Witness Testimony
Fortuna Favet Fortibus. This ancient Latin proverb has many names and many translations, but in concept, it boils down to one key message: fortune favors the bold.
The proverb may be short and simply read, but everybody can interpret it differently. To some, it’s just warm words to help them chase their dreams. To others, it’s a reminder to stay strong in the pursuit of their goals, to pull through the hardest of times and the worst of misfortunes.
And then there’s those who take the proverb and embody it, stopping at nothing and sparing no expense in the pursuit of one thing: MONEY! Seriously, there is nothing in the world that can stop these two seemingly gruff old-timers from chasing down their next dollar! But when their search for riches gets them to butting heads… well, only one of them will look like a million bucks when the dust settles!
Scrooge McDuck, last of the Clan McDuck and the richest duck in the world…
…And Grunkle Stan, the weaselly scam artist behind the Mystery Shack! I’m Starlow, she’s Squigly, and he’s Leviathan, and one of these two will pay the ultimate price for a Courtroom Conflict!
In the year 1867, there was a young duck that was born to an impoverished family in Glasgow, Scotland. Wishing to make a living to support his family, the lad took up shoe-shining, and after his first customer cheated him out of his pay by giving him an unusable American dime, he resolved to be smarter than those who would cheat him and make his money fairly. This resolve would stick with him for his entire life, and drive him on his quest for riches. His name would go on to become legendary across the world, and even beyond the stars. His name… was Scrooge McDuck.
As Scrooge grew up, he traveled the world searching for a way to make substantial amounts of money to support his family back in Scotland. From riverboating in the Mississippi to mining in South Africa, Scrooge’s searches for wealth took him on several misadventures before he finally arrived in the Klondike to participate in the gold rush happening there, where he struck gold – literally! And after betrayal, heartbreak, and quite a lot of thrashing of would-be gold thieves, Scrooge mined enough to move him and his two sisters to the United States. With his newfound wealth, Scrooge set up his very own business empire, eventually becoming known as the richest duck in the world.
Just one problem… Scrooge’s sisters were disgusted with some of the deals he cut in the early years of his business, and they were eventually so fed up with him that they totally abandoned him, leaving Scrooge to his own penny-pinching designs with no family or friends to speak of. Despite his insistence that he didn’t need a family, his loneliness eventually got the better of him, and he invited his nephew, Donald Duck, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, over for Christmas.
Donald, remembering his mother’s stance on Scrooge’s unethical behavior, despised him at first, but Scrooge won over the three young ducks with his tales of his adventures in the Klondike, sparking a fresh thirst for adventure in the triplets. Thus began a new age of treasure-hunting explorations, with Scrooge hunting for ancient riches and secrets alongside Donald and the three nephews!
And for a bird of Scrooge’s years, the journeys he undertakes with his kin are far more impressive than a trip to fetch his dentures: he’s been everywhere from Atlantis to the Pyramids to the freezing colds of the Arctic, and even to the expansive reaches of outer space. He’s able to spring for these massive ventures because of his vast wealth, and when you get a good look at just how rich Scrooge is… well, you’ll have to redefine your concept of how rich a single person can be.
Scrooge isn’t just the richest character in the Disney empire. He’s the richest character in all of fiction! While exact values of his net worth can fluctuate depending on the source, the highest number ever recorded for his personal value is a whopping five multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion, six hundred and twenty-three dollars! …And sixty-two cents.
And that number is constantly going up, with his impossibly large business branches and projects raking in more and more money every single day. And he doesn’t just own most of Duckburg – his grip on the general market expands all across the world, and even onto other planets! His resources are practically inexhaustible with this much financial power, which is how he’s able to find the means with which to go on the kinds of adventures he does with Donald and the nephews.
The most famous example of Scrooge’s vast wealth is his infamous Money Bin and cash vault, filled with gold coins and other treasures he’s picked up over the years. The pool is incredibly deep and its size takes up well over half of the Money Bin’s interior, and yet it’s barely even a fraction of what lines this tough old bird’s pockets.
It still contains an absurd amount of treasure, though, which makes it a frequent target of thieves like the Beagle Boys. That’s why it’s lined with plenty of traps and defense mechanisms to keep intruders from ever making it as far as the vault, like giant cannons, trapdoors, and even a tank, all of which are at Scrooge’s fingertips when he’s inside. The most dangerous line of defense been would-be robbers and Scrooge’s cash, though, is Scrooge himself! He’s practically a walking army with how many tools and weapons he carries in those seemingly bottomless pockets of his.
Funny you say that, actually, because his pockets are bottomless! Specifically, he carries the Hyperspace Pocket in the inner folds of his robe. Crafted by Scrooge’s loyal inventor Gyro Gearloose, it allows Scrooge to essentially have a full dimension in his pocket, which gives him plenty of space to store plenty of gear for any situation. Which is good, because Scrooge’s weapons cabinet is huge!
One tool in particular hardly ever leaves Scrooge’s hands, though, and that would be his trusted cane. Beyond its original function as a walking stick, Scrooge’s resources have turned it into a multi-purpose battle-ready weapon. Thanks to its seemingly indestructible composition, Scrooge can bounce on it like a pogo stick, smack things around with it, and pull heavy objects around. And while Scrooge is more than capable of using his cane in the way of a sword-like weapon, he’s experienced with many other types of weapons used for similar purposes, from less conventional choices like shovels and pickaxes to weapons like the McDuck Sword, an iron blade carrying the spirit of Sir Quackly, who can bring the blade back to Scrooge’s hand if he is disarmed.
He’s also well-versed in gunplay and has plenty of firearms on hand if he ever needs to defend the Money Bin with serious firepower. His go-to is an old-fashioned blunderbuss, but he’s also got rifles, revolvers, flare guns, harpoon guns, laser guns, and even guns that can break the laws of physics entirely – namely, the Spectrification Gun, which can turn Scrooge completely intangible, and Anti-Inertia and Neutra-Friction Rays, which remove the inertia of an object and render targets incredibly slippery respectively.
And if you thought all this would be enough for this money-grubbing mallard, think again! Scrooge is lined to the tip of his Money Bin with less conventional tools for his escapades, so much so that there’s WAY too many to list in one sitting! Just to name some special ones, he’s got explosives, a laser pen, a paralysis-inducing magic wand, a chewing taffy that provides unlimited oxygen, bottles of sleeping spray, a cloning device, time-stopping watches, and even the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, a nugget of gold that turns anything it touches into gold as well! His most powerful tool, though, is the Omnisolve: a black umbrella coated with the Universal Solvent, a black and goopy substance that dissolves anything it touches – aside from diamonds – at an atomic level. There’s practically no end to Scrooge’s insanely unpredictable toolset!
I suppose when you have to invent numbers simply to describe the limit of your wealth, you can get your hands on tools that would make any real-life scientist question their reality. Of course, Scrooge would never have gotten as far as he has without a good head on his shoulders. He’s a business genius, running his massive company nearly single-handedly, and his resourcefulness often couples well with a quick-thinking, tactical mind to help him work his way out of tricky situations. He’s a master of fencing, escapism, martial arts, marksmanship, the manipulation of others, animal empathy, construction, ballet, foreign languages – he’s a jack of all trades, master of many.
You might be wondering how Scrooge has been able to get so good at so many skills over time. Well, the truth is, that’s largely due to his age: he’s over 150 years old, and he’s still able to function like a spry, middle-aged duck. This is the result of an unsuspecting sip from the Fountain of Youth, which slowed his physical aging and restored his physical capabilities to their peak state.
That’s hardly the only supernatural thing about Scrooge, though! The ability he’s most widely recognized for is his affinity for money, specifically his ability to swim in large sums of gold coins without injury. According to Scrooge himself, he learned to do so through years of training his body and muscles to be capable of it, and he’s perfected it to the point where he can take a dip in his cash vault like it’s a swimming pool! He can also smell specific kinds of money with such a degree of accuracy that he can distinguish one gold coin from a pool of thousands!
Yes, Scrooge’s senses are all extremely high, likely also because of his partaking in the Fountain of Youth. With with his razor-sharp wits and impressive skills, it’s no wonder he’s earned his way into the role of the world’s richest duck with his own bare hands. Even before he had taken a sip of those enchanted waters, however, Scrooge had already proven that he was something special: when he was mocked over the death of his late mother, his fury grew so strong he was able to tear down two smokestacks at once. And he was still filled with enough vigor to beat the living tar out of the gang of rival gold diggers that were mocking him. Truly, Scrooge’s violent temper is its own caliber of weapon.
He’s also beaten down sharks on the seafloor with his cane, flung a rhino by using a tree as a lever, broken down a jail cell’s bars by running through them, and split open a glacier by striking a fault point with a wooden stake. And if you think being able to swim in his vault of gold is impressive, wait until you see him swim through a giant pool of quicksand like it’s nothing! Keep in mind that quicksand is so dense that lifting a limb out of the stuff at a rate of just a centimeter per second takes the same strength as picking up an average car. It’s no small feat to be able to ford a pool of it like any other body of water, and yet Scrooge did so without even breaking a sweat.
Scrooge’s speed is even more impressive when he’s not submerged in watery clay! He’s outrun floods, boulders, lions, Magica DeSpell’s lightning, and even magma flow from the Earth’s inner core. He’s played around in an asteroid field while piloting a rocket ship, dodged blasts of gunfire, and even avoided a blob of the Universal Solvent while he and it were being thrown around by gravity at the center of the planet!
…Wait, how did he end up in that situation?
Oh, well… He wanted to instantly make a mine shaft for diamonds, so he… dumped the Solvent on the ground, and it dissolved its way to the planet’s core.
Scrooge’s thirst for riches can land him in a difficult situation, that much is for certain. Thankfully for him, he’s more than capable of shrugging off anything he comes across. He’s fallen from orbit on several occasions, survived for a few seconds inside a black hole, been bitten by a giant man-eating plant, fallen off a mountain, and has been burned, frozen, shocked, smashed, and blown to bits more times than any of us could hope to count. He’s more durable than even his own Money Bin, having survived explosions that completely destroyed the massive building on two separate occasions.
And yet he’s still all in one piece, as money-hungry as ever. Although it would be a lie to say that a lot of those bad situations he’s found himself in weren’t brought about because of his own greed. Scrooge will do anything to earn his next dollar, and that sometimes leads him to make incredibly rash decisions in the pursuit of riches. The aforementioned case with the Universal Solvent is just one of many cases where Scrooge has jeopardized everything from his own safety to the entire world’s stability – all to keep the vault in his money bin nice and loaded with material wealth.
And along with being the world’s richest duck, he’s easily the cheapest! He doesn’t even pay employees like Donald more than a dollar in wages, and if someone asks him for a loan of more than ten dollars, he’s prone to fainting on the spot just at the thought of it! I guess his name isn’t Scrooge McDuck for no good reason.
Additionally, Scrooge’s temper might be his strongest asset of all, but it does make him incredibly near-sighted and violent. The old bird can often cause more trouble than he was in to begin with because of his anger. Finally, he has a soft spot for an old flame named Brigitta McBridge, as well as… all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets? Who wrote this?
When the chips are down, though, Scrooge’s heart of gold shines brighter than any gem, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the McDuck family safe. As long as he’s being paid for it, of course!
Scrooge McDuck: Oy! Beastie! What’s it gonna take ta shovel ye off ta the afterlife?
Captain Peghook: The head of SCROOGE MCDUCK!
Scrooge McDuck: Would ye settle for his hat?
Several decades ago, two twin brothers were born fifteen minutes apart of each other one June morning in the mid-1900s. As the two grew up in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, it was clear that the two shared a deep thirst for adventure, but their personalities could not have been more different outside of that fact. The older brother, Stanford, was smart, apt with machines, and naturally inquisitive, always seeking to solve the questions that he lacked answers to.
The younger of the two brothers, on the other hand, was gruff, courageous, and brawny, serving as the bulk behind his older brother’s brains. His name? Stanley Pines. They grew up exploring their town together, dreaming of sailing around the world in search of great adventures. But as they neared the end of high school, their polar opposite skill sets and talents drove them further and further apart.
While Stan was struggling to pass in school, frustrated over being abandoned by his girlfriend, and hostile toward the idea of being stuck in Glass Shard Beach his whole life, Ford’s intelligent mind caught the attention of the prestigious West Coast Tech, a college on the other side of the country. Threatened with the prospect of losing his closest friend and only brother, Stan’s anger was unleashed upon Ford’s experimental infinite motion machine. Stan was accused of sabotage and was consequently disowned by his family, leading him to angrily strike out into the world to support himself through cheaply made products and scams. After being banned in dozens of states, being arrested for faulty heists in Colombia, and landing in a small motel in New Mexico, Stan’s life had seemingly hit rock bottom…
…Until, that is, he received a postcard from Ford asking for his presence at his home in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Upon arriving, Stan found his older brother riddled with anxiety and delusional paranoia, almost locked away in his woodland shack. Ford shared his discoveries of the potential of his Universe Portal and begged Stan to take one of the journals containing secrets of its power far, far away in order to keep the machine from being used incorrectly.
Stan was angry at this, furious that his brother had reached out to him only to send him away once again. The two began fighting, and Ford was accidentally pushed into the Universe Portal just before it shut off. Stan was at first guilty, but he soon discovered that people were curious about the contents of his brother’s shack, even willing to pay for a visit inside its confined walls. This led Stan to the creation of the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap filled with fabricated urban legends and synthetic mysteries that Stan finally began to make a decent living off of.
