Hardy boys with a twist of Duckman

            

                                             The REAL Hardy Boys

                As Frank and Joe, two well known sleuths, crept up on the assailant, Joe let out a squeak.

                “Ahem” he said, clearing his gizzard.”Why exactly did you pinch me, Frank?”

                “There he is,” replied Frank. The pair soon forgot about the incident and proceeded to crawl in the direction of the subtle murmurs. A voice called from the cover of the dense foliage “I love you.”

                Frank whispered “Joe, did you hear that?”

                Joe replied “Of course I heard it. I said it.”

                Frank shuddered “Were you talking to me?”

Before Joe could properly address the question, Frank had a 12 gauge leveled at Joe’s head.

                “ANSWER ME!” Frank bellowed.

Joe, being of a sissy nature, stammered “Uh…   no. I was, um, talking to the air. Sir”

As Frank lowered his weapon, Joe heaved a sigh of relief.

                “I knew you were too weak to shoot me.” Snapped Joe. And with that, Frank fired a round into Joe’s bulletproof fanny-pack.

                “Well, that’s convenient.” muttered Joe.

After the resounding blasts, the boys heard a pair of footsteps and heavy breathing disappearing deeper into the forest. The duo jumped up and sprinted after the fugitives. Dashing left and right, the pair deftly maneuvered through the lethal traps; leftovers from the Vietnam War. They rounded a bend and suddenly were standing in an open clearing. Joe, realizing what needed to be done, bent over and ripped a new one. He then stood up with the freshly picked peach flower in his clutches.

                “Here you go, Frank.” Joe muttered.

                Frank, not understanding Joe, mumbled back “togaphaslishiwop.”

                “What?” Joe replied needing clarification.

                Frank exclaimed  “Now who’s not listening.”

Upon hearing this, Joe began to cry. Frank slapped him and commanded

                “Don’t be such a baby.”

                Suddenly, the fugitive stepped into the clearing and they recognized her at once.

                “Mom!”  Frank and Joe chanted. She reached into her pocket and withdrew Joe’s pacifier – his Nike Air Jordans.

                “Mom.” Joe whined. “I never thought I’d get these back.” To which she replied

                “O Joey poo, I just needed them in order to capture John and Jane Doe, the real fugitives.”

                As she finished speaking Frank and Joe lunged at her, toppling her over. As Joe kicked dirt in her

face, he shouted

                “You’re not my mom and you never will be. I knew you were Jane Doe.”  With that, the boys tied her up with the Nike shoelaces. As they turned around to walk back, their assailant grabbed them by the neck and pitched them on the ground.

                She shouted “your Nike Velcro shoelaces suck!”

While she was unclipping her 9mm from her holster, she exclaimed,

“Eat this boys. Time for some Russian Roulette-American style.” She loaded one bullet and slowly pulled the hammer back*, placing the lone projectile in the apparatus.

                Suddenly a deep husky voice called out “Draw!”

                As Joe whipped out his sketchpad and crayons, Jane Doe whirled around to face the undoubting stranger. What she saw made her jaw drop. It was Shaggy and Scooby.  Shaggy in that the man had blue feathers. Scooby in that his beak looked like a scuba diving respirator. As soon as the feminine character fainted, the duckman’s monkey scrambled over to the woman and picked her up. Duckman strode over, picked up the firearm, and then heaved it at Joe.

                “What the heck?” Frank screeched.

                “He was wearing my fanny pack” Duckman replied.

                “But did you have to kill him for it?” questioned Frank.

With that, Joe dizzily sat up and unzipped his fanny pack. He revealed another fanny pack and handed it to Duckman.

                “I believe you lost this” Joe pointed out.

                “I believe you lost this” mocked Duckman. “Real men don’t sport midsection satchels” he pointed out.

                With that, Joe unclipped his fanny pack and handed it, as if it were a dirty diaper, to Frank, all the while saying “I believe you lost this.”

                Frank, feeling offended, replied “I believe you lost this” as he removed a brain from his pocket.

