A/N: Here it is, the real Chapter 25 this time and not just some Jim Starling/Negaduck update. Sorry it took me a while to write.
So at first, I wanted to complete and publish a certain number of chapters before a certain "special" date, but as some of my best friends on this site have disappeared for a good long while without a trace of them, I think I'm going to slow down for a bit next year and upload chapters at a more convenient pace for me...
One of my strongest motivations to keep on writing was knowing that someone was always there enjoying my work, and getting almost immediate response to my new chapters. But without it, I'm quickly losing steam. So for now on, chapters will only be uploaded when they are truly and completely done. And if I'm able to follow my writing schedule as planned, 7 more chapters are left to be written and uploaded in 2020. No rush, no stress, right?
D4RKM4ST3R: Well, creepy with a side-order of extra chilling was what I was aiming for, so I'll take it as a compliment. Thanks! Oh, and poor Lena too. Don't want to forget about her...
26 days in counting till season 3 of DuckTales returns! The currently revealed episode titles in order are:
The Phantom and the Sorceress!
They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!
The Trickening!
The Forbidden Fountains of the Foreverglades!
Let's Get Dangerous! (Hour-long Darkwing Duck episode! YESSS!)
and Escape from the Impossibin! Woo-oo!
All your favorites, follows, and reviews are greatly appreciated! Thanks! Oh, and one more thing. Unlike other, certain, comment stacked DuckTales authors on this site, I actually accept PMs/Private messages and would like to talk to someone once in a while. So if you have any concerns or questions relating to this story, or if you just want to talk to someone else in this fandom, please hit me up with a message and I'll try to respond in the most friendly manner as soon as I can. I'd really appreciate it. (I'm kinda lonesome here.)
Oh, and God of justice, chill out.
...
"Well, did ya load up the gold?" Ma Beagle asked.
"What do I look like to you an imbecile?! Of course I loaded up the gold!" Gyro Gearloose angrily blurted out. "What kind of imbecile would I be if the gold needed to be loaded up and I didn't load up the gold?!"
...
"Well, then we have absolutely nothing to worry about now, now do we?"
"...We have absolutely EVERYTHING to worry about! The threat of the last of humanity's extinction, possibly being lost forever in the time stream, and the Time Tub is still filled with water when it shouldn't be!" Scrooge McDuck's head scientist paused to take a deep breathy breath.
"And if one TINY singular switch on one TINY singular panel is flipped the wrong way, well. It could gain sentience and ALL BLOW UP-"
"-Oh hey guys!" A small empty skeleton duckling wearing puffy blue swimming trunks and a wide relaxed smile across his bill sat up beside another small skeleton duckling and waved from inside the warm bubbling water of the Time Tub.
Upon recognizing the distinctive familiar voice of one of her closest best friend's, Webby gasped in clamped muffled silence within the safety of Gizmoduck's metallic grasp.
"Offending blue offspring of Della Duck?" Penumbra recognized the familiar voice as well.
Sighing quietly after being let back onto the floor of the dining room by his former dummy intern, Gyro straightened his hat with Lil' Bulb sat underneath and frowned his usual self-important cold frown down upon the two skeletons below his crossed arms.
"...Annoying small skeletal child, out. For THIS is not an ACTUAL hot tub, and therefore it cannot be used for ACTUAL hot tubbing."
Funny, that all sounded awfully familiar somehow..." The first skeleton thought aloud.
"Wait, I- I believe I know you from somewhere." Fenton slowly spoke up. "Dewey, was it?"
...
"Ha ha ha, I'm not Dewey. I'm Launchpad." The skeleton said with a grin.
"But wait, I'm Launchpad." The other Launchpad started to look even more confused than normal.
"And if I'm Launchpad, who are you? Or- Or if you're Launchpad, then I must be-" The pilot paused to let the plane of thought in mind crash down onto his dark, unlit, inner runway.
"-somebody who's... not Launchpad."
"Trust me Launchpad, you're Launchpad." Gyro calmly reassured.
"...Oh. Well if he's Launchpad, who I am then?"
"LAUNCHPAD!"
"Yes?" Both Launchpad's simultaneously perked up at the same time.
"Launchpad! Tell the imbecile here he's Launchpad!" Gyro ordered.