Then along came Dipper and Mabel Pines, whom Stan was a great-uncle to. They had been shipped off to his shack for a summer at the request of their parents, and while Stan initially saw them as little more than extra hands for tending to his Shack, he grew to like the two adventurous kids, and they would eventually go on to discover the true mysteries of Gravity Falls, Oregon.
And with how many insane mysteries Gravity Falls throws at the Pines, Stan’s more than equipped to deal with any situation! He’s never without his trusty 8-ball cane, but when he needs some serious fighting power, he wields baseball bats, twin brass knuckles, and a single-shot crossbow! He also carries a bunch of custom-made smoke bombs, which unleash clouds of smoke and flashes of light. It’s meant to look like he’s appearing out of nowhere, but he’s actually just… running really fast.
Yes, much like his many scams, Stan’s tricks are more about flash than substance. In fact, his trickery works its way into the less conventional parts of his arsenal. He has kits full of tools that assist him during heists, like fingerprint-eliminating gloves and spools of rope. He often carries a recorder that helps him force others into keeping their promises, and he’s not above slipping others a drink of his home-made sleeping potions, which can put others into a coma-like state for lengthy amounts of time.
And stowed away in his Shack is the… “I EAT KIDS” balloon. It’s not much bigger than an average person, but its head resembles Stan’s in a terrifying way, scaring just about anyone who looks at it. Now, if only it could be used without immediately crashing…
It is a little ridiculous how often Stan’s own designs come crashing down on him. That’s not to say he isn’t clever, though, because anyone who didn’t know what they were doing in his line of work would have been run out of Gravity Falls in no time! He’s come up with countless clever schemes and fake mysteries for his shack, tricked his mystery-peddling rival Gideon Gleeful on numerous occasions, outsmarted government agents, and fooled everyone in Gravity Falls into thinking that he was Ford. He eventually was even able to repair Ford’s deactivated Universe Portal and bring him back!
Yes, Stan is nothing if not a tenacious man. Resourceful and crafty, Stan is excellent at exploiting the environment and the circumstances of his current situation to his advantage, like the time he took advantage of a zero-gravity anomaly in the town to escape the custody of government agents. That’s not to say he’s incapable of holding his own, however: for a man in his sixties, Stan is a tough nut to crack with a bite that’s just as nasty as his bark. He’s decimated hordes of zombies with a baseball bat and his brass-knuckled fists, punched out a pterodactyl while riding on its back, and once chewed his way out of the trunk of a car.
And in spite of his old age, Stan has been flung around rooms by powerful otherworldly forces and has fallen from heights exceeding that of an average building without lasting injuries. He even survived the cataclysmic events of Weirdmageddon, an apocalyptic mess brought on by Bill Cipher, the mischevious dream demon responsible for all the strange events in Gravity Falls. In fact, it was Stan’s ingenuity that concocted the plan to trap Bill in his mind and erase him in there, killing the evil spirit and saving all of Gravity Falls from complete destruction!
And he was perfectly fine! …Well, to be candid, he lost his memories, but it didn’t take him long to get them back. Apparently, the power of family photo albums conquers even a ray gun-induced memory wipe.
Speaking of memories, let’s not let ourselves forget that Stan is far from the ideal human. Stan’s excessive greed and aggressive temper can pretty frequently land him in bad spots, both in terms of his own safety and in terms of his relationships with the people around him. And he might be a cunning trickster, but Stan is still just a mortal man in the latter half of his life; He can only do so much before he’s met his match, which has been the case during confrontations with creatures and oddities from Gravity Falls on several occasions.
Stan will do just about anything to get his hands on extra money for his ventures. Very little seems beneath him in the quest for riches: he’s faked heart attacks, committed tax evasion repeatedly, forged fake dollar bills, and outright stolen things in broad daylight from convenience stores. Indeed, the quickest way to this old coot’s heart is through his billfold, and I… can’t help but feel like these character flaws sound familiar.
The one major flaw of Stan’s that you probably haven’t already heard here would be his slothful behavior. Along with being exceptionally greedy, Stan is a pretty lazy guy, constantly getting other people to take care of things like menial housework so he doesn’t have to do it himself. He’d rather spend his time coming up with his next big scheme, or plopped down on his yellow recliner watching the Black and White Period Piece Old Lady Boring Movie Channel.
That name sounds familiar… Lev, haven’t you tuned in to that channel befo-?
LET’S NOT… discuss that… at the present moment…
Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you wanted that to be secret…
Grrgh… Don’t worry about it, milady… Starlow, will you please compose yourself and wrap this up?
Hee hee… ahh, sorry! Though he might look gruff and uninviting on the outside, Stan’s heart is in the right place at the end of the day, and he’ll do anything to make sure that his family and friends are safe. Through thick and weird, you can count on this old scammer to pull through in a pinch. And… probably relieve you of your wallet.
Bill Cipher: Let me outta here! Let me – Unh! Dhh! Why isn’t this working!?
Grunkle Stan: Hey, look at me. Turn around and LOOK AT ME, ya one-eyed demon! You’re a real wise guy, but you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my family!
Bill Cipher: You’re making a mistake! I’ll give you anything! Money, fame, riches, infinite power, your own galaxy, PLEASE! NO!! What’s happening to meeEEEE!? STANLEEEEEEY!!
Grunkle Stan: UNGH! *punches Bill, destroying him*
Cross-Examination
The analyses for both combatants are completed. With that out of the way, it’s time to watch these two go to town.
As they say, time is money, so let’s not waste any more of it! Here we go!
Setting: Oregon Countryside
The joyful, beaming sunshine glistened across the early morning dew, which hung precariously on the blades of central Oregon’s mountainous grass patches that clung to the hillsides. Birds sang their merry daytime tunes from their perches in the trees, and squirrels cautiously hopped across a long two-way stretch of highway cutting through the pine forest that seemed to stretch across the expansive hills in every direction. One particularly clumsy squirrel, having dropped his acorns onto the road from his home in the tree branches above, chittered and swung its head from side to side as it checked for oncoming traffic. Seeing nothing to worry about, the tree rodent hopped onto the concrete and skittered up to its nuts, picking them up one by one.
Suddenly, the few acorns it had yet to scoop up into its tiny furry arms began to jostle and rumble across the concrete. At the same time, a loud roaring sound came within the squirrel’s earshot, rapidly increasing in volume as though whatever the sound was coming from was growing closer. The squirrel quickly turned its head and squeaked in panic as a dual set of bright headlights greeted it, along with the black front bumper of a seemingly illustrious car. The squirrel rushed out of the car’s way as fast as it could, and as the vehicle roared past it on the highway, the squirrel watched in confusion as the car stretched and stretched, with a construction unlike that of any vehicle it had ever seen on that road before. The name for it, unbeknownst to the squirrel, was a limousine, and as it passed the nut-clutching animal without a second thought, its the diamond studs in its rear license plate, which read “$CR00GE” in gold embellishment, reflected the morning sunbeams directly into the squirrel’s eyes, causing it to squeak in surprise and fall on its back, its load of acorns spilling across the ground.
Inside, a bubbly, adventurous melody rocked the limousine’s speakers, intermingling in midair with the joyous whoops and laughs of its passengers. Seated in a backseat filled to the windows with gold coins, gemstones, and other valuable treasures, Scrooge McDuck and his exploring companions reveled in the spoils of their latest “field trip.” Huey Duck was busy scribbling away in his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook about the many treasures they were bringing home with them, Dewey Duck and Webby Vanderquack were throwing bundles of coins at each other as though they were locked in an incredibly wealthy snowball fight, and Louie Duck was swimming in the depths of the pool of gold, just like his great-uncle had taught him. Scrooge himself was waist-deep in the treasure haul, relaxing with a smile across his beak as his entourage of younger companions entertained themselves in his midst.
“Thanks for bringing us along to your Yukon trip, Uncle Scrooge!” thanked Dewey, pausing his gold-throwing contest with Webby. “Getting to see your old mining grounds was awesome!”
“Yeah!” agreed Huey, scooping another mound of gold into his lap to inspect and jot down in his Guidebook. “Who would have thought we’d strike an unrefined gold deposit while we were there? OR that it was being hoarded by a bunch of crooked Terra-Firmians? You totally put the hurt on all of ’em!” The ducklings were all smiling at Scrooge now, and without so much as shifting his position, the richest duck in the world smiled, both to himself and to the kids.
“Yes, well, this wouldn’t be my first rodeo with the Terra-Firmies,” Scrooge mused in his iconic Scottish accent, “So naturally I was able to make short work of ’em. After all…” Now he decided to sit up, flash a look of confidence, and thrust a fist into the air, sending a small shower of gold coins flying around the backseat of his limo. “…Nothing stands between Scrooge McDuck and his wealth!” The younger ducks all cheered along with Scrooge’s proud proclamation and Scrooge settled back into his spoils-covered seat. “Besides,” he finished, “This sum ‘a change will be much more at home in me Money Bin than in the dirt.”
“Uhh… That might have to wait, Mister McD,” a familiar voice responded from the driver’s seat. Scrooge and the four ducklings all looked up as the divider window between the driver’s seats and the back of the limo rolled down, and Launchpad McQuack leaned through the window frame, addressing his passengers while still maneuvering the steering wheel. “I… mighta kinda sorta maybe forgot to refill the car before we left, and we’re almost outta gas.” A nervously embarrassed look, accompanied by a sheepish grin, crossed the pilot’s features.
“No worries, Launchpad,” Scrooge reassured. “Take the next exit ye can and find us a gas station. We’ve got more than enough to spare for a refill.”
“You got it!” Launchpad replied affirmatively, saluting with his index and middle fingers as he shifted around again to focus on driving. “Looks like there’ll be an exit for a town coming up; I’ll take us that way.”
“Hey, Scrooge?” asked Louie, emerging from the gold pile next to the Scottish billionaire. “When we get to the gas station, can I use some gold to buy snacks? I’ve been craving a good Twinkie since we left.”
“Of course ya can, lad,” Scrooge assured. “As long as you’re not throwin’ me gold around all over the place, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Right as Scrooge said that iconically jinx-inducing line, Launchpad swerved the limousine off the highway and onto an exit, following the directions of a large green sign on the side of the road. In big, white, somewhat-faded characters, it read:
Exit 615: Gravity Falls
->
Rolling in from the highway exit, Scrooge and the four ducklings all waded through the gold to press up against the tinted limo windows, looking out at the town Launchpad had driven them into in search of gas. Even from the outskirts, the rustic out-of-the-way town felt as though it was in its own world. Bizarre-looking people roamed the sidewalks and populated the buildings, with some casting strange looks upon the McDuck limousine as it rolled down the cracked, uneven pavement. Eventually, Launchpad found a gas station and pulled in, maneuvering the limousine as carefully as he could in order to get the elongated vehicle to fit in the refill stall. After just two splintered stone pylons and a dented gas pump frame, the limousine was parked in such a way that its gas tank could be refilled.
“Woohoo! A new personal record!” exclaimed Launchpad as he climbed out of the front seat. The rear windows rolled down to allow Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby to exit without spilling their riches into the gas station’s lot, and as Launchpad popped open the gas cap to refill the car, the four ventured inside the somewhat dingy interior of the station. Dewey, Webby, and Louie wandered towards the snack aisles, while Huey and Scrooge approached a town map pinned to the wall in the far back corner of the establishment. Huey flipped open his Junior Woodchuck Guidebook to start scribbling a messy copy of it while Scrooge ran his hands across the aged parchment.
“Gravity Falls… This’d be the first I’ve heard of such a place,” Scrooge muttered.
“It doesn’t look like there’s many stand-out landmarks or places of interest,” Huey added over the sounds of his pencil furiously swiping across his Guidebook’s pages. “Seems like there are a few noteworthy spots, though.”
“If by noteworthy you mean hastily scribbled on in magic marker, then you’d be right, lad,” Scrooge humorously concurred. Just as Scrooge had pointed out, two locations on the Gravity Falls town map were circled and highlighted in bright colors that stood out among the dull green colors marking the dense forests surrounding the backwoods town.
“Let’s see,” muttered Huey as he alternated his gaze back and forth between his journal and the map. “There’s the Tent of Telepathy, and…”
“…The Mystery Shack?” Scrooge said with a questioning tone.
At that very instant, a crashing mixture of sounds rang out in the small store all at once: a high-pitched bovine squeal, a yelp of surprise from a voice that rang very recognizable in Scrooge’s mind, and a clattering of what Scrooge immediately identified as gold coins dropping onto a tiled, mildly sticky floor. In an instant, Huey and Scrooge hurried across the gas station to see what had transpired, and over the several rows of travel utilities and cheaply priced snacks they could see Louie pinned to the floor by a small pig that was standing on top of his chest, two piles of gold coins on either side of him after having escaped from the confines of his sweatshirt pocket.
“Louie!” gasped Huey.
“Me gold!” cried Scrooge with equal worry. The two reached the row in which Louie was pinned to the floor just as Webby, stepping in, heaved the piglet off of Louie’s midsection, holding the pink animal at arm’s length with the look of an angry parent. As she drew in a breath to scold the creature, Huey crouched down next to Dewey to check on his brother and Scrooge hastily scooped the spilled gold into his top hat.
