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Chapter 1: Ethan’s Musings Ethan sat draped on a stool at the Voodoo Lounge, idly chasing the ice cubes left from his soda around his empty glass with a straw. He told himself that he ought to be out in the amusement park or at one of the clubs, meeting new people and having a good time. After all, wasn’t that the reason he had spent so much money to come to this place? To have one last time of fun before he had to buckle down and become, to quote half his relatives, a “responsible adult?” He’d needed some time off after his recent college graduation-- some time away from everyone he knew asking him what he was going to do with his life—but really wanting to tell him rather than hear his uncertain answers. Left to himself, he might even be able to come up with some definite ones to give them. Over the past week these thoughts had been replaced with ones that were, to him, even more perplexing. Velma. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t erase what had happened that day in the cavern—and really, even before that. It hadn’t helped that the press had somehow gotten the impression that he was her boyfriend, and so tried to interview him about their “relationship” at every turn and set up film shots so they would be together. Velma had been too excited to question it much, but he could only hope that she didn’t get to thinking later that he had propagated the false rumor. But even now that the press furor had dwindled, he was still troubled. It wasn’t really the embarrassment of being turned down; that was nothing new to him. He had dealt with that before plenty of times, albeit not at all recently. Ethan could recall many incidents from his painful preteen years when he had been refused much more rudely. All that had changed as his looks finally started to mature and he took up playing the guitar-- in the space of a few years he found himself with no lack of dates. This gave him an easygoing, friendly confidence with women that, because of his earlier experiences, never turned into pride or arrogance. But now that “confidence” had ruined his chances with the one girl he cared about more than all the others put together! And he did—from his first day on the island he’d been certain that he even loved her. That was it. He knew that, improbable as it might seem in such a short space of time, he loved her, and he couldn’t help feeling that he’d lost a chance at something truly special. Ah, come on Ethan—you sound like one of those songs you used to write back in junior high, he inwardly scolded himself. Nevertheless, it was true all the same, and there wasn’t much he could do about it—or… was there? She’s not interested, he reasoned with himself. Probably never was… well, maybe at first, ‘till you managed to mess it up. Still… His mind had gone over and over the events of the past week, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, and, as the bartender placed a fresh soda in front of him, Ethan found himself recalling them once again. “Hi,” said Ethan, “can I sit here?” The girl he was addressing, a petite brunette, sat a few feet in front of him on the tram seat, leafing through some small notebook papers. At his voice, she looked up, then readjusted her thick glasses as if trying to discern if he’d been talking to her. He met her eyes with his own to assure her. “Okay--- I mean, sure, of course,” she answered him. Her mouth twitched in a smile, and she put the papers down, arranging them in her lap. “Thanks,” Ethan said, sliding into the seat in one smooth motion, just as the tram began to move. “I’m Ethan, it’s nice to meet you.” “Likewise.” Ethan leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable but not taking his eyes from her. She looked even better to him close up than she had across the plane aisle earlier that day—and he’d decided then that she was the best-looking girl he’d ever seen. Oh, he knew that maybe it wouldn’t be obvious to a lot of other guys his age—they’d just say she looked nerdy—but to him it was the most obvious thing in the world. He even liked her private-school-uniform-type clothes and heavy-rimmed glasses. They showed him that she wasn’t afraid to just be her own person, and originality was a trait that Ethan held very highly. Despite her confident appearance, she seemed to be a little unsure of herself at the moment, so Ethan decided to break the ice. “I was sitting across from you on the plane today and I wanted to say hi,” he began, “but… I wasn’t sure if you and the blond guy you were sitting with are… together?” She let out a short, almost choked laugh. “Me with Fred? Jinkies, no!” “Jinkies?” Ethan repeated, amused as he pronounced the new word. “What’s that?” “It’s… a word I made up. It just came out one day when I found a secret passage.” “I like it,” Ethan said, looking directly at her as a slow smile crossed his face. She smiled back shyly, and Ethan could have sworn she was starting to blush, too! “What’s it mean?” he continued, storing the secret passage comment away as a future question. “Originally it was an exclamation of surprise— as in ‘oh my.’ But… it’s come to mean just about anything I want it to.” “What did it mean this time?” “This time— something like ‘oh my gosh, you have got to be kidding, no!” Ethan laughed. “Not your favorite person, I take it.” She paused a moment. “I wouldn’t say that. Fred’s… really a good guy. It’s just been harder to see lately. But it wasn’t always that way.” “It’s funny, he kinda looks familiar to me. I mean, how many guys go around wearing ascots, anyway?” His companion giggled. “That hippie-looking guy and his dog looked familiar, too.” “His dog—so you weren’t fooled by his masterful disguise?” she asked wryly. “Hardly,” Ethan laughed. “That was nuts. That cat’s probably still in the overhead bin. But really—do they look familiar to you or is it just me?” Again she paused. “No, it’s not just you. The ‘hippie guy’ is Shaggy Rogers and the Great Dane is Scooby-Doo. They’re detectives. Well… they were detectives.” Ethan thought he detected a hint of sadness flickering over her features. “They were part of a larger group—Mystery, Inc?” The slight question in her tone let him know that she was prompting him to remember. He hadn’t read anything about that group in some time—they’d broken up… two years before? Scooby, Shaggy… Daph-- suddenly the names and faces of the other members snapped into his mind. “Oh, yeah I remember now!” he told her. “The people from the plane—the pretty boy Fred and that hot babe—Daphne!!” He regretted the last part of the sentence as soon as it left his mouth. Quickly he glanced over to assess the damage. His seatmate stiffened a little, and her eyes darted downward, then up again. Her mouth was drawn into a firm, tight-lipped line. “There was one more,” she told him, now having met his eyes. Her voice held the slightest expectant tone—even a bit hopeful? Ethan thought hard; it was obviously important to her that he remember for some reason. Of course, he chided himself—wasn’t the group also called the Mystery Five? There had to be one more. The only problem was, he couldn’t recall who it was. He turned away from her and stared straight ahead, attempting to see the news stories he’d seen about them in his mind. After a longish pause, she decided to help him out. “Velma,” she spoke suddenly, bringing his attention immediately back to her as she added forthrightly “the smart one.” The name did seem familiar… and with the name came an image, fuzzy at first. The girl in the background of the photos--- orange turtleneck sweater, glasses, brainy-looking…. Oh NO. Realization dropped like a block of ice into his stomach, and sure enough, she confirmed his fear with three short words. “That was me.” Ethan felt like crawling under the seat and disappearing. “Oh, man I’m sorry,” he said miserably, pushing a hand back through his dark hair. “Don’t worry about it,” Velma cut in, her voice flat. “Hardly anyone recognizes me. You’re being too hard on yourself.” Though her words were reassuring, Ethan could tell from the tightness of her expression that he’d struck a nerve. She wasn’t angry with him, he could sense that—but what was she feeling? Her stony expression was difficult to read, but he was almost sure he’d hurt her feelings. And no wonder—calling her former friend, who happened to look nothing like her, a ‘hot babe’, and then not even remembering her when she was in the same famous group. He plowed forward, grasping for anything he could say to make amends. He’d turned off a few girls in his time, but this—this was in a league all its own! “Listen, can I make this up to you— buy you dinner?” he offered. Velma continued to watch him, her pinched expression unwavering. “A drink?” Ethan tried again, his voice taking on the faintest hint of embarrassed desperation. “Come on, you gotta help me out a little here,” he laughed uncomfortably, trying to joke. “I don’t know—I’m here on business.” She finally looked away from him then and stared out the window. Looking at her reflection, Ethan could see her bite her lip, and he was sure then that he had hurt her, though of course he hadn’t meant to. A thought flashed across Ethan’s mind. “I wanted to ask you anyway,” he told her, his voice back to normal. This isn’t pity, he wanted to assure her, but he caught himself before he could loose those potentially-insulting words from his mouth. She turned to face him again, and he was happy to see the corner of her mouth turn up in a slight smile. Very slight, but it was a smile nonetheless. “I really do have a lot to do tonight. But… maybe.” That noncommittal answer was just leaving her lips as the tram stopped and the anxious college students began to hurry off. Ethan and Velma were in the very back seats, and as they stood to leave he began to wonder if she would stick with him during the show that was about to start. The tram had been taking them to some place called the Ring of Fire, where they were to see a presentation about the “ancient beings” residing on Spooky Island. Ethan had been of two minds about even attending after a tiring day on the plane, but what had finally convinced him to go was the possibility of hearing some native-style music. A music major in college, he’d like to hear some good percussion and native instruments. Now, despite the fact that Velma was not exactly warming up to him, he was so glad he’d decided to get on