CHAPTER 11: "A Clue About Scooby-Doo"

Kurama's eyes were normally the color of new leaves, but just then, they appeared as dark as the deepest forest. "So I was right," he said as he carefully studied Scooby. "We are being brainwashed." His head inclined the barest fraction. "But that only makes sense."

Kuwabara blinked. "It does?"

"Yes. I first suspected it during the fracas in the hallway."

"Say what?" Yusuke yelped.

"Even for your big brain, that's saying a lot," said Kuwabara, likewise impressed.

Kurama paused a moment. "… thank you, I suppose." He turned his dark-forest eyes back to Scooby-Doo. "We have traversed a house with architecture that seemingly bent reality once before, but even the House of Four Dimensions couldn't connect two doors on opposite sides of a hall. Something was bending our perception." Here his eyes narrowed. "Something, or someone."

Scooby-Doo hunkered closer to the floor, teeth still bared, eyes nearly rolling backward in his head as he loosed a rumbling growl. Yusuke only smirked, however, not scared of the beast at all. Leave it to Kurama to figure this shit out, huh? This was why Kurama was the team tactician. It'd take more than this dog's cheap tricks to pull one over on the ol' fox, that was for sure.

"But from the hallway alone, I couldn't be sure that we were being manipulated," Kurama continued. "No. It was the belligerent denial of Scooby's supernatural abilities on the part of Mystery Inc. that confirmed my suspicions, even before Scooby saw fit to try and control us." Now his eyes resembled twin spots of green fire, unsettling and captivating all at once as he trained them squarely on the dog. "Scooby-Doo. You are a low-level demon with the psychic ability to manipulate and control the thoughts of others. Isn't that right?"

For a minute, Yusuke was certain Scooby would try to deny it.

But Scooby-Doo did not. Instead he merely nodded, a gesture too human not to flip Yusuke's stomach over. "Rats right," the dog said between his bared teeth.

"And you've been using your powers on Mystery Inc. for years, from the sound of it." Kurama crossed his arm, tone as dry as sandpaper on the skin—but thoughtful, too, as he puzzled out the truth of Scooby-Doo. "I imagine at this point it takes very little effort on your part to manipulate their thoughts. They've become so accustomed to thinking as you wish them to, they do it naturally, almost of their own accord. That's why I had to go to such incredible logical lengths to get through to them. Their thoughts have been manipulated to a point almost past reparation, and they actively resist efforts to correct their erroneous observations."

"Wow," said Kuwabara.

"That's awful," said Yusuke.

"Regular humans are also likely easy targets. I suspect you emit a constant psionic field that influences nearby humans to accept your speech without question." Kurama was the one to bare his teeth, then, in a smile so cold even Yusuke shivered. "Too bad for you, we are no so easily persuaded. When we were not taken in by your tricks, you had to directly try to—"

Scooby growled again. "Reave us rarone."

"What'd he say?" Kuwabara said.

"'Leave us alone,'" Kurama supplied. "He replaces letters with the letter R at the start of most words. Rhotic replacement, I believe it's called, though perhaps the diagnosis of—"

Scooby didn't like being analyzed. "Rust—rust reave rus rarone!" he snarled, tail lashing through the air behind him. "Reave rus rarone!"

Kuwabara's face screwed up. "Us?"

Yusuke just swaggered forward, planting his feet beneath him with a scowl. "What, so you can keep tricking these people into taking care of you?" he snarked. "Sorry, buddy, but we're not in the habit of letting demons like you run amok." He grasped one wrist in his opposite hand. "So come with us quietly, or—"

Yusuke raised his finger. The tip glowed brilliant, electric blue, casting deep shadows throughout the dingy room—and putting spots of neon glow into the depths of Scooby-Doo's eyes. The dog shrank back beneath that light, eyes growing ever larger as the size of Yusuke's Spirit Gun grew.

But Yusuke never got the chance to attack.

Before he could fire upon the demon named Scooby-Doo, Kuwabara stepped purposefully between them.

NOTES

Kurama is being his usual sharp self. Kuwabara is also being his usual self, but you'll see what he's up to next time. Also "rhotic replacement" is indeed the name of Scooby's speech quirk, based on an article I read by a speech pathologist. I thought I'd work it into the fic because I found it super interesting.

I AM BAMBOOZLED BY THE REMARKS THIS IS GETTING. I love all of you. This silly little crack-fic is for you lovely people (I'm doing thank-you roundups every few chapters or so since these chaps come in batches most of the time, fyi): cestlavie, YourHomegirlJen, IronDBZ, Wistfulsin, WhatWouldValerieDo, Ink Outside the Lines, Deamachi, MangoWoof, Raylita, buzzk97, biku-sensei, Thornsilverfox, YoseiOfTheWest, dollface6, empressofthedead, general zargon and a guest!