Disney Afternoon Universe Mini-Series - Capetraeger (2024)

Chapter 1: What is this?

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This is supposed to share a continuity with DuckTales 2017 and my fanfictions about that, including the show overviews DuckTales+, Darkwing Duck (Reboot) and Operation Junior Woodchucks.
Like those it is an overview over a theoretical show and not complete scripts.

It starts parallel to season 3 of Darkwing Duck (Reboot) and season 2 of Operation Junior Woodchucks, so in early 2023.

Now, what is this about? It is about trying out concepts that don’t make for a full 26-episode cartoon and might also be less suitable for children. (Graphic violence may be in the shows but isn't graphic in the outlines, so I didn't tag it.) Episodes are longer, more about 45 minutes but can very in length because they would be on Disney+ anyway. Each mini-series is about six episodes long, might be an episode more or less, depending on how many I come up with.
Art style is probably somewhat different from DuckTales 2017 and might differ between the mini-series, too.

Characters will be tagged when they show up. The ones already there may give a hint what the first show is about ...

As usual, ideas are welcome.

Chapter 2: S1/SHUSH/E01: Mouseton

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After the Molevasion, SHUSH is short on agents. Unlike in Darkwing Duck we can explicitly say here that there have been more losses than just Owlson, including many of the agents who were with the mole rebellion when the invasion started.
Derek Blunt, however, made it. And he has send two of his most trusted agents, Kay K and Zero, to deal with a problem in Mouseton. A problem named Phantom Blot.
So, they are in Mouseton in the midst of winter where the Phantom Blot is just extorting the city to get funding for his organization. All the gold from the bank or the city will completely freeze. And indeed, the winter is unusually harsh.
Kay K and Zero (who are the two black-haired ducks we have seen in the SHUSH headquarter in Molevasion) are searching for his headquarter. They have one lead – SHUSH had an agent infiltrate his organization, but that one has gone silent.
They manage to find the agent’s position signal and have to dig through snow to get to the sewers. In the end, they find a corpse. Yes, that used to be Agent Pigeon. Kay K is visibly shocked.
Then they hear footsteps. They follow, the footsteps get faster, they go faster and finally they close up to Gabby McStabberson. Fight in the frozen sewers. The agents manage to disarm and capture her. She claims that she didn’t kill Pigeon but confirms that the Phantom Blot did find out that he was spying on him. He probably had his men kill him, she doesn’t really care about that, her job is more … outside.
Kay K: “So you know where the hideout is.”
Gabby: “I do, but the weather machine isn’t there. I think he keeps it on a boat in the bay.”
Indeed the sewers use to lead to an underground river that also had a harbor that isn’t used anymore. Sewage isn’t pumped into the river anymore, but the channels still exist.
Kay K and Zero have to split up. Kay K has Gabby lead her to the hideout, Zero tries to get to boat in the bay.
Zero finds that he can’t get out of the sewers, the snow is to heavy. So he goes to the underground harbor and hopes that there is a boat – yes, a small rowboat. To row out to the bay while it snows. Great.

Kay K meanwhile reaches the entrance to the hideout. She leaves Gabby behind, bound and gagged, and takes her key to get in.
She evades some henchmen (comic readers might recognize some Mouseton gangsters that sometimes work with Pete or the Phantom Blot, there are also still some that he had in Prague in Operation Junior Woodchucks) and finally finds Pepper. Of course she knows who Pepper is and assumes that she knows more about the weather machine.
Another fight that is mostly hard because Kay K has to stop Pepper from calling for help. She succeeds – and then Gabby shows up with some henchmen, because of course she freed herself.

Zero is out on the bay and does indeed find a small fishing boat. It is completely empty. At least it has fuel, so he doesn’t have to row back.
Back in Mouseton, he learns that the city gave in and the Phantom Blot is coming to get the gold. He rushes to the place of delivery and finds the Phantom Blot himself just taking the armored car full of gold bars, warning the police that he is the only one who knows where the weather machine is so they better don’t try anything and drives off.
Zero takes a nearby motorcycle (easy to do with a SHUSH universal key) and follows the car (less easy because – snow).
He ends up losing control and crashing into a snowbank, but he followed far enough that he knows the general direction.

Kay K is imprisoned. Pepper is nice as always but also makes it clear that the Phantom Blot will probably kill the intruder and that she is fine with that.

Zero follows the tracks in the snow until they are covered, then follows the road into the woods behind Mouseton. Under the thick trees, he spots the point where a car left the road. Hoping that it was the right one, he follows.
And indeed, he gets to a small wooden building.
The Phantom Blot is just leaving in a different car. Zero cracks the lock and opens the door. There is the armored vehicle. He could take it, but the Phantom Blot has a headstart and this thing isn’t fast. Also, if the police saw him with it in the city, he would get stopped for sure.
Instead, he searches the building for clues.

Kay K is finally left alone and she immediately works on breaking out. When she has almost done it, Gabby come to set her free.
Kay K: “Why?”
Gabby: “Because the Phantom Blot is not done yet. He has more demands and at one point the city will refuse to give in and will freeze. That’s a bit much.”
Kay K: “I’m not sure that I should believe you.”
Gabby: “Okay, I also want the gold.”
They flee and take out some henchmen on the way (non-lethally) until they hear the Blot arriving. They hide in the nearest good spot when he and Pepper come. The Phantom Blot confirms that he has the gold in the shack in the woods and also says he has to make a broadcast now. Kay K and Gabby follow them to the broadcast room where the Phantom Blot informs the city of Mouseton that he isn’t quite ready to stop the weather machine. He has a list of prisoners that the city has to set free first.
While he reads the list, Kay K and Gabby sneak up on him.
After the broadcast, they strike. The Phantom Blot is wearing his glove, but he doesn’t even fight.
Phantom Blot: “I am disappointed but not surprised. However, I am the only one who can find the weather machine. No, it isn’t on the boat anymore. And I won’t talk. So leave me alone. In fact, why fight me? I am not the enemy. I’m not with FOWL anymore. I need the gold and the prisoners to bolster my ranks. You both can get part of the gold if you work for me. And then we will do good. We will find witches, demons and monsters and stop them. Make the world safer. Isn’t that what SHUSH wants?”
Kay K: “If you think we are on the same side, why did you kill our agent?”
Phantom Blot: “Ah, yes. That was unfortunate. Didn’t quite go as planned. When I was told that he was one of yours, I had to confront him of course. I didn’t intend to kill him, but he left me no choice. It was self defense.”
Kay K: “Do you believe that?”
Gabby: “No, but I believe him that he won’t talk. I’m out.”
Kay K: “Getting the gold?”
Phantom Blot: “You don’t think that you will get anywhere, do you? The snow has only gotten worse. There is no way an armored van can drive, if you even get the garage door open. I have the upper hand here. Work for me or leave me alone.”
Henchmen have appeared by now. Gabby and Kay K leave.
Pepper: “You really let them go?”
Phantom Blot: “They can’t hurt me. We may have to give up this hideout, but with the gold we can get a better one.”

Meanwhile, Zero has found something. An address. He tries to go there, but the road back to the city is awful to walk right now. When he notices that he might not make it, he calls for backup.

Gabby and Kay K leave the hideout through the normal way, not to the sewers but to the streets. It is just a house.
Kay K: “I hope Zero is okay.”
Gabby: “If he made it back from the bay, probably. If he is still out there – probably not.”
Then they see a helicopter trying to fly in the snow and failing. It appears to land badly somewhat outside the city.
Kay K: “That’s one of ours.”
Gabby: “And in that direction is the shack where the gold should be.”
They both run.

Zero is sitting in the snow, keeping himself warm with some gadget that is probably meant for something else when someone finds him. It is … Launchpad?
No. Bruno von Beak.
Zero: “You?”
Bruno: “Who else? SHUSH didn’t have a pilot left, so they hired me right out of the cell.”
Bruno lifts Zero up and gets him to the helicopter.
Bruno: “Don’t think we can fly in this weather. But we can stay warm here.”
Zero turns the radio on because he wants to listen to the news. He learns about the Phantom Blot’s new demand and that the city is following it. The prisoners will be set free in an hour or so.

Kay K and Gabby find themselves slogging through the snow way to slow. They decide to head back, but don’t really get further that way either. Kay K blacks out.

When she wakes up, Kay K is in the car that the agents originally came in. Gabby, Zero and Bruno are there.
Zero explains that, after hearing the news, they decided to fly to the city low over the street. Didn’t quite work, but they made some way and found Kay K and Gabby. They reached the city and made it to the car. Gabby has confirmed that the address that Zero found is the hideout. And the machine is not there, so they are still without a lead.
Then they hear that the Phantom Blot was arrested when trying to hire the freed prisoners. Apparently, as the police figured out with the help of some meteorologists and an external consultant, there is no weather machine. The harsh weather is weird but natural. And it will end in a few hours.
Kay K: “That’s why the Phantom Blot let us go. He would have left today anyway.”

They stay in the car and indeed it stops snowing. The sun comes out, the snow slowly melts.
Before the street is clear again, Gabby jumps out and runs off.
Kay K: “She is after the gold. And we can’t drive yet.”
Bruno: “No, but the weather is good enough to fly. We just have to make it to the helicopter.”

They do and are at the shack before Gabby. They capture her there.
Zero: “The director says we should bring her home.”
Kay K: “Fine. Bruno flies her, you bring back the gold, I get the police to the hideout?”
Zero: “Sounds good.”
Bruno takes the helicopter with Gabby, Zero prepares the car while Kay K calls the police. When the street is reasonably free, they drive back to the city. Kay K jumps off to go to the hideout and Zero drives to the bank.
At the hideout, Kay K finds the police arresting some henchmen. Not Pepper, though. Kay K goes in herself and finds traces that she escaped into the sewers. She follows but doesn’t find her.

Zero arrives at the bank and announces that he found the gold.
Only that the gold is gone … Zero can’t explain it and has to escape before he is questioned.

When Kay K and Zero come back to the headquarter in St. Canard, they have to report that their mission was basically a failure. The were to late to save Agent Pigeon. The Phantom Blot was caught but it wasn’t thanks to them. Pepper escaped. The gold is gone.
Blunt: “Well, it wasn’t a complete failure. You secured a valuable asset.”
Zero: “You intend to hire McStabberson?”
Blunt: “I already did. She is not completely trustworthy, but she will be useful.”
Zero: “First von Beak, now her, who is next? The Frequency Fiend?”
Blunt: “I don’t hire children. She stays in our custody until we found out how to … stabilize her. Anything else? Good. You are excused, I am awaiting your written reports.”
The agents leave, but Kay K comes back.
Blunt: “Yes?”
Kay K: “There is something – of course it will be in the report, but I thought I should tell you immediately. Under four eyes.”
Blunt: “Please do.”
Kay K: “The Phantom Blot said that he was told about our agent. He didn’t find out. He didn’t learn. He was told. Which begs the question …”
Blunt: “… by whom?”

So …
Yes, the first miniseries is about SHUSH and as you can see, it draws heavily from the “DoubleDuck” comics. Yes, Zero is still Axel Alpha and yes, he looks somewhat similar to Donald but not as much as in the comics. Notably, both Kay K and Zero are younger than DuckTales Donald.

Remember my comment in Darkwing Duck about developing Gabby’s story and getting her where I need her? This is what I needed her with the Phantom Blot for. SHUSH is where I wanted to get her. Will she stay there? We will see.

No weird new name and costume for Pepper this time, it doesn’t really fit here. Next time.

The whole plot with the freezing city is basically one-to-one from an Italian Mickey Mouse comic. In fact, the comic could go on almost undisturbed parallel to this. Almost.
Yes, the outside consultant who helped the police is of course Mickey.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3/E01, GoofTroop S2/E14, the return after the mid-season finale. Operation Junior Woodchuck S2/E01.

