Shaggy felt like he was in shock, as Dracula lifted him and his friends into the air with his batcopter. His brain was immersed in such a state of terror that he had just processed that his girlfriend had screamed out in panic to him.
"Like, it's Dracula! He's got us!" Shaggy shrieked, feeling like his stomach was a gaping pit of discomfort. As he looked at the palms of his hands, he saw they were shaking. His heart felt like it was racing faster than he'd ever driven in all the races he'd been over these past few months. It took him a moment to realize it, but he understood the crazy sensation that was happening to his body: he was having a panic attack.
The net had nearly raised them up to Dracula's helicopter now. The Bat-Copter seemed quite large as compared to the average helicopter. It appeared to be so large that there was a bit of a cockpit area up front, and three rows of two seats each in the back.
He could see the faint outline of Dracula and Crunch through the opening at the bottom of the helicopter. From the silhouettes he could see, it appeared they were talking. No, wait. They were laughing.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" Scrappy sneered.
"Oh, you'll see!" Dracula chuckled, as the net dragged them up to the opening. Dracula and Crunch didn't pull them out of the net, however. The frightened foursome were left to dangle in the net as the helicopter continued to head west. The stability in the net that they were trapped in was virtually none. It was a breezy day, so they were tossed around quite a bit as the wind swayed the haphazardly perched net from side to side.
In addition to the dread and panic Shaggy felt, he also felt bad. All of his self-deprecating thoughts about being responsible for getting his friends in trouble felt larger than life now. He'd gotten those he loved in bad situations before, but this took the cake. He'd gotten Scrappy and Scooby in skirmishes and uncomfortable situations with random people before. However, this wasn't some whimsical situation where they were running away from a carnival owner or a peeved practitioner; Dracula's relentless pursuit of Shaggy felt like something that he would never escape. If there's anything the last year had taught Shaggy, it was that he didn't just have a knack for getting in troublesome situations; his irrational fear of things not only got himself into trouble, but by running away from every uncomfortable situation, he was endangering the ones he loved the most.
The fear and panic boiled up so intensely in Shaggy that he felt like he was about to explode from the extreme guilt he felt.
"Like, I'm sorry!" Shaggy burst out. "I'm so sorry."
"Sorry for what, Shaggy?" Googie asked. Shaggy understood his partner well enough to know that she was scared, but strangely, she seemed to be a bit calmer than her initial reaction.
"Like, everything." Shaggy sighed. He tried to hold it back, but he could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He had been holding in this mindset of self-deprecation and blame for so long that it was all coming out, and he didn't know if he'd be able to stop it. He didn't want to cry, because he felt that would only further show his friends that he was weak. However, even in his emotionally intense state, he realized that he was comfortable enough with his partner and two best friends to be able to cry in front of them.
"What do you mean, everything?" Scrappy asked.
"Like, all the stuff in the past year! Having that idea to bring you guys to the Barren Bog." There were other things Shaggy wanted to list off, but he took a deep breath before doing so. During that empty space, Scrappy interjected his two cents.
"You couldn't help that, Shaggy. You didn't know Revolta was gonna capture the girl ghouls." Scrappy assured.
"Like, it's not just that." Shaggy took a big inhale before he prepared to rattle off the long list of screw-ups from the past several months. "Running away from the girl ghouls; getting you guys mixed up in the inheritance stuff with my uncle…"
Although Shaggy intended to keep going, the lump in his throat temporarily stopped him from doing so. Tears began to stream down his face.
"Rou ran't relp that, Raggy." Scooby patted his best friend on the back.
"Yeah, but if it wasn't for me, you guys wouldn't have been involved in all that." Shaggy responded to his best friend.
"You guys solved mysteries all the time before you went off on your own, right?" Googie inquired.
"Yeah, but like, those were just people in masks! Those weren't nearly as dangerous as these situations. You could have been hurt, or like, even killed!" Shaggy answered.
"Shaggy, you're being too hard on yourself. And this isn't what we need to be concerned about right now. We're literally being abducted by Dracula!" Googie cried.
"And that's because of me too! You wouldn't even be into this mess if it wasn't for me! You'd be better off not even knowing me." Shaggy sighed, holding back his tears.
