The Pirates Attack
The situation seemed hopeless for Scrooge, Launchpad and the nephews . . . but Scrooge didn't see it that way.
"Lads, hold your ground - and your shovels!" ordered Scrooge.
"But they have guns!" said Louie.
"Guns which have nay been cleaned nor fired these past 300 years" Scrooge said.
"Arr," interrupted Captain Flint, the most alert of the still dazed pirates. "You'll see what my pistol does to those landlubber's who'll dare to steal my treasure!"
"Do you worst, Flinty" said Scrooge, laughing at his joke.
Flint took aim with a pair of once handsome silver pistols, now badly tarnished. The pistols blew up in Flint's hands.
A couple of the other pirates followed suit, to similar (and sometimes no) results.
"At them with your swords, stupid ones!" ordered Magica.
"We're not afraid of you, Captain Magica!" said Scrooge, winking at Launchpad and Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Launchpad and the triplets winked back.
"Yonder sea-hag is not the captain of my lot!" roared Flint. "She and you'll all be cut to parts when I'm through! With the cutlasses, you mangy sea-dogs"
"What!" roared Magica.
"You have a loyal crew, Captain Flint," Launchpad pointed out. "So loyal, they'd let you kill six of them to keep the location of your treasure a secret!"
"Aye," said a tall pirate duck, whose green complexion was in stark contrast to his yellow hair. "We have a bone to pick with Flint!
"Aye, that'll be true, Allardyce!" said another pirate. "Shiver me timbers! To think I'll obey Flint with him killing me in cold blood!"
"Aye" said four more in unison.
The six pirates raised their swords and made for Flint.
"You'll not be attacking the captain of the Walrus!" said another pirate.
"Aye!" said two others.
Flint, his two defenders, and six attackers went at each other with drawn cutlasses. It was heated fight, but none of their swords seemed to have any effect. It was no wonder, all of them already being dead.
"Mallard Hands!" said Dewey, spotting a grizzled duck to the side. "Wasn't it you who murdered O'Brien over there!"
"That be true!" said another duck in a nightcap. "You've breathed your last, Mallard!" he sneered.
O'Brien dashed at Hands, cutlass drawn. With a clash of iron, they stood swords locked against each other, swords inches away from one another's throats
"Wasn't it O'Brien and Hands who lost the Hispaniola to Jim Duckens?" said Scrooge slyly.
"Yes, the cabin boy, the innkeeper's son, Jim Duckens," said Launchpad. "He managed to steal the ship from under their noses."
"Arr," said a couple more pirates, making for Hands and O'Brien, turning that particular brawl into a three way fight.
"Here now," ordered a dog, with a bandage around his head, green skin offset by yellow eyes. "It not be Hands or O"Brien's fault we lost the Hispaniola and the 700,000 pounds! It be that infernal bungler, Long John Silver!"
"Are you going to let them talk about Barbeque that way?" Huey pointed out.
"NO," said a couple of pirates, themselves drawing a couple of cutlasses.
"Belay that talk, George Merry!" said another, picking up another useless pistol.
"If ye be so loyal, tell me where's Long John now?" Merry demanded.
"I'd sooner be keel hauled than take any orders from you, Geroge," another of the pirates said, "If that be so important, answer me this: Where's old Morgan, young Johnson? Where's Ben Quack? Why ain't those lubbers around?"
"You know why they're not here, you headless oafs!" Magica screamed, watching the scene with growing exasperation.
"They didn't end up dying on ridiculous desert isle! Now go do as pirates do and get me Scrooge!"
Nothing, however, could be further from the pirate's minds. Flint and his supporters were battling the six men slain for their help in burying the pirate's hoard. Hands and O'Brien were fighting one other, as well as the pirates furious at the pair for the loss of the good ship Hispaniola. George Merry and his two supporters were fighting Long John Silver's loyalists. Iron clanged again and again, but the pirates seems immune from one another's attacks.
Scrooge, Launchpad, Huey, Dewey, and Louie watched this scene in stunned silence.
Magica watched above on her broomstick, turning crimson with anger.
"Shouldn't we go, while they're busy fighting?" Launchpad whispered.
"Right!" the nephews whispered in turn.
"Not yet," said Scrooge. "Not until Magica's done with this lot."
They didn't have long to wait. A minute later . . . .
"ENOUGH" shouted Magica.
Power of magic, ancient laws,
put these goons the way they was!
With that, the pirates were engulfed in an enormous cloud of black smoke that spread far enough to sting the nephews eyes and send Scrooge and Launchpad into a coughing fit.
When the smoke dispersed, there was nothing to be seen of the pirates but a few dropped cutlasses.
"Not my best idea" mourned Magica, who herself was looking the worse for wear from that last cloud of smoke.
"Aye," said Scrooge, "Not your best idea!"
"Yeah," Launchpad put in, "Why don't you make like your zombie pirates and vanish!"
"Yeah!" added Huey, Dewey and Louie.
"I will be back for all of you - especially you Scrooge dahling - and lucky dime, another time" Magica sneered.
"Giddup," she ordered her broomstick, "and quickly. It has been bad day. Daylight come and me want to go home."
The broomstick obliged, a little too well, as it launched in a crowd of smoke leaving Magica to hold on for dear life as it swayed, tossed, and looped its erratic way back to Mount Vesuvius.
Note: Scrooge's reference to "Flinty" is, of course, a reference to his worst enemy Flintheart Glomgold (as Scrooge himself describes Flinty in The Golden Goose Part II). Scrooge calls Flintheart Flinty several time, the first time being at the start of Wrongway in Ronguay)
Magica has a habit of sudden departures upon having her plans going awry. For example, Duck to the Future, Nothing to Fear, and Raiders of the Lost Harp.
I thought it was natural enough that the "zombie pirates" should fight one another. I hope no one feels cheated as a result.