A Changed World

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of the show Scooby-Doo or any of its characters.

Please Note: Sorry for the extended absence. Last update was December 5, 2008. Tonight is September 12, 2010 at 8:58pm and I'm watching the MTV Music Awards. Hope you like this chapter and please review.

A Hitch in the Plan

Velma groaned. She slowly sat up and rose to her feet. But then the room started to spin and she fell on her but.

"You're awake," Shaggy said happily, "a contraption fell and hit you on the head when we just arrived," he explained.

"Arrived, where?" Velma asked.

"I'm guessing it's your time," Shaggy responded.

"My…I'm back?" Velma said, "wait…oh no…oh I didn't know it could bring me back itself," she said, "I'm sorry I took you from your wife and…child."

"Relma?" Scooby Doo asked stepping in.

"You too?" Velma asked feeling awful, "I'll use the machine again…." She decided.

"It blew up," Shaggy revealed.

"What?" Velma asked her voice barely audible.

"When we arrived a machine started shaking," Shaggy said, "it was spewing smoke everywhere and you said 'no, no, this is the only way I can get you guys back!'" he continued, "you stared moving closer but something fell off a shelf and hit you hard on your head," he concluded.

"So it's gone?" Velma asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Shaggy responded.

"And the room too," Scooby-Doo added.

"This can't be happening," Velma said, "how can this get any worse?"

Shaggy and Scooby-Doo looked away.

"What?" Velma asked suspiciously.

"Um, have you been keeping up with the news?" Shaggy asked.

"What about the news?" Velma asked expecting more bad news.

"Well…"

(Noon at an undisclosed location)

Daphne set everything up and sat at the computer. Her life as she knew it was over now. She had gone digging into her father's private files. She paid the best hackers and even fired some of her deceased father's long standing employees to find what she was looking for. Her father had invested in Velma's machine because he thought it would revolutionize the world. But she didn't know how. Now she did and she was going to tell everyone.

She had gone about this day different from any other. She withdrew money and emptied several bank accounts. Bought hiding places from strangers no one after her could bride. She knew in her heart that her father would never want this. That he'd want her to forget.

But she couldn't. Her father had found out something that changed her world. Shattered her perceptions and put an end to the one thing that held her back since Fred disappeared. Her fear, it was now gone. It disappeared from the moment she found out the truth. That her mother had been murdered. She didn't really die of a sudden heart attack.

What made her father interested in Velma's machine was that the drug that killed her mother was a compound never made stable enough in our world. Brimacane it was called. A failed poison that just disappeared in the bloodstream never detected again after entering the body and of course caused the user no harm. Yet the drug found in a secret autopsy; done because her family didn't want an autopsy done, found a deadly version of Brimacane that shouldn't exist. It made no sense; it could be replicated but Mr. Blake's scientists could never recreate the compound from scratch. The technology and information on how to do so was unknown. It still was, even now.

Then her father started checking out other unusual things. He transferred Daphne to a special private school to keep her safe. He had previously planned to send her to public school to keep her more grounded but decided against it. With the direction he'd chose to go, her attitude had to be secondary to her safety.

"Oh daddy," Daphne said crying, "you realized that the killers had to know about the future because it was highly unlikely mom did anything to anger anyone in her past or at the time of her death," she said, "then a few of your scientists suggested that maybe the time or period my mother died changed something essential to someone else, something drastic that could only happen with her death," she stated, "you were confused at first but then you realized that it made sense, mom's death was done to look like a heart attack, something that could be dismissed as a tragedy and we'd just have to move on," she said, "if they just wanted her dead, they wouldn't have taken such extreme precautions."

"You decided to find out how this could've happened and why," Daphne said setting up the web camera, "years later you found out about Velma's machine and it all clicked, a different dimension could have a drug that never worked here and also give the killers info they weren't privy to previously," she deduced, "and they decided to use this info to change their lives to something more in their favour."

