Synopsis: Lena was devastated. Despite winning the offensive war against the Fiendish Organisation for World Larceny, Violet sacrificed herself during the war, with the killer, Bradford Buzzard, barely managed to escape. And although she tried countless attempts to move on from the incident, Lena brought herself into retiring early from the cape, and began finding her own ways to exact her revenge. This began an uneasy partnership between her and her aunt, Magica De Spell, in a quest to find a book of spells that was only known in urban legend. However, the finding of the book itself slowly unbind the only link she truly had left in this world. Is this a price that Lena was willing to take? Or will her guiltiness towards her now-only friend overwhelm herself?
VIOLET APOLLONIA SABREWING
(2008 - 2021)
oOo
Saturday early morning.
Rain was pouring down heavily, setting up a miserable tone for the current atmosphere. This day, unfortunately, was also a miserable one for the McDucks and the Sabrewings as well; a friend to the McDuck family and an inseparable part of the Sabrewing family sacrificed herself for an eventual win against the Fiendish Organisation for World Larceny. The death of Violet affected both Lena and Webby, with one being a sister to her and one being an extremely close friend. However, Lena was the one that felt guilty the most, as she was supposed to be the one that die under the blade of the Sword of Swanstantine. Her magic did nothing to heal Violet, and while her sister's last few words kept ringing in her head to move on, Lena still couldn't.
Maybe that was why Lena didn't show up on the funeral. When Scrooge McDuck asked about the true reason why, however, her dads only replied that she had personal reasons. He noticed that the two were quite uncomfortable with the question, so being the man he was, he decided to own up to his mistake.
"I am truly sorry for your loss," Scrooge began, "it was not supposed to happen like this. If I got there before both your daughters do-"
"No, Mr. McDuck," Ty interrupted, "our daughter saved the world. It meant more than anything to us now - at the very least, we're grateful that the world had someone to look up to after this major conflict."
"And Lena will still visit often nonetheless," Indy continued, "she never thought it was your fault." His tone shifted. "Sadly, the one thought she had in mind was that she was fully responsible for the death."
"I do have an idea for Lena to reconnect and calm herself down," Scrooge said, "but I wish to not discuss this further as I believed it is disrespectful to do that right on a funeral. However, if you and your husband do have time, please feel free to visit me on Monday afternoon. I will personally hire a cab driver to get you both here."
They shook hands with the trillionaire and thanked him. The funeral then proceeded after some delays. Webby had to be the one that cried the most: she was one of her best friends, after all, and she couldn't bear the fact that she was no longer there. But instead, she didn't. She already cried too much the day before that her eyes were only red and there were no signs of tears trickling in her eyes.
"...a bright young girl, who unfortunately passed away. May she be eternally safe by the heavens above."
Those words were too much for Webby. Unable to handle it any longer, she went to Scrooge. "Dad, let's go home."
Scrooge nodded. Before moving back to his limousine, he whispered to the Sabrewings a few words.
"I apologised, but my daughter is not feeling well. I'm sure that you two understand how much Violet meant to her the same as Lena does."
After adjusting the seats for the triplet, Della and Donald, Scrooge went to the front seat, with Webby sat on his lap. They began to drive back home.
oOo
Lena's room was in complete shambles. Her sister's death was an event that truly traumatised her, even worse than when she was abused by Magica De Spell. In fact, she didn't even bother de-transforming from her magical form, as she kept cursing and blaming herself.
Scrooge really had no idea how bad it was: at one point, the glasses that were on the floor made a cut on both Ty and Indy due to the frustration fuelling inside her, which caused cuts being visible to both of their bodies. They really tried their best to hide it at the funeral, and after that incident they decided not to bother a grieving Lena who was in so much pain recently.
Violet's last words kept ringing on her head, with each time getting more and more distorted than the former. It was so bad that Lena screamed - the frequency could have felt like tearing apart someone from existence. The distortion eventually stopped, but while Lena was still trying to adjust from that, something dropped from her hoodie pocket. Those were a friendship bracelet - and a note. Lena picked both up and began reading the note. It wrote:
Lena,
You have been the greatest sister I ever had in my entire life - there are no words to describe how happy I was with you. Though our first interaction was not as good as it is now, the fact that we intertwined with each other's path is the one fact I couldn't forget.
So here's my message: I will always be with you. I will never leave you. I may be gone, but our relationship will never end. No matter what you do next, I will still be your little sister. Do what you think is right, for our family, for our friends, but most of all, for you. I don't want to give any advice of you moving on - that won't work, but you don't have to, because no one is truly gone from their lives, instead they stayed. I know you'll make the right choice.
