Meeting Again
Disclaimer: I don't own the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo franchise. This is an alternate universe fic, so bear with me. In this timeline, the fiasco with the 13 Ghosts took place in the 22nd Century (2127-2128) - and this fic starts in the year 2146.
Shaggy is estranged from his wife and lives with Scooby and Flim Flam whom he adopted. Fred and Daphne are married with two children. Bogle and Weerd have turned over a new after leaf and live with Shaggy and Scooby. Van Ghoul still keeps vigil over the chest. They live in a small Florida coastal town called Sapphire Bay (just north of Daytona Beach.)
Events and terms that you'll hear referred to quite often:
The Biohazard, the War, etc... (2139-2145) This devastating war which our hero (Sgt. Hiram Becker) fought in a year ago was one of incredible global devastation and terror. Victims of a mysterious virus, the creatures of the Biohazard were single-mindedly motivated for the destruction of mankind.
22nd Special Forces - Subdivided into four squadrons (A,B,D, and G Squadrons) each divided into four troops (Boat, Mobility, Air, Mountain) the Special Forces are an elite in the US Army. In times of war the two Territorial Regiments, the 21st and 23rd Special Forces, bolster the 22nd Special Forces.
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: "I don't know what to say to him, Daphne." Shaggy said.
"Shaggy, Hiram's your nephew. Say what's on your heart." Daphne replied. They waited at Shaggy's house for Hiram to show up.
"Easy for you to say. The last time we talked was years ago." Shaggy said. His face was a little more careworn from the years since the gang was together, the goatee and mustache he'd sported in recent years starting to show one or two flecks of gray.
"Yeah, and he and Uncle Shaggy didn't exactly get along." Flim Flam remarked.
"This is more than a mild insult: 'That's why Aunt Tara left, she couldn't stand to be with a coward'." Scrappy remarked, "Army schmarmy, if he says that again, I'll..."
"Scrappy, be nice." Fred remarked.
"Shaggy, maybe it's time you two mended the fence." Daphne said.
"You're right." Shaggy said, "Why else did he say he'd be coming home again?"
"Shaggy, remember, bury the hatchet." Velma said, walking into the kitchen.
"And not in Hiram's head either." Fred replied.
"Here he comes!" Bogle and Weerd shouted with excitement from the porch.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Hiram's POV)
Six years. Shit. Had it really been that long since I left? It had been that long since I left Sapphire Bay, since I was called up to serve. Combat in the South American Theater isn't something that doesn't leave its marks inside as well as out.
I know I was unduly harsh with my family six years ago. I know I pushed them all away, but I had to. They were kinda stupid in the way they stuck with me though. For once I'm thanking God for that. I damn near cried back in 2144 when Aunt Daphne sent me that home made green sweater back when we were humping through the Andes with the 10th Mountain Division.
It sounds odd that I should be Uncle Shaggy's nephew, but I am. I was orphaned at the age of six by a fire that burned my house down. Uncle Shaggy and my mom's sister, Tara, took me in and raised me. Their marriage had always been a rocky one, and they constantly fought. Well Aunt Tara was the courageous type, having the spine Uncle Shaggy lacked. Their marriage lasted till I was about eleven, and they split up.
Now the story goes to me, who exactly I am. I was a bit of a hellion growing up, I got into a lot of fights in middle and high school, I was almost always in detention or having some sort of disciplinary problem. Amazingly enough my grades were fairly decent, I graduated with a 3.89 GPA. I figured I had to turn my life around somewhere and the army seemed a good way to start. I enlisted at the age of seventeen as a territorial or reservist. I was now Private Hiram Becker, US Territorial Army, and weekend warrior.
It was the time I served as a boy soldier where I heard about something called the Special Forces Regiment or 22nd Special Forces Regiment. I immediately got hooked and wanted to join, but Uncle Shaggy had his objections over this. He specifically said, "Hiram, you're an intelligent young man, go expand your brain and go to college."
I wound up joining the Territorial Army's 21st Special Forces Regiment at the age of nineteen. (There are two such regiments in the TA (Territorial Army) the 21st and 23rd Special Forces). Going to college with both my enlisted pay and my hazard pay was a bonus, but I felt like the big fish in the small pond. So I enlisted into the active duty Army at the age of twenty-three and joined the Parachute Regiment to get that solid infantry background I needed to be part of the 22nd Special Forces Regiment. Turns out I didn't need it.