that tram. He knew her name at least, even though the manner in which he’d found out was far from ideal. Hey, it’s a start, right? “You want another one?” the bartender asked Ethan, gesturing to his again-empty glass. Ethan ended his recollections abruptly and focused on the question. “Uh… yeah,” he answered. He really didn’t, but he didn’t want to leave the bar yet, either, and he couldn’t sit there without a drink. “But caffeine-free this time.” Heaven knew he’d had enough already to keep him up half the night—and for what? To sit up and think some more? To feel sorry for himself? Almost automatically his mind returned the story it had been recounting. Ethan smiled as he thought of what had happened later that first night at the Ring of Fire, when N’Goo tried to scare the college kids with the eerie chanting, pyrotechnics, and the frightening images of the demon monsters in the flames. He’d been so proud when Velma had almost smugly pointed out the holographic projectors that created the whole effect, despite how N’Goo and his henchmen circled and sneered at her. If only they all had known how true those images would turn out to be only hours later… That part of the evening had started typically enough. After checking out some of the night spots on the island, he had headed back to the lounge. It was there, at the very bar that he now sat in front of, that he’d seen Velma again. She was bent over a small, metallic, pyramid-shaped object, studying it intently with a thin-handled magnifying glass. Seeing that she was obviously very engrossed by her task, Ethan felt that perhaps he ought not bother her. He certainly didn’t want to make a pest of himself, either, by showing up at her elbow several times that day, especially if she was busy on some kind of case. But, he reasoned with himself, the island was a very busy place—he might not get too many opportunities. And really, Ethan—the bar, the piano, the empty seat beside her-- when are you going to get a better chance? You can just use that relic thing as a conversation starter. She didn’t seem to hear his approach, nor did she look up as he slipped up onto the stool next to her. Another woman did, however—a pretty blonde that Ethan had been chatting with earlier on the gangplank to Spooky Island. She flashed him an inviting smile as he sat down, but all his focus was on Velma, who was so intent on her task that she had not yet looked up. A bold opening line seemed in order, so Ethan came out with the first one in his mind. “Hey—your friends ditch you?” he asked her, trying to be suave. His voice sounded deeper than usual, confident and steady— in direct opposition to how he felt. In recent years he hadn’t had to do much approaching when it came to girls—they just seemed to come to him—and he felt a little out of practice. His earlier slip-up certainly didn’t help, either, but more than any of that—he just cared more this time. He felt as if he had so much more to lose. She looked briefly up from the pyramid. “No, I always did the brain work.” Her tone was positively withering, and Ethan knew in an instant that he’d inserted his foot directly in his mouth again. Quickly he thought over his comment… and mentally began kicking himself. Why was it that he seemed practically destined to insult this woman!? Did your friends ditch you?? Smooth, Ethan, very smooth! Recovering quickly, Ethan turned his attention to the relic. Surely he could not make a mistake there. “What’s this?” he asked simply, gesturing to the gold-colored object. “I believe it’s called the Daemon Ritus,” she replied smartly, his comment evidently behind her. Ethan could not miss the spark that leapt into her eyes when he asked the question. “The Daemon Ritus? What’s it for?” He was genuinely interested in the object, but not nearly so much as he was in watching her expression as she explained her theories. She was obviously in her element. “I think that it describes a very old race of creatures. These drawings are reminiscent of ancient pandaemonous texts, so I can make some of it out. It looks like… instructions… to some kind of secret ritual. It is fascinating.” Ethan was about to respond affirmatively when the bartender placed two drinks in front of them. “On the house,” he told them, then added to Velma “nice sweater.” The action came as a bit of a surprise to Ethan—free drinks at an expensive place like Spooky Island? Maybe HE recognized her, Ethan concluded, a bit self-deprecatingly. The two mugs were in the shape of hideous red skulls, and, looking down inside, Ethan saw something even more hideous, at least to him. Tomato juice. He hated the stuff but didn’t say anything—after all, it was a free drink. Velma didn’t even look at the contents of her mug but immediately leaned forward and took an eager sip—evidently all her clue-hunting had made her thirsty. Her eyes widened a bit as she tasted the drink and Ethan figured that she shared his sentiments. It was either that or the drink had alcohol and she wasn’t used to it, but that didn’t seem likely. Neither of them had been carded, and the numerous ‘No ID- No Drink’ signs posted around the bar told him that Spooky Island was very conscientious about such matters. With a college-age