Later that night…
Sitting at the long McDuck table was a long line of Scrooge's really big family. On his left was Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, May, and June. On his right was Della, Donald, Daisy, Beakley, and Launchpad. Heading the table was Scrooge McDuck. Oracle sat about a table chairs gap from the rest of the Duck family at the other head of the table. Pepper and Phantom Blot decided to leave Duckburg on their own adventure, leaving Quincy in the care of the Duck family. He had the 'I really, really messed up face', also a really messed up beak, thanks Jeeves, and was looking anywhere that wasn't Scrooge or a family member above 13. He looked at the very nice floor below him. He saw the wheel of a recently acquired wheelchair.
The kids seemed more welcoming than the adults did as the blue one broke the silence first, "You going to eat kid, I think you're really nervous about this whole situation." Dewey stated softly, causing him to look up at the wave of eyes staring at him.
"Now I know what you're going to say…" He started gulping, "I'm sorry I put Steelbeak in the hospital for several months." Quincy winced awaiting backlash. To his surprise the family couldn't help, giggle a little except for Scrooge and Beakley.
"You kicked him with the force of a car going 35 mph. You could have killed him," Beakley replied to him. The family went silent with Dewey dropped his jaw, while Louie scooted slightly away from the heron, as Louie glared.
"Not to mention you nearly got your allies killed, along with Gizmoduck, and Gandra Dee. Destroyed a whole business area and downtown Duckburg. Got each of my rivals to curse your name till the day you die," Scrooge said, giving Heron the oh my god I definitely went to far thought, "However, you risked your life to try and stop a problem when you easily could have ran away, took down the legendary Jeeves and Steeljaw," Scrooge, began explaining wincing at Steeljaw's name, "Threw away every possession I am assuming your mom left you, between that arm and that leg." Quincy looked up super confused at Scrooge and co. "I guess what I'm trying to say is Heron, like it or not. You're a Heron-McDuck now." Scrooge started sliding over a clipboard that skidded over to the little heron in his chair. He was extremely confused now, and at a loss for any semblance of words.
"Yeah, I couldn't let you go off into the world now. You have a lot of enemies now each set with motives to destroy you and this family. Today, you proved to me that your heart was in the right place," He said getting up and walking over to the kid, "Just need the family to guide it." He said, patting the kid on the shoulder.
"But, Who, What?!" He managed to get that out, causing the family to laugh a bit, "The damages, and the family histories…"
"Easy kid, you're going to injure yourself more after Jeeves definitely broke your beak." Della said, getting a little squeamish looking at the kid's broken beak, "Also Scrooge's feud died when your… When F.O.W.L was disbanded two years ago." Della added, and Scrooge nodded. "You're no longer safe in the outside world, and all of your new found enemies are our enemies too. Like our Uncle said, you're safer here."
"Of course you will have to come on any adventures we decide to go on," Scrooge stated, Quincy was still confused, "We couldn't save your old robotic limbs, but we thought you'd still like to have them." Scrooge handed him a box with all the broken parts and loose metal plates. Quincy would hold the box refusing to open it, it kind of recentered him. "What's wrong lad?" The rest of the family looked confused as the Heron stood at the box thinking.
"Oh, Uh nothing," Quincy replied, "Just figuring out what to do with it." He struggled to get to his wheelchair as he stood up and immediately lost balance. To the collective scared gasps of the too far to catch him, and Scrooge was not paying attention. Dewey to catch him. They helped him into the wheelchair.
"Alright Q, Gonna be honest with you please don't make my heart run like that." Dewey said, looking concerned at what he had accepted would be the closest thing to he would get to a true little brother in his life. Considering even May and June we're around Webby's age. Which made them in their teenage years now. He got attached to the heron really fast as he always did.
"Already with the nickname's Dewey you get attached to people so easily, Also Q?" Huey said, looking unamused at Dewey's nickname, "You okay Quincy." He looked him over, seeing no scratches or bruises. Louie looked at the Heron in the chair.
"Already emotionally invested," He said, turning to him hugging Quincy Heron who had the 'If I could punch you I would look' looking at Dewey.
"Give the kid some breathing room you two," Louie said, getting his brother's to stop crowding the poor kid, "Proper Introductions, the Blue one's Dewford, but we call him Dewey. The red one's Hubert, but he's called Huey."
"And you're Louferd going by Louie." Quincy interrupted, noticing a pattern.