Your little sister,
Vi.
Attached with the note was a photograph that Violet never gave to Lena; it was taken the day before they began their offensive war. Beautiful sunset, with the two just sat down looking at it. Her sister looked happily while the sun gleamed lightly on their face. That was when Lena bursted into tears. Violet had chosen to do anything for her, and she was not able to do anything about it. The smile wasn't a smile of hope like Lena thought - it was a smile of acceptance.
Acceptance.
Lena realised: she didn't need to move on. She just had to accept the fact. It was easier said than done, but Lena knew what to do. If her little sister did everything she could to save her, then it was now her duty to do the same to ordinary citizens of Duckburg. Signifying that acceptance, she tied Violet's bracelet with her own bracelet, and slowly nodded.
oOo
Three months had passed since Violet's death, and August arrived. Following the adults' directive, the kids began proper education in a prestigious school known as George Quackington Institute, named after the famed first President of the United States. That fact was not in the kids' interest however, as although they accepted that Violet was no longer present with them, it still felt depressing for all of them. For the whole trip to the school, they said nothing to each other and rarely made eye contact.
The limousine finally arrived to the main gate. Launchpad didn't even crash the car this time, but they couldn't care less about it.
"Is this a public school or a private one?" Louie complained loudly about the campus, which didn't help lighten up anyone's mood either.
Just after his remark, the bell rang, prompting all of them to run to their class.
"Good morning, new students, and welcome to the George Quackington Institute, where talents are born. My name is Mr Starling, and I'll be your homeroom teacher for the rest of this year."
His voice was almost toneless. But in a split second, the teacher changed his mood.
"I don't want to sound pretentious, but the first sentence I just said was required for teachers to say to the students. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do attendance."
Dewey suddenly raised his hand up.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" Dewey asked.
"My name is Mr Starling." He repeated. "If you want my full name, it is James Nicholas Starling. Any more questions before I do attendance?"
"Sorry, I was confused with someone else." Dewey resigned and sat down.
"Alright."
He scanned and read through the list of his class, with the same tone as he was before. Dewey was still looking at him intensively, as if he still had suspicions on his own homeroom teacher. Very quickly, he was almost at the final student.
"Lena Sabrewing."
Silence.
"Lena Sabrewing?"
The triplet and Webby began looking around. What was supposed to be Lena's seat was empty.
"So she's not present for the first day of class. What a pity-"
The door banged open, and Lena appeared, breathing heavily. "SORRYI'MLATETHETRAFFICWASSOTERRIBLE-"
"Calm down, young girl." Mr Starling said. "You're Ms Sabrewing, aren't you?"
She regained her breath. "Yes. Lena Sabrewing."
The teacher looked hard at her. It was not a spleenful look, but it was not showing any sort of emotion either. After a while, he spoke again.
"Please sit down then."
oOo
Halloween would be something to cheer the mood up for the students, but it was 'STEELBEAK IDENTIFIED' headline that made into the centre of attention instead.
Immediately after that, securities were tightened day by day, which the school claimed that it was for ensuring safety. While it would look reasonable in the eyes of normal students, that kind of ambiguous convenience was spot on for the triplet and Webby: they knew who was behind this.
"Dad's being paranoid." Webby said thoughtfully.
"Well, he has his point, I guess," Huey replied, "like Bradford's still out there, you know?"
Bradford Buzzard. Just that name invoked fear upon almost everyone in Duckburg. People who had not face him before could only recognise that vulture as one of the most dangerous international criminal that was convicted on numerous charges. Originally a manhunt operation from the FBI, Interpol also joined due to how large F.O.W.L. was. Two more months had gone by, and there was still not a single lead on the madman.
"Besides," Dewey jumped in, "you saw the news. Steelbeak isn't someone we can mess with."
"Lena's constantly missing out classes." Louie interrupted. "By any chance, do any of you know what she does these days?"
Even Webby shook her head.
"She didn't even tell you?" Louie asked in a surprising tone.
Webby nodded. "Ever since the school year began, she avoided talking to me. Whenever I tried to talk to her, a few moments later she just disappeared."
Mr Starling walked through and stopped right in front of the kids. "Excuse me, may I have a moment with Miss McDuck? I need to ask her about Miss Sabrewing's attendance in recent days."
"Why not her fathers?" Dewey retorted. "Sir."
