(Author's notes: This is an AU (an alternate universe). While this story takes place in Duckburg, there are going to be quite a few differences from the 2017 DuckTales universe. Most will be revealed throughout the story, but two I want to point out right now so not to cause more confusion or have unlikely expectations. 1. There is no Moneybin. Instead, it is a lighthouse (Important Plot Point). 2. There will be no Gizmoduck. So if you think Fenton's going to bust out a Blathering Blatherskite and make everything better, you have another thing coming. Aside from those two major changes, I would like to keep everything a surprise.
This story may contain some light language (I'm not sure if I want to put any in at this point) but it will also have some fantasy violence and scary scenes.)
One beak yawned and then a second followed. It was past the witching hour when even things that went bump in the night were starting to nod off. The night was waning toward the early hours of the morning but still hours away until the sun would come out. Most of the citizens of Duckburg were nestled snug in their beds, and only those who worked the night shift were up and about. Oh, and two dedicated scientists who had been working on their newest pet project for their employer, Scrooge McDuck. Time wasn't of the essence, but they had hit their stride around one AM and they weren't backing down until one of them collapsed.
But their determination still wasn't beyond the temptation of the body.
"Intern, I'm going out for an espresso," Gyro called, his face the usual grumpy-slash-sardonic expression.
Fenton rubbed his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want me to get it for you?" Fenton asked. He was used to being Gyro's errand-boy, so he was curious as to why his boss and advisor decided to fore-go his exclusive uses of a none-paid intern. Plus, sometimes Gyro bought Fenton coffee as well.
"No. My doctor says that I need 'fresh air' and 'exercise'," Gyro said with a laborious eye-roll. "Apparently walking to and from my car doesn't constitute this."
"Okay. Could you get me one, too?" Fenton asked. The coffee maker that Mr. McDuck kept in the employee's lounge a few floors up always had the consistency of mud and tasted very similar no matter how often the filter was cleaned or how expensive of beans were used. And it would be a miracle if Mr. McDuck ever deigned to replace it.
"What do I look like? A money tree?" Gyro asked, stepping onto the elevator. "Lil Bulb is in charge." The elevator doors closed on him with a cheerful ding.
Fenton sighed. It had been a nice try. It would have been nice to have a good cup of coffee once in a while, but until his internship was over, he was making squat. He relied on his mother for room, board and all the necessities, so he never asked for spending cash. And on top of that, his student loans were looming over his head. Luckily the bank was willing to hold off on any payments since employment with McDuck Industries would be an exceptional place to work.
Lil Bulb clambered onto Fenton's desk, flashing red while his filament bent down in an angry look. The device pointed its little "hand" at its "face" then at Fenton, then back at itself. A clear indication of I'm watching you.
Fenton ignored the little invention. He had better things to do other than be bossed around by an artificial intelligence. For now, he was trying to figure out why oil kept leaking from the engine that he was working on. The engine was to be used on a new type of submarine that Scrooge McDuck wanted, but there still were a few problems that needed to be fixed.
Just as Fenton decided the whole engine needed to be taken apart—again—and he began removing a nut, the wrench in his hands slipped and he fell on top of the engine.
"Ah, nuts," he grumbled as he felt the slick, wetness spread on his shirt.
When he pushed himself off the machine, he saw the large blot across his shirt, soaking into his feathers. He knew that working in a lab could be dirty business, and normally he would wear a lab coat, but he had forgotten to put one on in his haste when he clocked in. And this wasn't the first time. This was his fourth work shirt to get oil on it this week, and he was running out. Not to mention, oil was really hard to get out—as his mother kept telling him—so he might have to buy some more soon.
Sitting down next to the engine, Fenton tilted his head back and rested his eyes a little, trying to ignore the grease that was in his feathers, between his fingers and who knows where else on his body. He remembered he had rubbed his eyes earlier when he was beginning to feel tired. Did he have two black marks around his eyes?
Perhaps it was time for him to quit for the day—er—night. At least it was Friday, which meant he could sleep all day tomorrow. Or was it this morning? Well, not all day. He would have to help Mama around the house, but between Saturday and Sunday, he could catch up on his rest and on the household chores.