"No it's Llewellyn, if you call me that I will end you," Louie said, causing the Heron to audibly gulp, "Hahaha its a joke kid." He had the feeling based on his body language it was not a joke. Della, Donald, Daisy, Beakley, and Scrooge decided to let the kids show Quincy around. "No more interruptions save all questions till the end of the tour. This is Webby Vanderquack, May, and June."
Webby was excited with the energy of ten ducks. May and June waved preparing to hold back Webby who was definitely about to assault Quincy with a barrage of questions. "Uh, is she going to be okay?" Quincy asked, concerned.
"I don't think she'll ever be okay," Louie whispered to Quincy, Dewey and Huey nodded agreeing, "Let's keep it moving, you may or may not be kidnapped by her later. Dewford, push Quincy please." Dewey nodded, beginning to push Quincy. They traversed the halls, opening doors, telling him not to go, and finally his room. They opened the door to show him. "This is your room, we got to decorate it a little other than that it should be pretty empty." The room was pretty big, it was decorated with a chair, a dresser, a black bean bag chair, a desk with an image of his mom nicely framed, a toy dart gun on a desk with a sticky note, and a bed with two large steel boxes. The teens pushed him over to the steel box. "I wonder, what could that be?" Louie asked, looking at the sticky note, "Oracle's F-2 optical drone. The other one says, 'adventuring gear' considers the favor repaid Scrooge."
"No way." Quincy said, getting all excited.
"You know how to fly that?" Dewey asked.
"How else do you think F.O.W.L knew where you always were? I am the best F.O.W.L drone pilot. Eyes and ears of F.O.W.L remember." Quincy explained, Huey, Dewey, and Louie sat there looking disapproving, "What?"
"We don't believe you on the pilot thing." Huey stated, with his brother's nodding in agreement. Quincy immediately got out his phone showing the trio a leaderboard with his codename at the top in several highly stacked drone racing tournaments. However they just saw a bunch of gibberish. Seeing this was getting them nowhere.
"What's in the other box?" Quincy asked frustratedly.
The boys shrugged and opened it. Was the original, the very few of Black Heron's original arms. The design, the sharp claws, the wiring, the enchanted magic plating his old arm was lacking. The F.O.W.L logo has protruding wires at the end. That drill-like device at the end. The wires that ran behind it. The triplets all looked confused, but Quincy knew he wasn't ready for it yet. "Only two of these were ever made," Quincy startached to explain, "Back when she lost her arm she created a modular system for her arm. She did horrific experiments to herself, but she eventually created the perfect system. A spinal attachment that completely replaces the shoulder. She also forged the perfect module. A magically enchanted, rocket powered, weapon filled, tool of mass destruction," Quincy said, running his fingers over it, "Mom told me it took her month's to recover, and fully use to its fullest extent. SHUSH managed to recover the replacement should something ever happen to the original." He quickly closed the box and shook his head no.
"Wait what?" Dewey asked, seeing Quincy turn down the arm. Louie and Huey also looked at the Heron confused a bit.
"We'll save it for a rainy day. Besides," He started, gesturing to Dewey to turn him around, "Its not like it's necessary, pfft." Louie, Dewey, and Huey all caught on quickly.
"You're scared," said Huey.
"Okay look. Do you know how painful that implant is to install," He said pausing to let the three think about it, "For perspective it took my mother months to get over the pain," They all cringed a lot.
"Well you have to get walking, and you arm back somehow," Huey stated.
"Hmm, I have a spare at Funzos." stated Quincy.
"Still holding secrets I see?" Louie said, raising an eyebrow.
"Not that I'm not grateful. I truly am but, I don't trust any of you yet maybe with more time that can change. I spent a lot of my life trying to see you, and your family's downfall. If I know anything I need to get that arm as soon as possible." Heron stated.
"Wait, why?" Huey asked, a little concerned.
"Lets just say F.O.W.L members are hard to keep in custody. Rockerducks probably on his way to go reassemble his "loyalists" thanks to a project my mother and I worked on about 4 years ago now." Quincy stated, scratching his head. Buzzing in one of the lower drawers of his dresser buzzed loudly. "Ignore that."
They didn't open the drawer, finding a small radio. "This is Rockerduck, we scramble to get Jeeves and Steelbeak tonight. Rockerduck out." Rockerduck ordered, Huey, Dewey, and Louie looked at Quincy.
"You have a radio connected to all the villain's of F.O.W.L, and you didn't tell Scrooge." Huey said, concerned and loud. Brandishing the black radio furiously. "This is extremely dangerous."
"It's not like I had the time to destroy it," replied Quincy.
