Author's Note: I have to say that after reading EauDeDream's ongoing Scooby story Nocturnal Instinct, I've felt inspired to come up with another reworking of Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated.
Since this series is another reworking of SDMI, the events of this series also takes place in Dimension Three, which as you all know consists of my ongoing reboot of SDMI.
Given that Paranormal Instincts is a different series on its own with SDMI as its major inspiration, this series takes place in a different timeline than the ongoing SDMI reboot, with the reboot placed in Timeline One while this series is placed in Timeline Two.
Anyways, like the ongoing reboot, entries of this series would have their titles taken from the corresponding SDMI episodes. However, that being said, the entries would have completely different storylines than the episodes of which it has taken its title from.
For instance, this first entry has its title taken from the SDMI series premiere, however it features a completely different storyline, along with a different setting.
In this series, Coolsville is now a small city that's the administrative centre and largest populated city in Crystal Cove County.
In the meantime, due to character limits for story titles, expect the series to have stories where the title simply begins as D3-2 SDPI or D3-2 SD Paranormal Instincts.
I don't own Scooby-Doo. Hanna-Barbera Productions and Warner Bros. does.
Chapter 1: Prologue and first day of school
October 19, 2009
The alarm clock on the nightstand beside his bed went off at the usual time, and the 16-year old dusty brown shaggy-haired teenager groaned as he slammed his hand onto the alarm clock and shut it off.
Rubbing his eyes, the boy got up his bed and glared at the time. It was only 7:00 for crying out loud!
"Ugh." The boy groaned as he sat on his bed and yawned once more before he made his way out of the bed and stumbled towards the washroom.
He went through his usual routine in the washroom before stumbling back into his room to get changed.
His room was a complete junk yard, and sometimes he really doesn't know how did he managed to find the clothes he was going to wear or whether or not those clothes are cleaned.
Putting on his green shirt and belting up a pair of brown pants, the boy then grabbed his school bag and shuffled his way out of the door.
On his way to the dining room, the boy walked past several photos on display, several of which depicted a man wearing the uniform of the United States Marine Corps, in addition to a display board showcasing several medals.
The medals were surmounted by a name plate that said, "ROGERS", along with a silver oak leaf.
Beneath the medals was a larger photo of the man from the earlier photos, who's in his full service dress uniform, and the photo was accompanied by a caption that says:
"USMC Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Chastain 'Slamming Sam' Rogers
July 24, 1960 - March 22, 2009
You will be greatly missed by the 1st Recon Bn"
His thirteen-year old sister was already at the dining table eating her breakfast, and she looked up when he started walking into the dining room.
"Mom's already gone to work on base, Norville." She said to her brother. "She said that we need to get some stuff at the supermarket after school, and in the meantime, it's your turn to take Scooby out on a walk."
Norville grunted and went into the kitchen without another word, where he prepared himself pancakes and toast.
Hearing her brother grabbing the maple syrup from the refrigerator, she asked, "How's the arm?"
"It's fine, Maggie." Norville responded back as he reached deeper into the fridge to find another bottle of maple syrup after finding that the one he took out was already empty. "Like, don't worry."
"Are you sure, Norville?" Maggie asked. "The doctor said that you needed six months of relaxation, especially since you were in rehab during most of that time, and I don't want you to end up-"
"I'm fine, Margaret!" Norville cut in crossly as he pulled out a new bottle of maple syrup from the fridge. "Like I said, don't worry about me. Everything's alright considering what we went through the past couple of days."
Her brother rarely uses her real name unless he was serious or was trying to make a point, and Maggie was about to say something when she thought better.
"Okay, if you say so." She shrugged. "I'm just worried about you, Norville. You haven't been yourself since that accident and learning the news about Dad..."
Maggie abruptly stopped herself as a surge of emotion flooded her thoughts, and her brother immediately rushed over to comfort her.
Norville embraced his sister as she began to sob at the thought of their late father, and he heard Scooby whining and looked down, seeing the Great Dane snuggled at Maggie's legs to comfort her.
"It's okay, Mags." Norville said as he rubbed his sister's back. "I miss Dad too."
A few background stories are in store regarding the Rogers', particularly regarding the siblings and their parents.
Norville "Shaggy" Rogers was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 27, 1993 to Samuel Chastain Rogers and Wendy Amon.
Sam was a career Marine Corps non-commissioned officer with 16 years of service under his belt, having had done plenty of tours of duty, starting first with Grenada in 1983 and, up until Shaggy's birth, Somalia in 1993.