When the Biohazard hit the 21st and 23rd Special Forces Regiments were activated and we were sent to war. Uncle Shaggy really flipped his lid and we had a major falling out over this. I said I didn't give a fuck and I had to do this. What he didn't know was that I had my own personal reasons for volunteering for the most hazardous theater of war. All I knew was that I had to push them away so they wouldn't find out.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Hiram! Man are we glad to see you pal!" Weerd said.
"*Sniff* I missed you man! Where'd you go?" Bogle said.
"South America. I was with B Squadron, Mountain Troop. 21st Special Forces." Hiram replied.
"Hey, hey, hey, if it isn't my nephew the soldier." Shaggy said. He regarded his nephew for a moment. His eyes looked haunted, they were those of a man aged before his time, they were eyes that had witnessed war in all its horror.
With a little uncertainty the two men hugged each other, like the relatives they were. "I've been a stranger far too long, Uncle Shaggy." Hiram replied.
"Maybe I was being too harsh with you, Hiram, I was just being protective. I didn't realize I was smothering you." Shaggy began.
"I was being bullheaded too." Hiram replied, "Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh with you."
An awkward silence followed as they all walked inside. "You must be tired after a long trip from Fort Bragg." Shaggy added.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Hiram's POV)
To be perfectly honest, I didn't know shit about what I was gonna say. For the past six years I'd deliberately avoided them all. I knew I'd hurt them by doing this, but why the hell were they forgiving my deed. War does that to a man, you can't just take him out of incessant combat and strife and expect him to adapt to a quiet civilian life.
I still expected all of this to be a dream. That I would wake up in a cold foxhole somewhere in the Andes, or on top of my A-frame somewhere in the Amazon. To be perfectly honest I missed all of them in the years I was gone.
So I just listened. Aunt Daphne's career as a TV reporter was going spectacularly; Uncle Fred was pulling a job as her co-anchor. They were interviewing for their job with CNN in a week. Flim Flam was between jobs, again. Scooby Doo and Scooby Dee were expecting their liter of pups in a week. Velma had gotten a teaching job at the Aeronautical University in Daytona, teaching computer programming. She was moving in next week. Bogle and Weerd obviously still missed me.
"What about you, Hiram?" Flim Flam asked me, "Did you win any medals?"
"A Special Forces soldier does not serve just to win medals." I replied, "He serves because the boys on his team are serving."
"I was in South America as a correspondent, attached to the 9th Ranger Battalion." Daphne said.
"When?" I asked.
"Back in 2143, during the fighting for Caracas." Aunt Daphne replied.
I had been there myself. In mid 2142 we launched an offensive to retake Caracas. The 9th Rangers had spearheaded the effort, and fought off hundreds of attempts to retake the city. The most intense fighting took place around the Rio Orinoco Outpost. C for Charlie Company, 9th Rangers had gone in with a hundred and fifty men and came back out with thirty- four.
"Where were you in Caracas, Aunt Daphne?" I asked. Fervently I hoped she had been in the more pacified sectors of the city, but knowing the 9th Rangers, they were always leading the rest of the Army into things.
"I was with B-for-Baker Company, on the city's eastern edge." Aunt Daphne replied, "In time for when they retook the Eastern Residential District."
I couldn't believe it, my beauty queen-ish; overachieving aunt had actually been imbedded with one of the toughest units in the South Am Theater. At that point I'd felt closer to my aunt than I had any other time.
I nearly missed what she'd said next, "I remember as a correspondent I actually followed the elements of the 9th Rangers into the Eastern District. I was close enough to the fighting to feel the ground rumbling when the Rangers started fighting over the sewer system."
"I was in Caracas at the same time you were." I replied, "Only I was with C-for-Charlie Company."
"Oh my God." Aunt Daphne exclaimed, "I thought being with Baker Company was bad, but I remember a crusty old first sergeant saying, 'I'm glad I'm not those poor bastards in Charlie Company. They're really catching hell'."
Good old "Danger Prone Daphne" did it again, apparently. She said something about winning a journalistic excellence award for her work in South America but I wasn't paying much attention. Instead I was amazed by the courage and strength of Aunt Daphne going unarmed into a combat zone as a correspondent. I remember one guy that followed Boat Troop on one of its patrols through the Amazon. They found him six days later, floating face down in the water. When we turned him over we found his throat had been torn out and he'd been gutted while still living.
"Well," I replied, "It's time I get to bed."
It's a cop out, I know, but how do I tell them the horrors I witnessed in South Am. How can I tell them what it's like to creep silently through the jungle at night on a LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol)? They wouldn't understand what it's like to march through the Andes with your weapon, a heavy pack, and the very real prospect of what it's like to have the very real fear that you won't see the sun set over the landscape again. Not even Daphne knows what it's like to see your best friend in the unit cut down in his prime. In my six years I saw a lot of combat, I saw people get hurt, I saw people die.
