Daphne hadn't really been sure of just what had come over her at that moment; all she knew was that Asmodeus and his Time Worm were the reasons why the Vincent she knew was now lost to her forever.
She couldn't let that pass.
It was Bogel and Weerd who stopped in mid-flight as Daphne approached, still not recovered from the rant she'd given them hours ago. But as much as Daphne wanted to give them another piece of her mind, her ire was with Asmodeus.
"You!" she fumed.
"You will bow when you address me, Mortal!" Asmodeus sneered.
"Not a chance!" Daphne shot back. "Not after what you and that worm of yours took from me!"
"The plan was to take you away from him!" Asmodeus retorted. "I don't expect him to remain stranded in the past; he'll find a way to return on his own, but by the time he does, you, the one he dared to choose as his heiress, will be no more!"
"He's not coming back," she said, the bitterness evident in her voice. "Not after…" She trailed off. "What do you mean, heiress? I'm not his heiress; he's immortal—he would've outlived me anyway."
"Oh, you can be sure of that," Asmodeus sneered. "I am referring to that traitor choosing you to learn the magical legacy of the Van Ghoul line." He glared at her with utter hatred. "I crafted my magical talents to grant me dominion over pathetic mortals like you—and my descendant had the nerve to choose you to learn those talents that were passed down to him!? That honor should have only gone to a true heir—one who was of blood!"
Daphne's heart caught in her throat; it had been more than Vincent just merely believing in her skills—he had truly accepted her as a daughter. Not that she hadn't known that already in her heart, but apparently, there had been an element of a rite of passage of some sort that was significant enough to cause Asmodeus to freak out about it.
…Only that had been taken from her, too, now with Vincent's timeline being rewritten.
"Well…" she sighed. "You got your wish. I'm not his heiress anymore. The Vincent we know is gone—or he will be soon."
Asmodeus frowned as Bogel and Weerd exchanged confused glances.
"Explain yourself, Girl! Now!" Asmodeus ordered.
"I don't take orders from you!" Daphne retorted back.
"And I don't take disrespect from a mortal who has forced her way in to my proud lineage!" Asamad retorted. "Levitate!"
Daphne tried to get out of the way, but she didn't act quickly enough; the spell caused her to rise into the air. Asmodeus then whistled, and, after a moment, the Time Worm reappeared from belowground, but looking noticeably weakened.
"Explain yourself as I ordered, or I will leave you to the mercy of the worm," Asmodeus threatened.
Daphne glared back at him, utterly silent.
"Fine," Asmodeus sneered.
"Uh… uh wait a minute, Boss," Weerd stammered. "You might wanna reconsider…"
"Yeah, if Vincent finds out, he's going to be plenty mad—" Bogel began.
"BLIZZARAGA!"
"What'd I tell ya!?" Bogel whimpered, as the winter winds kicked up around them—only much more severely than ever before.
"Impossible!" Asmodeus screeched. "He went through the time portal; there's no possible way…!"
He trailed off, seeing Young Vincent using both of his hands to cast an even more powerful version of his Blizzara spell—Blizzaraga. And a fiery green aura of rage surrounded him as the young warlock angrily looked upon the visage of his accursed ancestor.
"Is… is th-that V-Vincent…!?" Weerd shivered, staring in disbelief.
Asmodeus raised an arm, trying to cast a counterspell—but Young Vincent saw and increased the intensity of his spell. Asmodeus and the two other ghosts flinched and shivered from the winter storm—and the Time Worm screeched in agony.
"Shaggy!" Daphne called, seeing that the others had followed Vincent. "The Chest—use the Chest!"
Shaggy, shaking from the cold, stood forward, Chest in hand. The Time Worm was drawn into it.
Realizing that he would be next, Asmodeus now chose to release Daphne from the levitation spell; with a cry, she plummeted downward.
"Daphne!" the others called.
Young Vincent stopped his Blizzaraga spell, teleporting from the ground to midair, grabbing Daphne's arm, and teleporting again back to the ground with her.
"Are you alright!?" Vincent asked.
