Lena de Strange: Well hold on to your sweater, because things are only going to get more and more twisty from here.
Disney Boy: I already messaged you about this. Great idea, but I'm still not sure if can pull it off properly... I'll have to think on it.
Guest: Not forever. Just for as long as possible.
Webbigail: Thanks! I'll be sure to follow your advice the best I can.
ReeReeWithAngst: Thanks! Thanks!
After finishing setting up his old but dependable hammock between two sturdy trees in his Uncle Scrooge's frontyard, Donald Fauntleroy Duck let out a long tired yawn and stretched out his sister's arms in the air.
Since it was an unusually warm and sunny Wednesday afternoon for this time of the year, and that Webby was seemingly just as good as rescued with Magica De Spell now unable to harm her anymore, he figured this was the perfect time to lay back and rest his sister's head for a while. Stepping into the soft fabric sling with Della's prosthetic leg, he laid back and closed her eyes.
It all felt so bizarre to him. Although he was still the same hot-blooded thirty-seven year old uncle Donald on the inside, on the outside, he was now the firey amputee, fish hating adventurer known as Della Duck.
For starters, only having feelings in one of his legs now led to him overcompensating his steps and occasionally making him trip over himself while walking, ending up with him falling flat on his sister's face.
And on the more uncomfortable side of things, besides losing both of his legs and his particularly distinctive scratchy voice, he had obviously lost all the rest of himself and ended up stuffed into his twin sister's unfamiliar body.
It was gross, awkward, and a invasion of privacy for the both of them, but it was just his luck. And his Uncle Scrooge and Webby's close friend Violet Sabrewing were seemingly the only ones lucky enough so far to be returned back to their original bodies.
Separate from everyone else underneath the same curse, Della's youngest son Louie Duck, even though he did get returned back to his body before Magica had lost her powers, the shadow sorceress had magically turned him into a girl and intended to kidnap him along with Lena and Violet.
Even though Donald wanted very much to unleash his full fury against Magica and jump on top of her for threatening his friends and family, outright attacking the sorceress at the time would only have hurt Webby's other close friend Lena at the same time, and he was able to control his temper enough not to harm only a young teenager.
There was something about kids being hurt or in danger that really infuriated the duck, something deep inside him that he couldn't even fully explain for himself.
He had guessed that being so overprotective over Huey, Dewey, and Louie for over ten years had driven him into a state of protection paranoia, but it was way more than just that. His subconscious saw his very unlucky, unfortunate, younger self in place of kids whenever they were hurt, upset, or in danger.
Sometimes, it seemed like the entirety of the world and everyone in it was just out to get him, kind of like he was a universal butt-monkey. The god's chew toy.
Donald tossed back and forth uncomfortably in the hammock as his thoughts kept him from resting. Hardly anything ever went right with him, and he couldn't relax, as he could only think about Bentina Beakley's only granddaughter, Webbigail Vanderquack.
Did he really consider her to be family? His Uncle Scrooge definitely did, along with his young nephews.
And although he really didn't say anything about, the subject Lena had constantly told them all about as she spied through her eyes was enough to make him sick to his sister's stomach. Torture.
Donald had never really had been actually tortured before. He had been injured, panicked and lost of out of his mind, put through mild circles of hell and back, but not outright tortured before. And there was no way he was going to act like his close to four decades now of almost constant misfortune and misery were even close to being worse than the five days of what Webby had to go through.
It was only five days, only shortly less than a week, but those five days in Magica De Spell's care had felt like five WEEKS to her. Five long weeks of defilement and relentless abuse against only an eleven year old, magically regressed back to four.
The sorceress' actions against her, while childish and absolutely ridiculous at times, were still more than affective enough to cause severe damage to both the young duckling's physical and mental well-being.
Webby was definitely overly skilled for her age, and a freakishly strong force to be reckoned with, but she was far from invincible. And being so young and mostly helpless now was enough to keep her barely underneath Magica's grim control.
Donald couldn't really grasp what Webby could have possibly done to the sorceress to seemingly deserve all of this, as he still hadn't been told the full story yet. Several months ago, Magica was so close to getting her old powers back from Lena. So close.
Her continuously attacking and gaslighting the shadow teen in her mind had eventually convinced her that nothing good would ever come from herself, and that she was nothing more than a monster. And the sorceress couldn't be more pleased.