"They requested that. I'm sure that's way out of my authority." He did some signs in the back so that only Webby noticed. "Miss McDuck, if you're ready, I'll be waiting in my office."
"I guess I'll go." Webby reluctantly said. "Bye guys!"
A camera was placed right at the back of the triplet. It watched Webby's footstep intensely - however that was not the only one. The camera screen minimised, showing eleven more screens of every corner of the school campus. Behind the screen was the one of the most dangerous criminal organisation leader; known terrorist, former businessman, Bradford Buzzard. Still menacing, still threatening and still that look of desire for achievement.
"You should stop faking my death, Bradford," Black Heron said soothingly, "because eventually, people will catch on."
Bradford sniggered. "Does it really matter? If they can't even catch me for the past three months, do they even care about the fact that you're still active in our organisation?"
"Makes sense," she replied, "but what exactly are we trying to achieve in a McDuck-funded school?"
"A bait and a foil," he simply replied back, "you'll see."
oOo
"How's the situation, Gizmoduck?" Lena asked.
"Very not good. Steelbeak's heading further to the main street, not sure what he's doing." Gizmoduck replied at the earpiece.
"On your left!"
Lena swiftly advanced through, but Steelbeak was still ahead of her flying speed despite the fact that he was limited on his moving option. Realising her intention, Gizmoduck moved to Steelbeak's right, attempting to surround the chicken on both sides. What they both didn't realise was his strength: both his hands pushed them away with ease.
It took both quite a while to adjust themselves. Thankfully, they were not alone.
"This is Darkwing Duck. What's your status?"
"DW!" Gizmoduck exclaimed. "I've managed to stick a GPS tracker on Steelbeak; please keep track of him and we'll follow suit."
"Copy that."
Gizmoduck pulled out the GPS tracker. Lena looked at it closely - this was one way for her to investigate a criminal's movement pattern. Steelbeak turned left and right, back and forth, but he accelerated quickly to a road with no intention of turning to somewhere else.
"DARKWING!" Lena yelled. "HE'S HEADING TO GEORGE QUACKINGTON INSTITUTE!"
Darkwing didn't say anything, but he was quick to signal Launchpad that the plane needed to go faster. Then, he turned back to the line.
"Alright, we have two options. If we get there early, we'll stop him from entering the campus, but if that's not the case, which will be very likely, we'll have to issue an evacuation."
"Then we must make sure it goes on according to the plan." Lena replied firmly.
She then levitated and boosted forward, leaving Gizmoduck behind. Worried about how the situation had turned out, he went after her with caution.
This wasn't Fenton's first time of witness Lena's hot-headed approach to a problem though, as she had been constantly making rash decisions and at some point, letting the suspect escape from their grasp. The worst part? He knew why Lena would do so. Even himself couldn't imagine how much pain she had gone through while being a superhero. She remembers the training, he told himself, it will be okay.
He was wrong.
Steelbeak was faster than all of them. His actions? Ruthless. Killing securities, one by one. It was fast, it was quick. And the camera system was conveniently down right after he went in the campus. Students were now evacuating, all except Webby and the triplet - though Huey, Dewey and Louie's faces looked like they were forced to stay more than voluntarily do so.
He turned, and saw Webby was standing there, trying to block him from entering the campus. In one split second, Lena kicked the chicken from the back and flung him away from her friends.
"Listen," Lena quickly said, "I know I haven't been talking much with you guys, but you have to get out of here, now! And no arguing with me!"
Webby nodded and ran pass her, with the triplet following suit. She certainly heard some whispering from them, but it was not her worry right now. Steelbeak was the priority.
"Where's your little team?" Steelbeak asked with contempt.
"They'll catch up," Lena replied, "while you'll get apprehended."
"Are you sure?" Steelbeak sniggered.
He then reached to his phone. "This is Agent Steelbeak. I would like to request backup."
Lena was expecting this - but what came next would be out of that expectation.
"You wouldn't need backup, Agent Steelbeak."
The line closed off quickly, but Lena could still identify the voice behind it - Black Heron. That meant that she was still alive, and the whole thing was just a set-up. Her thinking was closed off as Steelbeak suddenly called for help.
"PLEASE, HELP ME!" Steelbeak yelled in desperation as he was forcefully dragged to the inside of the campus.
Believed that everyone had left the building, Lena refused to help the chicken.
Moments after that, Mr Starling and her dads went out of his office.
oOo
And the last thing she could remember?
A bang.
Then fire.
Then dust.