Welcome to the final chapter of the story. Sorry for the delay, college and work doesn't go well with story writing. I can't believe I'm already about to finish this. It's been over 2 year and a half… wow, I'm slow. (chuckles)

This chapter will tie up any loose ends and hopefully answer questions you people are asking like "Is duck alive?" or "What happened to Tech?" There will be some mushy stuff, 'cause people seem to like that. It'll also present some philosophical views and questions from the characters. What are they? (shrugs) Hell if I know.

Anyhow, lets get this show on the road. Enjoy the show!

Chapter 12

"Leave the mind, leave the body. There is no sanity." mimic12455

"Danny, wake up!"

Where am I?

An echoing sound filled his senses. The feeling of a dull ache filled his entire body. He tries to open his eyes, but they refuse to open, feeling like ten-ton anvils are attached to them. The colorless void had been all that Daniel could see since he fell out the window. Although he couldn't see, he could faintly hear the sound of familiar voices nearby.

"How is he?"

"Well, he has seen better days. A fractured spine, internal bleeding, broken ribs, more burses and cuts then the time I tested out my Gardener Triangulating Gyrator 300 a few months ago. He's heavily injured, no doubt about that, but he's still alive."

"That's good to hear."

Daniel tries to distinguish the voices, but his mind is still fuzzy. He can barely comprehend what is happening, feeling a wall inside his head blocking any coherent thought in his cranium. He suddenly feels a pair of thin arms under his legs and back; someone is lifting him off the ground. He starts losing consciousness, his mind slipping back into the void.

- - - - -

Slowly regain his sense of reality, Danny became aware of his surroundings. The first sensation that hit him is the dull ache that is reverberating through out his entire being. Next came the smell of medicine and… clean, he could not put it in any other word to describe that last smell. It reminded him of the day he and the other Loonatics had to clean the tower after a sludge monster broke loose from Tech's lab. They defeated it, no question there, but it left a rather large mess. It took the rest of the day and most of the night to clean the entire tower of that gunk. The smell it gave off, it was something that would forever be burnt into him mind and nostrils. After the entire place had been cleaned, he could recognize the smell of a place being very sterile as "clean" such as a hospital or chemical lab or something.

Since he has no reason to be in a chemical lab, Danny guesses he has to be in a "sick bay" of some sort. After the brutal battle he had, it came to no surprise. He opens his eyes and sees that his hunch is right. I.V., monitors, and many other things littered the room; some are connected to his arm. He tries to get up, but finds himself having a rather difficult time doing so; feeling very drained just like the time Sypher just drained him of his powers a few months ago.

"Take it easy Duck, you just got back from surgery a few hours ago."

Rolling his head to his left, Danny sees Tech, the green coyote himself, standing there with a clipboard in hand, writing something within the numerous pages attached to it. The black orange striped duck stares back in puzzlement.

"What do you mean surgery? What did you do, where are the others, and-why are you wearing that ridiculous outfit," Danny inquires. Instead of the official Loonatics™ uniform, Tech wore a lab coat, doctor clothing, and a stethoscope. Looking down at his attire for a moment and looks back at Danny, looking a bit offended.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Seems a bit cheesy to me," Danny says with a shrug.

"A lot less cheesier than your room."

"Hey!"

"What? It's true," the green coyote smirks.

"Right… what about the other?"

"They had to stop yet another super villain from destroying the city. I believe it is Massive this time."

They were silent for a few moments. Then Danny spoke up.

"So how did the battle go?"

"Before or after your defenestration?"

"My wha?" Danny looks at him with an expression of confusion and bewilderment.

"Falling out of a window."

"You and your fancy words… just tell me what happened."

His face becomes more serious, tension in the room shooting up like a rocket. Tech let out a heavy sigh, grabbing a nearby chair to sit on.

"It had been tough, we were on the receiving end of Ram's bombardment of clones and ammunition. We managed to stop and subdue Ram's army after Ace and Lexi came into the conflict. Well, I should say Lexi did. Ace had been incapacitated, but came up a plan. After knocking out the original Ram, the rest for the clones simply vanished, being unable to sustain them without the original's conscious mind directing them. Ace managed to fill us in on what was going on in the church." Danny nods, remembering all-to-well what happened back in the church.

