Chapter Text
The Particle Ionizer Mega-Bomb was designed for a single purpose: to disintegrate Enforcer Headquarters in the Megakat City of the world in which it had been created. Created by that world's Dark Kat using technology acquired through various means, it was to be deployed from the Turbokat belonging to that world's SWAT Kats, a pair of violent and ruthless criminals. Had they been successful, the nerve center of the city's primary defense and peacekeeping force would have been destroyed, along with the majority of its personnel. As such, the Megakat City of that dimension would have been left at the mercy of the three villains, their ally the corrupt deputy mayor, and other agents of lawlessness and crime.
However, Dark Kat had-could not, really-have counted on one very significant disruption to his plan: the arrival of another pair of SWAT Kats from another dimension altogether. These SWAT Kats, thrown into another world by chance-if chance it was-proved to be just as heroic as their local counterparts were villainous. Acting heroically, they put themselves in harm's way to prevent the Mega-Bomb from being dropped. In the process, they unwittingly ensured their return to their home universe, while apparently ending the threat of their evil doppelgangers once and for all.
But like the Dark Kat of the world they had visited, the heroic SWAT Kats were unable to anticipate a certain development. The cement with which they sealed the Dark Turbokat's bomb bay, like the missile that had carried it, came from their own dimension. Like them, it had been transported to the Dark SWAT Kats' dimension when a bolt of lightning interacted with their experimental Dimensional Radar. The residual energies of this transportation, though dormant, had saturated the cement. And those energies had reacted in a most unusual way to the cement's particles-and those of the entire Dark Turbokat-being ionized.
While it appeared that the Dark Turbokat and its occupants had been vaporized, this was not in fact the case. Instead, the energies of the explosive and the Prime SWAT Kats' interdimensional travel mingled and were infused into the Dark Turbokat. As a result, rather than being wiped from existence, the Dark Turbokat was, like its alternate universe counterpart had been, sent flying out of its own dimension. Rather than being sent to the dimension of the Prime SWAT Kats, or to one of its many associated realities, however, the Dark Turbokat was flung into another cluster of universes altogether.
As it happened, an individual of a similarly violent and self-serving nature as the Dark SWAT Kats had just been left stranded in the oblivion between two universes himself. His own heroic counterpart had pulled a "Universal Plug" and disrupted the dimensional tunnel between the worlds from which these two versions of the same being hailed. While the hero had successfully escaped back into his own dimension, the villain had been drawn into a vortex. Despite his vow of vengeance, he would very likely have been trapped forever in the void, unable to escape to any reality-let alone one he actually wanted to visit-without assistance of some kind.
Even had his situation and location been known, few-if any-would have had the means, much less the inclination, to come to his rescue. He had collected a number of allies in the dimensions he traveled between, and any who might have been able to reach him in his isolation feared him too much to be willing to do so. Any heroic individuals with the ability to liberate him would undoubtedly have deemed his fate fitting. And those of his confederates who were actually loyal to him were, perhaps unsurprisingly, not possessed of the intelligence or resources they would have needed to aid him. Only sheer accident could have enabled them to reach their stranded idol.
Such an accident, as it happens, as the one that now brought the Dark SWAT Kats into contact with Negaduck.
The black, yellow and red-clad Duck was rather surprised to be struck by a vehicle with a somewhat similar color scheme, except that it bore a number of green accents and no yellow coloration at all. However, he had little time to process this development, for the contact between him and the jet produced the Dark Turbokat's second teleportation in as many minutes, so far as its occupants were concerned. The strange energies propelling the Dark Turbokat, upon making contact with Negaduck, were suddenly drawn in a new direction as though magnetized. And so, before Negaduck could even yell in pain from the collision, the Dark Turbokat was suddenly in the skies above St. Canard in his home dimension, the Negaverse.
Fortunately for Negaduck, clinging to the nose of the strange craft, the Dark Turbokat had been designed by smarter minds than those now at the controls. Having processed the bizarre circumstances by which it had arrived in its new location, the high-tech jet automatically activated its landing procedures. In a matter of moments, it had landed safely on the outskirts of the city. Dark Razor and Dark T-Bone, having finally overcome the shock ensuing from finding that they had apparently not perished as expected, popped open the cockpit.