"You kept a trackable communicator where you live," Dewey started after Huey, "That's super dangerous your down an arm and a leg."
"What do you want me to say? I forgot that I had that while I was here," Quincy said, frustrated.
"What else are you hiding from the family?" Louie asked, his other two brother's awaiting his answer.
"Ergh, you people are so frus..trating," He looked at them before his anger turned to a bigger problem in the room as he remembered something about one of his unassuming devices as the chatter on the radio fell silent, and that cursed voice came through.
"Activate sequence 52. Oracle if you're listening, consider this your final paycheck." Rockerduck stated.
"Give me the radio now!" Quincy ordered Huey who was caught slightly off guard dropping the radio on the floor. He would pick up the radio sliding on the floor furiously crawling underneath his dresser, "Everyone out now!" Quincy said, with the triplets being confused.
Underneath the dresser was a number padlock he hit it furiously, noticing the ducks were not leaving. Out dropped a basic robotic arm, and a peg leg. "Sequence 52 means activate any F.O.W.L weapon within a 15ft diameter, and we're all enemies of Rockerduck." Quincy exclaimed, he finally attached his robotic limbs, sliding out taking the drone box and chucking it out of a window. As boys watched in horror as the dresser turned into a combat Drone the size of a seven foot person. The bean bag chair inflated into a Troub-Bubble. The radio turned into a little spider drone with a taser. They all ran down the hallway running for help. Quincy didn't know where they went; he was trapped in the room with a giant robot, a deadly bubble, and a spider drone. Wait there was another, as he heard the whirling of his drone flying behind him. "That's where that went?" Quincy stated, turning to jump at the drone outside the window, sending them gently crashing to the ground where Donald's houseboat was.
The giant robot punched the ground in front of Quincy, hearing Donald scream some gibberish in the background. The bubble jumped at Quincy, he hopped out of the way. Getting tasered by the spider drone, he in pain kicked the smaller drone with his robotic leg off. He dodged more of the assaults, until a sound caused them to stop. "Hey, Pick on someone your own size," Donald shouted, attacking the giant robot who knocked Donald off into the pool. It gave the perfect opportunity to pop the Troub-Bubble.
"One down three to go. Oof." Quincy said as he got kicked over the pool, and through a window back into the manor's kitchen. Beakley turned to see Quincy standing up winded, but mostly okay. "Look out," the kid lunged, pushing her out of the way when the taser drone came back.
"What is going on here?!" Beakley said angrily.
"Secrets." Quincy replied helping her up, "Stuff I would have told you had I trusted you people more." As the robot giant came through the wall right next to the door. "Uh, but now we should deal with that." He got in a combat stance ready to attack.
"Quincy we will talk later." Beakley started, just as suddenly as the robot tried to attack them. It was met with the steel foot of Della Duck. The robot stumbled back outside, Della turned and glared at the kid.
"Yeah I know," Quincy pulled out his robot arm turned into a buzzsaw, "Alright. There's a weak spot on its back. If one of us can get a good hit on it, look out!" As the flying drone came in they all dodged. "My drone." He whimpered, "My drone waits if I can get to that remote I can get rid of the last two. Uh, cover me." Della and Beakley nodded, charging at the big robot.
"What is going on here?!" Scrooge exclaimed angrily, with the triplets behind him. The 5 of them went running out to help Donald, who had to join the fight after getting knocked into the pool. He narrowed his eyes at the Heron running across the highly dangerous battlefield dodging debris and a jumping taser drone. "Ah." he said, realizing what's going on.
Quincy noticed he was being trailed by his drone as he was feet from the controller that was built into the box. He flicked a few switches and dials on the remote. "Come on, come on," he hit the right switch and the drone went into manual, "Yes." As he now had access to the drone. He hit a switch and activated 3d flight for the drone allowing him to fly unhindered by balances.
"Everyone clear out I have it from here!" Quincy exclaimed, the family backed off as the drone hit the side of the robot. He made it fly high up real fast. "Man, I lost a drone today as well. Ugh" He sent the drone flying as fast as it could, crashing through the back of the drone causing it to explode as everyone scattered, hiding for cover. That's when the taser drone crawled its ugly way out to try and pounce on the kid. When a cane went sailing past his head pinning and destroying the drone to the wall.
Quincy definitely did not want to turn around to see the family, maybe give them a second to calm down. "Good job, Oracle," Rockerducks voice came out of the radio, "Would be a real shame if this is all it took for us to get you. Don't worry I have plans for you, and when I see you, as the old saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold." Rockerduck cut out. Quincy looked up to see one of his other drones fly off. Quincy decided he would rather face the Duck's than whatever Rockerduck is up to. He took the cane in his real hand, and his radio in his robotic hand crushing it. Walking the cane over to Scrooge who didn't look anywhere close to happy. No one did.