clientele, they’d have to be. “You really dig doing this, huh—like, clues and stuff?” he asked after the brief interruption, but it sounded much more like a statement. He knew the answer, but he loved to hear her talk about it. They were both beginning to relax into the conversation, and he could feel his unwanted nerves fluttering away. “Certainly,” she replied, looking directly at him. Really focusing on a mystery reminds me of the old days. We're were quite the team back then…” Ethan listened attentively as she described each member of Mystery Inc. as they had been before the break-up, her words punctuated by frequent sips of the drink in front of her. He had the feeling from the dreamlike way that she stared into space that she was more focused on replaying the memories in front of her than in his presence, but he didn’t really care. It was like looking through a window to a soft side of her personality he hadn’t seen yet, and that he liked. Or have you seen it already? he questioned himself, thinking of the shy smile he’d elicited earlier with his flirting. “Sounds perfect,” he said quietly when she reached a pause. They’d both leaned toward one another somehow, and his words were little more than a husky whisper in her ear. “Yeah,” she continued, her voice and expression losing their softness with a new memory. “But every family has one nut.” She paused, a grimace crossing her face. “Scrappy Doo.” Even the name seemed to leave a bitter taste in her mouth, and she reached for the drink again, abandoning the straw and gulping down the liquid as if in hopes of washing that taste away. Seemingly fortified, she went on with her story about Scooby-Doo’s pint-sized nephew, who annoyed the gang to no end with his antics. By the time she was nearing the end of her recollections, however, it had become evident that she was drunk on a little more than nostalgia. Guess I was wrong about that alcohol thing, Ethan realized as she flopped down on his shoulder, resting her head against him and laughing hard. She was so close that her tomato-tinged breath stirred his hair. He laughed, too, partly at her story and partly just because of the uninhibited way she was behaving. “Puppy power, huh?” he asked, amused, as she finished talking. “Uh-huh!!” she replied tipsily. “And he wasn’t even a puppy! He had a gland disorder!!” They both really lost it then, and Velma would have fallen right off the back of her stool had Ethan not caught her. Man, what is IN that drink?, he thought to himself, amused but curious. Holding Velma upright with one hand, he reached out with the other and brought his own drink to his lips, forcing down a sip. The tomato and celery juice mixture made him wince in distaste, but he could detect only the slightest bite of alcohol. Ethan wasn’t a drinker, but he knew that, despite the large mug, there wasn’t enough alcohol in the drink to have much affect on a person. Either her tolerance was nil or… Ethan’s thoughts were disrupted when he again had to restrain Velma from toppling, and he knew then that, fun as it was to see her breaking out of her shell, he really had to do something about her. She could hardly sit up on the stool, and he knew that, unused to alcohol as she evidently was, it was only a matter of time until she might get sick, do something very silly in front of everyone in the Voodoo Lounge, or both. That might not bother a lot of other people he was acquainted with, but he knew somehow that it would her. There was the question of the Daemon Ritus as well. It was obviously very valuable, and he knew that she was in no shape to take it to a safe place. She had begun to tap her magnifying glass against it in time to the piano music, looking extremely pleased with herself as she did so. First of all, he needed to get her seated someplace considerably closer to ground level. “Let’s get you down from there,” he said, hopping down from his seat and offering her his hand, gallant as any knight. She took it, but then, to his complete surprise, she half-fell, half-jumped right up against him! He caught by the waist, circling his arms around and pressing tight in order to hold her up. Draping her arms languidly about his neck, she looked down into his face. Her laughter stopped as she met his eyes with her own, and the intensity of her look startled Ethan so that he nearly dropped her. A bit clumsily, he managed to set her down and steer her in the direction of a nearby table and chair. After she was seated comfortably, he moved back the few paces to the bar and scooped up the Daemon Ritus, meaning to go put it away safely in his room. He didn’t know how she would feel about him checking it into the hotel safe, and at least with it in his room he would know where it was and that he could keep an eye on it during the night. “I’m going to go put this in a safe place, okay?” he told her, leaning over so that they were at eye level with one another. “I’ll be right back.” She nodded agreeably, laughed, and then—to his absolute surprise and delight—reached out with one hand and playfully mussed his hair! He had begun to worry earlier that his attraction to her was sadly one-sided— maybe, he was wrong? Oh, come off it, he chided himself. She’s