                “Where did you get that?” exclaimed Joe. “I keep that in my pocket.”

                Frank looked down and sure enough, he was wearing Joe’s jeans.

                “Ladies,” Duckman boomed. “Let me handle this.”

                In an attempt to calmly extinguish the hostilities, Duckman swiftly ripped Joe’s pants off of Frank, exposing Frank’s undergarments.

                Joe shouted, “What the? Those are my boxers, Frank.”

                “Oh yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” Replied Frank.

With that, Duckman slowly walked away with his head down in disgust for he knew that nothing could save the Hardy boys.

The Adventures of Duckman: The Last of the Communists

          Anti-aircraft bullets whizzed past Duckman’s slightly overgrown beard as holes began to appear in the wings of his second favorite pre World War II biplane.

          “Curses,” Duckman muttered under his breath.  “I guess it’s time to bail,” he thought.  He gripped the side of the pilot’s chair and launched himself out of his seat.  He plummeted towards the Earth and pulled the ripcord on his parachute approximately 750 feet from the ground.  He pulled off his parachute, surveyed the scene, and came to a terrible realization.  He had not, in fact, landed on the sandy beaches of the Bahamas, but had gone slightly off course and was now relatively 10 miles north of Moscow, Russia, sitting on the frozen tundra. “Guess I better change out of my swimming trunks,” Duckman thought, looking down at his shivering, half naked body.  His satchel slammed into the landscape just six feet to his right.  He walked over to the satchel, reached inside, and pulled out his favorite pair of trousers.  Duckman put on the satchel, and looked at the rising sun to decide which way he should go. Deciding south would probably be the best way to travel, he began trudging along a winding dirt path, heading toward the capitol.  He finally reached the sidewalks of civilization and was carefully trying not to step on any of the cracks when he heard small, muffled sniffles from behind a small bush.  Alarmed, he walked toward it, and peeked over it.  A small girl, not yet 10, had her head buried in her hands, and was weeping and shaking uncontrollably. Duckman pulled a blanket out of his satchel, and soothingly questioned, "What is wrong, my child?"

            The girl, not even looking up, quivered uncontrollably and tears streamed down her face.  Duckman wrapped the blanket around her. Sitting quietly with her, Duckman tried to comfort her.  She unclenched her fists, and a crushed paper fell out. Duckman, suddenly thankful for those 2 forced years of Russian in high school, flattened it out, and began to read.

            "By order of the Spetznaz: Makarov Dostoevsky has been liquidated for his High Crime of spreading Western Propaganda."  Duckman's eyes began to well up with tears. 

            "How long ago did this happen?" He asked, praying the little girl understood the importance of this question.

            "About four hours ago," she sniffled.  Duckman scooped her up and brought her to one of his many safe houses. He quickly made her some hot chocolate and ensured she was comfortable.  He handed care of the girl over to one of the members of his syndicate.

            Duckman hopped on his snowmobile, and punched "Russian work camp" into his Garmin.  The device pinpointed the camp at about 23.2 miles north northwest of Kazakhstan.  He engaged the thruster boosters and the auto pilot and dozed off.

            The Garmin gently awoke him, and Duckman looked around.  The snowmobile was just coming to a stop and Duckman could see lights coming from a small settlement.  Duckman got off the snowmobile and trudged toward the settlement.  As Duckman neared, he heard drunken laughs coming from the house closest to the only gate of the walled-in settlement.  He snuck past a guard at the entrance and peeked inside the door.  Men were laughing and drinking large amounts of alcohol. Two of the fifteen had goiters. AK-47's lined the wall and Duckman stepped a little closer to get a better view. As his foot reached forward, he slipped on a vodka bottle and fell face flat on the ground. The startled men reached for their guns and took aim at Duckman.

            "Well what do we have here?" a voice bellowed from the back. The men strafed to the side to make way.  "Do you think you can just come in here uninvited?" he mocked.  Duckman looked at him.

            "Yuri, I presume?" Duckman guessed, knowing Yuri was a common Russian name.  The leader walked up to him and spat in his face.