Quincy said nothing, handing him the cane. Then he spoke up, "Look. I'm sorry." Quincy collapsed and Scrooge caught him.
He sat him down and he sat down next to him. "Why, didn't you tell us there were weapons in your room, and a F.O.W.L radio?" Scrooge asked him. The other members of the McDucks were listening in.
"Honestly, I didn't trust you, and I especially didn't want to throw away whatever faith you had in me based on what I owned. I would have told you, but I didn't want you to judge me." He replied pulling off his robot limbs starting with the leg he needed to calibrate better than the arm that was honestly too heavy. "Mother gave me those as bodyguards. Apparently she had a contingency protocol for her own kid." He said looking at the rubble, everyone looked and thought the same thing: what kind of mother would do that, "Classic mom," He laughed at it.
"Anything else I should know that's hiding in that room?" Scrooge asked, still thinking about the type of mother Black Heron was. Quincy pulled out a pair of keys from one of his pockets. He hit a button, the bottom of his bed lowered a large disk and it hovered over to the kid floating next to the duo.
"One of the few things I was able to recover from the crash," He said and looked at Dewey, "Dewey, was it, one heck of a rock thrower. All the flight tech had to redesign it from scratch." Scrooge gave a look of 'I know there's more' Quincy hit another button a weapons tray popped out of one of the backpacks, a computer setup running live footage of every room in the manor, and finally a list of F.O.W.L targets. Most of which was destroyed during this fight that broke out laying in shambles over the yard. "Of course the arm and the leg."
"When did you even have time to install cameras during my tour?" Louie asked.
"Micro camera's mom made them before F.O.W.L, and she made 100s of them. I snagged a few about a year ago." He stated, looking bummed out.
"I guess we need to give you actual decorations for your room that won't accidentally explode or kill ya," Scrooge said laughing, "Tell ya what you can keep the hoverpad if you disable and remove the weapons inside."
"You've earned my trust a little and you all seem capable of handling yourselves. I'll do it," Quincy said, looking around, "Not going to lie, all the weapons I had were damaged in the last fight anyway."
"Question for you, what was growing up for you like?" Della asked one mother trying to gauge how good a mom was Black Heron.
"She trained me how to fight when I turned 5. She was my sparring partner and she wouldn't hold back either. She taught me how to code and build. By six I cleared our hardest obstacle course and was an elite gymnast for my age. She noticed my talent for detail analysis and made me watch all of F.O.W.L communications and cameras. Taught me how to fly drones at that time. By eight I knew four coding languages, the best drone pilot on the F.O.W.L base, monitoring any and every radio wave and camera we had on your family. By nine, I was given my hoverpad. She never said I love you, hugged, or kissed me goodnight. Any monsters under the bed I handled myself. Yet I followed her orders no matter what they were. Then you guys put an end to all of that," He said looking out to the pool, snickering a bit, "In a way you guys destroying F.O.W.L saved me. Clearly not cut out for that life, besides it causes way more problems and it will probably kill me." Della had the look of horror, she recouped a bit after processing the information.
"You do know you're grounded right." Della stated jokingly.
Quincy began to physically panic as that word brought the worst memories of his mother, the one and only time Black Heron grounded him.
Flashback…
"You disobeyed my orders, and risked everything we're trying to achieve to show off!" Black heron scowled at her son's arrogance. The 8 year old had just failed his first mission believing he could get the bounce formula by flying a drone through McDuck Manor. Luckily the drone had a melt feature allowing the drone to be destroyed without so much of a noise. "You could have made them aware of our organization, and put them on to us." She stated coldly. She picked her son by the collar. "You're grounded," Her voice and smile sent chills down the kid's voice as he dropped him. He hit the floor scrambling to stand up. "A brilliant time for you to show all your skills and put them to the test." Two big eggheads took the kid to a room with scratches on the door. The goons looked at each other smiling, pushing the kid into the room.
It was a pitch black room with those beady red lenses down the hallway. He couldn't feel anything in the room. To him the room was completely and utterly empty, except for the thing down in the distance. Then the lights cut on. One by one as they revealed some sort of arena, a special training drone. It looked exactly like Bradford except more menacing. "This is model 687, you are not going to win this fight. Your mission for the next two weeks is to find these," His mother stated appearing on a screen above him showing him a picture of a coin, "However they are coated in a special chemical to make them appear invisible to your eyes, find the ten coins you get to leave. The drone 5 hours a day at random will activate and attack you for 15 minutes. I suggest you hurry, its combat is still leagues above yours. A lesson in what happens if you fail me." Heron cut out.
