The Last True Hero
by Amanda Rohrssen
Chapter Eight
A shaft of light sliced through the darkness, making Darkwing squint. He followed the beam with his eyes until it at last fell upon a single, forlorn figure tied to a chair.
“Gosalyn?! Hold on, Gos, I’m coming!” He raced forward only to find that there was nothing under his feet. “Uh oh . . .” he gulped before plummeting down a flight of metal stairs, making loud clunking noises each time he hit.
Meeting the bottom with an agonized grunt, the mallard slumped to the floor and waited until his vision stopped swimming before getting to his feet and shaking his head. Catching sight of his captive daughter again, he hurried toward her even though he knew well enough that this seemed an obvious trap.
“Gos? Are you hurt? Say something!” He bent down so that he could better see her face. It was then that he noticed the bruises and scars scattered over her small body. Her fiery red pigtails sprayed out in disarray and her lavender jersey hung from her in ragged shreds.
"What happened to you?" he breathed shallowly.
Slowly Gosalyn raised her head to look into his eyes. Her own sparked briefly with relief and joy at seeing her father, but it was soon replaced with a grimace.
“Eh, they just don't appreciate my management abilities," she croaked quietly. “'Course my strike idea woulda worked if we knew what their weakness was."
Darkwing half-smiled and put a hand on her cheek before activating his buzz saw cufflinks.
“I have to get you out of here.”
The blades cut through the rope easily enough and Gosalyn slid free.
“Thanks Dad. Now how are we gonna crush the alien scum?” She rubbed her hands together, plotting.
“By replacing them one by one until the last hero falls to our will,” a cold, stoic voice replied silkily from the shadows.
Light flooded around them abruptly, revealing that they were in a coliseum of sorts filled to capacity with the same golden figures that had plagued the city. At this moment they all seemed to have taken on humanoid shapes, but retained their transparency.
“And then,” added the alien that had been advancing toward them, “we enslave them.”
Both Darkwing and his daughter narrowed their eyes at it. The creature had prongs protruding from its golden head which, Darkwing assumed, meant that he was the leader.
“Not while Darkwing Duck has anything to say about it!” the caped duck snapped fiercely. His eyes flickered upward briefly toward the exit. There was nothing blocking it. “Gosalyn,” he hissed urgently, “get out of here now!”
“But Dad-“ she started to protest.
“Don’t argue with me, young lady!”
“But I can help you!”
“Yes,” sneered the alien, “let her stay if she wishes. It would only be a matter of time before we caught her again anyway.”
Turning quickly, Darkwing thrust something small and rectangular into Gosalyn’s hand.
“I want you to run out that door, all the way down the passageway to the end, and then use this to get out.” When she hesitated, he added firmly, “Gosalyn, for once in your life, listen to me!”
He pushed her toward the door and gave the smug-faced alien a reproachful glare out of the corner of his eyes. Without another word of protest, Gosalyn took off running toward the door.
Two of the creatures sitting near the top of the stairway rose from their seats as if to stop her. The leader raised an arm with a snide smile.
“Don’t bother with her. We’ll recapture her and the others as soon as we’re through with him.” He motioned toward Darkwing, who scowled.
Gosalyn stopped at the very top of the staircase and looked back at her father.
“But, what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” he called up to her reassuringly, then watched her turn and disappear from view.
He turned back to the golden mass before him.
“Through with me? And just what are you going to do, clone me? I already have a double, I don’t need another one.” The duck folded his arms with a defiant gleam in his blue eyes.
The alien cackled sardonically, the others joining in to create a cacophony of mocking laughter that resounded off of the coliseum walls and pierced Darkwing’s ears like gunshots.
Still he held his ground, a frozen, resolute frown on his face.
Suddenly the laughter ended, the echoes fading into oblivion like a dying breath. The leader’s eyes narrowed at the duck.
“Now it is time to end the conquest of this planet by taking the form of this – Earth’s last true hero. You’ve been a sly one, Darkwing Duck, but it ends here. There is no escape, and you are all that remains between us and the total domination of this planet.”
“Sorry, pal, but you and your groupies had better start packing because this planet is NOT available for takeover!”
“Oh really? Seeing as how you’re outnumbered three thousand to one, I don’t think you’re in any position to make any such assumption.”
Darkwing gripped the bomb in his hand until his knuckles ached. Anxiously his eyes flitted about the coliseum while at the same time he tried to keep the attention of the alien focused away from what he was clutching.
“And just how do you plan on capturing me this time if you couldn’t do it before? I’m way too quick for you.”
“Is that so?” sneered the creature as it advanced toward Darkwing. Its humanoid form began oozing into one giant blob as he neared the crime fighter. “I’ve a much better use for your capture than mere enslavement.”
A thunderous clanking noise filled the air as a huge panel disengaged from the rounded ceiling and lowered outward until the bottom of it was even with that of the topmost stair on the opposite side of the doorway Darkwing had entered through.
He seized his chance.
“Think fast!” The hero hurtled the bomb at the alien and took off at a sprint, dashing headlong for the walkway that had just been extended to the open air.
This was it! He was home free! He was going to make it! He was going to save Saint Canard! He was . . . about to plummet to his death!
“Ah!” he yelped, scrambling back up onto the edge of the catwalk. He hadn’t realized he was so far up nor that the walkway would suddenly drop off. It was like being on the end of a pier without the ocean.
On his hands and knees, he surveyed the scene below him. Hundreds upon thousands of people littered the streets, and nearly every one of their faces was upturned toward him. Some were even pointing. He couldn’t help but give a slightly smug smile at all the attention they were giving him.
A hand streaked past his shoulder and snatched the front of his costume, turning him around and jerking him up into the air.
The smile vanished from Darkwing’s face.
“This is an example to those among you who would oppose us!” bellowed the alien leader, the bomb Darkwing had thrown at him nowhere in sight. He could only assume it had left it inside the coliseum.
The soft murmurings that had drifted up from the sea of people ceased suddenly. Darkwing hung helplessly from the alien’s grasp, his mind a blank save for one thought. Glory mattered nothing. The attention he was receiving was no longer important. He was overcome with a feeling more wretched than anything he had ever felt in his life. A feeling that tore at his very insides, gnawed at his stomach, and froze his heart.
He was terrified.
No matter how much the fear consumed him, though, the one solitary thought remained in his mind.
Gosalyn.
His daughter and all of the other daughters that had suffered under the hands of these invaders. The children of Saint Canard.
He knew what he had to do.
A strange calming sensation suddenly flowed through his body, and his eyes gleamed with fierce defiance.
The creature’s hand began to melt into a shapeless mass with eerie slowness, crawling up the mallard’s chest until it clasped his neck tightly enough to keep him in the air, but not tightly enough to choke him. “Any last words before I make an example of you, hero?” it hissed lowly.
“Just three.” Darkwing grinned cunningly as he pulled from his pocket the small rectangular detonator Bushroot had given him. “Let’s. Get. Dangerous.” He pressed the button.
Flames erupted from all over the ship in plumes of mushroom clouds, retching smoke into the clear blue sky. Instead of the explosion extending outward, it imploded, and the ship collapsed inward with an excruciating groan. A burst of flames and the wisp of a dark purple cape was the last anyone ever saw of Darkwing Duck.