Chapter 3: S1/SHUSH/E02: Duckburg

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102: SHUSH 02: Duckburg

Blunt, Kay K and Agent Zero are meeting with Director 22 in Duckburg.
Blunt reports:
“After Agent Kay K told me about her suspicion, I of course checked the safe. The Master List is still there, but the safe has been opened and the security cameras have been tempered with. Someone played us for a fool. Someone must have copied the list and it seems like they have cracked the code.”
Beakley: „You have warned all the undercover agents?“
Blunt: „As far as possible. We also searched for evidence at the crime scene, but found nothing conclusive. The only prove of an intruder is the tempering with the cameras.“
Beakley: “A hacker. What about Mark Beaks?”
Blunt: “I believe that he could do it, but when it happened he was already in his cell without access to any computer. In fact, he might be our best bet to find out who did it.”
Beakley: “Hire him and put him to the task. Now, what other suspects are there?”
Blunt: “Too many. Besides our current agents it could also have been one who died in the Molevasion. The only ones who I am sure can’t have done it are in this room.”
Beakley looks at Kay K and Zero.
Beakley: “Why are you so sure?”
Blunt: “Well, Kay K warned me in the first place and Zero only joined us after it happened.”
Beakley: “Of the ones still alive that leaves Black B, Berry B and Gizmo. And your secretary.”
Blunt: “Or someone managed to actually break into the HQ unnoticed.”
Beakley: “Well, while Beaks searches for traces of the hacker, Kay K and Zero can follow another lead. Marlo Burke is a new gangster boss in Duckburg, trying to take over from Ma Beagle since she is in prison for life. And he knows things that he shouldn’t know. SHUSH secrets. He might be connected to our hacker. If he has the Master List, Zero is the only one who can safely infiltrate his organization.”
Zero: “Tell me what to do.”

So, the remaining episode is Zero infiltrating Burke’s business. He joins the gang as a minor criminal and stages a fight against Kay K to impress Burke. It works, but also gets him into an actual fight with the Beagle Boys and Gizmoduck and he only gets away because Kay K manages to call Beakley who calls Gyro who calls Gizmoduck and tells him that Zero is undercover. Burke is impressed and enlists Zero for a big heist.
The biggest heist, in fact.
He wants to succeed where the Beagle Boys have always failed – steal a significant amount of money from the Money Bin.
Burke introduces Zero to the remaining team. I’m not sure who else should be on the team, but it should be a competent team. Some quirks, sure, but no too silly characters. Falcon Graves obviously fits in perfectly and so do the Smashnikovs. We also need someone who can deal with magic, because, as we know, Scrooge has a few magical traps (and now also Toth-Ra, see my DuckTales+). Probably a new character, as Magica would dominate the story too much, we just had the Phantom Blot and Pepper in the last episode and Blackarts Beagle is, well, a Beagle Boy and therefore Burke’s competition. Obviously someone for the tech. That should be enough, it is a small team.
Zero manages to report back. Beakley and Blunt bring in Scrooge and the three make a plan to let the heist happen and then trap the criminals in the Money Bin.
The day of the heist comes, Burke introduces a last minute edition, masked master cat burglar Red Primrose (in a fitting red costume).
Zero doesn’t need long to figure out that it is Kay K. When they are alone for a moment she explains that she decided to not let him go alone. She searched for a role to play and found Red Primrose a well known cat burglar who never directly interacted with anyone, so nobody knows what she looks like.
The heist plan is not too complicated but good. The crux is to not take the money and run (that would be near impossible) but trigger the emergency evacuation. That activates chutes that load the money on several ships immediately. Another team will take over one of the ships beforehand. (Maybe the Smashnikovs should be on that other team, that is mostly just random thugs.)
However, as it turns out, Burke found Gizmoduck’s retreat a bit unlikely and had Zero shadowed. He doesn’t know who he works for, but he doesn’t trust him and has prepared to use Scrooge’s traps to kill him. Kay saves Zero, thereby also getting on Burke’s bad side.
Scrooge and Gizmoduck have to intervene and things end in absolute chaos.
Burke’s plan almost works when the chutes load the money on the ships. Of course the ship that his men had taken over was taken back by the police, as Scrooge was warned, but what they don’t expect is a sudden submarine attack.
Burke himself leaves his accomplices behind and uses the chute to escape.
So, in the Bin it is Kay K, Zero, Scrooge and Gizmoduck (and maybe Quackfaster?) vs. the villains while the police tries to deal with Burke and his submarine and fails – but help comes in the form of Gabby and Bruno in the helicopter. They manage to drive the submarine off and Burke is arrested.
The other villains are finally imprisoned in the now sealed safe of the money bin.
Exhausted but exhilarated after the battle, Kay K and Zero spontaneously make out in a closet in the money bin.
Gabby and Bruno act in a very similar manner.

Back in Beakley’s office, they collect information. Burke claims to not have the Master List. He got some info from someone to prove that they have the list and are willing to sell it. That’s why Burke needed a lot of cash – there will be an auction. He doesn’t yet know when and where and after his very public arrest, he will probably not be contacted again.
Zero: “I wonder if the Phantom Blot was also to be invited to the auction. That would explain how he knew about Agent Pigeon and why he needed money.”
Kay K: “I copied as much of Burke’s computer as I could while we were in his villa. If the correspondence with the mysterious seller is on there, we might find a hint.”
Two calls come in. We hear both Beakley speaking with Scrooge who is livid because some very valuable coins are missing and Blunt speaking with Mark Beaks who could not restore the missing camera footage, but found some code used by the hacker that he knows. The remains of a sloppily deleted hacking program that he designed himself. That was not a professional, just someone with the best tools.
Meanwhile Kay K and Zero look at Burke’s data and find an e-mail that mentions the auction. It does not have time and place and no name, but a logo.
The claw of a four-toed bird of prey. And everyone who has seen the “Darkwing Duck” episode “In Like Blunt” knows what that means …

So …
Yeah, Marlo Burke and Red Primrose are from DoubleDuck. As are the mentioned agents.

Marlo Burke is one of the rew characters I have a VA for in mind and it is Vincent D’Onofrio, because Burke is an obvious Kingpin expy.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3/E02, Operation Junior Woodchuck S2/E02.

Chapter 4: S1/SHUSH/E03: New Stork City

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It can’t be Phineas Sharp. He is dead. Blunt saw him die.

SHUSH is making a list of people who might be invited to the auction. Most will most likely not trust them. Their best bet is … David Xanatos.

When Zero and Kay K meet him in the Eyrie Building he claims to not have gotten any mail regarding a stolen list. He gives them a tour. Up in Castle Wyvern, he feels safe to talk. Yes, he got a mail about the auction. It was completely anonymous, though, no logo.
The sun sets and the Gargoyles awaken. We have some introductions. There are, of course, also Manny, Coldstone and Coldsteel who don’t turn to stone during the day.

Xanatos trusts the clan completely, so the agents have to let them in on the situation. Xanatos agrees to inform SHUSH as soon as he is told the location and time of the auction.
Most of the adult Gargoyles go on patrol. The agents are about to leave, when the Quarrymen attack.
Over twenty years after the Gargoyles went public, in a time when they are just considered people, the few Quarrymen left are nothing more than violent racists. (Something I wouldn’t put into DuckTales or Darkwing Duck, but fits well here.)
Led by anthropomorphic animal versions of Fleance and Banquo, the Quarrymen take over the building and take hostages (there is a lot of personnel in the building, even at night, though some of them actually are Quarrymen, infiltrating it). When Kay K gets caught, Zero has to do a Die Hard hommage. It almost falls apart when Fleance notices Zero’s feelings for Kay and uses her to force him to give up, but luckily Kay is not helpless either.
Finally, the adult Gargoyles come back. The Quarrymen are arrested without learning who Kay K and Zero really are.

In the end, Xanatos does get the invitation to the auction. On a small tropical island.

When the agents leave, Xanatos calls Kay K back.
Xanatos: “We should talk, Miss Konnery.”
Kay K: “Um … who?”
Xanatos: “We don’t have to play that game. I have been both a victim and a customer of your father’s service. I have seen the pictures in his wallet. Did you know that you can do an iris scan on a photography?”
Kay K: “You are bluffing.”
Xanatos: “Maybe, but you aren’t sure. So if I am indeed bluffing, it has already worked.”
Kay K: “So you know my name. Fine. What is this supposed to be? Blackmail?”
Xanatos: “Oh no. I simply want to know where your loyalties lie.”
Kay K: “Right now with SHUSH.”
Xanatos: “So you aren’t the one who took the Master List?”
Kay K: “Of course not.”
Xanatos: “Are you sure? It was certainly encoded, right? You could have copied it without even knowing what it is.”
Kay K: “But I didn’t.”
Xanatos: “No, of course not. By the way, you don’t happen to know the true identity of Red Primrose?”
Kay K: “Why would I?”
Xanatos: “Just because your father is in the same business.”
Kay K: “Not all burglars know each other.”
Xanatos: “Of course not.”

Back in St. Canard, Blunt looks at the report. He knows that island. It is not the same where he confronted Sharp for the last time, but it is close. They will have to visit an auction.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3/E03, Operation Junior Woodchucks S2/E03.

Chapter 5: S1/SHUSH/E04: The Salad Sea - Part One

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This episode tells two parallel stories. One is Zero infiltrating the auction with Kay also being on the island but staying unseen. Flintheart Glomgold is there, as is Steelbeak.
Things go south when Blunt can’t wait and gets in himself, which is exactly what Phineas Sharp wanted and he and Zero get caught.

The other story is a flashback to when Blunt and Gryzlikoff infiltrated Sharp’s hideout on a different island back in the day. This one goes full James Bond with Blunt being … kind of an a-hole the whole time. Add Feathers Galore as the Bond Girl.

Feathers is also there in the present day story, obviously older now and quite mad at Blunt for just using her back then.

In the backstory, Feathers helps Blunt and Gryzlikoff escape from a death trap, they fight Sharp, the fight destroys a gurbstickulous tree and Sharp gets splattered with sap, he apparently dies when his throat swells shut.

In the present, Sharp explains that he almost died but was saved by none other than Black Heron. FOWL had been watching the whole thing go down.
We get a flashback here, just so we get some Black Heron.

Zero and Blunt almost manage to escape on their own when Kay K shows up to free them. She even found the list. According to Sharp, there are no more copies because he wants to sell the only Master List, but to be sure Kay wiped his servers.
However, Blunt is not just here for the list. The agents on the list are already compromised anyway and the survivors have already been called back from their undercover jobs. He is here to catch Sharp or at least figure out how he got the list. Because if there is a mole in SHUSH, Blunt has to know.
So they keep investigating the place until they catch the eye of Steelbeak who recognizes Blunt from FOWL’s files on SHUSH. Kay K shows them a safe escape that she has found. Only that it isn’t safe at all. It is a trap.
Sharp is disappointed, he had hoped that Blunt would reveal more before he had to capture him again. Zero and Blunt are confused at first but then figure out that Kay K must have led them into the trap on purpose.
Sharp: “Of course. What do you think I hired her for? I mean, yes, the list will make me rich, but mainly I am after good old Derek. Coming out of retirement was a mistake.”
Sharp goes in to explain that he then ordered Kay to free them, maybe even let Zero escape completely, so she could remain his mole in SHUSH, but Steelbeak blundered into the situation and Red Primrose had to give up the ruse.
Well, Sharp can still get rid of Blunt now and sell the list, so it isn’t too bad an outcome.
Zero puts some other things together. The gold in Mouseton, Scrooge’s coins … yeah, all Kay K.
Sharp has a new idea now. Instead of killing Blunt and Zero himself, he will auction them off, too.

To be continued …

So ... the two stories need to get coordinated a little better, I think ... and maybe Black Heron should be in the past story more. Maybe that was also an auction and she was representing FOWL? Or maybe not an auction but Sharpe proposing some sort of alliance? I will have to work on this one a bit.

