Chapter Four

Impostor

Crystal Cove, Blake Mansion

A week before the gang left for to the Yucatan

Daisy starred as Daphne went into her father's office. As a precaution, she stayed close to the door in case whatever was happening inside the office escalated.

Nothing happened thankfully, but she knew that Daphne was slowly becoming a ticking time bomb...

Once Daphne had finally left their father's office, Daisy went to her wanting to give her a sense of support. Even if she didn't show it most of the time to her.

But before she could say anything, Daphne pushed her away. "Go away."

"Daphne, come o-"

"Stop it!" Daphne snapped at her.

"Daph, I'm genuinely trying to h-"

"I don't care if you're doing it to tease me or if you genuinely care enough to give an absolute fuck about me- I don't need you, or anyone in this damned up family getting in my way!" she said, fuming with anger.

Daisy sighed, "Daphne, I'm genuinely trying to help. Trust me, I'm not doing it to take it out on you. I mean… I know you have a hard time with our parents- I get it… But you don't have to push me or Delilah awa-"

Daphne snarled at that. "Please, that's all you ever do! You, Delilah, Dawn, Dorothy- Hell, even Daniela! You think you're all better than me! Well you know what? I've had it! I'm done being the lesser child! I'm leaving this damn family today!" She screamed at her, walking away towards her room.

Daisy stood still in shock, not willing to go after her.

…

Crystal Cove, The Spook Museum

The somewhat safest place to be...

"Hey Dai-z." Delilah greeted her twin, getting her out of her thoughts quickly.

Daisy looked towards Delilah, frowning as her eyesight slowly went down towards her twin's injury. "Oh, you have to be joking."

"What?"

"You're supposed to be laying on your bed, resting. Not going around showing your missing arm like some scar." Daisy said, half scolding her. "What? Did your military training make you a numbskull too?"

Delilah frowned at this and gave her a snarl. "Hey! I'm more worried about you! You got hurt the worst, remember?!"

"I don't think a three hundred degree burn is worse than a missing limb. And keep quiet, you'll wake up everyone if you keep screaming." Daisy scolded more aggressively, rolling her eyes.

"Enough you two." Nancy Blake came up to them, exhaustion evident on both her features and her voice. "You two need to put it to rest, both of you suffered the worst of it."

Daisy looked away from her mother. "Yeah, I guess." she commented sarcastically. "Just like we put Daphne's failures to rest, huh? She's had it far worse."

Nancy Blake sighed, "I know your father and I had a rough time whenever Daphne did something we didn't approve of... but whatever happened to Daphne is in the past, we can't change what we did-"

"Yeah? Yeah, we can't change it, but didn't you ever think that maybe- just maybe, Daphne just wanted to be accepted? Maybe she disappeared because of you and dad being such dicks to her?" Daisy accused, pointing a finger at her own mother.

"Daisy, don't-"

"What do you mean don't?! Think about it! Daphne had to suppress everything just to keep us from making harsh comments about her! You know how she felt Delilah! You were always the one giving her advice!" she quickly countered.

"Daisy stop-"

"Daphne hates us! She's not coming back! She's never coming back because she hates us!" Daisy raged on, her voice higher than she ever intended to.

Nancy Blake stood still, her eyes staring at Daisy intently. "I'll be with your sisters if you two need me." That was all she could say before she turned and walked away from both Daisy and Delilah.

Delilah forcefully pushed her twin to a wall, quickly complaining to her, "What the fuck is wrong with you?! We lost Daphne, then dad, and now you want to start a family fight?!"

Daisy grunted, "I had to say it D-"

"She just lost Dad! You could have just waited to scream at her about it later! After everything calmed down-"

"When will everything be normal Delilah? Tell me Delilah, when will everything be normal?!" Daisy questioned her, trying to push her away.

"Everything will never be normal, unless you help us make everything right." A voice caught them off guard, making Delilah let go of her sister.

Both Blakes looked towards the Cocker Spaniel that stood in front of them, beside the dog stood another larger dog. This one was familiar to the twins.