“You listen here, pig! You might be a thoughtless animal, but nobody gets to tackle my friends like that!” Webby lectured sternly. Her standoffish tone seemed utterly lost on the barnyard critter, however, with its blank stare hardly shifting in the face of her reprimands.
“Webby, Webby!” Louie interjected, now back on his feet with Huey’s help. “It’s alright, I’m not hurt or anything. Besides, look at him; he’s too cute to yell at!”
Despite her lingering irritation toward the pig, Webby nodded in agreement and tucked it under her arm for the time being. “Yeah… yeah, you’re right, it is pretty cute,” she added, staring at its pinch-worthy cheeks and innocent gaze. It hardly squirmed at all in her grasp, and its front-facing eyes seemed unnaturally fixed on something beyond the horizon as Huey crouched down and stared at it with a hand on his chin.
“Why the heck is a pig at a gas station, though?” Huey pondered. “I didn’t see any farms on the way into town. Is it lost?”
“I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion, lad,” Scrooge offered, now leaning on his cane as he stared down at the pig. “A wild pig, or even a farm pig for that matter, wouldn’t look this sparklin’ clean normally. And lookit how comfortable it is being held like that. The thing’s clearly used to being carried around by people.”
“Are you saying that it’s domesticated?” Dewey offered.
“Precisely, lad!” Scrooge crooned proudly. “Its owners must be around here somewhere. We’ll just have to ask around and-“
Before Scrooge could finish, there was the sound of something going click-click behind him, as well as the sound of movement. “Put down the Waddles and nobody gets hooked!” a girl’s voice cried out. Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby all looked towards the voice with surprise, and Scrooge, after briefly starting at the sudden outcry, turned around to face whoever was there.
Standing in the middle of the adjacent snack aisle was a young girl and an equally young boy, both seeming on edge. The girl was dressed in a purple skirt and a bright pink, loosely-fitted sweater with a shooting star embroidered on the front, the glitter on which somehow shone brighter than the braces fixed to her clenched teeth. The significantly less confident-looking boy was decked in a blue and white baseball cap with a pine tree stitched onto the front, an orange shirt overcoated by a navy blue vest, and gray shorts, and while the girl to his right was aiming a grappling hook at the McDuck crew with a steely-eyed glare, he was standing in place with seemingly little conviction, his limbs slack at his sides as he watched the events in front of him unfold. However, as Scrooge turned around to face the two of them, his eyes suddenly went wide in surprise.
“Waddles? You mean this thing?” Webby asked in response, holding the pig out at arm’s length once again.
“PUT HIM DOWN!” the grapple gun-gripping girl demanded once again. Webby and the triplets flinched, but Scrooge stood fast, a gruff scowl beginning to cover his face. Before he could lash out at her, however, the boy next to her suddenly put his hand on the barrel of her grapple gun, trying to ease her into lowering the weapon.
“Mabel, relax! I don’t think they’re gonna hurt him,” he ushered. ‘Mabel’ stared down the ducks for a few more seconds before she sighed and lowered the grappling gun, tucking it back into the pocket of her bright sweatshirt. As she put away her “weapon,” the boy stepped forward and looked up at Scrooge. The Scottish billionaire’s trained eyes could see the nerves plaguing his eyes as though they were painted on his forehead, and his gaze remained unmoving as the boy began to introduce himself.
“Uhh… S-sorry about my sister, she gets defensive of Waddles,” he nervously stammered. “M-my name’s Dipper. Dipper Pines. You guys don’t l-look like you’re, heh heh… from around here…?”
Dipper’s nervous speech seemed to fall on deaf ears with Scrooge, the old duck’s whole body remaining in an irritated fixture. After a few seconds of Dipper nervously cowering, however, a small smirk crossed Scrooge’s beak, and he responded, all eyes currently on him.
“Well, you two certainly know how to make a first impression, don’t you?” Scrooge noted before chuckling to himself. Dipper nervously laughed along with him, remaining fascinated that there were people-sized ducks standing, talking, and laughing right in front of him. Scrooge tossed a look over his shoulder to Webby and nodded, and Webby, getting the message, placed Waddles on the floor gently. Appropriately, the pig waddled over to Mabel, who happily held her arms out and scooped him up in a big hug.
“Dipper and Mabel, was it?” Scrooge asked with formality. “Normally I don’t have to introduce myself, but just this once, I suppose – Scrooge McDuck, head of McDuck Industries. We’re passing through for gas on our way back to Duckburg.”
Scrooge gestured toward Webby and the triplets with his cane as he addressed his group and they, following conversational cues, walked up to Scrooge’s side and smiled in greeting to the Pines twins.
“Hi duck people!” Mabel exclaimed with a characteristically naive smile, waving with a free hand as she clutched Waddles in the other arm. Upon hearing his sister call their new friends “duck people” and seeing the addressed’s mildly confused looks, Dipper panicked and quickly threw a hand over Mabel’s mouth to keep her from saying anything else she might regret, trying to drag her away, all while Mabel continued waving like nothing was happening.
“Ahh, heheheheh, we, uhh, better get going… We’re supposed to be back at the shack before noon,” Dipper hastily explained. To his surprise, however, Huey cocked his head to the side at his words.
“Shack? Do you mean the Mystery Shack?” the red-wearing triplet asked.
Dipper froze in place, seemingly still on edge. Clearly, he hadn’t expected these visitors to know about the Mystery Shack. “Uhh… Yeah. Our great-uncle runs it,” he explained.
Mabel suddenly broke free of her brother’s grip and excitedly supplied the McDuck crew with more info. “It’s filled with the coolest mysteries and secrets of Gravity Falls! Some of them we even discovered for ourselves!”
Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby all seemed to light up at the mention of cool mysteries and secrets, and they quickly looked up at Uncle Scrooge with hopeful expressions. Scrooge looked down and alternated his gaze between their faces, all reading with the same desire. The old bird allowed himself a sigh – he wanted to get back on the road and deposit their gold in his Money Bin more than anything else, but who was he to say no to his young accompaniments? After all, their youthful energy was nothing if not contagious.
“Haahhhh… Alright, fine,” Scrooge said to them at last, and the four ducklings all cheered while jumping for joy. As they celebrated around him, Scrooge returned his gaze to Dipper and Mabel, the former of whom seemed a little confused and the latter of whom seemed blissfully unaware of what was going on around her, feeding Waddles a bag of chips she had produced seemingly from nowhere. “You two wouldn’t mind showing us to this “Mystery Shack,” would ye?” Scrooge asked of the twins.
“Uhh, sure. No problem,” Dipper answered. With that, the Pines twins, followed closely by Scrooge and the ducklings, exited the gas station after Scrooge tossed a few gold coins at the cashier to pay for their gas. Once Dipper, Mabel, and Waddles had all scaled the enormous pile of treasure in the backseat of Scrooge’s limo, finding their places among the McDuck crew, Launchpad returned to the roads of Gravity Falls, following Dipper’s directions to the Mystery Shack. Twenty minutes and three collisions with native pine trees later, the McDuck limousine was rolling its luxurious, diamond-studded wheels across the dirt path leading into the plot of land containing the Mystery Shack. As soon as it came to a stop in front of the main entryway, the ducklings all hastily poured out of the windows and began exploring the front lawn with excited whoops and shouts, followed by an equally excited Mabel and a less quick-moving Dipper, who opted to follow Scrooge once the old bird had exited the vehicle. With the sounds of Launchpad pulling the limo away to find a suitable parking spot behind him, Dipper began to pour out the contents of his mind with questions for the Scottish duck.
“So, uh…” he began, “Where’d all that treasure in your car come from?”
“We were on our way back from the Yukon visiting me old gold-digging grounds,” Scrooge answered, absentmindedly taking in the exterior of the attraction that the Pines twins had led his crew to. “And we came across a deposit that had evaded me in my youth. Buncha’ gold-grubbin’ Terra-Firmies hoardin’ it, but it didn’t take too long ta show ’em who owns those lands.”
At Scrooge’s mention of the Terra-Firmians, Dipper’s eyebrows cocked up with intrigue and he quickly flipped to the blank pages of Journal 3, extracting a pencil from his jacket and beginning to write. “Terra-Firmians?” the boy inquired.
“A pain in me bagpipes, that’s for sure,” Scrooge mused as he sat himself down on a pile of logs near the front steps of the Mystery Shack, waiting for the ducklings’ outdoor tour with Mabel and Waddles to finish so they could go inside. With an audience like the boy before him, Scrooge was free to ramble on about the Terra-Firmies and his experiences with them, all while Dipper nodded attentively while taking faithful notes. It seemed like the Pines twins and the McDuck entourage were getting along swimmingly.
Screeeeeeech… SMASH!!
The light-hearted fun in the Mystery Shack’s front yard came to an abrupt halt when Launchpad came roaring back in with Scrooge’s limo, slamming the front of the expensive ride into the Mystery Shack’s wooden front porch. Splinters of wood and bits of metal flew in all directions as everyone in the front lawn recoiled in surprise, and after a moment of relative silence during which the impact of the crash settled, the driver-side door of the limo popped open. Launchpad, seemingly unharmed by the crash, staggered out and offered Scrooge a salute. “I found a parking spot!” he declared with enthusiasm, and Scrooge responded with a groan and a heavy facepalm. Before Scrooge could give Launchpad any flak for his usual driving mistakes, however, a door slammed open on the front step, and a loud, abrasive voice rang out with intense volume.
“WHAT IS GOING ON OUT HERE!?” shouted an older-looking man, with his face twisted into an angered scowl. His beer belly was clearly visible through his dirty, stained wifebeater shirt, and his blue lounging shorts and scarlet fez made the elderly man seem entirely unprofessional, and though Scrooge had no way of knowing it from a first impression, this was the owner of the Mystery Shack and Dipper and Mabel’s great-uncle: Stanley Pines, more commonly known as Grunkle Stan. Dipper’s expression dropped at the sight of his great-uncle in such a mood, and everyone else watched along with him as Stan’s expression turned to the sight of Launchpad standing in front of the limousine that was currently buried in the wreckage of his front porch.
“YOU!” Stan bellowed, clenching his fists and storming towards the tall duck pilot. Stan dug his fists into the fluff of Launchpad’s jacket collar and hoisted him off the ground with surprising strength, an enraged look blazing in his eyes that seemed utterly lost on Launchpad. “You think you can just WALTZ IN HERE and WRECK my HOUSE!?” Stan roared in Launchpad’s face, releasing one fist from the pilot’s jacket and rearing it up over his arm in preparation for a punch. “WELL, BEAKBRAIN, WHY DON’T YOU SNACK ON THIS, YOU OVERSIZED-“
Stan was suddenly interrupted by Dipper rushing to his side and trying to squeeze himself between his great-uncle and Launchpad, attempting to defuse the tension in the air. “Grunkle Stan, stop!” Dipper exclaimed. “It was just an accident!”
“Yeah!” Mabel chimed in, also intervening and joining Dipper in attempting to block Stan. “We brought these guys here! They wanted to see the Shack!”
“They? Who’s they?” Stan replied, apparently having missed the other McDucks in his rage against Launchpad. It was then that Stan felt something tap his shoulder, and he turned his head to see Scrooge extending his cane at him. The old bird’s expression was also turned down in a frown of irritation, and as the nephews and Webby rushed to his side, he tapped his cane back to the ground and growled a threat at Stan.
“I’ll tell ye something right now, man,” Scrooge spat. “I do not appreciate my employees being threatened. So unless ye want a storm ‘a legal cases promp’ly stuffed up yer bahook, I’d suggest putting him down.”
Stan seemed to falter at Scrooge’s words, but he quickly resumed an angry-looking appearance and fired back with, “Yeah? We’ll see how well your lawyers do when I beat their faces straight into the back of their heads, feather-face!”
Stan and Scrooge both began to glare at each other with equal intensity, the invisible sparks of conflict flying at the point where their gazes met. Sensing the danger, Dipper got between the two, again attempting to settle their confrontation peacefully. This time, he was joined by the Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who all got in front of Scrooge and pushed against his chest to hold him back.
“C’mon, Uncle Scrooge! Stop it!” Huey protested.
“We haven’t even gotten to go inside yet!” Louie added.
“Just relax, it’s not worth fighting over!” Dewey said.
“They’re right, you guys!” Dipper insisted, alternating a worried look back and forth from Stan to Scrooge, neither of whom seemed interested in backing down. “There doesn’t have to be any fighting! After all, we can fix the porch and the car – they don’t look that bad!”
Just as Dipper finished speaking, a loud creaking sound caught everyone’s attention, and they all looked up to where the sound was coming from: the roof of the Mystery Shack. The large letter “S” from the word “Shack” on the sign of the building had fully come loose, and it slowly slid across the shingles, slipped over the edge of the gutter, and began to fall down towards Scrooge’s limo.
“AHH! MY SIGN!” Stan shouted.