            "No, my name is not Yuri. My name is Boris. And you, you are trespassing, an offense punishable by death," Boris spat.  Duckman knew he would have to act quickly.  He picked up the vodka bottle he had tripped on, and whipped it at the wall.  The men buckled over, partially because of the noise, but probably more because they were drunk.  Duckman sprinted out and was stunned by the horrible sight he saw.  Over 100 people were slaving away in the cold with minimal protection from the elements. Duckman suddenly realized his own dire situation and bolted toward the only opening the fence, hockey-checked the guard at the entrance, jumped on his snowmobile, and sped away. He looked back.  No one appeared to be following him, so he stopped over near the cover of some trees and built a quick shelter.  He also began to start a plan to free the prisoners.  He realized the best way to free them from bondage would be to blow out the back wall, and cover the prisoner's exit while they escaped. He pulled a long range telephone out of his satchel, and began phoning in some favors.  He was promised a predator drone, 14 full sized vans, and "assistance".  Just before he was about to set out for the mission, the "assistance" arrived in the form of a parachuting monkey named Bilbo.  Bilbo fashionably sported a top hat, a monocle, and the top part of a tuxedo, with a gold chain coming out of one of the pockets.  Bilbo nodded at Duckman, who nodded back, and the two set out.  They snuck to the back of the camp and looked up at the skies.  Just barely, they saw their drone circling the area. He looked behind him, where 14 full sized vans were idling, waiting for the coming prisoners. The prerequisites fulfilled, Duckman set the plan into motion. He grabbed Bilbo, as was agreed earlier, and hurled him over the wall, to warn the prisoners of the coming missile and prepare them for the escape.  Duckman waited precisely 5 seconds, pulled the laptop out of his satchel, and commanded the predator drone to drop a Hell Fire missile into the back of the wall.  The missile thundered toward the ground.  Guards began to yell, some even for their "мать”.  It blew out the back wall and a rush of prisoners flooded out of the camp and into the waiting the vans. Although they all tried to pile in, all but two could fit. Two burly men looked at the wretched souls outside.

            "Here, take my spot," one said.

            "Mine too" the other quickly added. The two men got out and looked around.  Duckman slammed the door shut on the van and all the vans closed their doors and sped away.

            "We are going to have to cover their tracks.  Quick, help me blow up these balloons good sirs," Duckman said, as he pulled out 140 prisoner shaped balloons, "and please, grace me with your names."

            "Well my name is Yuri and this Vladimir," Yuri spoke, picking up a balloon.  Bilbo grabbed a few balloons and started filling them up.  Once they were all blown up, Duckman tied them to his back.  He pulled out two modified Segways with chains on the tires out of his satchel and threw them to the men.  The men hopped on and revved the 8 cylinder engines.

            "Follow me," Duckman commanded and took off running.  They followed and the faint sound of barking began to assault the party's ears.  The whir of helicopter blades also erupted as one took off from the camp. Duckman looked for cover, and found it in the means of a coniferous forest, one of many in Russia. The group sped into the forest, with the attack dogs gaining ground.  Without warning, the alpha male attack dog overtook Duckman, jumped at him, and began reaching and snapping for his neck. Duckman reached for the dog's neck, but missed, and the dog took advantage of this chance. Suddenly, a furry entity ripped the dog off Duckman.  Duckman looked over at his savior and realized he was just delivered by a Siberian Tiger, one of just 343 existing in the wild.  He was about to thank the tiger when it turned around.

            "Fly, you fools!" it rasped, and then took out another attack dog.  Duckman, taking his words quite literally, pulled a remote out his satchel, punched in the secret pass code, and gazed at the balloons.  They began inflating more, and the two men looked at Duckman questioningly.