"Don't say things like that, Shaggy!" Googie lovingly scolded. "We all love you very much, and I hope you know that."
"I don't know why you do." Shaggy didn't know how much longer he could hold back the water works. He could feel an emotional eruption coming. "I always mess everything up."
"Like what?" Scrappy asked.
"Scrappy's right. Everything you've listed so far was just a bad circumstance that was out of your control." Googie agreed.
"Well, like, where should I start? I released thirteen of the most horrific ghosts ever to exist into the world, I yelled at the Boo Brothers for being screw ups, I've run away from situations where I've messed up and driven normal people to the point of chasing me in a blind rage…" Shaggy had a few more things to list off, but tears began streaming down his face before he could.
"Oh, Shaggy…" Googie tried to lean towards Shaggy and pat him on the back as best she could with the net tossing them around in the wind. "You just have a little problem with getting scared easily is all."
"Like, you mean a big problem." Shaggy corrected. "One time, I was, like, cashing a check at the bank and it bounced! Instead of dealing with it, I ran away. That led to seven minutes of clownishly unfortunate shenanigans when, like, the bank president started chasing me!"
"That doesn't mean you're a bad person, though." Googie comforted. "I don't want to hurt you, but…"
A nervous look suddenly washed over Googie's face. She didn't continue her sentence, which only heightened Shaggy's high level of distress.
"Like, but what?" Shaggy asked the question. He worried the answer would further throw him into an emotional tailspin.
"But…" Googie stuttered before she finally had a look of defeat sweep her face. "I think you run away as a defense mechanism. You've got a lot of anxiety, and rather than choose to face that fear, you try to escape."
Although what Googie said wasn't that hurtful, what she said hit him incredibly hard. She was exactly right. He did run away as a defense mechanism to protect and shelter himself, and in the process of doing that, he hurt people. He felt a little better at least having someone say a reason why he was doing this, but at the same time, that also made him feel a lot worse. He was afraid of fear itself, which was not exactly something that could be easily remedied.
"Like, you're right." Shaggy admitted, feeling vulnerable as ever as tears continued to trickle off his cheek. "I don't like dealing with fear. I get, like, the insatiable craving to run away when I'm scared…and not just from monsters. I get that fight or flight response from any situations that are, like, uncomfortable!"
"It doesn't mean you're a bad person." Googie repeated. "It just means you've got something to work on."
Shaggy appreciated his girlfriend's comforting words. However, it didn't make him feel any better about the situation he'd put his friends in.
"Reah, rou're a rood person, Raggy." Scooby smiled, as his tail began to slightly wag.
"Like, thanks." Shaggy mustered out. Although talking about it helped, he still was feeling low. "If it were just me getting into these situations on my own, it'd be fine. I just feel bad about getting all of you into these types of situations."
"That's what friends are for, Shaggy!" Scrappy exclaimed.
"Nobody's forcing us to be in these situations. We want to be with you, because we all enjoy your company. We're always going to stick by your side, because you're a great guy." Googie smiled, as she tried to embrace Shaggy, albeit awkwardly since the net was still tossing them around a bit whenever there were higher gusts of wind.
For the first time in all of this, Shaggy began to feel a little better. He still felt guilty about getting his friends into these situations in the first place, but the reassurance that he hadn't just totally ruined all of his friends' lives brought some comfort.
That comfort quickly abated once the helicopter began to decrease its speed. Although the sky had now turned pitch black, a faint outline of Dracula peeking down at them could be seen from the opening at the bottom of the helicopter.
"What'd you do with your daughter and her friends?" Scrappy commanded, referring to Sybella and the other girl ghouls.
"I don't know vhat you're talking about!" Dracula hissed.
"Sybella and the other girl ghouls. Like, what'd you do with them?" Shaggy asked.
"Ah, you're thinking of my predecessor." Dracula explained. "Just like you became our resident verewolf, ve switch Draculas every three years. And speaking of verevolves, ve vill soon have ours back!"
"Like, what do you mean by that?" Shaggy gulped, fearing he already knew the answer.
"And where are you taking us?" Googie added.
"Oh, you'll see soon enough!" Dracula said, before turning back to the Hunch Bunch. "Brunch, dead ahead!"