Chapter 6: S1/SHUSH/E05: The Salad Sea - Part Two

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105: The Salad Sea – Part Two

Flashback to Kay K’s thief training under her father, the famous cat burglar Abel Konnery. Then some successes as Red Primrose, finally Sharp hiring her. She manages to get into SHUSH with forged credentials and finally copies the coded list. She does indeed not know what it is, just as Xanatos guessed.
When she finds Agent Pigeon dead in the sewers, she is honestly shocked and begins to suspect that it might be her fault – which doesn’t stop her from taking the gold.
In Duckburg, she decides to lead SHUSH to Sharp and fakes the mail with the claw logo (the real one was anonymous). To place it, she has to get into Burke’s villa, so she has him hire Red Primrose.
Seducing Zero was mostly so he wouldn’t suspect her of actually being Red Primrose after she used the name. Mostly.

And now we get the auction. Burke and the Phantom Blot obviously don’t make it, Xanatos decides to stay away. We do have Steelbeak, Glomgold, Trader Moe (from TaleSpin, though he is older, obviously), a more anthropomorphic version of Fat Cat, the Spice Baron, maybe? Oh, and Doctor Vulter. A guy who looks suspiciously like Yama from Big Hero Six. Maybe the Rhyming Man from the Mickey Mouse comics. Mostly just faces to fill out the crowd.

The list is the last item to be auctioned, the agents come first. And Kay K does bid on them. Sharp is confused at what she wants with them. He lets her have Zero but takes Blunt off the menu.

After not having heard from the other for a while, Gabby and Bruno come in as reinforcement.

The whole thing becomes a weird game with varying alliances. After Steelbeak wins the bid, Bruno sides with him and Gabby is not sure if he is changing sides for real or if it is a ruse. In the end when Steelbeak flees after everything goes wrong, Bruno goes with him.

Kay K lets Zero go so he can free Blunt and we have a showdown. While Zero and Gabby are busy with various gangsters, Blunt fights Sharp. And this time, Sharp dies for real.

Kay K uses the distraction to steal the money paid in the auction and Vulter’s submarine, but Zero stops her and she is arrested.
Zero: “You just freed me so you could steal the money, didn’t you?”
Kay K. “Well, I also wanted you to save Blunt, but … yeah, that was the plan.”

Back in St. Canard, Blunt decides to hire Kay K yet again – she did help them out in the end, she promises she didn’t know that what she stole from SHUSH would endanger their agents’ lives and they do need capable agents like her. It is no different from hiring Gabby, Bruno or Mark. Zero can’t believe it and leaves.

Chapter 7: S1/SHUSH/E06: St. Canard

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Derek Blunt is writing his report about the whole case for 22. The surviving undercover agents have reported back and are coming. While Sharp has been stopped, the whole thing was still a disaster. Also, Bruno is not reporting back and neither is Zero.
Blunt is informed that the psychiatrist has arrived.

We cut to Frequency Fiend, who is confined in a room that is actually pretty luxurious for that of a teenager. We see the psychiatrist arrive, a short, black haired female duck who Frequency Fiend calls Dr. Sapphire. We get updated on FF’s progress – her personalities work completely in synch now and she has full control over her powers. She has not yet chosen a civilian name for herself.

Bruno comes back. He knows where the new FOWL headquarter is now. Blunt admonishes him for abandoning them on the island but admits that this is useful information. Now the question is, should they infiltrate the HQ or just tell the government and have the military storm it?
Blunt decides to leave that decision to 22 and tries to contact her. But all communication with the outside appears to be disabled.
Outside, the former undercover agents find that they can’t get in, even though Dr. Sapphire just left without issue.
Blunt discovers that someone has taken over the lighthouse’ systems. It is … Black Heron? No, just Black Heron’s prerecorded messages for intruders. Must be an automated system, right?
But he can’t leave his office. Well, not easily. He is Derek Blunt, he has his ways.

Meanwhile, Frequency Fiend finds her door open. She goes to find a way out of the lighthouse.

Kay K is still in a holding cell. She is rehired, but Blunt doesn’t want her just walk around for now, so she lives there. When the door automatically locks, she thinks Blunt changed his mind about her. Time to break out. Nothing that Red Primrose can’t do.

Gabby and Bruno are in her private quarters in a scene that probably wouldn’t fly in a show for children but is still sfw. Afterwards when Gabby notices that things are weird, Bruno assures her that everything is going as planned. And indeed, all doors open for him.

Blunt and Kay K meet in the hallways and accuse each other of having caused this. When both ensure that they didn’t to anything to activate this system, they go to see Mark Beaks. He should be able to solve that.

Only that Mark is behind everything. He found that old FOWL program and kept it as a failsafe. He trusted Bruno with the information. Now Bruno told him to activate it. Mark has full control over the lighthouse.

Outside, the agents are attacked by Eggheads. Most escape, some are killed. Steelbeak approaches. Mark lets him in. Kay K and Blunt try to stop him, but, but Beaks is protected by a force field – not part of the original equipment but a design Beaks stole from Gyro Gearloose.
Bruno and Gabby come in and Gabby gets the full picture.

One of the surviving agents, let’s say Black B, goes right to Zero’s home. Here is where we get his civilian name, Axel Alpha. Zero is not surprised to hear that things are going wrong. He refuses to help at first, but is finally convinced.

Inside, everyone has met up. Steelbeak has taken control. Bruno von Beak and Mark Beaks are on his side. Frequency Fiend has no interest in joining FOWL, working for Negaduck was bad enough. She just wants out. Gabby agrees. Kay K and Derek Blunt are prisoners, so is other staff of the lighthouse. Steelbeak does offer Kay K a job in FOWL and she takes it. But he is too clever to just let her out now, it might be a trick.

Black B and Zero manage to sneak in and the situation devolves into chaos.
Frequency Fiend escapes with Gabby’s help, Bruno does not like that and we get a fight between him and Gabby.
Steelbeak intends to execute Blunt, but Kay K gets free and saves him. During the fight the force field gets damaged and Zero apprehends Beaks.
Gabby ends up stabbing Bruno. It looks fatal, but he is an alien clone, so we can’t know for sure. He falls from the lighthouse into the sea, apparently deliberately. Steelbeak escapes. Some Eggheads escape, some are captured. We don’t see any actually die, but several are hurt. Zero and Kay K have a talk and he comes to the conclusion that SHUSH is a total clusterf*ck and he is out permanently. She can’t just have him go with all her secrets, he needs to have his memory wiped or something. We have one last, rather halfhearted, fight, then he just leaves.

We get an appearance of 22, Mark Beaks and the other prisoners are taken away to prison, young genius Gizmo gets Mark’s job.

Axel Alpha is approached by Steelbeak.
Steelbeak: “Hey, I think we have a few things in common.”

So …
This is where the SHUSH story ends for now, next week will explore a different corner of that universe. Sapphire is only here for a bit to update us on Frequency Fiend. She will get a proper introduction next week in “Darkwing Duck”. As you may guess, that is also where we follow up on Frequency Fiend, Bruno von Beak and Steelbeak.
As for SHUSH as a whole … we will see.

Chapter 8: S1/Xadhoom!/E01: Birth

Chapter Text

This is a different style than we have seen so far. Might be CGI. Might even be a lot of live-action with just CGI creatures and sometimes backgrounds.
The planet Xerba. A bunch of green skinned scientists watch the launch of their experimental rocket with a brand new energy source. Everything goes as planned, the pilot reports back that the engine works in the expected parameters. Time to celebrate. We meet Xado and Xari, two of the scientists and a couple. And then the pilot reports something unexpected – an alien space ship.
The pilot lands the rocket. The alien ship lands, too. It is purple and shaped a bit like a duck’s head. The technology reminds us of the machine in the volcano in “Operation Junior Woodchucks”.
The beak opens. Flanked by two soldiers, the commander comes out. The aliens are tall and have duck bills. The soldiers are purple, the commander is pitch black and wears a robe.
“I am General Zondag of the Evronian Empire. We come in peace.”
The Evronians are not supposed to come of as threatening here. For someone who doesn’t know better, this could look like the ending of “Star Trek: First Contact”. But we do know better.

Timeskip:
The Evronians have an embassy on Xerba. They share technology with Xerba and Xado is working on something based on that. Xari is not happy with the situation. Xado thinks it is because she is spending too much time at work, but actually he distrusts the Evronians. We see the Evronians bringing in more great projects, lead by an Evronian scientist named Gorthan (one of the purple ones). Among other things they want to drill to the planet’s core to gove Xerba a new source of free energy. Xari is not sure if that is safe. (Another project that we see are the spores that are supposed to grow into big edible fungi to feed all of Xerba.)
Xado: “If you want an alternative you should help me with my cold fusion project. But I need to study the sun more closely to conclude it.”
Xari: “But all the pilots are in the new space program.”
Xado: “Then I will fly myself.”
Xari: “No you won’t. You are only cleared for aircraft, not spacecraft.”
They have a fight and in the end Xari has Xado’s project shot down. She is not willing to give up.
In the night, she breaks into the space center and steals a small ship. She flies it to the sun, escaping Evronian patrols. Her experiment seems to work, she gets all the data – then her ship is hit by a shot and crashes on the sun.

For a moment, we just see sun surface and flares. Than she emerges. Red skin. Segmented body. And for some reasons with a flaming mohawk.
Xado rises into space under her own power. This is fantastic. She soots some energy blasts. She feels like a new being.

So …
Yeah, part one of the origin story for a character who has seemingly nothing to do with what is otherwise going on in the Disney Afternoon Universe.
The next episode will conclude the origin.

Chapter 9: S1/Xadhoom!/E02: Death

Chapter Text

We see the scene where Xado emerges from the sun and tries out her powers again. Then we pan out and notice that, while it looked for us like she was only submerged in the sun for seconds, it must have been longer, since the system looks different, being full of evronian ships and bases.

Xado returns to Xerba and can already see from a distance that something is terribly wrong. Forests are missing, the oceans are smaller, the weather is erratic. Coming closer she finds lots of evronian buildings, drill sites, artificial volcanoes (and here we see the machine from Operation Junior Woodchucks again, confirmation that the Evronians have been on earth). Barely any native flora grows, what is growing are the evronian fungi – but their fruits don’t appear to be for eating, instead soldiers hatch from them to be loaded onto ships.
There are barely any Xerbians and the few that are left seem mindless and have cold, blue flames on their heads.
And all the energy won is used to charge giant batteries on ships that come and go.
Xado destroys a few evronian buildings, then finds the headquarter. She just storms in and confronts General Zondag. He is fascinated by her. He explains that the Evronian Empire needs a constant flow of energy, so they use everything they can get. Sometimes a planet is inhabited, like Xerba, but that’s good, because new workers are also always needed. The Xerbians are fine, most of them are fulfilling their new function in the empire.
Xado doesn’t buy that bullsh*t and demands the planet and the inhabitants to be restored. Zondag says that isn’t possible. Xado attacks. She incinerates wave after wave of soldiers, but Zondag says those are just spore soldiers, completely expendable.
The soldiers buy enough time that Gorthan can come in and capture Xado in a forcefield.

We have a time skip. Gorthan is studying Xado in his lab. He concludes that she basically has the energy of a sun. She could be very useful for the empire. Maybe with her, they won’t need to conquer planets anymore. Xado points out that they could just use less energy. They don’t need all these ships and drone soldiers and such. They expand their empire because they want to, not because they actually need to.
Gorthan: “You are probably right. But that’s for the Emperor to decide, I am just following orders.”
The experiments go on for a while. Later, Gorthan is called to a different project and Zondag takes over to figure out military uses for Xado.
At some point, he talks about trying to make more Xerbians into mini-suns like her, but after turning them into coolflames, so they are completely obedient.
Xado knows she has to escape and destroy all the research before that happens. So she explodes. Literally. Zondag is incinerated, the lab destroyed. The explosion leaves a giant crater.
Xado emerges from the crater, she didn’t expect to survive. Then she sees magma erupting from the heat converters. The ground shakes and giant fissures appear. The Evronians are in panic and flee. Several escape, many do not. Xado flies off and sees Xerba crack open, the whole surface swallowed by the molten inside.
She decides that the Evronians owe her a world. And she will make them pay. She is the creditor. Or in xerbian: Xadhoom!