"So what, you're gonna just leave us again?" asks a voice behind me. I recognize the little punk anywhere. Scrappy Doo.
"Scrappy Doo, how are you?" I ask sarcastically. We'd always hated each other from since I moved in. He was being a jealous little brat over the new kid in the house and I don't take kindly to hostile actions. So for the six years I lived with Uncle Shaggy we fought day and night.
"Just because you're a big, tough soldier boy now doesn't mean I can't....." Scrappy begins.
"Scrappy, unless you want me to throw you into the food processor, you'd best zip it!" I reply.
"Bring it on!" Scrappy says, putting up his fists.
"Just try it." I said, giving him a cold stare.
He's intimidated, but to his credit he doesn't show it. "You-you think you're so tough! I didn't run away from my problems..."
"You'd best not mention her, Scrappy, otherwise Uncle Shaggy and Uncle Scooby aren't gonna find your remains." I reply, with a low voice, as I drag my rucksack up the stairs to my old room.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Unknown POV)
It has been far too long, being imprisoned in this accursed chest. We, thirteen of the most terrifying ghosts to ever have been released upon the face of the earth, are now imprisoned once more in the confines of the Chest of Demons.
The traitors, Bogle and Weerd, abandoned us to this fate with their constant screw ups. And now they are but lap dogs for the mortals that locked us away. Vincent Van Ghoul is the only one who knows of our location. For once we were trapped for good, he took us away, that much we know.
But we know the prophesy in which a mortal, with true darkness in his or her heart, will free us upon the world once more. And vengeance will be ours. What a terrible and glorious vengeance it will be too.
There is one more part of the prophesy. One man, a warrior of great skill, who battles inner demons constantly will either expedite our release or prevent it entirely. But once we are released, we will be unstoppable for the evil one will destroy our prison forever!
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: I know, I know, not consistent with the storyline, but I figured I try an alternate universe type fic. So please approach this with an open mind and any mistakes I've made are the result of not having seen the series for a while. Things will be explained as the story unfolds, but I don't have a lot of time these days, so updates will be fairly slow.
Disclaimer: I don't own the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo franchise. This is an alternate universe fic, so bear with me. In this timeline, the fiasco with the 13 Ghosts took place in the 22nd Century (2127-2128) - and this fic starts in the year 2146.
Shaggy is estranged from his wife and lives with Scooby and Flim Flam whom he adopted. Fred and Daphne are married with two children. Bogle and Weerd have turned over a new after leaf and live with Shaggy and Scooby. Van Ghoul still keeps vigil over the chest. They live in a small Florida coastal town called Sapphire Bay (just north of Daytona Beach.)
Events and terms that you'll hear referred to quite often:
The Biohazard, the War, etc... (2139-2145) This devastating war which our hero (Sgt. Hiram Becker) fought in a year ago was one of incredible global devastation and terror. Victims of a mysterious virus, the creatures of the Biohazard were single-mindedly motivated for the destruction of mankind.
22nd Special Forces - Subdivided into four squadrons (A,B,D, and G Squadrons) each divided into four troops (Boat, Mobility, Air, Mountain) the Special Forces are an elite in the US Army. In times of war the two Territorial Regiments, the 21st and 23rd Special Forces, bolster the 22nd Special Forces.
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: "I don't know what to say to him, Daphne." Shaggy said.
"Shaggy, Hiram's your nephew. Say what's on your heart." Daphne replied. They waited at Shaggy's house for Hiram to show up.
"Easy for you to say. The last time we talked was years ago." Shaggy said. His face was a little more careworn from the years since the gang was together, the goatee and mustache he'd sported in recent years starting to show one or two flecks of gray.
"Yeah, and he and Uncle Shaggy didn't exactly get along." Flim Flam remarked.
"This is more than a mild insult: 'That's why Aunt Tara left, she couldn't stand to be with a coward'." Scrappy remarked, "Army schmarmy, if he says that again, I'll..."
"Scrappy, be nice." Fred remarked.
"Shaggy, maybe it's time you two mended the fence." Daphne said.
"You're right." Shaggy said, "Why else did he say he'd be coming home again?"
"Shaggy, remember, bury the hatchet." Velma said, walking into the kitchen.
"And not in Hiram's head either." Fred replied.