Daphne managed a nod, too stunned to speak; with a twinge of her heart, she realized that, for the briefest moment, as she looked at the concerned expression on Young Vincent's face, he finally began to resemble the Vincent she knew.
Shaggy once again stepped forward and tried to capture Asmodeus, but the demon drew back, staring at the Chest in utter terror and fury—with Bogel and Weerd even further behind him.
And then, suddenly, Shaggy let out a yelp as the Chest stopped working—stopped trying to capture Asmodeus. The lid closed, and, to Shaggy's horror, the Chest began to fade away in his hands.
"Zoinks! What's happening!?" he cried.
Young Vincent also looked alarmed as the Time Scepter he had been holding now also began to fade.
Asmodeus grinned, a look that was a mix of relief and triumph crossing his demonic features.
"I don't know what caused this, but it is clear that the Chest is no longer responding to my presence! And now, I can…" He trailed off, his triumphant expression once again being replaced by shock and horror—and then extreme pain.
The others jumped in fright—and Bogel and Weerd looked on in confused terror—as Asmodeus let out a roar that was unmistakably one of pure agony.
Clutching at his abdomen, the demon fell, crashing to the snow-covered ground, and lying there, convulsing in pain. The gang all exchanged confused glances again, wondering what on Earth could possibly cause that much pain and agony to a ghost.
"What did you do!?" Daphne asked Young Vincent, her eyes wide.
"I… nothing!" Young Vincent insisted, just as confused as the rest of them. "All I did was cast Blizzaraga—it's not supposed to have an effect like this!"
"Oh, so it's supposed to turn Cocoa Beach into a winter wonderland?" Scrappy asked, looking around in utter surprise. They were surrounded by nearly two feet of snow that spread out for yards around them; palm trees were bending under the weight of the snow—and ice floes had formed on the ocean water.
And as the Chest of Demons continued to fade away in Shaggy's hands, Fred suddenly let out an exclamation of surprise, pointing at Asmodeus.
"He's… he's fading, too!"
Sure enough, Asmodeus was growing fainter and fainter by the second—first his right arm, and then the rest of him followed suit. And a sudden realization gripped the vanishing ghost.
"You…!" he fumed, pointing at Young Vincent. "You have changed time! My releases…" He paused to let out a grunt of pain. "…Never happened…!"
Daphne gasped in realization. Of course… with Young Vincent staying in 2016 and rewriting his entire timeline, it would, therefore, be impossible for him to have opened the Chest back in the 1600s—and also impossible for Shaggy and Scooby to have opened it two years ago, too, as it would still have been in Solomon's Temple—not in Tibet.
Young Vincent arched an eyebrow as the realization struck him, as well. But he seemed much more pleased by the outcome, folding his arms and watching in satisfaction as Asmodeus fully faded away with one more agonized roar—and the Chest of Demons fully vanished from Shaggy's hands—and the Time Scepter followed suit. Scooby tried to sniff the spot where Asmodeus had been, and came up with nothing.
Bogel and Weerd were the only ones who remained now, clutching at each other briefly before simultaneously deciding to hightail it out of there in a panic.
"You see?" Young Vincent offered to Daphne, as the ghosts retreated. "My decision to stay here in the future has only benefited you."
But Daphne wasn't convinced; an unpleasant feeling was growing in her gut—a feeling of impending doom.
"…Then why do I feel like my life is in danger?" she asked, quietly.
Vincent looked to her in surprise.
"What do you think I am?" he asked, sounding rather hurt by the implication of her words. "I wouldn't harm you!"
"No, that's not what I meant," Daphne insisted. "I know you wouldn't hurt me. But… I can't help but feel like I'm in danger somehow, for some other reason…"
Shaggy looked on in concern; Daphne's intuition was rarely wrong. And even Vincent frowned in concern again.
Velma now looked around at the blanket of snow and ice everywhere.
"Jinkies…" she sighed. "How are we going to explain this?"
"Yeah, Vince; I think you may have overdone it just a little bit," Flim-Flam quipped.