In his 16 years of service, Sam had seen plenty of assignments and postings, first as a military police non-commissioned officer, then as a Scout Sniper and eventually as a tactical squad leader in FORECON.
He was also a qualified pilot and has frequently provided air transport for his fellow Marines, in and out of the deployment zone of their missions.
At the time of Shaggy's birth, Sam had transferred to inactive reserves with the rank of gunnery sergeant and was in his second year of studies at the National Defense University under a scholarship, studying material in military science and strategic planning.
By the time Maggie was born in 1996, Sam was commissioned into the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant, and he continued with his earlier assignments at FORECON and went on to see more tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Shaggy and Maggie's mother Wendy was a career Air Force non-commissioned officer at the time of Shaggy's birth with her own achievements during her seventeen years.
She specializes in combat medicine and had years of experience as an Air Force combat medic under her belt, and her assignments were mostly relegated to Special Operations.
In the year before she gave birth to Maggie, Wendy, who had achieved the rank of master sergeant and was considered for a promotion to senior master sergeant, made the decision to transfer to inactive reserves so she could take part in advanced medical training courses.
She received her M.D designation at the time of her commission as a second lieutenant four years later, and she went on to work as a medical officer in the various SO squadrons she was posted at.
Anyways, fast forward to 2008, Shaggy was on his back to school from a field trip on a mid-October afternoon in New York when the school bus he was riding on was involved in a serious accident.
The school bus was driving through the intersection when a semi-trailer carrying a heavily load and speeding down the perpendicular roadway finds its brakes not functioning properly, resulting in it colliding right into the middle of the school bus.
Shaggy was seated in the middle of the bus and checking his watch when it happened, and he would never forget the screams from his classmates as they saw the out-of-control semi-trailer speeding right towards them.
He remembered getting pinned between the body of the bus and the front end of the semi-trailer, and it took almost ten minutes for firefighters to get him out and onto a waiting ambulance.
The surgery lasted almost an hour as doctors rushed to save his life, and although he did make a recovery, the pain in his arm was unbearable, apparently due to a goof during the surgery, which forced doctors to prescribe painkillers to him.
The prescribed painkillers ended up becoming addictive, but it wasn't without any side-effects, and he ended up getting prescribed other medication to counteract the side effects of the painkillers.
Before long, Shaggy found himself dragged into a dependency cycle on the medication, and it took a nearly-fatal overdose before his family demanded that he gets another surgery to fix his arm, in spite of its heavy cost.
Following the second surgery to fix his arm, Shaggy checked into rehab in order to kick the addiction he has developed onto the painkillers, though there were plenty of times where he has experienced a relapse and found himself having to start again with his rehab.
The whole three months of his recovery put a strain on his family, and his addiction to the painkillers had resulted in Shaggy's relationship with his father becoming distant, likely owing to the stress from Sam's recent deployment and the weight of the situation of Shaggy's accident and long road to recovery.
In their last conversation prior to getting deployed to Afghanistan, Sam urged his son to not give up in his fight to kick his addiction, and it was something Shaggy had kicked himself for not taking seriously, considering the devastating news he and his family would receive just six weeks later.
On March 22nd, his mother Wendy was about to leave for work as usual when she received the devastating news from her commanding officer and two Marines.
Her husband's convoy was returning to base when it was ambushed by insurgents loyal to the Taliban, and from the accounts of witnesses, Sam bravely shielded his men and fired the shots to their attackers, even after taking three shots from the insurgents.
There was only one Marine casualty from the ambush after the Marines managed to take out the insurgents completely, and that casualty was none other than Major Sam Rogers, who was due for a promotion to lieutenant colonel on the day of the ambush.
The Marines that were part of the convoy testified that the allied casualties from the ambush would've been worse had Sam didn't make the ultimate sacrifice, and from what Wendy was told, during the military funeral at Arlington, he would be granted a promotion to lieutenant colonel and several more awards posthumously.
Sam's death came close to shattering the family, considering the difficulties they already had with Shaggy's stint in rehab, and now with the main breadmaker buried in Arlington with dozens of medals on his chest, the family had plenty of challenges ahead.
Shaggy was devastated by his father's death, and whacked with guilt over his failure to heed his father's words seriously in their last conversation, he had made the effort to shake off his addiction to the painkillers that had been of help in his recovery from the botched first surgery.
That being said, he still has a long road ahead to recovery, especially given that he had to miss out on school and as such, he had to repeat Grade 10 for this school year.
The only silver lining out of all of this recovery process was their Great Dane Scooby-Doo, who had been supportive and helpful in his efforts to shake off his addiction.