"Is that-"

"Scooby?! Is that you?" Daisy went to the Great Dane, petting him on the head. "What are you doing here without Shaggy?'

"Does that mean Daphne's around here too?" Delilah asked, a smile creeping up on her face. Before anyone could say anything, she bolted away from them looking for the others.

But she stopped when the small dog barked at her.

The small dog shook its head. "I'm afraid your sister isn't around to greet you. Scooby Doo and I have come for you two."

"Wait, what?"

"Your run in with the Entity's minion was not a coincidence, you were being targeted. Come with me, both of you. I will explain everything." Nova said, making sure that twins were following her.

Scooby Doo soon followed after them.

...

Alice May stood up when she saw Marcie come into the room. She stared at the brunette before saying, "Hey replacement, how was working with Mr. E?

"Alice May, I thought you were in jail... rotting." Marcie responded, holding on to her side.

The blonde pushed some hair away from her right eye, showing the scar she had received from Seraphim's attack. "Well I was, right until some monster decided to try and use me as a guinea pig." Alice explained sarcastically, noticing something on Marcie's right arm. "You okay? Your arm doesn't look too good."

Before she could answer, Marcie's arm started to ache in pain. The bandage she had on wasn't enough as something black slowly spread over her arm until it was almost close to her elbow.

Both Marcie and Alice stared at the arm, waiting for either of them to say anything. Marcie muttered, "I'm fine. I'm just aching."

"That sure looks like an ache." the blond girl sarcastically noted.

"Well, why are you here? Shouldn't you be catching a plane or- or a train? You always talked about leaving this town." Marcie asked, with genuine interest.

Alice sighed, "And here I thought you wanted me to stay. You know, like what we talked about? Destiny and all that? That we were worth more than we thought? Well, I thought I could be more of a help to say the least."

"Help me out? Alice May actually wants to help me? After I 'replaced' you as Mr. E's agent?"

"Oh please, don't start with that. You're already on thin ice with what the dogs have told me. You need to get it together Marcie, you need to start using your head and I have the perfect solution for this whole mess." Alice smirked proudly.

"And that is?"

Alice started to explain. "I need to get to Destroido. Mr. E told me that if anything were to happen to get there first and plan our strategy from there. So, What's the plan for the team leader? "

"Team leader? No, no, no, you have it all wrong Alice." Marcie said, crossing her arms. "I'm not making a team, I'm going to search for Velma alone. I don't need any help with that, and I certainly don't need to go to Destroido for anything."

"You can't be serious. Marcie, you need everything you can get from Destroido. You're not handling some guy in a mask like the Mystery twerps, this is life and death we're talking about." Alice reasoned, completely rare for her usually.

Marcie just stared at her, nonchalant about the whole ordeal. "I'll take my chances."

"Argh, come on. You need to think about the situation at hand now. Or you're just way in over your head now to figure out that the end of the world is almost on top of us. What would Velma say about that?" Alice said, trying to persuade the brunette

Marcie frowned, "Say that again, I dare you."

"What? that you're way in over your head to plan a strategy? We need a solution! not decisions based on emotions right now!"

"Look who's talking, the blonde that thinks that they are worth more than what she's really worth!"

"Don't push it, I'm warning you Fleach." Alice threatened, glaring at her.

Nova cleared her throat, catching the attention of both the blonde and the brunette. The small dog frowned slightly, walking towards a small chair on the side of the room. "You two seem to be getting along quite fondly."

"Yeah well, we have different ways of getting along. This is just one of them…" Marcie muttered.

"I have brought others to join you in your quest to save the world and the universe as a whole, you may come in now." Nova announced, gesturing to the newcomers to walk into the room.

The two entered the room and looked towards both Marcie and Alice. When Delilah recognized Alice, she quickly went towards the blonde with a fist ready to connect to Alice's jawline.

Alice quickly dodged the attack, making the redhead fall to the ground.

"Delilah, what the hell?!" Daisy questioned as she pulled her twin up.

