Mickey 'Mick' Mouse's new life in Duckburg was getting off to a slow start. For the past two months, Mick had been living in the metropolitan city of Duckburg with one of his buddies from his college days; Donald Duck. Donald was a sailor, or at least he wanted to be. The duo lived off the docks of Duckburg in Donald's old (seriously old) houseboat. Donald's work did not include much. He only worked a few days each week, but whenever he did work, he worked as a boat loader for cargo ships. Mick helped Donald some days, but most days he worked his grueling job working as a chef at Tony's Italian Grill. It really was not terrible, despite the long hours, the crummy work conditions, the obnoxiously pretentious customers for a three-star diner, and the boss who utterly despised most of his employees. It's just that Mick never wanted a job like this.

No. For Mick, his life goal was simple; become a published author. He almost achieved his goal, too, four months ago. But that's another story…

'Wakey, wakey sleepy head!' A raspy, almost unintelligible voice exclaimed as the tall, humanoid duck who spoke the words entered into the room. 'Breakfast is ready, Mickey!'

Slowly, Mick turned onto his side facing his friend, Donald, before throwing a spare pillow towards the duck. 'What time is it?' Mick asked groggily.

'Time for you to start treating my bed decor with some respect.' Donald responded with a deeply sarcastic tone. 'More specifically, it is almost eight. What time are you working today?'

'I am closing tonight.' Mick responded, closing his eyes as if he were trying to fall back asleep. 'There's no reason I have to be up this early.'

'Yea, uh, Mick. You know what day it is?' Donald asked.

'Uh… Tuesday?' Mick responded after taking a moment to think. 'I close on Tuesdays.'

'Yep.' Donald responded. 'Anything else happening today?'

Mick thought for a moment, trying to figure out why his friend was trying to pressure him out of bed so early in the morning. Then it hit him. 'Oh, doggonit!' Mick exclaimed.

'Uh-huh. You get to finally meet my uncle today.' Donald answered. Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck, the old, Scottish, billionaire of the "Duck" family, was going to be coming by the houseboat to visit. 'I haven't seen my uncle in years, remember?'

'He's the one you have a rocky relationship with, right?" Mick asked.

'Yea. But if I am ever going to be able to get myself some of his fortune some day to put towards fixing up my boat, I'm gonna have to make a good impression when he shows up.'

With that, Mick threw the blankets off of himself and slowly pushed himself up. He wanted sleep, but he wanted to help out his friend even more (even if he did not want to admit it). Donald had done so much to help him over the past couple of years, even before he let Mick crash with him. Helping him get his place ready for his rich uncle to visit was truly the least he could do.

'What time is he scheduled to get here?' Mick asked, rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes.

'Noon.' Donald answered. 'I got most of the cleaning done, aside from the bathroom. Do you mind doing one thing in particular?'

Mick knew what Donald was going to ask, but he reluctantly agreed before he even asked. 'Yep, I'll cook lunch for you. What does he want?'

0o0o0o0

Scrooge McDuck had better things to be doing than going to visit his nephew. As far as he was concerned, Donald was the far less successful of his brother's children (at least Della enjoyed some adventure every now and again). But, despite what he argued, his caretaker, Mrs. Beakly, was right; he needed to spend time with what remained of his family while he still could. Now, Mr. McDuck did not completely ignore or even despise most of his family. Della, his niece and Donald's younger sister, was essentially a daughter to him, and his genuine pride and joy. So, naturally, when she died, he took her triplet sons into custody, raising them as his own. Also, he believed his chauffeur, Launchpad McQuack is some distant relative of his, but he never knew for sure.

But Donald and Scrooge never had the best familial relationship for one reason or another. So, when Donald called Scrooge out of the blue after nearly twelve years to ask him to visit, he could not really think of how to respond. So he didn't; Beakly did.

'This man is your nephew.' Beakly, the near forty year old woman argued. 'He is family, and if he is extending an olive branch, you need to accept it.'

'This is Donald we're talking about!' Scrooge argued back in his exceptionally thick Scottish accent. 'The boy has to have some other motive. He is probably going to try and swindle some money out of me. Which he won't succeed at, by the way!' Next to Scrooge sat his loyal golden lab, Pluto, waiting with his master for Launchpad to arrive with the limo.

'Regardless, don't you think you should be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt?' Beakly asked. 'What if he truly wants to make amends with you? Or even see his nephews? The poor duck hasn't even seen his sister's children since they were born.'

'Well, he certainly isn't seeing them until I ensure he has no other motivations with this meeting.' Scrooge responded. He wore an old, baggy pair of grey pants, a red button-up shirt that was open, revealing a white undershirt, a feathery cape off his back, and a pair of sunglasses blocking his eyes. As he stood, he stood leaning on his wooden cain he got from an old adventure in the Amazon.

The limo pulled around to the spot where Scrooge and Beakly were standing. The front passenger window rolled down to reveal the face of the driver, Launchpad 'LP' McQuack.

'Good morning, Mr. McDuck!' LP stated enthusiastically. 'You ready to get going, sir?'

Scrooge gave a sigh of frustration as he could put this meeting off no longer. Slowly he began to move towards the vehicle, without responding to LP's question. Sliding through the door he got buckled into his seat, allowing Pluto to get in with him.

'Remember sir, he is your family.' Beakly said, peeking through the open car door before closing it behind Scrooge. 'Please, do try to be kind with him.'

Scrooge simply rolled his eyes before picking up one of the books he kept in the back seat of his car. 'Launchpad. Let's get going, now. I haven't got a desire to spend more time with my nephew than I must.'

'Yes sir, Mr. McDuck!' LP responded before putting the vehicle into drive and pulling out of the driveway.

End Chapter 1

Hello my readers! I know, it has been a while since I posted anything. Truth be told, college is hard (haha), and getting anytime to focus on creative writing has been very difficult. Regardless, I'm back now with a new story which I am quite excited about. I'm excited about this one as it is meant as a bit of a challenge for me. A couple weeks back I was scrolling through Instagram and came upon some fanart someone did of the Mickey Mouse characters in a darker, more urban and stylized aethstetic. I thought it was cool, saved the pictures, and moved on. Then, a few weeks later, I stumbled upon it again, and suddenly the ideas for this story began to flood into my brain. Seeing as these pictures were the direct inspiration for this story, the artist who drew these pictures goes by the name nokoffee on Instagram, so you can check these pictures and inspiration for this story out for yourself. The challenge that I alluded to earlier is that I want to try and write a darker, more urban, more "adult" Mickey and friends story (with heavy inspiration from Ducktales, Goof Troop, and Darkwing Duck), while not making it completely cynical and pessimistic, or a very immature form of mature, as I feel would be the temptation with something like this. So please, if it ever gets too cynical, please let me know. I am also going to be keeping the chapters fairly short and writing them in bulk, releasing them every so often whenever 3-4 chapters are finished and ready for release. Anyway, this was a longer explanation than I initially wanted, but I did just want to let you all in on what I wanted from this series and what the goal/inspiration for it is. Please, any and ALL feedback is appreciated so I can improve it and make it better as the chapters go on. I am excited for this series and am hopeful that it will turn out well! BTW, I intend at some point to post a fancast list so that you all get a sense of the voices I envision coming from these characters (since it most certainly will not always be the classical versions of these characters).