“AHH! ME CAR!” Scrooge followed. No matter how much either of them shouted, though, nothing was able to stop the massive red letter from smashing down on the roof of Scrooge’s limo like a ton of bricks. All at once, the intermingling sounds of the letter’s wood fragmenting, the car’s metal bending, and the windows’ glass shattering shot out from the point of impact, forcing everyone around it to turn away protectively. Several birds flew from their perches in the pine trees overhead as the massive sound echoed throughout the surrounding forest, and as the dust settled around the accident, the Pines and the McDucks all turned back to look. While the children were all drawn to the sight of the massive red S sitting atop the crater it had formed in the roof of the McDuck limousine, Scrooge and Stan had their eyes turned to something much brighter, gleaming through the dust against the midday sun. The cave-in of the car had smashed open the windows, and now Scrooge’s Yukon gold and riches were spilled all across the Mystery Shack’s front lawn.
Stan’s eyes lit up gleefully and he dashed toward the pile of wealth, leaving Scrooge and the others behind in his haste. “Sweet mother of moolah! I’M RICH!” Stan exclaimed as he slid to his knees in front of the huge pile of gold, beginning to scoop as much of it into his arms as he could carry while laughing delightedly. It wasn’t long before a stern swing of Scrooge’s cane smacked his forehead, though, and Stan cried out in surprise as his hands flew to the spot of injury, dropping the sums of gold he had been stockpiling. Once the stinging had subsided, Stan’s hands balled up into fists yet again and he began glaring at Scrooge, who stood opposite him in front of the gold spill with an equally enraged look.
“Threatening my employees and scaring me wee ones was bad enough, lad,” Scrooge growled, “But rubbin’ yer greasy mitts all over me treasure is where Scrooge McDuck DRAWS THE LINE!” The old bird then twirled his cane in a display of combat readiness, holding it like a rapier in Stan’s direction.
“I’ll take you AND your stupid kids on, swan-lips!” Stan retorted, pulling a small, glistening orb from his pocket. He threw it to the ground at his feet, creating a flash of light and a cloud of smoke, and he reappeared in his full black business suit, swinging his 8-ball cane in a similar threatening fashion. “That gold’s gonna be all mine!”
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!
Stan lunged at Scrooge with an aggressive shout, swinging his 8-ball cane down at his enemy. Scrooge was easily able to block the obvious strike with his own cane, and as he pushed against Stan’s strength and stature, he twisted his head to look at Launchpad and the kids, who were watching their newborn struggle with frightened looks. “Launchpad!” Scrooge shouted. “Keep ’em at a distance!”
“Yes sir, Mister McD!” Launchpad affirmed before turning around and ushering the ducklings and the Pines twins away from the scene of the conflict, bringing them to the edge of the property to ensure their safety. Launchpad made sure to stand in front of them in case anything drastic happened, and the kids all resumed watching as Scrooge and Stan clashed canes in front of the mound of gold.
“Ah, geez…” Dipper groaned as he watched Stan and Scrooge from afar. He then looked over at the triplets and Webby, offering, “Sorry about him. He just really, REALLY likes money.”
“And fighting!” Mabel added.
“No worries. It’ll be best let them sort this out by themselves,” Dewey replied.
“Yeah,” added Webby, “Because if there’s one thing Scrooge doesn’t like, it’s people trying to take his money.”
A loud shout drew the kids’ attention back to the brawl, and they saw Stan use his greater size to shove Scrooge away before quickly trying to scoop some gold coins into the confines of his suit. Recovering quickly from Stan’s hasty maneuver, Scrooge whirled around on one foot before flinging his cane at his enemy, striking Stan directly in the temple with a well-placed throw and causing him to drop most of the gold he was currently holding. Scrooge proceeded to rush at Stan while his cane spun in midair, and upon hearing the duck’s approach, Stan blindly tossed what little gold he was still holding in Scrooge’s general direction, turning away to shield his already-injured temple. Dropping to the ground while maintaining his momentum allowed Scrooge to slide across the grass and duck underneath the gold coins, and once he was out of harm’s way he leapt up, snatched his cane out of the air, jumped off of the back of Stan’s neck, and came back down on the other side of him with a stern whip of his cane, slamming the back of Stan’s head and making him faceplant into the gold pile with a pained grunt. Upon landing, Scrooge then whirled around and pressed the blunt end of his cane to Stan’s head, staring at him with a stern glare.
“Stay down, man,” Scrooge warned. “I won’t give ye a second chance.”
Stan seemed to waver in the face of Scrooge’s mercy, but his answer came shortly after in the form of his 8-ball cane being swung into the back of Scrooge’s knees. With a pained squawk, Scrooge fell to the ground, allowing Stan to push himself up and grab the feathers on the back of Scrooge’s neck.
“Lemme show you what I think of your ‘second chance!'” Stan retorted before driving his knee into the center of Scrooge’s face, hitting just above his bill and below his eyes. Scrooge’s expression was full of pain, but he had little time to let it settle, as Stan proceeded to heave him into the air and throw him over his shoulder. Scrooge went flying face-first into the back corner of his limo, shouting in pain upon impact and collapsing to the ground. He wasted no time in getting back on his feet, however, and now any sign of the mercifulness he had just displayed towards Stan was gone. The Scottish duck was now well and truly furious.
“Alright then, ye brick-brained bugger!” Scrooge hollered, shaking his fist and stomping the ground. “You’ve earned yourself a one-way ticket to the bottom of my flippers!”
With that, Scrooge kicked open the trunk of his limo, and what spilled out was a comically large wave of even more gold, gems, and treasure. It came crashing down on top of Scrooge and spread out in every direction, engulfing the Mystery Shack’s front lot with even more valuables. Stan’s pupils almost seemed to transform into dollar signs, and he greedily sprinted at the treasure mounds that now covered his lawn. The greedy conman scaled the largest pile of treasure he could get to, but before he could start digging his hands into the glimmering items to take them for himself, Scrooge exploded from inside the pile and plowed a solid haymaker into Stan’s jaw. This caused Stan to fall away from the footholds in the treasure he’d been gripping, and both he and Scrooge started falling to the lower level of the gold mounds. However, where Stan painfully smacked onto the coins and treasure beneath him, Scrooge extended his body into a diving position and dipped away into the depths of the treasure like it was a swimming pool.
Grunting as he nursed his aching spine, Stan slowly got back on his feet, but the moment he took an uneasy step forward, Scrooge burst from the treasure pile behind him and grabbed the scruff of his jacket before slipping back into the gold, yanking Stan down and dragging him along the surface as he swam underneath. Scrooge eventually burst from the pile once more to push Stan forcefully into a fold mound before releasing his clothes and grabbing a jeweled scepter from the treasure at his feet, clubbing Stan across the back of the head with it to send the old man sprawling across the gold once again, his head aching and his vision spinning. Tossing the scepter aside as quickly as he had picked it up, Scrooge dove back into the gold’s depths, hunting his opponent from beneath like a treasure shark.
Groaning in pain while rubbing the back of his head, Stan hoisted himself back onto his feet as his senses came back into focus after being thrown for a loop. He could hear the gold and treasure beneath his feet shimmying against itself as Scrooge swam around it, and the old scam artist quickly threw together a plan to lure him out. Stan reached down to grab a large wooden chest of riches from beside his feet, and with a forceful shout, he threw it over his head as far as his strength could muster, making it slam to the surface of the gold sea. Stan’s plan proved to be a success, as Scrooge exploded from beside the chest, throwing a punch in what he expected to be Stan’s direction. However, the old bird’s eyes went agape in surprise as his attack hit nothing but air, and a loud shouting drew his attention to his left, only for Scrooge’s attention to be met with a shoulder charge from Stan. Scrooge felt the wind fly from his lungs as Stan’s shoulder plowed into his diaphragm, and it wasn’t long before Stan charged directly at another mound of gold, painfully slamming Scrooge against it and pinning him against the sparkling riches. Scrooge’s cane fell from his slacking fingers, clattering against the valuable metals and jewels beneath the two. What followed was a rhythmic series of punches as Stan’s fists knocked Scrooge’s head to and fro, and after several seconds of unrelenting punishment, Stan rocketed an uppercut to the underside of Scrooge’s bill, knocking him into the air enough for Stan’s free hand to find a stern grip around the old bird’s leg. This allowed Stan to whirl around in a full circle, slamming Scrooge into and through the gold mound as he spun.
As Scrooge’s head emerged on the other side of the gold mound, he turned his enraged gaze downward to stare at Stan, who noticed that Scrooge’s cheeks were puffed widely. Before Stan could realize what was in Scrooge’s beak, the old bird spat out a torrent of gold coins in his enemy’s direction, and with some careful aiming, he was able to spit a coin directly at Stan’s left eye. The coin smashed through the left lens of Stan’s glasses and hit its mark directly in the pupil, extracting a cry of surprise and pain from the old man’s lips. His hand released Scrooge’s leg to tend to his injury, and Scrooge fell to his hands and knees with a pained cough. After spitting out the remainder of gold he had stocked up in his cheeks, Scrooge retrieved his cane from the gold’s surface before slipping it into the confines of his robe, exchanging it for a few pistols and a stick of dynamite. With a plan in mind, Scrooge tossed the two regular pistols slightly up before pitching the stick of dynamite as high into the air as he could, following the throw by aiming the third pistol in his hand and firing at it. The pistol turned out to be a flare gun, as a bright red ball of light soared from the gun’s muzzle and past the dynamite’s fuse, lighting it with its intense heat. As the dynamite continued to fly higher in the air as a result of Scrooge’s surprisingly strong throw and the flare shot sailed high into the sky, Scrooge caught the other two pistols just as they were about to fall past his hands, twirling them before aiming the both of them at Stan’s feet. Stan, having just regained the entirety of his vision after being blinded by the gold coin, saw Scrooge’s weapons trained on him and seemed to go pale.
“Feast yer eyes, pally,” Scrooge mused smugly, “Because yer about to witness Two-Gun Buck McDuck’s famous Yella-Belly Waltz!”
“Yella-Belly What?” Stan replied just before Scrooge began to fire both pistols at Stan’s feet, making him yelp in fear and jump around from one leg to the other, desperately trying to avoid catching a bullet below his toes. Scrooge smirked confidently as he continued to unload the barrels of his pistols, making Stan dance around the gold pile for several seconds before taking careful aim at a gold coin between Stan’s feet, firing his last bullet at the trinket with such precision that it sent the currency flipping into the air, drawing Stan’s attention as it flew up past his face and into the air. Something else fell past it, however, and Stan’s gaze was only able to focus on it in time to see the dynamite’s lit fuse recede into the red explosive.
The dynamite’s resulting explosion rocked the Mystery Shack estate, with everyone covering their ears in response to the deafening blast. Stan, meanwhile, was sent flying away from the explosion, and the force of the detonation sent him crashing through the main entrance to the Mystery Shack museum showroom. The door’s fragmented shards clattered to the carpeted floor all around Stan, who came sliding to a halt on the floor in a trail of smoke. Stan coughed and wheezed as explosion smog clouded his lungs, weakly propping himself up on one elbow to improve his the flow of air to his chest. He didn’t have much time, though, as the sound of Scrooge trodding across the gold mounds outside began to increase in volume as he approached the smashed front door to the Mystery Shack. Stan looked around in a panic for some means of self-defense, but all that was around him were his many bizarre exhibits and “local oddities.” The fear in Stan’s eyes suddenly drained away, though, and a smirk full of confidence took its place, as he realized that these attractions were all he needed.
What remained of the doorframe in the front entrance came creaking down to the floor as Scrooge pushed it open, upon which it shattered to pieces at his feet. The rich old bird swept wood splinters out of his way with his cane as he entered the museum, surveying his surroundings with an air of caution. The clean trail in the midst of dirt on the carpets made it clear to Scrooge that Stan was indeed in here somewhere, and so he began to investigate. The room was poorly lit by spotlights on some of the attractions along with a chandelier of antlers dangling from the ceiling, and so Scrooge had to squint through the darker areas in search of his foe, and eventually, his searching led him to the base of what he gathered was the “Sascrotch” based on the sign erected by its feet. Scrooge’s expression soured at the sight of the crude-looking creature, which seemed human-like if only for the large stature and patches of fur on its body. The underwear on the creature seemed to have been there for a while, with drink stains and dust implying a long time since its last trip to a washing machine, and Scrooge looked disgusted at such a display.
“This is what he calls a museum? Far too juvenile,” Scrooge muttered to himself. Before he could resume his search, however, a pair of hands emerged from behind the Sascrotch, grabbed the waistband of its underpants, and stretched them out to snag Scrooge’s head, who was so caught off guard that the waistband snapped back into place before he could avoid the surprise attack, and his head became tangled in the Sascrotch’s crotch while his top hat, knocked free from its feathered perch, sailed off through the obliterated doorframe and back outside. As Scrooge shouted angrily and wrestled with the musty, unwashed fabric, he heard the sound of footsteps emerge from behind the statue, along with a familiar voice.
“Oh, I dunno about that one, birdbrain,” Stan quipped, smirking with amusement at Scrooge’s angry struggling. “Usually this is one of my best attractions. In fact, I’d even say it’s a real home run!” Scrooge barely had time to register Stan’s words before a long, smooth, sturdy weapon slammed into the side of his trapped head, dazing the McDuck millionaire and sending him tumbling out of the Sascrotch’s undergarments and onto the floor. Managing to recover quickly despite the severity of Stan’s strike, Scrooge performed a handspring off the carpeted floor to avoid another swing of Stan’s weapon, which he could now see was a wooden baseball bat.