So ...
That concludes the origin. Yes, I killed Zondag of, I don't really need him anymore. But Gorthan is still out there.

Chapter 10: S1/Xadhoom!/E03: Search

Chapter Text

Xadhoom follows the Evronian’s trail, destroying many of their smaller ships on the way. Finally, she makes it to one of their space stations. She hopes to find information there, so she tries to infiltrate it. The first challenge is getting inside, because they won’t open an airlock if there is no ship. And just making a hole in the wall would certainly raise the alarm.
Finally, she finds a way through an exhaust port, damaging the station’s power generator only a little.
She sneaks through the corridors, finding a lot of Coolflames, but no Xerbians among them. She finds a computer terminal and tries to get information. Most is easy to access, but searching for Gorthan does not bring up a lot, especially not where he is now or what he is working on. It does tell her that he is a member of the Imperial Council, though. And that is on the Evronian homeworld, Evron.
The coordinates are there, but Xadhoom doesn’t understand them. She doesn’t know which reference points the Evronians use, because she never paid attention to the space program.
Then she finds out what this space station does. Proto-Coolflames, who were temporarily enslaved by the Evronian’s weapons, are brought here to be turned into Coolflames permanently.
Xadhoom finds the facility and sees that a bunch of different aliens area about to be turned. She destroys the equipment, giving herself away. A fight ensues. Xadhoom manages to get the Proto-Coolflames onto a ship before she destroys the station.
Great. Now she can only hope that they will turn back to normal soon and at least one of them can fly an evronian ship. Until then, she will be busy shooting down Evronian fighters who are coming for them.
When everyone is restored, it turns out that none of them can fly the ship, but one of them knows who to call for help. His queen – Tia. She knows the Evronians well and might be able to help Xadhoom, too.

So …
Here we have another connection to the wider Disney Afternoon Universe. Tia didn’t show up yet, but Launchpad has mentioned an alien queen on Darkwing Duck. We will meet her in the next episode.

Chapter 11: S1/Xadhoom!/E04: Shelter

Chapter Text

The escape ship is drifting in space, aimlessly. Then, a classic flying saucer shows up and tows them with a tractor beam. To a fleet of flying saucers, led by a gigantic one. The gigantic saucer just swallowa the smaller one and the escape ship. Xadhoom emerges and sees a bunch of small, ducklike creatures. She is alarmed – their beaks look a lot like evronian beaks, but they seem peaceful.
After a few scenes in various parts of the ship, we meet Queen Tia who welcomes the refugees.
And we are getting backstory.
A long time ago, Tia’s people lived on a planet. They had perfected bioengineering, being able to clone whole people but also single organs and even create what are basically biological robots, a workforce with no brainfunctions except basic maintenance and following programmed tasks but organic bodies.
And then the Evronians came. They were peaceful at first, interested in the cloning technology. But as soon as they had it, they used it to create soldiers. They took over the planet. Some of Tia’s people escaped into space. They have been living as nomads for a few centuries now, since every time they settled down, the Evronians found them. People who have escaped from the Evronians are always welcome, there a quite a few in the fleet by now.
Any Xerbians?, Xadhoom wants to know.
No. But they did have a strange encounter some time ago. A damaged evronian ship, taken over by Xerbians. They offered them to join the fleet, but they had another destination, a planet that the Evronians had already visited and declared worthless, according to the ship’s databank.
Tia gives Xadhoom the coordinates. Xadhoom wonders what to do. She could go there, live with her people. Or she could keep fighting the Evronians.
Then a fleet of evronian warships shows up. They are hailed – by Gorthan.
Gorthan: “We don’t care about you or your people anymore, Queen Tia. We just want the Xerbian.”
Tia: “I don’t have any Xerbian in this fleet.”
Gorthan: “Well, either you are carrying a proto-star that is already on the verge to becoming a full star, which would be rather foolish, or Xado is on your ship.”
Xadhoom, stepping into view of the camera: “My name is Xadhoom!”
Gorthan: “Creditor? Interesting. Now, Queen Tia, it would be in your own best interest to just hand Xadhoom over to us.”
Tia: “That is not a decision I can make.”
Xadhoom: “Just let me outside. I can deal with a few warships.”
Gorthan: “Maybe. But how many of Queen Tia’s ships can we destroy before you manage that? Are you willing to sacrifice all those people? And, think about it, if we are able to harness your energy, we don’t even have to conquer planets anymore. It would be a win-win situation.”
Another Evronian comes into view.
This one is even taller than most of them, his skin and cloth have the same deep shade of red. From under his cloak emerges a tail topped by a second, one-eyed head.
And this head speaks: “Enough. Either the Xerbian gives herself up or we attack in five minutes.”
Tia: “We don’t negotiate with the likes of you, Zotnam.”
Zotnam: “Fine. No countdown then. Fire!”
The warships start their attack. Xadhoom interrupts. She will give herself up.

She goes outside and one of the warships lets her in. She is immediately trapped in a force field.
Gorthan explains that this is the kind of force field that they use to contain nuclear explosions. She won’t escape the same way as last time again.
Zotnam suggests attacking Tia’s fleet anyway to get a bunch of new Coolflames, but Gorthan reminds him that he promised Tia to leave him alone. Zotnam is clearly the higher ranking one, but he gives in. This time.

The last thing we see in this episode is a shot of the planet Evron. Surprisingly, it looks just as bad as Xerba.

So …
We are introdcing Queen Tia here. Her part of this story is over, but we will see her again. Xadhoom is imprisoned again, but, well, that can’t stop her. There is one last piece to put on the board for the finale.

Chapter 12: S1/Xadhoom!/E05: Community

Chapter Text

We see two alternating stories here.
One is about a the Xerbians who escaped before becoming Coolflames and settled on a planet that the Evronians ignore because it is poor in ressources. It is important but not that interesting.
The real meat of the episode is in the other story, the story of Ur-Evron.
This story opens in a place that looks alien, but is also kinda familiar. There are Evronians, but they are a bit different from the ones we have seen before. It all looks a bit bronze age, but not realistic …
And here is Ur-Evron, conan-esk barbarian hero, a purple Evronian. He was hired to slay the monster plaguing the area. Mainly for the reward the king offered. And so he scales the mountain and descends into the cave, dealing with some bandits on the way and finally facing the monster.
It is big and red and has several heads that kinda resemble Zotnam’s second head – the mouth is not a beak, but it does have the single eye and the horns.
It talks, calling itself the Alpha Spore, and tries to bribe and intimidate Ur-Evron, but he eventually slays it, destroying or chopping off the heads one by one.
After he has won, he takes one head, split in in the middle, as prove and tries to leave – but we see another head rise behind him.

Next, Ur-Evron, now wearing a suspiciously wide cloak, brings the head to the king, one of the deep black Evronians. Once he gets close enough, he kills the king and takes the throne. Guards attack him, but he has supporters who come to his aid, apparently the king was not well-liked.
He proclaims the end of tyranny and that they will go on and free all the other countries to unite the planet.
Only when we see him alone, at the end, we see that the Alpha Spore’s last remaining head has attached itself to him and is influencing him.

Xadhoom, in a mobile cell that is dampening her powers, is brought before Emperor Evron. Evron looks a lot like Zotnam, with the red skin and the second head. But he is way bigger.

So …
I just had to bring in this weird bit of Evronian lore, even though I didn’t use it even remotely comic accurate.
Next episode is the big finale.

Chapter 13: S1/Xadhoom!/E06: Rebirth

Chapter Text

The Emperor orders Gorthan to figure out how to replicate Xadhooms experiment with Coolflames. Then, he says, they will have enough power to conquer the rest of the galaxy.
Gorthan: “But with that much power we don’t need to conquer the rest of the galaxy, do we?”
Emperor: “Do you decide what the Empire does or doesn’t need?”
Gorthan: “Of course not.”

So, Gorthan does his experiments and finally decides to use a mind probe on Xadhoom in order to see Xado’s experiment first hand.
He tries to justify it, but Xadhoom keeps poking holes in all his arguments, pointing out that not only is putting the Evronian’s needs over those of everyone else not something he can justify, but also that it is pointless, because the Evronians are apparently dying out themselves, replaced more and more by the spore soldiers.
Gorthan goes through with using the mind probe anyway. He sees Xadhooms memories, makes a few experiments and comes to a conclusion – he can’t use the process on Coolflames. He has to us unaltered Xerbians.
When he reports to Zotnam, Zotnam starts threatening him if he doesn’t find a way and Gorthan lets slip that he saw something else in Xadhooms memory – some Xerbians who escaped and even the coordinates of their new home.
Zotnam reports to the Emperor. The Emperor decides to try something that he has planned for a long time and that they finally have the energy source for.
Xadhoom notices the energy dampeners in her cell being turned off. Before she can do anything, a different machine activates, siphoning power off her.
And the whole planet changes. Some giant buildings open, revealing themselves to be engines. Evron is not a planet anymore. It’s a space ship.
An alarm tells all the Evronians to get inside, as the atmosphere will not last at the speed they will need. Not everyone makes it.
The emperor flies Evron to New Xerba. Immediately the planet latches to the system’s star, siphoning mass and power from that, too.
The Emperor orders Gorthan and Zotnam to fly down to New Xerba and give an ultimatum. The Xerbians can join the Empire and serve the Emperor without even becoming Coolflames or they die when their sun is spent.

Gorthan apologizes to Xadhoom. She is having none of it.
Xadhoom: “You aren’t sorry for what you did, just for how it turned out. But even if anything went as you envisioned it, you would still be the villain.”
Gorthan: “I don’t know what to say. I can’t do more than apologize.”
Xadhoom: “Of course you can’t. Are there civilians on this planet?”
Gorthan: “What? Well … a few …”
Xadhoom: “They should leave.”
Gorthan gets out.

Gorthan and Zotnam get to New Xerba for negotiations. They don’t go well and the sun dies. It still has enough mass to hold the planet for now, but it is cold.
Xadhoom tries to break out, but it doesn’t work. There is only one thing she can do. She has seen Gorthan’s results, she is a scientist herself, she is reasonably sure that it could work.
Xadhoom accelarates the reaction in her body, burning everything at once.

On New Xerba, Xerbians and Evronians see Evron engulfed by an explosion, leaving behind a new sun.
Gorthan: “Xadhoom.”
We probably get a shot of the Emperor burning, the tail head screaming.
Gorthan and Zotnam see the planet and the nearest ships destroyed, it is just them and a few soldiers confronted with with a whole settlement of Xerbians. They retreat.

We have two epilogues.
One is Zotnam becoming the new Emperor and Gorthan deciding to leave with a small shuttle that he can man alone.
The other is the Xerbians naming their new sun “Xadhoom”.

So …
It could not end any other way.
Of course that means Xadhoom has never been to earth and has never met Donald.
But … if you have read PKNE, the current Duck Avenger series, you know that there is still a chance ...

For now, though, this story is over. And next time we are getting into some ... Legendary Adventures.

Chapter 14: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E01

Chapter Text

Ithaquack. But it looks somewhat different than in DuckTales. It is clearly the same island, but has different buildings and vegetation. In fact, it has a city. Inhabited by people, ducks and dogs, mostly. Until they are turned into non-anthropomorphic pigs.
Circe is in the palace, fighting her old enemy Odysseus and his son Telemachos.

We see that a so far unknown character is watching this in … say a a shield.
Storkules comes in, asking his sister why she called for him.
She explains that Circe is taking over Ithaquack and she can’t really do anything because she already helped Odysseus against Circe the last time and Circe’s father, the titan Helios, wouldn’t let her do it a second time. The only one who is left to free Ithaquack right now is Odysseus’ nephew Homer, who is currently not home.
Storkules: “So, I go get him?”
Athena (because of course it is her): “Correct.”
That obviously needs more dialogue, but the point is that Storkules and Homer are on the way to Ithaquack, meeting various old (from “Home Sweet Homer”) and new characters inspired by greek myth. I can see Ariel not being Homer’s wife yet in this version but someone they pick up on the way, alongside some others. Maybe have minotaur.
(I thought about having time-traveling Brooklyn here, but that’s probably too much.)
After a decent Odyssey, comes a showdown against Circe. And in this version, we can have her actually kill people. Odysseus dies for sure (or might be already dead when they arrive), I am not so sure about Telemachos. In any case it ends with Homer in the throne, no doubt.
Circe can die or not, it isn’t really important.