Both criminals simply stared around them for a moment at the alien skyline, which somewhat resembled that of their own Megakat City but with obvious differences. Upon spotting Negaduck on the nose of their plane, the red and blue clad Kats quickly turned their Glovatrix weapons on him. Disoriented, Negaduck briefly did nothing but stare at the unfamiliar individuals. However, as he noticed their formidable looking spiked gauntlets and the green skulls decorating their helmets, he thought he might just be able to turn this disaster of a day to his advantage.
"Well, isn't this an interesting development? And who might you fellows be?"
"Shut your yap, bird brain!" Dark Razor eyed the hitchhiker suspiciously, not sure what to make of him. "Just who are you, and where the heck are we? Last I knew, we were about to get blown to bits over Megakat City! Now we're in some weird place with giant talking birds dressed like circus clowns!"
"Oh, believe me, you haven't seen the ones that dress like clowns yet," Negaduck said with a chuckle. In spite of himself, he appreciated the dark brown Kat's bad attitude. Regarding both Dark Razer and his lighter-furred, bulkier partner, Negaduck put on his most charming smile and tone. "You boys aren't from around here, I take it? Just had yourselves a bit of a strange experience?"
Dark T-Bone's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about it, feathers?"
"Call me Negaduck; everybody does. And I believe you two have just had your first taste of interdimensional travel. I've had a bit of experience in that area myself. In fact, I had just gotten lost between two different worlds when you two, uh, ran into me."
"Lost?" Dark Razor sneered at Negaduck. "Doesn't sound like you're too good at this interdi-whatever stuff you're babbling on about."
"Getting lost wasn't my fault," Negaduck seethed. "It was my annoying do-gooder doppelganger, Darkwing Duck! It's bad enough that he has to be a goody two-shoes version of me, always foiling my plans in his world. But then he had the gall to not only mess up things for me here on my home turf, but then to get me sucked down a cosmic vortex!"
"A goody two-shoes version of you?" Dark T-Bone hadn't followed a good portion of Negaduck's rant, but that particular phrase had stuck out to him. "Me and scuzzball here just had a run in with a couple of those ourselves. And if this really is another world...then I think I know where those two punks came from!"
His eyes glinting with malevolence, Negaduck regarded his unexpected new acquaintances approvingly. "Sounds like we all know a thing or two about annoying do-gooders from other dimensions, fellows. Let's talk things over and see if we can't make some plans. I think we just might be able to help each other."
"You? Help us? But you're just some scrawny duck-thing in a crazy costume!"
Instead of rising to Dark Razor's barbs, Negaduck produced-as if from nowhere to the Dark SWAT Kats-a pair of enormous guns. Seeing the dumbfounded looks on his prospective allies' faces, Negaduck grinned wickedly. "Oh, I'm not as big as some, but I make up for it in firepower! Still, even with my skills and your own impressive looking hardware, I think we'd do well to round up some assistance. Fortunately, I have some friends in this world who would be all too happy to join up with us."
Negaverse St. Canard's Maximum-Security Prison (known until the day before as Negaduck's Inescapable House of Never-Ending Torture) was at present home to only four inmates. The Friendly Four, fresh off superhero training from the heroic Darkwing Duck, were in the process of adding to that number. They were being assisted in this endeavor by a number of the prison's former tenants, all of whom were eager to see their city become the opposite of what it once had been. Also on board was Nega-Taurus Bulba, St. Canard's duly elected mayor who, unfortunately, had spent his entire term to date as one of Negaduck's favorite prisoners.
Unsympathetic towards such former allies of Negaduck's as were now being hunted, like Nega-Stegmutt and Nega-Morgana Macawber, Nega-Launchpad McQuack brooded in his cell. Across the hall, the Nega-Muddlefoots were similarly bemoaning their fate. The trio, clad like members of a biker gang and/or a fascist dictatorship, weren't looking forward to the new prison uniforms that they had been informed would soon be delivered to them. Nega-Launchpad was less bothered by the prospective outfit change than he was by the fact that their reign of terror under Negaduck had come to a drastic, and increasingly irreversible-seeming, end.
