Chapter Text
Chapter 1
“Fred. Fred! Come in, Fred. Scooby and Shaggy can’t keep this up much longer.”
“Roger that Daphne. I’m ready,” Fred Jones released the button on his walkie talkie and set it aside. He reached over the catwalk and tugged on the rope one final time, checking to make sure it was secure. The net, handcrafted over many hours in his attic apartment, hung over the dark stage, waiting to fall on its intended prey.
Fred wrapped the end of the rope around his hand a few times and leaned back, using his weight to hold it taut. From the darkness below came the yells and yelps of Scooby and Shaggy as they ran into view, dressed like clowns and running full out. Scooby also appeared to be wearing roller skates, which had not been part of the plan. Fred didn’t have time to deal with that now though.
Hot on his friends’ heels came the intended occupant of the net trap — the Troubadour Ghost. With a roar and a twang of its spectral lute, the ghost leapt at Scooby and Shaggy, enraged by their clown outfits exactly as Velma predicted it would be. Fred waited until the second before the Troubadour was under the net, then let go of the rope.
The net sank through the dark, whooshing as it went and landing with a thud right on top of the ghost. Fred punched the air and did a two second victory dance before running to the ladder and climbing down for the big reveal.
“Did we get it?” asked Velma has Fred hit the wooden stage.
“Yep, caught it right as it ran under my net. Now let’s see who this ghost really is.”
“Um, Freddie?” Shaggy’s trembling voice came from behind him.
Fred turned to see clown Shaggy pointing at the net, lying on the stage, empty. The ghost had escaped.
“Son of a bitch. Where’d it go?” Fred hated this part. His traps, the mechanisms he spent most of his time on, had a success rate of about forty percent. The other sixty percent of the time the ghost or ghoul or monster escaped and they had to resort to plan B — running around until the villain made a mistake and catching it by shear dumb luck.
Velma knelt by the net, her black jumpsuit blending in with the darkness of the theater. “Trapdoor,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“A trapdoor that happened to be right under the spot where I set up my trap? How likely is that?”
Velma, never one to turn down a calculation, said, “Well…I don’t know the exact percentage right now, without all the data. But based on our last five cases and the prevalence of unexpected trapdoors, secret passages, and sewer access hatches, very likely.”
Fred opened his mouth to argue that it still didn’t make sense, when they heard a scream.
“Daphne!” all four of them yelled at the same time. Or, rather the three humans yelled “Daphne” and Scooby yelled “Raphre” but they all knew what he meant.
Without another word, they pushed aside the net and threw open the trapdoor. Velma went down first, turning on her headlamp as she climbed. Fred looked at the two shivering clowns, waiting for them to deliver their usual excuse.
“Maybe someone should stay here in case she comes back this way,” Shaggy suggested. Beside him, hat bobbing, Scooby nodded in agreement.
Fred shook his head at them and then started to climb down. By not following him and Velma, they’d all but insured the ghost was going to return to the stage, probably with Daphne in tow. He had honestly never met anyone who attracted more monsters than Shaggy and Scooby, especially while they were hiding from said monsters.
Following the light from Velma’s headlamp, he crept down the ladder. It ended a foot above the floor and he jumped, landing solidly on the below stage crawl space. “Any sign of them?” he whispered.
Velma turned to him, the headlamp giving her a spooky, shadowy appearance. “Shh,” was all she said before she started creeping through the maze of beams and gears that supported the stage and provided the infrastructure for the theater’s special effects.
They tiptoed through the darkness, the only sounds their breathing and the creak of the wood around them. As they passed a huge pulley and gear contraption, Fred couldn’t help stopping and staring up at it, pulling his portable flashlight out of his pocket to get a better look. Unlike Velma, he didn’t wear black bodysuits on their mystery solving missions. He preferred his skinny jeans, collared shirt, sweater, and, of course, his ascot. It was his look the way skin tight leather and knee high boots were Daphne’s mystery solving look and Shaggy and Scooby wore whatever costume the case required.
He examined the enormous equipment, catching sight of a set of smaller gears attached to the central one. The machinery was made of wood and warn with age and use but he suspected it still worked. He also had no doubt it was connected to the series of levers he’d seen at the side of the historic stage. If the ghost used black wire, in the dark, these would allow it to appear to fly.
“Velma, I think I figured out how the ghost flies.”
Velma crept back to stand next to him and stare up at the contraption. “But, how would the ghost run this themselves? Someone else could have to control the levers.”
Fred hadn’t thought of that. “Fine Velms, just blow holes in all my theories.”
But Velma shook her head. “No Freddie, I think you’re onto something. It’s a rudimentary way to project flight but we’re not looking for a genius here. If the ghost in flight wasn’t a person but a puppet, the ghost could appear to be flying and control the puppet with the levers, switching out with the body double when the ghost is on foot.”
A light appeared to their right and started growing bigger. “What’s that?”
There wasn’t time to move out of the way or react before the source of the light was on them. Daphne ran into view, the beam of her cell phone flashlight bouncing as she moved. “There you are,” she said when she saw them.
“Daph,” Fred’s shoulders relaxed when he saw his friend alive and well. “We were coming to find you. We thought the ghost had gotten you.”
