Chapter I


A/N: A gift for Hazel_Redflower, for all their wonderful comments! :3


The St. Canard Museum of Questionable Art… outside the Vault of Ancient Antiquities…

Negaduck scowls at the Tronsplitter that Megavolt had wheeled up to the vault door just moments earlier. "This… thing is going to get us into the Vault?"

"Hey! She's not a thing! She's my baby!" Megavolt warps his arms around the Tronsplitter's base, now addressing it as he continues, "Don't listen to that mean duck. You're the best thing that's come into this world, and no one can tell you different. Because if they try to, they'll be too barbequed to tell their hands and feet apart by the time I'm done with them!"

The electricity-wielding rat doesn't bother giving Negaduck the chance to comment— instead, Megavolt reaches into one of his back pockets and pulls out a small, silvery orb. "You're gonna need this if you don't want your positrons and negatrons getting split."

He tosses the sphere to Negaduck, who catches it, and stares at it for about three seconds before looking back up at the other supervillain. Positrons and negatrons, huh? That… explains very little.

"And… how do I turn it on?"

"You don't. Just put it in your pocket, and it'll do the rest!"

Negaduck's scowl deepens as he slides the thing into the front pocket of his jacket, and he's about ready to put Megavolt back into his place (Negaduck takes orders from NO ONE, after all!) when the rat pushes a switch on the Tronsplitter. The machine starts up with a sputtering that quickly settles into a soft hum. From the camera-like lens of the Tronsplitter, an orange-ish yellow beam bursts— striking the Vault door. It splits, and the two newly formed doors slide to either side of the entrance of the Vault.

Negaduck will never admit it, but he's actually a little impressed. Only a little.

A few minutes later, Negaduck and Megavolt step back out of the Vault, their respective sacks nearly filled to the brim with some of the ugliest, yet somehow still extremely valuable, art ever.

Megavolt is flipping the switch on the Tronsplitter, turning it off, when they hear it.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night!"

"Oh no," both duck and rat grumble irritably. Of course.

"I am the little mouse that chews through all your telephone wires!"

And then, there's a cloud of smoke. When it dissipates, there stands the self-proclaimed "Mighty Mallard" himself. Darkwing Duck. "I AM—"

"Roastwing Duck!" Megavolt flings a bolt of electricity at the violet-clad mallard— who yelps, and just barely manages to jump out of the way in time.

As he pulls out his gas gun, Darkwing's eyes widen upon spotting the Tronsplitter. "Seriously, Megavolt?! That thing again!?"

"What is it with you people and calling my baby a thing?!"

Negaduck's whipped out his shotgun by now and is busy trying to pump his goody-two shoes counterpart full of lead. He forgets everything else, too focused on ending Darkwing, right then and there, to care that some of his shots barely miss the Tronsplitter— even when Megavolt yells at him to stop shooting so close to it. The rat even tries to take the contraption apart now, while the two mallards are occupied with fighting each other.

He's just unscrewed the tripod section of the Tronsplitter when one of the stray bits of shotgun shell imbeds itself in the machine's base. The device sparks dangerously, and Megavolt looks to no one in particular, eyes wide with fear, as he mutters, "Uh oh…"

A beam of light blasts from the lens of the instrument, striking Darkwing and freezing him in place.

"Hah! Not so quick now, are you, Dipwing?" Negaduck pulls on the trigger, only for nothing to come out. "What the— hey, what gives?!"

Before he can pull on the trigger again, the Tronsplitter explodes. Something strikes Negaduck in the back of his head, sending a stab of pain reverberating through his skull.

He tumbles to the floor in a heap, and all goes black.

. . . .

When Negaduck starts coming to, he wants nothing more than to go back to sleep. His head is pounding in tandem with his heart, and he has a hard time doing anything other than lying in bed all day when he has a migraine.

Especially one as bad as this.

He's about to slip back into the pitch-black void of sleep when the voices start registering.

"I know, Gos. I know. But I couldn't just… leave him there. He was hurt."

"Dad, I know you're not exactly yourself right now— considering your literal other half is busy tearing apart the city as we speak. But— this is Negaduck! The guy who tried to kill all of us I don't know how many times!"

"Gos kinda has a point, DW… bringing Negaduck here probably wasn't the best idea. Sure, he technically knows where the tower is and stuff, but"

"Nggh…" Negaduck rolls over in the bed, slightly sticky eyelids sliding open of their own accord. In the blurry splotch-i-ness that's his vision, he can see the familiar purple of Darkwing's costume off in the distance— along with the splotches that are, more likely than not, Gosalyn and Launchpad. The saltwater air hitting his beak tells him that they're in none other than the tower. Or rather, his counterpart's version of it.

When Negaduck blinks and his vision clears up a little, the next thing he knows is that Darkwing is standing over him, the superhero's fingers gently brushing against the other's head. Negaduck winces in pain when said fingers touch the somewhat swollen (and no doubt heavily bruised) spot where he'd been hit.

"How're you feeling?"

"…" Negaduck stares at Darkwing for several seconds, dead silent. What in the…? He turns his gaze onto Gosalyn and Launchpad, who've made themselves at home beside the "Mighty Mallard." Negaduck's brain finally starts working, and he growls at Darkwing in warning as he jerks away from the other's hand. "Like I'm gonna kill you in the next three seconds if you don't get out of my personal space!"

L.P. and Gos quickly pull Darkwing away from the bed, the redheaded duckling hissing, "I told you this was a bad idea!"

Negaduck is on his feet by the time Gosalyn is finished speaking, and he's seething with rage. Fists clenched and eyes narrowed, he glares at Darkwing, debating whether a dismemberment or a barbeque is in order. Probably both.

And then the confusion hits him like a bucket of ice cold water.

"Wait, how did I get here, anyway?"

"Well, when I came to, I saw you were knocked out— probably like I was when the Tronsplitter exploded," Darkwing explains, his voice strangely lighter than usual, "and I wasn't gonna just leave you there, so I brought you to the tower and left you to rest. Seeing as we've both been flattened so many times and are still breathing, I didn't think a little bonk on the head was too serious. But I still wanted to keep an eye on you, just in case!"

"…" Negaduck's scowl's morphed into an expression of unreadable blankness.

There's something very off about Darkwing today. And it's not just because the superhero admitted to feeling concerned for Negaduck's well-being— something that the supervillain doesn't quite know how to feel about right now.

It's also in the way he's been talking, and the way he looks at Negaduck.

Darkwing's voice is noticeably lighter, and there's almost a sort of… affection in his eyes when he looks at his villainous double. Negaduck wonders for a moment if the other had been sprayed with that love potion again, though when and how escapes him.

"I… what?" Negaduck looks directly at Gosalyn and Launchpad now, for some sort of explanation. Because none of this makes any sense, and he loathes it when things don't make sense.

"Darkwing got himself zapped by Megavolt's Tronsplitter again, that's what," Gosalyn grumbles, crossing her arms as she glares right back at the older mallard. "The last time it happened, he got split in two. One half was his good side, and the other half his evil side— this is his good half."

"… right. Fine, don't tell me what's wrong with the guy." Negaduck snorts, turning away and marching towards the nearest window. "Not like I care anyway."

He's more interested in tracking down this evil half of Dipwing's.


A/N: This WAS originally going to be posted as part of the Negawing collection, after I finished both the "Undead and Not Loving It" and "The Parent Trap" arcs- but my impatience won in the end, so I decided to write and post this story separately, lol.