But right before she could take Lena's hand and continue her attack against Clan McDuck, Webby intervened, brought her best friend back to her senses, and was ultimately responsible for Magica's defeat. And that was the moment that sealed her fate.
Maybe he really did consider Webbigail a part of his family. At least, at a subconscious level.
During the climax of The Shadow War, Huey, Dewey, Louie and her ended up being cornered by a small part Magica's shadow forces up in his Uncle Scrooge's office, but he quickly came to their aid.
"Get away from my kids!" It didn't come out in his voice, but he still said it, did he just let it slip out? Donald turned red and burned in silent anger as he tried to forget everything Magica had cruelly and unfairly done to Webby, but at least she couldn't hurt her anymore.
She was now being held prisoner in Lena's body by Lena herself, as Violet and Louie had taken her back to her house to watch over and care for her. And despite the sorceress being fully in control of the teenager's body, Lena was still able to hold her and her magic back enough to keep her completely harmless. Unless she could somehow escape from the two kids and hurt the teenager enough to force her to release her shadow form from within herself.
DONALD! DONALD? DONAL-
Although it was quite embarrassing for her to constantly be watched after and taken cared of, as she constantly had to be restrained to keep Magica from harming or outright killing her through self-harm, Lena knew it was the only way it to keep her aunt from hurting and tormenting her young friend anymore. And of course, Magica was far from pleased. She was furious.
The sorceress' calling down of endless dark curses and hexes upon the shadow teen while screaming all kinds of vile profanities and blasphemies in her voice had gotten so bad, Violet and Louie were forced to tightly shut her bill with tape to keep her quiet, much to Lena's relief.
Magica just couldn't understand why her all-powerful ally Circe hadn't come to rescue her yet. She remembered that Scrooge had said something about the goddess betraying her and reducing her to ash, but did that really happen?
Was Circe, really just using her, like a puppet to further her own plans? She didn't know for sure.
All that she knew for sure was that after she had freed herself from her niece's slowly weakening body, she was going take her and Violet Sabrewing back to her lair, while also handing Louie over to one of her allies like she had promised.
DONALD! UNCLE DONALD?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?! PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU CAN HEAR ME!
Magica's next plan of revenge was busy cooking in Lena's head, and she had no way of warning her close friends and family about it. Even if she wasn't silenced with tape around her bill, her voice was stil completely blocked out as the shadow sorceress only cursed angrily back at her in her mind.
YOU STUPID, WORTHLESS, HORRIBLE LITTLE BRAT!
They, they didn't deserve it. Despite what my Aunt Magica actually believes.
SHUT UP! YOU'LL REGRET THIS!
YOUR WEBBY AND YOUR FAKE SABREWING SISTER, THEY'LL SUFFER. THEY'LL ALL SUFFER-
DONALD!
-THIS ISN'T THE END, of my DARK reeiiign...
"And I promise, after I'm done with you, I'll break her little mind so badly, she won't even recognize you..." Magica's cold dreamlike voice echoed back from the shadowy corners of Lena's consciousness.
...
Guys! Please hurry up and find Webby already! She's- She's starving!
I felt it!
...
I- I- I can't hold her back forever!
She's still in danger! DONALD PLEASE, CAN YOU HEAR ME? WAKE UP. THEY HAVE HER- DOO-
-Curse...you. CURSE...you. CURSE... YOU...
...
"UNCLE DONALD!" Donald Duck was immediately frightened awake by his oldest nephew Huey Duck screaming at him in a familiar feminine British voice.
"WAAAHHH!?"
Lifting up his uncle trapped in his mother's body, the young duck continued to breathe heavily through Bentina Beakley's lungs.
"Something- Huuuuhh! Something very very weird is going on! I SENSE IT! WE'RE ALL BEING SPYE-"
"-What in the world is going on here?" Bentina Beakley asked as she walked up to the two of them in Huey's body and paused.
"Huey dear please, we've been over this. You know very well you're not painting me in a very positive light like this. What's going on?"
"...WE'RE ALL BEING SPYED ON!" The frantic Junior Woodchuck screamed with madness in his wild eyes.
"Magica De Spell is under our control now. She's-"
"-No, no, NO! It's more than that!" Huey loudly interrupted before lifting Mrs. Beakley and Donald high off the ground.
