ONE: THE QUACKEN

With a bone-shattering crash, an orange tentacle as big around as a 1970s dinner table swept across the room, leaving a path of destruction and chaos in its wake. The scene was straight out of a bad science fiction novel, and it showed. The room itself looked like it began its existence as a low budget set for a space opera. And not space opera like the genre of said bad science fiction novel, but space opera as in a literal opera set in space, the brainchild of a sentient being obsessed with sci-fi movies and tv shows that wanted to try its hand at the whole crossing genres thing everybody seems to do these days.

Ducking amateurs.

The objects in the room staged to set the scene most likely started out as a truckload of rejected thrift store donations. After failing to find the right fence for the worthless crap, the unlucky thief bashed them together with superglue, then topped off his creations with a coat of shiny silver paint to add the pièce de résistance for the whole sci-fi motif he was aiming for. And that orange tentacle waving above it all—tentacles really—were beating all his hard work to pieces like the beast they belonged to just had a straight to VHS sci-fi action yarn in which Billy Dee Williams tries to save his crew of ne’er-do-wells from a VR alien seductress projected directly into its brain.

And if that were true, the beast was entirely justified in its rage. Just check IMDB.

Another swipe of a tentacle sent a yet another shower of debris flying upward. As the junk rained down on the head of the monster, it caused it to roar in fury. Except it wasn’t a roar. Not even close. This wasn’t really too odd considering the speculative fiction nature of the scenario, but while one might normally expect to find the head of a cephalopod on such a Lovecraftian monster, in this case, there was something a little… too abnormal going on.

The head was avian. And beaked, with white, downy feathers. And the roar it made wasn’t a roar. It was more of a quack. A shrieking, mind scrambling quack.

And just as the Quacken unleased yet another symphony of rage-fueled quacks, another figure flew into the frame, propelled by a proverbial love tap from another of the tentacles. This figure was not a fowl eldritch horror like the Quacken, yet it was similar in ways. Bipedal, like a man. And he was a man. But he also wasn’t. Like his genetically altered brethren, feathers covered his body, though his were a combination of black, white, and brown. He wore cutoff jean shorts from which sprouted a pair of orange calves and webbed feet, and a t-shirt struggled to contain the bulk of his considerable belly as he dodged smash after smash from the tentacles of the monster.

Yeah, he was a duck. And, yes, he was also a man. He was a duck-man, a hybrid of human and waterfowl.

“Dumbass!” the duck man bellowed through a beak so square it gave the jaw of Robert Z’Dar a run for its money. “I could use a little ducking help here, godda—”

Before he could finish his sentence, a tentacle reared back to strike as if it were a cobra, then launched towards the ground in what was almost guaranteed to be a squishing blow. The man raised his left hand, feathered palm facing the beast as a bracer glowed around his wrist. A blue wall of energy appeared out of thin air between them.

“Motherduck, this is going to hurt!”

The tentacle crashed into the energy shield, sending a shower of sparks flying in all directions.

“Yep, that hurt worse than watching Tommy Wiseau try to act,” he grunted as he spun away, sending his black leather duster whipping around like a superhero’s cape. Then he disappeared with a pop and reappeared an instant later, only he wasn’t in the same location. He had teleported several feet away to the base of the tentacle, where it attached to the rest of the Quacken. He smiled, a facial movement that should have been impossible with a beak, shouted, “Thanks for nothing, dumbass!” and slashed completely through the tentacle with a curved blade he hadn’t been holding a second before.

A geyser of unnatural black blood exploded from the base of the tentacle, and the man climbed up the head of the beast, using his curved blade like a climbing axe as he went for the—

“Oh, hey!” shouted a bodiless voice as the scene slowed to a stop with a record scratch. It sounded like some kind of intentionally androgenous voiceover had taken hold, the kind one might find on a documentary about pop culture aiming to sound hip to a younger audience—or maybe it was just that the author of a bad science fiction novel had tried to use a normally visual cliche as a hook. “Did you just hear crickets? Eh, nevermind. I didn’t even know you were there. Have you been watching long? This is all pretty cool, huh?”

Nothing happened. The source of the voice, if there was one, chose not to reveal itself. Instead, the scene of the duck man fighting the Quacken remained as still as a diorama at a science fair.

“Just my luck that I get another slow one,” mumbled the voice. “Oh wait! Sorry. You must be distracted by my pet! What?! No, not the Quacken, silly! Flap!” It paused. “You know who Flap is, don’t you? You don’t? You’re a real lame ass. Well, he’s my pet. My human… or duck… or actor or whatever. I guess that’s too complicated for a moron like you. Earthling. He’s my Earthling! Can you understand that?”

The scene sat as still as if it had been flash frozen.

“I'm rude, huh? Okay. Well, it’s rude to tell someone they’re being rude. So back at you. You kinda suck, by the way. I don’t know why we’re even fighting to save you, to be honest. Anyway, you’re boring and he needs me. He’s pretty much lost without me, so best get back to it! I would say good luck but I hate you so... toodaloo, motherducker!”

The scene launched back into action, just long enough for the duck man—Flap—to pull back that curved blade. Then everything froze again.

“What did you just say?! He’s seems to be doing fine by himself?! Are you nuts?! He’s like William H. Macy in Fargo out there! Completely out of his element! He needs me to guide him through the underbelly of organized crime in—"

The voice sucked in a breath and let out a sigh. “Okay. So, you obviously have no idea what’s going on here. To keep it simple, the fate of Earth… and all existence as we know it… is at stake. Also, my chances of ever getting season two of Firefly grow thinner and thinner the longer I waste time talking to you. Listen, I don’t want to sound too… snooty, but I’m the one that’s saving it all. With the help of my Earthling. Sadly, I need him. He’s kind of like a mech for me. Only organic… and sentient… and with feelings and thoughts and ambitions and—what's wrong with you? You have an insanely judgmental look on your face. It makes you look ugly. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The important thing here is me. I’m the important thing.”

A pause.

“You don’t believe me, do you? Well, fine! I guess I’ll have to show you then.”

Another pause.

“Ugh! You don’t want me to show you. How typical! Lemme guess. You want… him to do it… don’t you?”

Another pause.

“Fine, but don’t you be thinking you’re gonna jump right in at the fun stuff like the Dredd remake. And me. I’m gonna make him start at the beginning. Before me. His boring pond duck beginning. Before me. Or his rebirth. Whatever you want to call it. But it's before me. Just wanted to make that clear. Anyway, here we go.”