"Here he comes!" Bogle and Weerd shouted with excitement from the porch.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Hiram's POV)
Six years. Shit. Had it really been that long since I left? It had been that long since I left Sapphire Bay, since I was called up to serve. Combat in the South American Theater isn't something that doesn't leave its marks inside as well as out.
I know I was unduly harsh with my family six years ago. I know I pushed them all away, but I had to. They were kinda stupid in the way they stuck with me though. For once I'm thanking God for that. I damn near cried back in 2144 when Aunt Daphne sent me that home made green sweater back when we were humping through the Andes with the 10th Mountain Division.
It sounds odd that I should be Uncle Shaggy's nephew, but I am. I was orphaned at the age of six by a fire that burned my house down. Uncle Shaggy and my mom's sister, Tara, took me in and raised me. Their marriage had always been a rocky one, and they constantly fought. Well Aunt Tara was the courageous type, having the spine Uncle Shaggy lacked. Their marriage lasted till I was about eleven, and they split up.
Now the story goes to me, who exactly I am. I was a bit of a hellion growing up, I got into a lot of fights in middle and high school, I was almost always in detention or having some sort of disciplinary problem. Amazingly enough my grades were fairly decent, I graduated with a 3.89 GPA. I figured I had to turn my life around somewhere and the army seemed a good way to start. I enlisted at the age of seventeen as a territorial or reservist. I was now Private Hiram Becker, US Territorial Army, and weekend warrior.
It was the time I served as a boy soldier where I heard about something called the Special Forces Regiment or 22nd Special Forces Regiment. I immediately got hooked and wanted to join, but Uncle Shaggy had his objections over this. He specifically said, "Hiram, you're an intelligent young man, go expand your brain and go to college."
I wound up joining the Territorial Army's 21st Special Forces Regiment at the age of nineteen. (There are two such regiments in the TA (Territorial Army) the 21st and 23rd Special Forces). Going to college with both my enlisted pay and my hazard pay was a bonus, but I felt like the big fish in the small pond. So I enlisted into the active duty Army at the age of twenty-three and joined the Parachute Regiment to get that solid infantry background I needed to be part of the 22nd Special Forces Regiment. Turns out I didn't need it.
When the Biohazard hit the 21st and 23rd Special Forces Regiments were activated and we were sent to war. Uncle Shaggy really flipped his lid and we had a major falling out over this. I said I didn't give a fuck and I had to do this. What he didn't know was that I had my own personal reasons for volunteering for the most hazardous theater of war. All I knew was that I had to push them away so they wouldn't find out.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Hiram! Man are we glad to see you pal!" Weerd said.
"*Sniff* I missed you man! Where'd you go?" Bogle said.
"South America. I was with B Squadron, Mountain Troop. 21st Special Forces." Hiram replied.
"Hey, hey, hey, if it isn't my nephew the soldier." Shaggy said. He regarded his nephew for a moment. His eyes looked haunted, they were those of a man aged before his time, they were eyes that had witnessed war in all its horror.
With a little uncertainty the two men hugged each other, like the relatives they were. "I've been a stranger far too long, Uncle Shaggy." Hiram replied.
"Maybe I was being too harsh with you, Hiram, I was just being protective. I didn't realize I was smothering you." Shaggy began.
"I was being bullheaded too." Hiram replied, "Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh with you."
An awkward silence followed as they all walked inside. "You must be tired after a long trip from Fort Bragg." Shaggy added.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Hiram's POV)
To be perfectly honest, I didn't know shit about what I was gonna say. For the past six years I'd deliberately avoided them all. I knew I'd hurt them by doing this, but why the hell were they forgiving my deed. War does that to a man, you can't just take him out of incessant combat and strife and expect him to adapt to a quiet civilian life.
I still expected all of this to be a dream. That I would wake up in a cold foxhole somewhere in the Andes, or on top of my A-frame somewhere in the Amazon. To be perfectly honest I missed all of them in the years I was gone.
So I just listened. Aunt Daphne's career as a TV reporter was going spectacularly; Uncle Fred was pulling a job as her co-anchor. They were interviewing for their job with CNN in a week. Flim Flam was between jobs, again. Scooby Doo and Scooby Dee were expecting their liter of pups in a week. Velma had gotten a teaching job at the Aeronautical University in Daytona, teaching computer programming. She was moving in next week. Bogle and Weerd obviously still missed me.
"What about you, Hiram?" Flim Flam asked me, "Did you win any medals?"
"A Special Forces soldier does not serve just to win medals." I replied, "He serves because the boys on his team are serving."
"I was in South America as a correspondent, attached to the 9th Ranger Battalion." Daphne said.
"When?" I asked.
