Chapter Text
Donald:
1 week later…
Donald has been trapped in this miserable cell for what seems like a lifetime now, with nothing to do, he has resulted in spending his hours lying in the surprisingly comfy bed in the corner.
“Prisoner.” The deep voice from the tall alien he now knew was called Lunaris from overhearing conversations called out to him. Deciding that he’d rather just ignore the general, Donald keep his eyes closed, feigning sleep.
“If this prison cell is so comfortable, perhaps time in the gold mines will break your devil-may-care spirit!” Upon hearing these words he shot up as quickly as a spring, silently hoping he misheard. “Captain Penumbra, take care of it.”
The bars swiftly fly upwards to allow entry, and Donald, not wanting to be sent into the gold mines, makes a run for it, attempting to pass by the intimidating captain.
Unfortunately, Penumbra catches him easily, throwing the duck against the wall and pinning him there. “Stop! I’m Della’s… friend. It was really more of an unlikely roommate situation. The point is neither of us wants this invasion. Your stupid family built the rocket. If I give you access to the blueprints, can you find a weakness and destroy our ships?”
Donald shakes his head, attempting to communicate his lack of knowledge.
“I’ll take that neck spasm as an Earth yes.”
‘WHAT?!?! So, they can speak English but somehow have no understanding that shaking the head means no???’ Donald cursed in his head, his bad luck remaining to destroy his chances despite not being on Earth anymore.
“Let’s go.” Penumbra ushers Donald forward, pulling out her gun to point at him.
Panic clearly depicted on his face, the purple alien assures him “Don’t worry I won’t shoot you. We just need this to look believable.” Phew Donald let’s out a sigh of relief at the prospect of not being shot.
“Lunaris keeps the ships’ blueprints under guard in his private hanger. We’ll have to make sure we’re not caught by-“
“Captain Penumbra!” The two freeze instantly at the voice of another alien coming from the corridor beside them.
“Captain, why is our most dangerous prisoner out of his cell, without handcuffs?!” One of the guards attempts to get his gun from his holster. “Honey, remember you have to unclip the holster.” The other guard responds, ‘Wow, these guys are not good at this’ Donald thinks to himself before the guard continues to talk, “And I’m sure the captain has a good reason.”
“Yes. I’m… punching him. What better way to train to fight Earthers than to spar with one, huh?” Penumbra lands a punch in Donald’s stomach, forcing him to keel over from the unexpected pain, “Now you try.” Before he can object, Penumbra grabs Donald from the shoulders, holding him out to allow the guards to attack him.
The second guard punches him in the stomach lightly remarking “He’s quite soft. Almost pleasurable to hit.” Another punch, this time much stronger, was delivered by the first guard, “I no longer fear him!” Declared the guard before both decided to continually punch him in his already sore stomach. “Inflicting pain is fun!”
The two guards leave Penumbra and Donald to walk along, with Penumbra whispering a quick apology to Donald.
The rest of the journey went along relatively smoothly, with the pair luckily not bumping into any more guards, until they finally reached the hanger.
“This is Lunaris’ private hanger.” Donald found himself in a grand room, like his cell, there were gold details swirling around the walls. The cavern had three floors with a large golden cannon sitting in the middle of the space and golden railing that outlined the edge of each floor.
“The spear blueprints are around here somewhere. Help me look for them. But don’t touch anything. Lunaris will know.” Penumbra chastised, stopping Donald from nearly touching a glowing blue panel.
Sighing stubbornly, Donald decided to just wait until Penumbra was finished, leaning against one of the stone walls. Unfortunately, his streak of bad luck continued resulting in the wall giving way and Donald falling through and revealing a whole new room.
“Great job, dummy! Now he’ll know we found his secret war room! Wait, secret war room?!”
The two look around the room and Penumbra starts typing away on one of the holographic keyboards, resulting in hundreds of screens popping up all over the cavern, many depicting Duckburg, and concerningly, Donald’s family.
