The Legend of Gizmoduck
Part 98
Smarter
Scrooge McDuck woke to an impact boom that shook the house.
"Blathering Blatherskite!"
"Fenton!" Scrooge jumped out of bed, jammed his day clothes on and grabbed his cane and glasses, racing for the front door. "No, Fenton, stay here!"
"Gizmoduck!" McDuck dashed out of the house. Launchpad and Scrooge's nephews quickly ran out before him. "We need your help to-."
"Those Nazis have had control of Duckburg for long enough!" Fenton declared. "It's time to take it back!"
"Yeah!" Donald said.
"We're with you, Gizmoduck!" Launchpad said.
"Liberar al Pueblo!" Gizmoduck charged off.
"Ach no, boys!" McDuck snatched the triplets up as Launchpad and Donald ran out the front gate after Gizmoduck.
"Aw, but-!"
"Will someone listen to me for once! We've got to be smart about this, lads." McDuck put them down and looked over at Dally. "Are ye not going to follow him too?" He asked in a scathing tone.
"Mr McDuck..." Dally's eyes were filled with a simmering luminescent purple. "That UFO was attacking the institute. They've made a way for us to get in; but we have to be quick. The Fuhrer will be rebuilding his defences."
"Agreed." Scrooge said, glancing back as Mrs Beakley and the girls joined them in the driveway.
"Harley, Lena?"
"Right here and ready to roll, Darkwing." Harley answered.
"Wait, Darkwing?" Dewey said.
"How come Lena gets to go but we can't?" Huey asked.
"Lena's-." Louie started.
Scrooge was snatched away from Louie's next words, leaving the air in his lungs behind him as well. The countryside highway was a visual buzz under them, the sky and grass was a whirl of green and blue; tree, bush, trunk, the fog became a certain companion.
They paused at the gate to the university, lifting up to see the destruction from the UFO. An entire wall of the presidential building had been sheared away. The grounds were almost vacant of guards.
The early morning sun pierced the fog, pressing them firmly to the ground. They skirted up the shadow of a drainpipe, in through the breached wall to the first floor.
They got to the corner room. Chairs were strewn about, a bookshelf had fallen, the desk was intact but the statue in the corner was broken and leaning on the busted remains of a large pot plant.
Scrooge, Lena, Harley and Dally were corporeal again. With an impacting shock, Scrooge found himself in a heap with Dally behind the fallen bookshelf while Lena and Harley dove off to the other side of the room behind a broken office chair.
"Sorry; not the best landing I've ever considered." Dally quickly apologised.
"You just had to get on the bandwagon, didn't you?!" Felldrake said. A bolt of lightning magic hit the wall behind them.
'Somebody get that necklace!' Scrooge pointed at Felldrake, looking over at Lena.
'Sure, no problem.' She mouthed back and then ducked as another bolt flew over her head.
"Wow, she and Harley have the same sense of humour. I didn't know that" Dally commented casually as another bolt of energy flew over their heads.
"Don't get cocky, lad!" McDuck told him off. "We don't have him, yet."
"Why do good guys always come in sets? It's like shooting fish in a barrel." Felldrake chortled.
"Let me get them." Shelldrake came in the doorway. Dally jumped over the fallen bookshelf and disappeared from Scrooge's sight. Scrooge turned his attention to Shelldrake who headed toward him. Scrooge blocked Shelldrake's staff with his cane.
"I've got you, Lena!" Scrooge heard Dally say as Scrooge parried Shellgoose's advance.
"You might want to practice better magic hygiene!" Felldrake chortled.
Scrooge heard another bolt of energy and the sound of a body hitting the front of the bookcase.
"Argh!" Morgana's voice cried out in pain.
Scrooge tripped Shellgoose up and turned the corner to take on Felldrake.
"I've got it!" Lena snatched the amulet from around Felldrake's neck. It zapped her with a purple haze and she dropped it near Scrooge's foot.
"I've got it." Shelldrake scrambled across the floor to it.
Scrooge flicked it away from Shelldrake to Harley before diving clear of the next bolt towards Morgana.
Shelldrake let off a squawk.
Scrooge got to Morgana. The pain showed on her face, it looked like her leg was hurt? He dragged her back behind the busted desk and caught his breath.
"No, I've got it." Harley said then shrieked, making Scrooge look out from behind the desk to see Harley stumble back, turning to metal and reshaping into a motorbike.
"Harley!" Drake Mallard's voice cried out from the pot plant on the other side of Felldrake.
"Ha, so now I've got it back." Felldrake moved to pick it back up off the floor at his feet.
"Oh, no you don't!" Drake thundered darkly.
The amulet flew up into the air and out of Felldrake's reach. It floated, suspended, bathing them in an expanding purple haze.
