Repository: Darkwing Duck

Chapter 3: Lightbulbs And Chainsaws

Negaduck sped down the road in the Ratcrusher, enjoying the feeling of wind in his feathers as he tried to see how many traffic laws he could violate before Dipwing took notice. He considered taking his helmet off just to really feel the wind, but decided against it; Lynn always got so pouty when she found out he did that.

Not that it made him feel bad, of course. Her pouting was just too annoyingly adorable for him to deal with after an inevitable battle with his do-gooding doppelganger. Her guilt-tripping tactics were entirely useless against him, really!

Distracted by his own thoughts, Negaduck drove out of the main city and to the more abandoned part of town on autopilot, instinctually going towards one of his hideouts. Damn it, Darkwing avoided this place almost as much as regular civilians did, he'd never get the fight he was itching for here!

He screeched into a U-turn, considering blowing up something on the way back just to speed things along, when he heard the sound of a large amount of glass crashing to the ground. Destruction and mayhem? Yes please!

He parked his bike, throwing his helmet onto one of the handles, and put his fedora back on with a well-practiced flourish that was entirely lost on the empty street. He walked towards the continuing sound of smaller amounts of glass breaking, positively gleeful at the thought of the trouble he was about to walk into.

Then voices filtered in, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Aw, poor widdle rat." A voice mocked, followed by a little tinkle of glass and a scream from someone else. Someone... Familiar. "Scared for yer liddle 'friends'?"

"Please, stop!" A slurring voice begged. It was the one that had screamed. "You-you're killing them..."

CRASH!

"Oh, not so powerful now, are ya?" A third voice laughed. "You supervillains think you're so much better than us. Well, who's the top dog now, huh?"

Silence. The sound of glass shifting but not breaking. A soft gasp.

"I said, who's top dog now, Sparky?"

"Don't call–" A screech and a whimper. "Don't drop her! Please, no, I'm sorry! Y-you're top dog..."

More glass breaking. A wail of despair. Laughter.

"Having a party without me?" Negaduck asked, rounding a corner into the alleyway where the sounds were coming from. He ignored the stares from the idiots in it, feeling strangely serene as he surveyed the scene.

Crates of lightbulbs were open, most already smashed. Two pelicans and a large dog were surrounding Megavolt, who was half-slumped in a puddle of water. Nothing to tell him why his henchman was transporting so many lightbulbs through an alley, but he doubted the fried rat's reasoning would make sense to him anyways.

"Negaduck!" One of the pelicans squawked, taking a step back and nearly cutting his foot open on broken glass. "We was just, uh–"

"Having a bit of fun." The dog interrupted. All three were soon rambling excuses for attacking a member of the single most feared gang in St Canard, but Negaduck wasn't paying much attention to them.

"You know, Sparky," Negaduck began, enjoying Megavolt's flinch, "it's pretty rude to not invite someone you know to a party."

"Sorry, Boss." Megavolt whispered hoarsely, pressing himself into the wall behind him. He must have caught the glint in Negaduck's eye, though, because the terror on his face was soon replaced with tentative hope. "The, uh, hosts didn't exactly give me a plus one..."

"Really?" Negaduck asked in mock surprise, idly leaning against his chainsaw, before turning his gaze to the three morons that were still rambling on. They fell silent as he quietly said. "Well, now, that isn't very nice. Just for that, I think I'm going to have to shut this party down."

He smiled in a way that showed his sharp teeth, chainsaw roaring to life in his hands. A few minutes later, the pelicans and dogs ran out of the alley, possibly missing a few parts; Negaduck didn't really remember nor care. He twisted towards Megavolt, who started cowering again, and grinned.

"Well, that was fun." He chuckled, dragging the weakly-protesting rat to a nearby powerbox. It was broken down as everything else in this part of town, making it easy for him to find an exposed wire to shock Megavolt back to coherency. He watched him stand up and stretch for a second, then spun around to walk back to the Ratcrusher. Maybe he could still get into a proper fight before bed... "Well, bye."

He'd barely made it five steps before he was crushed in a rubbery bear hug. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Get off of me, you knob!" Negaduck growled, trying to bite him but not quite able to get the right angle. "All I did was brutally attack some idiots; nothing special!"

Megavolt set him down and backed out of chainsaw range, smiling softly. "I know, I'm sorry." He sniffed, glancing at the shattered remains of his lightbulbs with a shudder. "I should go look for sur-survivors. Just... Thank you, Negs."

"Yeah, well..." Negaduck scoffed, marching towards his motorcycle. He hadn't saved Megavolt because he liked him or anything, he clarified to himself as he zoomed back into the main part of town. Adequate henchmen were hard to find, he couldn't let some random nobodies break his.

It was simply a matter of making sure people knew that they couldn't mess with Negaduck's things. Nothing more. Really. It wasn't!

"I am the terror that flaps in the night!" A voice called. "Or, er, late evening I guess. I am the–"

Oh thank Ivia! A ferocious battle across the city was exactly what he needed at the moment. Destruction, mayhem, evil cackling, cheesy monologues — this was his element. This was the way the world worked, the thing that made the most sense. It was who he was and who he was meant to be.

He careened into a streetlight thanks to a stupidly hard hit from Dipwing's bike, rolling out of his motorcycle as it crashed. The streetlight bent and creaked, its lightbulb loosening and falling from the impact. Negaduck heard phantom echoes of glass shattering in an alleyway.

He was halfway to the explosive trap he set up, Darkwing Dork hot on his heels like a good little target, before he realized that he'd caught the damn lightbulb. He stuffed it under his hat to deal with later, pulling out the detonator for his little surprise, and focused solely on his plan.

It was a good horrible well-made plan. It failed, of course, but that was just because his idiotic interdimensional counterpart had gotten lucky.

He did escape with a full third of the loot, however, so he marked this one as a win. Okay, okay, maybe a tie. Whatever.