I do not own DuckTales.
Enjoy!
It turns out Ice doesn't cure all things.
"I'm sorry boss but I'm in the hospital," he said with the phone attached to his face. "What for? Ur, a stone head landed on me. It's unclear when I'll be out, they're not saying."
Only in Duckburg, can this excuse me used.
However, thankfully, his boss was understanding and his job would pay for the hospital bill.
Health insurance had to come with this job or nobody would take it.
However, he shouldn't be stuck in the hospital, he should be showing results.
What kind of secret society doesn't contact their newest member for months?
This was how long it would take him to heal these injuries normally.
He would be lucky if Launchpad still was interested by the time he came out.
Was his dream going to end here?
No.
He had something to do.
And then he happened.
The Puzzle within him spun and he was enveloped in a warm glow, he suddenly could feel his body again.
He clenched his teeth and ripped his arm from the bandage.
The action only mildly stung.
A bit more confident now, he began to rip himself out of the casts place on him, he ripped through them until he was completely free.
The power made his body steam but he was alive, he wobbled to his feet until he was comfortable on his two legs and then he began to stretch.
No pain.
Well, damn, the effort he put into getting this thing was worth it.
He began to stroll out, he was sure he caused his fellow neighbour a heart attack when he saw him, at the same time the nurse came in as he headed to the door.
She opened her mouth when she saw him not believing the sight before her, however, he continued to walk out of the room and began strolling down the hall in his hospital gown.
"Excuse me, where do you keep the clothes?" He said, to a doctor walking past.
"I'll get a nurse to bring you, your clothes," said the doctor not realising the duck before him shouldn't be standing right now.
"Thank you," he said, he waited with the rest of the patients who were checking out and told a nurse which clothes were his own when asked.
An hour later he strolled out of the hospital, he felt pretty badass.
He wondered how long it would take for them to realise a Duck that should be bedridden, just walked out of the building.
He began to make his way home, on his way home he saw a house that had a weight set and other stuff stationed outside it.
There were always houses like this in the city, people would just dump their old things and others could take.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't have super strength, so he used the puzzle to house the stuff and then walked away.
A few minutes later he finally walked through his first door and locked the door behind him, his land phone was ringing off the hook.
He picked it up and said. "Hello?"
"Is this Mister Seven?" Said the doctor voice.
"Hi, Doctor," he said, cheerfully before he said. "The strangest thing just happened to me. I was hit by a beam that came from the window and the next thing I knew, I was healed. Crazy stuff huh? Please send the bill to my employer and legally you can't force me back. I am satisfied with my care. Goodbye"
And then he hung up, not waiting for the man's reaction at all and put on the kettle, he planned to eat pot noodle tonight.
Three minutes later, he saw down and watched some news before reading for a bit.
And then he activated his puzzle again and found himself in front of a pyramid, the sky we're ancient scriptures.
He began to slowly walk the stone inscribed floor to the impressive-looking entrance.
God damn, this magic guy really went all out for this thing.
He touched the tablet and the door opened to reveal, a room that showed the magician didn't clean his Puzzle out before he died.
Apparently, the guy must have realised dying with his expensive stuff was pretty stupid, and hid it in the puzzle and sent it away.
However, it was really too bad that the guy's revolutionary idea became cliche in this day and age.
He saw a bunch of tacky cravings and engraved in the middle was a craving of the guys face.
He wished he could change it.
Click.
Before his eyes, the face vanished.
Cool.
He wanted it to carve the symbol for Jigsaw, and it did so.
So the Puzzle had indeed accepted him as it's new master.
This place was huge, it would take him some time to explore but he was good with time.
He began to walk around and discovered interesting things like a potion room and a room dedicated to worshipping the Egyptian gods.
He found an empty room were the weights he put in earlier was but apparently, this Magicians guy wasn't a lifter either so the only training room available was to practise magic in.
He soon discovered how the Puzzle allowed the user to transport, he discovered a door that when opened, showed the exact place he got the puzzle from.
Not only that, but there was a door for his home, a door for the bank, a door for the deck, a door for his workplace and many more.
Apparently, he could use the Puzzle to travel to places he had been to before.
He left and went back to the potions room and cracked open an old scroll, for some reason he could read the Egyptian words on it.
It made sense for him to read it, he was the Puzzles new master.
He flicked through the scrolls until he found what he wanted.
'How to magically mark somebody'.
It was so nice that the previous master cast a long-lasting spell on all his ingredients.
He followed the instructions on the scroll however when he began to speak, he felt his hair stand on end and dreadful feeling settle into his stomach.
If he sounded even one word wrong, that was it for him.
He finally came to the last part and said. "Launchpad McQuack"
And then the spell travelled outside the puzzle, it went to Scrooge McDuck manor only to be blocked by the magical barrier around the place, so it had to wait.
Meanwhile, he went to bed.
He didn't have work the following day so he slept in.
The spell finally saw its chance when Launchpad took his boss to the Moneybin.
He was trying to grab something in the car when spell entered through the window and hit him.
Launchpad felt his chest burn, he looked down and lifted his coat and shirt up.
He saw a puzzle piece slowly engrave itself on him and then it disappeared like it wasn't even there.
But it was there.
Launchpad could feel it.
Jigsaw.
"Launchpad. Aren't you coming?" Said Scrooge, the duck had been looking the other way when it happened.