"...Okay." The pilot paused to prepare for his big, important moment.
"Here's he's Launchpad."
...
"Why do I even bother?" The scientist rolled his eyes, moments before the temple continued to shake and rumble apart.
"Uhhhhhhhhh." Fenton looked around cautiously, trying his best not to panic.
"...Both of you, out! Out out out out out out out!" Gyro quickly snatched up the two small hot tubbers by the backs of their necks and hurried them away.
"Aww, no fair! We claimed it fiiiirst!" The second skeleton duckling complained in an unfamiliar, feminine Hispanic voice.
"OUT!"
"...Major league decepcionante." She muttered.
"Everyone who's living aboard! We've got- Wha-ahhhhuh? Wha-Wha-Wha-Wha-Wha-WHAT?" Gyro fell blindly to the floor as the repeating heavy vibrations of incoming tank treads filled the entirety of The Temple of the Lucky Goose.
"Weeeee've got trouble..." Fenton whispered as he unconsciously hugged Webby tighter in his gimzo-arms.
BOOM!
Rolling through a hole blown into the wall quite literally big enough to drive a tank through, a massive red and black painted spiked war machine with guns and sharp pointy weapons of all over it plowed straight through the fancy dining room, not even bothering to come to a stop with two ancient skeletal ducklings and the loopy zombified Goddess of the Moon directly in it's path of wanton, mindless destruction.
"...Keeeeen gea-" crunch. The pair of small skeleton ducklings and Selene were immediately crushed flat underneath the tank treads and spit out the back as their cracked hollow bones scattered all across the floor.
"Theeeeey, were already dead right? There was no saving them right?" Gyro was starting to feel a little bit guilty as Webby just looked visibly horrified for her dead friends.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, for I am tonight's entertainment!" An eerily familiar deep and raspy unhinged voice announced proudly from inside the tank as it came to a stop inches in front of the time tub. "And you won't be ditching me so easily this time, captive audience..."
"I, am the COSMIC HORROR, that stalks, in the DARKEST NIGHT!"
Billows of dark red smoke poured out of the hatch as a mysterious masked caped figure emerged from the top of the tank.
"I am the vengeful screenwriter, that spits upon your GRAVES!"
"I- AM-"
"-Deathwing Duck!" The draped figure dramatically lifted up his torn red and black cape, showing off his enpty skeleton body with another eerily familiar looking skeleton duck melded onto his ancient scorched form.
"And you, little shnookums are-" The caped invader paused to pull a slow neck slicing motion across his throat as he aimed a fully loaded mounted gatling gun straight at Webby's face.
"-toassst... Now, put her down, nice and easy now. Or soon, you'll allll be pushing up roses." He growled with a wicked sharp toothy smile across his bill.
"Well, he's back. Darker and edgier than ever I'm afraid..." Gyro sighed sadly while Lil' Bulb tried his best to motion to his inventor father up towards the danger now quickly approaching visible through a massive hole in the high ceiling.
"Excuse me? Darker and edgier died out years ago with the millennials!" Deathwing gripped his gun tighter as his smile grew unnaturally wider and wider. "Nowadays we call it, grim and gritty..."
Refusing to put Webby down and in danger, Fenton quickly placed her in Manny the now Truly Headless Man-Horse's forearms and bravely approached Deathwing from high atop his tank.
"Misunderstood dead hero guy, unclench your fists, lower your shoulders, step away from the gun, then come back with a clear head and redouble your best efforts. I still believe in you young man!"
"...Oh really? Soooo, don't think I have it in me huh? Think I'm too chicken to do it huh?! Kid, has your old Uncle Jim ever told you the story of the little girl, the gatling gun, and the pit, of eternal despair?" The skeleton asked. "Has he? Huh? HAS HE?!"
Webby slowly and silently shook her head in fear.
"...No? Well let me tell you." Deathwing continued his grim monologue. "I admit it. I've killed women, and I've killed children! I've killed just about everything that walks or waddles at one time or another! And I'm here to kill you too, little Gail, for what you did to, HER."
"And what I think you need now is, IS A FULL HEAVY DOSE OF REALITY!" The skeleton immediately aimed the gatling gun's sights directly at Webby's face again. "BECAUSE IN ABOUT FIVE SECONDS, it'll hit you harder than you can ever imagine."