Everything was soon ready. Daphne sat on her chair and waited, the space satellites that were hacked for her were connected to every electronic device with visual and or audio capabilities. This would happen in all of Coolsvile and anywhere else that was near by. No one could stop her. The screen brightened and she was ready.

(12:10 pm in a Condemned Building)

Fred sat in front of a television in an old building. The spot had been condemned for years but no one dared tear it down since it was in Scooby's Territory. Fred was watching a cop tv show when the screen suddenly changed. Now the screen showed a red head sitting in a dark room with a serious look on her face. It took Fred moving closer to realize it was Daphne.

"Hello citizens of Coolsville, visitors and other towns and cities," Daphne started, "I'm Daohne Blake, daughter of the great Blakes that Coolsville especially know and loved," she continued, "I'm here today to reveal some things, terrible things. Many people know that my father was murdered," she said, "but I've recently found out that years ago, so was my mother.

Fred dropped his sandwich.

Her mother? Fred thought.

"It's public knowledge that she died of a sudden heart attack. But what you don't know is that it was caused by a compound long deemed harmless and useless as a poison. Brimacane, the great failure poison somehow succeeded in killing my mother. This successful poisoning can only be replicated by samples of the original poison found in tissue samples taken my mother's body. No on has been able to create a potent version from scratch. Do you know why? Because the formula doesn't exist."

Fred leaned in closer. Daphne's speech was starting to sound like crazy talk but he knew that the woman he met was perfectly sane. All he wanted to know was how a poison that doesn't exist can kill anyone.

"Now tell me does that happen?" Daphne asked as if reading viewers minds, "Simple, someone found a way to get to a place that had a successful version and bring it here. You usually have a hard time finding Brimacane even in its non-poisonous form. It would never be detected in a general autopsy," she said, "but my father moved mountains to get all necessary testing done, he had the money and the minds," she went on, "he just needed time. And then they found the culprit but were baffled at how it killed my mother. Then they found the Brimacane present was extremely poisonous. This baffled them because such a strain shouldn't exist."

"I know though, how you can find something that doesn't exist. Time travel, someone did it and changed history. This person; or most likely persons, wanted to change their past. Right now we have things we didn't dream of back when we were kids just years ago. Things we enjoy as trivial luxuries now."

Fred watched Daphne pause and take some calming breaths. She looked determined but flushed. Fred guessed this must be hard for her. Trying to explain an impossible theory after losing the last parent she had left. Along with a potential Scooby vendetta over her head. She took a sip of water then continued.

"But something suddenly threatened that change, or should I say someone. Her name is Velma Dinkley. I know that her name's mud right now but think back to before my father died. Enough good couldn't be said about Velma, one of greatest young scientists. She was even developing a new machine, one that could bring things from other dimensions to ours. Maybe even send things one day. And in the years to come, people could travel across dimensions as well. But this wasn't good for everyone. If things could come from other dimensions, anyone who meddled with time could be found out. Velma's a genius, she'd figure out such things eventually. What if someone realized she could find out what was done and how to fix it or punish them if unfixable? However if the creator was done away with and the machine destroyed before that, none would be the wiser."

Fred understood less than a handful of what she was saying. But he understood the fact that her mother may have been poisoned and Velma being targeted. Plus what confused him still sounded sinister.

"Who ever did this didn't want my family to do something. Something my mother's death stopped. I'm not sure what it is yet but my dad was planning to send me to public school right before my mother's death because I was getting too bratty. I'm not sure if there's a connection…"

Fred listened to Daphne say the year, name of the school and grade. His mouth suddenly fell open.

"That's my school and grade back then, she could've even been placed in my class," Fred realized, "wait, she said her mother died just before she was to go," he said, "and the week she died was…"

Then it hit him like a tank. He knew what the person was trying to prevent.

Because someone did the same thing to me! They wanted to keep us from meeting each other!