"Rhat does he rean by rhat?" Scooby asked.
Shaggy looked ahead of them and saw a large cliffside. The formation of rocks was quite jagged, but patches of grass still managed to grow over it. There was a large chunk of rock that hung directly over a lake, and from what Shaggy could see, it appeared to be at least a hundred foot drop.
At first, he thought perhaps Dracula was trying to kill him by tossing him off the cliff. That was until he saw the huge full moon looming above the cliff side. That's when it hit him: Dracula wanted to turn him into a werewolf again, and this moon-kissed cliff was the best vantage point to that.
"What is he doing?" Googie asked. Clearly, she hadn't come to the same conclusion that Shaggy had. Scooby, on the other hand, seemed to just have figured it out.
"Roon! Roon!" Scooby pointed up to the large moon hanging over them.
"Oh no! So that's what Dracula meant! He wants to turn you into a werewolf again!" Scrappy realized.
"Is there no end to this horror?" Googie gasped.
The helicopter had slowed down almost to a halt, as Dracula and the Hunch Bunch prepared to stop on the cliffside.
"Upsy-daisies!" Brunch creepily said, as he and Crunch began pulling the net that confined the four of them up into the bottom of the helicopter.
"Upsssy-daizeez!" Crunch blathered.
"You're coming vith me, Shah-gee!" Dracula said, as he approached the net that the Hunch Bunch had just pulled into the helicopter. He grabbed Shaggy by the hand and yanked him out of the hole at the top of the net. Although Scrappy attempted to scramble out too, Dracula quickly pulled the string that closed the net again so that no one else could escape.
"Hunch Bunch, vatch our prisoners to make sure they don't try to escape!" Dracula commanded.
"Yes, sir!" Brunch replied loyally, saluting Dracula with his brother.
"No, Shaggy!" Googie screamed in anguish, as Dracula wrapped his ghoulish arms around her boyfriend's body and began walking him out of the Batcopter and onto the cliff. Shaggy felt as if he were walking the plank, as the vicious vampire marched up the cliffside holding onto him.
"What'd you do with the girl ghouls?" Shaggy repeated, realizing the question had gotten lost in the flow of the original conversation.
"I didn't do anything vith them! But I unfortunately can't say the same for you, Shah-gee." Dracula growled, as he walked Shaggy up to the edge of the cliffside. There was nowhere for Shaggy to go without falling off of the cliffside and into the lake. He'd been struggling as Dracula walked him up the cliff, but it was no use.
Instead, he tried pushing all of his weight back on Dracula, so that Dracula would hopefully lose his balance.
"Don't even think about trying to escape this time, Shah-gee!" Dracula laughed. "If you do that, I'd have to do this!"
Dracula started to kick his foot out, causing Shaggy to begin to lose his balance. Dracula hadn't pushed Shaggy hard enough off-kilter that he would have actually fallen, but Shaggy knew that Dracula wouldn't hesitate to push Shaggy over the cliff if he tried to knock the vampire down.
A horrible burst of fear pooled up in Shaggy's stomach as he realized: there was nothing he could do. He was completely at the mercy of Dracula.
"In just a matter of moments, Shah-gee, you shall be a verevolf again!" Dracula taunted. "Unfortunately for me, since you've already been turned back from being a verevolf, ve'll need the Grimness Book of Records to restore your verevolf status!"
"You don't have the book yet!" Shaggy taunted, fearing that Dracula actually had gotten the fabled piece of literature as he said it. Shaggy had been so anxious that he'd lost track of who had the book last, but he thought it was Googie.
"Ah, but I do, Shah-gee!" Dracula grinned, baring his fangs in a taunting fashion as he prepared to call for his minion. "Oh Crunchie?"
Crunch quickly ran out from the helicopter. To Shaggy's horror, he was holding the book.
"Yesss, mashter?" Crunch slurred.
"Recite the verevolf spell from the Grimness Book of Records!" Dracula commanded.
"Yess, mashter!" Crunch repeated. "Oogaufj bahkren wjuesy wssooy."
Dracula looked incredibly peeved, as his eyes turned from an anticipatory evil grin to a glower of rage.
