Chapter Text
“I love you guys!” she told her Dad and kind-of-adoptive-Dad and undeclared-Mom and Grampy.
“Aye-” Scrooge’s huge smile got watery. “Me darling wee Webbigail, you're the most precious thing in the world.”
“We're lucky to have you, Webby,” Aunt Della said wholeheartedly, expression open and honest. “Go go, before your sugar crashes!”
“Happy birthday, dear,” her Grampy cast, not for the first time that day, but ‘ birth day’ held a whole other meaning to it now. He winked, “Just be yourself.”
“Yeah! Get out there, Nova!” Donald nudged her.
She got giddy whenever he used her cool nickname, like Dolly did when he called her Turbo.
She liked “Nova” because Donald had gotten the nickname from the “supernova” phase of a star’s life cycle. The name came from the Latin word for “new”— “novus” —that somehow developed into “nouvelle” in French, then “nuova” in Italian, “nueva” in Spanish and finally, “nova” in Portuguese. Grampy had taught her a supernova was the brightest a star could get, a trillion times brighter than the sun, capable of lighting up an entire galaxy all by itself.
What she’d failed to recall was that the name was misleading. A supernova wasn't a super new star, it was a super dying star. All that powerful, obfuscating light would implode or dissipate into less than atoms.
Webby imploded and dissipated into less than atoms when she was fourteen
The imploding part was metaphorical.
You see, Hollie had gotten her first molt on the triplets’ twelfth birthday, ten months after the fall of the FOWL. Since she'd been growing more and more jittery Selene-knows-why, everyone figured stress made her molt come early, but Lolley’s started too a couple of days after, and, much to Dolly's horror, that was it. Dolly's molt didn't arrive until theirs was done. The exact same morning as Webby walked up to the breakfast table leaving a trail of feathers behind her, she’d found quills growing from her forehead. Scrooge told them it was because “this sort of thing synchronizes with who ye're always synchronized with”.
A duckling's first molt is the slowest, they're replacing all of the yellow baby fluff with white adult feathers – every other molt a duck has throughout their life is just a one-week renewal of plumage for summer or winter – the first molt lasts One. Whole. Year. When you molt, you get random bald spots (this is called the ugly duckling phase for a reason), you're itchy all over, full of spiky blood feathers that take a good chunk of your energy to grow and hurt to touch. All of that combined with the sleep deprivation it caused, was what built your stereotypical snappy, hangry teenager who refuses to leave their room.
The thing is, Hollie became a ticking time bomb during her first months, an overstimulated bundle of nerves that'd snap at everyone (except Boyd--- and surprisingly, Vinicio ) for every little thing. Lolley’s laziness developed into something more catatonic, she'd spend most of her time sleeping or pretending to, she got caught “playing hooky” enough times to cause a scene, and she wouldn't talk to anybody. Less than Hollie, who'd at least growl or something. Donald swooning over them and Aunt Della taking pictures every day probably didn't help.
On their turn, Dolly was severely disappointed—
“This is NOT as fun as I thought it would be,” she'd whined, sulking in bed.
Nobody reached out to soothe her because you don't touch a duck in molt, but Webby was tempted. She just scooted closer to her instead.
“Sorry, what about our behavior made you think it'd be fun?!” Lolley sat up, disturbed. Hers and Hollie’s new plumage was ridiculously smooth and whiter than white, almost shiny. Definitely somewhat shiny. “The crying ourselves to sleep or the crying ourselves awake?!”
“Not your behavior, everyone else’s! Being in the spotlight for a whole year?! Getting away with anything and having our parents wrapped around your fingers?!”
“Oh man, you are delusional.”
“You still have to deal with the consequences of whatever you do,” Hollie mumbled, absently fidgeting with her hair. “Hormones can only excuse so much.
It hadn't regrown well from her molt because she couldn't stop herself from pulling at it like she'd always do, not even when there were no feathers to pull, only half-developed quills. Now every feather in her scalp had grown at its own irregular rate, some snapped in half during development, others plucked right off; and if her hair wasn't rumpled before, it definitely was now. Hollie still attempted to tame it with several hair clips, having moved her ribbon to a bow around her collar, but they couldn't work miracles. It wasn’t ugly, but it was definitely far from what Hollie herself would consider acceptable. She was very touchy about it, so no one had brought it up yet.
“But anything you do will become a story older-you laughs about with your family!” Webby said, trying to lighten them up. “Aunt Della and Dad Donald talk about their worst life-threatening choices like it was funny!”
“I don't think you'll be laughing if you get grounded.”
Webby pouted.
“...I’ll be the judge of that.” Dolly rolled out of bed with newfound determination. “You guys totally missed out on the TRUE moody teenager privilege!”
—but, well, on the polar opposite of her sisters' molt moods, Dolly might've gotten a little maniacal, reckless worse than she had been when Donald returned from the Moon. She got a lot closer to Gosalyn that year because he was the only person who egged her on….aside from Webby, who couldn't say no to her best friend. With Luke fervently encouraging her “rebellious teen era”, it was safe to say Webby might've gotten a bit carried away, too. The four of them made quite the team out there.
All in all, her first molt went fine—
“First the literal vampire fever, then Narnia, now this?!” Grampy lectured her, Dolly, Luke and Gosalyn after they were caught sneaking an alien robot in through the back doors. “You’re lucky I'm the one who noticed what you’ve been up to, you can only imagine how Scrooge or Della would react to finding out you went to space without warning anybody! Did you even think about that?!”