(Meanwhile at Coolsville Hospital)

Norville lay in bed handcuffed in what he called 'The Ward for Crazy People.' Someone had gotten him declared insane. Reports were that he suddenly attacked Detective Joanstown (which he did but only a punch in the nose after the detective had threatened him by showing his gun and the detective had just glared at him and left) and tests showed that he had a huge tumour that had led to his radical change in behaviour. It was being claimed that Velma's attack must've triggered the once dormant tumour and that his radical behaviour started with his declaration of Velma's innocence.

"It could be years before he's completely in touch with reality again," one of his 'doctors' had said on a morning talk show.

Now the world thinks I'm nuts, Norville thought, whoever Velma pissed off is extremely powerful, he noted, and now they're my enemy too. Well I say bring it coward, I'm no whiner and I've survived worse.

Norville was currently watching the Discovery Channel and learning about new discoveries involving the mummy widely known as King Tut.

Suddenly the screen changed and Daphne Blake was talking. Something told him this wasn't a scheduled interruption in broadcast.

As Norville listened his eyes widened. Mrs. Blake murdered? Poison from the future? Then she got to Velma and how her invention could reveal the culprits or ruin some people's presumably cushy present. While Norville would've liked names, he quickly got the picture. Daphne continued talking and Norville sorted for himself that these same people targeting Velma probably framed her with the murder attempt made on him.

Then Daphne mentioned the school she would've gone to if her mother hadn't died. Norville realized that was his school as a kid. Then he remembered the year and date Mrs. Blake died and realized it was the same day that man had threatened him against being near Velma. That his mother would get hurt and that the Dinkley family were drug runners posing as a perfect family of geniuses. Norville had believed it at the time and avoided Velma like the plague.

"Wait, that day I was supposed to go to her house again," Norville realized, "and she also hung around that Fred kid, the one she exposed years later for the bastard he was."

Suddenly he started struggling against his cuffs. It could be a coincidence. Velma's two friends abandoning her in the same week. But Mrs. Blake's time of death was just too weird. Plus, Velma became the butt of every joke and eventually was institutionalized after nearly dyng as a result of a suicide attempt. It had to all be connected somehow.

"Velma must've created that time machine," Norville theorized, "whoever went back in time found their counterparts and offered them a better present and the perfect future," he said, "all they had to do was change things without being caught and everything would be gravy," he continued, "bet the counterparts assumed that Velma having a severe childhood breakdown was enough to keep her from developing anything dangerous to them," he said, "bet the future versions would've killed her the moment she recovered, they'd know how smart a grown up Velma really is."

Norville continued to struggle against the cuffs until he was free. His hands burned but they were free. He undid the straps around his chest, waist and feet. Then he looked for a covert way to escape while listening out for hospital personnel. His door was always locked and blinds drawn unless someone was in the room for him. For once it worked to his advantage and he was soon climbing into an air vent.

Once they changed the present and here go the future, the time machine must've disappeared. Once their future selves disappeared the present beneficiaries must've assumed everything was now in their favour. But they didn't bank on Velma being pulled out of her broken suicidal state in months not years. I had snuck in to see her and told her through tears I had stopped speaking to her because someone told me her family were into drugs. I promised to be her friend when she got better, all the sweet things you say to someone who just lay there staring into nothing. I doubt she remembers that now. Of course my promise was never kept, her parents moved her away as soon as she got out of the extreme suicidal state. It was years before I saw her again and by then I was too different for her. I hold no grudge, I must've scared her. Norville thought.

"I guess her past was changed enough so that there was no successful time machine," Norville said as he moved quickly but carefully through the vent, "then she made the machine that could take things from other dimensions. Something the goons from the future could never forsee," he guessed, "so these present criminals decided to do away with her and tried to take her down with Mr. Blake in one swoop. Mr. Blake was obviously a target now that I have a complete perspective to look back with. He was getting too close and since he was in contact with Velma, his fate was sealed."

Velma would've connected the dots sooner or later and it would be over for them, Norville thought, she's find a way to create the time machine just for revenge alone.

"I would take revenge too, by crushing their bones," he added.

Norville moved even faster. There was something else that bothered him but it would have to wait.