His reflection was interrupted by a loud noise as the roofs of both cells were suddenly ripped off. Looking up, Nega-Launchpad saw an unfamiliar jetfighter with a goblin face decorating its nose lowering mechanical arms that seized Nega-Binkie and Nega-Honker around their waists. A third arm, finding Nega-Herb's waistline more formidable than it had been designed to contend with, seized him by his chain-link belt instead. Looking up above his own cell, Nega-Launchpad smiled as he recognized Negaduck's own plane, which had lowered a ladder down to him.
Rapidly ascending the ladder, Nega-Launchpad took his customary seat beside his leader. "You pick up some new muscle, boss?"
"They've got potential, NLP, but this job calls for help I can rely on. You and the Nega-Muddlefoots have always been top notch. We'll take back Negaverse St. Canard another day. But first, we're going to help out my new friends with a little revenge of their own...and snag some sweet new otherworldly hardware while we're at it."
Chuckling in anticipation, Nega-Launchpad deactivated the autopilot and took the controls. The yellow and black craft, with its stylized duck-bill face showing pointed teeth, shot away from the prison. The Dark Turbokat followed, with Nega-Binkie and Nega-Honker laughing jubilantly as they escaped. Nega-Herb might have done likewise but was currently suffering rather considerable discomfort.
It was thus that none of the group noticed a small, yellow-feathered Duck girl clad in a pink dress, her red hair elaborately styled with a pair of pink bows above either ear. She had been on her way to the prison to visit the criminals, who had for some years been either her housemates or next-door neighbors. Though there was no love lost between them, the sweet-natured Nega-Gosalyn felt duty bound to keep in touch with her former antagonists. It was her hope, optimistic but tempered, that without Negaduck's influence they might eventually become reformed characters.
As she watched the pair of jet aircraft, one familiar from hours spent maintaining it at her former guardian's insistence, the other completely foreign, Nega-Gosalyn realized that she had been perhaps a bit [i]too[/i] optimistic this time. However, she had little time to contemplate the matter as Negaduck's plane moved beneath its wing mate and opened its cockpit, which the Nega-Muddlefoots were promptly dropped into. The arms that had gripped them then latched onto Negaduck's plane, locking the two aircraft together. With a shimmer of rainbow-colored light, they vanished.
"Oh dear! I'd better alert the Friendly Four to this most unfortunate development!"
Just as suddenly as it had departed its home dimension, the Dark Turbokat-with Negaduck's plane in tow-reappeared there. As the physics of interdimensional travel and time passage had it, they had returned about a month after their initial departure. Not knowing this as yet, nor what welcome they should expect to receive back in their home reality, they led the way back to their secret base. Fortunately, the facility-a relic of some war or other the Dark SWAT Kats had forgotten whatever little they knew about-could accommodate both planes with little difficulty.
That proved to be about the only good fortune the dimension-hopping villains found there, as it happened. To their intense shock and rage, Dark Razor and T-Bone found that the base had been stripped clean of equipment, from ammunition for their Turbokat and Glovatrixes to various alternative vehicles they had used on the rare occasions that terrorizing Megakat City from the air had grown monotonous. The cache of weapons they had promised Negaduck was gone, without so much as a sign of who might have taken it. Hoping for even such a small satisfaction, the Dark SWAT Kats led the way up to their living quarters.
Darkness greeted the group as they entered the silent body shop, and it took only minutes to discover that the building was entirely without power. Where the underground base had its own discreet link to the Megakat Power Grid, the same could not be said for the shop of the apartment above it. In spite of this, the Dark SWAT Kats made their way up to the top floor of the building. Moving out into the pitch-black apartment, they began looking around for something they could use as a light source-and were promptly struck across the backs of their heads.
Before Negaduck and his cronies could act, a female voice spoke coldly. "So, you two numbskulls are still alive after all. Too bad for you: imagining what I'd do to you for ruining everything has been one of my few sources of entertainment for the past few weeks. You have no idea how much fun I'm going to have acting it out for real."
With a clicking noise, a camping lantern suddenly illuminated the space. Standing over the prone Kats, a large wrench under one arm as she slipped a pair of black-framed glasses into place, was a blonde She-Kat. In one hand she held a pair of night vision goggles she had apparently just removed, having used them to get the drop on her victims. She might have been considered attractive were it not for the fact that her hair was ragged and unkempt and she wore a dirty prison jumpsuit.
