Greek chorus—noun—a chorus in a classical Greek play typically serving to formulate, express, and comment on the moral issue that is raised by the dramatic action or to express an emotion appropriate to each stage of the dramatic conflict
Freedom from Fear
Chapter 23
Bits
The door to the ancient temple slid open with a rumbling sound. Scrooge led the way in, torch held high. Huey flicked his attention between the walls and his scribblings in the JWG, writing down notes. Dewey and Webby were far more attentive, taking in every detail around them. Lena kept her magical senses open, ready for any traps of a more mystical variety. Louie sullenly followed, and walked right into a large cobweb.
His struggling with trying to dislodge the webbing from his face nearly knocked Scrooge into a pit, to the old man's annoyance.
As the others puzzled over their obstacle, Dewey backed up.
"Dew-dew-dew-Dewey doin' it!"
His running start ran him right at Webby, who was ready to give him a boost to his leap. He latched onto a large root hanging from the ceiling.
"We're doin' it again, yeah!"
Then Webby got a similar boost by leaping off an unamused Louie's back, grabbing onto Dewey's ankles.
"With Webby, his best friend!"
The two took their collective momentum and jumped, landing on the other side of the pit.
"A duet with Dewey and Webby!" they chorused.
Dewey pushed at a stone with a symbol on it, bringing the floor of the pit up to ground level.
"Adorable," Lena hummed.
Louie was about to head across the former-gap, when darts started shooting up from holes in the new floor. Scrooge stopped him just in time, then turned to Huey.
"Laddie? Crunch some numbers for me."
Huey observed the pattern and frequency of the firing, then he and Scrooge danced between the gaps in the darts with ease.
Louie, muttering Huey's 'step-turn' chant under his breath, squared himself up. His legs twitching, he gulped-
And then Lena yanked him backward through the portal she'd created, taking them both to the other side.
As Louie breathed a sigh of relief, Lena patted his shoulder.
"You looked too nervous to make it out without a few darts in your butt."
"Well, if you want to do it the easy way," Scrooge grumbled.
"If you mean the non-potentially-poisoned way, sure. Hold up a minute."
She looked over the area in front of them, frowning. Then she held up her hand, her rune-carved ring briefly glowing. After a moment, the Hand of Phobos arced around the corner and slid into her arm. She waved her hand, a sparkling mist pouring from the gauntlet. Glowing lines appeared in the air where the mist touched.
"Thought so," she muttered, then make scissoring motion with her fingers.
Two of the lines snapped, and the magical trap visibly unraveled like a badly-knit sweater.
"Après vous," she said, gesturing forward.
"So fancy," Webby giggled.
Soon, the group were before their prize. As Scrooge stood before the pedestal, fingers twitching in preparation to take the golden idol, Louie groaned.
"Will you just grab it already!"
"The Idol of Cibola is not a trinket to be unceremoniously swindled," Scrooge scoffed, "Legend has it—"
"Can we just wrap up the 'Woah!' and get to the 'Wait, what?' already?" a visibly tired Louie interrupted.
Scrooge just looked at him oddly, so Louie launched into a hypothetical.
"Whoa! Some cool hidden city or treasure or whatever! Wait, what? That cool thing is dangerous or cursed or guarded by centaurs? Aah! Louie almost dies!"
He gave a frustrated sigh.
"Can we please just move it along?"
As Scrooge tried to argue with his nephew, Dewey crept up to the idol.
"Woah!" he exclaimed as he took it off pedestal.
Louie raised one finger.
The stone that the idol had rested on shifted, sinking down into the pedestal.
"Wait, what?" Dewey asked.
Louie raised a second finger.
"That doesn't mean—"
Scrooge's excuse was cut off by the room rumbling.
Soon enough, everyone was running down the hallway toward the exit, screaming, pursued by a boulder.
"Okay, you might have a point, lad!" Scrooge shouted.
"Yay for me!" Louie shouted back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Buford!" Lena shouted, tossing a ball of energy behind her.
