The Case of the Missing Masters (The Gathering – Part Six)
(The Realm of Fantasia)
(The Realm of Fantasia)
“Yen
Sid! Where are ya?” Scrooge bellowed from the top of his lungs as he traversed
the halls with two red-robed figures by the names of Goofy and Donald, both
apprentices much like their good friend Mickey, whose dog Pluto they watched
over while the mouse was away on his mission to save the Disneyverse with
Anne-Marie and Katie. That was until Scrooge summoned them. “Yen
Sid! Joan! PETE! Come on out from wherever it is you’re
hidin’!”
(Character Note: This marks Goofy and Donald's first-ever appearance in the World of Disney series. Livingston had previously written the duo alongside Mickey Mouse in his Disney Ghostbusters series as an homage to their "ghost exterminator" characters in The Lonesome Ghosts.)
Scrooge
received no answer, only making him more furious and frustrated over the
absence of these three master sorcerers. He was aware of the fact that Merlin
was needed back in his home realm to deal with the impending threat of it
tearing apart from its merging with that of the Brave realm. But there was no excuse whatsoever for the other
members of their council to have gone missing like they had at that moment.
Scrooge arrived in Yen Sid’s workshop to find it completely empty, save for one mouse
(which unfortunately was not Mickey)
that crawled around the floor until it reached the webbed feet of Scrooge.
“Gah!
Go away, ya pesky little rodent!” Scrooge yelled to
the vermin.
Little
did he know, however, that the mouse was really a transformed Pete –
a punishment bestowed upon him by someone whose face he had not seen before it happened.
He tried to talk to Scrooge and warn him about what he knew –
how Joan’s declining health was responsible for what was happening to
the Disneyverse. But his shouts only came out as squeaks, further selling his
transformed appearance.
His
persistence soon wore thin with Scrooge, who went on to threaten with one foot
risen, “Don’t make me flatten ya to a pancake, pest!”
Terrified,
Pete scurried away to the nearest mouse hole, disappearing from the workshop.
Getting
nowhere fast in his search by being in an empty room, Scrooge turned to the two
apprentices that accompanied him there and instructed, “Both of you remain here until Yen Sid, the Guardian, or that sack of blubber Pete show
up. And when one of them does, you boys alert me. Got it?”
Donald
and Goofy acknowledged their orders by giving a military hand salute and
shouting, “Yes, sir!”
Aggravated
by this display of ridiculousness, Scrooge departed from the room whilst
grumbling to himself. “Why must I depend on idiots to do even a single job?”
After
the elderly duck’s departure, a powerful thunderclap erupted, scaring Donald
and Goofy out of their wits. They both looked out the window of the workshop
and saw how much worse things had gotten for Fantasia with the skies boiling
with fire and lightning and the massive cracks developing in the earth. “Gwarsh,”
Goofy cried, witnessing the nightmarish sight.
(Narrative Note: Donald and Goofy have much in common with unnatural thunder, having arrived in the Bambi by means of a thunderstorm in the second tale from Tales of the Guardians.)
“Why’s
it takin’ Mickey so long to get this fixed?”
A petrified Donald asked.
“I
dunno.” Goofy remarked. “But they’d
better not take much longer! It don’t look like we got
much time left!”
“Hey,
where is Yen Sid? He must’ve
left while the leavin’ was good.”
(Disney Note: Considering the nature of Donald's voice in most media, this is the rare circumstance when an audience can understand him through text instead of speech. Such is the case with many of Donald's comic book appearances.)
“I
don’t believe that, Donald. Yen Sid is the wisest and bravest
outta all of us. He wouldn’t leave the kingdom when we needed him most. Not even the
Guardian would. You remember all the stories Mickey told us about her, dontcha?”
“Then
where are they?”
His
question sparked something in Goofy. “Waitaminute! Say
that again!”
Donald
gave him a baffled stare. “Where are they?”
Goofy
snapped his fingers with a smile. “That’s
it!”
“What’s
it?”
“We’ll
solve the case ourselves.”
“What
case?”
“The
Case of the Missing Masters.”