"Back in 2143, during the fighting for Caracas." Aunt Daphne replied.
I had been there myself. In mid 2142 we launched an offensive to retake Caracas. The 9th Rangers had spearheaded the effort, and fought off hundreds of attempts to retake the city. The most intense fighting took place around the Rio Orinoco Outpost. C for Charlie Company, 9th Rangers had gone in with a hundred and fifty men and came back out with thirty- four.
"Where were you in Caracas, Aunt Daphne?" I asked. Fervently I hoped she had been in the more pacified sectors of the city, but knowing the 9th Rangers, they were always leading the rest of the Army into things.
"I was with B-for-Baker Company, on the city's eastern edge." Aunt Daphne replied, "In time for when they retook the Eastern Residential District."
I couldn't believe it, my beauty queen-ish; overachieving aunt had actually been imbedded with one of the toughest units in the South Am Theater. At that point I'd felt closer to my aunt than I had any other time.
I nearly missed what she'd said next, "I remember as a correspondent I actually followed the elements of the 9th Rangers into the Eastern District. I was close enough to the fighting to feel the ground rumbling when the Rangers started fighting over the sewer system."
"I was in Caracas at the same time you were." I replied, "Only I was with C-for-Charlie Company."
"Oh my God." Aunt Daphne exclaimed, "I thought being with Baker Company was bad, but I remember a crusty old first sergeant saying, 'I'm glad I'm not those poor bastards in Charlie Company. They're really catching hell'."
Good old "Danger Prone Daphne" did it again, apparently. She said something about winning a journalistic excellence award for her work in South America but I wasn't paying much attention. Instead I was amazed by the courage and strength of Aunt Daphne going unarmed into a combat zone as a correspondent. I remember one guy that followed Boat Troop on one of its patrols through the Amazon. They found him six days later, floating face down in the water. When we turned him over we found his throat had been torn out and he'd been gutted while still living.
"Well," I replied, "It's time I get to bed."
It's a cop out, I know, but how do I tell them the horrors I witnessed in South Am. How can I tell them what it's like to creep silently through the jungle at night on a LRRP (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol)? They wouldn't understand what it's like to march through the Andes with your weapon, a heavy pack, and the very real prospect of what it's like to have the very real fear that you won't see the sun set over the landscape again. Not even Daphne knows what it's like to see your best friend in the unit cut down in his prime. In my six years I saw a lot of combat, I saw people get hurt, I saw people die.
"So what, you're gonna just leave us again?" asks a voice behind me. I recognize the little punk anywhere. Scrappy Doo.
"Scrappy Doo, how are you?" I ask sarcastically. We'd always hated each other from since I moved in. He was being a jealous little brat over the new kid in the house and I don't take kindly to hostile actions. So for the six years I lived with Uncle Shaggy we fought day and night.
"Just because you're a big, tough soldier boy now doesn't mean I can't....." Scrappy begins.
"Scrappy, unless you want me to throw you into the food processor, you'd best zip it!" I reply.
"Bring it on!" Scrappy says, putting up his fists.
"Just try it." I said, giving him a cold stare.
He's intimidated, but to his credit he doesn't show it. "You-you think you're so tough! I didn't run away from my problems..."
"You'd best not mention her, Scrappy, otherwise Uncle Shaggy and Uncle Scooby aren't gonna find your remains." I reply, with a low voice, as I drag my rucksack up the stairs to my old room.
~ ~ ~ ~
(Unknown POV)
It has been far too long, being imprisoned in this accursed chest. We, thirteen of the most terrifying ghosts to ever have been released upon the face of the earth, are now imprisoned once more in the confines of the Chest of Demons.
The traitors, Bogle and Weerd, abandoned us to this fate with their constant screw ups. And now they are but lap dogs for the mortals that locked us away. Vincent Van Ghoul is the only one who knows of our location. For once we were trapped for good, he took us away, that much we know.
But we know the prophesy in which a mortal, with true darkness in his or her heart, will free us upon the world once more. And vengeance will be ours. What a terrible and glorious vengeance it will be too.
There is one more part of the prophesy. One man, a warrior of great skill, who battles inner demons constantly will either expedite our release or prevent it entirely. But once we are released, we will be unstoppable for the evil one will destroy our prison forever!
~ ~ ~ ~
AN: I know, I know, not consistent with the storyline, but I figured I try an alternate universe type fic. So please approach this with an open mind and any mistakes I've made are the result of not having seen the series for a while. Things will be explained as the story unfolds, but I don't have a lot of time these days, so updates will be fairly slow.