drunk, remember!? Keeping to his task, Ethan headed off for the stairs. On his way up, he passed Daphne and Fred, and a new thought came to mind—he could leave the Daemon Ritus with one of them. He’d seen Daphne with it earlier, just as he’d come into the lounge, so he knew Velma wouldn’t mind. They must have put aside their old differences and decided to work together. Just as he was about to stop her, however, Velma’s voice, now more tipsy than ever, reached him. Looking down, he could see that she was just nearly below him, reclining on top of the lounge piano! “Scooby-Doo!” she called out into the room in general, “your name means Scooby-Poop!” A crowd of college guys that had gathered around the piano burst out laughing, as did she. Scooby himself, whom Ethan could see stretched out underneath a coffee table at the lounge’s center, did not look so amused. Fred and Daphne, who were directly in front of Ethan, looked at one another in amazement, then back at their friend. “Velma??!! Jinkies!!” they exclaimed in unison. At the sound of her favorite word, Velma turned around. “Hey guys,” she said, flashing a wide smile. Her eyes moved past them and settled on Ethan, and immediately her look changed to one of the heated ones she’d given him earlier. He froze in place, as if her look had sent a palpable force. “Oooo,” voiced Daphne, who was trying to look behind her without being too obvious—and failing at it miserably. “I think someone has little crush!” She tried to signal Fred with some not-so-subtle head jerks. He turned his head very quickly to get his own look. “What IS it with her and goatee guys?” Freddy asked in very loud whisper, sounding to Ethan a little miffed. “Why, Freddy?” queried Daphne, giving him an expectant look. Velma, meanwhile, was talking to N’Goo, who had been, to Ethan’s surprise, doing the very nice piano playing before. He nodded, and she turned around again, her gaze once again locked on Ethan as N’Goo began pounding out an extremely vampy piano intro. Though show tunes weren’t something that Ethan listened to with any kind of regularity, he recognized the famous song immediately, despite the fact that it was much better suited to blaring brass instruments than plain piano. Hey, Big Spender, he grinned in anticipation, just as she launched the opening lines. From the minute you walked in the joint, I could see you were a man of distinction A REAL BIG SPENDER… Ethan trotted down the stairs and circled in front to get a better view. She was still singing right to him. A guy less secure than Ethan might have been uncomfortable with this direct attention, but he loved it. Good lookin’, so refined Say, wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on in my mind? So let me get right to the point I don’t pop my cork for every guy I see! Hey big spender! Spend a little time with me… As she entered the bridge of the song, the college guys around her cheered, clapped, and whistled enthusiastically. Shaggy Rogers, sitting at a table with a sweet-looking blonde girl, did the same, grinning from ear to ear at his friend’s unexpected performance. Ethan felt a little like joining in, but stood with his arms crossed in his usual casual way, just watching and listening. He forgot all about his thoughts earlier-- about her not wanting to do something embarrassing in front of everyone. This was nothing in the world for her to be embarrassed about—it was wonderful to see her freeing up! She was doing a great job of the song, too, really, even though the nasal quality of her speaking voice was intensified in her singing. She was vamping it up to the extreme, looking like she was having the time of her life. Maybe she was. As she reached the middle section of the song, two of the college guys lifted her down from the piano, and she sang the next lines to each one in turn. Do you wanna have fun? How’s about a few laughs? They were eating it up, and that only encouraged her further. She began throwing in a few of the Fosse-esque dance moves that the song required, though the subtle and deliberate movements were difficult in her inebriated state. When she had worked through the crowd of young men, they lifted her back up to her seat on the piano. No two people were more surprised by her performance then two of her closest friends, Fred and Daphne, who had also moved down to the front to watch. “We always sing songs in the back of the Mystery Machine, but this is totally different! Look at her!” exclaimed the latter, giggling as she did so. “I think the alcohol improved her singing,” Fred chipped in. He turned to Ethan. “But really—getting Velma drunk…” “Don’t look at me,” Ethan defended himself with a slight laugh, even though he knew the other man was just kidding with him. Fred must have seen them together as he came downstairs. “The bartender gave her the drink. One for me, too.” He nodded over his shoulder to the bartender. “On the house.” “That’s ONE drink?” Fred questioned incredulously, shaking his head. “Well, Velms never was a drinker. Come to think of it, I don’t remember her ever having a drink.” His comment brought back earlier questions to Ethan’s mind. As Daphne and Fred moved away to sit down at a table and applause rang out for the