"Kidnap At Your Own Will"

Written by: Toni Ferraro

Darkwing Duck, Ducktakes, etc. (c) to Disney. I don't own them.

(A/N: Updated 10/31/04: Just cleaned it up a bit and seperated into 2 chapters)

All was quiet at the Mallard home...

Until the phone rang, of course.

"Y'ello?" Launchpad answered, "Oh, HEY Mr. Mc D! Wow, long time no see!"

From the other side of the living room, Drake typed wildly while surfing the internet. He squinted, trying to ignore the loud conversation from his friend.

"A favor? What kind? Oh really? That's a shame... A business meeting? Wow! Won't that make you... Really?! You need me to fly you? Well, after that last guy, sure! Oh don't worry, I promise not to crash... or at least I'lltrynot to. I'll be over as soon as I can! Great! No, thank YOU, Mr. Mc D! Bye!"

Launchpad hung up and strolled over to Drake. "Hey Drake," he said, "You wouldn't mind if I took some time off from the crime-fighting buisness to tend some personal work, would ya?"

Drake continued staring into the computer moniter, still typing quickly. "Nah. Go ahead. Darkwing Duck can manage without a sidekick for awhile." Then silently, he murmured, "Not like he needed one in the first place..."

"What?"

"AHEM Oh nothing..."

"Great. Thanks, Drake!"

"No problem," Drake stopped his typing and turned around to face Launchpad, "So who exactlyisthis Mr. Mc D friend of yours? Not like it's my business, but curious minds want to know."

Launchpad turned and headed up the stairs. "Oh. He's quadrillionaire Mr. Scrooge McDuck."

Drake slowly turned around to face his computer. "Ah... Mr. Scrooge Mc... Mr. SCROOGE MCDUCK?!" He suddenly jumped up and stood on his chair, yelling up towards Launchpad, "YOU KNOW SCROOGE MCDUCK??"

"Yeah!" Launchpad called from upstairs, "I use to work for him! Before I quit to become your sidekick."

Drake twitched wildly, "You...workedfor Scrooge McDuck?? Jeez, why didn't ya tell me you had a giganto paycheck!"

Launchpad returned down, holding a suitcase in one hand, "Well... I didn't. He docked my pay at least 2 or thre times a month after crashing into mountains, trees, federal business offices."

"You... knew... a quadrillionaire..." Drake twitched more, "And you hardly got a cent out of it."

"What's the big deal anyway?"

"What's the big deal?" Drake lifted an eyebrow, "He's ONLY the richest duck in this country... No, the entire UNIVERSE! And YOU out of all people KNEW him?? Doh, if I knew you were gonna come in more handy than my pilot, I would've mooched money off of you!"

"Hey, I didn't work for Mr. Mc D for his money!" Launcpad protested, "He also happened to be one of my best friends! He helped my career in flying!"

"Didn't do much of a good job, did he?" Drake joked.

"Funny," said Launchpad opening the door, "Anyway, I promised to get back to Duckburg soon as possible. Thanks for letting me off, Drake."

"No biggie," Drake called as the duck left, "Oh and bring me back a souviner!"

Launchpad poked his head back in, "I'm not leeching any money off him for you!"

"Drat, can't blame a guy for trying."

Launchpad smirked, waved, and left, closing the door after him. Drake sat back into his chair and continued playong on the internet. While so, once again, he twitched. "He... knew... Scrooge... McDuck..."

The group of eggmen sat in unison in the office of their boss, silently waiting for him to speak.

AHEM Steelbeak cleared his throat, "Gentle-eggmen, welcome. Thank you for your attention and willingness of the new scheme."

The steel-beaked rooster reached up to the ceiling and pulled down a screen from his pull-down bar. "Lights please!" The room got dark as Steelbeak presented a slide show.

The first slide was of Steelbeak himself. "Anyone remember who this is?"

"It's you, sir!" The eggmen responded.

"Good." Steelbeak went onto slide two, which showed a picture of a giant steel bomb. "Anyone familiar with this object?"

One eggman raised his hand like a kindergardener. "Ooo, ooo ooo!!!"

"You?"

"It looks like an atomic bomb, sir!"

"Correct," said Steelbeak, returning to the first slide, "Who's this?"

"You, sir!"

"Who WILL this be?"

"You, sir!"

"No, no, no," Steelbeak shook his hadns in a 'no' gesture, "THIS handsome young rooster will be the ruler of the world, with the help of THESE!" He returned to the atomic bombs. "However..."