"Suck lead girly..."
"Darkwing stop!" Launchpad quickly stood in front of Webby and held his arms out with a serious frown.
"...Fan?"
"This is not who you are! You're not a villain, you're a hero. Especially not one who causes mindless destruction and pain to the innocent. On, purpose..." He blinked.
"Okay, okay, okay, okay, FIIIINE!" Deathwing groaned in audible annoyance. "Tell you what, you help me take over what's left of this god-forsaken rotten planet! And I'll continue to let you breathe. Deal?"
...
"No." Launchpad firmly said. "The real D.W. taught me to stand up for myself and for what's right. To keep it all together, to never let a few wrecked snack stands or crashes get you down, and to always look out for the little guys. Literally..."
"You all go on ahead! I'll hold him off!" The pilot ordered boldly without looking back.
"Uh, last time we heard that, we lost an intern." Gyro commented.
"Well well. Well we'll see about that! Ex-sidekick! Ex-fan! Ex-compadre! Ex-breather! Ex-"
"-Let's go." Gyro calmly spoke up as Deathwing continued to mindlessly ramble on and on. "He gets sent safe back to the past later, he'll be fine."
"But- But Dr. Gearloose, aren't we forgetting someon-" Fenton was quickly interrupted by the sounds of someone or something clumsily struggling and banging their way through the temple, but instead of walking through the massive tank sized hole in the wall like expected, the intruder fought with the heavy door to the room instead.
Breathing heavily, a short stubby figure threw the undamaged door to the room wide open and stood in the door frame with several detached skelton hands still grasping tightly onto his tattered criminal clothes.
"...I done tolds ya I could take care of kids!" Bigtime Beagle proudly held Huey Duck unarmed up by his arm, still wearing his metal F.O.W.L. mask around his head.
"Wait. Is that my tank?"
...
"Youurrs?" Deathwing turned his gun around and aimed it at the very confused Beagle Boy behind him.
"Oh great, more guests. I mean you coulda knocked! But noo-oo! You had to waltz in all uninvited, like you owned the place! Biiiiiiiiig mis-taaake..."
"Planning on raining on my convoy huh? Ruining all my fun huh?! I don't think so..." Deathwing chuckled softly as he prepared to pull back the trigger and blast Bigtime and Huey straight to kingdom come.
"For I, am Deathwing Duck! And I pity the poor fool who stands in my way!"
"Listen up Deathwing!" Ma Beagle pulled out her purse and marched forward. "He may be a poor, witless, good-for-nothing fool that's gotten too big for his britches and has hit every single branch on the way down the Beagle family tree, but he's my fool!"
"You mess with him, you're gonna have to mess with all of us first. Nobody threatens the Beagle Boys on my watch, that's my job! Especially a no account low-down pirooting scoundrel that looks like he was in the outhouse when the lightning struck and smells bad enough to gag a maggot."
"WHHHAATT?!" The skeletal super villain stood back in shock.
"Oh, she's good..." Fenton had to admit.
...
"You all go on ahead. I'll hold him off." Launchpad repeated himself, his tone of voice just as serious as before.
"No. We can't leave him behind and let him heroically sacrifice himself for the greater good." Penumbra said. "What we need is like, a really really big round rock to crush him dead with!"
"That will show him!" The young moonlander hit her fists together.
"Oh? And where do you suppose we're going to a find this, really REALLY big round rock of yours- oh my gee willikers..." Gyro suddenly fell speechless.
Although he still couldn't see clearly without his glasses, he could still barely make out a certain really really big round rock high in the dark red sky above slowly but surely hurling straight down towards The Temple of the Lucky Goose from space in a massive firey blaze.
As Selene's divine power slowly faded away from her dry scattered remains, the long abanonded golden city of Tranquility hidden on the dark side of the her celestial body in the sky burned to a black crisp and fell away.
"What? What's with all the-" Penumbra stood speechless as well as she, Webby, Fenton, Manny, Launchpad, and all the Beagles except Big Time finally took notice of the moon falling clean out of the sky.
"-I have a big mouth."