end of Velma’s song, he returned to the bar counter and found the two red skull mugs, still in their place beside Velma’s magnifying glass. Setting down the Daemon Ritus, Ethan picked up her mug, which was lighter than his own. It was nearly empty, but there was enough left for him to sample, and when he did his theory was confirmed. There was definitely more alcohol in hers than he had tasted in his. Taking a second sip from the straw to be sure, he heard a slurping sound as he drained the last of the red liquid. And that’s when he noticed it—the slight grainy-ness on his tongue. Pulling out the straw, umbrella, and other small garnishes from the mug, he peered down inside and felt his insides grow cold with realization. There on the bottom of the mug were the slightest remnants of undissolved powder. If she had made it down to the bottom of the glass herself and was still thinking clearly, she would have noticed it. But of course it was planned so that that wouldn’t happen. The alcohol probably covered up any taste of the powder and compounded the effects—Ethan wasn’t too sure about that part. One thing he was sure of was that she wasn’t drunk. She was drugged. Ethan was suddenly afraid for her, very afraid. Who would do this to her—and why? The Daemon Ritus—she’s figured it out. She knows too much. She’s too close to the truth? He wished fervently that he knew what she was investigating on the island. It just hadn’t occurred to him before that it could be something dangerous, but now… now he was certain it was. What did they want with her? Maybe they drugged her to make her easier to capture— Ethan’s deductions were cut short by the horrific sound of crashing glass. Whirling to face the sound, he froze at the sight of a monstrously huge, growling demon creature, right in the center of the lounge! Immediately the room flew into a state of panic, with the college kids screaming in horror and running madly. Underneath them the floors splintered as several more of the monsters crashed after them in pursuit. The creatures were like apparitions straight from a nightmare, with their grotesquely lanky but muscular limbs, foot-long claws, and mottled purple-and-black skins. Their faces were like those of terrifying gargoyles come to life. Poor Fred was one of the first people taken. He never had a chance to get away. The demon grabbed him up by one foot and breathed into his face a kind of green mist which made him fall limp. As his eyes closed, he urged the nearby Scooby to save Daphne. The screams in the room intensified as more and more of the creatures smashed their way into the room through floor and ceiling. Ethan ducked underneath a table, gripping its sides with both hands as if for dear life. He looked immediately to the piano, but Velma wasn’t there! Fear gripped Ethan’s heart even tighter as his eyes darted feverishly about the room, trying to find her. When he did see her, his whole body went numb with dread. She was crawling along the floor near the piano, calling out pitifully about her missing glasses. They had evidently been knocked from her face during the panicked stampede. Walking right up to her was a demon, and she couldn’t even see it coming. Ethan tried to will himself to run out there, to try to distract the monster from its intent, but he couldn’t make himself move. He was paralyzed with fear, every limb leaden—as if he were in a terrible nightmare in which he could not run or cry out. Feeling helpless and full of anger at himself, he could only watch as the creature picked up Velma’s glasses and held them out. Was it going to play some cruel game with her? Or did it not really want to harm her? “Thank you,” she said pleasantly, putting the spectacles back on her face and looking up at her “benefactor.” Both Ethan and the monster expected her to gasp in terror, but she didn’t. Instead, she stared at it as if it were the funniest-looking thing she’d ever seen! “Nice mask,” she told it. Disgruntled, the monster roared in her face, exposing a mouthful of knife-like teeth. She was unperturbed. “Bad breath.” Having had enough, the creature grasped the laughing Velma by the waist and jerked her up into the air to face-level. Grabbing hold of its long, flexible horns and planting a foot firmly on its lower lip, she pulled with all her strength, trying to de-mask the creature. Of course the face didn’t budge, and as she finally loosened her grip, the demon roared, its anger now fierce. From its mouth came a blast of green mist, and Velma immediately sank backwards, as limp in the demon’s claw as a rag doll. Ethan’s heart nearly stopped. Was she only unconscious? Or was she…. dead? Ethan clenched his fists and felt himself begin to tremble with tension as the bindings of fear left his limbs. He knew with a certainty that if anything happened to her, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. If she were dead, if she were so much as scratched… but what can I do? His mind fairly screamed at him to take action. Forget being a wimp for once in your life, Ethan! This is the woman you love! This final thought, and the sight of Velma’s limp figure dangling in the grasp of that hideous creature, propelled him forward, out from under the table