Webby’s stomach dropped and she saw Dolly wince from the corner of her eyes.
Grampy sent Luke and Gosalyn a look. “What would your parents think of this?!”
Luke flinched, sweating, and Gosalyn turned his head away, hands tightening in fists at his sides.
“I’m fetching Launchpad to drop you off,” he said, then to Dolly and Webby, “and you will dismiss this robot. You don't want me to catch it in the mansion again.”
“What?!” She wrangled her space suit helmet off. “No! We're helping CIP defeat the Dark Horde before it's too late! He came all the way from the future to save our entire galaxy from eternal darkness!”
“I’m sure ‘CIP’ can find plenty of other candidates on Earth, grown adults for a change.”
“But we're the Star Force Rebel Academy!”
“You're thirteen. I never gave you permission to be out adventuring on your own, much less into space, Webby.” He took the helmet from her hands, plucked Dolly's from her head and motioned for Luke and Gosalyn to hand them over too. They complied and he frowned at Dolly. “I expected you of all people to know better.”
Her sister, who already had tears in her eyes, refused to meet Grampy’s and kept her beak low. She would've usually tried to stand up for her actions until she ran out of arguments, but not that day, it seemed. Webby would do it for her.
“I don't need your permission, you're not even my real grandpa!” She snatched the helmet back. “Donald is not my dad and Aunt Della is not my mom, and Dad isn't my dad either, he's me! None of you can keep Scrooge McDuck from adventure!”
Grampy was visibly taken aback, but his severe frown returned placid.
“Very well. Dolly however, is part of this family and will not go to space again without permission,” he told her, and she gasped as her heart constricted. “Ms. Mallard will never allow Gosalyn to go again either once she hears of this–”
Gos jumped. “Whoa, hey! She doesn't need to know anything, man, I swear I won't do it again!”
“–and Mrs. Lilac and Heather may not allow Luke to come here at all for a significant enough amount of time.”
“Bold of you to assume they give a damn about what I do,” Luke mumbled, “as long as I'm having fun they'd never get in the way. Unlike some people.”
“Oh, pardon me. Allow me to correct myself: they will keep you away from this house as per my request.”
Webby staggered back. “You can't do that!!”
“I don't need your permission to. You can go on that adventure if you don't care about your family, but since I care about you, I will do everything within my power to keep you safe. We don't need another Spear of Selene accident.”
She scowled at her grandfather, holding her breath because if she let it out there it'd come out weak, and she needed to seem strong.
Luke shared a desperate glance with her, eyes holding a warning, but she didn't allow her posture to waver.
“So? What will it be?” Grampy asked her, and they were an unstoppable force against an immovable obstacle.
“If I may,” CIP started, drawing everybody's attention. “I think I ought to see myself out.”
“No!” Webby yelped. “What about the fate of the universe?!”
“I’m sure there are other creative and daring people out there, Webbigail, Earth is a wonderful planet like that,” he told her gently, and she let that weak, shaky breath out. “We will never forget what you did as members of the Star Force Rebel Academy, children! Farewell!”
“No no no! Wait!!”
She stumbled after him as he hovered away, her helmet slipping from her grip and clattering on the floor. Breathing heavily from utter anger, she glared murder at her reflection on the helmet's visor so she wouldn't have to do it to Grampy. Not because she didn't want him to see how angry she was, but because she had angry tears blooming that would probably only make her look like a stupid fussy child. She kicked it strongly enough that it'd leave a mark both on the wall where it hit and on her foot, growling, then she stormed through the door CIP left open, planning not to come back until she was sure her grandfather's duties would keep him from answering the front door.
Gos turned to Grampy. “....Are you still going to tell Mom that–”
“Yes. You are all grounded.”
“Aw, come on! Thanks a lot, Webby!”
Dolly and Luke elbowed Gosalyn.
—except for the amount of times she got herself and the others grounded.
The issue came at the end of her molt:
She looked like the spitting image of Scrooge McDuck.
A snapped blood feather ruined her favorite pink button-up early on, so she'd been wearing a looser black T-shirt since, topped with a jacket. She wore black eyeliner to match. And when a particularly inconvenient bald spot made her realize she'd grown out of her skirt, Aster got her a new one with tons of pocket space, the same color as her bow, so she clipped her bow to the hem because it kept slipping off her hair with her baby feathers.
Not that Dad would wear that, but now that her adult feathers were taking over, she'd gotten her dad's chest hair fluff and her whiskers had grown just as big as his.
This was a literal childhood dream come true, it just got.. too real.
The chest fluff wasn't like women’s plumpy bosom feathers, it wasn't womanly at all. It wasn't in the right spot, it was… well, chest hair. And now that her hair was growing back, she discovered it was impossible to style it with the whiskers there. She looked disheveled and the whiskers only came off as sideburns. Like. Facial hair.
If that wasn't enough karma for betraying her family back when she was twelve, her voice had been growing more raspy until. Until.
“Uh, I asked you which one would make me look less like a lesbian,” Dolly repeated herself, swiping through the pictures she'd taken at the optometrist. “Dolly to Webby? Hello?”
Webby, sweating, just pointed at whichever option was currently on the screen.
“Butterfly frames. Yeah, you're right, cat eye would be overkill.”