“He’s been planning this since before Della got here!” Realised Penumbra as she continued to scroll through the database. “He’s already identified anyone who could threaten his invasion.”
A photo of Scrooge appears on the screen in front of them, depicting the McDuck family bloodline all the way down to Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Panicking, Donald backs up, pushing a button behind him that opened the roof like a giant observatory. Clearly it also started a sequence enabling the golden canon to point towards the sky and load what looked like a giant golden bullet into the back, a computer repeating “Danger! Danger! Danger!”.
“What is that thing?” Penumbra exclaimed, the screen switched over to a video recording, Lieutenant Lunaris is seen climbing into what seems to be a prototype version of the bullet shaped pod currently in the cannon. Except it wasn’t bullet shaped, instead it featured a slick rectangular design with a pointed end like a pyramid. The prototype charged it’s rocket boosters and launch off of a golden ramp, however, it was unable to sustain flight and crashed back down to the surface resulting in a large explosion. The footage cut to a battered and bruised Lunaris, likely injured due to the previous crash, entering a different model of the ship, this time the ramp was replaced with a cannon similar to the one in the room, however it was much bulkier than the smooth model. Once inside, it appeared as if Lunaris attempted to start the mechanisms, however, this was unsuccessful as the pod exploded before take-off. The footage cuts again to Lunaris looking worse for wear, with bandages over his right eye and arm, as well as his left arm hanging in a sling. Instead of entering the pod himself, Lunaris instead places a test dummy inside the hatch, the footage cutting again to the inside of the pod while speeding through the air. The test dummy strapped inside is crushed by the pressure.
“No living thing could survive that. This must be why he needed Della’s Spear! Now that he has the plans, he can start the invasion as soon as his fleet’s finished.” Realised Penumbra, “We have to stop Lunaris. This invasion is worse than I feared.”
The monitor switches onto a news report from Duckburg, “In recent years, Duckburg has been menaced by it’s share of dark forces…”
“A transmission from Earth?” Suddenly, Penumbra realised that they would be able to send a transmission to Earth using the yellow phone-like remote left on the console. “Come here.” Penumbra called over Donald, easily removing the muzzle across his bill.
“You could have done that the whole time?!” Donald yelled at her.
“Yes, but not right now. Get to the highest point. There.” Penumbra points over towards the top of the cannon. “Once you have a signal, use the transmitter to warn your- ACK” Penumbra falls to the ground, electricity crackling around her unconscious body, Donald carefully walks over and turns her around, careful not to zap himself, he finds one of her armour pieces flashing red.
Sensing a presence behind him, and dreading who it might be, Donald slowly turns around.
Standing tall with a controller in his hand, was Lieutenant Lunaris.
“I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘Aw, phooey’” Lunaris mocks. “You won’t be sending any warning. Oh, and Captain Penumbra’s little rebellion is over before it began, thanks to this” Lunaris looks over at the remote in his hand, “A pity. But a great victory comes with sacrifice.”
Donald, in a moment of adrenaline, reaches over to grab the transmitter, and runs by the Lieutenant, unfortunately, Lunaris is too fast, and trips him with his foot before he could get far, continuing his monologue, “A few brave soldiers get hurt, but it’s worth it for the glory of the planet Moon.”
“The moon is not a-“
“It is a planet!” Lunaris angrily retorts back to Donald, grabbing him from his scarf and holding him up against his will, “More of a planet than your Earth will be once I’m done with it!” In his anger, the alien throws Donald across the room and towards the golden cannon.
Landing safely, Donald determinedly makes his way up towards the tip, nearly making it until Lunaris jumps in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and smiling smugly.
Donald, psyching himself up, takes a jab at the Lieutenant, and another, punching continuously, unfortunately, none of the hits make contact and Lunaris gets the upper hand, backhanding the duck back down the cannon. Donald continues to attack, his punches countered, and body stopped from advancing through a large hand on his forehead keeping him still. Lunaris sending Donald flying down even further through landing an uppercut to the bill.
