Darkwing Duck: High, Dry, and Flooded
A/N: Okay, the start of a new story! Freaky! Alright, this one will probably come rather slowly but I hope to have it done by the end of this year... well, really I hope to have it done sooner than that but we'll see. I don't have too many notes to start you off on but the main one is that this one, you'll see quickly, contradicts the very first Webfoot story ("My Kingdom For a Double-Plait Bolt") in terms of Beth and LP meeting. This is because I intend to rewrite that first story and change a number of things - this has been on my to-do list for a while now. Very few of them will affect the later stories, but obviously it affects them in this way. To sum up, in the rewrite of the first story Beth and Launchpad will have met several times as he's come in to shop. (It is, however, the first time she meets Drake.)
Beyond that, I don't really think there's too much I need to get into. This story does take place shortly after "Something In the Air" and presumably right after "Peachy Keen" (though it doesn't refer to the latter at all), and a little while before "The House on Avian Way", say maybe two or two and a half months before it. Hope you like!
Act I
The manager of the downtown jewelry store had vacuumed, and polished the cases, and raised the bars over the windows. Now, clutching the bank deposit tightly in one hand, he tapped the arming code into the store's alarm system and made his hasty way out of the building, locking the doors behind him.
It was shortly after 10 pm, and as the manager made a quick dash for his car to drive himself to the bank, he failed to notice the shadow on the far left of the store.
The shadow noticed him. It watched him pull out of the parking lot and speed away. It stood silently for some moments more, waiting. The shadow had waited all day, and much of the previous day as well. It had waited until it was certain it knew the interior of the building, how to get in and how to get out, and how to keep the alarms from going off.
Less than ten minutes after the manager had gone, the shadow made its careful way to the front door of the store. Hidden in the darkness, it remained nearly invisible as it entered the store; no witnesses would have known how the shadow had made it inside.
Of course, there were no witnesses anyway.
The alarms were taken care of quickly. The shadow, coming to its full height, found its way into the jewelry cases and picked out what it liked best.
"MOM!! Loopy's chewin' on Corduroy again!"
His mother pulled her head out from beneath the hood of the plane she was tuning up, and sighed. "Launchpad, sweetie, your sister's only two, and she loves that bear."
"Then why's she chewin' on him?" At age eight, Launchpad McQuack had found that the only thing more aggravating than having his baby sister get into all of his things was having his parents defend her for doing it. HE didn't chew up the stuff HE loved, after all.
With a patient smile and a slightly grease-smudged face, his mother patted him on his cheek and left a little grey handprint. "Honey, she's just a baby. She doesn't know how to be gentle with things she loves, yet." She fished for a handkerchief, then licked it and started rubbing his face clean. "If you share with her now, she'll remember how important it is to do the same when she gets older!"
He squirmed under the handkerchief. "Mooooom-!"
And all of a sudden, it was decades later, and Launchpad was back where he'd been a few minutes ago - well, where he'd been the whole time, really.
It was still upside down. No, strike that, he was still upside-down, and he had a feeling it was starting to get to him. Next to him, Darkwing was fidgeting in silence, shifting his arms and shoulders in the chains that were holding him.
"Whoa. It happened again," he told Darkwing. This got no response, but Launchpad wasn't waiting for one, anyway. "I was eight this time, an' my Mom was tellin' me I had to share my teddy bear with my little sister... Heh, I still have that bear, y'know? Loopy just about chewed his ear off, but..."
"Launchpad." DW's voice was quiet, but very forceful. "Unless this has anything to do with escaping Dr. Slug's latest death trap, please do me the favour of shutting up until I ask your opinion."
Launchpad was unfazed; DW was understandably tense at a time like this. "Sorry, DW. I just thought it was interesting - I mean, how many times does your life really flash before your eyes, anyway? Hey - how many times has YOUR life flashed before your eyes?"
Darkwing sighed. "Launchpad - WHAT did I JUST say?"
"Oh yeah. Sorry." He'd have shrugged in apology, but gravity was sort of making it hard to keep his shoulders from being right around his neck anyway, so there wasn't much point.
He sighed. What a way to go - captured by Dr. Slug and hung, chained and upside down, in the abandoned meat-packing factory on the outskirts of St. Canard. Of all the ways his and Darkwing's adventures might have ended, he'd never thought of this... Well, maybe once or twice. The one thing he wondered was, did the fact that his life was actually flashing before his eyes mean he was definitely going to die, or was it just because all the blood was rushing to his head? Maybe that was causing him to see things, or...
He blinked, surprised to have sunlight in his eyes, as though he hadn't been outside all this time. With a shake of his head to clear it, he pushed open the door to the hardware store. Maybe that girl would be working again today; she'd said she usually worked Wednesdays, or at least he thought he remembered her saying that.
