"No evil was too sinister for him. There was no villain he could not
outwit, outmaneuver, and outright beat the pants off of! But tonight his
skills would be tested, for tonight his prey was the insane mastermind
Megavolt!"
The next day, Darkwing sat in his secret hideout pondering. Who was Alice? He
had gone through his senior yearbook and the file he kept on Megavolt's
criminal activity, but he could find no Alice who had any connection with
Megavolt. So who the heck was Alice??
Inside the power company, the scene was unlike anything the authorities or
spectators had imagined. Darkwing and a small group of police watched, hidden
safely in the shadows on a high catwalk, while Megavolt worked busily to fix
his flying machine with Alice sitting nearby. On the table were plans for the
machine's new design, obviously torn from Alice's ever-present sketchbook.
[Author's Note: should anyone, by some stretch of fate, happen to want to
draw Alice with her handy-dandy sketchbook, keep in mind that she's
left-handed!]
As if on cue, Darkwing darted around a corner just as the name of his foe
slipped from his beak. He stood facing the lighthouse. A smug grin spread
across his face as he closed in crept forward.
"Take heed, oh foolish evildoer," he continued, "And learn that it is not
a good idea to have a secret hideout in a place everyone can see! Silently,
the masked wonder inched forward, knowing that the criminal spark plug was
his for sure." Darkwing made a mad dash from the brick building he had been
standing beside to the lighthouse. He looked up, watching the flickering
lights of Megavolt's electric experiments stream haphazardly from the top of
the great structure. Darkwing chuckled to himself. "Not the brightest crayon
in the box, now, are we?"
He braced himself against the door, preparing to use all of his strength
to force it open. The fact that it was unlocked took him quite by surprise.
Darkwing tumbled into the dusty entrance room of the lighthouse, but quickly
covered his mistake by doing a flip and landing with his gun drawn. "Let them
see this duck's dexterity!" he smirked. He let himself bask in the glow of
his insanely large ego briefly before rushing up the stairs.
The door leading into the top room was cracked open. Darkwing saw the
same flashing blue and yellow light that he had seen from the street below.
He took a deep breath, then leaped into the room with his typical entrance in
a cloud of purple smoke.
"I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the root canal that cleans
out the biting tooth of crime!! I… am DARKWING DUCK!!!" He stood in the
doorway, his cape billowing behind him in the seabreeze coming in from an
open window. Megavolt was nowhere to be seen. The flickering lights came from
a nearby television that had been left on to the 24-hour home electrics
channel. Darkwing dropped his cape, confused and somewhat annoyed. He had,
after all, trailed Megavolt to this location! Was it possible that he had
fooled the great Darkwing Duck?
Darkwing refused to believe such a thing. Megavolt would have stayed
around just to see the look on Darkwing's face when he entered to a room
devoid of naturally conceived life. Darkwing decided to search the room.
"Come out, Sparky, I know you're in there!" he yelled as he threw open a
closet. He was greeted with a bombardment of falling objects. Then he heard
an all-too-familiar laugh coming from the direction of the open window.
"Guess again, duck!" Megavolt's unmistakable voice echoed through the
room. Darkwing scrambled out from under the heap of nondescript electrical
parts and turned to face the window. Megavolt hung right outside. He wore a
contraption on his back that resembled Inspector Gadget's Gadget-Copter, only
it wasn't attached to his hat. Darkwing snarled under his breath.
"Just what do you think you're up to, Sparky? And what is that thing
you're wearing? A broken pinwheel?"
"Ha ha, very funny." Megavolt stuck his tongue out at Darkwing. "It just
so happens that this is my new invention! I call it, the… the uh… the great…
um… The Great Escape-o-copter!"
Darkwing laughed. "The Great Fall-o-copter is more like it! That thing
wouldn't fly if you tied an airplane to it!"
Megavolt pouted. "Fine then. Just watch me!" With that, he flicked a
switch on one of the handles and leaped off the window ledge. The propellers
spun around, sputtered, then stopped completely. Darkwing thought he heard
the would-be inventor mutter something not fit for printing before plummeting
to the cement below.
"Well, that was easy," Darkwing said as he strolled back down the stairs.
He arrived on the scene to find Megavolt staring down the street, his
gloved hands still holding the handles tightly though the rest of his machine
was scattered in hopelessly bent and broken pieces all over the ground. He
had a dazed expression on his face. Darkwing waved his hand in front of his
arch-nemesis's goggles. "Hello! Earth calling Sparky!"