"No!" Horror filled the theurgist's face. "You'll ruin everything, vampire! Where are you?" Felldrake fired faster magic bolts madly around the room. The purple haze enveloped him and then spread out to Scrooge.
"Ach!" Scrooge struggled against the strange fatigue as he fought to escape the haze. The room was purple. "Like... Agent M..." He realised, struggling, fighting against the heavy urge to sleep.
"NO!" Felldrake's shriek sounded as though he were a mountain away. "That power is MINE!"
"Drake, STOP THIS INSTANT!" Morgana's voice bellowed, startling Scrooge clear awake.
The haze let Scrooge go. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Ach, it was sucking the life out of..." He stopped. "Like a vampire." Scrooge looked around his side of the desk. He could see the front wheel of the motorbike over near the wall. "Harley. She must be an AI. Lena, are ye alright?" Scrooge called to her.
"I'm fine." She answered. "How's Morgana?"
Scrooge looked back to Morgana
"That was uncomfortably close." Morgana answered his questioning gaze. She looked back down at her red dress.
"It doesn't look too bad." Scrooge quickly gave it an overview. "Might be a fracture or a muscle sprain. We'll get the doctor's to take a look at you."
"No, it-it's nothing like that." Morgana gritted her beak. "You would think a cleaning spell was beneath a theurgist."
Scrooge realised the room was still too quiet. "Wait, where's Felldrake and Shellgoose?"
"Never mind where they are!" Morgana answered in a temper. "Just consider yourself lucky you didn't go with them." She tried to get up. "Ugh." She fell back into a seat on the floor. "Oh, why did I try to do that?" She sighed in personal annoyance. "Of course; and what rational reason could I ever possibly want to stand?" She grumbled. "Drake." She called across the room. "Shelter."
The room clouded in a dark mist for a moment.
"Morgana!" Scrooge stared at the empty space beside him.
"What's wrong?" Lena came across the room.
"She's gone." Scrooge answered.
"So's Harley." Lena said as she helped him up.
Scrooge looked around the untidy room. He was glad it wasn't his own study.
"Why would he leave us here?" Lena asked.
The door burst open and in wheeled Gizmoduck.
"That's a pretty good reason." Lena shrugged. "He must've heard them coming or something."
"Uncle Scrooge!" Donald hurried up to him. "You're okay. You got me so worried."
"Aye. Because you think I've gone and lost my marbles, the lot of ye."
Gizmoduck looked rather sheepish. "Felldrake seems to be dealt with?"
"Aye. Would've been easier if the lot of you'd been here to support us." Scrooge said in a strong tone, putting his cane back down on the floor.
"Where's the amulet?" Lena began searching the room.
Scrooge let out a long breath. "I wouldn't wonder if Darkwing took it with them, Lena."
"Darkwing's left?" Launchpad asked from behind Gizmoduck.
Scrooge turned to them. "I wouldn't wonder where to." He stretched his back. Fatigue was blurring his vision. He'd definitely had a chunk taken out of him. "We'd all best get ourselves home."
As they walked out of the battle zone and down the stairs, it suddenly struck McDuck that Launchpad was dressed in his old brown clothes.
"Launchpad!" Scrooge gazed at him. "You're back to your old self!"
"Ah..." Launchpad rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh, sorry about that, Mr McDee. Don't know what came over me."
"Never mind, lad!" Scrooge smiled. "Let's just get ourselves home."
They stepped out the front door. The roadway was littered with 21st century cars. The garden and fountain square before them was no longer a searing black scorch mark.
There wasn't a Nazi in sight.
"He did it." Lena was breathless. "I don't know where he got the energy from, but he did it."
Scrooge turned to her. "Are you alright, lass?"
"F-fine." She put her hand to her chest. "Really. Let's go. The further I get away from that place, the better." She thumbed behind her.
Scrooge looked back at the university's presidential building. It still looked ominous and haunted by evil. It was no longer ripped open. "I'll see to it that place gets pulled down."
"If you do that, where will the president live?" Donald asked.
"What about that shack next door?"
"That's my shack!" Donald exclaimed. "I mean condo."
"Couldn't you rent it out to them? Come on, lad, where's your financial sense?"
"It's a long story." Donald turned away from him in a grumble.
"Aye, I've seen it in there; it's probably not what a president would want to live in."
Donald started muttering curses under his breath and began walking away.
"Donald, you're going the wrong way." Lena called to him.
"I'm going to talk to my friend." He said and headed in the direction of his shack. "Don't wait up."
"I really think you hit a sore spot, Mr McDuck." Lena commented.
"Aye, well, it beats me." Scrooge shrugged. "Thought that place was empty."
"Alright, everybody else ready then?" Gizmoduck started his propeller and picked the three of them up, carrying them off back home.
