I do not own Ducktales
Dewey cries and screeches behind the thin plastic keeping him alive. He feels like a fish in a water bowl, helpless to the world outside of the glass. His mouth is wide, in a shape of an O, and still desperately sucking the air that dances around his head. A force pulls at his belt, digging into his abdomen and leaving his limbs to drag behind him. His blue gloved hands ball in and out of fists to try and keep a lid on his quickly spilling out anger.
There was a spec hurtling towards him with debris in the background. The parts and pieces of a carefully crafted home ship blown to pieces and flying in every direction. A particular sharp one embedded to the left of his astronaut head cap, striking against his forehead, keeps him up against the back of his helmet, slowing his struggle. Dewey hears the mothering voice, frantic and barely audible, yelling his name, telling him the creatures were about to shoot again, and pulling hard at the rope attached to his middle. Donald is only a few meters away and Dewey even further from his target. He doesn't care if they decide to attack. The blobs were too far he mutters, twenty manned ships weren't beginning to surround him and cut off his only contact to what he needs.
The stars all around him get brighter and the moon behind the duck shaped spec gets smaller. Dewey feels it in his muscles to gain the strength he has left and as a large hand grips his shoulder, he twists with a yell loud enough to be heard by the enemy. His boot catches on the metal barring of the door and with the heel of the other he braces against the top where it was black and rubbery. He launches away as hard as he can, straightening his arms above his head. Dewey hears the yelp of his uncle but pretends to be superman now. He thrusts through space and ignores the other shouts of the rest of his family. The slight bump in his propulsion and screech tells him Donald had joined him as well and a smile rose across his white face.
Then the first logical thought he had since he climbed into Scrooge's spaceship hits him, he was absolutely crazy. His brothers are yelling at him, worrying, distraught, wondering how on Earth Dewey managed to live as long as he has. The mattresses flying down the stairs, running into deadly traps, becoming captain of a deadly team of pirates had never killed him, not even leave a scratch, but this has. This mission left a trail of blood running down his face and lungs straining for the rest of the air in his tanks. Air that was limited even on the ship when the aliens blasted their extra supplies chamber to obliteration. This was the most dangerous boneheaded thing he's ever done.
Not long before, after they escaped the clutches of a colony bent on causing hell to different species outside their tiny flying ship world, his family got to take a moment to lick their wounds and get back to the original mission.
Launchpad was tapping random buttons, Louie grasped his bruised knee with Donald frantically pulling out the first aid kit, and Scrooge was calculating with the help of Huey right at his side. Both their faces glanced up at each other at the same conclusion and Huey circled a number with his black pen. They announced dread. The moon made ship rushing at such a slow velocity wasn't on the correct path and there was no way they could make the effort to get closer. Scrooge briefly explained they had no fuel, no extra supplies, or even enough to make it home. His old eyes were downcasted as he pointed above the pilot's head and through the window where the front of their ship was facing. Its long nose directly down on Earth.
"Were on point to land fifty miles of the radius of Duckburg, but that's it. The ship's at a standstill for about ten minutes before we have to hit the button. We got enough to propel us into Earth's atmosphere, nothing else." Scrooge kept his feet planted to the ground, "Sorry Donald."
Dewey, through is thirteen years of living, had never seen his uncle so low. No matter how many jobs he lost, scraps they ate, or power outages on the boat for over a week had he ever been so slumped. His shoulders practically touched the floor. So Dewey saw no other choice, his colorful world suddenly turned black and white. Save his uncle's sister or go home and helplessly watch Donald depressingly drag his feet around the mansion.
The woman aboard her tiny handmade ship had enough to leave a quarter of a mile between the two ships meeting points. A quarter of a mile wasn't that far, right? Dewey was clawing at an end of a rope and his belt before he knew what he was doing. His mind raced with images of his mother from pictures and all he could see was his uncle's tears. The rope was a little old and not for space adventures but it had to be good enough. It had to work out.