Donald
waved off the idea that sounded goofier than the guy who came up with it. “That’s
ridiculous – and it’s
impossible! How can we solve the case if we’re stuck in the
workshop?”
“We
can use magic to do detective work – look for clues,
suspects, and all that other stuff!”
(Disney Note: This isn't Goofy's first dabbling into "detective work." In his 1952 animated short based on his ever popular "How To..." cartoons, "How to be a Detective," he played the part of a private eye by the name of "Johnny Eyeball." The cartoon also featured an appearance by Pete.)
“You’re
crazy! We’re still apprentices! We aren’t allowed to use
magic! Remember what happened to Mickey?”
Getting
fed up with Donald’s uncooperative behavior, Goofy snapped, “Oh,
yeah? Then you got any bright ideas
on how to solve the case?”
“No,
because I don’t wanna play this stupid game!”
“Oh,
so now it’s a game, huh?”
(Authorial Note: Livingston imagined Donald and Goofy's roles in the Kingdom Hearts series when writing their appearance in this miniseries. Much as in KH, they are reduced to "sidekick" status, secondary to Mickey, who himself is a sidekick to the main characters of World of Disney.)
The
two apprentices continued to bicker back and forth, failing to notice Pluto
entering the room and seeing them argue. But the dog’s
attention was soon directed to the center of the room as a flash of light
emerged from thin air and a woman appeared with an unconscious man she had
gripped by the collar. There was a piercing stare in her light blue eyes that
intimidated even Pluto, if not by her magic alone –
it was not often when the dog witnessed magic in person.
The
woman took one look at the workshop and groaned loud enough to interrupt Donald
and Goofy’s argument, surprising them with her presence and that of
her unconscious “friend.” “W-Where did y-you come from?” A spooked Goofy
reacted.
“Who
are you?” Donald nervously asked.
Seeing
how alarmed they were, the woman innocently raised her hands –
dropping her unconscious companion in the process. “It’s
O.K., boys. We’re on the same side. Name’s Adrienne. I’m
the Guardian. The Guardian of the Disneyverse?”
“Nice
try!” Goofy denied. “Donald and I have
met the Guardian and you ain’t
the Guardian!”
“She
must be the reason the Guardian and Yen Sid are missing!”
Donald exclaimed, pointing to Adrienne.
“She’s
our suspect!” Goofy alarmingly bellowed. “Let’s
get her!”
The
two immediately charged at Adrienne, only angering her more. “Try
to be nice, and what happens?” She mumbled to herself as she raised her right hand, her
palm facing her two would-be assailants. She conjured up one of her many powers
that froze Donald and Goofy in place and then hurled them against the nearest
wall, pinning them against it. Unable to move an inch of their bodies, Donald
and Goofy were forced to be at the receiving end of her piercing stare. “Now
listen here, boys – I didn’t do anything to Yen Sid
or my mother...wherever they are,” she told them, a
bit perturbed that Joan in particular was counted as missing. “Now
are you two gonna listen, or do I have to send both of you into the darkest, deepest, deadliest, most hellish
abyss either of you can imagine?”
(Narrative Note: In this scene, Adrienne uses a combination of her Guardian sorcery and the Force of a Jedi as a defense against Donald and Goofy, having been trained in the arts of both.)
The
heads of Donald and Goofy rapidly nodded in reply to this threat. She dropped
her hand, and their bodies slumped down against the wall in response. While
they recovered, Pluto barked happily to Adrienne, having sensed something
familiar about her. The yellow pooch rushed over, jumping right on her and
licking her face. Not the ticklish one, Adrienne did not so much as giggle when
Pluto licked her face; however, it did bring a smile to it.
“Glad
someone here is happy to see me.
Thanks, boy.” She told Pluto, rubbing his head playfully.
Seeing
Pluto react to Adrienne in such a friendly way, Goofy seemed somewhat convinced
that she was who she said. “Well, Pluto likes her,” he told Donald.
“That
doesn’t mean anything!” Donald snapped.
“HEY!”
Adrienne’s loud and extremely fierce voice redirected Donald and Goofy’s
attention to her, making them sit up straight against the wall. “Cut out the
bickering and lock this guy in the dungeon now!”