"Before we could get in, however, a huge explosion detonated in the church; it caused the church to collapse into itself. We were shock and afraid of what might have happened." He gaze looks straight at the bed-ridden duck. "I'm sure you know what we might have thought."

Danny simply nods. Tech continues on with his narrative.

"After that, we tried to find where you were. Luckily, Rev managed to use his GPS to locate you, though with some difficulty. We found out why when we found your body lying a few feet away from the back of the church, bleeding and broken like a over-used toy. We took you back to HQ as fast as we could, which was actually pretty fast." He paused for a moment. "You almost died."

Danny raised a questionable eye at the doctor. The intellegent green coyote went on.

"You lost 75 percent of your blood, bone fractures in places I couldn't believe were possible, more cuts and bruises then the time I was thrown into a jet engine, and don't even get me started on your spine." Another pause. "It took me and few local doctors a few hours to readjust the bones and stop the internal bleeding. After that, I simply injected a small dose of my regenerative serum into your body."

"Why a small dose? Why not just inject the entire thing from the beginning?"

"Well, as you know, a living organism is capable of many things. These include healing cuts, walking, talking, thinking, and much more. All these tasks require energy."

Danny nodded rather boringly, not sure where he is going with this.

"Regenerating lost cells takes a rather large amount of energy, especially if you are gravely injured. If I had injected the necessary amount to heal you completely all at once, it would spend your body's entire energy and you would have died of exhaustion. Even if you did somehow survive, your bones wouldn't have aligned and fused themselves properly. You don't need me going into detail about how that would end."

The thought and image of being in that kind of situation makes Danny cringe.

"You're telling me."

"Well," Tech leans back in his chair. "All in all, you manage to survive and beat Nix. Rather impressive considering your previous track record with other villains."

"When you got it, you got it." Danny says rather arrogantly. The scientific genius in the chair could only smirk.

"Too bad you forgot it." He made a quick thought in his mind. "Looks like he's back to his old self again."

"Hey! I should have a celebration in my honor for this. Yeah! With parade balloons, confetti, flyers, some lovely lady dancers-" Danny notices Tech slipping out of the room while he was talking. "Tech! Get back here! You got to write this down and call Zadavia about this. Tech? TECH!"

With an exasperated groan, Danger Duck falls back onto his pillow. He stares up at the ceiling, wondering how long till he could get out of bed.

- - - - -

A few hours later, Danger is in the lounge room sitting on the couch. He managed to get out of bed an hour ago with some expected difficulty. Tech told him to take it easy and rest up, but Danger, being stubborn, ignored the warnings and walked out with his suit back onto his body. His body still aches, but he would not let that keep him in bed all day.

In front of him is the television program he often watches and never misses, the Weather Forecast with host Misty Breeze. Every time he watches this, his admiration for the weather lady never wanes. Normally, he would have just stared longingly at the entire program. Now, with all that has happened, the black duck simply stares blankly at it. For some reason, he's not feeling the passion or fan boy devotion he had before when he saw her. Just felt like watching another average person doing their job. It is as though something inside of him changed. Something about him is different from before, but he cannot seem to figure it out.

Just then, he hears someone come in though the doors as they make an audible "whoosh" sound. He looks over his shoulder to see who it is out of instinct than anything else. He sees the telekinetic pink rabbit known as Lexi, waving at him as a casual greeting. He waves back as she walks over to the couch.

"Hey," she says. "Feeling better?"

"Of course, it takes more than a few bruises stop me." He strikes a pose to prove this, only to winch when the feeling of pain and ache make itself apparent. Lexi smirks.

"Really?" she asks sarcastically.

"Alright alright, so I'm still healing." He sits back down on the couch with his arms crossed, an annoyed expression on his face. "That ain't going to stop me though, oh no. Far from it! As soon as tomorrow comes, I'll be good as new. Ready to take on the world!"

"We'll see," she says. Her gaze slips toward the television, Misty Breeze is still on. "Ugh, I still don't get why you would want to watch her."

"Me neither."

"Huh?" Lexi stares at Danger with a look of puzzlement. He looks back, quirking an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Well, normally you would go on and on about great she is when someone mentions her."

"Yeah… uh, I just… don't feel like it."

"Why not?"

