Chapter Five
Although this were going pretty horrendously in the hotel, Scooby Doo was finding his job a lot quieter. He padded around the cool, fairly dark garden merrily, feeling surprisingly relaxed and at ease. It was quite a beautiful night. If he didn't have investigating to do he felt as if he could have flopped down in the flowerbeds and slept. But no. Work.
It was when he was looking longingly at the soft flowerbeds that he noticed something, hidden in the flowers. It was long and thin, a rough brownish colour. A snake? No. He'd have sensed it if it was a threat. He cautiously padded over. It was a rope! Puzzled, he moved the flowers aside with his front legs. About five metres of rope! What on Earth was it doing here, he wondered. Then it hit him. He'd found a clue! Smiling to himself, he reached down to pick it up with his mouth.
"Good evening."
Scooby jumped out of his skin, and went to jump into Shaggy's arms as he did instinctively. Then he remembered that Shaggy wasn't with him. For out of nowhere, two large Russian Wolfhounds had appeared, on the other side of the flowerbed. They were identical. Both an ugly shade of light tan and dirty white, both the same size and appearance. Scooby blinked, wondering if he was seeing double. The dog who had "spoken"laughed.
"Your eyes are fine, friend. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nikolai. This is my twin brother, Viktor. You may address us as Nik and Vik."
"Um...'rello..." Scooby muttered, edging away from Nik and Vik. Nik was looking at Scooby with a polite stare, which seeped poison. Vik however was wagging his tail and giggling to himself as he stared at him. "Excuse my brother. Vik isn't quite as identical to me in terms of mental capacity."Nik spoke softly, reasonably, without a trace of accent.
"'Rhat you want?" Scooby asked, now very on edge. There was something about the sudden appearance of the dogs which terrified him. Combined with their freakishly similar appearance, and the pale, almost ghostly colour of their fur began to fill Scooby with more fear than he'd felt in a long time. He wanted to turn and run, but his four legs seemed to have locked in place. What was worse was the way that Nik was so polite, so courteous, when all the time he was staring at Scooby with pure hatred in his eyes. The politeness, Scooby was sure, was covering up something hideous underneath. Vik, as he stood there next to his brother drooling and sneering made Scooby's skin crawl. He knew that he was in real trouble here. He needed some extra muscle. He drooped his head down to the hidden microphone in his collar and barked softly, three times. The call for help.
"It appears you have an interest in the rope. Why would that be?" Nik asked, smiling in the most sinister way possible.
"Um..."
"Well, let me answer that for you Dane. I know who you are. I know who you are with. So hear me now. You will leave this garden. You will go and collect your humans. And then you will leave the premises and not return."
"Yeah! Never return!" Vik piped up.
"Be silent, brother!" Nik snapped. "You are still here, Scooby Doo? Did I not make myself clear? I'd like you to leave. Right now."
Scooby knew he couldn't take on two Russian Wolfhounds, and he wasn't fool enough to try. He nodded glumly and turned away, to go back to the hotel. Obviously he didn't intend to make everyone leave. Once he was safely inside, the dogs couldn't hurt him. Something sinister was going on in the hotel, something which somehow involved a mythical monster haunting the guests, two extremely creepy dogs and a length of rope...well, it made no sense to Scooby at all. But it might to Velma. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the two dogs watching him suspiciously. But even as Scooby was leaving, a familiar black shape bounded towards him from the entrance. It was his friend, Burch! "Rurch?" Scooby asked, perplexed. "Rhat you doing here?"
"You left your microchip thing on the kitchen table...I thought I'd better come when I heard it go off." Burch growled in reply. Burch turned away from Scooby and gave a piercing stare to the Russian Wolfhounds. Nik and Vik, Scooby was delighted to see, looked a lot less confident now that the powerful Pitbull had arrived. "Re need rat rope!" Scooby yelled, nodding his head towards the flowerbed. Burch nodded and slouched over to the flowerbed to get the rope. "I broke a man's leg without even trying earlier today." He told the Wolfhounds. "So really think about whether you want to try and stop me. Bullying little Shih Tzu's." he grated.
Nik shook his head and smiled. "You might be happy to savagely mutilate us, Pitbull. That's your nature. But myself and my brother are not savages. Nor, I think, is Scooby. I'll strike a deal. We deal with this in a decent way, and the winner gets the "clue." Or else we will attack your Dane friend Scooby. You can get the rope or protect Scooby, Pitbull. You can't do both. So what will it be?"
Burch turned to look at Scooby. Scooby shrugged. There was no real choice. "Rhat you have in mind?" he asked. For reply, Nik smiled.
/
Meanwhile, on the first floor of the hotel, Velma and Rufus had just come face to face with the hideous Awthorn Monkey. Velma whispered urgently to Rufus. "When I say run...run." she muttered. Rufus shook his head. "I'm gunna wrestle it, Velmster! This guy is going down! When I've floored him, and have him in a choke hold, unmask him."
Velma gave a strangled sob. "No!" she hissed. "It could hurt you! It's nearly twice your size!"
