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Pentious startles awake as he feels something drop heavily onto his chest, letting out a rather undignified screech.
“Awake?” the creature asks in a very familiar voice, looking at him curiously. It looks to him like a large white lizard, wearing an also-rather-familiar little hat.
“Your Majesssty…?” Pentious begins in confusion. “What… are you doing… here?”
“You wanna play ducks with me?” Lucifer asks, unblinking. Do lizards need to blink?
“Play… ducks? What…”
“Y'know, ducks. I have a bunch of little rubber ducks in my room! Do you wanna come play with them, with me?”
“Why not ask Niffty? You do know how she enjoys dramatic play with… little creatures.”
Lucifer makes a face… somehow. “I don't like how she plays ducks.”
“What about the Princcccess?”
“Charlie's asleep… with her girlfriend. Waking her up would be awkward.”
“What time even isss it?” Pentious looks towards the window, but all that really tells him is dark.
“Past everyone's bedtime, I guess,” Lucifer says dejectedly. “You don't have to play if you don't want to. Just figured maybe I wouldn't be the only one who could use some stress relief right about now. And I have some really cool ducks, just so you know.”
“... Cool how?”
Lucifer grins. How can a lizard grin? “I got all sorts! Some of ‘em even have powers! Like exploding and stuff!”
Pentious jolts up excitedly. He probably would've wound up throwing Lucifer off if it weren't for the fact that lizards do, in fact, have claws. “You had me at explosions.”
Lucifer jumps off him and starts scurrying towards the door. “Right this way!”
“Wait, boss!” One of Pentious’ Egg Bois tugs at his sleeve. He hadn't realized any of them had woken up. “Can I come, too? I wanna play with the ducks!” Pentious looks over to Lucifer, who's somehow grinning even wider now.
“Sure! I've got plenty!”
Pentious finds Lucifer wasn’t joking about the sheer number of ducks he's got lying around his room. As they enter — and what an experience it was watching Lucifer open the door as a lizard — he notices piles and piles of them in the corners, by the bed, on and around the desk, on the dresser. He's never seen this many ducks in his life or afterlife.
Lucifer jumps onto the bed, assuming his normal form (albeit in a plain T-shirt and duck-patterned pajama pants now) mid-leap and landing with a bounce that sends several loose bed-ducks flying. He catches one and holds it out proudly in his hand. It has a sash and a little hat. “I'm gonna be this one! You can pick any duck you want, though.”
“What's that one? It's got a funny little outfit.”
“Oh, he's the mayor!”
“... Mayor of what, exactly?”
“New Duckberg!” Lucifer grins widely. It strikes Pentious that this is the happiest he's seen His Majesty since they met. And we haven't even started playing yet…
Pentious slithers around the room, picking up various ducks and putting them back. Despite the overwhelming amount of them, it seems that no two ducks are designed the same. They all have their own unique characteristics (and he's sure if he asked, they'd have their own unique backstories, too).
He picks up a rather dense little duck with a dapper purple hat and red bowtie. It's got this happy expression that Pentious is sure must hide some kind of tremendous evil. “What’s this one?”
“Oh, he's magical! He does backflips if you pull his tail. Also, he can breathe fire.”
Pentious’ eyes grow wide. “I want to be him!” He tenderly carries the duck over to Lucifer, now on the floor by his bed with what looks to be a map spread out in front of him. “Is that New Duckberg?”
“Mhm!” Lucifer points to a large building at the west end of the map. “This is where Mayor Quackers lives.” He then points to what appears to be some kind of tall mountain. “This is where you live.”
“Why do I have to live all the way out there?” Pentious asks indignantly.
“Well, because your duck is like if a dragon was a duck. And everyone knows dragons live on top of big, tall mountains. But they can come down whenever they want, so you can come into town and do whatever.”
“What about this one?” Pentious’ Egg Boi interrupts. Is it Frank? He's pretty sure it's Frank. The duck he's holding has a flower on its head. “Where's she live at? Can I be her?”
“That's Flora, she runs the flower shop right here!” Lucifer points to a small building towards the center of town. He picks up another duck, this one wearing an apron, then drops his voice as if he's saying something scandalous. “She's kinda got a thing going with the duck who runs the bakery across the street, but they’re both in denial.”