"...What? What are y'all looking at?" Bigtime asked.
"Yeah, what are y'all looking at? Hey! Don't ignore me when I threaten your life! Respect my dominance!" Deathwing ordered.
"Silence warrior poser." Penumbra stared intently up at the sky. "My home planet is about to destroy us all..."
"Uh, the moon's not a planet." Gyro calmly stated.
"What?"
"Y-Yeah, the moon's not a planet." Deathwing stuttered as he held onto his gun.
"Dr. Gearloose is right, the moon's not a planet." Fenton politely argued.
"Yep. All God's little beagles know the moon's not a planet..." Ma Beagle nodded in agreement.
"The moon's, not, a, planet." Manny clapped.
"Mmmph." Webby humbly aggred.
...
"Launchpad back me up here!" Penumbra begged as the pilot just rubbed his chin in deep thought.
"I thought the moon was a cheese. Preferably, green swiss..."
"Nooo!" The young betrayed moonlander fell flat to her knees in defeat.
"I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming..." The small skeleton duckling's detached head on the floor repeated itself over and over in a hushed panic as the rest of her scattered bones shook from the growing moon tremors.
"...Enough with the chitchat! I don't need this baby to take you out, I'll cut you all down to size myself!" Leaving his fully loaded gun behind, Deathwing leaped down from the tank and quickly revved up a chainsaw in his skeletal hands.
"Time for you all to go beddy-bye, geek squuaad!" The menacing skeleton held his roaring weapon high above his hat with a wildly deranged cackle and charged forward.
With a sudden loud gasp and whistle, Launchpad called his apocalyptic cockroach friends from out of nowhere which carried another chainsaw up to him, just in time for him to pick it up and deflect Deathwing's attack, wrecking both of their chainsaws in the process.
"Wait wait, WHAAATT?!" The skeleton began to growl a dark beastly undead growl.
"...I've already told you guys twice already. You all go on ahead. I'll hold him off." The determined pilot fought to hold his old childhood hero back away from the group of time travels.
"I've crashed two hundred planes, five hundred and fifty seven cars, ninety four trucks, seven submarines, twelve boats, Mr. Dee's houseboat, sixteen bicycles, three helicopters, two parade floats, one wheelchair, a train, a bus, a UFO, Mr. McDee's stocks, a navy destroyer, and a canoe."
"You're a menace to society you know that?" Gyro told him.
"...Just take the kids to safety. This end of the world needs a hero, a watchful guardian, a silent protector, a pilot. No simple moon crash is going to be the end of-" The pilot paused to suddenly trip up his clumsy skeleton adversary and then step back out of the way.
"-Launchpad McQuack!"
"...What about your little cockroach companions?" Gyro asked. "I mean, surviving the apocalypse is one thing, but-"
"-Oh, they didn't survive the apocalypse." Launchpad casually interrupted while forcing a weakly struggling and complaining Deathwing Duck into a tight headlock on the floor. "They were in my jacket the whole time."
...
"He's the hero we didn't deserve, yet nobody ever wanted." Gyro calmly began with a cold frown as his small team of time travelers and the Beagle family gathered in the time tub, both Webby and Huey now safely in Gizmoduck's arms.
"A silent protector, a watchful guardian-"
"NOOOOOOO! Lemme at em! Lemme at em!" Deathwing wildly swinged his arms about in rage.
"NOOOOOOO! Sacrifices must not be made!" Penumbra struggled helplessly while being held back in Ma Beagle's strong arms.
"-Launchpad McQuack..." The scientist finished.
"NOOOOOOO!"
"NOOOOOOO!"
"Farwell." Fenton saluted with his free hand. And with that, the time tub and all it's travelers flashed away safe in the blink of an eye.
...
"There's getting dangerous, there's getting really dangerous, and then there's getting really really REALLY dangerous. And buddy, you've long crossed that line!" Launchpad said.
"...Real shame." Deathwing sighed. "We coulda worked out great together. We coulda been a true tag-team and untold chaos and worldwide destruction. But you just, HAD to spoil my fun, just like everyone else-" The skeleton paused with a eerie calm look of acceptance on his skull.
"-goody-two-shoes..."
"Squeak squeak!" One of Launchpad's friends quickly spoke back.
