Author's Note: Yes, Magica did break Louie's leg...just for kicks. *dodges rotten tomatoes*
If Webby had thought perchance that her sight might be improving, she was sadly mistaken. The further she and Louie trudged through the muck, the less she seemed to see until it was like a curtain had fallen over her vision. Frustrated, she kept moving forward and tripped over Louie, who would have fallen over if not for someone else steadying them. That someone else smelled like wood smoke and fresh paper. Her beak twitched toward a smile.
Huey.
"I've got you, I've got you," Huey said. "Not you, Dewey. You have a head injury."
Dewey splashed his foot angrily down into the water and splashed them. She swayed and Dewey caught her wrist. Dewey smelled like sweat, a hint of bubblegum, and oddly enough, blueberry. His touch was familiar and comforting, especially considering how discombobulated she was without her sight.
"What do we do now?" she asked. "We can't take control of Uncle Scrooge and seek shelter at the same time. Plus...did anyone notice that the wind changed direction?"
The wind, which had previously been battering them from the front, now struck them from the back and she staggered, the muck sucking at her legs. Louie intertwined his fingers with hers and if she hadn't had more immediate concerns, she would have noticed his heart rate kick up against her palm.
The rain, when she let it hit her tongue, tasted odd, too. It reminded her of stale water, which was a strange attribute for rain. Perplexed, she held out her tongue again to double check. No, she was right. Stale water. The wind buffeted them and drove her to her knees. Louie crashed to the ground and, since they were holding hands, he brought her down with him. They landed in a heap in a mud puddle.
"Ow...Webs...ow."
Near her head, she heard coughing and then the sound of wood striking mud. She sensed someone moving and she didn't need her sight to determine who it was. He smelled of paper money, gold, and ink. Scrooge McDuck. Her heart kicked up, relieved, and she wondered if that was what explained Louie's peculiar reaction. Maybe. Probably. Sure, why not?
"I dinnae know what Magica blasted me with, but I'm all right now," Scrooge said and then coughed, a wet sound that sent shudders through her. She bit back a response. If Huey couldn't hear it and diagnose his condition, then she wasn't going to help. Louie struggled to a sitting position.
"I'm not moving from here," Louie announced. "I've had enough of falling over. Magica can go-"
She smirked. Louie had forgotten they had an adult audience.
"Oy! Where did you hear that language, lad?" Scrooge reprimanded.
The wind increased and she felt like they were trying to move through molasses. Every shift of her body required more and more energy and she found herself, for once, agreeing with Louie's philosophy. Falling over stunk and not being able to see her way, coupled with the wind and rain battering them, was making her disinclined to stand. She hunched over Louie.
"Huh, that's weird," Huey observed and she turned her head toward his voice. "The clouds are disappearing like they were never there. It's like they're running backward."
Frustrated, she snapped her beak. Within a few minutes, she felt the sun on her face and it was as Huey had described. The strangest thing wasn't the sun, though. It was that the ground solidified beneath her and her clothes remained soaked. The weather didn't progress that quickly. Cocking her head curiously, she inhaled deeply. She tasted sand in her beak and she spat it out.
"If I didn't know better…" Scrooge mused and then coughed, another wet sound that sent shudders through her. He bent over and spat out a metallic smelling liquid. For a minute, he didn't speak, only coughed, and then, to her profound relief, the coughs sounded drier and less like he was hacking up his lungs.
"Where are we?" she asked. "We're not on Vesuvius anymore."
The air, which had previously tasted stagnant and acrid, both the magic and the volcano burning her throat, had transformed into what felt like a desert. She coughed too and the sensation faded, the wind returning only to diminish to nothing thirty seconds later.
"That...was weird," Huey said.
"Aye, we're not," Scrooge agreed, speaking to Webby as Huey couldn't hear him. "We're in the Klondike."
"How did we get halfway across the world?" Louie asked.
"I cannae tell you," Scrooge said and she heard the frown in his voice. "If I dinnae know better, I'd say we were back during my gold rush days."
"We're not back in time," Louie said, disbelieving. He pulled out the dead phone from his hoodie and then yelped.
"What?" Webby said, baffled.
"It's...it vanished. Into thin air. Dewey, do you have your phone?" Louie pleaded. Whatever the result was, Louie groaned, so Webby took it as a negative.
"This was the day I found that chunk of gold as big as a goose egg…" Scrooge mused. Webby would've been more thrilled with the history lesson and the possibility of watching history unfold before her eyes if not for Huey's next comment. Even if Huey couldn't hear them, he could still ruminate and be heard by the others.
"Why are we here, if we're back in time?" Huey asked. "Unless there was a reason we've been sent back in time."
"No, we're not back in time," Louie said, his voice tingeing with hysteria. "We're not. My phone did not just vanish into thin air and neither did Dewey's. We are not in a place before modern technology where we can't contact Launchpad and get home. We aren't."