Taking a moment to look around in his slightly dazed state Donald noticed the holographic images of his family, ‘Della, Scrooge, kids...’ He was quickly thrown out of his thoughts when he heard laughing, “Admiring my handiwork, Donald Duck?! You see, most foes would target Scrooge McDuck. They don’t realise the key to victory is to take the children out first to break your spirits. Say goodbye to your precious Hubert, Dewford, and Llewelyn.”
Donald saw red, ‘It’s one thing to attack me, but to threaten MY kids, how DARE HE’. This was his breaking point, everything that was holding him back before suddenly disappeared as all logic left his mind, all that was left was rage.
Dropping the transmitter, and going quacking wild, Donald launched himself at the Lieutenant. Completely unprepared for this sudden change in strategy Lunaris found himself unable to block attack after attack, even when he managed to get a few hits in, Donald remained largely unaffected, his mind a palace of anger. Travelling at the speed of light, the duck sped around Lunaris, only stopping every so often to get a couple hits in, when Lunaris managed to grab a hold of the raging duck he was met with a blizzard of kicks to the face, forcing him to let go of the duck. Taking the opportunity, Donald crawled around to his back, pulling back on Lunaris’ jaw and violently smacking his fists against his helmet and finishing off the assault with a jump off his head.
Going in for another set of flurry of face-paced attacks, Donald ran back towards the Lieutenant, a fist raised for a punch, however, the opportunity was short lived as Lunaris was now prepared for this new fast-pace fighting style, easily blocking the attack by grabbing onto the offensive fist and using the momentum to push Donald back down the cannon, reversing all the progress he had made on his attempt to reach the tip.
The two were face-to-face, the transmitter a little while across the surface of the cannon, Donald knew what he had to do. Running to collect the device, Donald managed to slip by the enemy and made his way to the tip of the cannon, Lunaris in close pursuit.
Donald made it to the tip and sent a message through the transmitter, “Scrooge! Kids! The invasion! It’s in a month! I’m coming home soon!” Was all he managed to get out before Lunaris snatched it from his hands and threw it to the ground below the cannon.
Lunaris smiled menacingly at the duck, knowing he’d won, so Donald did the only thing he could, he tried to run, pushing his way past Lunaris, unfortunately he wasn’t quick enough as the Lieutenant, grabbed him by the scarf again, lifting him from the ground and holding him out of arms reach while the duck flapped excessively.
Lunaris quickly threw the duck to the floor, holding him down by the neck, “You know, you were a lot tougher to beat than I thought. I was originally just going to dispose of you once I’d fuelled up my people’s fighting spirit, but I feel like you may still have your uses.” Removing one hand from Donald’s neck Lunaris reached into his back pocket, in his hand was a collar-like device, gold with blue studs dotted in an even spread all around, clasping the collar shut around Donald’s neck, the Lieutenant stood up, removing his hold over the duck.
As soon as he was free, Donald jumped up and sped by, not listening to the warning Lunaris called after him, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Suddenly, a sharp continuous jolt of lightning spread from his neck to the rest of his body, the pain forcing him to keel over. It continued until Lunaris stepped closer, the break from the pain allowing Donald to open his eyes and breathe.
“Although not quite as strong as the shock I administered to Captain Penumbra, it certainly serves its purpose. Don’t you think?”
All Donald could do was let out a groan in response, the electricity having frazzled him too much to respond.
“Now, you must stay within 50 moon miles from me at all times, otherwise you’ll be in for a nasty shock. Of course, this whole arrangement isn’t solely location based, I can simply push a button, and you’ll suffer the same shock. So, if I were you, I’d behave.” Lunaris added menacingly, the pain had thankfully mostly subsided, leaving behind a stage buzzing feeling all around his body.
“Follow me, duck.” Lunaris commanded, unwilling to experience the pain again, Donald begrudgingly followed the Lieutenant as he continued back to the platform where Penumbra still lied, and picked her up, carrying her over his shoulder as the three exited the room all Donald could think was ‘I hope they got the message’.
CHAPTER END