She nodded desperately.
“You’re the one who decided to get She-Ra’s hairstyle,” Hollie pointed out, swiping at Dolly's phone. “I still think the square ones look best on you.”
“And she should trust the opinion of the nerd, why?” Lolley mocked playfully, draped over the couch with her legs crossed over Hollie and Dolly's laps.
Hollie pushed her off the couch. “Because nerds are the glasses people!”
“Oh, really? Then where are your glasses?”
“Yeah, nerds always choose square frames anyways,” Dolly said, smirking. “Nice try, Hollie, but your evil plan to make me smarter is not going to work!”
She faltered in frustration. “Wh- That’s not–”
“Ha! Caught red-handed.” Dolly, laughing, elbowed Webby. “She's just jealous she's not the one getting glasses.”
“I'm not jealous of having poor eyesight, Dolly!”
But then, with the distinct lack of Webby's input, all three of them slowly turned to look at her.
“...Webby, we're squabbling.”
“You're not gonna break us off?” Hollie tried. “Or say that you think square glasses are cool to make me feel better?”
“She would never say that!”
“You underestimate how much of a nerd Webby can be,” Lolley piped up from the carpet, making no move to climb back onto the couch. “Did you forget how Vinicio and her became friends?”
They waited for her to say something, but she couldn't, grinding her beak shut and twiddling her thumbs anxiously. Lolley finally sat back up, ditching the amusement from her tone,
“Alright, this is getting weird.”
“What’s going on?” Hollie bent over to look at her, hands wrung together.
Webby opened her mouth to lie, but she clamped it back shut with her hands, opting for just shaking her head and getting up to leave. Dolly caught her by the arm.
“Wait! What's wrong?!”
“Maybe she has a sore throat..?” Hollie offered, getting less confident with each word. Lolley was onto her,
“She's hiding something.”
Panicking, she did a basic shoulder throw to get rid of Dolly and ran away. She heard her sisters scrambling to follow her, and with their current training they might've been able to catch up to 11-year-old Webby, but Webby's grown too. She'd make the next right turn into a random room and open a vent so they’d think she–
“Oomph!”
She crashed into her dad.
“Webbigail?!” He caught her before she could fall back. “What’s the rush, lass?!”
“Uncle Scrooge got her!” Dolly announced, quickly approaching.
“Ye’re playing tig?!”
“NO! DON'T LET HER GO!” her best friend told him before he could let go of Webby, “GOT YOU!” She tackled her down when she got close enough and they started wrestling on the ground. “Spit it out!!”
“Spit what out?!” Dad worried as the others arrived and helped immobilize her. “I keep having to tell Ember and Toby to spit out choking hazards! Not you too!”
“We’re the Four-Fold, we trust each other with everything! What happened to your ‘sisters don't keep secrets’ thing, Webs?!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling, but it was no use. Dolly had her arms pinned down and Lolley was sitting over her ankles, Hollie kept her hands to herself, anxiously tugging her hair to cover her face, but still hovered near. Overwhelmed and outnumbered like at the Library of Alexandria, she bit back a sob and gave in,
“I– I- I can't-”
“Can't what?” Noticing how upset she was, Dolly immediately let go. When Webby didn't make a move to run away again, Lolley let go too and her father crouched to listen. “What?”
“I can't sp– eak,” she said, except her voice cracked and wobbled between notes too high and too low. Hiding her face with her arms, she breathed in to calm her voice down and clarified, “It’s my voice! When I w- woke up today it was deep –”
It broke off in a particularly Scrooge-sounding timbre and she cringed, flustered.
Her sisters were stunned speechless and her dad's breath hitched. After a moment, he heaved himself back up and offered her a hand,
“It’s time. Come with me.”
“Wh- What?” She looked at him, startled out of her misery.
“With your molt coming to an end and this sudden growth spurt, I knew what was coming next. I've been looking into ways to stop this.”
Webby took his hand and he helped her up. The triplets stood too, following them into the garage, where he told Launchpad to start the Cloudslayer. Lolley was already clinging to Webby's arm like a koala, a still disconcerted frown on her beak, and she knew she wasn't going to let go any time soon.
“The Jusenkyo springs would hold you back more than help you,” he ranted as he texted someone on his phone. “Asking that genie or the Papyrus for it, if we still had it, would be too risky. They'd find a way to twist your demand, bah, that magic can't be trusted. Witches would love to tear any part of your body away, but none of them promise the process will be harmless. There is only one person who can help us.
Hera.”
They gasped. Hollie's hands flew from her hair,
“You mean the goddess Hera?!”
“The one and only,” Scrooge praised her. “Zeus’s wife, Queen of Olympus! The Greek goddess of family, childbirth, marriage–” he nodded at Webby, “–and womanhood.”
Her eyes sparkled.
“But she doesn't sound very trustworthy either.” Hollie pulled out her Woodchuck guidebook, flipping pages until she found one about Hera. Showing it to them, she cited, “Hera is most known for her various cruel punishments to anyone who offended her values. How do we know she'll help Webby and not just kill all of us?”
“That’s where your aunt and father come in,” Dad said, Donald and Aunt Della rushing in right on cue. “There is one thing Hera wants most in this world, and it's to make Zeus suffer.” He turned to his nephew and niece. “Donald, you and I will fly to Ithaquack. You'll sneak Selene and Storkules away, do what you have to do, and I will stay behind to distract Zeus.”