            Duckman held up his hands like he was about to say something profound and explained, "Helium".  He grabbed the two men just as the cases holding the helium fell off and the balloons whipped into the air. The trio soared into the air – right into the firing range of the waiting Kamov Ka-50.  The helicopter began spinning up its guns right as Duckman handed Yuri to Vladimir. Duckman quickly ripped his trusty Strela-3 out of his satchel and locked on to the helicopter. The bullets from the helicopter began tearing through the balloons when Duckman fired the rocket out of the launcher.  The helicopter exploded in a fiery mess and Duckman quickly looked up to survey the damages.  He had lost 1/4 of his balloons to the gun and the trio was descending quickly. Duckman steered the company toward the border and touched down just 500 feet into the border of Mongolia.  Duckman herded the men into his waiting gold plated stretch limo. 

            "Wow, Duckman, I was getting a little worried.  Back there with the helicopter, I thought I might be adding to Russia's population decline. Got anything else in that satchel of yours?" Yuri jokingly asked. With that question, Duckman pulled out three ice cream cones.

            "Here you go boys, and good work," he joked as he handed them the delicious treat.  Duckman began to doze off when he was suddenly gripped by a terrible awareness: He had forgotten Bilbo.

Duckman; Last Moments of Chilean Bondage

The world turned to a blur as Vladimir punched Duckman across the face again. Duckman felt the flesh on his forehead tear open; a drop of blood dripped down the side of his cheek.

“Always remember this Duckman: because of your failure, the endangered pandas you tried to save will be experimented on with dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives,” sputtered Vladimir. Ever since that fateful day, Duckman vowed to dedicate his life to ridding the world of the injustice that plagued it.

The memory began to fade away and Duckman found himself standing at the end of a dark hallway. He noticed an ominous door on the opposite side and starting walking toward it. Duckman reached forward and pulled the door open; General Nelson Miles was sitting behind the large oak desk.

            “I have a very important message for you, Duckman,” Miles stated.

            “Lay it on me, Miles.”

            “Well, to put it plainly, the fabric of the universe is being torn apart.”

            Duckman ripped the dark shades off his face. “Great Scott! Not again!” Duckman paced around, wondering what to do next. “Give me the rundown, Miles,” he beckoned.

            “It all started 47 years ago, on a night not quite like tonight. Back in Chile the government was taken over by a military junta. Their leader, Augusto Pinochet, decided to dismiss the junta’s plan and rule the government alone,” Miles explained.

            “I’ll go back in time and take care of this problem once and for all,” Duckman replied.

“Surely you can’t be serious.”

“I am, and don’t call me Shirley.”

“Unfortunately, the time machine has been malfunctioning recently, so we can only go back about 31 years. However, going back to 1980 will still give you enough time to defeat Augusto Pinochet and stop him from killing thousands of people,” Miles reported.

            Duckman stepped into the time machine. He turned to his right: chose the time period of 1980, and turned the destination dial to Chile. Lights began to flash; a high pitched sound rang out. Suddenly Duckman appeared in a building located in the heart of Valpraíso.

            Duckman whipped around and spotted a door leading to a hallway. Just as he was about to leave the room, he heard two voices talking to each other. Luckily Duckman always carried a Babelfish with him, so he could understand the foreigners’ language as though they were speaking English.

            “Seriously, I heard a strange noise coming from the room over there! Let’s just check it out, and if I’m wrong, I’ll give you a free coupon for Allegretto,” one guard said to another.

            Afraid of getting caught, Duckman searched the room for a place to hide. Due to his lightning fast reflexes, he spotted a grate leading to the ceiling ducts within seconds. Duckman jumped up into the duct and secured the grate back in place, just as the two guards entered the room. Slowly, but surely, Duckman crawled through the duct until he came upon another room.

            Just as he was about to jump down, Duckman realized that there were another two guards: one sitting by a computer, the other standing next to the door. Duckman looked intently and saw that one of the guards name was Tomás Torres. He heard them talking to another person; Duckman listened.

            “Don’t worry Mr. Pinochet; the 20,000 people we captured are hidden in Cerro de el Muerto. It’s practically impossible for anyone to find them,” Tomás Torres said.

            “Perfect. Now all we have to do it ready the missile to blow that mountain to smithereens,” responded Pinochet.