Webby squeezed his hand. "We'll figure out how to get home."
"No, you don't understand," Louie protested. "No one knows where we are. If we are back in time, then we have no way to get home."
"Not unless we find Magica," Scrooge said, rising and pounding his cane on the ground. "Don't give up so quickly, lad. We'll be home before ye know it."
Webby righted herself, pulling Louie up after her, and they formed a strange chain, she and Huey supporting Louie and Dewey. Scrooge groaned and she felt wind passing. A thump accompanied it and Huey cursed. Startled, not expecting it from the oldest triplet, she frowned at him.
"He's out cold," Huey said. "And there's no way we can carry him on top of Louie and Dewey."
"There has to be a place nearby to hole up," Louie said. He was still frantic and his hand trembled in hers. She squeezed his hand to reassure him.
"There's a cabin nearby," Huey observed, oblivious to his youngest brother's comment. They shuffled, awkward, attempting to support both Scrooge and the others, toward the cabin. Before they reached it, the door creaked open and, startled, Webby staggered back a step, carrying Louie with her. She felt Louie look toward the cabin.
"Goldie?" Huey exclaimed in disbelief.
"What do you know? Four kids and an old man show up on my porch in the middle of the busiest day of the gold rush so far," Goldie said and Webby stiffened. She'd never quite forgiven her for locking Webby and Mrs. Beakley in that armoire. Of course, this Goldie wouldn't remember that, if everyone's hypothesis was correct. The past Goldie wouldn't know what the future Goldie would've done.
"I don't believe it…" Goldie said, coming closer. "Scrooge McDuck? What happened to you?"
"You're a sight for sore eyes, Goldie," Scrooge breathed. Webby hadn't realized he'd regained consciousness.
"What are you doing here? And so old? You're supposed to be out digging…" Goldie said. "What is this? The lame leading the blind with see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil? And...lemme guess-the old and feeble."
"I resent that!" Scrooge snapped. She felt Goldie roll her eyes.
"Resent it all you want," Goldie retorted. "That doesn't stop it from being true. Now, if you don't mind, I've got gold to dig up."
"He needs your help and you're going to brush him off?" Webby snapped.
"Maybe you should've been speak no evil," Goldie mused. "This isn't my Scrooge. Or my version of him, anyway. This is someone else's problem."
"We need your help!" Huey protested. She doubted he'd understood the conversation beyond beak reading, but he had to realize what was going on.
"And I need to get rich," she retorted. Still, Webby sensed hesitancy. "All right. You can come into my cabin and stay there while I go pan for gold. If you're still there when the sun sets, I'll come back for you and we'll figure out what's going on. You can't pan in the dark anyway."
That seemed to be the best possible solution and, reluctantly, they accepted it. Webby would have preferred that they got attention right away, but tearing Goldie away from gold would've been impossible. Huffing, they shuffled into the cabin and settled themselves. Webby still couldn't see anything and stubbed her foot on the front step. Stupid Goldie.
"What possible reason would Magica have for sending me back to this day?" Scrooge mused.
"Today's the day you made your fortune, isn't it?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.
"Aye, it is, lass," he said. Then he groaned. "We have to get back out there."
"You, maybe," Louie said. "In case you haven't noticed, I've got a broken leg that isn't getting any better."
If Magica reached the gold vein before Scrooge did, she'd be the billionaire, not Scrooge. Moreover, she could probably prevent him from ever achieving his goals. Webby wanted to rush back out there, but with everyone's impairments, they needed a plan before running headlong into danger.
"We have to stop her before she steals me gold out from under me," Scrooge growled.
"Is there any way to actually know if Magica's succeeded?" Huey remarked. He seemed to be talking to himself. "We're not going to all vanish if she has."
"No," Scrooge said. "But if she has, she's gonna regret crossing Scrooge McDuck."
He yelped. "Me lucky dime! It's missing!"
"Again with the dime? What's so important about it now? She's not trapped in it anymore," Louie remarked.
"It holds a lot of power; it's imbued with Scrooge's hopes and dreams. Over time, it became a magical item of its own because of how close it's been to him," Webby said. "As I said, it holds tremendous power and Magica might be the only one to unlock it."
But thinking about Magica doing so reminded her of Lena and her stomach clenched. She didn't want to think about her. It hurt too much.
"She must've stolen the dime from past Scrooge...and that means…" Webby frowned, unwilling to complete her sentence.
"Good thing our existence doesn't depend on Uncle Scrooge being loaded," Louie said in an undertone to Webby.
"No, but this might make things worse," she whispered back.
"How?" he demanded.
"I don't know. Yet. We'll find out," she responded. She knew it wasn't encouraging, but that was the best she could offer right now.