“Wait, you're not coming with us?” Hollie asked.
“Hera would never listen to a man. Della, that's why you're taking the kids to Olympus.”
“Me?!” Aunt Della startled.
“Yes. If Hera gives you trouble, give her this.” Scrooge handed her a paper scroll. “She'll do anything in return.”
“But-”
“Donald, you can fly a helicopter, right?”
“Can’t see why not!”
“Good. Let's go.”
“Why are we going to the Olympus?!” Della shouted after his uncle and brother.
“Is that the Empire State Building?!” Lolley squinted through the window of the limo as they approached. Launchpad had crashed the plane into a nearby airport. “I thought we were going to Greece, not New Yolk.”
“This is where Mr. McDuck said we were going!” Launchpad said. “I mean, he told me to wait outside, but you guys get to see the 600th floor!”
“That can't be right.” Hollie frowned. “The tallest building in the world only has 163 floors. Maybe you remembered the number wrong.”
“Nope, it's the 600th!” She showed them a paper with ‘600’ written and underlined on it. “I made him repeat himself five times before he eventually wrote it down.”
“I…”
“But we don't even have tickets!” Aunt Della stressed, trying to phone Scrooge for the tenth time. “How are we supposed to get in?!”
“I don't know. But you'll figure it out!”
They parked and left to find the entrance. Once they were past the revolving doors, the teens whooed at the sight. The ceiling was impressively high up, there were golden murals on every wall and every surface was reflective. Lolley finally let go of Webby to begin taking selfies, then stopped, staring at her phone.
“Ugh, everybody’s gonna think these were photoshopped. Why didn't Uncle Scrooge tell us we were flying to the Empire State Building?! I'd have dressed nicer.”
At the front desk, while the triplets looked around, Aunt Della talked to the guard,
“Um, can we get tickets for the six-hundredth floor, please?”
“Sorry, ma'am, if this building went that high we'd pierce the Moon and those lunatics would invade us again.”
She hunched her shoulders, quacking something unintelligible before her second attempt, “We need to see Hera.”
The man’s expression fell into a skeptical deadpan, but he acknowledged her, “Do you have an appointment?”
“Er… No?”
“Then no can do, ma'am.”
Aunt Della cursed, tapping her fingers restlessly on the counter as she thought of an out. She pepped up again and leaned in to whisper something Webby couldn't make out from where she was awkwardly looming behind her like a baby duckling to their momma.
“So? Do you have any idea of how many demigods we get around here?” the man told her after inspecting the triplets. “Without an appointment, they’re as good as mortals.”
Did she just try to pass them off as demigods?!
She cursed again, bumping her fists on the table. Then, she pulled the scroll out of her pocket and opened it, her last resort. Webby tried to get a good look at what it showed, deathly curious, but her aunt snapped the scroll back shut and announced,
“I think she'll make an exception. We found her husband’s hideout.”
Ohhh.
The guard's eyebrow shot up. “How?”
“It's not you I have to discuss this with.”
Standing off his chair, he bolted for the elevator and Aunt Della smiled triumphantly.
“Come, girls!”
They waited a long time in the elevator. Long enough for Dolly to learn the song that was playing softly and start remixing it vocally, hip-hopping to her own rhythm. Lolley was on her phone, head resting up on Webby's shoulder with an arm wrapped around one of hers. Hollie was staring.
“Are you okay?” Hollie whispered. “It's kind of uncanny to see you so quiet.”
Webby shrugged, rubbing her arm self-consciously.
“...I don't know what I'd do if this happened to me. I think I'd be too embarrassed to speak too. I'd be mortified.”
They looked at each other.
“Sorry, that- That probably didn’t make you feel better… If Hera doesn't help us, are you never going to speak again?” Hollie asked, snapping one of her hair clips open and shut repetitively.
She paused, because she hadn't thought about that, then whispered, “I’d have to use one of Gyro's voice boxes.”
“Oh. Huh. Then why don't you just do that?”
“It wouldn't fix everything.”
Hollie frowned in confusion.
The doors chimed open suddenly and they were met with a stone bridge into the clouds, where they could see, distantly, the snowy peak of a mountain littered with palaces through the mist. Under the bridge was a view certainly worth more than the tickets they could've gotten for any of the other accessible floors, the entirety of Mousehattan 7 miles above ground. Dolly screamed in excitement and Aunt Della in fear, backing into the elevator. Lolley just collapsed, almost dragging Webby down with her. But the guard picked the two of them up under his arms and went ahead, dropping them off on safe ground across the bridge, the others right behind him.
“I have to get back to my post,” he told them before leaving, “you’ll need to climb the Mount Olympus to get to the Pantheon.”
At the very top of the mountain stood the biggest palace, surrounded with thriving gardens and busy bazaar markets. Up about a hundred steps, they crossed a gorgeous courtyard into the most beautiful place they'd ever set foot in. It was huge, full of columns, and an elevated throne loomed over the room. A very large golden and white speckled cow woman sat there in Greek attire.
Lolley took a selfie. “Hmm, yeah, no, people are definitely gonna think that's AI.”
“Della Duck,” the cow said, tone either amused or snooty, and it soared like thunder through the palace. “Xandra still gushes about you. Who are your… companions?”
“Wait, what? You know her?” Lolley asked a visibly nervous Aunt Della. “Do you know every Greek god there is?!”