"Don't you remember?! She's the one that tried to kill Daphne over a year ago!" Delilah screeched, pointing at Alice. "She shouldn't be out and about! She should still be in jail!"

"Attempted murder, also I was only the executioner following orders-"

"LIKE, FUCKING HELL, THAT DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING! YOU STILL WENT WITH IT!" Delilah exploded.

"Enough! I understand that there may be some tensions between the four of you, but you must listen. I have brought you all here because you have changed the lives of Mystery Incorporated in some way or form." Nova started to explain, being interrupted by laughter coming from Alice May.

"Sorry, sorry, uh-huh yeah, so what's so special about me then?" Alice asked. "I mean, I tried to kill them. That's just a traumatizing event, not a life changing experience. I'm not even a good person to begin with."

Marcie tried to speak, but she suddenly started to feel a pain on her right arm. It started to spread more, the black bruise spreading until it was halfway to the bicep. Marcie gave a low grunt and held her arm close.

"That is understandable from your point of view, but I must remind you of everything that you have done… Everything that you have said and thought of, It wasn't of your own volition. It was because of the curse that is beneath Crystal Cove."

She tried to take a deep breath, but everytime she did it was slowly getting more painful. She looked at the group, trying to say something, but she couldn't make the words come out of her mouth. 'What is happening? Why am I having a hard time breathing right now?'

"Maybe because the disease is spreading… And the only way to stop it is by cutting off the main source of the infection..." A voice whispered in her mind. Marcie shook her head at this. Whoever or whatever was telling her to do something as drastic as that would have to wait, she had something else to do.

"Come on, you know it's no good to ignore it. You gotta cut it off before it gets worse… You have to cut off the source of the problem before you can search for them… You know that..."

"That's… True… It'll only be in the way of things..." Marcie looked around the room, looking for something to help her with the pain. When she saw a large shard of glass, something in her was relieved.

Finally, something to stop the pain. She reached out with her left hand, getting close to grabbing it.

But Nova had felt something was wrong, the dog looked at Marcie and saw what she was doing. She yelled at Scooby Doo quickly as she realized what Marcie was going to do. "SCOOBY DOO! STOP HER!"

Scooby's eyes opened wide, and looked up. The Great Dane quickly pushed the girl away from the glass shard. He quickly bit on her right arm, pulling it away from her to do anything to it.

"Woah! Woah! Woah! What's happening?! OW! Scooby, you're hurting me!" Marcie screamed in pain, but then suddenly screamed out. "You're just letting it spread quickier dog! You must really want the kid to suffer through it!"

Nova quickly yelled. "All of you, restrain her quickly! Scooby cannot keep her for long!"

Both Alice and Daisy ran to Marcie, holding her down. Alice had her in a lock that prevented the brunette from doing anything.

Daisy helped Scooby by holding onto Marcie's arm. She noticed the blackness slowly spreading more and said, "Something is spreading on her arm! Whatever it is, we have to do something quick!"

"Do you know what we're dealing with?" Delilah asked her twin, trying to keep her cool.

"Not a clue! I've never seen this before." Daisy said, looking at Marcie's arm again. Taking notes on her head. "It's black and purple. It can't be the bubonic plague, can it?"

"Oh great, we're going to die. We are actually going to fucking die before we even search for the Mystery-Dorks." Alice sarcastically muttered, mostly to herself.

"One of the Minions must have created a disease and it may be testing it on Marcie" Nova quickly hypothesized. "We have to stop it from spreading..."

"How do we do that?"

"I don't know, but it can't be good." Nova said, running towards the group, then stopped in front of Marcie. The dog stood there, thinking of what to do.

Marcie gave a dark chuckle, taunting the small dog, "What's wrong doggy? The master can't give you a break? Surely you must have something up your sleeve to help this poor weakling child, hm?"

Nova growled, "Release her from your hold!"

"Hahaha! You know I cannot do that! I was created to mess with her mind and twist it into something unrecognizable… I will not let go of her THAT easily... "

"Then you leave me no choice..."

...