Glaring at the collection of anthropomorphic avians, the She-Kat snorted. "And here I thought the creeplings were ugly. What are you freaks supposed to be? Doesn't really matter to me-you're toast if you think you're going to save these two clowns."
Sensing that he might have actually found an intellectual peer in this strange dimension, and hearing the Dark SWAT Kats groan as they began to revive, Negaduck smirked. "Lucky for us those two were still wearing their helmets when you clobbered them. Then again, I've known them long enough to know that they aren't exactly rocket scientists, so you probably didn't do too much damage. I'm the one who figured out that their plane could travel between dimensions, and I'm the one who figured out how to do it at will. For all the fancy toys they like to play with, Razor and T-Bone here are rather lacking in the smarts department."
This actually made the She-Kat laugh, and she tossed her goggles aside as she took the wrench in one hand. "Well, would you look at that? The genius twins actually managed to find somebody with some brains under his mask. So you're from another dimension, are you? I suppose that explains why you look like...that.
"Hang on a moment," she hissed, coming to a sudden realization. "Those other SWAT Kats-they were from another dimension too, weren't they? I thought they were just a couple of weirdos who decided that the whole 'SWAT Kat' thing could be heroic, or some such nonsense. But if they were these two from another dimension, that would explain how they had their own jet. Maybe they were even smart enough to put it together themselves."
"As opposed to...your other self, I take it?"
Negaduck's question brought a satisfied smile to the She-Kat's face. Apparently deciding that the conversation was more interesting than the prospect of giving Dark Razor and T-Bone another bludgeoning, she moved to a dilapidated couch and sat down. Increasingly intrigued by her, especially after she had worked out the connection between the do-gooder SWAT Kats and his comment about other dimensions, Negaduck grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and sat down facing her. Nega-Launchpad took a spot leaning against one wall, while the Nega-Muddlefoots decided to examine their surroundings while their boss handled this new development.
Spotting Nega-Herb reaching for the fridge, the She-Kat called to him. "Don't bother-the power's been out for a couple weeks now, not that there was much to be had anyway. I don't know how often these idiots went grocery shopping, but it had apparently been awhile. That, or the place got cleaned out when they failed to show up for their day jobs down in the shop. I've been canvassing nearby dumpsters to find food, but I'm still probably eating better than these two did."
"Ugh...what's with the hate, Callie baby?" Dark T-Bone's whiny inquiry was the only thing that passed his lips before a screwdriver embedded itself in the floor an inch from where one of his hands rested. Dark Callie Briggs, her identity now revealed to Negaduck, raised the wrench she still gripped warningly. Dark T-Bone wisely refrained from any further speech, and Dark Razor wasn't about to draw her attention to himself.
"I'm not your baby, moron, and don't you forget it. Your new friend here is the only reason I haven't brained you and your runty roommate by now. Thanks to you bungling things I lost my spot in city hall and got sent to prison. Sure, it only took me a week to escape, but getting here without being caught and evading the authorities since then haven't been any picnic. I'm just lucky no one figured out your civilian identities, or I wouldn't even have this sorry hole to hide in.
"To answer your question," Dark Callie said, turning her gaze back to Negaduck, "I contributed to the design of the Turbokat and its weapons. Getting into politics was a way to amass power, but a girl's got to have her hobbies. These two could barely build a pipe bomb despite working in the middle of a military junkyard. Dark Kat helped, of course, with his underworld contacts and resources. Of course, that's probably why he helped himself to everything and skipped town when it looked like those two had been killed."
With a glare of his own at the now sheepish-looking Dark SWAT Kats, Negaduck folded his arms across his chest. "Well, that's a fine kettle of fish. I thought stopping in this dimension would be helpful in our plans to pay back the idiotic interlopers who've wrecked things in both our worlds. These two told me all about their supplies and convinced me that Dark Kat could be a useful ally. But now you tell me that not only is he gone, but he's taken everything that would have been useful to us with him."
"Pretty much," Dark Callie retorted. "Anything from the underground base anyway. Almost everything useful from the shop and apartment was taken by the junkyard owners, though fortunately they haven't come around again. They didn't even leave behind any clothes I could change into. Not that wearing anything these goons had is an appealing thought, but anything's better than this outfit."