Hollie looked at Webby, who was basically vibrating. “Who's Xandra?”
“The goddess of adventure!!” she squealed- or, tried to. It came out deep then squeaky and weird, and she quieted back down in shame.
Webby wanted to say how the goddess of adventure herself probably knew Aunt Della by the name from the multiple grandiose adventures she went on with Scrooge and Donald. Xandra must love the McDucks. She was bursting to boast about it, admiration and pride inflating her chest, but she held back. Aunt Della winced in sympathy and answered the goddess,
“These are my children–”
“Your children?”
“–and we need your help.”
Hera stood and walked down to meet them. Up close, she was ever bigger and a thousand times more beautiful. And intimidating. Lolley hid behind her sisters and Aunt Della put a protective hand on Webby's shoulder, stepping forward into Hera's presence with her. It smelled of spring and sunlight, but it was dense and hard to breathe in.
“Scrooge?”
Webby jolted when she realized she was addressing her. “Uh- I'm Webby! Y- Your Highness! Webbigail Vanderquack-McDuck, Scrooge’s daughter!”
Her voice came out exactly like her father's and she cringed.
“‘Daughter’?” She scrutinized her, and it wasn't because it was hard to believe Scrooge would've settled down to have a baby. “You sound just like him too.”
Dolly opened her mouth, by her expression it was safe to assume nothing less than rude was going to come out of it, but her aunt shut her up with a hand around her beak.
“That's the problem,” Della came to the rescue, “we need you to turn her body into a girl's.”
Hera’s ox eyes widened. “What cretin turned her body into a man’s?!”
“No- Uh- She was born like that.”
“Ah. So he is a man?”
“No!” Aunt Della snapped. “She's a young lady who needs the help of the freaking goddess of womanhood to GET THERE! Are you going to help us or not?!”
“You mean like what I did with Tiresias? I turned him into a woman as a punishment.”
Della scowled. “What does she need to do wrong so you can punish her with it?!”
Hera gasped, offended, “The audacity–” and before things could get worse, Webby swiped the scroll Scrooge gave Aunt Della and jumped between her and the goddess, handing it out,
“My dad is with your husband right now and we can get you to him!” But when she reached for the scroll, Webby retracted. “ If you help me. Please–” her voice cracked, “P- Please your Highness, I- I can't go on like this.”
The goddess raised an eyebrow at her. “Why? Why would a young man like you want to relinquish the benefits of manhood? To a life where you have to be on the lookout for men everywhere you go? You'd rather be the prey in a world of bloodthirsty hunters?”
Feeling a little sick, she faltered, “I don't like what manhood represents. I don't like how they're expected to act or, or how they're entitled to act. I love my dad and my Grampy and Dad Donald, I think they're great men! B- but this– I won't stand for this, and I don’t want to live a lifetime of people telling me I'm ‘doing it wrong’ just because I feel like it's wrong to ‘do’ it.” Under Hera's intense judging gaze, she felt weak on her knees, but she still stood straighter and steeled her face to summarize it all,
“Being a guy is gross.”
“HA!” Hera cackled in delight, smiling at the heavens like they were laughing with her, “HA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!” and said, putting a hand on her back to separate her from Della, “Can't argue with that!”
She glanced behind her at the triplets and Aunt Della as the goddess guided her towards the throne. They looked uncertain.
“I've heard a lot of great things about you McDucks. But this is the greatest thing I've heard yet!"
“So you'll help me?”
“I’ll give you a trial.” Hera pulled her ginormous throne, turning it around to reveal a rose-tinted mirror with fern growing from the frame. “If you can face what womanhood truly means, down to its core, and don't cower, you will return with the body of the young lady you want to be.”
Webby examined her reflection in the mirror. It was just her current self, nothing spiced up, and she didn't like it. She reached for it somberly and startled when her hand dipped into the mirror surface, creating ripples that unfocused her reflection. It wasn't a mirror, it was a vertical pond, she realized as she pulled her hand back to see water drip to the floor.
“Does that mean I'll just get my period?”
“Amenorrhea and menopause do not take the womanhood out of a woman.”
“Okay,” she said awkwardly. “...What happens if I fail?”
“You die.”
“WHAT?!” her family yelled from behind her, Aunt Della getting riled up.
“Just kidding, ladies! Jeez. When have I ever done something so rash?”
“On every single myth you take part in,” Hollie said, frowning warily.
“Well- They’re called myths for a reason,” she reprimanded her. Then, turning to Webby, she said more seriously, “If you experience the true nature of womanhood and reject it, you'll wish your punishment was just ‘death’, Webbigail McDuck.”
The arched ceiling that let either natural light or magical clear skies in, closed up, getting dark as the void of the universe. Wind caught up fast and strong, pushing Webby towards the pond. She almost fell forward.
Through the violent winds, she was only barely able to hear her sisters and Aunt Della protest. Glancing back at them, she realized the same wind that was prompting her ahead was keeping them away from the throne. Hera stood impassively between the two winds, looking fixedly at her, and Webby immediately looked away. The mirror surface was thrashing in waves, she couldn't see how deep it was so she took a deep breath in for precaution. And let herself get dragged by the wind into the waters. They were calm, warm and bright under the surface, rose kaleidoscoped around her as she swam. Endlessly, aimlessly.