“There’s more than enough real oddities in this world to stock a place like this with,” Scrooge spat venomously, reaching into his robe and pulling a pickaxe out of his Hyperspace Pocket. “How many tourists’ pockets have ye dried out with the ‘Sascrotch,’ ya dobber?”
This comment seemed to deeply enrage Stan, as evident by his grip on the baseball bat tightening to a point where his knuckles were bone white. “In that case,” he retorted, “I bet the Pioneer Duck attraction would bring in plenty of business!” With his threat issued, Stan rushed at Scrooge with his bat held offensively, and Scrooge twirled his pickaxe in preparation before holding it horizontally to block Stan’s overhead swing against its oak handle. Stan didn’t relent and offer the clichéd power struggle between their two weapons, instead choosing to rain down on Scrooge’s weapon with a flurry of strikes of his bat.
Seeing that Stan was attacking relentlessly, Scrooge calculated his next move and swiftly stepped to the side of his foe’s next swing, and once Stan’s bat slammed against the floor, Scrooge swung his pickaxe down on top of it, burying the metal end of the pick into the wood of the bat and securing it to the floor. With Stan momentarily caught by surprise, Scrooge performed an angular leap and delivered a stern kick to Stan’s chin, sending him staggering away and leaving Scrooge with enough time to reach into his Hyperspace Pocket, from which he withdrew a large woodcutter’s axe. Swinging his newfound weapon over his head, Scrooge charged at Stan with murderous intent, forcing Stan to back away and survey his surroundings for something to defend himself with. Grabbing the Thigh-Clops off its pedestal, Stan blindly swung the attraction at Scrooge, and while the blade of his axe cut through the wax leg, the foot kept flying as a result of its momentum, kicking Scrooge in the face and making him stumble. Stan, recognizing the combat potential of his museum’s contents, smirked and rushed over to acquire more of them while he had the chance.
Scrooge, meanwhile, was tiring rather quickly of Stan’s trickiness, and his grip on the axe handle tightened even further as he refocused on his enemy, who was now on the other side of the museum. Clutching a batch of corn he had managed to pull from the Cornicorn’s wire-frame body, Stan readied the Six-Packolope and began smacking the corn ears with the odd creature, sending them flying at Scrooge from a distance. In response, Scrooge let out a roar and began charging toward Stan, using his axe to slice through the plant projectiles as they came his way. With the gap between him and his foe growing smaller with every step, Scrooge leaped into the air, axe brandished overhead as he prepared to strike a decisive blow. Stan, still smirking cleverly, threw the Six-Packolope at his aerial enemy, allowing Scrooge to slash through it in order to open him up to his real attack. Before Scrooge could manage another midair swing of his axe, Stan whirled around as hard as he could and slapped Scrooge across the face with the Fiji Mermaid’s disfigured head, causing the old bird to lose his grip on his axe and go careening into a mirror that was propped up on the other side of the wall. After sliding to the floor and picking himself up, Scrooge’s attention was drawn to the mirror and his slightly battered-looking expression that was reflected in it, along with the display tag for the exhibit: The Most Hideous Creature Known To Man.
Feeling insulted, Scrooge’s fists began to quiver intensely and his jaw clenched with unbelievable force, but before he could fully snap, he noticed Stan’s reflection in the mirror behind him, which seemed like it was about to throw something his way. Scrooge turned away from the mirror and lurched to the side just in time to avoid the horn of the Beavercorn, which buried itself in the glass of the mirror after missing its mark. Its bizarre appearance drew Scrooge’s eye for just a moment, and that was enough for Stan to accurately throw the Roostdeer at him. Scrooge’s neck was caught between the horns on the bust, and they stuck themselves inside the wall behind Scrooge, pinning him in place. Before Scrooge even had a moment’s respite with which to pry himself free, Stan threw his full weight at Scrooge in a brutal tackle, smashing through the wooden planks of the wall and sending them both tumbling into the Mystery Shack’s floor room. As the two tumbled across the floor, they both threw several punches, kicks, and other miscellaneous strikes at each other, an exchange which culminated in Stan grabbing Scrooge by the beak and slamming the back of his head against the horned turtle skeleton’s bulky shell. This brought their skirmish to a stop as Scrooge winced in pain against the tough shell, but before Stan could capitalize and throw another punch, Scrooge toughed through the aching that was racking his skull and lunged forward, delivering a savage headbutt to Stan’s own forehead and making Stan stumble away, collapsing to the floor with an agonized groan.
Scrooge collected his strength and propped himself up on the bizarre fossil’s shell, regaining his balance while Stan was still recovering from the brutality of Scrooge’s headbutt. With adrenaline pulsing through his system, the McDuck elder thrust his head to the left and right to crack his neck joints while rolling up his sleeves, ready to lay a severe beating on his grounded opponent. Stan managed to interrupt his forward march, however, by reaching into his jacket and producing a small orb that he threw in Scrooge’s general direction, which exploded in a blinding flash of light and smoke that caught the old bird squarely between the eyes. An oppressive whiteness clouded his vision and an incessant ringing drowned out his hearing, and as he quickly lost track of his foe’s whereabouts, Scrooge began throwing punches and kicks at random to cover his surroundings, buying time for his senses to clear up. Dazed and staggered, Scrooge wobbled to and fro in a drunk-looking stupor, spinning haphazardly as his attacks clipped nothing but the air around him. Eventually, these blind swings tuckered him out, and Scrooge placed his hands on his knees to allow himself to breathe ragged, tired gasps of air, in the midst of which he began to regain his sight. His posture straightened as he stood back up, his breathing returning to normal as the glaring white light that was blanketing his vision faded away, allowing Scrooge to see an obscured yellow glimmer approaching him with alarming speed.
Scrooge didn’t even have time to fully readjust to his returning senses before something cold, hard, and metallic drilled into his cheek, sending him spinning and eventually slumping to the floor once again with his limbs sprawled out at his sides. Stan loomed overhead as his foe struggled to get back up, brandishing a pair of brass knuckles that he had slipped on during Scrooge’s blinded rampage. At his feet, Scrooge seemed to be struggling to get up, and Stan solemnly reached down to make good use of his downed state. Despite the advantage that he seemed to have, all that greeted him upon leaning over was a surprise attack from Scrooge, who swung something that felt soft on the outside but carried immense weight behind it that sent Stan toppling in the other direction. This gave Scrooge an opportunity to get back on his feet and slip on his newly produced weapons: a pair of winter mittens with copious amounts of gold woven into their padding. He clenched them shut in his fists once they were on, posing as if they were boxing gloves, and glared at Stan with an unwavering intensity only matched by Stan’s own vigorous stare. In spite of their current injuries and persistent exhaustion, their battle was far from over.
Scrooge made the first step forward in closing the gap between them, throwing out a few cautious jabs to assert his dominance. Stan, unwilling to give any ground, returned with a few jabs of his own, following them up with a sudden lunging punch that Scrooge blocked with the weight of his mitts. With his free glove, Scrooge laid a solid strike into Stan’s abdomen, and Stan wheezed as the incredibly heavy glove instantly robbed him of the air in his lungs, making his posture lose its fortitude and forcing him to take a few shaky steps back. He was able to catch himself before he could fall to the floor, but he had barely sucked in another breath before Scrooge had advanced on him, slugging the scam artist across the face with both fists repeatedly and making him reel back even further at a pace Scrooge only continued to match. Once several rounds of punches had left their mark on Stan, Scrooge crouched down and exploded into the air with a brutal uppercut that further pushed Stan back, forcing the conman to brace himself against the far wall of the floor room.
Antithetic of the mercy he had offered before, Scrooge refused to let Stan have his breathing room and threw another left hook that caught Stan with his guard down, making him stagger and bringing him dangerously close to falling to the floor in a brutalized pile. He gathered what strength he had left, however, and caught his balance before he could come crashing down, and he growled lowly before spitting a wad of blood from his mouth, wiping his bloodied lip with his tuxedo sleeve and fixing a steely-eyed look on Scrooge, who scowled right back and threw a straight jab with his right arm at Stan’s head. A timely crouch under Scrooge’s arm allowed Stan to escape unscathed, however, and as Scrooge’s mitted fist smacked against the wall harmlessly, Stan rose up with great force and swung the outer edge of his right fist into the back of Scrooge’s neck, extracting a groan of pain from the duck and knocking him face-first into the wall.
With an opportune window to press on with his advantage, Stan unclenched his fist and grabbed the tuft of feathers on the back of Scrooge’s head. Then he bashed McDuck’s face against the wall once more before running along the edge of the room, dragging Scrooge’s head across the wood boards as he went. The restrained old bird threw a few punches at Stan’s arm in an attempt to loosen his grip, but Stan held fast to his grip on his foe, dragging him across the wall for the entire length of the room before slamming his face into the next wall with vigorous force. Stan’s fingers then quickly found their grip on the folds of Scrooge’s robe, and in just a few swift motions he lifted the multiplujillionaire duck over his head, bashed his entire body against the wall one more time, and flung him across the room, a series which resulted in Scrooge sliding to a stop on the carpeted floor next to the horned turtle skeleton.
“Haha, yeah! How do you like THAT!” Stan gloated, grinning smugly at Scrooge and his attempts to get back up. Continuing to mock his downed enemy, Stan spat, “You’re worth your salt in a fight, old man, but I’m gonna show you right now that I deserve all that treasure more than you EVER did!”
Upon hearing those words leave Stan’s lips, Scrooge’s struggling to regain his footing stopped on a dime, as did his labored breathing. At first, Stan paid this change in behavior no mind, but his smug expression was quickly erased when he began to see Scrooge twitching in anger. With an easiness that was absent from the efforts he was making mere moments ago, Scrooge rose to his feet once again with an infuriated expression. Steam was visibly pouring from his nostrils and the sides of his head, and his arms quivered as he clenched his fists with unbelievable strength.
“What did you say…”
A loud sound of metal clamoring made Stan take another fearful step back as Scrooge casually shook his arms once, sending the gold-laced oven mitts flying off in opposing directions. When Scrooge snapped his gaze back to Stan, his eyes were seething red, and Stan could almost feel the fiery aura of anger that blazed to life around the duck.
“…ABOUT ME AND MY MONEY!?”
Having shouted his question at the top of his lungs, Scrooge unleashed another berserk roar before wrapping his bare hands around the lower lip of the horned turtle skeleton’s shell, ripping it free from the rest of its remains before extending it, rapidly spinning in place, and flinging the shell at Stan with aggravated strength. The shell whirled in circles as it slid across the floor, catching the retreating Stan before he could avoid its destructive path of travel. With the shell barreling into his shins and sweeping his feet off the floor, Stan cried out in pain and shock as he fell belly-first onto the top of the spinning shell, which ricocheted off the wall behind him and back in the direction from whence it came.
As the shell raced along, Stan propped his upper body up with his arms, keeping his eyes closed to avoid getting nauseous as he spun along with the durable fossil. As he heard something shuffling around him, however, Stan opened his eyes just in time for Scrooge to swing the rest of the horned turtle’s skeletal remains by the tail, bashing it into Stan’s back as well as the rear of the shell. This only increased its forward momentum, and both it and Stan smashed through the wooden wall in front of them, entering a pitch-black storage closet that was barely lit by the lights that shone in through the hole in the wall. The shell slammed into something metal with a loud CLANG, and Stan was thrown off as it went sailing into the corner of the compact room, where it came to an abrupt and noisy halt by lodging itself in the insulation of the unfinished closet walls.
Once Stan came sliding to a halt, he pressed his hands to the floor to prop himself back up, but he stopped when he recognized the texture of the flat, smooth, patchwork surface he was laying on. His suspicions were confirmed by the sounds of a machine spluttering to life, and he felt the object underneath him begin to swell and inflate. Acting quickly, Stan got on his feet and turned around to assess his situation, but all he saw was the fast-moving body of Scrooge McDuck plow into him at full speed, bringing them both down on top of the rapidly growing object under their feet. The engine that was spurred to life by the shell’s impact continued filling with air, eventually making the contraption grow too large for the closet it was being held in. Stan and Scrooge both groaned and shouted as they were pressed down on their stomachs between the growing object and the ceiling above them, their shouts becoming lost in the growing sounds of wood breaking and foundations splintering.
Outside the Mystery Shack, the Pines twins and the McDuck entourage all stared in shock as a large section of the building’s roofing exploded in a shower of shingles and splinters, making way for a huge, swelling mass of nylon to grow and expand into the air. As more and more of the contraption escaped its containment, the younglings stared in horror from behind an equally stunned Launchpad, gaping at the familiar polyester visage of a monstrous face.
“What IS that thing!?” Webby exclaimed, vocalizing the thoughts of the Duck triplets next to her.
“Stay back, kids!” Launchpad proclaimed, collapsing to his knees and staring at the emerging face with a look of awestruck terror. “It’s the dreaded DIY Demon… The collection of all the world’s failed projects, come to have its way with our unworthy souls!”
“What? No, that’s not it!” Dipper replied, pointing to the balloon as its growing size strained against the walls of the Mystery Shack. “It’s a blimp of Grunkle Stan! I remember seeing it before during the Woodstick Festival, but I thought it was destroyed!”