‘Flower shop’ was all Pentious needed to hear to come up with an excellent idea. “Can I be evil?” he asks with an impish grin.
“Yeah! Just not like how Niffty is.”
“Well, I don't know how she normally does it, but I'm going to breathe fire all over the flower shop!” Pentious announces. “... How do I make it breathe fire?”
“Just push on his little hat!”
Pentious aims his duck towards Frank and presses its hat down, releasing a surprisingly large burst of flame. “I'm burning your shop down, Missss Flora! And… And there's nothing you can do to stop me! Ahahaha!”
“Nooo!” Frank shouts. He even puts on a little voice. “I'm gonna get all burned up like a popcorn!”
Lucifer brings in the baker duck. “I'll save you, Flora!” He pulls Frank's hand over towards his side of the map.
“Oh, thank you, Mister Baker! I don't think I'da made it if you didn't pull me out!”
“No problem! I'm sorry we couldn't save your shop, though. That big ol’ dragon is just waaay too powerful to stop on our own.”
“You'll never sssstop me! You're just tiny little mortal ducks! I'm the most powerful duck in all of New Duckberg!”
“No you're not!” Lucifer actually giggles when he says this. “You forgot about Mayor Quackers!”
“The mayor is not more powerful than me. I'm a dragon!”
“If you were the most powerful duck, you'd be the mayor. But you're not. So Mayor Quackers can defeat you,” Lucifer says matter-of-factly.
“I can jusssst breathe fire on him! No way he can ssssurvive that!” Pentious triggers another bout of fire breath from his duck to demonstrate.
“Yeah, he can! Everybody likes Mayor Quackers. He's got tons of health potions saved up. He’s got all sortsa powerful stuff! In faaact…” Lucifer picks up Mayor Quackers and shoves him towards Pentious dramatically. “I cast magic missile on you!”
“That'ssss not fair!” Pentious yells. “You didn’t sssay anything about being a wizard!”
“I don't have to. I’m the mayor.” Lucifer grins smugly.
“Well, I'm going to burn down all the buildings I can get to! One magic misssssile can't take me out!”
“We gotta get a mob, Mister Mayor!” Frank says as Flora. “He can't fight off the whole town!”
“That's a great idea! We'll get General Mallard to rally his troops against the dragon, then we'll be unstoppable!” Lucifer picks up a duck with a green army cap and a highly-decorated matching coat, putting on a gruff voice. “Don't worry, little lady! My army is the greatest army in all of Duckworld! One little dragon can't stop all of us!”
Lucifer grabs a group of ducks in little army coats, all at varying levels of decoration. He whipers something to Frank and pushes half of the army ducks over to him, keeping half for himself. Ah, divide and conquer. No matter, they'll still be no match for a fire-breathing duck!
“Your pitiful army doesn't sssscare me!” Pentious announces.
“Oh yeah?” Lucifer puts on the gruff General's voice again, turning the duck towards its army. “All troops, fire at will!”
He and Frank then begin pulling on all the army ducks’ tails, unleashing a barrage of tiny foam bullets. Pentious waves his duck around, pulling its tail as he does so that it backflips over as many bullets as possible. “No fair! What kind of duck can shoot bulletssss?!”
“All the ducks in the General's army are like supersoldiers!” Lucifer explains, laughing gleefully as he continues to fire at Pentious. “The Duckworld government did a whole bunch of experiments on them and now they can shoot bullets out of their mouths! And if they get shot, they just absorb the bullets into their stomachs and shoot them back out ‘cause they're supersoldiers!”
“How convenient for you!”
Lucifer sticks his tongue out. “Ready to surrender yet? ‘Cause we can shoot aaaaall day!”
“Never!” Pentious shouts. “You can pry victory from my cold, dead… webbed claw things!”
Just then, there's a rather sharp knock on the doorframe. The three of them look up to find a very groggy Charlie and a very annoyed Vaggie watching them.
“Dad…?” Charlie begins, not really knowing how to proceed.
“The hell are you guys doing,” Vaggie finishes.
Lucifer merely grins at them both. “Wanna play ducks with us?”