"Coming, sir," Launchpad said, putting his shirt and coat back down.
Meanwhile, he made his way to the Duckburg scrap heap and began to sort through what people threw away, but of course, he wore a mask, gloves and shoes because he wasn't stupid.
He didn't want to find out if he was immune to trash related diseases or not.
However what he was really looking for was training equipment, he saw some old dojo training planks and dummies that we're thrown away because the place got better equipment.
He saw a cool punching bag machine.
He just kept finding cool stuff in the heap, to think he would gain some much from people throwing away their stuff.
When he was sure he had enough, he used his Puzzle to get home and then rolled up his sleeves and began washing the junk he found.
He realised in that moment that being a street cleaner was basically the perfect job for restoration.
He had chemicals that would have cost him a small fortune if he had brought them instead of his work providing for him, in a closet.
So using a mask and gloves, he restored the cracked surfaces of items and repainted.
He made sure the stuff was aired out by opening all the windows before he put them all back in his Puzzle and journeyed inside it to move stuff around.
Finally, his empty room was truly looking like a training room.
He could bring Launchpad here now and not feel incredibly cheap.
He left the Puzzle world and ate before he went back to sleep.
Suddenly he was woken up by the sound of beeping.
Yes, beeping.
He opened his eyes and followed the sound to his bedroom drawer next to him, he didn't need eye contacts for this.
He opened it up and got out the beeper, yes, beeper because his boss refused to mass text.
It read 'Giant Robot destruction. Cleaners urgently needed'
He responded with 'I'm back to work boss, It's Henry. I'll be right there'
He sighed, he needed to make money.
He sat up and got ready, he put on his blue work uniform, the uniform was designed to look as unattractive as possible for both genders.
He grabbed the chemicals from his backroom and put it in his kart, that already had a cement mixer and other things.
And then he began wheeling the kart to the location, nobody gave him the time of day because it was normal to see people like him walking around whenever something happened.
However what he didn't expect was to arrive at the location and see that he was on the bridge before the Money bin, concrete from one of the arches above the bride had come running down and blocked the path.
He heard honking.
He was thankfully not the first one there but he still had to face the people who worked in the money bin trying to leave.
He wheeled and dragged his kart over to the other side and heard much louder honking immediately.
He turned around and locked eyes with large eyes, in a baseball cap.
Launchpad, who was driving was right behind him.
The guy's eyes went wide.
The Duck knew it was him.
The Duck had to know.
He got an idea.
He turned around and began walking to the limousine, however, he didn't stop until he was in the passenger seat and staring at Scrooge for an uncomfortable amount of time.
"Can I help you?" Said the Duck.
"I'm sorry sir, but I'm just a such a huge fan of your work," he said mustering up his best fanboy voice. "I didn't know it was you so I had to check. Bless me, If I had known that I would meet THE Scrooge McDuck today, I would have dressed up a bit. I want to show you some of my ideas but I don't have them with me right now. My crowning achievement is what I call 'Jigsaw'."
He pulled it off.
"Yes, it's very nice to meet me too but shouldn't you be working?" Said Scrooge, he wanted to leave.
"Oh, sorry. Sir" he said. "I'll get right on clearing the bridge." Before he said, he bounded back and said. "And maybe, you can listen to my Jigsaw invention when I get off work at 7? We can meet up at the Dock. I'm looking forward to a one on one meeting with you"
"Work," said Scrooge.
"Right. Got to get back to work" he said, but he still slowly walk away and said. "Remember, I want to show you my Jigsaw when I get off from work at 7 at the Docks"
He glanced briefly to see the Duck eyes go wide, it seemed the guy finally got it.
He went to do his job and more people began to arrive to clean, news got around that the richest duck in the world was in front of the traffic and workers 'casually' swamped the duck from both sides.
"Oh, my god. I'm in hell" said Scrooge, thank goodness for the door.
And realising that it won't be strange, he looked back and met eyes with Launchpad several time in the mix of trying to see Scrooge.
An hour later, the rocks were cleared and the traffic started flowing again, every worker got messages of where else to go.
And it was a true testament of how much he changed when he finished work and didn't feel like collapsing.
He left for home and got dressed in his shirt, he took out his contacts and put in the shiny one's, he then put a hat over his head and headed to the location.
He wondered if Launchpad indeed got the words, he climbed up a rail and waited from above.
Launchpad soon showed up but acted like he was in a spy flick by ducking into every shadow the Duck could find, seeing this he had to hold in his laughter.
When the Duck got close enough he jumped down, the jump wasn't even that high but he was in the shadows from Launchpads point of view so naturally, the Duck would think he had jumped from a ridiculously high beam and was fine.
"Hello, Launchpad," he said.
The Duck looked stunned before he said. "So it was you, Spy. Awesome entrance by the way."
"Of course, I wasn't programmed to be ordinary. I'm amazing too" he said, playing the robot persona. "And now that you have the mark. Would you like to come inside?"
And a door magically revealed before the duck's eyes, the parts of the door we're moving like they were in a jigsaw puzzle.
"Woah," said the Duck. "That is the coolest door I have ever seen"
"Nothing but the best," he said before he opened the door and a gold light shone out. "And naturally those who bare the mark are the best. Are you coming?"
He then walked through the door.
Moments later, Launchpad walked through the door behind him and the door pieces slots into the right place and melted out of existence.
Nobody noticed the Duck was gone.
And scene!