Sure enough, as the walls of the Mystery Shack gave way one final time, the nightmarish blimp took to the sky, revealing the full inglorious recreation of Grunkle Stan’s face. The cross-eyed patchwork face glowered at the spectators as it made its ascent, rising past the top of the Shack and being carried away from them by the gusts of wind rushing over the treetops. As the horrifying hot air balloon drifted away from them, Dewey caught a glimpse of something on the top of the structure, moving around erratically in order to stave off an untimely fall. Then it became two somethings, each rising to a full human-like shape as they stood across from each other, squaring up for their sky-high showdown.
“Hey, look!” Dewey cried upon connecting the dots, pointing to the pseudo-Stan’s fez and drawing the others’ attention to the figures that stood atop it. “Uncle Scrooge and Mr. Pines! They’re on top of that thing!”
“And they don’t look like they’ve settled things, either…” Louie added nervously.
“We gotta stop them before they get too high!” Mabel declared. “Otherwise they could both get hurt bad!”
“Yeah, but the question is… how?” Dipper asked. “We don’t have anything that can reach that far. How are we supposed to get up there and stop them?”
A sudden gasp came from in front of the kids, and they all looked to see Launchpad whirling his head around upon hearing Dipper’s query, an excited glimmer shining in his expression.
“I’m a pilot!”
—
Struggling to maintain his balance atop the poorly constructed balloon, Scrooge planted his feet on the top of its fez and glared across the nylon surface at Stan, who was also affirming his posture. Winds whipped around both fighters as the horrific blimp rose higher and higher into the sky, carrying them far above the canopies of the Oregon pine forests below them while floating in a southern direction. The balloon’s white banner whipped and billowed over their heads, still proudly bearing the message of ‘I EAT KIDS,’ and with the sounds of the sky filling the two’s auditory senses, both Scrooge and Stan tensed their jaws and clenched their fists. The mortal peril of the thousand-plus-foot drop from the top of the blimp to the cold, hard ground below was completely lost to the wealthy duck and the seasoned conman. Their vision was tunneling, and all either could see was his enemy across from him. A change in the playing field would not be enough to stall their battle.
Stan and Scrooge rushed to the center of the balloon’s crest with raised fists, shouting at each other with valiant and full-throated battle cries. Their fists swung through the air simultaneously, and both elderly fighters struck each other across the jaw with enough force to cause pain upon impact, but neither had enough to take either of them off their feet, and the two began a full-on fistfight atop the blimp’s highest point, throwing, dodging, and trading anger-fueled punches with one another. Stan’s still-equipped brass knuckles added a distinctly potent extra sting to his strikes, but Scrooge’s blazing anger amplified his every move and attack with an equal, if not superior, intensity. Thus, they aggressively circled each other atop the abhorrent aircraft, trading blows with one another on relatively similar footing.
After luckily managing to dodge a heavy swing from Scrooge, Stan poured all his strength into his left arm and delivered a solid blow to Scrooge’s beak, which hit like a brick to the face thanks to the intensity of Stan’s punch and the unrelenting pain that his brass knuckles delivered. Despite receiving such an incredibly painful attack in a literal head-on fashion, Scrooge kept his composure and braced his back-first landing with his palms, springing off the bouncy surface of the balloon and launching back into Stan’s face with a powerful kick that sent him reeling with a wounded shout. With his opponent staggered and wide open to a follow-up, Scrooge gracefully carried the downward momentum from his handspring and crouched down to take Stan’s legs out from underneath him with a sweeping kick to the ankles. But Scrooge wasn’t quite finished, as he used his crouching position and the springy nature of the balloon underneath him to explode upward and deliver a midair kick to his foe’s ribs, sending Stan tumbling across the slippery nylon surface and off the edge of the blimp’s fez, nearly resulting in a surely fatal fall to the unforgiving soil below.
However, Stan put his quick-thinking and tricky mind to work, and just before he fell past the point of no return, he wrapped both hands around the rope attaching the ‘I EAT KIDS’ banner to the rest of the aircraft. With this, Stan used his weight and momentum to swing in a full circle around the rope, launch himself back up to the top of the fez, and deliver a surprise kick of his own to Scrooge’s chest. The result was Stan landing safely back on top of the blimp bearing his features, while Scrooge went flying past any secure fixture of the balloon and began to cry out as he began descending freely through the air. The wind rushing past him on his way down howled loudly on all sides, but that volume would be no challenge for the McDuck elder, who smirked as he raised his fingers to his lips.
Having taken a second to catch his breath after a close brush with death, Stan chuckled to himself at what seemed to be his foe’s ultimate defeat. His victory was proven to be premature, though, as a piercing whistle sounded off from below the nightmare head, overtaking the howling sounds of the wind rushing by with an impossible volume. The whistle had come from the still-plummeting Scrooge, and he turned his head over his shoulder to see a black speck rapidly increasing in size below him, prompting the duck to smirk and extend his left arm. His cane, having activated its jetpack functionalities upon Scrooge’s whistling command, flew into his grip and began carrying him back toward the balloon at a high speed. Upon looking up to the edge of the blimp’s fez during his rapid ascent, Scrooge could make out the shape of Stan’s head peering down at him, no doubt because of the ear-shattering volume of his whistling, and a plan began to form in Scrooge’s head.
Tilting the jet-boosted cane adjusted Scrooge’s direction of flight to aim more directly at Stan, and before the seasoned conman could think to get out of harm’s way, the blunt end of the rocketing cane smashed into his bulbous nose with great force, delivering a painful attack that sent Stan flying up into the air, followed a trail of blood that sprayed from his nose. Gripping his cane tighter and fastening it to the back of his robe, Scrooge boosted high past the blimp’s surface to match, soaring just over Stan’s vulnerable body before delivering a punch from above that sent his foe shooting back to the blimp. Where there normally would have been a painful smacking to the ground, instead Stan was pressed against the bouncy polyester surface before being launched back into the air, not unlike the effects of landing on a trampoline, and this sent him straight back to Scrooge, who was hovering in wait for Stan to come flying back at him. Utilizing the inherently springy nature of their aerial battleground to his benefit, Scrooge proceeded to lay several more downward punches into Stan, who continuously repeated the cyclical process of being punched, bouncing off the balloon, and being punched once more, grunting and crying out in pain all the while.
After several repeated events of Stan being launched into punch after punch by the balloon, Scrooge reached into his robe as Stan flew up toward him and withdrew his burglar stunner, spinning it between his fingers like a gunslinger before training its sight forward and waiting for Stan to shoot into view. Two hyper-accurate pulls of the trigger unleashed two red laser blasts that blasted through the outer sides of Stan’s brass knuckles, vaporizing them both and leaving Stan clutching only the finger grips of his now-worthless weapons. There was barely time for Stan to even realize what had happened, however, as Scrooge twirled the high-tech blaster once again and pistol-whipped Stan with it, making him fall face-first to the balloon’s peak once again, this time without enough force to make him bounce into the air again. Stan groaned as he forced himself up, shaking his head to clear his dizzied vision before glaring at the still-flying Scrooge while tossing the worthless brass knuckle handles away.
“Oh, yeah, REAL impressive, old-timer,” Stan mocked, gesturing to the jet-boosted cane keeping Scrooge aloft. “You’re a duck that doesn’t even fly on his own! You can’t even get your OWN BIOLOGY right!”
“Hmph. Seems like yer nan never taught you ta respect yer elder,” Scrooge remarked in response. Blasting into motion with his cane, Scrooge began flying around the perimeter of the blimp’s fez, taking aim at Stan with his burglar stunner while continuing, “Let’s see if I can’t learn that to an old codger like yerself!”
A torrent of laser shots flew from the burglar stunner’s barrel, forcing Stan to leap, roll, and sprint to dodge them as Scrooge circled the platform from a distance. One stray blast managed to shoot through Stan’s own fez, burning a hole through the symbol in the middle and carrying it off his head and into the clouds beyond, much to Stan’s horror. He growled angrily at the destruction of his headpiece but was forced to keep moving so as to avoid suffering a similar fate. After what felt to Stan like an eternity of dodging Scrooge’s laser fire, one of the shots seared through one of the ropes attaching the ‘I EAT KIDS’ banner to the top of the blimp, making it flutter and billow in the air as the balloon continued its aimless course through the skies. Seeing it shake violently and observing Scrooge’s circular path of flight gave Stan an idea, and he rushed across the polyester patchwork, dodging blasts from the burglar stunner along the way, to reach the still-connected banner rope. Channeling his strength to fight against the violent winds, Stan swung the banner in the opposite direction of Scrooge’s flight pattern, making the rich duck fly straight into it and get tangled up in it. Scrooge’s muffled shouts could barely be heard through the constricting banner, and his cane flew him in seemingly random directions as he wrestled to escape its binding grip. Stan grinned as he watched his plan succeed before reaching into his suit and pulling out a large briefcase, slamming it down on the balloon’s surface and clicking it open to peruse its contents.
It took several moments of struggling and grappling with the wrapped-up banner that had most of his body surrounded, but Scrooge eventually managed to pull himself loose, shaking off the unraveled placard and hovering in place to regain his bearings. That turned out to be a mistake, though, as Scrooge heard a CHUK noise come from his right, and before he knew it, a metal cross-bolt had pierced his cane, lodging itself clean through the modified walking stick. Scrooge gasped at the projectile that was now buried through his makeshift jetpack, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Stan aiming a crossbow at him from atop the ghoulish balloon. The flame at the end of Scrooge’s cane began to splutter and die out, and spouts of smoke spluttered from the wrecked cane, accompanied by bangs and shakes. Scrooge could recognize the signs of its impending explosion right away, and so he hastily unstrapped it from his robe and dove onto the blimp, allowing the cane and the cross-bolt stuck through it to fall as he landed the jump to safety. As the Scottish duck picked himself up and dusted himself off, he recognized something coming at him and he hastily crouched underneath Stan’s crossbow, which had been thrown at him and was now falling over the side of the balloon. Refocusing on his enemy who stood in front of him, Scrooge sneered and rolled up his sleeves as he began striding toward Stan, who planted his fist into his palm while sneering back and advancing in turn. The two broke into a sprint after just a few steps, and they looked ready to duke it out once again as they leaped at one another.
Beneath them, Scrooge’s cane spluttered and shook violently in the air as it neared an explosion, and Stan’s crossbow was falling toward it in a downward arc. With a final shudder, the mechanically augmented staff erupted in a blast of fire as its internal engines combusted and self-destructed, and the force of the detonation launched the falling crossbow through the air, sending it smacking into the nightmare blimp’s engine. This impact caused the engine to quiver and roar even louder, kicking into high gear and generating even more hot air inside the balloon. As a result, it began to rapidly rise even higher into the sky, and the platform beneath Scrooge and Stan lifted itself up to them and unexpectedly caught them both in its accelerated ascent, planting them down as their battleground flew ever higher. The terrifying aircraft left clouds, birds, and the lower atmosphere behind it as it began to approach dangerously high altitudes, and just as the lower temperatures slowed the blimp’s engines to a consistent pace, stopping it from getting any higher, Scrooge and Stan began to feel the effects of oxygen deprivation as the levels of breathable air around them plummeted. Their eyes widened, and they began to wheeze and cough as breathing became more and more difficult, their lungs crying out for air.
Scrooge had an answer to this plight, though, and Stan watched weakly as he slipped a hand into his robe and withdrew a pack of chewing gum, nestled in a package that read ‘Oxy-Chew’ on the side. Fighting against the convulsions that threatened to shake the taffy loose from his hands, Scrooge took out a stick, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth, aggressively chewing it until he gasped with relief, air miraculously filling his body once again despite the thin atmosphere. Stan, meanwhile, was still on the floor, coughing and shivering as the cold air combined with the lack of oxygen began to take their toll on him. As he rolled over with his arms wrapped around himself, Scrooge got to his feet and surveyed his struggling opponent for a few seconds before slowly walking toward him, solemnly clenching his fists. But to his surprise, before he could get close enough to do anything, Stan’s arm lashed out from his fetal position, and a thin flash of brown movement snatched the Oxy-Chew pack from Scrooge’s grip, bringing it right to Stan in the blink of an eye. Now it was Stan’s turn to pop in a stick of the survival gum, and he took in a deep breath once its effects began to kick in. Seeming irritated, he got on his feet and began to march toward Scrooge, but he only got a few steps in before his eyes popped open in shock and he gave a disgusted frown.
“Ohh, EUGH! Eww, gross!” Stan loudly complained. “Black licorice, seriously? THAT’S your flavor of choice?”
“Oh, give me a break, I didn’t-” Scrooge began, but before he could fully rebuke Stan’s complaint, he leaned out of the way of a surprise punch, looking cross when he came to a stop. “Come on, man!” Scrooge griped between chews of the life-saving taffy in his mouth. “We’re thousands of feet off the ground on a rickety patchwork balloon, and yer biggest concern is scrapping with me?”
“Don’t act like you have the moral high ground here!” Stan returned. “We wouldn’t even be up here if you didn’t activate the engine for this trash heap! All I wanted was a handful of those MOUNTAINS of gold of yours, and you were too much of an ACTUAL scrooge to give a little to the little guy!”
“‘Little guy’!?” Scrooge spat, sounding more aggressively Scottish as his temper spiked out of aggravation and disbelief. “Yer a fully grown fandan who weasels money out of peoples’ pockets tae get by! And fer wye? Yer own greed!” Scrooge stormed toward Stan with a fiery intensity as he spoke, standing on tiptoe to get right in the old man’s face as he continued. “‘Little guy,’ my foot! I’ve no time or patience fer rats like you!”