"It feels like the universe is falling apart, like the planet itself is spinning out of control! The facts don't match up with reality. Stuff that should be well-known facts are all just lies!"
"My world and everything in it, is DISINTEGRATING!" The young duck stopped to catch his breath.
"It's a threat bigger than Magica De Spell or even General Lunaris could ever BE! It's right underneath our noses, but I can't- I just can't see it..."
A small furry squirrel with a nut in it's mouth quickly ran past the three of them and across the grass covered yard, ending her short journey by climbing up a tall tree close to the mansion.
"Huey please. You've got to get a hold of yourself-"
"-What was that word?" The duckling spoke with an unexplained noticeable panic in his tone.
"Howl?"
"Cowl?"
"Towel?!"
"Jowl?!"
...
"Wait, was it F.O.W.L.?"
As soon as those four horrible letters escaped from Huey's mouth, everything around them grew quiet. The wind refused to blow through the leaves, the clouds high above in the sky stopped dead in their tracks, Mrs. Beakley was left completely speechless, and the squirrel high up in tree froze solid.
The rodent remained perfectly silent as it instantly turned it's head towards the three ducks now decently far away, switching it's eyes from black soulless spheres to empty reptile sockets.
"Ssssssso the dork, knowsssssss..."
Life is like a hurricane
Here in Duckburg!
As a polished treasured singular dime flips and falls from the yellow sky above with a shine, Scrooge McDuck waves his cane forwards, signaling his family close behind to follow after him and the ten cents bouncing and then rolling down the pure black curved slope.
First follows Bentina Beakley, then Launchpad McQuack, then Louise, then Donald, then Della. Finally, joining the intrepid group adventures at the end, Violet Apollonia Sabrewing stuffs a small flashlight in her backpack, just barely running ahead of Scrooge McDuck's enemies chasing after them.
Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes
It's a duck-blur!
In the first panel, Dr. Gyro Gearloose, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, the moonlander warrior known as Penumbra, and Manny the Headless Man-Horse were busy working together on a project with a bright blue background behind them.
In the second panel, the tech billionaire Mark Beaks is driving a very bored and irritated Ma Beagle down on a purple and black grid in a green convertible sports-car.
In the third panel, Dewey Duck sticks two fingers together in the air, before being reminded by Donald Duck that he was still flying a massive cargo plane, quickly failing to take control of it.
Might solve a mystery
Or rewrite history!
Violet Sabrewing holds a bright beam of a light against cracked yellow brick wall and past Bentina Beakley holding the trusty Junior Woodchuck guidebook in her hands.
Scrooge's Number One Dime falls through the circle of light against the wall and out of sight, giving a dark demon with horns and red eyes the change the emerge out of the shadows and cower over then, scaring away Launcpad and Louise while Violet only holds a purple glowing mace up to the ghastly beast.
DuckTales! Woo-o...
The scene immediately shifts from a proud smiling shadowy Lena Sabrewing holding a heavily beaten and bruised young Webby Vanderquack on the floor with her right webbed foot flat on her back, to the image of a black globe with four sharp talons griping it firmly above, holding it tightly in control and underneath it's grasp.
"This is F.O.W.L.! We DON'T, PLAY, theme songs here!"
A darkened bespectacled buzzard turns away and points a remote control forward, bringing everything to a bold, red and black message.
The Baleful Bewitching of Webby Vanderquack! - PART 2
...
"Scheme detected! Scheme detected!" A recently repaired security droid alerted loudy as it hovered besides a high up tree branch.
"...What's up with the DT-87?" Huey asked as he and Mrs. Beakley ran up to the tree were the robot was staring forward, there was only a large pine cone in it.
"But there's, there's nothing up ther-"
"-Huh? It must still be broken." Mrs. Beakley let herself relax.
"No, NO! Even the machines know something weird is going on! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!"
"Huey? Did Mr. McDuck tell about something about-"
"-A singular, PINE CONE, lodged perfectly upright, in a TREE?" The young duck laughed nervously as he finished interrupting.
"If THAT'S not suspicious-"
"-It's JUST, a pine cone." Mrs. Beakley explained as she tried to pull Huey backwards.
"But that isn't even a PINE TREE!"
...
"...Okay, I'll admit it, that is a bit strange. But that doesn't mean the world and everything in it is ending."