For a moment Negaduck said nothing, mulling over the matter. His new allies were proving less promising than he had hoped, though some additional muscle was always welcome. At the very least, they weren't quite as incompetent as the Not-So-Fearsome Five he had put together in Darkwing Duck's St. Canard. But while Dark Callie was no otherworldly, and perhaps demonic, crime boss, she certainly had intelligence and some skills. It might be nice to have someone who could actually help with the planning on his side for a change.
"Looks like we're all in the same boat, Callie-like it or not. You and your bone-headed allies, me and my friends. All of us robbed of the places we'd carved out for ourselves in the worlds where we were born. And all of it thanks to some meddling 'heroes' who made their mess and then left us to clean it up.
"But I say we make some messes of our own before we worry about fixing what they did. This boat, as it happens, can travel to other dimensions. And the 'heroes', as it happens, have no idea that we're coming. So, you have a choice on your hands. Do you want to squash Razor and T-Bone and keep hiding in this hole...or do you want to whip them into shape and help us cause some trouble?"
Dark Callie's answer was a smile that everyone in the room-except Negaduck himself-found terrifying.
Molly Mange made a sighing noise as she reached the door to her and Mac’s hideout. It wasn’t an actual sigh, of course-you needed to be able to breathe in order to be able to sigh. But her harsh electronic voice did a decent approximation. It had been less than a day since Mac had brought her back here, desperately in need of a recharge.
Now she was using two mismatched arms to lug a sack filled with Mac’s components-or as many as she’d been able to salvage from the wreckage of Zed-to the apartment. Mac's head, the first she had found, was grumbling from the bottom of the heap. She'd had to shut him up more than once to keep the pair of them from being caught. Much as she loved the lunkhead, she wished he'd never seen the news story about that stupid repair unit.
Once inside with the door closed, Molly dumped out the sack. She flipped on a light switch-and gave out a cry of shock at the sight that greeted her.
In a rough semi-circle facing the door were Negaduck, the Dark SWAT Kats, Nega-Launchpad, Dark Callie, and the Nega-Muddlefoots, each wielding a weapon of some kind. On any other night, Molly would gladly have taken them all on, in spite of the strangeness of most of the group and being heavily outnumbered. However, she was drained in terms of both mental energy and battery power. Plus, Mac-currently fused to a food processor-was helpless.
"All right, punks, you got me. Though I gotta say, you SWAT Kats are keepin' even stranger company than usual these days. And what's with the Deputy Mayor?"
Eyes narrowed, Dark Callie examined the robotic She-Kat. "Molly Mange? Is that you?"
"Well it ain't Felina Feral, you twit!" Mac, in typical fashion, was more than ready to give anyone an earful in spite of being helpless.
"Keep your trap shut, metalmouth," Dark Callie snapped. "The Mac and Molly Mange I knew weren't robots. Then again, they managed to get themselves killed after all the strings I pulled to get them a parole."
Confused, Molly regarded the other She-Kat strangely. "What the heck are you talkin' about, Briggs? You [i]denied[/i] our parole, and then we ended up like this? And what's this about knowing a different Mac and Molly Mange?"
Explaining the whole situation to Mac and Molly was somewhat more of a challenge than explaining it to Dark Razor and T-Bone had been for Negaduck. However, the presence of the alternate dimension Kats actually helped to convince them after a while, as it soon became evident that any resemblance to their counterparts from this dimension was only skin deep. Perhaps because of this, the Metallikats agreed to let their uninvited houseguests help them with repairs. It wasn't long before Mac and Molly were more or less back in their usual working order and hooked up for recharging.
Taking charge of the gathering, Negaduck looked around the room at his collection of villains. A predatory grin stretched his duck beak, and his gaze both chilled and excited the group as he spoke. "Listen up, folks, because I'm only going to say this once. We have a golden opportunity to score some sweet revenge, and to make things better for ourselves in the process. Working together, we can make this world's SWAT Kats wish they'd never been born.
"You Metallikats aren't team players-I can respect that. But it's clear you need some backup, and we can help out with that. We don't want your city or your world, and we'll leave them to you once we're finished up here. All we want is your help dealing with the locals and picking up some souvenirs, preferably of the [i]deadly[/i] variety. So what do you say?"
"A chance to wipe out the SWAT Kats and your word that you'll leave us Megakat City when you go?" Mac grinned malevolently. "When do we get started?"