Megavolt didn't even blink. "Hullo, Alice," he muttered dreamily. The
corners of his mouth tilted up into a crooked smile.
"He must have his head harder that usual this time," Darkwing thought.
Without further ado, he dragged Megavolt to his feet and led him off to the
city police station.
The cop on duty looked at Darkwing as if he were as crazy as Megavolt.
"But what law has he broken?" he asked or the fifth time, his voice giving
away his impatience.
"I've told you five times now, just about every one in the book!"
Darkwing sputtered indignantly. "What do you take me for, an idiot?"
"But what law did he break when you caught him? What did you actually see
him do? What have you got **evidence** of??"
"Well, nothing, but…"
"Then I tell you, I can't keep him here if he hasn't broken any laws! It
looks to me like he needs medical attention more than police attention
anyway." The cop looked at the still-dazed villain.
Darkwing had an idea. "Alright, he's drunk. Is that enough to keep him in
custody for the night?"
"Well," said the cop scratching his head. "Sure, I guess so. But I'll
have to do a test first. Can he stand up?" Until then, Megavolt had been
leaning against Darkwing. Darkwing eased himself out of his enemy's grasp. He
stayed standing.
The cop went to Megavolt. "Now, I want you to walk across the room in a
straight line. Can you do that?"
Megavolt blinked. He looked at the cop and grinned. "I know you!" he said
gleefully. "Hi, Alice!" He promptly proceeded to collapse, unconscious. The
cop looked at Darkwing.
"Yep, I'd say that's enough to keep him for observation."
Darkwing grew tired of so much thinking, and decided to turn on the
television to relax his brain, or possibly to see if anything on the news
would jog his memory. He flipped to the first news show he could find.
"And in local news," a girl duck with too much make-up was saying, "A
drunk brought in last night to the local jail has escaped. We have now
identified him to be the infamous scoundrel Megavolt. He has currently
barricaded himself into the power company. This is a hostage situation!
Miranda Renee is live on the scene."
Darkwing was about to leap up and go, but something made him stay behind
to listen. The camera flipped to a shot of Miranda Renee, another duck with
far too much make-up and a very high-pitched voice, standing outside the
power company. There was a large group assembled in the background, and
police swarming the outside.
"Well, Danielle, it seems Megavolt has threatened to shut off the city's
entire power supply if anyone comes too close, but he has not yet specified
any further demands except that he be left alone."
"Do we know who the hostage is, Miranda?"
"Why yes, we do. Authorities have just released information stating that
the name of the hostage is Alice Marten. Police are…" Darkwing stopped
listening as a photograph of the hostage flashed across the screen. She was a
slim, copper-furred ferret with a long bushy tail. In the photograph she wore
a long sleeveless dress of deep swirling pastels blended into each other and
decorated with small white seashells.
Alice Marten!! He remembered now! She went to school with them in
eleventh grade, but was transferred to a private school for her last year.
She and Megavolt had been very close friends. Spooky and Sparky, they were
called. She was known as Spooky for her mysterious artistic ways, the perfect
compliment to Sparky's science. Somehow, that fall last night had made
Megavolt remember his friend. Though why he had taken her hostage was still a
mystery.
"A mystery that needs immediate solving!" Darkwing said to himself as he
hopped onto his motorcycle and set off for the power company.
"You're still as crazy as ever, Sputterspark," she said. "That was a
great scheme you had, pretending to take me hostage and all."
"Did you really like it, Alice?" Megavolt looked up from his work for a
moment, his eyes sparkling like a child who has just been given a compliment
when he expects criticism. Alice saw the expression.
"You need more friends," she said. "Does anybody ever tell you how good
your work really is?"
"It's no good," Megavolt mumbled, turning back to his project. "You saw
how well this piece of junk turned out. Even **you** could fix the problem!
Besides, I have friends."
"Oh?" She crossed her arms.
"Yes! I have Bushy and that stupid water guy and… ow! Stupid flame
torch… and Mr. Banana Head and the boss and…"
"HA!"
"Huh?"
"HA, I say! HA! And double HA! HAHA! HAHAHA and a disbelieving chortle
too." Alice jumped down from the table she was sitting on. She went to her
friend and put her hand over his. He lowered the flame torch, looking at her.
"Sputterspark, you just don't get it, do you? You've never understood what
friendship really is."
Megavolt turned the flame torch off. "Have too," he murmured.