“Oh, PLEASE!” Stan replied, yelling right back in Scrooge’s face as his own cheeks flushed red with anger. “Forgive me for sullying your schedule with my presence, Feathers von Spoils! I do what I do to survive, and I do what I do for my FAMILY! I’ve gone to prison in three different countries! I’ve had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car! You think YOU have it rough? I HAVE A BEER BELLY, MCDUCK!” Stan’s raving boomed in Scrooge’s head as the elderly conman jabbed his pointed index finger into Scrooge’s chest, continuing, “Meanwhile, you’ve been sucking gold bars as palette cleansers for, oh, I dunno, AS LONG AS YOU’VE BEEN ALIVE, I bet! Well, lemme tell you this, beakbags: what you probably should but don’t pay in taxes every year is as much as I’d wish of making in a LIFETIME! So don’t go spitting at me for how I make ends meet when you’ve never had to worry about an honest day of work in your WHOLE LIFE!”
Scrooge’s expression had been darkening and his fists had been clenching up throughout Stan’s tirade, but it was the final comment that truly set him off. His eyes went wide for a split second before narrowing angrily, and as if something inside him had finally snapped, Scrooge wound up and plowed a furious punch into the middle of Stan’s face, making him stagger and promptly collapse. The Mystery Shack mastermind clutched his nose as he felt warm trickles of blood slip down his face, and he looked up at Scrooge in shock, gazing upon the duck’s trembling posture and berserk expression.
“YOU LISTEN HERE, YA MOUTHY INGRATE!” bellowed the last of Clan McDuck. “I MADE MY FORTUNE BY BEIN’ TOUGHER THAN THE TOUGHIES AND SMARTER THAN THE SMARTEST SMARTIES! I MADE MY MILLIONS SQUARE THROUGH ME OWN BACKBREAKING TRAVELS! THE GROUNDS OF THE YUKON WERE SPLIT IN HALF BY ME OWN TWO HANDS! AND I DID NOT CLAW MY WAY TO THE TOP FROM THE GRIMIEST ALLEYS OF GLASGOW TA BE MOUTHED OFF TO BY A SUIT-SPORTIN’ BAMPOT CRYIN’ OVER HIS OWN TROUBLES! And if ya walk away from this rememberin’ only one thing, let it be this, pally…”
Scrooge rapidly advanced on Stan, grabbing him by the scruff of his tuxedo and lifting him into the air with impressive strength. Stan struggled to break free from his hold, grabbing and yanking against McDuck’s outstretched arms, but they were as firm as stone and refused to release him. Fruitlessly straining against his foe’s iron grip, Stan was made to stare into Scrooge’s rage-filled eyes, which burned with a fury that only slightly outshone the bright glow that Scrooge was beginning to exude as a result of his anger. With steam nearly pouring out of his nostrils, Scrooge finished his verbal rampage:
“…NOBODY… And that means NOBODY… GETS TO BADMOUTH SCROOGE MCDUCK!!“
Roaring with intense anger, Scrooge brought his head back before ramming his forehead into the bridge of Stan’s nose, simultaneously releasing his hold on him so he would go flying back. As Stan lay on his back, groaning in agony as his many injuries began to take their toll on him, Scrooge planted his feet and charged up before sprinting around the perimeter of the blimp’s fez, steadily picking up speed until he was little more than a blur of movement that circled Stan as he pulled himself together and stood back up. With the Way of the Pioneer, Scrooge was moving much too fast for Stan’s eyes to follow, and as the insane speed of his opponent overwhelmed him, Scrooge began breaking formation to zip past his enemy and sock him across the face, darting past Stan with little warning and pelting him with strikes to his body that were too quick for Stan to avoid or block. Eventually, Scrooge drilled a punch to Stan’s right elbow, and with his furious strength and unrelenting momentum, he displaced the bones within and broke Stan’s arm, all before returning to a mad dash around the blimp as Stan shrieked in agony and clutched his broken arm, which was bending the wrong way.
Short gasps and pained groans escaped Stan’s lips as he endured the horrible feeling of his elbow being wrecked, barely being audible over the rushing of wind around him. With Scrooge still whirling around him practically invisibly, Stan gritted his teeth together and fought through the pain as he put a scheme into action. Folding in on himself to disguise his unbroken arm’s movements, he reached into his tuxedo with his left arm, wrapped his fingers around a smoke bomb, and grunted as he threw it with all his might. The pellet flew in a straight arc in front of Stan, and as Scrooge was moving at such incredible speeds, it was inevitable that he would run face-first into the small orb, which detonated in a blast of light and smoke that robbed Scrooge of his vision. As Scrooge yelped in surprise and blindly stumbled across the blimp at still-high speeds, Stan reached across his torso and gripped his broken arm, bending down to brace it against his knee before clenching his whole body and pushing hard against his ill-bent elbow. With a painful snap and an equally pained shout from Stan, his broken arm was set back into place, and he panted heavily as he waved his right arm to relieve it of the stinging aches that coursed up and down its muscles.
Stan’s shouts of bone-busting torment were enough for the blinded Scrooge to roughly place his opponent’s location, and with what speed he was still maintaining, Scrooge barreled toward the location the sounds had originated from and threw a reckless, blind swing that cleaved only thin air as Stan managed to backstep out of harm’s way in the nick of time. Trucking through the pain of his injured right arm to seize on his opening, Stan reached out and grabbed Scrooge’s extended arm with his right hand before bashing the back of his fist into the duck’s bill, effectively driving Scrooge to a screeching halt. Stan’s left hand then closed around Scrooge’s neck, squeezing roughly on his windpipe and making the old bird flail violently as the Oxy-Chew’s nutrients struggled to reach the rest of his body.
Dragging his restrained opponent closer, Stan wrapped both hands around Scrooge’s neck before jabbing his knee into his foe’s midsection. Stan’s body was incredibly tense as adrenaline flooded his system with a cascade of energy, and he leveled more and more knee jabs against the exposed gut of Scrooge McDuck, throwing in a few jabs to the face to spice up his offensive rampage against his feathered foe. Several attacks later, Stan relented to reach into his suit and pull out the spool of rope he’d used to snatch Scrooge’s Oxy-Chew moments earlier, securely tying the rope around Scrooge’s neck before tossing him up into the air and swinging a kick from the point of his toes into the bottom of Scrooge’s chin, which sent the wealthy duck high into the air. As the blimp continued to slowly drift through the upper atmosphere, Scrooge found himself being left behind by the aircraft, and he braced himself to begin falling helplessly toward the earth below him, but instead gagged loudly as the rope around his neck was tightened by Stan pulling hard on it from atop the balloon. Grabbing the lengthy rope by its opposite end relative to Scrooge, Stan swung his airborne enemy back to the top of his ghastly balloon, slamming him against the polyester surface before jerking the rope once more to yank Scrooge over, and Stan tackled him mid-flight to pin him to the ground and wrap his hands around his throat once again.
Scrooge, however, snapped back to reality from his daze and strained against Stan’s grip, managing to squirm around and forcefully wrap his legs around Stan’s neck while gripping his ankles to put Stan in a Full McDuck. Despite his firm grip around Scrooge’s windpipe, Stan felt his supply of Oxy-Chew nutrition being cut off as well, and with both sets of extremities occupied, he couldn’t manage to break free of Scrooge’s grip and more than Scrooge could wrestle his way out of Stan’s. Both fighters sucked it up as much as they could, each determined to outlast the other, but they could feel the lure of oxygen deprivation crawling up on them, and both knew it was only a matter of time before their Oxy-Chew supply would be cut off enough to stop its effects from keeping them afloat in the sea of thin air around them. As their visions blurred and their strengths waned, Scrooge and Stan slowly began slipping into the cold nothingness of unconsciousness…
…Only for a feeling of wind rushing up past them to bring them back from the edge as they became acutely aware that the nightmare head blimp was plummeting like a block of lead. The reduced temperatures of the upper atmosphere had caused the blimp’s engine to stall and eventually stop working entirely, and with no hot air to supply it with lift, the poorly constructed balloon was now shooting groundward with nothing to stop it. Stan and Scrooge exchanged worried looks as they began to float off the balloon’s surface, but their worry was cut short as the blimp’s engine suddenly sputtered back to life with a frenzied second wind, and it abruptly rose with such force that both Scrooge and Stan bounced off its exterior, their grips being broken as they were thrown in opposite directions over either side of the aircraft as it shuddered and floated through the air, its engine sputtering and beginning to catch fire from its sudden overheating. Staring down at the speck-like cities that awaited them at the bottom of their lengthy fall from the sky, Scrooge and Stan began crying out in panic as the literal gravity of their situation came over them.
Long before their assuredly fatal impacts against the concrete jungles below, a sudden streak of red rushed in under the two, managing to narrowly catch both Scrooge and Stan on its metallic upper surface. This was the crimson-painted, high-flying Sunchaser, Scrooge’s own biplane that was often used in his globe-spanning quests for riches. Stan, landing squarely on the center of the aerial vehicle, managed to grab hold of the biplane’s back rudder after bouncing, pulling himself onto its right stabilizer just as Scrooge smacked off the side of the aircraft with a painful THUD. Before he could keep falling down, however, Stan reflexively grabbed ahold of the rope that was still tied around Scrooge’s neck, saving his adversary from a continued fall to the ground below. However, this instead caught Scrooge in the unenviable position of being dragged through the air at high speeds with a rope around his neck, and as the initial jerk of being pulled along by his own red biplane knocked the Oxy-Chew out of his mouth, he flailed and gagged helplessly as the black licorice taffy fell from view.
Inside the cockpit of the Sunchaser, Launchpad sat at the captain’s chair with both hands firmly on the wheel, monitoring the flashing lights and controls on the dashboard before him with characteristic goofiness. Behind him, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, Dipper, and Mabel all watched anxiously as the ship rushed through the air, with everyone being silent until the pair of thumps on the top of the biplane signaled that their rescue operation had found its targets.
“I heard both of them!” Dipper shouted. “Now we have to get them down from up there!”
“C’mon, follow me!” Dewey replied, waving his arm as he made his way toward a ladder fixed to the wall that led up to the higher level of the plane’s interior. “There should be a grate up here we can open for them!”
“Launchpad, keep us going in a consistent direction until we have them inside!” Huey instructed as the younglings hurried over to the metal ladder. “We don’t want them to go flying off if we suddenly change direction!”
“Aye aye, kids! Good luck!” Launchpad affirmed, piloting the Sunchaser in a flatly forward direction. Meanwhile, on top of the biplane, Stan groaned strenuously as he gripped both the aircraft’s rudder and the rope around Scrooge’s neck with white-knuckled strength, powering through the ludicrously fast winds that were roaring past him. Scrooge, on the other hand, was struggling to alleviate the tight grip of the rope around his throat, as the wild swinging of his deadly lifeline made it impossible to get ahold and pull against it. Without even the Oxy-Chew to ease his breathing troubles, Scrooge felt an unsettling chill crawl up his spine as his empty lungs shuddered and heaved in protest. What little strength was left in his body was beginning to ebb away, and as the rope’s chaotic whipping in the wind shook Scrooge around like a dog toy, his vision began to fade out completely to black, and a bright light began shining from above, almost reaching out to Scrooge for him to follow it skyward and ascend beyond the mortal coil he found himself in.
Before Scrooge could consider following its astral pull, however, his life flashed before his eyes in a rushing series of memories: his time as a boy in Glasgow with his family, his initial search for wealth, his time in the Yukon and the struggles he encountered, his company’s establishment upon moving to Duckburg, and his many, many adventures with Donald and the nephews. As these memories of a good, well-lived life filled Scrooge’s mind and senses with an overload of stimuli, a surge of energy shot through Scrooge’s system, and he lurched back from the verge of death with the sheer intensity of his emotions keeping him away from the brink. Those emotions began to boil over as an intense explosion of strength went off in the core of the last of Clan McDuck, and the somewhat faint aura from earlier on the blimp roared back to life with flaming intensity, accompanied by a powerful, burning rage that overtook Scrooge with an unbelievably potent surge.
Angrily clenching his fists and his entire muscular system, Scrooge moved against the powerful winds with ease, grabbing the rope that was dangling him off the edge of the Sunchaser and yanking on it with enough force to launch himself toward its starboard-side wing. Stan, while initially panicked by the feeling of the rope suddenly jerking itself out of his hand and flying out of view, was monumentally more panicked by the sight of a light-radiating Scrooge blasting onto the Sunchaser’s right turbine, having managed to propel himself to safety. What was left of the rope that was previously strangling the richest duck in the world was now fluttering off into the distance, as the knot around his neck had turned to ash from the heat of Scrooge’s anger. It was then that Scrooge’s ire-coated expression turned to glare at Stan, who was a complete sitting duck on the biplane’s rudder, and with the immense power of the Blazing Buck, Scrooge exploded off the turbine engine in that direction with the force and speed of a cannonball. All that Stan could feasibly do was look justifiably stricken as Scrooge reared up for a dropkick in midair, flaring like a fireball as the gap between the two shortened by the instant.