The third slide was a picture of a country, "These trigger-happy Bombvillians put a good price on thier precious bombs. Therefore, we're in some sort of a debt of about 100 billion dollars. Which I shall now show you the backbone of our solution."

He hit the button on the projector, and then showed a 4th slide of two Scrooge McDuck pictures, one facing forward, the other facing sideways. "This is Quadrillionaire Scrooge McDuck, widely known as the richest duck alive. He can 'help' us pay for these..." He showed the slide of the bombs again, "Which I will threaten all of mankind into giving me their land and full power. Of course, this operation only costs $100 billion, and there are more to bombs to have power. So we can just use the other amount to prove how much power we have!

"So let me run this through again." Steelbeak went through the slides accordingly as he reviewed his plans, "We have A-Bombs to threaten all of mankind to giving us the power of the world, but we have to pay back Bombville and while using the rest of the money to aid our offices and power, so that THIS rooster becomes the ruler of the--"

He was suprised to accidently show a slide of a hot teen model with a tini bikini. He immediatley shut off the projector, blushing brightly, "Eh heh heh... how did THAT get in there??"

The lights flipped back on. Steelbeak cleared his throat once again. "A long story short... Bring me Scrooge McDuck...!"

The McDuck Private helicopter flew by the border of St Canard.

"So it's Quacksville for a business negotiation?"

"Aye, Launchpad."

"If you agree and merge businesses, won't that make you richer?"

"Yes it does!"

"Wow. If it's one thing I always admired you for, Mr. Mc D, it was the ways you always got yourself richer."

Scrooge McDuck nodded, "Yes, that is amazing, isn't it?"

"Gosh, this feels like old times, where I would always escort you to your business meetings."

"Yes, it does," sighed Scrooge, "Then you'd crash us on the runway. But hey, it's better than having my last pilot take me to Greenland during his mid-life crisis."

Scrooge looked up at Launchpad with concern, "Um... hey Launchpad?"

"Yeah?"

"Why exactly did you leave me? What was this other job you left for?"

Launchpad cringed, then sweated, "Weeell... it's like this, Mr. Mc D... I... I'm..."

There was a sudden whack to the side of the helicopter. "Woah!!" Launchpad cried, "What was that??"

Another whack, this time to the other side.

"You ninny!" Scrooge shouted, "What did you do this time?"

"I didn't do anything, Mr. Mc D!" Launchpad replied, trying to keep the helicopter steady, "It's looks more like we're being--"

Suddenly, a herrior jet flew up and headed straight towards them, crashing hard into the front of the helicopter.

"--ATTACKED!!!" Lauchpad cried as it sputtered loudly and fell towards the ground below.

The herrior jet got to the side of the wrecked copter as it continued to fall. One eggman holding a laser jumped from the jet to the top, blasted a hole in the side with the laser, and jumped in.

Scrooge saw this coming. "ACK!!" he cried, "They're after my money! They're after my copter!"

"Wrong!" said the eggman, grabbing Scrooge's arm and forcing him off the copter and back toward the jet.

"They're... AFTER ME!!!" Scrooge screamed.

Launchpad looked back, "What??"

But as the eggman jumped off back onto the jet, there was a huge crash.

"The best ice cream isalwaysfound in the next town over..." Drake groaned, glancing at the melting ice cream in the backseat, "Thanks alot, Gosalyn..."

As he turned back, his eye caught a figure plummeting towards the grassy plains he drove near with a deafening crash.

"What the??" he cried, "What was that?" Drake steered towards the crash scene. Even off duty, it was his job to make sure everyone was safe.

"Hey! Is everyone alright?" Drake called, running up to the totaled helicopter.

He fell backwards once Launchpad's head suddenly popped through the wreackage. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks."

"Launchpad?" Drake said, standing back up, "Oh, I should've known that was you..." His face did a sudden 'take', "Wait a minute... Weren't you suppose to be flying SCROOGE MCDUCK somewhere??"

Launchpad did the same take, and dove back into the wreackage. "Mr. Mc D! Are you allright??"

"Oh man, Launchpad, you really did it now!" Drake cried, "If a single feather on that rich duck was plucked, you'd be a goner! And what'll happen to all that money?? Doohhh, if you ONLY knew how to keep a plane straight half the--!"

He was cut off suddenly by the loud, panicy yelp Launcpad gave followed by him shooting up from the wreckage and landing on top of it.

"Launchpad?? What's the matter now??

"He's... GONE!" Launchpad cried.