No sign of her as he came in; he felt a little disappointed. Well, he had come for an actual reason, not just to try and flirt with the store clerk, so he gave a mental shrug and let the door fall shut behind him. The first item on the list he'd brought were wire-cutters, and last time he'd been in, they'd been in the far aisle from the door, so he started off that way.
Breathlessly, a figure burst through the door behind the counter and screeched to a halt before hitting anything. "Sorry! I'm sorry! Can I - oh. Hi."
He broke into a grin. She WAS here! "Hey!" he said cheerfully. She'd recognized him, too! He decided to overlook the way she'd suddenly gone quiet when she made the mental connection; just the fact that she remembered him, out of all the people she probably saw each day, was pretty cool.
"Did - did the, um, the screws work out?"
"Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you. You were right, they were a good substitution. You should go into repair work." She snorted, and shook her head. He shoved his list into his pocket, and approached her. "So, how's it goin'?"
"Oh, um..." She fidgeted, playing with the hem of what he had thought at first was a skirt but now recognized as a shop apron. "Uh, slow, so far. I mean - did you mean the store?"
He shrugged, and laughed. She laughed too, uncertainly, and then blurted out, "I'll be right back," and headed back to the door she'd just come in through.
"Something wrong?" he asked, a little alarmed.
She paused. "No - it's just, my, my manager told me to let her know if you... Uh-" She cut herself off, suddenly blushing. "Um, if you ever came back in here... She just... said that."
Launchpad blinked in surprise. "Really? Did I do somethin' wrong before?"
"Oh, no!" the girl said emphatically, and put a hand to her mouth. "She just... well..." More blushing. "I-I don't - really have to get her," she finally said, and after looking for a moment like she was trying to go in three directions at once without moving, she put her hands behind her back and smiled sheepishly, but sincerely.
She had a great smile; he'd noticed that the first time he'd met her, too. Friendly and, well, kinda cute, too. In fact, the more she smiled, the less he seemed to be able to think of to say, no matter how much more it made him want to talk to her.
"So..." She began hesitantly, then cleared her throat and appeared to steel herself. "How can I help you today?"
"Oh - uh..." He pulled the list he'd brought with him out of his pocket, and consulted it. "Uh, lemme see... we need wire-cutters, red spraypaint number 42, a thirty-foot insulated extension cord, an' a 3/4-inch socket." She hesitated, evidently deciding which way to go, then took off to his left. Assuming she was going after something on his list, he followed her; after a moment he added, "Oh, and while I'm at it, how 'bout your name?"
She was reaching for a can of spraypaint and didn't even seem to notice for a moment - it was as her hand closed around the can that she came to a standstill, blinked slowly, then gradually turned rather pink. "My - um...? My name? Why...?"
"Oh, no reason, no reason," he said hastily. "Just wondered. I mean, I'll tell you mine too - it's Launchpad, Launchpad McQuack - an', uh, I can just go look for the stuff on the list here..."
Still blushing sweetly, she looked at her feet and quietly said, "Beth. Webfoot." She looked up at him and smiled again. "I'm Beth."
Launchpad felt a little light-headed all of a sudden. "Hi, Beth."
She blushed even more, and said softly, "Hi... Launchpad."
And he was upside down again. Or still. Whatever... this was getting weird. "Hey, DW," he tried. "Do ya think -"
Aggravated sigh. "Launchpad, for the third time in five seconds, I'd like to do this without distractions!"
"Sorry. Hey, just five seconds? I thought it was a lot longer than that!"
Next to him, there was a snap. "No," Darkwing said in a choked voice, obviously pained, "only - five."
"Y'okay?"
"I just - forgot - how much this - hurts," Darkwing managed. A few more cracks, then another loud snap, and he breathed a sigh of obvious relief.
Launchpad found this intriguing. And maybe it wouldn't go against the rule DW had just set down about breaking his concentration, since it was about the same thing. "Uh, what exactly are ya doin' there, DW?" He tried to turn his head and look, but at their angle it wasn't easy. Gravity was keeping his head pretty much in one position.
"An old trick taught to me many years ago by Brother Camoo, Launchpad. It was while I was studying in Siberia, and I lived with a brotherhood of monks who taught me the art of mind over body." Launchpad had been right, it seemed, in guessing that Darkwing wouldn't mind talking about this as he did it. This was more than DW had said at one time since Dr. Slug had hung them up here and then left them, almost an hour ago. "It's all a matter of the proper breathing techniques, and then the joints of the body can be manipulated to flex in any direction..."