Getting up, Fenton went to the sink that was located on the far side of the large, clear windows that looked out into the ocean. The very basement of the McDuck Lighthouse had been repurposed into a lab several years ago—as Fenton was told—and before that it had been a type of aquatic life observatory for one of Scrooge McDuck's nephews. It had been one of Duckburg's major tourist attractions where people could pay to tromp up hundreds of steps to go to the very top of the lighthouse and even hear the foghorn blow.
Then they would go all the way down into the basement where they could see the ocean, a coral bed and dozens of fish. Fethery—Mr. McDuck's nephew—had taken great care of the coral reef that grew around the light house and kept track of dozens of animals. There were even aquatic tubes that were built into the lighthouse basement that led to holding tanks somewhere else in the lab. Someone could even put on diving equipment and go through the tubes right into the ocean. Fethery used these tubes to bring in sick or injured animals into the aquatic observatory where he could treat them before releasing them again.
Fenton remembered coming to the lighthouse for a school trip once, remembered the excitement in Fethery's voice and how he spoke to the children about taking care of the oceans, conservation and eliminating pollution. It had been very fascinating.
But Fenton always wondered what had happened to Fethery. A few years ago, the aquatic observation had been closed down without any explanation, and it was only when Fenton was hired as an intern to work with Gyro that he found out that the space was now utilized as a lab.
As Fenton cleaned his hands—and his face, because he really did have greasy circles around his eyes—he thought about Fethery, the lab, and what had happened a few years ago. He had never dared ask Mr. McDuck—he barely said more than a few words with the elderly duck in his time as an intern—and Gyro never said anything if Fenton broached the subject. His best theory was that Mr. McDuck had a falling out with his nephew and that was the end of it.
His eyes wandered out to the ocean, although only the lights in the lab penetrated the darkness only a little bit. He wondered if there was more to the story. He remembered reading an article in a newspaper about this very thing, that Scrooge McDuck's nephew, Fethery Duck, had gone missing yet nobody reported anything about it to the police. The reporter claimed that nobody had seen Fethery since the closing of the lighthouse, and there were no records of him leaving Duckburg or any other activity of where Fethery Duck could be. Later, the newspaper printed a retraction and as far as Fenton had seen, the reporter who wrote the article never worked for the paper again.
As much as Fenton's imagination could come up with a dozen different scenarios as to what happened to Fethery Duck, he couldn't believe any of them. Mr. McDuck might be unapproachable and stand-offish, but Fenton couldn't believe that he would harm an innocent person, let alone his family.
With his thoughts floating through the subject of Fethery, he hadn't realized how long he had been standing at the sink with his eyes looking through the window unfocused. It wasn't until the hot water turned extremely hot that he was brought back to reality.
And he came face to face with a beautiful woman.
He was caught unguarded, blinking a few times as she stared back at him, her mouth open a little. Then a few bubbles poured out of her beak, racing through the water.
Water?! She was in the ocean.
Fenton stumbled back, his mind coming to the conclusion that there was a person drowning just outside the lighthouse. The lab wasn't the only underwater level in the building, and they were over thirty feet below sea level. If she had sunk this far, could he get to her in time before she drowned?
Just as he was startled by her appearance, her face jumped in surprise as well. Her body twisted and pointed downward, her motion followed by a long, scaly tail that whipped out a few times, then she was gone.
Fenton fell flat on his butt, just as stunned as if he had been kicked by a horse in the stomach. What did he just see? Did he just see a creature that was half-woman, half-fish? A mermaid?
Fenton stared out the glass window into the dark water, the lights of the lab turning only a small bubble of the ocean a greenish hue. Aside from a few floating specks and some sea foam, nothing moved in the salty water.
Yet Fenton couldn't close his eyes because that might mean he could miss another glance at the creature he swore he saw. Blinking even once might dissolve the image in his mind, the details that he struggled to hang onto. Even as his mind was turning the short encounter into a longer lasting memory, a part of his brain was rationalizing that what he saw was an impossibility. There were no such things as mermaids. They were legends. Fairy tales. Frivolous fantasies.
But he had seen one. It was irrefutable proof to him. He saw, and therefore, it must be.
"Intern, what are you doing on the floor?"
The sudden voice shocked him and he jerked his head in that direction. Seeing his mentor standing a few feet away, he began to wonder just how long he had sat there, stunned so much that he hadn't even heard the bell of the elevator doors.