She pointed directly to the unconscious man she dragged in with her while
giving the command.
Donald and
Goofy quickly and fearfully carried out their orders and dragged the man away
by his arms. Alone with Pluto, Adrienne let out a frustrated sigh, going over
to Yen Sid’s worktable and sitting down in his chair while Pluto sat near her
on the floor with one paw on her knee.
“I’ve been
away from the Disneyverse for so long, Pluto – too long. I’ve forgotten what so many places have looked like that
I keep missing my mark.” Her eyes centered upon a nearby mirror, urging her to
get up to look at her reflection. The first thing she noticed was how much
older she looked with the streaks of gray in her hair, her skin almost as white
as a sheet, and dark circles developing around her eyes. “I’ve forgotten what I used to look like. This isn’t my face…but I act as if it’s my only face all the time. What’s wrong
with me?”
(Narrative Note: This is the first inclination we see of the mental effects from Sean Thomas's centuries of living as Guardian. It is particularly a focal point for Adrienne, whose memory of her previous lives - including the original as Sean Thomas - is wiped clean following her reincarnation in the Star Wars Universe. This is explored in World of Disney 3.)
“You just
need someone to help remind you of who you really are.”
Both she
and Pluto followed the voice that spoke seemingly from nowhere and found Yen
Sid back in the workshop, accompanied by a short-haired woman who Adrienne did
not recognize and already did not like, especially from not her “Maria von Trapp dress.”
(Pop Culture Note: Maria von Trapp is the main character of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Tony Award-winning Broadway musical The Sound of Music. In the film adaptation, she is played by Julie Andrews, the legendary actress who Victoria Summer - the inspiration for "Victoria" - portrayed in Saving Mr. Banks.)
“YEN SID!”
Before
Adrienne could have had a chance to say the name of her former master, she was
robbed of that opportunity by Scrooge, who yelled out for him first upon
rushing into the room.
“Where in
blazes have you been?” Scrooge then noticed
Adrienne and the other woman in the room and added in great suspicion, “Who are
they?”
“Their
names are Victoria and Adrienne. They are both Guardians.”
Hearing
this, Adrienne shot a curious look at the woman standing beside Yen Sid. The
woman, whose name turned out to be “Victoria,” made an attempt in being
friendly, giving a wave and a warm smile; but Adrienne coldly left her greeting
unreturned. She was clearly not ready to make friends with a reincarnation she
did not know and had yet to find much about.
“Impossible!”
Scrooge remarked to Yen Sid’s classification of the two women. “There can only
be one Guardian – and she’s out
somewhere havin’ fun, while the rest of us burn to the ground!”
“Joan is no
longer with us, Scrooge.” Yen Sid somberly revealed. “She has died.”
This update
hit Adrienne hard, but not because it was
news to her – she had already known the mother of her original identity, Sean
Thomas, had died many years before she even became a reincarnation of Sean. Of
course, the news still cut like a knife and brought tears to her eyes; several
years and lives later, she continued to miss her dearly.
Scrooge, shocked
and saddened from Yen Sid’s news about Joan, felt like a monster for saying the
things he said about the woman who once protected the Disneyverse with all her
spirit while she was somewhere living her last moments – presumably with her
family back in her home realm. Yet his fears outweighed his guilt as he asked,
“W-Who will save us now?”
“Weren’t
you listening to what Yen Sid just said, McDuck?” Adrienne barked. “Me and Mary
Poppins over there are one of many ‘hopes’ the Disneyverse has now.”
(Disney Note: Adrienne's Mary Poppins jab to Victoria is yet another homage to Summer's portrayal as Andrews in Banks, which focused on the production of Mary Poppins by Disney.)
“She is
right, Scrooge.” Yen Sid supported. “A gathering must be held with all
reincarnations of the Tomorrow Child – the child of the first Guardian.” He gestured to Victoria while adding, “Now that I
have found the most important one of them all, we can commence in bringing the
rest together.”
Scrooge
nodded in agreement to this plan. “I trust ya, Yen Sid. But you’d better get it
done fast. I fear Fantasia doesn’t
have much time left.”
(UP NEXT: Brave heart, Genevieve!)
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