"I get it! So you're gonna get out of those chains by breathin' the right way!"
Darkwing paused for effect. "Not exactly, LP. But through flexing and some minor dislocations - I should be able to loosen these chains enough to -"
The door swung open, interrupting the hero from his explanation of his escape plan. Light reflected off of the reflective piece Dr. Slug always wore on his forehead as the huge pseudopod slid into the room. Two smaller slugs flanked him, their faces showing no sign of intelligence at all. "Do you know the advantage of using an abandoned meat-packing factory as a hideout, Darkwing Duck?" he asked, in a voice that crawled up and down Launchpad's spine, leaving little sticky trails in its wake.
"Free beef jerky?" Darkwing shot back angrily. Launchpad shot a glance at him - he was nearly halfway out of his bindings, but it wasn't enough.
We're gonna get out of this. We always do, Launchpad thought desperately, but it seemed more empty than usual. He swallowed. Beth...
Oblivious, Dr. Slug laughed. It sounded like slurping. "Oh, funny, little duck. Actually I was thinking of the the variety of machines at my disposal... So many ways for you to die. I've decided to let you go gourmet, Darkwing... You'll make a terrific duck pate. Your friend is a bit more lower-class - I think maybe a sausage..."
Darkwing raised an eyebrow, which was an odd expression from an upside down perspective. "Your minions are eating the machinery, Sluggy."
"Wh-" Dr. Slug swung his bulk around and found his goons chewing messily on a grinder behind him. "Oh, knock it off, will you?! Throw me a bone here." He swung a slab of flesh in their direction, knocking them both upside their heads.
The distraction was enough. Darkwing forgot delicacy and forced the chains, managing to drag one arm free; from there he pulled the other out with few problems, and then tugged the loosened chains from his feet, dropping to the floor with what was certainly intended to be cat-like grace. Unfortunately, the extended period spent upside-down had weakened his sense of balance, and he just landed in a heap on the floor.
"All right, DW!!" Launchpad cheered excitedly.
Dr. Slug whirled back around, looking furious. "No, you don't!" He lunged at Darkwing with non-slug-like speed. The hero just barely managed to roll out of the way, and scrambled to his feet on the rebound. Dr. Slug blew a frustrated breath of air out of what might have been nostrils - if slugs had such things - and narrowed his eyes. "Very well, then. You can postpone your own death, and just watch your friend go first," he snarled. Launchpad's eyes went wide as a slimy pod-foot grabbed him and held him fast, dragging him off the hook he'd been hanging from and across the room to the intended death trap.
He was coated in slime, could hardly see anything - but somehow out of the corner of his eye, he made out Darkwing's figure. Running away. Hoboy. No, he wasn't leaving, he was... planning something. Right?
Right??
"DW?!" he called desperately, and got slug slime in his mouth for his effort. "Ewwww!" He cringed and started spitting.
Suddenly, nearby, he heard a smacking sound and then a sizzle. Dr. Slug turned to see his two henchmen shrinking away, squeaking pitifully. "WHAT?!" he growled.
Still no Darkwing in sight, but his voice rang out loud and clear. "You'd better let my sidekick go, Sluggy. Unless of course you want to be spiced into nothing, like your mooks down there."
"You're bluffing!" Dr. Slug shot a nervous glance at the still-bubbling spots where his cohorts had been, but resolved his face into a glare. "You can't reach me before I -" He broke off and squealed in pain as something hit his flank. Launchpad, who had been more or less held aloft by what passed for the huge slug's arms, was dropped to the ground - still immersed in slime, unfortunately.
Dr. Slug looked around. "You think you've won?!" he slobbered, drool and slime running from his mouth in his panic. "This isn't the last of me!"
A few feet away from him, Darkwing dropped to the ground and pulled something out of his cape. "Eat salt, pseudopod," he growled, and lobbed it at the slug.
It made heavy impact, spattering and falling all over Dr. Slug. The creature's wail was cringe-worthy; squealing and steaming, Dr. Slug fled the factory, shrinking as he went. When DW saw him last, he was the size of a kitten, and likely wouldn't stop any time soon.
"Whew," Darkwing breathed, and let his shoulders slump at last. "Don't think we'll be seeing him for a while - if at all. Launchpad? Any lasting damage?"
With effort, Launchpad lifted his head up from where it felt glued to the floor. "I think I know what the floor of a movie theatre feels like," he said weakly.
Darkwing offered him a hand and pulled him up, but clearly regretted it a moment later. "Ugh. Tell me you keep towels in the ThunderQuack, LP."
"I'm startin' after today," Launchpad said sincerely, shaking his arm and flinging loose slime across the room.