With a fiery explosion of flames and splintered metal, Scrooge not only landed his attack directly on Stan’s cheek with the strength of being hit by a truck, but he smashed straight through the Sunchaser’s rudder, tearing it to pieces as a result of the might of his assault. As Stan and Scrooge both hurtled through the air, the impact of Scrooge’s kick was also being felt by those inside the red biplane, as Launchpad was incapable of stopping the shuddering of the plane from sending them groundward, as his control without the rudder was severely limited. The Pines twins and the ducklings tumbling around inside the hangar only made the abrupt chaos that much worse, and while they were safely contained inside the Sunchaser as they helplessly began their descent, Scrooge and Stan were free to begin falling through the air once again, with Stan barely able to struggle against the pull of gravity as the severe injuries inflicted on him were finally taking their toll.
Scrooge, however, was still very much in the fight, and as he looked to the ground while he began to fall, he took note of a very familiar, very large building beneath the two of them: his Money Bin. Cooking up a quick plan of attack as he fell through the air, Scrooge reached into his robe and pulled out his Multiplicator, turning it on himself and bringing a dozen clones of himself into being that proceeded to fall with him, fanning out in several directions to grab chunks of metal from the Sunchaser’s destroyed rudder before tossing them to the original Scrooge, who grabbed each one as they went by and stacked them underneath his feet to create a makeshift platform. After several metal scraps were added to this pile, the authentic Scrooge launched off the pile of metal shreds to increase his downward velocity even further, straightening out his body to fall straight down as his clones poofed out of existence behind him.
The rushing currents of air streaming past Scrooge howled in his skull as he zeroed in on his target: Stan, who was falling limply toward the Money Bin’s dome-shaped roof. The elderly conman was clearly battered and bruised from the length of their violent encounter, and he was barely keeping himself conscious as his injuries dragged him down internally. Still, his tenacity endured, and he weakly reached into his pockets to scoop out several handfuls of smoke bombs before lobbing them up at Scrooge with all the strength he could muster. Seeing the glistening pellets approach him from below, Scrooge leaned to the left and right to maneuver his fall away from the clusters and avoid them entirely, barely acknowledging their bright, smog-filled detonations as they went off above him once he had dodged them. Scrooge continued to weave between and around Stan’s feeble attempts to stop the inevitable, and eventually, he was down to just one smoke pellet left. Taking careful aim through the swelling of his eyelids, Stan lined up his throw and hurled the lustrous orb with a fierce groan, watching it make a beeline for Scrooge, who made no clear effort to avoid it. As Stan whirled around in a circle during his fall as a result of his strained throw, he braced himself for a loud BANG to signal that he had hit his mark.
It never came, though. Instead, there was only a faint dink that could be heard over the raging winds, and Stan looked bewildered as he looked over his shoulder to see what had occurred. Scrooge, visibly having avoided the pellet somehow, was looking smugly down at his beak, and Stan turned his gaze to see the final smoke pellet nestled comfortably between Scrooge’s teeth. He had managed to catch it between his incisors with pinpoint timing, and his confident grin mixed with his burning anger stirred a defeated feeling in Stan’s stomach. In fact, there was only one phrase that could express Stan’s feeling at that moment in time, and he proceeded to vocally express exactly that:
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
After taking the smoke bomb into his mouth and swirling it around for a bit, Scrooge spat the pellet back at his enemy like a pistol firing a bullet, and it painfully nailed Stan right between his eyes before bursting with a flash that extracted a distressed cry from the Pines con artist. As Stan’s hands instinctively shielded his blinded eyes, Scrooge clenched up in a scowl once more as his Blazing Buck aura flared to even greater heights, rapidly descending upon his opponent as the Money Bin’s roof drew nearer and nearer by the second. Spreading his arms apart from his free-falling position, Scrooge reared back for a massive punch that sparked with flames from the combined heat of his fury and the air friction of his fall. Shouting with effort, Scrooge threw his punch straight into Stan’s jaw, rocketing him down with incredible speed that Scrooge met with equal measure, with Stan trapped under the force of Scrooge’s fist as they both fell further and further. The Money Bin’s roof grew larger as they got closer, and closer, and closer still, until eventually…
SMAAAASH!!!
The entire city of Duckburg turned their heads to the towering Money Bin as a massive sound echoed across the urban sprawl, with huge chunks of the glorified vault’s roof going flying as what looked like a comet from a distance pierced it. This, of course, was no comet, but instead was Scrooge and Stan crashing through the Money Bin’s roof and falling into the cash vault within. As huge chunks of debris fell into the pile of gold and treasures, a cloud of dust obscured the surface of the cash pool, making the result of the combatants’ impact hard to determine. However, as the dust eventually began to settle, the epic conclusion of their conflict was made plain to see.
Stan was lying on top of the gold mount in a battered, bruised, beaten heap. His suit was covered in rips, stains, and scorch marks, and his limbs were sprawled haplessly at his sides, completely and utterly lacking the strength to pick himself up and continue. He wasn’t dead, but the terrible pain that ate away at every square inch of his body certainly made him wish he was. Despite this agonizing suffering, the only thing Stan could manage to express it with was a strained, feeble wheeze that was immediately followed by a terrible series of coughs and groans, as every rapid convulsion of his chest sent aches rippling up and down his body. Pained gasps and labored breathing were all that Stan could force himself to do in the immediate aftermath of the climactic finale, and he was powerless to move when he heard the sound of someone approaching across the surface of gold coins and treasures that lined the walls of the cash vault.
A webbed foot pressed itself against Stan’s ribs and turned him over to lay on his back, and thus he was made to stare up at the stern-looking face of Scrooge McDuck, who was visibly winded from their battle but still had some energy to him. He lifted his foot and placed it atop Stan’s chest before holding one hand over his head, and after a few silent moments of nothing happening, the McDuck Sword flew into Scrooge’s hand with a magic aura about it, and Scrooge trained this possessed blade on Stan’s face with a reasonable distance between the blade’s lethally sharp edge and Stan’s weak, defeated face.
“This is over, man,” Scrooge declared. His tone was soft and collected, but the intensity layered beneath that calm surface made Stan’s skin prickle in fear as he continued. “Give it up. Now.”
After several silent seconds of Stan staring down the sword’s finely sharpened blade, he sighed and let his head flop back defeatedly. “Alright, fine,” Stan conceded, coughing a bit before continuing. “You got me.”
Nodding in acknowledgment, Scrooge lowered the McDuck Sword slightly, allowing Stan to catch his breath now that he had finally cut his loss.
“Now, I’ll be buyin’ that shack of yours, then,” Scrooge declared flatly after a few moments of silence.
“WHAT!?” Stan interjected, attempting to sit up to protest this before his back cracked and gave out below him, forcing him to flop out on the floor once more with a pained grunt.
“You’ve caused much property damage to my assets,” Scrooge explained. “Not to mention threatening me own Yukon gold. From here on out until you’ve paid off every single CENT that these repairs will cost me, 90 percent of yer income will be diverted straight to me. Understood?”
Stan groaned in despair at this proposition, but as he completely understood his situation, he responded, “Well, you haven’t really left me much choice, have you?”
Scrooge allowed himself a small smirk at his new subsidiary’s expense. “Good. I’m glad ye understand your situation. Now, let’s get out of he-“
Before Scrooge could extend a hand to help Stan up to his feet, a deafening smash came from above as the Sunchaser came crashing down onto Scrooge’s money pile, sliding across incalculable amounts of monetary wealth before grinding to a halt on the far wall of the vault. It was smoldering from the rear as the result of Scrooge demolishing the rudder, and while both Scrooge and Stan feared the worst while gawking at the wreckage, the back hangar door falling open to allow not just the Duck triplets, but also Webby, Launchpad, and the Pines twins to walk out seemingly unharmed allowed both elders to sigh with relief.
“GRUNKLE STAN!” Dipper and Mabel cried at the sight of their heavily injured great-uncle, and they rushed across the golden mounds to tend to him. Stan, while assuring both of them that he was fine, was visibly happy to see both of them again after the roughest encounter of his life, and Scrooge smiled at this, knowing the sight of a man whose family was everything to him. With appropriate timing, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby all crowded around Scrooge’s legs, swarming him with questions about his well-being and what had happened over the course of their battle. As he made attempts to settle them, Launchpad clapped Scrooge on the shoulder upon reaching him, smiling somewhat sheepishly despite the proud look in his eyes.
“Good to see you’re alright, Mister McD! Err, sorry about the landing…” Launchpad declared before trailing off guiltily. Scrooge, however, merely sighed in relief and patted his chauffer’s shoulder in return.
“Nothing ta’ worry about, Launchpad,” the last of Clan McDuck reassured with a smile. “These things happen. So long as nothing else happens to go wrong, I think we’ll be just fine, the lot of us.”
As if on cue, at that exact moment the loud, blazing engine of Stan’s nightmare blimp came crashing into the Money Bin through the roof. The blazing, horrific visage of Stan’s face was caught on the edges of the gaping hole in the ceiling, but the roped attaching the engine to the rest of the balloon were burning to a crisp mid-fall, and as they burned thinner and thinner they were just frail enough to snap under the engine’s momentum. It slammed into the gold pile on the other side of the vault of the McDucks and the Pines, spraying gold everywhere before coming to a stop on top of Scrooge’s treasures. While it gave everyone present a dreadful start, they all sighed in relief as it came to a silent stop, with flames simply licking at the gold coins surrounding the engine.
That silence was abruptly shattered by the detached blimp engine spontaneously detonating in a huge explosion of flame, making everyone in the vault duck for cover and raise their arms over their faces to shield from the eruption. Gold coins, now rendered practically worthless due to being scorched by the explosion, rained all around them, and through the cloud of smoke left by the engine’s explosion, Scrooge could see a hole in the wall that was allowing the gold in his vault to spill out onto the hill upon which his Money Bin resided. And he knew that meant exactly one thing: common citizens rubbing their hands all over his hard-earned treasures once they rolled into the city streets.
As Scrooge’s lower eyelid began to reflexively twitch and his grip on the McDuck Sword tightened to a bone-crushing extent, the Duck triplets, Webby, and Launchpad all began to carefully ease away from him before darting away to escape what was about to happen. Dipper and Mabel, looking at their hasty exits and getting the feeling they should be doing the same, hoisted Grunkle Stan to his feet while supporting his weight on their shoulders and carried him to safety as the rest of Scrooge’s body began spasming and twitching. His jaw clenched tightly as his pupils dilated to the size of specks, and in a fit of violent aggression, he threw his head back, collapsed to his knees atop his spilling-out gold pile, threw his arms out at his sides, and unleashed a haunting scream that shook the entirety of Duckburg to its foundations with a single, booming cry of distress:
NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I think we can all agree that the real winner of this fight was capitalism.
You said it. Oh, by the way, this fight has a seventeen million dollar reading fee, so… pay up.
We jest, of course. No pay-per-view cost could be higher than the price Stan paid for losing this fight, though: his pride.
Yeah, and that’s ’cause Stan got well and truly stomped! His clever, quick-thinking strategies kept him in the fight for sure, but here’s not much use in sugar-coating how badly he was outmatched here. Scrooge had pretty much every advantage over Stan that mattered in the long run. To see how and why that was the case, let’s start this verdict off by looking at their physical strengths. Stan being able to punch out a pterodactyl is definitely impressive by normal human standards, but that’s pretty much child’s play for Scrooge! Swimming through quicksand already makes Scrooge way stronger than Stan physically, as it makes him strong enough to effectively pick up a car, but looking at feats like when Scrooge tore down two smokestacks makes it pretty obvious which of them was the stronger fighter.
Then there’s speed, which isn’t hard to figure out either. Scrooge can pilot ships through asteroid fields, which requires fast reaction speeds to do without crashing into everything, but we don’t even need to get into the crazy fast stuff that Scrooge has. Dodging gunfire and evading lightning already make him way faster than anything Stan has for speed feats.
And for the third and last part of the “holy trinity,” as it were, Scrooge’s durability was predictably too much for Stan to overcome. The most that Stan has survived at his age is a fall from a cliff, whereas Scrooge has survived falls from orbit several times over. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce which is the more impressive display of durability. And if we’re being candid, these three advantages are all Scrooge would have needed to take this fight. Stan’s attacks wouldn’t have been able to hurt Scrooge if he could even have landed a hit on him in the first place, and in terms of raw physical might, Scrooge only needed a few key strikes to bring him down.
But that’s not all that Scrooge had going for him when compared to Stan. Scrooge’s 100+ years of experience, possession of formal training in every aspect relevant to a battle, enhanced senses, and never-ending arsenal of bizarre gadgets and weapons all trumped anything Stan could have possibly brought to the table here. No matter what Stan could have done during their fight, Scrooge would have had an answer for it, and a few dozen extra answers on hand just in case. This was an easy win for the richest duck in the world.
With the gravity of this verdict, it’s no mystery to see why Stan should’ve ducked this fight. He’ll probably be pine-ing over that loss for a while…
The winner of this Courtroom Conflict is Scrooge McDuck.
Scrooge McDuck (Winner):
+Physical superiority in every regard
+Greater amount of experience
+Larger, stronger, and more complicated arsenal
+Better stamina
+More formal combat training
+Much smarter in every aspect
Grunkle Stan (Loser):
+Similar areas of experience
+Cleverness could help with zany weapons
-Much more conventional arsenal
-Lack of ranged weaponry