The ball erupted into the minotaur, who braced himself and caught the boulder. Smoke and dust erupted from his hands as the boulder kept spinning, and he slid back, but the massive rock was slowed enough to allow the group to reach the exit.
As they collapsed into the grass, gasping for breath, Huey turned to Lena.
"Hey, why didn't we portal out?"
"Lena and I actually tested it," Webby spoke up, "Her new bracelet can help her make portals, but it still requires a lot of concentration."
"Which is hard to come by when you're in the middle of one of the most famous scenes of Indiana Bones," Lena deadpanned.
Everyone hummed an accepting tone.
oOo
"I'll be in my study, looking over the idol," Scrooge said, oblivious to the mud he was tracking.
"I'll be here, tidying up after your last adventure," Mrs. Beakley replied, barely even pausing in her vacuuming of the main foyer.
"I'll be transcribing my notes into something more legible," Huey said.
"I'll be making a sandwich," Dewey said.
"Ditto, I'm starved," Webby said.
"I'll be catching up on a few potion commissions. I'm a bit behind," Lena said.
"I'll just be lying here. Forever," Louie said.
Lena spared a moment to reach down and pat him on the shoulder before heading off to her lab. She felt a bit sorry for him. He was clearly exhausted from the recent string of adventures. She was seriously considering ducking out the next one herself. She really was behind on her potions.
oOo
"Game night!"
"Oh no," Della, Beakley, and Duckworth quietly chorused.
"Ready for a relaxing night in?" Louie asked as he walked up, looking rather smug.
"Oh, you poor, sweet fool," Della said.
Scrooge reappeared, Donald in tow.
"Partner up everyone!"
Then Lena entered the room, still wearing an apron from the lab.
"What's all the yelling going on?"
Della practically lunged forward and grabbed her.
"Lena, you said you had potion brewing to do, right? I'll give you a hand, come on!"
"Wait, whAAH!"
"Della!" Mrs. Beakley called out.
"Sorry, Bentina! Every duck for themselves!" Della called back as she dragged Lena away.
Once they were in Lena's potions lab, Della hurriedly locked the door, before breathing a sigh of relief.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" Lena asked with a glare.
"Someone, and my money's on Louie, put the idea of a game night in Scrooge's head."
"And?"
"And you know how Scrooge gets when he's dealing with an opponent or a challenge? Super-competitive and such?"
"Yeah?"
"Who would his opponents be on a game night?"
Lena blinked, then grimaced.
"Ah."
"I've had to suffer it before, and I don't feel like doing it again any time soon," Della said with a morbid shiver.
"So you want to hide out in here with me?"
"Yes please."
Della took a look around the room, taking in the beakers, the small cauldrons on a converted stovetop, the jars with various powders and things she couldn't hope to identify, the large ventilation hood, and the instruments sorted and ready.
"You know, I don't think I've ever been in here."
"Everyone seems to have enough sense not to mess with things," Lena shrugged, "And I do have a sign outside that says 'No funny business, on pain of being turned into a newt'."
"By you, or a potion gone wrong?"
"Yes."
"So is there anything I can do to help?" Della asked.
"I've got two on the simmer stage. One can be bottled when the timer goes off, and I'll continue working on the other."
"Cool, coolcoolcool. Certainly better than whatever chaos game night would potentially bring."
"I know this family is a bunch of chaos magnets, but what kind of trouble could board games attract?" Lena asked half-derisively.
oOo
Later…
"A shrink ray?!"
"Can I call this shit or what?" Della muttered.
oOo
The air rushed past Lena's head, ruffling her hair and filling her nose with the smell of salt. From behind her, she could hear the boys getting the poles ready, the hum of the boat's engine, and Webby's excited chattering. Before her stretched the ocean, endless waves of blue toward the horizon.
It was certainly a new experience, and a rather pleasant one at that.
As the boat started to slow, Lena stepped away from the bow and headed back.
"So, I've heard fishing can get pretty boring," she said.
"Uncle Donald has some special bait for deep sea fishing," Huey explained, "We should get some decent bites."