"...Yeah! You tell him Arnie!"
"Uh, L.P.?" Gladstone Gander spoke up from behind him. "We've- We've got- Aaagh-" Finally pushing their way past the goose, the army of undead skeletons knocked him onto the floor and flooded into the room in random directions.
"-company!"
"Oi! Make way you blasted barbarians!"
"...Green bean?" Gladstone froze as singular confused skeleton duckling holding a cane and wearing a familiar black top hat atop his head while walked out into the room with a scowl.
"Wait, Uncle Scrooge?"
"Mr. McDee!" Launchpad gasped in shock upon quickly recognizing the skeleton's miserly disgruntled tone and put his hands on his small shoulders.
"Can I get you something?! Coffee, tea, milk, maybe an eggnog? Oh no! He's gotton so old and cranky he shrunk down into Louie!"
"What?"
"-AAAHH!" The pilot flinched as the skeleton suddenly smacked him in the chest with his cane.
"Not the time lad! Where's Webbigail?! Where's the kids?! Where's Beakley?! Where's-" Scrooge paused after recognizing Gladstone Gander stading beside him in his green bathrobe.
"-You? YOU?!"
"Hi Uncle McScroogey Bones." The goose waved.
"...YOUUUU?! Hands off my Number One you sacrilegious stickyfingers!" The skeleton fought the retrieve his precious lucky dime from Gladstone's pocket.
"Okay. How did he-"
"-Mr. McDee is real serious when it comes to money." Launchpad interrupted as he tried his hardest to pull his boss away from Gladstone by his legs. "He won't even let me take enough from the mansion to get a pack of crackers without him chasing me down! He KNOWS!"
'Rrrrrrrrraagghh!" Scrooge growled. "Hands off you accursed aviator! With- Without my Number One, the- the universe might as well just end without it."
"Oh blathering blatherskite..." The skeleton melded tightly onto Deathwing Duck muttered sadly. L
"...HEY! Pipe down you junk-headed halfwitted empty-headed excuse for a wart!" The skeleton super villain yelled and punched at the long deceased duck connected to him in sudden unbridled rage.
"Even my flaming burns make better company! Wait, f-f-flaming... b-burns?" Deathwing stuttered in fearful realization as he and all the rest of the skeletons were immediately engulfed in flames and heavy black smoke.
"-AAAHH! AAAHH! AAAHHHHHHH!"
"Whew! It is just me, or is it getting real HOT in here?" Launchpad wiped the sweat from his forehead, umaware of the world quickly growing closer and closer to complete apocalyptic annihilation.
"There ya go." Scrooge quickly calmed down and lazily laid on the floor in defeat as he slowly burned away into ashes. "End of the universe..."
...
"Wait, LAUNCHPAAAAD!" Gladstone suddenly run forward to try protect the pilot with a hug.
"Huh?"
"I've got-" TWHOOOOOM!
Fire and brimstone mixed with a sulfuric burning bright light instantly tore into the temple and filled every last crevice of the ancient, Greek structure.
Expanding and burning straight through the horde of chared, blackened, screaming skeletons in the room, the sudden lunar impact pulled reality itself into the empty shadowy darkness left behind.
"It's finally here kids. The true GRAND finale of the world. And it's-" Deathwing sighed one last time in calm blissful joy as his old outfit and hat burned away into flakey black nothingness.
"-beautiful..."
"...Kids." The final remaining skeleton held out his tiny shaking hand at the disfigured melting emotionless shapes of his family members in front of him, all of them completely decimated by the angry flaming wrath of the falling moon.
The deed was done. The world had finally been reduced to an empty, dark, endless abyss.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Well Gladstone, aren't you proud of yourself?" Gladstone Gander spoke down to himself, completely and entirely unharmed while floating weightlesly literally in the middle of the darkness of desolate oblivion.
"The Luckiest Person in the World, and what do you have to show for it, what have you ever accomplished, you know you deserve this right?" He closed his eyes and crossed his arms in disappointment of himself.
"Even your own family despised you, aren't you just ashamed of yourself? What have you ever done good for the world? Did you stop to thank it, give anything of value back to it?"
"The cure for cancer, world peace, the increase of scientific and technological research for better of our future?"