Dewey strains against the metal digging into his forehead as more sweat accumulates in his suit. Donald was trailing behind him. Luckily with another rope tied to the shuttle, not leaving them falling across the universe into the enemy's territory.
"DEWEY YOU'RE GROUNDED!"
Said duck winces at Donald's voice but never let's up. He out stretches his arms forward, body laying horizontally to the rapidly coming astronaut. He saw her platinum hair first. Long strands pulled behind her head and likely tied into a bun, her bangs somehow lasting through the years were perfectly cut above her eyes, bouncing across her face. They brought out her eyes, ones that looked identical to Uncle Donald's as they stared up at his. She had a wide smile on her face, uncaring of the carved scratches on her suit or the debris from her little ship that blew up.
The door slid shut behind him. He kept his eyes straight ahead, determined. Dewey slammed a blue button and waited as the air left the small cabin. When the second door slowly slithered above the outside surface of the white shuttle, Dewey leaps forward, flashing his eyes at the rope's knot hopefully tied good enough to the railing. It was like jumping through a portal, stars glittering across a black abyss. The moon glowed as a crescent, the dark side present behind a cylinder ball of metal.
Dewey felt his heart pumping in his ears when his eyes landed on it. He took in the details of metal and metal torched together by his mother's handy work, a yellow tarp strapped to the top, silver tape lined in shapes to keep the precious parts of half a motor secure, and red paint scraped off the sides where it read her name and a set of code after it. Dewey couldn't believe this was all real. His mom almost in his grasp.
He held out his hand, creating gestures for her to leave her ship and jump to him. To glide through space and take his hand. They could finally hug and Dewey would bring his mother to safety. Finally bring her back for the time she was gone.
A mechanical sound echoed into his helmet. His earpiece cutting off the yells from his great uncle and instead shifting to white noise and a language he didn't understand. Dewey's eyes widened as he turned his head away from his mom's ship to a spherical one. A blue color shines inside a pipe until turning white in color and blasting out of its confines. His pupils become pinpoints at the brightness, and he screams out in shock as it hits on point to the mass in front of the moon.
He watches in utter horror as Della's ship tears apart, blowing up in front of him. Not far from Dewey, pieces are hurled into random directions, the yellow tarp torn in half and flowing open like a curtain to a disaster. A tiny chunk banged onto his helmet, flinching the duck away and fragment after fragment collided onto the clear boundary to his face. He felt the sting above his left eye before he could blink. Shaking almost out of his boots, he stares up crossed eye at a lengthy metal scrap protruding from his helmet. A crack goes down the front and his suit alerts him to the air pressure dropping inside slowly.
"Breath, lad! Were pulling you in!"
The Scottish voice comforts a small part of Dewey, but he starts a fuss anyways, damning the universe for doing this to him even as blood pumps through his veins at a sight he never thought. A duck form flying through the air in his direction. The rope pulled him away though. He was gonna miss her.
"Dewey stop! What are you doing?" Huey's voice crackles back over the speaker in his suit, desperate to call out to his brother.
The blue duck shuts his eyes for a moment, blocking out Della's appearance a few meters away and listens to the pain of his older brother. He's never heard Huey so scared. His big brother was always so calm and thoughtful. To hear his terror and anguish struck Dewey hard. He's seen Huey get angry before, a temper rivaling Donald's, but this feels different.
"Dewey, your life is worth more than anything else. To us, please come back." Huey whispers in his ear so softly it leaves Dewey to hang silent.
Della was always his mission. To find out what happened to her. Dewey couldn't imagine, being the adventurer he was, to fail such a task. He was so determined to win this one and see Uncle Donald be happy, but his eyes open once again. He stares directly at his mother.
"She left." This time he talks into the microphone close to his beak. Tears ran down his cheeks when he sees her expression change to one of worry. She's confused why he's acting the way he is but she doesn't know who he is. She wasn't worth Dewey's life.
