Chapter 21: "Decoy for a Dog-Demonnapper"

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In the distant innards of the house, something went boom.

And not a moment too soon, because the gaijin had only just put the finishing touches on their weird booby trap in the foyer when the demon broke free of the room where Scooby and Shaggy had corralled it. The gaijin sprinted up the stairs and stood over the archway that lead into the depths of Onigumo Manor, and down the hall Yusuke heard a cacophony of footfalls. Some were booming, the steps of a large creature, while the others were fast and quick and comparatively lighter—human soles clad in leather shoes and the patter of paws, if he had to guess.

And a minute later, he got his confirmation. "Like, zoinks!" said Shaggy, voice echoing down the many labyrinthine corridors of the Manor. "He's gaining on us, Scoob!"

"Run raster, Raggy!" Scoob replied. "Run raster!"

The footfalls pounded harder, tempo increasing as their owners put on a burst of speed. Kurama grabbed Yusuke's elbow and tugged him to the side of the foyer; he grabbed Kuwabara, too, steering them halfway up the grand staircase so they could watch both the floor below and the gaijin on the landing above. The gaijin had crowded close to the edge of the rickety railing; they were holding something between them, but from Yusuke's angle he couldn't see anything (and the fact that Fred's broad shoulders were blocking whatever it was they were holding didn't help matters).

And speaking of Fred: He watched the floor below the landing intently, and as the footsteps thundering down the hall grew nearer, he said, "On the count of three, gang! One… two…"

Below him, Shaggy ran out of the hall, through the archway, and into the foyer.

"Three!" said Fred, and the gaijin heaved whatever they were holding over the bannister.

'Whatever they were holding' turned out to be a bowling ball.

They dropped said bowling ball—where the fuck did they get a goddamn bowling ball?—a beat or two after Shaggy passed below them… and right before Scooby ran through the arch after him, which seemed like a stupid fucking thing to do to Yusuke, given that the ball now hurtled through the air and straight toward Scooby's head.

… and judging by the way Velma winced and looked horrifically guilty as soon as she let go of the ball, this had been an accident—or, as Yusuke would put it, a total and complete fuck-up of the highest goddamn order.

Luckily Scooby-Doo knew how to roll with punches (or bowling ball drops, in this case). Somehow he managed to look up and see the ball coming, and with a yelp he started to backpedal, skidding to a halt on the rotting floor just as the ball struck the boards ahead of him—and apparently the construction in this place was just as fucked up as the timing of the Scooby gang, because when the ball hit a floorboard, it turned the board into a goddamn seesaw. The ball-struck end of the board went down, and the bit of board beneath Scooby popped up into the air—and somehow, against all conceivable odds and in flagrant defiance of gravity, Scooby soared straight up into the air like he'd been shot out of a fuckin' cannon. It was full-on cartoon physics, and Yusuke's eyes damn near felt like they were about to pop out of his head at the sight of Scooby flying up to the chandelier suspended twenty feet above the foyer and glomming onto it like a spider monkey.

All Yusuke could do was hope that this was more of Scooby's brainwashing, because this defied all logic. And he was pretty sure Kurama felt the same way, because beside him, Kurama looked like he was having a stroke.

Scooby's friends, though? They didn't look at all perturbed. In fact, as they stared at Scooby in his spot on the chandelier, all Fred said was an embarrassed: "Oh no! We really dropped the ball, gang!"

"We dropped the ball too soon, you mean!" Velma added.

"Like, I'll say!" said Shaggy, who was standing in the middle of the foyer and staring up at Scooby with his mouth open. "Way, way too soon!"

Scooby nodded so hard it was a wonder his head didn't fall off. "Roo roon! Roo roon!"

Somewhere in the distance, Yusuke swore he heard canned laughter—the kind of laughter from an old sitcom's studio audience or something equally impossible, laughing at the gaijins' bad jokes—but he didn't have time to think about that for long, because soon the demon thundered in the foyer and loosed a mighty roar.

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NOTE: OK so this fic might be one or two chapters longer than predicted because I suck and also am bad at gauging chapter lengths, but that just means more garbage for all of you so THERE.