Mothballed
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Inspired by Ducktales episode "Attack of the Metal Mites".
Launchpad "parked" his plane near the Money Bin and walked over to talk to Gizmoduck.
"Hi, Giz!(1) Mr. McDee sent me..." Launchpad began.
"To deliver money to the Bin. Mr. McDuck told me." Giz replied. "As soon as Mr. McDuck gets here to open the Bin, we can proceed."
Just then, Mr. McDuck arrived, grunted greetings to them (Mr. McDee is NOT a morning "person")and carefully opened the Money Bin. Giz stood guard as Launchpad pushed a dolly full of money into the Bin, then pushed the same dolly, only empty, out again. Mr. McDuck shut and locked the Bin.
"I'll be back later today, Mr. McDee." Launchpad said. "Giz, are you OK?"
Giz was trying to scratch himself and was trying to be discrete about it and failing at both.
"Sorry. It's impossible to scratch myself while wearing this suit." Giz replied. "Maybe that's why I feel itchy."
Hardly had Giz said that did a little green moth fly out of his suit. To be followed by another little green moth, and another, then qualities and qualities of green moths.
"What? Where are these moths coming from?" Launchpad asked, as the air filled with them.
"Never mind that! How do I get rid of them?" Giz asked. "They keep trying to eat me! And my g- suit! And I can't even swat them while inside my suit!"
"Take your suit off!" Mr. McDuck ordered "Before they break it!"
"Blathersnipe!" screamed an understandably frightened Giz.
The suit flew off him. Fenton swatted at the moths, who were all over the place, blinding them.
However, the Beagles had been watching the bin via binoculars. They saw that Gizmoduck had disappeared, they saw the g-suit laying on the grass user-less. That's all they could see because of all the moths filling the air like fog, but that was enough.
They decided to try to take advantage of the absence of Gizmoduck and the distraction caused by the moths to rob the Bin. It doesn't take much for the Beagles to decide to try and rob the Bin. It took them a while to get past the ordinary security guards and the booby traps all around the band.
The ordinary security guards had been thru Beagle attacks before and half-expected another at any given moment. As soon as they spotted the Beagles, they fired at them and hit the panic button which put the booby traps on full alert.
The booby traps had been refined, using previous attacks as a guide to what catches Beagles. More booby traps had been added. Some booby traps had been moved to keep the Beagles on their toes. Some had been changed so they LOOKED the same but worked differently. All this slowed the Beagles down, but it did not stop them. They're too stubborn.
In the mean time, Launchpad had grabbed his cellphone and called me and told me about the moths. (Launchpad didn't know about the Beagles- Yet.) Launchpad explained the situation as best he could.
Launchpad asked me if I could get there with something posthaste. I called my Mom and she and my Dad came to look after their grand kids. I went to help my Launchpad.
I soon arrived. Launchpad and I started spraying the bugs with an old McQuack family recipe for organic bug spray. Launchpad had asked me to bring the bug spray. We gave some sprayers to Fenton and Mr. McDuck so they could spray the moths, too.
Just then, the Beagles ran up to the Bin.
"How is we going to get into the Bin?" Burger asked.
"Simple. I knows the secret word that activates the G-suit. Blathersnipe!" Big Time said.
The G-suit flew on him. Big Time in the gizmoduck suit ran to the Bin.
"Hey! Dummy writing this thing! I is GizmoDog again! And I is staying that way, this time!" Big time claimed.
Fortunately, the Bin is TOUGH. Mr. McDuck did his best to make it gizmoduck-proof. Also, Big Time doesn't know which button does what.
The buttons on the g-suit are numbered with no indications of what they do. They are randomly placed on the suit so unless you've read the instruction book, you don't know which does what.
Also, Mr. McDuck kept trying to stop Big Time, fought him. Mr. McDuck realized he had forgotten the secret word that activates the g-suit. This made mad. He was afraid he was having a senior moment (2). Especially since Fenton had said the stupid word a few minutes ago and Mr. McDee STILL couldn't remember it! Mr. McDee grabbed the suit and attempted to wrest it off Big Time with his bare hands.
Big Time just laughed at him. This got Mr. McDuck so mad he started pressing buttons on the g-suit at random. By sheer luck, the gizmos he hit fired weapons at Big Time! Lasers on Big Time's wrist hit Big Time's feet as Big Time wrestled with Mr. McDuck, trying to throw Mr. McDee off.
Meanwhile, Fenton grabbed the sprayers and sprayed himself with bug spray all over. (Except for his eyes.) Then, Fenton screamed: "Blathersnipe!"
The g-suit flew off Big Time and back on Fenton.
"No! Not my suit!" Big Time lamented.
"It's my suit and don't you forget it. I got to get that code word changed." Giz replied.
"Blat..." began Big Time, but Giz knocked Big Time unconscious with one blow before Big Time could finish saying "Blathersnipe". Then Giz tied Big Time up and gagged him.
"Great work, Giz! You really sha-murphed him." Launchpad said. (3)
"What ARE you talking about, Launchpad?" Giz asked.
"Never mind. I forget you're not into comic books." Launchpad replied. "You did good, OK?"
While all this was going on, Bicep had taken his prize crowbar (solid titanium) and was attempting to pry the Bin's door open.
Launchpad saw this and jumped him. The two fought. Bicep tried to crown Launchpad with the crowbar, Launchpad ducked. Launchpad grabbed the other end of the crowbar and they played tug of war with it.
However, now the moths attacked the Beagles as the attempted to rob the Bin. The moths had already stopped biting us and began biting the Beagles mercilessly. The moths greatly preferred fur to feathers.
"Yeow! These things are like fleas or ticks!" yelled Big Time.
The Beagles were soon too busy scratching and swatting at the moths to help or to give us any trouble. This allowed us to get back to spraying the moths properly.
Soon, the moths were dead. The Beagles collapsed in relief as the biting stopped. But they were covered with little green moth eggs that would soon hatch and start the whole wretched business all over again.
"Ut-oh. Our bug spray doesn't work on bug eggs. Only bugs." Launchpad said, regretfully.
"Perhaps I can help, sirs. Like all dogs I am sometimes troubled by fleas and ticks. I have some flea powder, it might work on these bug eggs, since it kills flea and tick eggs." Duckworth, who had come to see what the matter was, said.
They tried it, it worked. The cops were summoned and the Beagles were arrested for attempted robbery. The matter seemed to be over.
However, later as Launchpad was flying his plane, he saw a little green moth fly around the cockpit. To be followed by more and more and more... Apparently, a few moths or moth eggs had landed on that dolly before Launchpad loaded on the plane.
Launchpad hit the autopilot. Launchpad then grabbed the fire extinguisher and turned it on the moths, firing it in all directions.
"Freeze!" screamed Launchpad.
The ultra-cold spray of the fire extinguishers killed the moths and their eggs.
Some moths had laid eggs in the g-suit. The eggs had been mutated by the electricity/radiation of the G-suit. Mr. McDuck had big brains study them and he soon was marketing moth-burgers.
The End.
1)Launchpad has a passion for nicknames for the same reason I do: we both have trouble remembering names, the nicknames help.
2) Nah. He just forgot. It happens.
3)OK, in the comic book, Shazam, some bad guy often snuck up on Billy Batson and gagged him before he could say "shazam" and turn into Cap't Marvel. I called this being "sha-murphed".