"But yeah, the stretch between bites can get a bit long," Dewey said, actually answering Lena's question.
As soon as Webby was ready, she excitedly cast out her line. She then sat down, eagerly watching the water.
"You know it's going to be awhile, right?" Louie asked her, settling into a deckchair and cracking open a soda.
"And I eagerly await—"
Webby was cut off by her line going taunt.
"WAK! Already?" Donald exclaimed as the reel rapidly unspooled.
Webby grabbed the pole, pulling back desperately, and was almost yanked off her feet had Lena not grabbed her.
"It's a fighter!" Webby shouted.
The sea bubbled, and then erupted.
Everyone looked up…and up…and up, up at the towering mass of purple and white. The leviathan creature stared down with black eyes, long whiskers twitching like feelers. It gave a deep gurgle that rattled their bones.
"HEY COUSIN!"
And then everyone realized that a duck was standing on the head of the giant krill monster. Donald sighed.
"Fethry."
And there was a long silence.
"So, am I summoning Tempest, or what?"
"Nah, Lena. We're okay. Cousin Fethry's just weird."
Lena looked on as the odd duck climbed down from his pet kaiju to greet his cousin. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her beak.
"This family, I swear to Gaia…"
oOo
"What am I looking at?" Lena said.
"I don't know, but I hate it," Della replied, then thought for a moment, "Most of it anyway."
Lena rolled her eyes. She'd been present when Donald's new renter had been explained, and when Della had greeted said boathousemate with "Hello, Muscles" and a particular grin.
Donald had shoved her off the boat to repeated cries of "NOPE!"
"I'm Louie Duck, founder and CEO of Harp-B-Gone. We're the leading taskforce dedicated to capturing those pesky winged beasts infesting Duckburg. Remember, if you hear a 'skree', call Lou-eee."
There was a pause.
"Harp-B-Gone not responsible for any shredding, pecking, clawing, tinnitus, exploding ear drums, and/or permanent fear of birds."
Louie then retrieved his camera, allowing the 'actors' to drop from their poses.
"Never ask me to wear a dress again," Huey grumbled, "Or dress up period. You're not good with casting decisions."
"I dunno, I kind of like this hat," Webby said, running a finger across the brim.
"Employer Llewellyn, if I may, why do we play dress-up when there are still harpies afoot?" the mighty Storkules asked, taking off the baby bonnet he'd been forced into.
"If someone sees a harpy, they have to know who to call…and pay lots of money to get rid of it."
Louie then turned to the two who'd been watching the filming.
"Last chance to get in on the ground floor! We could use a witch and a seasoned adventurer."
Della unabashedly leered at Strokules' muscles, but Lena was more upfront with her answer.
"The ground floor of a trainwreck. Yeah, sounds like an excellent way to spend my afternoon."
"Come on, I've got a good idea here!"
"What you have is an Acme dynamite kit. I'd rather not be in the vicinity when it blows up in your face."
Lena turned around, heading back into the mansion.
Webby later told her that she'd likely had the right idea. Harp-B-Gone had ended up being a disaster in the end, and the following idea, training the harpies to work at a lemonade factory and delivery business, had been showing mixed results, since they kept stealing a lot of both lemons and lemonade.
Lena could probably have warned Louie about harpies and lemons, given the harpy she could summon had a similar penchant for the fruit, but didn't want to spoil his learning experience.
oOo
Huey and Webby shared a wide grin over their discovery: the Necronomicassette, a cursed VHS tape that could raise the dead. Violet was giving it a curious look. Lena…
"No," Lena deadpanned.
"Yes," Webby excitedly replied.
"NO."
"I believe it might hold interesting scientific value," Violet chimed in.
Lena shot her a betrayed look.
"It would be exciting and informative," she said defensively.
"We are not raising the dead," Lena growled, "Do you have any idea how messed up necromancy can get?"
"One of your summons a small horde of zombies, is it not?"