Her amulet is important and it has to be taken from her.

So …
This episode’s plot is not that interesting, actually. It is mostly about one thing: What does it look like when Storkules is actually in his element? Also it is a chance to see some characters from the original DuckTales that didn’t make it into the reboot.

Parallel Episodes: The half season finales of Darkwing Duck and Operation Junior Woodchucks (of season 3 and 2, respectively) and the season finale of GoofTroop season 2.

Chapter 15: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E02

Chapter Text

We are opening in a bar. It looks like medieval Europe. The guy sitting at the bar and drinking beer, a not clearly identifiable bird of prey, appears to be a knight. In fact, his clothes look familiar …
An old woman rushes towards him.
“Igthorn! There you are!”
Duke Igthorn: “Should I know you?”
Turns out it is Lady Bane and Igthorn is appropriately shocked by her appearance. She blames the Gummi Bears, because of course she does.
Turns out this is Igthorn after (a version of) the series finale. He lost his castle and, as a result of that, his army.
What he has, though, is a page of the Great Book. Only that he can’t do anything with it, since he doesn’t have a gummi bear medaillon. But Lady Bane has one …
Igthorn wants to attack the Gummi Bears with spells, but Lady Bane knows that all the spells in the Great Book have a built-in failsafe and can’t be used against Gummi Bears.
But there are probably some spells on that page that can be useful in other ways.

Cut to Storkules, who is wrestling a sea monster. Let’s just use the winged snake. It appears to be a friendly match, after Storkules wins he just lets the snake go and the snake doesn’t even flee immediately. It might even carry him to the shore.
Storkules goes to Dunwyn where we learn why he is here – he heard that Drekmore is full of monsters and just wants to fight some. Cavin (what animal should he be?) hears him talk about that with the knights, who think he must be crazy.
Also thinking that someone should keep an eye on that guy, he informs both the Gummi Bears and Princess Calla.

Meanwhile, Igthorn and Lady Bane meet with Toadwart, who questions why the ogres should side with Igthorn again – he doesn’t have anything to offer. Lady Bane answers by putting a spell on Toadwart. We don’t see the result yet …

Cavin is accompanying Storkules to Drekmore. Storkules reveals that he had quite a lot of … well, “what you call squires these days” over the years. Starting with his nephew Iolaus. When he easily catches a boulder thrown by a living mountain, Cavin starts to suspect that he is dealing with THE Storkules.
Gruffi, Cubbi, Sunni and Calla are watching them from a distance and are suddenly ambushed by … well, it resembles an ogre, but bigger and more feral.
(Here we have a weird problem – we have seen in DuckTales that gummi berry juice works on anthropomorphic animals as it does on Gummi Bears. So, right now, the ogres should be the only ones that gain super strength from it, Calla can’t just drink it and deal with this monster. But bouncing should mostly do the job.)
Storkules and Cavin of course notice the fight and come to help. Together, they deal with the ogre who finally gives up. And they recognize the voice.
Cubbi: “Todie? What happened to you?”
Gruffi: “Wait, if the same happens to the other ogres …”
And now they come. When Toadie became bigger than an ordinary ogre, the normal sized ogres were turned into giants by the same spell.
Gruffi: “Cubbi, get Zummi. This has to be some sort of magic.”
After Cubbi leaves, Duke Igthorn and Lady Bane arrive, riding on an ogre’s shoulders. Lady Bane also has her Troggles, who are ogre sized now.

In Gummi Glen (still under repairs), Cubbi has just told Zummi what happened. Grammi and Gusto are also there (wow, this episode is getting crowded). Zummi recognizes the spell and looks into the Great Book – yeah, the page is missing. Igthorn must have taken it.
Since King Gregor knows about them now, there is an easy way for the Gummis to help defend Dunwyn, though: Grammi immediately goes about making juice for all the knights.

And so comes the battle for Dunwyn. There is probably a lot of back and forth here that I can’t all write out. In culminates in the Gummis fighting Igthorn for the page (that Zummi needs to undo the spell) while Cavin, Calla and Storkules deal with Lady Bane. Having memorized the spell, Lady Bane turns herself into a giant.
Storkules ends up taking Lady Banes medaillon, the Gummis get the page back and Zummi undoes the spell, turning all the Ogres and Troggles and Lady Bane back to normal.
The ogres leave Igthorn again, Igthorn and Bane are actually arrested by the knights this time.

We have some denouement where everyone is brought on the same page and Storkules declares that he fought enough monsters for a while and will go back to Ithaquack.

So …
Yeah, this is mostly a Gummi Bear episode. Storkules is only here to tie the whole thing to the other episodes. Because some elements from this one will come back, of course …

Parallel Episodes: None, because the other shows are on hiatus.

Chapter 16: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E03

Chapter Text

We are opening with a character who resembles Crownus. Clearly a titan. Storkules comes in, calling her Hekate and asking why she called him.
Hekate: “You know that I was part of other pantheons before I became one of your gods.”
Storkules: “Yes … I think I heard about that.”
Hekate: “Well, back in my Sumerian days, a magic amulet was created in my honor. It got lost, was later found and then stolen by the Romans because the Romans steal everything. Right now it is in the possession of an Italian family of witches.”
Storkules: “And you want it back?”
Hekate: “You know, I am the goddess of witchcraft, among other things. I won’t just take power away from a witch. But the De Spells have been trouble for a while now and right now, there is an opening.”
Storkules: “What kind of opening?”
Hekate: “The amulet is given to the next generation. For that purpose it is put in a magical labyrinth full of traps and trials. The one of the De Spell youth who gets it, will keep it. But right now it has no owner, which means I can take it.”
Storkules: “So, why do you need me?”
Hekate: “As you know I am the only titan still holding a godly title after your father’s revolution. I am not going to risk that by showing up on earth in person.”
Storkules: “So, the usual.”

And now we are getting some De Spells. Teenage Magica and Poe, obviously, but also their grandmother Caraldina and their aunt Donata and uncle Gino, who raised them (I am going with the Danish/Italian background that says that Magica’s parents vanished in a magical accident when she was still a child, though I am not taking much else from that story, “Once Upon a Sorceress”.) and some cousins, including the dim-witted Rosolio. And other relatives who are not important. The twins and their cousins are the ones who are competing for the Sumerian Talisman here.
Each one is dead-set on getting their hands on it, except maybe Rosolio, who isn’t that ambitious.
They enter the labyrinth.
Of course, so does Storkules.

What we get now is a bunch of traps and trials, just as announced, loosely based on the Italian comic The Great Rock of Power-Plus!, where Magica and her family deal with a similar place. Various competitors meet and are separated, alliances vary – Storkules works with Rosolio for a while, believing him that he doesn’t want the amulet but Rosolio later sides with Magica (though he isn’t much help for either.)
In the end, Magica and Poe only make it to the Talisman together. It is Storkules who inadvertently gives them the idea to split it in two and both use it.
Storkules has lost this fight.

Grandma Caraldina is not happy with this outcome, but she doesn’t fight it. So there are two heirs now, it will sort itself out.
Hekate is even less happy, but she knows there will be another chance. It is not that one more generation of De Spells having her talisman will make much of a difference, right?

So …

Yeah, I wanted to do some De Spell family. I used mostly italian characters (because there aren’t that many others, except for Magica’s various nieces who, of course, wouldn’t exist yet). I also kept the Italian names, because, well, they ARE canonically Italian. And the only two I could find in english translations at all are Rosolio (same name) and Caraldina (just as “Granny De Spell”), so I am not breaking any tradition.
Also, you might have noticed a common element in all the episodes by now.

Parallel episodes: Again, none.

Chapter 17: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E04: Crypt of the Chaos God

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Rome. Storkules has been there a lot, in fact, he is looking at a recently unearthed temple to himself together with a group of tourists. Among the tourists are two who stand out – Lord John Lamont Quackett and Dolly Duck.
Not only are they ridiculously overdressed for tourists, Lord Quackett is also a remarkable klutz who manages to almost stumble into the statue of Storkules. The security guard responsible for the temple tries to stop him, but Storkules is faster. Now all eyes are on him – right beside the a pretty good statue of himself.
Of course, nobody believes that he is actually Storkules … or maybe someone considers it.
Suddenly, there is someone else in the temple. A tall female duck in a catsuit has snuck in. She uses the distraction Storkules caused to take the security guard’s keys, then she runs off.
Storkules runs after her, but she surprisingly vanishes after running around a corner.
Storkules keeps searching for a bit, then he is suddenly ambushed by another, shorter female duck in a different costume.
Lady Paprika: “Where did Saffron go?”
Storkules: “I didn’t no saffron could walk.”
Paprika: “Don’t act stupid. Where did your accomplice go with the keys?”
Storkules: “I’m here alone.”
Phantomallard, the Duck Avenger, later joins, reporting he couldn’t find Lady Saffron. They keep questioning Storkules and come to the conclusion that he only provided a distraction by accident.
Storkules points out that that was technically the fault of the guy who almost stumbled into the statue.
(The implication is that Lord Quackett intended to steal the keys when the security guard stops him from crashing into the statue, but Storkules messed that up.)
Phantomallard: “No big deal. We know what she needs the keys for, so we will simply expect her at the museum.”
Storkules: “You are trying to stop a thief?”
Paprika: “An evil alchemist, to be precise.”
Storkules: “I can help with that.”
Phantomallard: “You are the real Storkules, aren’t you.”
Storkules: “Um … yes. Who else would I be?”
Paprika: “We have dealt with immortals before.”

[If you haven’t yet, this would be the point to read my story “Hunt for the Jade Fox”. There will be spoilers in this episode.]

That night, Lady Saffron does indeed break into a museum, needing the keys to turn off security and open a specific glass case. Of course Phantomallard and Lady Paprika are expecting her. Of course she is expecting them. She is not expecting Storkules, though.
We get a fight, but Lady Saffron escapes with the contents of the glass case.
Phantomallard: “Great. Now our only chance is to find Baroness von Sheldgoose and find out what she wants with that … thing.”
Storkules: “That was the Medal of Janus. It’s two sides stand for ending and beginning. Some believe that it can be used to resurrect the dead.”
Lady Paprika: “But who would the Baroness want to bring back?”

Cut to a hotel room. Lady Saffron is climbing the wall and knocking on a window. An older sheldgoose opens.
Saffron: “The amulet, as promised.”
Sheldgoose: “Then here is your money.”
We then see the inside of the hotel room. Lady Saffron gets a glimpse into it, too. There is a map pinned to the wall, with one place marked. Written beside it is “Tomb of Solego”.

The next day. We see Lord Quackett and Dolly Duck trying to get close to Baroness von Sheldgoose without raising suspicion. (At this point it should be obvious for every viewer who they are.) Storkules is standing a bit back. Suddenly someone who we might recognize as Lady Saffron out of costume “accidentally” walks into him, apologizes and wanders of. A tickling feeling reveals him to expect his tunic and finding a piece of paper (he doesn’t have pockets). He shows it to Lord Quackett.
Quackett: “I guess Lady Saffron is as loyal as usual. She got paid, now she wants us to stop her employer from doing something catastrophic. Let’s see … who is Solego?”
Some research tells them about Solego what we already know. Also, that he is buried in rome.

Confrontation at the crypt. Thanks to some magic tools, the Baroness makes it inside anyway. She opens the coffin and … it’s empty.
“What? No! I was supposed to raise the Chaos God!”
Angrily, she throws the medaillon to the floor. And some reaction is caused. The coffin does something weird, seems to turn into a portal. Storkules grabs the amulet and that also seems to do something. From the coffin comes – another Storkules?
NegaStorkules: “What is going on here?”