Grampy had trained her to do free-diving under almost 3280 feet underwater with no equipment for about 3 minutes, but she felt like it'd been at least 5 already. And though the water temperature wasn't anything beyond pleasantly warm, it was starting to make her feel feverish, like her blood was boiling under her skin. She was slowing down and the distinct lack of buoyancy from her lungs was off-putting. Like there was no gravity in there. Nothing tugged at her semicircular canals or at the pressure building inside of her lungs that'd hint the direction of the surface, and she didn't sink either. So as she gradually lost energy to swim, she found herself floating in place.
Her name followed her into unconsciousness, screamed from the mouths of her family, who knows how far behind her.
.
.
.
Webby gasped awake, instantly hunching over and retching pink water on the floor, coughing and catching her breath. Her skin was still scalding hot, so she kicked the blankets off her with the desperation of a cat scrambling out of a bathtub.
She was in her room. Had she failed and get sent into a coma as punishment? Or was this the trial? …Her bedroom was the trial??
“Test, test,” she spoke carefully, then louder, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog!”
Her voice was back to normal!!
Did she do it?! She passed the trial?! Was the true nature of womanhood getting drowned in pink water after swimming for what felt like forever? Huh, insightful. She somersaulted out of bed and ran to greet her sisters, finding only Hollie in their bedroom.
“Hollie! I did it!”
“That's- good? Did what?”
That's when Webby realized she was wearing a hat. A red baseball cap. The last time she'd ever seen her wear a cap, the Duchess of Destruction had ruined her hair.
“Oh no!! What happened?!”
“What happened to what?” Hollie stood from her desk, closing her journal and tucking her pencil on the side of her hair. Webby could see now that it was not only perfectly unharmed, but also. Perfect. “You're not making any sense.”
Her hair hadn't been this neat in ages. Usually her hair feathers were mangled from her stimming, snapped in various directions while new, smaller feathers peeked through. Now it was tied up in a little ponytail over the clasp of her cap, looking soft and well preened.
“What happened to your hair? It's.. You fixed it?”
“I–”
“Can I touch it?”
“Um. Sure?” She removed her cap and hair tie, shaking her hair loose. “You're acting weird.”
Webby ran her hands through it. It was even softer than Lolley's but less oily, and it was really short, just the height she'd need to wear her ribbon on her hair again. As she noticed this, she realized Hollie wasn't wearing her ribbon on her collar either. In fact, she was wearing a red sweater and brown shorts . Shorts. Hollie only wore shorts at her scout meetings.
“Ohhh, you're dressed up for a Senior Woodchuck meeting!”
“What? No I'm not. I wear this everyday,” Hollie said. Webby laughed lightly, assuming she was being sarcastic, but she insisted, “What are you talking about?! Webby, you're freaking me out!”
“Well, get ready to be DOUBLE FREAKED OUT,” someone said, skidding in. “In a good way! ‘Cause I got my glasses! So? Do I or do I not look like your highschool daydream?”
It was Dolly. It was definitely Dolly, in a different outfit and with her new glasses, with a definitely deeper guy voice, but it was Dolly and something was wrong. Webby's stomach tied up in knots as she looked at her best friend and saw a stranger forming.
“Gee, does it look that bad?! Hey, you're the ones who said square frames were the best!”
But she hadn't. She hadn't said that. She’d been completely silent during that conversation.
“I tried to warn you.” Lolley sidled in, but once she got a good look at Dolly, her eyebrows raised. “No no, you look good! Holy shit, the nerds were right, Dewey, square is your shape!”
“Okay yeah, that's what I thought, but Webby’s still looking at me like I grew tentacles on my face.”
Lolley snorted and turned to Webby. “What's the big idea?”
She was different too, not by much, but still different. Her voice was also deeper, for one, her hair was a lot shorter and her hoodie was short-sleeved.
“Did- Wh- Did you call her Doo-wee?”
“Her?”
“Did you forget my name?!” Dewey gasped. “After all these years! I thought we had something!”
“Webby called me ‘Hollie’ earlier,” Hollie (or not??) said pensively. “I thought she was greeting me in Spanish for some reason, but…”
“Did you forget all of our names?!!”
Lolley felt her forehead, which was probably still burning up from the mirror pond. “Yup, she's coming down with something.”
Webby breathed, mouth agape as she tried to make sense of the situation.
“I- Your name isn't Hollie? Hollister? Hollister Duck?”
“Oh,” she said awkwardly, cringing, and maybe also very confused, “no, you- I thought you knew- Webby, I'm Hilda now.”
“Hilda?! Why?!!”
“Yeah, that was my reaction too,” Dewey joked, earning a glare from Hilda.
“Because it sounds more like Huey.”
Dewey interjected, “It sounds more like a viking.”
“Why would you want it to sound like ‘Huey’??!”
“Because big changes scare me and I want to keep being called Huey. We've been through this.”
“NO WE HAVEN'T!” she panicked. “That doesn't explain anything! How long was I asleep for?!”
“I don't know, eight hours?” Lolley asked her sisters.
“Actually, she slept in today,” Dewey noted. “She was supposed to come with us to the optometrist to get my glasses, but she was still asleep by ten.”
“Which is… extremely uncharacteristic of her,” Huey narrowed her eyes.
Webby took a step back, bringing up her defenses when they all prepared to attack, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Who are you and what did you do to my best friend?!” Dewey growled, shoving an accusatory finger on her face. “Are you another clone? Did they not even bother to have you learn our names?!”