"You mean the Dirty Dozen? Sorry to ruin the fantasy, but they're homunculi that look like zombies, not real living dead. Because Phobos is a theater kid at heart. That bokor from Haiti, he had a real zombie. And how did that go again?"
"But you'll be here," Webby said, "You're a super-powerful witch. You can handle a few zombies."
"Can, but I don't want to. Give me the tape."
"Please?" Webby asked, widening her eyes, "I want this adventure. I want to explore this mystery. And I want to fight zombies."
"Not going to work this time, Pink. I'm not feeding your bloodlust. Give me the tape."
Then Lena realized that while she was arguing with Violet and Webby, Huey had disappeared. She squeezed her eyes shut.
"Oh, don't tell me."
oOo
Huey screamed as he ran away from several zombies. Before they could catch up with him, they were hit by a fireball.
"And this is why I said NO!" Lena screamed, launching another fireball from the Hand of Phobos.
Webby leapt in, swinging a machete and decapitating another zombie.
"Come on, isn't this fun?"
"I worry about you sometimes, Webby."
Violet observed a zombie that had fallen, its limbs neatly removed by a summoned Sharp.
"Fascinating. Normal rules of rigor mortis don't appear to apply."
The whining of a chainsaw pierced the air, and Donald charged in. He ran through a group like water, decapitating and removing limbs in a series of swift motions. A large specimen stepped up to the plate, but was neatly bisected at the waist. Donald's moves were right out of an action movie, a flawless execution of carnage…
Until the torso got back up and tried to strangle him.
As Lena blasted the half-zombie away, she marveled at how Donald could go from cool to lame in a heartbeat. She'd checked him for odd magic multiple times and came up negative. His bad luck was all natural.
Gladstone, on the other hand, his aura was messed up to hell and back. Looking at it had made Lena dizzy.
oOo
Lena's phone blared, disrupting her train of thought.
"The heck?" she muttering peeling her eyes away from her book.
The beeping seemed to be an alert from her regular social media app. She remembered setting up alerts for several citizen reporters who focused on the strange about Duckburg. Given her family, it seemed a good way to get a leg up on possible incoming threats. Granted, a lot of the alerts lately had been Gizmoduck related, but the point still stood.
"Must have turned up the volume at some point," she muttered as she opened the app.
Her jaw dropped.
"…what appears to be a mutated monstrosity with impressive muscles and the face of Mark Beaks, scaling the edifice of Waddle. And it seems to have two children in its grasp…"
Lena looked closely at the picture, and spied a pink bow.
"Shit!
She lunged for her longcoat, her portal bracelet, and the Hand of Phobos. Throwing them on, she made a portal as far away and as high as she could make it, ending up high above the outskirts of downtown. With a flash, Ella the Harpy had caught her out of the air. The two dove before arcing up at high speed and making a beeline towards the scene of the crime.
Unfortunately, things seemed to have been wrapped up by the time she got there. The monster was visibly deflating into a tired-looking Mark Beaks. Hearing Huey scream from higher up, Lena landed, sent Ella to retrieve him and Webby, and stomped over to the rising tech mogul.
"Ugh, my head…and my muscles. Why did you leave me, glorious pecs?"
He looked at her in confusion.
"Who's the goth kid? GLRK!"
His choking sound came from Lena telekinetically lifting him by his neck. Her hair rippled in an unseen breeze, her coat flapped with menacing drama, and her eyes were literally aglow with anger.
"Those kids you kidnapped tonight? My family. That girl? My sister. If you ever, EVER come near Webby again, I will skin you alive, knit your intestines into a sweater, feed what's left of you to my dragon, and stick your writhing soul in my lava lamp to burn! Are we clear?"
"crystal," he wheezed.
She dropped him, then calmly turned toward where Ella was depositing Webby and Huey.
"Lena, what—oof!"
Webby was quickly wrapped in a tight hug.
"You gave me a heart attack, Pink."
"Wait, I'm confused. How did you know about this? Do you have some kind of monitoring spell on me? Because that both cool and creepy. Huh, kind of like you, actually."