"Fine! Do WHATEVER you want." Huey said as he pushed past Webby's grandmother and began to march away.
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I'm the responsible, coffee drinking adult, and your just the short, temperamental, little, child..."
"...I don't drink coffee, but I have been known as quite a tea addict..." Mrs. Beakley quickly followed the young duck trapped in her body.
"You're able to do more when you're not clouded with wasted anxiety. And you're not that temperamental."
"HA!" Huey laughed.
"Uncle Donald put me in dance classes when I was only FIVE YEARS OLD! STOP UNDERESTIMATING ME!"
"When I run in the morning, my body spends the first twenty minutes trying to figure out what's happening to it. But does that stop me? NOOO!"
"Scheme detected! Scheme detected!" The DT-87 quickly flew after Huey, finally ignoring the pine cone still sitting motionless in the tree.
"...Well, at the least the pine cone won't disrupt all of our well beings." Mrs. Beakley sighed.
...
"F.O.W.L High Command, come in. Do you read me? Come in." A young duck with grey feathers whispered into his phone and held it up to his face, now sitting where the pine cone used to be.
"...Agent Camille! Why have broken contact with us for so long? Agent Pine has already be planted into the Beagle situation. None of McDuck family has seen for a week, we have to keep constant tabs on them!"
"Care to explain yourself?" The head of F.O.W.L. publicly known as Bradford Buzzard banged his fist down on a table and glared forward silently.
"...It- It wasn't my fault Director Buzzard! It was that witch De Spell, it was all her fault!"
"She turned me into that single-form Sabrewing weakling! We're lucky she didn't discover my secr- AAHHH!" The young duck clutched his chest as burning sensation shot throughout him.
"Don't, blame your failure, on our enemies..." The Buzzard released a button he was holding down with his finger.
"Tell me why I shouldn't expose you to the Ducks right now."
"...The- The red one called Huey isssssss onto me, but nobody believes him. So I'll just grab him, take his place, and- AAHHH!"
"The news reports are everywhere! Webbigail Vanderquack, kidnapped. But not by YOU!" A tall heron quickly moved into the frame and shoved her face in the camera.
"Black Heron, stand down!" The buzzard sternly ordered.
"Bring me that child and 22! I want them both, alive..." The heron whispered coldly into the mic.
"Blugh..." The small grey duck began.
"By the way things sssssssound, De Spell has already gotten your sweet revenge against her for you, ssssssshe's been torturing her. Apparently, she has way more enemies than first meets the eye."
"...WHAT?! But- But she needs to be in good condition when I-"
"-We, are, F.O.W.L.!" Bradford Buzzard successfully pushed Black Heron away.
"This isn't about revenge! Complete world larceny and full government control comes first! Wait, where are you?! Are you out in the open?!"
"No, no, nothing like that... I'm in Scrooge McDuck's frontyard." The young duck quickly explained.
"Are you mad?! Get out of there!"
"McDuck is the single greatest threat to our entire organization! Do you have any idea what he's capable of?!" The buzzard asked in anger.
"Jussssssst relaaxxx. Don't forget, I'm Camille Chameleon."
"And now that I have my body baaaacck, I can camouflage into any sssssssituation..."
"Ah, ha, ha, ha-"
"-Scheme detected! Scheme detected!" The DT-87 suddenly reappeared from out of nowhere and hovered right in front of the young duck's face.
"Oh, not you again..."
"Camille! You've blown your cover. Transform and get out of there!" Bradford ordered before cutting all communications to the agent.
"...Fine. I'll just- AAHHH!" The duck immediately fell backwards as the security droid began rapidly blasting at it's target will it's bulit in lasers.
"Scratch the mission, RETREA- AHH!" The F.O.W.L. agent quickly shape-shifted back into a squirrel, somehow hiding her phone inside of her body.
"Scheme detected! Scheme detected!" The DT-87 continued to blast the rodent half to death as it ran for it's life out of the frontyard, finally arousing the curiosity of Scrooge McDuck inside the mansion.
"Hmmmm..." He stared out of the glass window before closing the blinds.
"...Squirrels."
A/N: Fun fact of the day. Herons in real life actually EAT young ducklings, among other small water creatures.
Just take a wild guess on what Black Heron plans to do Webby when she finally gets her robotic claws on her...