Yeah, that one immediately turns against everyone, we have another fight here. Baroness von Sheldgoose escapes while the two Storkules are fighting. The fight seems to go nowhere as they are equally strong, but Phantomallard and Lady Paprika manage to figure out how to send the other Storkules back.

Phantomallard: “Whatever that was, it should not happen again. We should take that coffin apart and keep the medal in a safe place.”
Storkules: “You don’t want to give it back to the museum?”
Phantomallard: “So that it can be stolen again? No, this should stay hidden. The museum can have a good replica, I know a guy for that.”
Paprika: “Leaves the question – if Solego is not in his coffin, where is he?”

So …
Yeah, some stuff. Original Duck Avenger from the Italian comics, obviously. Also Baroness von Sheldgoose is one of Baron von Sheldgoose’ ancestors seen in “Legend of the Three Caballeros”. That whole show is obviously in a different universe, but so are the comics.
Medal of Janos is mine. I have no idea if it can really revive the dead, but it can apparently summon your opposite doppelganger (with a little help from Solego), which is also fitting a two-faced god.
Also, I just couldn’t resist having a version of the Sovereign. Maybe I can get Xena somewhere, too.

Parallel Episodes: None.

Chapter 18: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E05

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We are opening with a song. A Three Caballeros song. We have reached the present day, or at least the recent past. Storkules is in Duckburg.
Some dialogue establishes that we are somewhere in DuckTales season 3, after New Gods on the Block. Yes, Daisy is in this, too.
Later, Gizmoduck reacts to a break-in at the museum. The McDuck hall. And he finds some guy that people who have seen the DuckTales movie will recognize. It’s Merlock. At first he is no opponent for Gizmoduck, but as soon as he puts on the medaillon he just took from a glass case, he turns into a rat and escapes.
Storkules has a feeling of dread and asks Duckworth (because Scrooge is out with the boys and Webby) was that was.
„Mr. McDuck acquired it in the eighties or nineties, but strangely, I can’t remember the exact circ*mstances. I think it belonged to some sorcerer or something, but when Mr. McDuck found that it didn’t do anything, he stopped paying it any mind.”
I am not sure how Storkules and the Three Caballeros get on Merlock’s trail but they do. Turns out the talisman alone doesn’t do much, it just amplifies other magic, like the shapeshifting power Merlock got from a djinnie.
Or they don’t find them, he comes to them, because he is searching for the Other Bin. That’s better.
Because that way we get a comedic shapeshifter battle that Storkules and the Caballeros can win, but Merlock can still escape with his talisman.

Parallel Episodes: Well, certainly one at the tail end of DuckTales S3, but we don’t learn which one.

Chapter 19: S1/The Legendary Adventures of Storkules/E06

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We are starting with Faris Djinn who is in a forested area. He meets with a cloaked figure.
Djinn: “So … you are the legal heir of Gummi Glenn?”
Figure: “Indeed. The last of the alchemists of Dunwyn who were gifted Gummi Glenn when the bears left.”
Djinn takes a Gummi Bear medallion from his pocket, but hesitates.
Djinn: “Do you have anything to verify your claim?”
Figure: “How about – this?”
The figure turns into a falcon with a familiar pattern and snatches the medallion. Djinn tries to catch it, but fails.

The Villa Rosa at night. A snake, again familiar pattern and amulet, sneaks in but trips a silent alarm. Not to much later, the Duck Avenger appears (it is June this time). She inspects the cellar and finds a hidden safe broken open. We see some artifacts in there, including the jade fox, but not the Medal of Janus.
June: “Who in the world …”

We finally go to Stokules who is getting the news. Athena herself tells him that Circe’s amulet is missing from Ithaquack. And she knows who did it. Merlock. So, Storkules goes find him.
He obviously goes to Duckburg first, because he knows there are people who are good at finding things.
In Duckburg, cleanup after Johnny Tyrannos’ rampage is still going on. Djinn is there, also searching help, so Storkules learns about the Gummi Bear medallion. And when the break-in at Villa Rosa is mentioned, he asks for the Medal of Janus, which isn’t there anymore.
Djinn’s description of the bird is the last hint he needs – obviously it is all Merlock.
Violet provides an explanation. If Merlock’s on amulet works as an amplifier, he might try to collect fitting artifacts to make a powerful talisman. The Gummi Bear medallion for example allows people to use magic when they are not magical themselves, while the Medal of Janus is an instrument for conjuring and Circe’s amulet for general spellcasting. The thing he is still missing is a power source. Something like … Magica’s sumerian talisman.
Storkules goes to visit Magica in the swamp and he comes at the right time, because Merlock is there, trying to get Magica to cooperate with them. It does not work and he loses his patience. Storkules and Magica have to work together to keep the talisman out of Merlock’s hands.
Merlock does get his hands on Poe, though.
He threatens to kill Poe if Magica doesn’t give him the talisman. She refuses – and Merlock actually goes through with it, turning Poe into a pile of ash.
He uses Magica’s following desperation to get past her and grab the talisman. With everything he needs, he creates his floating castle from the movie.

And now we get the big teamup. Storkules, Magica, Djinn, the Duck Avenger (June), Donald. And of course they manage to get the amulets away from Merlock bringing him back to normal and finally imprisoning him.

In the stinger, we see Poe, duck again, in the underworld.
Poe: “So, I guess I am dead. Well, at least I am myself again.”
Circe: “Tell me about it.”

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3/E14, Operation Junior Woodchucks S2/E14.

Chapter 20: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E01: Rain

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In cloaked figure is riding through the night. The style is different again, more detailed but also more painterly than we see in DuckTales or Darkwing Duck.
They reach a small village and go straight for the house that obviously a sorcerer's.
After knocking, the door is answered by none other than Mickey Mouse.
The visitor turns out to be Peg-Leg Pete, asking for help from the Yen Sid, the greatest wizard in all of Dolmen.
Mickey: “I am sorry, my master is out. In fact, he hasn’t been home for months.”
Pete explains that his home, Spoonerville, needs help badly. They are suffering from a terrible drought.
Mickey admits that Yen Sid left the Diamagic of Rain behind, but he is not supposed to use it. Pete pleads and Mickey gives in. They leave for Pete’s village.

Spoonerville turns out to be just a small village in this version, but still home to several side characters from Goof Troop, all in the new style, of course. And it does indeed suffer from drought. Mickey puts the Diamagic of Rain into his wizard staff (we have seen such a staff before, the wizard Darkwing in Crisis of Infinite Darkwings had one) and summons rain. Only that the rain gets too strong and he doesn’t manage to stop it. Pete claims that he is a sorcerer, too, and asks for the Diamagic. Mickey gives it to him and Pete puts it into his staff, which is also a mace. He does indeed manage to stop the rain, the village is saved.
But Pete refuses to give the Diamagic back. Instead, he wants to use it to partake in the Great Tournament and takes off to Grandhaven.

Mickey is incredibly confused and the locals give him (and us) the backstory.
There was a time when wizards’ powers went unchecked, magical warlords were plaguing the realms of Dolmen. Then, one decided to put an end to it, putting Diamagics together into the Great Crown. With this instrument he subjugated the other wizards, but he had no interest in ruling the land. He gave the power back to the rightful kings and queens and became the Supreme Sorcerer, the highest authority in magical issues only.
Years ago he stepped down and left the Great Crown with the Council of Dolmen, made of representatives of all the kingdoms, with none of them being a wizard who could use the crown.
But recently, only months ago, there was an attempt to steal the crown. It was foiled, but the crown broke and the Diamagics, reacting badly to each other when not bound, scattered in all directions.
Now, the old problem is back, wizards are abusing their power. So the council decided to hold a tournament, where the winners would get the losers’ Diamagics. Whoever manages to recreate the Great Crown would become the new Supreme Sorcerer.
Mickey: “Wait, where is the old Supreme Sorcerer in all of that?”
Villager: “Shouldn’t you know that? After all that was your master, Yen Sid.”
This is news to Mickey. Also, no, he has no idea where Yen Sid went. But he knows where he has to go now. Grandhaven, where the Council of Dolmen has its seat.

We see him arrive there, a great city in the vain of Gondor in LotR and full of wizards. A lot of those seen in the background are wizards that become important later on.
Mickey does in fact find Pete, but he still refuses to give up the Diamagic and can convince the city guard that he can’t give it up – he joined the tournament and only other participants can take it from him.
So Mickey intends to join the tournament too, he doesn’t even get through to the council, as he is already told at the door that you need both a Diamagic and a team to do so.
Someone else is also there and gets rejected. Goofy, the alchemist, just wants entrance to the Dolmen Swamps to gather an important plant for medicine he is making. But the swamps are off-limits right now as they are used for the entrance round of the tournament.
Mickey of course asks to team up with Goofy, but he doesn’t have a Diamagic either and also you need three members for a team.

Having dinner in a tavern, they overhear a dispute between the owner and a guest, Donald. Donald intends to use the Diamagic of Gold to turn some spoons into gold to pay his bill, but it doesn’t work.
Mickey: “You have a Diamagic?”
Donald: “Technically it is my uncle’s.”
Luckily, Goofy has enough money to pay the bill and in turn Donald agrees to join their team.

The tournament for the Diamagics begins.

So…
Yeah, Wizards of Mickey. An Italian comic series that is still ongoing, but I will be covering only the first arc.
I switched some things around and I will continue to do so, this is not an exact adaptation of the comics.
And I figured that I can use Mickey if he is the main character.
So, this is obviously in a separate universe, why is it in this fic? Well, it will figure into the metaplot.

Chapter 21: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E02: Fire

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The entrance round in the swamp is not a duel, it is about finding a scroll before the time runs out in an environment full of traps and obstacles.
While Donald still doesn’t manage to do anything with his Diamagic, Goofy is surprisingly useful, finding non-magical solutions to everything. In the end it is Mickey who saves them the last few seconds when he realizes that the scroll beyond a trench is mirrored – it’s a reflection and the real one is on this side.
And of course, Goofy finds the plant he searched for.

Pete and his team, Scuttles and Dum-Dum, classic Pete accomplices from the comics, also make it – they take the shortest route by going through burning bushes, extinguishing the fire with the Diamagic of Rain.

Another team we see make it is a team of three dragons. Actual, giant dragons, walking on all fours, no clothes, breathing fire and everything. They don’t need staffs, they cast from the Diamagics just in their paws.
Also, they just ignore the fire and walk through the bushes.

We also see some minor teams fail, like one made of Gabby McStabberson and the Smashnikovs and one made of Mark Beaks, Falcon Graves and Emma Glamour (that fails because Beaks and Glamour are just giving commands and Graves has to do everything).

Now that he is in the tournament, Mickey wants to challenge Pete, but Pete has already left.

This whole bit is interspersed with flashbacks to Goofy trying to find a cure for his dying wife. Only now, after he got the plant, we see the last bit – the flashbacks are from years ago, she is already dead. Goofy found the right recipe too late. But he wants to finish the medicine anyway, because others might need it one day.
And now he can.
But he will also still help Mickey get the Diamagic of Rain back.

So the three leave Grandhaven in pursuit of Pete. The tavern owner is smiling when he sees them leave – it is revealed that the spoons did turn into gold a few minutes after Donald did the spell. And indeed all the spells he did in the swamp have had an effect by now, too.

On the way, the wizards are found by a small dragon who can’t yet speak but was clearly searching for Mickey. He has a letter from Yen Sid. The letter says that Yen Sid was imprisoned by the Lord of Lies who plans to gather Diamagics and probably has agents in the tournament. Yen Sid managed to free another prisoner, this dragon youngling, and give him a letter and show him Mickey’s magical aura, so he would be able to find him (as dragons are naturally magical).
So, what now?
Mickey wants to free his master, but has no idea where he could be and the dragon refuses to lead him there (in accordance with the letter that says to not try to find Yen Sid but instead protect the Diamagic of Rain.)
Then the Beagle Boys attack. Apparently, they are after the dragon.
Having only one Diamagic and that in Donald’s staff which doesn’t seem to work, the heroes can’t stop the Beagle Boys from taking the dragon. The dragon, however, spits a flame towards the sky right before the Beagle Boys manage to muzzle him.
They know what that was. A call for help to other dragons. But there are no other dragons around in this area, so it won’t help him.