Marcie stood up from the black and white tiled floor. She somehow recognized the place she was in, but at the same time, she didn't know where she was.

"What the hell... where the hell am I? How the hell did I even get here?" Marcie asked herself as she walked down the hallway.

She looked into a room and quickly went inside, finding the gang's best selves. She smiled as she saw Velma and ran over to her. "V! I'm so glad to see yo-" She stopped herself, noticing that neither the gang nor Velma showed emotion to her arrival.

"V? Are you okay?" Marcie asked, touching Velma's shoulder. It was cold to the touch, but it quickly warmed up. Velma gave a startled scream as she came back to life.

Marcie took a step back. "V, it's me!"

Velma looked over Marcie as if trying to figure out if she was real or not. "Marcie? I thought you were..."

"Nope, I'm still kicking... somehow anyway."

"That means we still have a chance then, we didn't fail… We just made the process longer, interesting! Usually, something as catastrophic as Nibiru wouldn't be stopped just by simply not following half of the prophecy… Something change-"

Marcie quickly cut her off. "Sorry to interrupt your inner thoughts but I need to ask- What the hell happened?! I thought I told you to destroy the Entity! To stop Pericles before everything goes to shit!"

Velma looked away from Marcie, thinking of the right words to say. It took a while, but Velma figured it out. She looked down, playing with her fingers as she explained. "We did stop Pericles..."

"Okay, then what happened?"

"... You happened, You died and… I guess I broke down to the point of actually not thinking of the consequences of my actions, You died because the Entity made it happen…" Velma started to explain, pacing around the room. "We all thought it was Scooby who needed to die, but no. You needed to die, so that we could release it."

"Wait, did you just say release it?! Please tell me you didn't…-"

Before Velma could reply, she gave a scream as she was being electrocuted. Her body twitched and knelt down as the pain became too much to bear.

"Velma!"

"This place is super comfy, I like it! and now that I'm here, I get to play around with you and your little friends' little minds for a while."

"You! You're that voice again!" Marcie exclaimed, looking around the room in search of the mysterious voice. To Marcie, the voice sounded awfully familiar, she was almost too scared to know who it was. "Who are you?! Show yourself, you coward!"

"Marcie... who is- with you right now?" Velma spoke between grunts, as she tried to push herself up. But it was useless, her body was in a state of agony.

"Scooby" Marcie looked towards Daphne, who looked into the vast emptiness of the room. "Just… Scooby." She said, having a bad feeling about telling Velma who she was really with.

"So, Scooby's alright… Good… I'm glad… We don't have much time Marcie, The gang and I… We're in deep trouble, we might not make it… if that happens..." Velma said, her eyes slowly changing into a greenish color. "If we don't stop this before the 7 year mark..."

"Don't say anything, you can count on me V..."

"Right, I always did count on you… didn't I?" Velma muttered, chuckling darkly as she stopped moving.

"What?"

"What a cute moment, the traitor really has a liking in you-"

Marcie looked towards the source of the voice, anger evident in her features. "Alright pal, come out from wherever you are now, before I make you!" she threatened, her hands balling into fists as the figure came out of the shadows.

"Fine, since you're so eager to see me… I'll let you take a peek…" the figure said, finally leaving its hiding place.

Marcie's eyes widened, almost popping out of their sockets when she saw what the figure was hiding from her. "You've gotta be kidding me…"

"Nope, your true malice is showing Marcie. Maybe you should lay off this stupid idea of saving Crystal Cove. Velma isn't gonna come back. What more does she have to lose now? The Entity has the upper hand, they could cut out Velma's life in a minute..." a wicked version of Marcie said, a dark smile shown on her face. "Unless you do want to lose her…"

Marcie frowned, "You don't know what you're talking about, you don't even know what Velma and her friends are capable of. You don't know what I'm capable of."

The dark Marcie laughed, almost to the point of almost dying of laughter. "Really? I don't know what you're capable of? You surprise me a lot Marcie, really… You're almost the same as her… it's unbelievable."

"Who?"