"I know! I do love a gamble, bro!" Rufus exclaimed flinging his arms out into the air, embracing the Awthorn Monkey's forthcoming attack. The Monkey's hideous grin faded and turned into a snarl. There could be no doubt as to what was about to happen. With a gurgling roar, it charged down the corridor at Velma and Rufus. It moved slowly and clumsily. In order to see where it was going, it had to run backwards. Velma gave up. "Whatever happens now isn't my fault." she said, running away, leaving Rufus.
She had just turned the corner when she heard the sounds of struggle.
For a moment she dithered on the spot, wondering whether to leave Rufus to his "gamble" or go and risk her own safety...no. Rufus was her responsibility. She couldn't wait for that to end, but at the moment it hadn't. She turned and rushed back. Rufus was lying on the floor, unconscious. The Awthorn Monkey was nowhere to be seen. "Rufus?" she muttered, edging closer. "Talk to me, man...Rufus?"
"YES! Oh, yes! Who's the daddy!" Rufus screamed, leaping to his feet. "I'm the daddy, Velma! I'm the bigshot! I'm Donald Trump without the botox! Give me-"
"All right, all right!" Velma put her hands on his shoulders, trying to calm him down. "What happened?"
Rufus thrust a small object into Velma's hand. Velma stared at it. It was a note. "Room 4 two, thursday nite only" it read. Velma stared at it for a full minute. "Rufus..." she said.
"Vee D?" Rufus replied playfully.
"I can't quite understand how this has happened, but...I think you might have found a clue..." she said, reluctantly.
Rufus beamed. "What can I say. I'm awesome!" he grinned.
Velma shook her head, but smiled nonetheless. "Well, that was a really dangerous thing to do but...you've done something useful. I can't deny it."
But Rufus was no longer listening. "Woow! Look at the dogs!" he exclaimed, gazing out of the window.
Velma narrowed her eyes. "If this is another one of your hideous jokes, I'm warning you..." she threatened, shifting beside him to look out of the window. Her eyes fell on the four dogs outside. She did a double take. "What in the name of...?"
/
This was Nik's idea? Some sort of extreme style tug of war fight? Feeling immensely stupid, Scooby Doo and Burch slowly reared up to stand on their hind legs in a battle like stance and gripped the rope with their front legs. Nik and Vik did the same. They were standing on the other side of the flowerbed to Scooby and Burch. Vik giggled. "Три ... два ... один ... играть!" he announced. The fight commenced.
All four dogs were strong. The Russian Wolfhounds were more powerful than Burch had first assumed. Glaring, growling, grunting and snarling at the other dog duo, he and Scooby tugged at the vital rope with all their might.
Several minutes later muscles were still rippling and the two pairs of dogs now had mud from the flowerbed partly smeared over of their furry bodies. But nobody seemed closer to victory.
Each of the dogs had their bodies shaking like jelly, with their claws out on their mud covered foreleg and hind paws as they struggled for control by using nothing but their raw power and brute strength to try and better the other dog duo. But they kept slipping, and mud was being splashed all over the place. Scooby felt disgusted by what he was doing. Burch and the Wolfhounds seemed to revel in it.
"Oi, Vik! You exist to do whatever your bro tells you, huh? Your mother must have been so upset that you turned out like this!" Burch jeered, trying to distract him.
"That's rubbish! My mother loved me just as much as Nikky!" Vik barked, affronted.
"Focus!" Nik hissed at him.
The fight continued.
None of them had any idea how much time had gone by, but the dogs looked like they have been rolling in a filthy pig pen. All four were almost completely covered and smeared with mud as well as small smashed pieces of flowers that stuck to their furry bodies. The once beautiful flower garden was not only a combat zone for all four dogs, but it was now nothing more then one huge puddle of mud with lots and lots of paw prints in it. Scooby, Burch and Nik and Vik were starting to get exhausted, but they weren't going to stop. This was a duel. And somehow, Scooby knew that this rope meant something. Why else would Nik and Vik be going to all this trouble to protect it? Scooby had a lot of qualities, but intelligence and of course courage weren't in that list. He had no idea why the rope was important, but Velma may have already found some other clues. She would piece it together, because that was how they solved cases. She'd never let them down yet.
The rope snapped.
It came out of nowhere. All of the dogs had been so busy pulling, they hadn't taken notice of the way the rope was getting thinner and thinner, weaker and weaker in the middle. All four were launched backwards. Scooby was thrown onto the grass, and then Burch landed on top of him. Scooby wheezed in agony, and slid out from underneath his huge friend. Burch shook his head. "Sod this." he said, and with that, charged at the two Wolfhounds, barking insanely. Vik ran for the hills, as fast as he could. Nik stayed behind a second longer, before coming to the same, sensible judgement. "Wait for me!" he screamed.
Burch turned back to face Scooby. "Well, that was interesting. Anyway, we have the rope...albeit in two parts."
"Ryeah...I go show Relma! Rhanks, Burch!"
Burch nodded curtly, and turned to chase after the fleeing Wolfhounds. From their upstairs window, Velma and Rufus watched in amazement. Rufus turned to Velma. "And you criticize me for getting distracted!"
Note: Sorry for the delay, I've had a busy schedule recently. Some credit also goes to Dark Fox Tailz for this chapter, he wrote the tug of war scene (that's the second fight he's done for me, he's the most helpful guy you could meet and he's great at writing action scenes.) But yeah, hope you all enjoyed it, and I'll try to make sure this delay isn't repeated.