But Young Vincent merely waved a hand in dismissal.
"It will melt on its own soon enough," he said, unconcerned, as he led them back to where the time portal was. It, too, was fading, since the Time Scepter had faded, but Young Vincent merely let out a quiet "tsk" and used his magic to brace the portal and keep it open.
"Wow," Fred commented. "He really can do anything, huh?"
The warlock basked in the praise for a moment before turning to Daphne.
"Before I go back to get Miranda and the others, there is one thing that puzzles me still," he said. "That creature—the one that vanished—claimed that it was of my family line, and that my future self had chosen you as my heiress." He arched an eyebrow. "I've heard mentions of my ancestor being a feared warlock who was cursed by Lady Pallas to remain in the form of a demon. Was that him? Why does he consider me a traitor to our line? And how do you fit into all of this? Did I really take you on as an heiress?"
"I guess you were going to before all this happened," Daphne said. "As for the demon, it doesn't matter anymore—that's all changed. I doubt you'll ever see him again." She sighed. "And with the Time Scepter gone, I'll never see the real you again, either."
"I am the real me," Young Vincent reminded her.
"Except you're not," she said. "Our experiences have a large part in making us who we are. All of the things that shaped you into the person I knew aren't going to happen now." A few more tears slipped from her eyes as she saw the cape, crystal ball, and emerald pendant beginning to fade. "His things are fading now—I bet he is, too." Asmodeus had been in such pain when he'd faded—was the Vincent she knew suffering like that, too? A sob escaped her, and she looked back at Young Vincent. "I can't tell him anymore, so you'll have to do—I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."
Young Vincent once again looked uncomfortable as Daphne's distress increased—and knowing that he was the cause of it.
"You're making this very difficult for me!" he complained, frustrated.
"Good," she said, simply. "But, in the end, I can't force you to do anything. You can do whatever you want. Maybe you will be better off without the Blakes making your life difficult, after all."
Young Vincent looked utterly confused now as Daphne moved to walk off alone again, but Velma looked concerned, following her as the others stayed back to appeal to the young warlock to reconsider.
"Daphne, what did you mean by that—the Blakes made his life difficult?" she asked. "This isn't about your parents—?"
"No, this happened back in 1692," Daphne sighed. "Vincent was being chased by witch hunters, only he saw a child drowning in a stream and stopped to save him—which let him get captured by the witch hunters." She shuddered. "He was nearly burned alive, but the child's mother saved him in gratitude. But it turns out that the kid he saved was my 11th great-grandfather. So, yes—another Blake brought him so much trouble. I guess my family's always been danger-prone…" She trailed off as a look of growing horror filled Velma's face. "What? What is it?"
"…Vincent saved your 11th great-grandfather from drowning in 1692?" she repeated. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, I saw a vision of what happened—the boy's mother was wearing the Blake family tartan—"
Velma now grabbed Daphne by the shoulders, cutting her off.
"Daphne, how is Vincent going to save your ancestor in 1692 if he's jumped from the year 41 to 2016!?" she fretted.
Daphne froze. Neither she nor the older Vincent had considered that.
"Um…"
"Daphne!" Velma exclaimed, her horror growing.
"I… I'm sure I'll be fine," Daphne said, trying not to think about it—or her intuition earlier that she was in danger. "I'm still here—I didn't vanish like Asmodeus did…!"
"Come on!" Velma said, grabbing her by the arm and heading back towards the base. "We have to find Dr. Midori's quantum physicist friend and see what he has to say!"
Biting back that feeling of impending doom again, Daphne swallowed hard and followed.
Notes: The difference between the Blizzara versus Blizzaraga spells is from the source material, Final Fantasy; the -ara suffix (Blizzara, Fira, Thundera, etc) designates "medium level" elemental spells, while the -aga suffix (Blizzaraga, Firaga, Thunderaga, etc) designates "higher level" elemental spells. Because Vincent is so powerful, his "medium level" spells are more powerful than their "higher level" counterparts, and he runs the risk of losing control over most of the "higher level" spells, as he did here.