Lena didn't answer, she just stuck her hand in Webby's skirt pocket and extracted her phone.
"Hmm, no damage. Good signal…oh look, there I am, right at the top of the contacts list."
Lena shot Webby a deadpan look.
"So, care to explain why you didn't call the minute you suspected something was going screwy, and why I had to find out about this little kidnapping through social media?"
Webby winced.
"Ah. This tripped your anxiety, didn't it?"
"What do you think?!" Lena screamed.
Webby tried not to take it personally. Instead, to help ease Lena's mind, Webby started talking about what she learned tonight of romantic encounters.
"I got some interesting data. I don't quite get all of it, but I hope to someday."
Lena gave a playful scoff.
"Webby, whoever you end up with will have to have their own brand of crazy."
oOo
The circle was set, sleeping bags ready within. Three glasses were on the table, a pale purple liquid within. Violet poured a fourth liquid into a diffuser, a dark blue smoke already starting to emanate.
Webby was practically vibrating in place.
"You know getting yourself worked up won't help, right?" Lena asked drily.
"It would make the attempted lucid dreaming state harder to achieve," Violet chimed in.
"I know, I know," Webby said, "I've just been wanting to do this since we discovered the dreamwalker spell…and after we confirmed that it was okay to use."
"I told you, stop talking to Louie about magic," Lena scoffed, "All his knowledge comes from movies. He might as well be learning about medicine from Facebook."
"And on that note, we are ready," Violet said.
The three drank down their potions, laid down in their sleeping bags, and slowly breathed in the mist. Soon, they began to drift off…
"Ocean?"
Webby sat up suddenly.
Golden sands, waves of blue, a pleasant warmth…fish leaping from the waves and taking flight on webbed wings, chased by a dolphin with muscular arms.
"It worked!"
She looked around, spotting Lena and Violet smiling with amusement.
"About time you got here," Lena said, "I told you your excitement would hurt how quickly you fell asleep."
"Fine, yes, you were right, let's explore!"
Webby dashed right up to the unicorn that was standing behind them.
"Hello, good sword horse!"
"You are the chosen one, Webbigail," it neighed, "Are you ready to enter my extremely extreme obstacle course?"
A light shone down from the heavens, illuminating Webby. A cane, a top hat, and a pair of pince-nez spectacles floated down and placed themselves upon her. Webby gripped the cane, stars appearing in her eyes.
"It's happening!" she squealed.
"You would think after adventuring with him, her obsession would lessen," Violet said.
"Oh, honey, you're new here, aren't you?" Lena snorted.
Lena looked toward the horizon.
"So, I see what looks like a massive version of the public library on the hillside, past what looks like a lake of glitter, but knowing Webby, it's probably quicksand."
"Those in favor of avoiding that," Violet said, raising her hand.
"Fine, if you want to be stick-in-the-mud," Webby groused, "But how about instead, let's fly!"
Butterfly wings erupted from her back, and she took off.
"Because we can!"
Violet and Lena looked at each other, shrugged, and took to the sky. Violet was on a pair if purple-feathered wings, and Lena had pitch-black bat wings.
The three had fun darting through the sky, racing toward the massive building on the island's mountain. As they landed on the stone stairs leading to it, Violet asked a question.
"So the island and a number of things on it are from Webby, and the library is from me-"
"Why a library, by the way?" Webby asked.
"My dream is just to read more. But back to my question, where is Lena's contribution?"
"Probably inside," Lena said, "I have a certain personal style, and it probably works better in a building rather than on an island. I wouldn't be surprised if the library had some gothic chic decorations."
"I suppose that is fair."
But as the entered the library, they found a familiar figure waiting for them, bigger than life and cloaked in shadows.
"Ah, Lena! Welcome!" Magica De Spell purred from behind a set of sharp fangs.
She reached out with a clawed hand.
"Now, what was that discussion we were having bef—OW!"
The top of Webby's cane twisted off, revealing that it was a cane-sword, and she leapt toward the nightmarish version of Magica and struck.