"Dr. Gearloose, you're not going to believe this," Fenton said, his heart beating faster as he wanted to share his scientific discovery. Because obviously as a fellow scientist, Gyro would share his excitement at learning of a new aquatic species, one that was far more complex than any animal life-form found so far. Or perhaps they were sentient just as they were in the children's stories.
"Unless you're going to tell me that you fixed that engine, then I don't want to hear about it," Gyro said, sipping his coffee.
Fenton could smell the high-grade, caffeinated drink, and he almost succumbed to a daydream of sipping it himself, feeling the hot liquid travel down his throat and warming every part of his body. He shivered, not realizing until then how cold he felt. "No, but it's something better," Fenton said, standing up and following after Gyro as they walked toward the heart of the lab. "I was washing my hands at the sink, looking out into the ocean, I saw the most extraordinary sight I have ever witnessed. I can hardly believe it myself. At first, I thought it was a woman swimming in the ocean—"
"At this depth? This late at night?" Gyro interrupted. Then his eyes widened. "Or was she…Did you call the police?" By the sound of his voice, he sounded more irritated than concerned.
"No, because the woman was a live," Fenton said, his voice rising in excitement as reached the climax of his story. "And that was the amazing part. She wasn't human, at least not all of her. She had a fish tail and appeared to be breathing water."
Gyro stopped and slowly turned to Fenton, his eyes remaining that half-lidded, disbelieving way he always was. "Are you telling me…that you saw a…mermaid?"
Fenton cocked a half-smile. The way Gyro said it, it did sound a little ridiculous. "Well…It was a woman…with the tail of a fish." He hoped that if he didn't say the name, his claim would have more weight to it.
Gyro rubbed his face and let out a heavy sigh. "It happened again," Gyro muttered to himself.
"What? Again?" Fenton asked, hopefully. Maybe he wasn't the only one to have seen her. Or at least a...fine, he was going to use the word…a mermaid.
"I've burned out another one," Gyro said, looking to the ceiling. "You've been working too hard, Intern. Hopefully your brain isn't completely fried, so you should go home right now and get some rest. I don't want to see you again until…what's today?"
"Friday," Fenton said helpfully although his tone lowered to disappointment. Perhaps he expected too much for Gyro to believe him.
"Perfect," Gyro said. "I don't want to see you until Monday morning. That should give you enough time to stop hallucinating." He started to walk away, muttering about how interns couldn't deal with sleep depredation these days.
Fenton's shoulder's sagged as he packed up his things and headed to the elevator. And once he was away from the view of the ocean, he started to think that perhaps Dr. Gearloose was correct. Perhaps he did see a hallucination. He had been putting a lot of stress on his body and his mind, and it wasn't impossible. Perhaps, because he had been staring out into the ocean, his mind came up with a mermaid phantasm to distract him from his fatigue, conjuring up a beautiful woman mixed with a bit of the fantastical.
But she had been so very realistic. He could still remember what she looked like. She was an exotic beauty, a race of bird that wasn't common around Duckburg. By her curved beak, she must belong to the parrot family. She had black feathers around her face, with white to blue gradient, curly hair framing her face. Her feathers that started at her neck and going down her arms and torso also went from white to blue. His cheeks warmed as he recalled she wore no clothing, and at that point he relinquished the idea that he might be the first person to have ever seen a mermaid. No, what he had seen must have been conjured by a mind that had been stressed and strained to the point of fatigue, and perhaps the fact that he was single had a little bit to do about it.
Leaving the lighthouse and walking through the parking lot toward the bus stop, Fenton stopped to look at the sign in front of the building. He had passed the building hundreds of times, but only at that point had he really looked at it, noticing for once that the border had several ancient-looking drawings of mermaids. He then recalled hearing several stories about mermaids being spotted by the lighthouse keepers over the years since Duckburg's founding. These stories had been told to him as a child, and he had forgotten them until that moment. He couldn't recall any of the story details, but all of them seemed to have to do with Duckburg.
He hadn't heard those stories in over a decade, but suddenly he was very interested in hearing those stories one more time. That, and doing some research into Duckburg history.
As soon as Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera left the lab, Gyro stared out into the ocean for several minutes, his hands behind his back. He watched the floating sea foam and debris stoically before heading to his computer, typing out a quick message and sending it to his employer: Mr. Scrooge McDuck.