in one springing leap, yelling her name. He didn’t stop to question his feelings—how he could be in love with a girl that he’d only known for less than a day—or to plan what he was going to do. He didn’t stop to think that he was no match for the twelve feet of towering demon monster in front of him. He had no time to be afraid of the teeth and claws. At that moment he was as brave and love-foolish as any of the princes and superheroes he had looked up to as a boy. Running directly up to the monster, he clamped down on its gnarled wrist with both hands, a look of angry determination twisting his features. A split second later, he was jerked through the air, and his memories of the following events were scarce and unclear. The pain in his arm as it was wrenched by the demon. The terrifying open mouth of sharp teeth, the green mist coming from it. Vague, unreal memories of the soul vat. And then… the cavern… “Hey—ummmm… Metal Head!” came a familiar voice from behind Ethan, snapping him permanently from his reverie. He knew the voice belonged to Fred Jones, but was he wanting to talk to him? What a way to address someone—Metal Head. Ethan turned around on his barstool and saw Mystery Inc’s confident leader striding over to him. “Sorry—I don’t know your real name,” Fred explained, looking apologetic and a bit sheepish. Ethan introduced himself. “I was wondering if you’d seen Velma around anywhere tonight.” “No,” Ethan replied, shifting a little on the stool. “Why—there’s nothing wrong, is there?” “Ah, no,” Fred assured him, noticing the other man’s concerned tone. It’s just that they opened up the Spooky Castle ride and I wanted to ask her to go on it with me.” Ethan nodded in response. He’d heard the announcement about the ride on the loudspeaker about an hour before. “I mean, we'll probably all go on it later, but I’m going with Velms first. After what happened to us in there… we practically got sliced in half with those crazy blades! Talk about your bonding experiences!” he finished nostalgically. Truth was, he had never felt closer to Velma than he had right after that, when he’d come crawling through the broken mirror pane to show her he was okay. The way they’d smiled at each other—he knew then that despite everything she still cared about him, and he about her. Nothing, Fred had promised himself, was going to get in the way of that again. Ethan was running through thoughts of his own. This conversation with Fred had opened up an unexpected opportunity. There were so many things he needed to know, but he hesitated to ask the questions. It all seemed so… junior-high-esque… but a few simple answers could end all of his wondering. He’d run over and over what had happened between he and Velma, but he had the feeling that there was something he didn’t know. Maybe she liked someone else, or she just wasn’t interested, and if so there wasn’t much use in him doing anything more to try to change her mind. But when he’d first met her… he could have sworn there was a glimmer of interest from her. And the way she’d sung to him, despite the fact that she’d been a little “out of sorts…” He just had to know. “Fred, can I ask you something?” he finally started, leaning back against the bar and appearing much more casual than he felt. “Is Velma… seeing anyone?” “Velma? No.” Fred said without consideration. “Oh, and those rumors? Not true,” he added, making a sweeping dismissive gesture. “Rumors?” Ethan asked, confused. “You know… about her not liking guys and all that. Totally not true.” He watched the other young man for a moment as he processed the new information. “I take it you’re still interested, huh?” he half-kidded, his eyebrows raising. Ethan looked up at him fully, his eyes questioning. “Saw what happened in the cavern the other day—kind of struck out there. Ouch.” Fred shook his head at the memory. “But really—don’t take it too personally. If she disliked you, she would have really decked you!” “Really?” “Nah, I was just kidding. You know, you really oughta try again. Maybe not the kiss part right away, but…” his voice slid off into another good-natured, joking smile. “I just meant you should give the Velmster another chance. You probably just caught her off guard. Most guys don’t approach her like that. I think they’re too intimidated.” “Why?” Ethan asked, though he was fairly sure he knew already. “She’s such a brain-- and she looks it. We in the gang know there’s more to her than that, but other guys don’t.” I forgot it, too, he thought to himself, recalling the gang’s break-up. “I had some friends in high school that wanted to ask her to football games and dances and stuff, but they were always too scared she wouldn’t like that kind of thing or she’d turn them down because they didn’t get perfect grades. I tried to straighten them out on it, but they never did ask..” “Their loss,” Ethan said absently. But I did ask—in a way—and where did it get me? “Or it might just be that Ben thing,” Fred mused. Ethan sat up a bit straighter. Here was some new information. “Ben? Who was he?” “Ben Ravencroft, the famous horror writer…” he waited to see if the name would click with Ethan. It did. “I’ve read most of his books,” Ethan said, now starting to lean forward. “You