Daphne snorted. “Not likely.”
“Then what was that scream?”
“Plu-ease. That was the ghost. After Scooby and Shaggy led it to the stage, I found the access door to the basement here. After it slipped past your net, I cornered it. I was about to tackle the damn thing and subdue it but it threw a smoke bomb at me and disappeared. I think we’re dealing with a magician.”
“That fits in with what Fred and I discovered,” Velma concluded, nodding.
From above them they heard a huge crash followed by yelling and barking.
“Shaggy and Scooby,” they all said together.
Daphne led the way to the access door and they ran up the stairs and into the dark theater. The ghost was in flight, swooping over the stage and cackling. Scooby and Shaggy were running, trying to stay out of the reach of the ghost, but not actually escaping. In fact, they appeared to be running in circles, around and around the stage.
“Let’s finish this,” Fred said. He led the way along the aisle, up the side steps, and to the spot where he’d seen the levers. They all paused behind a curtain. Fred gestured at Daphne and Velma, telling them to split up and move in from all sides on his signal. It was a series of hand signals they’d come up with together over the years. Shaggy and Scooby still struggled to follow the signals, but that was yet another reason they generally put them on bait duty.
It was over quickly after that. Fred gave the signal and they advanced on the ghost while it was focused on scaring the pants off of Scooby and Shaggy. They over powered it easily, tied it up, and called in the authorities. Once the detectives arrived, Velma told the story, ending with the big reveal and unmasking. As they’d worked out before this showdown, the ghost was really the theater manager who’d always wanted to put on his one man magic show and was turned down year after year.
Less than an hour later they were all packed into the Mystery Machine, headed back to their office.
“Good job gang, another mystery solved,” said Fred.
“Yes and that was an interesting one,” said Velma, tapping away on her phone, “I’m telling Tess all about the flying contraption. She’s not going to believe it actually worked.”
Tess was Velma’s transgendered, scientist girlfriend. They’d met during a case the year before. The company where Tess worked was being haunted by a radioactive glow that appeared every night and destroyed pieces of the top secret project she was working on. She’d helped them solve the mystery and arrest the owner of the company who hadn’t liked the powerful, renewable energy source Tess had developed. Currently Tess was at a world energy summit and would be gone for another two weeks. She and Velma texted constantly.
In the backseat, Scooby was listing all the food he wanted to eat. “Burgers, spaghetti, Scooby Snacks, ice cream sundaes…”
“You got it buddy,” said Shaggy, his arm around Daphne, “Hey Fred, can we stop at a drive-thru?”
“Don’t we have leftovers at the office?” Fred asked, always forced to be the practical one.
“We did…” said Scooby and Shaggy.
Daphne laughed. Sometime over the years she’d started to find Shaggy’s stoned, easy going, food motivated personality charming. Shaggy had had a crush on Daphne for years, something he confessed to Fred back when they were teenagers. Yet they were such an odd couple with such divergent interests it had taken the combined effort of Fred and Velma’s matchmaking skills to get them on their first date. Then there’d been the uphill battle of bringing Scooby around to the idea. That had taken a metric ton of Scooby Snacks and some late night, heart to heart feasts with Shaggy before he’d begrudgingly decided he was OK with Shaggy and Daphne dating.
And then there was Fred. The most single thirty year old in all of Crystal Cove. He tried to keep his hopes up that there was a guy out there for him. Someone who liked mysteries and hanging out with friends. Someone who wouldn’t get bored when he talked about traps for too long. Some days were better than others.
He shook his head and stopped at the burger joint. As always, it took longer for everyone to order than it did for Shaggy and Scooby to eat.
When they pulled up to the office a while later, the adrenaline from the evening was wearing off. That, combined with the big meal, had them all ready to crash on the cots in the backroom, installed just for nights like this when the mystery wrapped up late and no one had the energy to drive themselves home.
But, as Fred pulled into the Mystery Machine parking spot, they all spotted something wrong. Well, everyone expect Scooby, who was fast asleep and snoring.
In addition to their personal vehicles, the parking lot contained one silver Honda Civic. Even more concerning, the light was on in the front room of the office.
“Shaggy, did you lock up when we left earlier?”
“Um…”
“Shaggy!”
Together they slipped out of the Mystery Machine and tiptoed to the front door. Peering around the corner and through the front door, they spotted the intruder immediately. A thin man not much older than themselves with messy brown hair, thick glasses, and a brown tweed suit sat in their waiting room, a battered shoulder bag on the seat beside him. He had one leg crossed over the other and seemed to deeply interested in the Mystery Inc mission statement painted on the wall.
“What’s the plan of attack?” Daphne asked, cracking her knuckles.
“Wait a second,” Velma held up a hand. “I recognize him. If I’m not mistake that’s Ned Lewis, Professor of Occult History at Darrow University.”
“What’s he doing in our waiting room?” asked Fred, frowning at the man.
Velma shrugged. “Let’s ask him.”
Still moving as a pack, they pushed open the door and shuffled into the office.
Their visitor looked up and then stood up. “Mystery Inc?” he asked, his voice quiet and pleasant, “I’m Professor Ned Lewis and I need your help.”