One thing was true. If Goldie O'Gilt discovered Scrooge was no longer wealthy in either the past or the future, she might be disinclined to help them further. Then they'd be up a creek without a paddle. They had to make sure, no matter what past Scrooge had told her, she didn't find out.
Mrs. Beakley could hardly fail to notice that, in the middle of dusting the mantle (and ignoring Duckworth critiquing her), the manor flickered and vanished only to reappear. When it reappeared, however, the picture she'd been in front of had vanished. Scrooge was no longer standing in front of the Klondike with a pickaxe and a prospector's outfit. Instead, it was Flintheart Glomgold and she backed up, gasping.
Someone had been meddling with the past. That was the only explanation. She rushed toward the sitting room two doors down. Scrooge had a clock that could manipulate time-it sounded like the others needed help. She didn't know what was going on or how they'd ended up back in time, but she wasn't going to abandon her boss when he needed her. Not to mention the kids, especially Webby. She had a sixth sense something was wrong with her granddaughter.
"Not so fast," Glomgold snapped from behind her and she whirled, wielding the feather duster like a weapon. "You're my housekeeper and I didn't tell you that you were finished with the mantle."
"I most certainly do not work for you, Glomgold," she snapped.
"Oy! Show your master some respect!" he demanded.
"Master?" she repeated, her tone dangerous. If he thought he was standing in the way of her rescuing the others, then he was sadly mistaken. She loomed over him.
"Would you care to repeat that?" she snapped.
Glomgold faltered and then found his backbone. "Aye, I would. You. Work. For. Me. And I'm not letting you near that clock. I finally have things how they should be-I'm the richest duck in the world now."
"If you're my employer, then I quit!" she retorted and threw the feather duster in his face. She stormed off toward the clock and he rushed to beat her to it. To her consternation, he hadn't faltered as much as she'd hoped when she'd flung the feather duster.
"You're not getting anywhere near it!" he repeated, growling. He skidded inside the door first and then locked it. Mrs. Beakley backed up, trying to assess the best way to break the doors open. Unfortunately, Scrooge had designed McDuck Manor to prevent the brute force from working, although the Beagle Boys had burst through the outside wall years ago. Since then, he'd sought to prevent it from recurring.
Mrs. Beakley looked for a blunt object to crash her way through and encountered a DT-87 droid similar to the one Webby had destroyed. It aimed lasers at her that she dodged with ease. Other droids appeared, surrounding her. She didn't remember Scrooge having so much ambulatory security. Perhaps this was another alteration with history being rewritten. It didn't matter.
She had to see if the others were okay. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to grab a sledgehammer and attack the walls. The droids were herding her toward the exit and while she could dodge a few attacks, she was outnumbered and they were far faster. Four robots back in Black Heron's lab years ago with her and Scrooge was one thing. There were at least six droids hemming her in now.
Forced to dash through the manor with them nipping at her heels, she tried to assess her options. She contemplated heading into the Other Bin and seeing whether Scrooge had anything else that might be able to alter time. On the other hand, the droids were definitely not going to let her penetrate deeper into the manor, not if they were under Glomgold's control. Taking a right turn, she headed for the security hallways. Not looking where she was going, a net caught her leg and took her out. She rolled, snarling like an angry cat, and kicked out. One of the droids produced a hypodermic needle and she reached for her chopstick weapons to knock it away. Another droid moved in on her and she was fighting on two fronts.
She couldn't move very quickly or sense what was behind her beyond a vague notice. The hypodermic needle jammed into her neck from a droid she hadn't detected and its effects were instantaneous. Her muscles went slack and she landed in a heap on the sidewalk outside of the manor. She heard Glomgold cackling over the loudspeaker.
Oh dear Lord. She just realized who her only option for assistance was. With Duckworth dead and bound to the manor, the only possible person who could let her back in and might be able to rescue the others was...Launchpad McQuack. And that was assuming he wasn't stupid enough to get himself fired or quit. Mrs. Beakley groaned. She couldn't do anything about that now. She'd have to wait for the sedative to stop first...and in the meanwhile, her face was pressed up against the ground. This was far closer than she'd care to get to a sidewalk, thank you very much.
What had the others gotten themselves into?
Magica crooned at the gold nugget she held in her hand. She had discovered the same vein that Scrooge had originally found and thrown the younger Scrooge into a ditch after disabling him magically. Unlike the older Scrooge, she'd taken her time with her hex. That Scrooge wouldn't pose a problem again any time soon.
And now...she would be the richest duck in the world. Well...she still only really wanted the dime. She supposed she could split the wealth with Flintheart Glomgold, as long as he let her amass a fortune on her own on top of this. She could be generous, she supposed.
"All's fair in love and war, Scroogie," she said and knelt by the unconscious and half-dead duck. "And this is a little of both."