            Duckman knew this was his time to shine. He punched through the grate and jumped down into the room.

            “WHAT TH…” Duckman knocked Tomás out cold before he could even finish his sentence. Duckman quickly turned around and round-house kicked the other guard against the wall. He ran to the desk the computer was on and opened the drawers.

            “Every time,” Duckman stated as he pulled out two pieces of rope. He then tied both men to chairs and locked them in separate closets. Duckman rushed over to the computer, typed in multiple numbers and letters, and tried to figure out where Pinochet was hiding. Duckman picked up the two-way radio and started talking to Pinochet.

            “You won’t get away with this act of injustice, Pinochet. I will free those prisoners if it’s the last thing I do.” Duckman could only hear the sound of breathing, when suddenly a voice came from the other side.

            “Go ahead, make my day,” Pinochet responded. Duckman heard a noise coming from under the desk, and decided to see what it was. He flipped the desk over, and to his surprise, Duckman saw Pinochet cowering underneath where the desk once was.

            “It appears that you have found me,” Pinochet sneered. “Little did you know, I am a master in *MAGIC*!” Pinochet threw a cherry bomb at the ground and jumped out the window. Duckman jumped out the window to follow Pinochet, and found himself amongst a large festive crowd.

            “Why don’t you celebrate Fiestas Patrias by dancing the cueca with us?” asked Roberto, a celebrator. Although Duckman would have instinctively accepted the offer to dance, he had other important business to take care of.

            “I’m sorry sir, but I’m looking for a man: a man who is a master of magic,” Duckman said. He looked down at the ground and saw shards of glass and a trail of blood. Instantly Duckman knew it was Pinochet’s, and began to follow it.

            About 20 minutes later, Duckman happened upon a large abandoned warehouse. He heard steps coming from inside, and decided to enter. Duckman opened the door and smelled something. It was the smell of evil. Duckman knew Pinochet was lurking nearby. Suddenly, a light flashed on and off. Duckman slowly walked over and into the room. He reached to his right and turned the lights on. Duckman saw Pinochet holding a gun to a panda’s head.

            “Take one more step and the panda gets it,” Pinochet threatened. Duckman looked behind Pinochet and saw the timer for the missile: only 10 seconds until the launch.

            “Duckman, please don’t let this evil man kill me like you let Vladimir do to my kind 20 years ago,” the panda pleaded. A tear dripped down the side of the panda’s cheek. Suddenly, Duckman flashed back to his first mission and remembered the hundreds of endangered pandas that he let die.

            “There’s always a choice,” Pinochet said. “Either you save the panda, or you save the people.” Duckman jumped in the air, kicked Pinochet against the wall, and grabbed the panda. Just as Duckman was about to leave the room, Pinochet shot him in the leg and died.

            “We have to get out of here! I strapped C4 everywhere!” Duckman yelled. He sprinted toward the door, when his shot leg gave out and he fell to the floor. The panda stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Duckman, lying helplessly on the ground.

            The panda looked at the door, then back at Duckman. He took a few steps and put Duckman man his back. “Thanks for saving me, pal,” the panda said. The panda and Duckman made it out of the building just as it blew up into a big fiery mess.

            Duckman carefully removed the bullet from his leg and wrapped the wound with some cloth he found on the ground. Duckman stoop up, and he and the panda walked over to the building where Duckman first appeared and stepped into the time machine.

            Ten years passed. Duckman was sitting on his couch at home. The phone rang, and Duckman stood up to answer it. It was the panda; he wanted to meet Duckman as a nearby coffee shop. 20 minutes later, Duckman sat down at a booth near the window. “Just a regular, please,” he told the waiter.

            The two talked about life for a while, when the panda brought up the incident back in Chile. “Even though you killed those people to save my life, Duckman, you did a good thing that day.”

            Duckman nodded his head. He took a sip of his coffee, and looked out the window at the sun setting, knowing for a fact that he didn’t actually let 20,000 people die that day. Duckman smiled to himself, not having the heart to tell the panda that his life wasn’t even worth one of their lives.

TPW