One thing to note was that Scooby was rescued as a pup three years ago, where he and several other dogs were being locked in cages by ringers of a dog fighting ring in war-torn Afghanistan.
At that time, Sam led his company to retake the strategic town and ended up liberating the dog fighting ring as the Taliban was forced out, whereupon Sam and several Marines in his company adopted the pups they rescued.
Whenever Shaggy felt stressed and feel like he was about to have another relapse, Scooby would come to his aid and get him to calm down, though it wasn't enough to help him shake off his addiction to the painkillers.
Anyways, at present, Shaggy has been clean for the past six months, though Maggie still worries that he might end up with another relapse, as from time to time, Shaggy still wakes up with cold sweat at memories of the accident in New York a year ago, and those painful memories has been another factor in Shaggy experiencing relapses during his initial stints in rehab.
While Shaggy has been calmly trying to move on from the accident and focus on the road ahead, Maggie has noticed that he has kept his mouth zipped shut or changes the topic whenever he was asked about the accident, and she has fear that those bottled up feelings inside him could end up blowing up in their faces.
At present, Shaggy and Maggie had finished their breakfast and the older sibling went to get Scooby's leash ready for the morning walk while the younger sibling moved to wash the dishes.
Walking through the morning's light fog, Shaggy can't help but take note of the dark clouds looming in the horizon.
The atmosphere looked gloomy, and he can't help but be reminded about the school bus accident he was in.
After all, on the day of that accident, the skies of New York was likewise dark and gloomy.
At the thought of the accident, Shaggy found his hands shaking uncontrollably.
Scooby seemed to detect his distress, as the Great Dane quickly moved to his side and rubbed himself against his legs.
Hearing Scooby's whine, Shaggy looked down and rubbed Scooby's head, though he can see the concern in Scooby's eyes.
"Hey hey..." He said as Scooby looked up to him in concern. "It's okay, Scoob. It's just some...thoughts. Nothing to worry about."
Seeing that Scooby wouldn't stop looking at him the way he did, Shaggy sighed and added, "Like, you honestly think I'm gonna have a relapse, Scoob? I've been clean for six months at least, and no one said that it was gonna be easy, so just..."
He raised his hands in annoyance, and Scooby nodded.
Feeling Scooby's concern, Shaggy quickly said softly, "Okay, sorry pal...listen...I didn't mean to snap at you the way I did."
Scooby looked up at him once more, and Shaggy continued, "Let's just keep walking. Maybe the walk can get us to relax more, especially since we've only moved into the neighbourhood almost a week ago and need to get familiar with the area."
Scooby nodded once more and then began to lead the way, and Shaggy whistled as he looked around the neighbourhood.
The family had moved into the neighbourhood of Dawsburg in Coolsville, Crystal Cove County this past Thursday after Wendy began her new employment at the Crystal Cove County General Hospital in Coolsville, which also came as she was transferred to the Air Force Reserve and is assigned to the 701st Combat Operations Squadron at March Air Reserve Base as the squadron's chief medical officer.
However, as they arrived in Crystal Cove County, Shaggy felt unnerved by the welcome sign.
"The Most Hauntedest Place in America" He remembered the sign saying as they drove past it at arrival.
Anyways, after moving into their new house, the family spent Friday getting the kids registered to their new schools, unpacking their boxes and driving around Coolsville to get familiar with the city.
Shaggy sighed as he and Scooby returned home after walking the block, at which point Maggie already had her stuff ready to go.
He pulled the olive green van out of the garage and onto the driveway, where Maggie then got on and fasten her seat belt.
"Ready?" Shaggy asked his sister.
Maggie nodded before he shifted the van into reverse and pulled the van out of the driveway and onto Maple Street.
He drove the van to the end of Maple Street, whereupon he then made the left turn onto Riverdale Road at the green light and continued on straight for three blocks before they arrived at Daws Butler Middle School.
Maggie grabbed her school bag and before opening the door, Shaggy leaned over to kiss her in the forehead.
"Have fun at your first day at your new school, Mags." He said.
"Same to you, Norville." Maggie nodded before she got off the van and made her way towards the school building.
Watching his sister disappearing into the crowd of students, Shaggy sighed before shifting the van back to drive and pulled out.
Noting that it was 8:03, Shaggy made the right turn from Riverdale onto Union Avenue and drove down a couple of blocks before reaching his destination: Coolsville Central High School, one of the two high schools in Coolsville, the other being Crystal Cove High School located in the city's east end.
He sighed as he pulled the van into the students parking lot, and he grabbed his school bag and made his way to the school building, locking the car as he went.
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