But of course there are.
The dragon team arrives and the Beagles drop their prisoner and run.
Mickey explains the situation. The dragons introduce themselves as Zefren (red), Zoron (yellow) and Zaius (blue). They represent the dragons on behalf of their leader, the Venerable Ormen.
They have no idea where that young dragon came from and they can’t take him home right now, so they ask Mickey’s team to keep him for now. They also give them the Diamagic of Fire.
Zefren: “We don’t need it and it won’t be of any use against us. But it is always better to have power over fire when taking care of a young dragon.”
The dragon team leaves and Donald gives the youngling the name Fafnir.

So …
Yeah, Fafnir gets a late introduction compared to the comics. And I gave Goofy a bit of GoofTroop Goofy’s background, being a widower. Though apparently Max doesn’t exist in this universe.

Chapter 22: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E03: Stone

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Castle Caer Vanir (yes, I know, but that’s what it is called). Our heroes and the dragon team (among many others) are watching a fight between a minor team, maybe sky pirates or something, and team Diamond Moon, consisting of Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle Cow. Donald knows Daisy, otherwise the teams don’t know each other.
Team Diamond Moon wins, but Zefren points out a flaw in one of Minnie’s spells that a smarter opponent could have used.

Later, the teams meet in the castles’ banquet hall. Diamond Moon and the Wizards of Mickey get along pretty well, with the exception of Fafnir and Daisy’s cat. Minnie, as it turns out, is the queen of one of the many small kingdoms, but someone put a curse on the whole kingdom, turning everything to stone. Luckily, she wasn’t there when it happened. Her team is only in the tournament to get a Diamagic that can undo the damage. And they think the Diamagic of Stone will be able to do it, so they will fight Team Jinx next.
Clarabelle’s specialty is telling the future, but she often has problems remembering her visions.
Daisy is a noble from the same kingdom as Donald and identifies him as a prince – nephew to the king, brother to the crown princess.

And then team Jinx comes in, being Hazel, Magica and Morgana. They immediately proof that they have more up their sleeves than just Diamagics, putting some, well, jinxes on people just to annoy them.

The presence of both Daisy and Magica is the reason we have interspersed flashbacks to Donald’s past. Since Scrooge is king and Della will become queen one day, his job is to be the royal mage. Only it doesn’t really work out. His spells seem to do nothing (he doesn’t know that they simply have a delayed effect). As mentioned, he knows Daisy and he has a crush on her, but he doesn’t dare tell her until he has his act together. When he hears of the tournament he wants to go, but he has no Diamagic of his own and his uncle will probably not give him one.
Then Magica tries to steal Scrooge’s Number One … well … not a dime in this world. Some coin.
She is fought off, but Donald’s magic was not helpful at all.
Scrooge gives him a Diamagic and sends him to Grandhaven – to find someone else to be the royal mage.

And Goofy, having made the medicine he wanted to make, does something new now. Painting. Only that Team Jinx ruins all his paintings.

Mickey thinks that they have a better shot at freeing Yen Sid if they have the Diamagic of Stone, so he challenges Team Jinx.

Things go weird for the night and obviously it is Team Jinx trying to sabotage them, but Team Diamond Moon is also unhappy with Micky wanting the Diamagic of Stone.
Goofy is of course the one who notices that the jinxes are just cheap tricks and the problems resulting from them mostly in their heads.

The fight against Team Jinx is interesting and pretty even, but the Wizards of Mickey end up winning – only to be immediately challenged by team Diamond Moon – for only the Diamagic of Stone, not the others.
During the fight, Mickey gets the chance to use the weakness in Minnie’s spell that Zefren pointed out – but he doesn’t. Team Diamond Moon winds and gets the Diamagic of Stone.
Mickey decided that since Yen Sid apparently doesn’t want Mickey to free him yet, Minnie can first have the Diamagic to save her people.

So …

Yeah, I did Team Jinx early. Also replaced new characters with ones already existing in the Disney Afternoon and/or in the DuckTales reboot. I will do that whenever possible, except for the dragons.

Chapter 23: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E04: Masks

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We start on a dark castle where a red dragon is chained up beside a throne. Pete and Big Time Beagle are kneeling before it and on the throne sits a guy who comic readers will recognize as the unmasked Phantom Blot.
He is addressed as the Lord of Lies and the dragon as Roknar.
As it turns out, Pete and the Beagle Boys have been collecting Diamagics for him because Roknar, who was banished by the dragons for treason, has told the Lord of Lies about an ancient enemy of dragons who is imprisoned underground and with enough Diamagics, can be freed.

Carnadia, City in the bay. And look, here is the wizard Darkwing from “Crisis of Infinite Darkwings” in a team with Gosalyn and Launchpad. And of course our heroes are here, too.

And soon so are the Lord of Lies and his henchmen, because the prison is under Canardia.

Darkwing owns the titular Diamagic of Masks, we have some Darkwing Duck villains with fitting Diamagics, like Bugmaster with Bugs and Liquidator with Water (when he loses it, he becomes a normal person again).

While fighting in the tournament, both Darkwing and his team and the Wizards of Mickey notice the strange things going on. But when Darkwing loses the Diamagic of masks, not only does he have to work without it, but Donald has to learn to use it.
And this is where Donald learns what is going on with his magic, as the Diamagic does not seem to do anything – only to turn him into the Duck Avenger at a crucial moment later on.

Only at the confrontation deep in the ancient Dragon Well does Mickey learn that the Lord of Lies is Yen Sid’s former student and also the one who attempted to steal the Great Crown, but accidentally destroyed it.
The Lord of Lies manages to open the prison, but the heroes can shove him in and close it before anything escapes.

Still, Pete and the Beagle Boys escape with the Diamagics they already have and given that there is no proof against him, Pete will still partake in the tournament.

So …
Another plot point from the comics, going a little different here. Plus Darkwing Duck and the Duck Avenger, simply because I think having them would be fun.
The Duck Avenger’s design could be based on the version in “Diary of a Wacky Knight”.

Chapter 24: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E05: Iron

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This episode starts in Castle Druidia, where the Wizards of Mickey face of against a team of giants. As a nod to a classic short, Mickey comes up with the tactic to climb up inside the giants’ sleeves to attack their faces directly. The Wizards of Mickey win once again.

They get the news that there is a special tournament round at the Castle of a Thousand Rooms – a battle royale between team leaders, the winner getting a Diamagic from each of the other combatants. Many teams want to take that chance and after a short discussion, so do the Wizards of Mickey.

That night, they are visited by the dragon team. The dragon’s take them to their ruler, the venerable Ormen, a giant green dragon. Who, as the dragons insist, is not the leader because he is the biggest, but because he is the wisest. He explains that there is a problem. One team, the Robot Warlocks, has used the tournament as cover to steal a dragon egg. They now keep it in their flying Iron Fortress. The doors are too small for the dragons to get in and they don’t dare attacking it directly as long as the Warlocks can use the egg as a hostage.
But the warlocks will be at the special round. So while Mickey fights, the dragons could get Donald and Goofy up to the Iron Fortress and they could sneak in.
The team agrees to the plan.

The viewer might notice two things at the tournament. One, the Robot Warlocks are Ecks, Doublex and Triplex. Two, the referee for this round is Ma Beagle. Of course the protagonists know neither of them.
The referee explains that each wizard in the round can only use one Diamagic. So she will check each staff before the round starts.

The plot now splits into Mickey in the Battle Royale and Donald and Goofy infiltrating the Iron Fortress.

In the Fortress, Goofy, who is an engineer this week, studies the Warlock’s technology and figures out that they are building war machines based on magical creatures. And the real creatures are imprisoned in cells in the fortress. They find the egg that is hooked up to some kind of scanner, next to the giant dragon mech that they are apparently building based on the unhatched dragon.

No, wait, a mechanical staff hooked to the scanner is building it, using the Diamagic of Iron.
Taking the egg, Donald and Goofy accidentally raise the alarm.

At the same time Mickey faces of against a lot of team leaders that we have seen before. This includes Minnie – the Diamagic of Stone was not enough to free her people, so now she needs the whole crown. Her and Mickey get a moment to talk and notice something – there are weird markings in their staff that weren’t there before. Looks like someone scraped a bit of wood of the staffs? But the only person who had access to both their staffs was the referee – wait, where did she go?

They try to alert the other wizards, but they don’t listen – until Triplex gets the alarm that someone is messing with the egg. He and the other Warlocks leave and the small interruption is enough that Minnie can point out the referee’s absence to everyone.

In the fortress, Donald and Goofy fight the security system, but then Goof has an idea. He takes the Diamagic of Iron and completes the dragon mech, separating it from the system and controlling it himself.
Then Ecks and Doublex arrive. Donald frees the animals and the two Warlocks are initially overwhelmed by the stampede – until they use a Diamagic to fuse into a single, bigger entity.
Still, they can’t stop the Iron Dragon, as Goofy calls the mecha, from tearing its way out of the fortress.
Triplex arrives to late to do anything about it, but since the Iron Fortress can fly, it starts pursuing the Iron Dragon.

The team leaders (and most of their teams who were in the audience, of course), catch up to Ma Beagle. Though she has united with her family now. As it is revealed, this round wasn’t organized by the council at all, the Beagle Boys forged all the papers. Ma Beagle has already created a magic portal with the wood from the staffs, which allowed her to connect to the Diamagics in the staffs, she just has to tell it where to lead now. Raknor gave her this ancient dragon spell to free the Lord of Lies. Mickey asks her if that is really what she wants and if she wouldn’t like to get the wisdom of dragons for herself instead. Imagine, many more spells like this one.
Ma Beagle falls for it and asks the portal to take her to the wisdom of dragons.

The Iron Dragon reaches Ormens cave, still pursued by the Iron Fortress. But Ormen, as I mentioned, a gigantic dragon, takes on the fortress as soon as he knows that the egg is safe outside.
Then the portal appears and the Beagle Boys, including Ma Beagle, arrive, because of course the portal led them to Ormen. Since Ormen is busy, they are faced by the Iron Dragon instead and soon give up.
When more dragons arrive, they take the Iron Fortress down. The day is won.

In the denouement, not only does Ormen reward the Wizards of Mickey with five Diamagics, but Minnie also gives Mickey all of hers – under the condition that as soon as he recreates the crown, he will free her people from the stone curse.

So …
Back from the holidays. I combined two chapters of the comic again, and this time I think it works really well. In the comic, the Robot Warlocks were robots themselves, but I wanted classic characters here. And while combining into one being works great with robots, the comic later introduces a spell that can do that with living beings and Ecks and Doublex have a history with this stuff anyway.
And yes, in the comic, the Lord of Lies comes back at this point. I decided to keep that for the finale.

Chapter 25: S1/Wizards of Mickey/E06: Diamagics

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With the Beagle Boys imprisoned and the Lord of Lies in the underground prison (that is basically a pocket dimension), Pete and his crew busy at the tournament, Mickey thinks it is time to free Yen Sid and tries to convince Fafnir to show him the way to the Lord of Lies’ castle.

However, then the tournaments’ heralds come with surprising news – Yen Sid managed to free himself in the Lord of Lies’ absence and has taken over his hideout, Castle Claw. He then offered it as the location for the tournament finale and of course the council listens to the former Supreme Sorcerer. And it is time for the finale anyway. The teams that have collected the most Diamagics are invited, so there should be enough to recreate the Great Crown.

Mickey has no problem believing that his master could escape from a dungeon, so this is somewhat plausible. Still, they just experienced a trap by the Lord of Lies’ remaining henchmen, so he is weary.
Flying overhead with the Iron Dragon, the team first scouts out the castle before actually going in.