Dewey shakes his head and retracts his arms back to his sides. Scrooge built the Sphere of Selene, but he didn't make her steal the shuttle and blast into space. The rest was her fault. His mission had been completed the day Scrooge told him what happened to her. He never failed. The young duck found out why his mom left him and his brothers. It was for the moon, not them.
Donald screamed Dewey's name, but when Della got a bit closer, it transitioned to hers. Dewey tried not to let it get to him. Donald's boys were more important. At a young age, Donald always said his boys were the most precious thing to him and that would never change. He would protect them with every feather on his duck body and raise them. Dewey loved Donald and no one could take his parental place.
He misses her waiting hands on purpose. Dewey rushes past her like she's nothing but a nuisance. He rejects her presence and lets space keep him in his forward motion. It wasn't his mission to save her.
"I got her!" His rope jerks hard and his head spins. His body turns around. A duck covered in old space gear is holding onto her brother for dear life. She's crying in hysterics and laughing at the same time. She quips a joke pointed at Donald and hugs him tighter. There rope is floating, scrunched up and moving like ribbon around the pair. Twins uniting once again.
A force ceases the happiness between the two. The spherical ship, grey and neon blue, persists on the family. It attacks the Earth natives and it causes everyone to cry out. Physics comes into play and it changes everyone's course. Dewey is thrown away from the shuttle with Donald and Della pulling along. Debri picks back up in speed and stretches across the area, crashing into the alien and mangling the bottom of its round ship. Karma results in the discovered specie to drift away, screaming and cursing at them for its stupidity.
"Dewey!"
The duck looks up at his uncle and sees the bigger problem. The rope is slashed between the two and leaving one small boy to float away uncoordinated. Dewey jolts with fear and claws towards his uncle to save him.
"Help!" He chokes when something pinches in his back shoulder, and he wails to his family. "Donald!"
"Oh boy." Donald mutters and like the fighter he is, he fights for his boy. Donald grips his side of the rope attached to the shuttle and twists himself and Della around. He puts his feet up against his sister's middle and kicks as hard as he can, throwing Della towards the shuttle's open door where Scrooge is geared and holding out his open arms to catch her. He's propelled backwards and straightens his body the way Dewey had when he slipped out of his fingers.
The blue duck watches in awe at him, observing his uncle's hurtling form in his direction.
"Donald!" Dewey opens his gloved hands and Donald charges at him, snagging Dewey by the middle and wrapping his arms around.
"Don't ever do that again!" Donald snaps, holding the boy even closer.
Dewey starts crying and hears through the speaker his uncle's hard breathing and hushing tone to calm him down. Everyone else stays silent on the shuttle while Scrooge hauls them back in. Dewey's muscles spasm the entire way and the beeping in his suit gets louder as the air gets even thinner.
He gets to his last few breaths when Donald urges him inside the first chamber and into the second one after a minute. There's gravity inside the medium sized shuttle and Dewey sags to the floor, eyes heavy and mouth dry. Someone rips his helmet off and yells in his ear, but he just presses a hand to his chest even while Huey is prying his boots and gloves off. His lungs burn and right shoulder is like hot coal. Donald is kneeling by him and supporting him forward as Scrooge comes up from behind prodding at something Dewey can't see.
"What's-" His vocal cords stop and his body goes limp as his eyes fight open. He peers the best he can at the scene in front of him. Not looking at the adults, he focuses on his brothers. Huey is now in his face with a wad of bandages up against his forehead and gives him a worried look, whispering soft facts of first aid care. It let's Dewey begin to breathe more carefully especially seeing Louie hover above the crowd. Tears are in the green duck's eyes, but he continues to stay in place even as Della sits on the floor next to him, grabbing at his hands.
"Lad, this is gonna hurt, okay? Just a wee pinch and you'll feel better."
He nods and slowly drifts off before he can register anything else.