Danger shrugs. "I don't know."

They sat there for a few moments, neither talking with the only sound coming from the television. It is starting to get awkward.

"I guess," Danger says. "I just don't feel the attraction today. Having your brother coming back from the dead and trying to kill you can do that to a guy."

"Tell me about it. I can still feel the electric shocks he gave me." She says, rubbing her head where the bandanna had once been.

"Sorry about putting you guys through all this. I should have just told you about my brother sooner. I just thought it would have been safer if no one knows about him. I didn't want to lose you guys the same way I… lost my sister." Danger's head droops down in sorrow. He feels a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him; it is Lexi's hand.

"Don't beat yourself about it. He's gone and everyone is fine now. Sure, it had been partly your fault, but you did what you thought best."

"Thanks… I think."

"Look Duck, we all lose friends. We lose them in death, to distance and over time. But even though they may be lost, hope is not. The key is to keep them in your heart, and when the time is right, you can pick up the friendship right where you left off. Even the lost find their way home when you leave the light on."

"Wow," he exclaims. "Where did that come from?"

"I got that from a fortune cookie last week." Danger blinks at her with deadpan eyes. "It does have a point though. Even if you think you're alone, you will always have someone there to help you. Whether it is Ace, Slam, Rev, Tech, or even me, we'll always be there to help."

"In that case, could you help me get a sandwich? I'm hungry."

That remark earns him a Brain Blast in the pants.

"YEOUCH!"

Lexi storms off in anger, murmuring something about "men" and "jerks".

"What'd I say?" he exclaims.

It seems things are returning to normal in the Loonatics HQ. Rev eventually got over what happened to him in Danger's room and they became friends again. The rest of the Loonatics did as well. They asked the local authorities if they found any trace of Nix at the church. They said they didn't find anything, but they would let them know if they find anything.

- - - -

Meanwhile, in the market area of the city, the salesmen from earlier have reach back to their store with their hands empty and head heavy.

"Well that was a bust." Pete says as he sat down in the nearest chair he could find.

"So how did it go?" Steve asks from behind the counter.

"Not so good," says John. "The man escaped again before we could get him."

"That's too bad."

"Tell me about it," Joe says, stretching the sores from his back. "I'm going to be feeling that in morning."

"You think we'll ever catch that guy?" Pete asks.

"Of course we will." John exclaims, sticking his chest out. "We are salesmen, it will take more than some robber to out smart us! Besides, he'll be back and when he does. We'll be ready. Am I right or am I right?"

"Yeah!" The other three men shout loudly. Just then, a man wearing black slips in and takes the cash register, rushing out as fast as he could.

"Hey, it's the guy!" Steve exclaims.

"GET HIM!" John yells as he, Joe, and Pete dash out the door to get the thief. Steve waves goodbye.

"Good luck guys, I'll be waiting here till you come back."

As the sun sets, we see that while one chapter closes, another one begins to open up. With another day come new surprises and dangers. Forever turning, the world keeps moving and spinning. Life and death, good and evil, right and wrong; these are but a few of the many things that change yet stay the same. It shall continue on even after the fat lady has sung.

- - - - -

Ace is walking down the hallway. He is about to go into his room when he receives a call from Zadavia. He answers it.

"Ace, I would like to speak to you for a moment."

"Sure Zadavia, what's the trouble?"

"It's concerning Duck's older brother."

"Him? Don't worry about it. We took care of him. We weren't able to capture him though, but we stopped him from whatever insane plan he had."

"Yes, you did. That, however, isn't why I called you. I've been looking into the records and found that there isn't a person named Dabble Duck anywhere in the database."

"No data? That's impossible, we saw him. Are you sure?"

"I'm afraid so. It's as if Dabble Duck never existed. There is also no data involving Duck's family members either."

"So what does that mean?"

"I'm not sure, I need to look into this. I'll contact you when I have compiled enough data behind this strange situation. Zadavia out."

"… out of one box then into another, and me without my sledgehammer."

Finally! #

I finished the chapter, now I can rest easier knowing I've done it. Sorry for the long wait, but I did it. Whether it was worth it or not, I finished this story. If you want me, I'll be ordering pizza to celebrate.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the story. See you next time. This is Mimic signing off. (happyface)

R&R