What they find is a big brawl between all the successful teams who were invited. And everyone acts uncharacteristically aggressive. They land a bit outside and approach the castle on foot, when they are ambushed by Pete’s team. They manage to beat them and learn that they used the Diamagic of Emotion to make everyone angry.
Is Yen Sid really free? Yes, Pete confirms, Yen Sid escaped from his unguarded cell, but he didn’t take over the castle, he just left. But he made the mistake of leaving a signed letter behind for Mickey. With that, Pete could easily forge his signature and lure everyone to the castle.

The team rushes to the castle and finds most wizards either hurt or too tired to fight on, only a few still fighting. He gets angry but fights it because he knows it is just lingering effects from Pete’s spell.
And then something happens. Magic swirls, portal opens, the Lord of Lies comes back.
How?

Well, like a good super villain, he spells it out.
Back when he tried to steal the crown it fell down and the Diamagic of Diamagic fell out. That was what held the crown together and without it, the powerful combination of Diamagics with very different purposes couldn’t hold together and they were shot into all directions.
But he still has the Diamagic of Diamagics and with enough of them in one place, he could use it to draw him to them. And now he uses it to collect them all from the hurt or tired wizards.
See, the ancient enemy of dragons was just a side plan, a thing that would have been nice to have. The main goal was the Great Crown. And when he gets the Diamagics from Mickey’s team, the Lord of Lies will be able to make it.

The team runs and hides for a moment, but only to make a plan. Mickey has Donald use the Diamagic if Mirrors to put a reflection spell on Mickey’s staff.
Donald: “Why me? You know that my migic has a delayed effect.”
Mickey: “Exactly.”
Donald does that, then Goofy uses the Diamagic of Masks on Donald, making him the Duck Avenger. And their break is over because the Lord of Lies found them.
There are still some of his henchmen left in the castle and – oh, yeah, Roknar.
Duck Avenger deals with the henchmen, Goofy in the Iron Dragon fights Roknar and Micky has his duel with the Lord of Lies.
We get a prolonged action scene, but in the end, Roknar overpowers the Iron Dragon and turns his attention to the Duck Avenger and beats him easily, freeing the already caught henchmen who proceed to go after Goofy.
In the main fight, Mickey stands no actual chance but he isn’t trying to actually win, he is stalling.
Finally, he lets his defenses down, apparently tired. But when the Lord of Lies uses the Diamagic of Diamagics to collect the Diamagics from Mickey’s staff, the reflection spell kicks in. Just as planned, as the team has figured out the exact delay time by now.
The spell is reflected back and now all the Diamagics that the Lord of Lies has are absorbed by Mickey’s staff.
Mickey recreates the crown and sends the Lord of Lies to the Shadow Realm. For a moment in the banishment the shadows make the Lord of Lies look like classic Phantom Blot.

There is some denoument. Mickey being declared the winner of the tournament and made Supreme Sorcerer is the obvious one. Also of course the letter by Yen Sid, which basically says “Mickey, you don’t need a teacher anymore, I am going where I’m needed”.

Then we get the development over the next days.
Mickey goes with Minnie and Clarabelle to Minnie’s kingdom and frees it from the curse.
Goofy goes back home with the Iron Dragon and we see him plant the plant from the swamp in his garden so he can make more medicine.
Donald and Daisy are back home and Scrooge admits that Donald might make a good court mage after all.

And then we get the sequel hook, delivered by Ormen. Since the Lord of Lies didn’t use a portal to escape but basically punched a whole in the wall, the whole structure of the prison is weakened and the ancient enemy of dragons might yet escape.

So … mostly the finale from the comics, with a few small tweaks. And yes, among the fighting wizards are many that we have seen over the show, lots of small cameos. The comic points out Daisy and Minnie specifically.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3E20, GoofTroop S3E06, Operation Junior Woodchucks S2E20.

Chapter 26: S1/Countdown to Chaos/E01: Ten

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And now we begin something new: Countdown to Chaos. What could that be about? We will see.
This will have the most episodes of any of the mini-series, but some of them might also be quite short.

Duckburg, McDuckManor.
Beakley and Duckworth are alone, because the others are in Egypt. Suddenly, there is a disturbance in the Other Bin.
When they investigate they find a creature rampaging there. A big bulky humanoid made of red crystal with some gold accents. It proves to be aggressive. We have a fight, but it is pretty one-sided. The crystal creature proves immune to ghostly powers and pretty much invulnerable to physical damage. The fight moves on into the manor and finally outside.
Now Gizmoduck gets involved. His weapons at least slow the creature down, but not much and it makes its way into the city.
Luckily, Stegmutt, Penumbra and Gandra aka Cybird are ready to team up with Gizmoduck. Of course Lena is also in Egypt, so we don’t get the full Defenders of Duckburg [see Darkwing Duck (Reboot): Crisis of Infinite Darkwings between the second and third season.]
Together, they manage to detain the creature and try questioning it, but it is unclear if it can even talk.
Since Lena and Violet aren’t around, they bring in Miss Quackfaster as the magic expert, but this is beyond her – except … if you look closely, there are runs cut into the crystal surface … they are somewhat familiar …
The creature breaks free and starts destroying the city. The fight starts again and it is brutal. Bystanders might die.
Ducklair’s security force comes to help, led by Birgit Q. And unlike in “Operation Junior Woodchucks”, we can have Q smoke and use a realistic gun, as she does in the comics.
Finally, they trap the creature in a force field. Ducklair himself shows up to study it, but when he tries to scan it with some magitech apparatus, that backfires badly. The thing becomes even stronger and breaks free again, killing some of the security force.
Enter two Duck Avengers, June and Donald, but they don’t actually add much. They also make sure that no one sees them both at the same time, there is supposed to be only one Duck Avenger.

Meanwhile, Duckworth is cleaning up the Other Bin and notices what is missing – the amulet that DeeDee created when she manifested with help from the ramrod. When he informs Quackfaster, she can place the runes – the Solego Circuit.

She has not much experience with that, but together they can hopefully figure something out.

In the city, the fight gies terribly. The amulet creature is not only stronger but also elastic now, way harder to grab. Luckily, Duckworth and Quackfaster were able to get Gyro and together they made something. Using the Ferryman’s Flame to make a connection to the spirit world, they activate the runes on the creature and send it to the other side.
They can only hope, that it stays there.

Leaves the question why that weird transformation happened now …

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3E21 and Operation Junior Woodchucks S2E21, both earlier the same week.

Chapter 27: S1/Countdown to Chaos/E02: Nine

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We open in Duckburg, but it looks terrible. The Money Bin is taller and more outwardly technological, reminding maybe a bit of the Fright Zone in She-Ra in aesthetic. Instead of McDuckManor, Killmotor Hill is crowned by a dark, foreboding castle. And a bridge between the two plunges much of Duckburg into shadow.

On the bridge there is a fight. A Gizmoduck in more martial looking armor and a more shadowy Lena are fighting Magica DeSpell and when they have beaten her, outright execute her.
Scrooge is happy with the outcome.

At this point, every viewer should have noticed that we are in the Negaverse.
We follow Scrooge and Lena to Gyro’s lab. Gyro is working on the thing that Magica wanted to stop – the Ramrod.
Sure, it might destroy the universe, but only if handled wrong. If used correctly, they can plunder other universes and get allies to finally take down Bulba over in St. Canard.
Let’s see, what to summon first. Gold? Weapons? Some mercenary?
Gold, Scrooge insists.
Fenton calls, the bin is under attack. It’s the rebellion, all of them. The Beagle Boys, Mark Beaks and his hired goons, what is left of FOWL.
Okay, mercenaries it is then.
We are getting some weirdos from all over the multiverse – a more extreme version of Gabby McStabberson, a toad who looks like he is probably from Amphibia, a random killer robot et cetera. They all are confused at first, but easily swayed by Scrooge’s riches.
And so the battle starts.

We cut to Violet Sabrewing and June Heron (well, we don’t get her last name, actually, she is just adressed as June, but that would be her logical last name in the Negaverse.) They are outside the Money Bin, a bit away from the battle.
Violet is writing some runes on the wall, when she is interrupted by a call. Her fathers want her to come back home and forget about the rebellion. But not only do they go about it all wrong, using threats, they also clearly agree with Scrooge’s might makes right philosophy. So Violet just hangs up and blocks them.
She completes the ritual and a hole in the wall appears. That would normally raise an alarm, but the alarm is already going because of the attack, so they make it in unnoticed.
They sneak through various security systems and avoid people like Quackfaster and Louie (Huey and Dewey are out there in the battle) but finally get caught by Webby.
We have a fight.
Now, this is the more adult show and they are teenagers now, so is it okay to kill some? Not sure. At least we can imply that Webby did indeed kill May back when the clones worked for FOWL.
(Friendly Organization for World … Lawfulness? That’s the best I can come up with, but it doesn’t sound quite right, given law in the Negaverse is usually bad …)
They get past Webby and make it to the Ramrod, but Lena awaits them.
“Hi, Violet. Wonder why I’m not out there in the battle? Well, I was, but then I got a call from your fathers, telling me that aunt Magica’s apprentice is planning something. They asked me to bring you home alive, but … I can’t make any promises.”
New fight and this time, the Ramrod gets hit by some spell. June has to be taken out somehow – point is that Violet is completely alone in the end, not just in this fight but in general. So, June can die or be sucked up by the unstable Ramrod, but she has to go away.
We end with a fight Lena vs. Violet, where both use magic, but Violet does it more in a magitech way than outright spellslinging. Then, the portal created by the Ramrod stabilizes and a giant hand reaches through. Not a real hand, more like a transparent energy construct, but it grabs Lena and draws her into the portal. Violet, not willing to let Lena get away, grabs on. Then the portal collapses.

Outside, all the summoned mercenaries vanish in an effect that looks like all the Darkwings being sent home at the end of “Crisis of Infinite Darkwings”. That turns the tide of battle. We might see the Phantom Blot capturing Duckworth or something, but point is, the rebels win this one.

What happens to Lena and Violet? We don’t get to see. Not in this episode.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3E22 and Operation Junior Woodchucks S2E22, both earlier the same week.

Chapter 28: S1/Countdown to Chaos/E03: Eight

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We are back in Dolmen, Grandhaven to be precise. Supreme Sorceror Mickey moves into the palace that comes with the title.
At first he likes the job, solving all kinds of problems with magic, but slowly it starts wearing him out. He has to decide which cases really need his help and which can be solved otherwise. But he can’t. He just HAS to help everyone.
From a dream, he gets the idea to hire someone to select for him. And something makes him trust that guy named Bradford Buzzard with the job.

Buzzard ends up organizing tournaments again, the winner gets their wish granted. Of course there are only a few Diamagics not in the crown, so most wizards fight with small tricks, giving the advantage to the few with Diamagics and the ones who could always do other things.

Donald and Goofy think that this is not a very fair system, but they find that it isn’t easy to even get to Mickey and talk to him.

A sorceress named Bianca dominates the tournament with her Diamagic of Bugs. When she wishes for more Diamagics, which is something Mickey can’t give her, she goes on a rampage. Mickey decides that he needs to control all magic and orders everyone to give up their remaining Diamagics.
Donald thinks that his uncle will not give up his Diamagics, nor does he himself want to give up the Diamagic of Masks and the friends clash.

Goofy is the one who finds out what is really going on. Bradford still has a Diamagic, the Diamagic of Minds, and has been influencing Mickey even before he was hired.
When Goofy can take the Diamagic and undo the effect, Mickey gives in. He decides to break up the crown again and give the Diamagics to people he trusts.
Bianca uses that moment to attack, but is still easily stopped and imprisoned together with Bradford.

So …
This basically deals with the “evil Mickey” arc from the second season of “Wizards of Mickey”. And Bradford just fits here well, so I used him instead of the Phantom Blot again.
Also, this is of course important for this series’ plot. Somehow.

Parallel Episodes: Darkwing Duck S3E23 and Operation Junior Woodchucks S2E23, both earlier the same week.