For two long weeks he spent in that room tormented by a robot drone whose combat skills rivaled his mother searching for invisible coins. Beaten and bruised 2 weeks of misery he managed to gather all the coins inserting them into the coin machine falling out to his mother standing over him. "What did you learn?"
"Your orders…. Are absolute." he said tiredly.
"Good," she looked at him, "Stand up, we have work to do."
End of Flashback….
"Drone 687! He's here! Coins have to find the coins," He panicked nervously, scared trying to scramble, Quincy would try to hide looking for any semblance of cover, "I'm not going back there with that monster." He hopped on his hoverpad flying off, the Duck family scrambling off to find him. Daisy, June, and May had just got back from a grocery run to the house and a panicking Duck family. They caught them up to speed and they went searching Duckburg for Quincy.
Many hours of searching and advance tracking had led them to the coast where he could be spotted sitting floating on the hoverpad. Looking out to the coast seemingly calming down realizing he dismantled 687 about a year ago. Beakley was the first to find him letting the scattered family members to regroup near her.
"Quincy," Beakley said, causing the Heron to look down at her.
"Mrs. Beakley." Quincy replied. He would float down and land on the sand below sitting on his hover pad like a beach towel.
"Look. Della was just trying to tell you that you owed the family an apology," Beakley said, "Mind if I sit next to you." Quincy would nod and rest his head on his knee.
"Yeah I freaked out. I thought I…" He started to say something.
"Fail," Beakley finished for him, "I'm assuming your mother strove for perfection, beating any flaw she saw. So failure was not an option. Causing your panic attack that had us spend 45 minutes searching for you."
"You got all of that from an unfinished sentence." He was shocked by Beakley.
"Lets just say I'm good at reading people," Beakley stated, she looked at the kid hugged him picking him up who even further confused him, "You did good work today kid you stopped your own plan, survived Rockerduck's sneak attack, and you crashed slash broke all of your weapons to do it. Not many people I know would go through those lengths to prove themselves. You have earned my respect."
"Thanks," He said teary eyed, "I am so tired."
"Figures it's 11pm and I think you earned the-" Beakley started, she noticed that Quincy had fallen asleep forgetting that the kid was only 11 three years younger than the triplets. "Let's go home" Beakley stated picking him up and the hover pad walking back to meet with the rest of the family.
The next day…
Quincy awoke to a knock on his door. He jolted awake. "Come in," he said half asleep. In came Huey, Dewey, Louie, May, June, and Webby. "Oh," Quincy said looking at the six, "I was already planning to apologize, no weapons in the room, no secret devices."
"That's not why we're here," Dewey said, causing the kid to raise an eyebrow, "Still owe us a drone flight demo, also we're here to help decorate your room." Quincy was confused, he thought they would still be mad.
"Wait though you were mad, especially Huey," Quincy asked confused.
"We've calmed down, besides it's hypocritical to get mad at someone who puts everyone in jeopardy, when we've done it at least several times," Huey said, "You truly are a Duck." The six of them laughed with Quincy having a puzzling look on their face.
"What?" Quincy asked.
"Anyway, guy at the hobby shop downtown didn't have a drone, but he did have an RC jet." Dewey said, "Something called F-300-"
"You got an F-300. Those are extinct, the fastest RC jet on the market. The amount of requirements to be able to fly that is out of most people's league. It caused so many fires." Quincy started explaining. Dewey held up the box. Quincy squealed like a little girl causing everyone to laugh and Quincy to get embarrassed.
"You said most people," Dewey said with a grin.
"As I said I am not like most people. I flew things way more difficult than that." Quincy said.
"Let's just say we all don't believe you." Dewey said, shaking his head.
That intense stare, "What's the bet?" Quincy asked.
"You can fly this bad boy through our backyard obstacle course with no crash and can land it. We'll get you ice cream. However if you crash, we will laugh and make fun of you. Also this is your belated slash early birthday present I would break it." Dewey said the outlines for the bet.
"You're on." Quincy said, thinking this was going to be the easiest bet he's ever won. "What's a birthday present?"
"It's a way to help celebrate how old you are." Dewey explained, "Come on let's go." He lifted Quincy into his wheelchair and the kids followed them to the backyard.