"Ah, you don't know? You will soon enough… if you're THAT intelligent, that is…"

Marcie growled, she wanted to punch this imposter so hard. 'Maybe that's what I should do.' she thought, but quickly shook it out. If she rushed into things like last time, it might cost her more than an arm.

'Wait a minute…' Marcie realized. "Tell me something then."

"Fine. Shoot up."

"What did the Entity's minions do to me?" Marcie asked, hopeful to get an answer. Trying to keep herself under control, there was a chance that this version of herself wouldn't say anything just to keep being in the sitting room.

"Oh yeah, Feralle was the one that infected you first, wasn't she? That's a disease she developed, you know? It starts by bringing your worst self into existence - that's me!"

"Get to the point…" Marcie muttered, mostly to herself.

"And then… it starts to twist and turn you into something much more… Let's say, rabid. You know, like those zombie movies you kept watching since you were a child…" A chuckle came out of the sinister Marcie before she continued.

"I supposed it was going to be sooner or later that she would take an interest in you. After all, she has some unfinished business with-"

"Well? Spit it out, why don't you?!"

"I spilled too much, Just know that I'll be around more often now. Not to help you, but to torture you. I will be the obstacle that you can't get rid off, I'll be that little voice that tells you to give up over and over, until you do… Do well to remember that."

"Wait! what do you mean by unfinished busin-"

…

Marcie sat up, looking around the room to Alice and the Blake twins staring at her. Nova was beside her, paw on her arm.

"How do you feel Marcie Fleach?"

"Never better."

After she had been informed about what had transpired while she was out of it, Marcie started to think of ways to find Mystery Incorporated the Second, and of ways to help them destroy the Entity. But it was getting rather difficult to think of anything.

There was the Entity, which was obviously a really big obstacle and could destroy the world as she knew it at any time. Then there were the minions, which were much more difficult to find a way around. From what Marcie had been told, there were four minions that were helping the Entity…

Feralle, which, to her, seemed to be the leader of the group, and the one who infected her with - and she hated saying this - what her worst self called the 'disease'. And they weren't talking any time soon.

'Stop that.'

Angelo, who for some inexplicable reason seemed to be awfully familiar to someone she once knew. Someone she was afraid to remember meeting all over again as far as she knew...

Seraphim, whom to this day she hasn't "properly" met, and wished not to meet, since Daisy, Delilah, and Alice had met her several times. From what Marcie noticed, Seraphim was ruthless and didn't care much about casualties.

And then, there's Sovrano, whom she had met and had made a pact with… yet she still didn't know much about him. Only that he resents the Entity, and that's about it. He too seemed awfully familiar… somehow...

'Geez, you really think too much. You gotta stop before I actually get bored out of your mind. Touch some grass you nerd.'

She shook the thoughts away and with the help of Daisy, Marcie began to bandage her right arm. It was still in a state of black and purplish coloration, but at least it wasn't hurting. "Do you think we'll find them or that maybe they'll come back?" Marcie asked the redhead, not daring to look up.

"I don't know, I've asked myself that and came up with nothing." Daisy admitted. She was so focused on wrapping Marcie's arm with the bandages that she wasn't thinking about what she was saying. "To be honest, I don't think they'll come back. What does Crystal Cove have to offer them? This town is just as bad as its people."

"Not all of them.."

Daisy frowned. "Keep telling yourself that."

Marcie sighed. "Are you with us though?" she asked.

"What?"

"Are you going to help me find V? Find the gang? To find your sister?" Marcie asked again, curious to know the redhead's answer. It didn't matter who was with her though, she wanted to find Velma and that's all she wanted to do.

Daisy finished bandaging Marcie's arm as she thought about it. She stood still as she began to think about what they would go through, an Entity willing to destroy or conquer the world with a slight move of its almighty limb, demons who would rip someone's heart out without a second thought. It was all dangerous to her…

'Then again… Daphne risked her life in situations like these… would it be any different?" Daisy thought, already having made a decision. She stared Marcie in the eyes before saying, "Yes."