"Oh?" Again she crossed her arms. Megavolt lowered his eyes.
"I knew what it was like with you," he whispered. "You never called me
stupid names, or left me to that stupid duck, or.. or.. or said my inventions
were hardly worth the scrap metal they were made of!" Megavolt kicked the
table. "I hate them!! Why do things always have to end up like this?"
"Like what?" Alice got back onto her table, and motioned for Megavolt to
do the same.
"This!" Megavolt exclaimed as he sat next to her. "This place is
surrounded by guys in uniforms waiting to drag me off to some creepy white
cell with no power outlets… AGAIN. I bet Darkwing's out there too, waiting
for the right time to leap in here with his 'I am the terror' stuff the way
he always does, scaring my lightbulbs so they're quiet and moody for a week,
and whenever he comes in I have to use up half my power supply to get rid of
him, or kidnap that kid he's so attached to or something… I don't want to do
that!" Alice put her arm around her friend's shoulders when she saw tears
ready to spill from his eyes. Megavolt continued: "That kid should be home
with her parents, not all cooped up and alone in some dump full of car parts
and broken kitchen appliances… I certainly would rather have been elsewhere,
but NOOOOO. Who wants a nuclear disaster around the house? It's not fair,
Alice! I never wanted to be a stupid supervillian anyway!" He burst into
tears.
High above on the catwalk, Darkwing led the police away from the two below.
"Come on," he said. "I think we should give them the time they're asking for.
The power supply won't go off unless he shuts it off, and I don't think he'll
do that." The group left the building as stealthily as they had entered.
Alice held Megavolt close to her. "You can change, you know," she said as
she wiped the tears from his eyes. But he shook his head.
"No… They'd never let me. I can't just… just stop being one of them." He
sniffed. "It's like betrayal. I… I can't do that…"
"Shh… No, I suppose you're right. Come on, we should get out of here
before they decide to come in."
Megavolt nodded. "Yeah, that's true," he said heavily. But he made no
move to get up.
Alice took his chin gently and forced him to look at her. "Hey," she
said, smiling. "Buck up, friend. I'll go see if there's a safe way out while
you get yourself together, okay?"
Megavolt nodded, returning a weak smile. "Sure."
Alice grabbed her sketchbook and ran off in the direction of the main
doors. Megavolt took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He took out a
green handkerchief and wiped the tears from his face. Alice returned just as
he was putting it back into his pocket.
"Sputterspark, you've gotta come see this!" Her eyes were wide in
amazement. Megavolt followed as she led him, almost running, to the door.
They stepped outside together. Megavolt looked around, astounded. There was
not a soul to be seen. The only evidence of the mob scene that had been
present only a short while ago was faint tire tracks in the gravel outside
the gates.
"Gee…" Megavolt said, hardly believing his eyes. "I guess they got my
message for once, huh? Maybe they really ARE too attached to their television
sets to risk sending anyone in."
"I don't think so…" Alice said. "Look." She grabbed an envelope that was
folded neatly in the grating of the fence.
"What is it?" Megavolt asked as she opened the envelope.
"It's a letter," she said. "Listen: 'I am the terror that flaps in the
night! I am the toaster oven that falls on your head! I couldn't resist
giving you my opening lines, Sparky, even though this time you really didn't
do anything worthy of arrest. Darn it. Haha. Next time, try to hold a high
school reunion somewhere that doesn't need to be barricaded… Oh, and next
time, invite me! Say hello to Alice. Signed, D.' It's from Drake, isn't it? I
remember him!" She laughed. "So he's behind this. Darkwing Duck indeed!"
"How did you know…?" Megavolt began.
"The same way I knew that the tall, handsome man wearing a battery and
dishwashing gloves was my Sputterspark." She poked his nose, grinning.
"That's how I know that only Drake liked Zorro enough to copy the costume in
**purple**." They both laughed.
"Well, Miss Marten, shall I walk you home?" Megavolt smiled at her.
"Why, certianly, Mr. Sputterspark," Alice answered in a sophisticated
British accent, giggling softly as they had in high school when they called
each other "miss" and "mister".
As the sun set over the lighthouse, Megavolt walked his friend back to
her apartment. It was just like the old days, when they would work in the
school lab until late at night. And just like the old days, Alice bid him
farewell with a poke on the nose and the same playful rhyme she said all
those years ago: "Tales of Wonderland are told 'til the fire burns down to a
sparky ember. But after your fairy tales grow old, I'll be the Alice to
remember."