“She asked to touch my hair! I think she took a sample of my DNA! No matter what you do, don't let her leave the mansion with it!”
“I'm not going to leave!” she pleaded with them. “I'm Webby! Please, someone just tell me what's going on!!”
“Aha!” Aunt Della burst in, kicking the door down, and pointed at them. Her voice was unsettlingly clear, “No fighting!” Then she puffed up her chest in pride, looking off into the distance. “Nailed it.”
Wait, no. That was not Aunt Della. It looked exactly like her but Aunt Della never wore her hair down, much less Donald's aviator hat and. Donald's outfit entirely. And his metal leg.
“Donald??”
“What?” Aunt Donald looked behind her from both sides, checking if someone else was there, then checked her clothes and felt for her face. Sighing dramatically in relief, she said, “You can't scare a woman like that, I thought I grew Donald's worry lines there for a second! It’d be enough for anyone to get us mixed up.”
Webby's hands were shaking.
“Then- A- Aunt Della?”
The woman's expression spasmed. “Why–”
“Don't listen to her, Mom,” Huey held a hand between Webby and her. “This isn't Webby, it's an impostor!”
Her heart broke a little. “I'm not!!”
“She must be a long-lost project of FOWL or something,” Dewey told their… mother, apparently?! And then squinted at her. “Is your name March or July?”
“What-”
“I got it!” Mom Donald ran at her, going for a roundhouse kick, and when Webby ducked, she just switched feet and swiped on under hers.
Webby got back up fast, sidekicking Mom Donald's beak in and elbowing her neck while she was stunned, sending her down. She spun around to face her sisters, only to catch a faceful of a pillow thrown at her, then a blanket.
“Go go go!” Hollie- Huey directed her sisters to spin around her. They were trying to wrap her up in the blanket.
She groaned in frustration and spun faster in the same direction they were going, rendering their efforts useless. Instead, she took advantage of their closeness to jump out from between them – her end of the blanket in hand – and cover their heads with it. Before they could shake it off, she pulled the blanket, making them all headbutt each other and fall apart like dominoes.
Familiar unintelligible quacking exploding behind her was the only warning she got before getting absolutely manhandled by who was definitely a buzzcut version of the actual Aunt Della if the sailor uniform was anything to go by – Webby struggled, but it was hard to keep up with Della's classic temper attack, she's never been the target of one before – in a heartbeat, her face was flush against the floor, her arms secured behind her back. Aunt Della had her completely immobilized.
“Uncle Donald!” her sisters cheered.
“Who are you working for?!”
“Nobody!” she grinded out. “I'm Webby! It's me!”
“If you really are Webby, then why did you attack us?!” Lolley argued.
“You attacked first!!”
Aunt Della and Donald seemed to have switched personalities along with the outfits. If Aunt Della was now Uncle Donald, then Mom Donald was… Mom Della? Almost as if they'd switched genders. Dolly and Lolley looked and sounded like guys now, too. So maybe everyone was just switched.
Except for Hollie for some reason?
Then her eyes widened- If everyone was switched, did that mean her Dad was a–
“What in dismal downs is going on in here?!”
Scrooge stood at the doorway in all of his gleam and glory, exactly the same as she remembered him. She felt like she could cry. She might. Her eyes welled up as she cried out,
“Dad!!”
“She’s an impostor!” Huey told him quickly, “We don’t know who she is, but we think she might be here to steal our DNA!”
“I'm not– gah!” she broke off as Uncle Donald pressed her head harder against the floor. “I am Webby, just- not your Webby?? I think I know what's happening. I can explain everything!”
Her father studied her for a moment, then told his nephew,
“Let the lass go, Donald, let's hear what she has to say.”
“What?! But–”
“Magic, aliens, gods and demons are real and ye can't believe a girl saying she's from another universe?”
Uncle Donald sighed and helped her up.
“Start talking,” Della said, crossing her arms.
Her family dissecting her with narrowed eyes wasn't a very comforting sight, but her father nodded comprehensively at her and she relaxed just a bit.
“I went to Mount Olympus with Aunt Della and my sisters–” she looked at them respectively, “–Hollie, Dolly and Lolley, to meet the goddess of women, Hera. She gave me a test: I’ll experience the true nature of womanhood, and if I can face it, I get to take it home. I think whatever this is … is the trial.”
“Wait, go back, you went to Mount Olympus?!” Dewey whooed. “How come we never went to Mount Olympus?! What do our girl versions have that we don't?”
“Um,” Lolley started, then stopped himself, frowning. “Eh. Too easy.”
“You're from a universe where everyone's sexes are swapped?” Huey mused. “And- Wait no, let me get this straight… You're.. You said you'll get to ‘take womanhood home’?”
“Yeahhh,” she laughed embarrassedly, mumbling, “my voice was starting to sound like Dad's.”
Huey’s expression did a something. The way she looked at her, utterly fascinated and open, made her look like she had actual sparks in her eyes. Wait. Did she have actual sparks in her eyes–
“You’re- You're trans, like me?”
She recalled Vinicio referring to her as that once.
“Uh, maybe? What does ‘trans’ mean?”
Huey laughed incredulously. “It's people who change the biological sex they were born with! Transgender!”