Lena shook off the brief surge of fear.
"Sorry, she must have wandered over from my recurring nightmare section."
Violet looked past Magica, noting that the library section behind her was labeled HORROR.
"Don't apologize!" Webby squealed, "Now we get to beat her up with no consequences!"
"Wait a minute, that—ARGH!"
"Come on, girls! This'll be super cathartic!"
"I do not know this woman," Violet argued.
"She's Lena's abusive former guardian."
Violet took a second to process that before nodding.
"I am going to need a bat."
A baseball bat popped into being before her.
"Thank you, dreamscape."
"Brainwave," Lena said, and her body warped. Her formed hunched, her hands turned into paws, and her beak became fanged snout.
The wolf howled, dark grey fur rippling over powerful muscles. The only other splash of color on her was a pinkish fringe above the eyes.
"A wolf, interesting," Violet said, "Why this form, I wonder. A representation of outsider syndrome? A violent instinct?"
"Or, she's a pack animal, and we're her pack!" Webby countered, pulling away from Magica to bury her face in the thicker fur around Lena's neck.
"That, and I think they're cool," Lena growled, "Now, let's beat up a witch."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Magica croaked from around the multiple slashes to the face she'd sustained.
She clearly didn't, as the group of girls charged.
oOo
Lena stood in front of the door, trying to will herself to knock.
It was the next night after the dreamwalking sleepover. The memories were fresh, and the source of her current dilemma.
It was a bad night. Her thoughts were a storm in her head. Old thoughts were dredged up, memories she wished forgotten kept clinging to her. Thoughts of worthlessness, of how she wasn't good enough. How she was weak before, and she wouldn't be strong enough should the moment come. How she brought danger into this house once before, and that same danger was still out there, waiting for the right moment.
She could hear Magica's voice in her head, whispering that she would lose it all, that she'd get them all killed. Or something would happen, and they'd turn on her. That she'd be alone again, with no one to care. Only the darkness would accept her.
The storm howled, and with it came pain, sadness, guilt, everything she'd spent months working past.
Dr. Van Horn had warned her of this. The old bad thoughts never truly went away. Every so often, they'd return to try and trip her up. The key was recognizing them when they returned, and seeking help with banishing them once more.
"Not alone," she whispered, her fist wobbling in the air before the door, "Not alone, never alone. Just…need to…"
She knocked. It wasn't that loud, but the person on the other side was a light sleeper, so it didn't need to be.
A moment later, Webby poked her head out. She took one look at Lena and yanked her inside.
Before long, Lena was in Webby's bed, the smaller duckling snuggled up close.
"…and I feel so useless," Lena was finishing, "I dragged myself to your door because I couldn't handle it. Some Chosen of the God of Fear I am. I'm a coward who's afraid of her own mind."
"There's all kinds of bravery," Webby said, "Your bad thoughts are telling you to stop, but you reached out anyway. And that's a good thing."
Lena made an inarticulate noise. Webby gripped her tighter.
"No, I mean it. I know it's hard for you. You like being independent, it's why you have your own room instead of bunking with me or something."
"I know you were disappointed."
"Pshaw! I get it, I do. You spent so long with someone hanging over your shoulder every waking moment. You just needed a safe space to be alone when you needed it. Do I wish I could be in the room to yank you out of your nightmares? Hell yes, but I understand your need for space."
Webby pulled back a bit, looking Lena in the eye.
"But no duck is an island, okay? And asking for an ear isn't intruding. I'm so proud of you for reaching out, it's so much braver than you give it credit for."
"Doesn't feel like it."
"I guess I'll just have to keep telling you that until you believe it."
Lena gave a small giggle.
"You are ride or die, have I ever told you that?"
"I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool."
Webby and Lena cuddled close together, in blissful silence for a moment.
"Honestly though, I am in awe of you. You grew up with THAT, but you still turned out so good. Anyone else would have embraced the darkness. But not you. Never."
Lena found herself tearing up.
"Thanks, Webby. For everything."