guys knew him?” “Sure. He invited us to his place in Oakhaven and we were helping him find this book that belonged to his ancestress. Well, he mainly invited Velma, then the rest of us. She fell for him like a ton of bricks! Really far gone. I think he actually kind of liked her, too… but then…” Fred paused. What followed was one of Mystery, Inc’s more painful memories. “What?” Ethan asked after what seemed to him a very long moment. “Did the jerk ditch her or something?” He could think of plenty more options, but didn’t want to be pushy by rattling them all off. “No,” Fred said. “He turned out to be an evil warlock and tried to take over the world!” That one had certainly not been on Ethan’s list! “A warlock? As in… a warlock?” “Yep, ‘fraid so. Poor Velms. She never talked about it—we never talk about it—but I know it kinda messed her up for a long time there.” Fred swallowed hard at the memory of the long, awful drive home from Oakhaven. Velma had excused herself to the back of the Mystery Machine, saying that she needed to sleep, but all the way home Fred could hear her soft crying, and sometimes the sound of her choking back sobs. He’d never heard Velma cry before, and it tore at his heart. Daphne had gone back there with her for awhile, and eventually Shaggy and Scooby had as well, but he just didn’t know what to say or do, so he held back. She never had any idea how much it hurt him to see her like that. One of Fred’s best traits had always been his protectiveness, his care for the whole gang, but especially for the two girls. Even when the gang had split up for that two years and he had intended to be angry at them, he had never stopped wondering how they were—if they had someone to walk them to their cars late at night, if they were happy, if they were dating nice men and not jerks who didn’t know how to treat them the right way. The strange thing was, his protectiveness had always had more of a sense of urgency when it came to Velma. Not the danger-prone, frequently kidnapped Daphne (who was now, Fred understood, not at all helpless as she had been before,) but the brave, capable Velma. Fred had tried countless times to understand his feelings, and all he could come up with was the fact that he somehow knew he would always be the one to care for Daphne. Even before they finally brought their feelings for one another into the open, he had just always known. He and Daphne would be together, and he would be there for her. But what about Velma? Ben Ravencroft had been the first man that he’d even seen her fall in love with (not counting various crushes here and there) and she’d had her heart utterly broken. There hadn’t been anything Fred could do to stop that from happening. Ethan’s facial expression matched Fred’s suddenly grave one. “Well, it would,” he said simply, turning the new information over and over in his mind. All of these things working against her—rumors, intimidated guys, an evil warlock—no wonder she had backed away from him. “I always wondered what happened to Ben Ravencroft— just seemed like he disappeared off the face of the earth.” “He did. He ended up getting sucked back into the spell book—it’s a long story. There wasn’t any publicity about it. The town mayor wanted to keep it quiet and no one would have believed it anyway. I didn’t even write about it in my new book!” Fred seemed to perk up. All the uncomfortable feelings caused him to go into a recent behavior default. Ethan half expected him to whip out a copy of the publication from under the bar, but of course he didn’t. Instead, he was quiet for a moment, as if deep in thought. “Look,” he continued, “I’m telling you all this because I think you’re a good guy and you care about Velma. Shag told me how you tried to rescue her from that demon in the lounge. Running right up to it—pretty brave!” “Huh!-- Some good it did.” “So, I’ll tell you what. Daphne went to go look for Velma in their room and since she’s not back I’m thinking they’re both there. Why don’t we go on up and ask them to hit the amusement park with us?” Ethan considered a moment. Despite all that he had been through in the past few days, of course he wanted to accept the offer. “But do you think Velma would be okay with that? Being set up?” “I don’t know… but there’s only one way to find out.”
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Author’s Notes/Disclaimer:
(for general disclaimer, see the first chapter)
This chapter contains flashback scenes which are adapted directly
from both the film Scooby Doo as it is and also from deleted
scenes. The conversation in
the lounge and the monster attack are from the film, which will be
evident to all of you that have seen it, and the tram scene and
Velma’s song are adaptations of two scenes that were deleted from the
final film (though you can see snippets of both in the trailer.)
I don’t know what song she sang originally, and I obviously
don’t own the lyrics to the one I have her sing in this fic.
It is from the musical Sweet Charity by Coleman and
Fields. Also, I don’t own
the character Ben Ravencroft; he is from the video Scooby-Doo and the
Witches’ Ghost. This
chapter contains major spoilers for that film, incidentally, so don’t
say I didn’t warn you! 