“You were born a boy?!” she screeched, disconcerted. She'd never met anyone like her before. “No, wait, of course you were. With the swap and all, haha.” Then she beamed, “Did you wear skirts when you were little too?! And like girl stuff?!”
“Oh, no, I was terrified of doing anything namely girly.”
“What?? Then how did you become a girl?!”
Huey shrugged, cheeks pink.
“Wait, but why did you call me Donald?” Aunt- Uh, Uncle- um- Della asked, “And then ‘Aunt’ Della?”
“You're my Donald, the triplets' father, and he's my Aunt Della!”
“I guess we being born female or male wouldn't change the names our parents picked for us,” Uncle Donald deadpanned.
Lolley perked up. “But it changes our names! Webby, what is my girl name?!”
“Um, Hollie is Hollister, Dolly is Dorothea and you're Lowreley.”
His eyebrows fell. “Why are you pronouncing it like that? Do you mean Loreley?”
“Nope. It’s Lowreley with an L-O-W.”
“SERIOUSLY, UNCLE DONALD?!!”
“We’re Louie for Lewellyn,” Huey explained, ignoring Louie's hiss to shut up, “Dewey for Dewford and Huey for- W- Well, it used to be Hubert.”
“What about Ember and Toby, September and October? My little brothers?”
“Your little- Oh! May and June?”
“OOH!” She gasped. “How about Luke and Vinicio?”
“You mean Lena and Violet?”
“Gosalyn?”
“She’s still Gosalyn.”
“Oh, what about BOYD?! Is he Girl-D?”
“Strangely enough he continues to be Boyd.”
“Huh. Aunt Della's boyfriend Aster?”
“Uncle Donald's girlfriend Daisy!”
“And Dad Donald's moon boyfriend Aphelion?”
“Uh, ‘Mom’ Della’s moon girlfriend Penumbra.”
Della's eyes widened. “You knew we’re dating?!”
Everyone shot her a look.
“Aw phooey.”
Webby grinned. “What about Dad's situationship, Gold–”
“O-KAY , that's enough talk,” Scrooge interrupted, adjusting his collar and clearing his throat. “Webby, come with me.”
They left, and once they were far enough away, her father checked for eavesdroppers. Finding nobody, he then slapped his forehead, whisper-shouting,
“What particular sort of imbecile sent you to Hera?! Do you not know what she's capable of?! Have I not taught you kids to do your research before each adventure?! Even going to Circe would have been safer than to Hera!”
Webby gaped.
“..It was you, you sent us to Hera.”
“Poppycock! I would never! I hate that cow!”
“But you told us to trade Zeus's location for it, and it worked!”
“‘Worked’? ‘Worked’?! Yer still on trial, lass!” He started pacing. “Oh, Webby, my darling Webbigail. Oh no. What if you can't do it, what if you fail?! Did she tell you what she'd do to you?!”
He was worried about her. That would be a bad time to tell him the punishment of failure would be worse than death.
“It doesn't matter because I won't fail!”
Dad stopped pacing to look at her, then he approached and held her shoulders. “Webby. What did she tell you?”
“Uh- Wh- What can be so hard about womanhood?! It can't be that bad! I know the rules! Scream ‘FIRE’ instead of ‘HELP’, never let a man take you to a second location, go to a mother or a goth lady for help if I'm–”
“Do not underestimate this challenge, lass, womanhood was so hard I asked Poseidon to get rid of mine.”
“You WHAT!?”
She hadn’t even thought of that. In a world where she was born a girl, Scrooge had to have been born a girl too, she was his clone after all… Poseidon though?
“He did it to Kaineus for free!” he explained himself. “Er, mostly for free. What did Hera tell you?”
“..That if I reject womanhood, she'll make me wish the punishment was just death.”
Her father made a sound of shock and slid down a wall to plop dumbstruck on the ground.
“B- But I can do it!”
“I don't doubt that you can do anything, lassie, you’ve got the best of McDuck stubbornness. But- I-” he broke off in grumbles, helpless.
Webby wilted.
“...Why did you ask Poseidon to give you a man's body?”
“Because being a woman was counterproductive to my ambitions, of course, as a multimillionaire. But even as a young boy, I realized the world out there was safer if I didn't dress like a girl. It's just more practical to be a man.”
That wasn't as sentimental as she expected, but it was something.
“That way you feel about being a woman is how I feel about being a man!” Webby said, and her father looked up, hooked. “I’ll do whatever it takes, whatever this trial throws at me, I'll face it. I made my vows.” She did the military salute. “Because whatever it is, it's better than having people see a man when they look at me…..no offense.”
“None taken,” he said slowly, standing up. “Aye.” He ruffled her already-pretty-ruffled hair. “Let's catch you that womanhood, shall we?”
She beamed. “Where are we going?!”
“We are going to defeat Hera!”
That sent her reeling back.
“What?! But we’re mortals! It's physically impossible for mortals to kill gods, even with a god-killing weapon!”
“You think your ol’ Scrooge McDuck doesn't have a couple of cards up his sleeve?”
“You're a god?!”
“No, better!” He winked. “Tell everyone to get ready! We leave at noon!”
They didn't stand a chance against Hera. No way. Too bad Webby's easy to blindly trust her parents.
“Guys!” she yelled, bursting into the room. “We're going to face Womanhood! Grab your weapons and notify the family, because I'm not entirely sure we'll come back alive!”