I'ma complete screw-up an' a turn-coat, DW--Darkwarrior, Drake Mallard, whatever he calls himself--will always have an ally with me.
The worst part about that is, it doesn't make me feel much better.
The End