"No. All you did was just sit back and watch as the world handed everything you could have possibly ever wanted and more, right into your fingertips."
"Uncle Scrooge and Donald were right about you from the beginning. All that luck, all that natural charm and good looks, all the endless untapped reality warping potential, yet you couldn't even save one man's life."
"Aw phooey." The goose kicked at nothing and let his head and arms fall forward with a sigh.
"Well. I guess nobody's luck can last forever..."
...
Suddenly, a disembodied floating ethereal ram head with glowing eyes and a powerful celestial aura made it's presence known to Gladstone and spoke to directly to him from above in a deep, booming voice.
"Gladstone Gander! The world has ended! As the final living being in this universe, you have been chosen to-"
"-Oh, so this is what's it's like to be dead then." A very much alive and well Launchpad suddenly interrupted, floating alone with all his cockroach buddies in his jacket within the empty expansive void. "Just kinda like, a whole bunch of, errie black darkness."
"L.P.?" Gladstone turned around in the air after hearing the pilot's familiar carefree voice.
"SILENCE MORTAL! THE HIGH COUNCIL SHALL DECIDE YOUR FATE!" The otherworldly godly being exclaimed loudly. "As the final living being in this universe, you have been chosen to-"
"-Wait, if- if you guys can hear me, then am I not really dead?" Launchpad questioned aloud. "Or am I just, mentally and metaphorically blinded by everlasting absence of light?"
"NO! YOU DON'T COUNT!"
"Oh." The pilot paused. "Well what about Arnie?"
"WHAT?! NO!"
"Well what about Crash? Or- Or Bash? Or- Or Smash? Or- Or Car Crash? Or- Or Plane Crash? Or- Or-"
"-As the final living being in this universe you have been chosen to have the opportunity to recreate this world in your image!" The heavenly head spoke as fast as it possibly could.
"...I hear ya." Gladstone nodded.
"The fee is- twenty dollars! And ten cents! American currency! No tax, no refunds!"
Hearing this, the goose reached into his bathrobe pocket and pulled a single sliver coin out of it. "I've got a dime. With a witch and dead teenager trapped inside. That's gotta make it worth at least a couple hundred dollars more right?"
"NO! Twenty dollars! And ten cents!"
"...Huh?" Gladstone thought for a bit and turned back around in the air. "Launchpad, you got any spare change?"
"Hmm? Oh, let's see." The pilot dug his hands into his pants pockets. "Dirty bubblegum, a hair, a button, another button, a faceless battery powered batteries not included Megavolt action figure, a button, a lint, a bottle cap, a whatever this is, a genuine definitely not a fake licorice seed Louie once sold me..."
"Any more buttons? Gladstone asked.
"Nope, that's the last of them- Ahh! Nope, found another..." Launchpad said as he triumphantly held up his final loose pants button.
...
"...WELL?!" The head spoke up in loud floaty impatience.
"We're working on it! We're working on it! Sheesh, all you gods types are just so cantankerous." Gladstone began to mutter, just as a crisp green piece of paper non- coincidentally blew through the air and hit lightly hit him in the face.
"Ugh, again? Okay okay, let's see what you are this time. A winning lottery ticket? A round trip flight to a dream vacation in the baa-hamas? No, that would be ridiculous, why would you need-"
The goose paused as he pulled the piece of paper off his eyes and quickly recognised the all too familiar bill of Andrew Duckson in his hands.
"-Hey! Twenty dollars!"
"YOU'RE HIRED!" Immediately, the little proof of existence of reality left around Gladstone and Launchpad began to shift and swirl into a new beautiful genesis.
"Ahhhh! I never got meet Layman! And when the world needed me the most, I disa-PPEEEEEEARED!" Launchpad McQuack and all his cockroach friends were finally zapped back to their own time and families at McDuck manor.
"Well, I guess this is it then." The lucky goose began. "No more escaping your responsibilities, no more making up excuses. It's about time you got your hands dirty, got some work done, and ruled over your kingdom and it's people fairly."
*beat*
"...By doing, ahhhhhh-" Gladstone Gander laid back lazily in the air with a smile as his own universe literally built itself from the ground up in the image of his own personal ethics.
"-absolutely nothing..."