"Give me that, you slobbering simpleton!" Dracula briefly took his hand off of Shaggy just for long enough to snatch the book, then held the book open as he wrapped the hand around Shaggy again so that he could not escape. "Oogly boogly voggly vou, no more a normal guy are you. You're going to be a verewolf again on the count of tventy-two."
Shaggy began to sweat heavily as Dracula counted down from 22. The moon hung over him like the pressure of a lifetime. The red-shirted man realized he was once again having a panic attack as a wave of unbearable warmth washed over his body, coupled with the insatiable urge to get the hell out of there.
"15, 14, 13." Dracula continued counting.
Shaggy's hands began to shake uncontrollably.
"12, 11, 10, 9."
Sweat was pooling up on Shaggy's skin. Hot flashes were now all over his body.
"8, 7, 6!"
He felt a lump in his throat as the light of the moon shone down on his face.
"5, 4."
Shaggy fought back the urge to cry, as that would just make him look like more of a helpless wimp.
"3."
A grin broke out over Dracula's face, as he saw the spell was working.
"2."
There was nothing he could do. His sheer panic was now coupled with a feeling of utter defeat, and like the life he knew now was completely over.
"1."
As Dracula said the final number, Shaggy realized it was not only fear he was feeling in his body anymore. His skin burned as his whole body broke out in thick brown fur. He felt bursts of pain in both his ears as they transformed from a normal human ear to a floppy, triangular-shaped monstrosity. His nose felt like it had been turned inside out when it changed to a leathery, black snout.
With all the pain Shaggy was in, he felt the insatiable urge to let out a cry of discomfort. He held this verbal response inside initially, until he realized it was not only a response to the trauma he was being put through…it was a carnal urge to let out a beastly howl.
He realized there was little he could do now, so he might as well give into his urge.
"Yes, yes, I have a verevolf again!" Dracula cried out as he jumped for joy.
As he pointed his face and snout directly up to the moon, Shaggy felt a strange sense of delight course all throughout his body. "Ow-ow-owooooooo!"
Author's note:
Hope you're enjoying the story so far! It always bothered me how there were several different versions of the Universal Monsters shown throughout the Scooby episodes and movies in the 1980s, and there was never any continuity carried over that the gang had met these monsters previously in any of the episodes they appeared in. I was thinking about it, and since Shaggy is a replacement for the original werewolf when he goes on vacation in Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, the explanation that makes the most sense is that they looked different because they were in fact not the same monsters each time. Rather, they were just new monsters that had assumed leadership positions in Dracula's Monster Realm, since Dracula's camaraderie with his monsters in Reluctant Werewolf seems to be presented as if they are political leaders of the monster world. Since politics has a lot of turnover, why couldn't Dracula's monster realm have a lot of turnover too haha?
For those who have read my other fanfics, in a couple cases, I've tagged on little short stories to chapters. It's been a long time since I've done it, but I thought it might be a fun little writing exercise to try my hand at writing a Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour short. In this chapter, Shaggy mentions running away from a banker after his check bounced, so here's a little short story on that!
The local bank loomed in front of Shaggy. The large pillars and stateliness of the place intimidated Shaggy. He didn't feel much like an adult, so anything to do with money frightened him. Thankfully, he had his two brown dogs with him to keep him company: his best friend Scooby-Doo, and Scooby's nephew, Scrappy.
"Like, I can't wait to cash these paychecks and buy a double-decker club!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"How do you have so many checks, Shaggy?" Scrappy asked.
"Reah, you ron't even rave a rob!" Scooby added.
"Well, like, turns out all those one-day gigs I had paid off! There was that carnival food stand gig, that time we were magician's assistants, the construction worker job building the Vampire State Building, doing research for a werewolf…oh, remember that time we, like, stopped a burglar by using our noodles at the Chinese Food Factory?" Shaggy inquired.
"Reah!" Scooby exclaimed.
"Don't forget about that gig you guys had competing in that spinoff of the Olympics!" Scrappy exclaimed.
"Like, yeah, but we never got paid for that! I tried to, like, expose the judges for never paying us, but then Snagglepuss tried to sue me for defamation! That litigious bastard." Shaggy jeered.
Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy walked up the old concrete stairs together, as they headed inside the bank. The financial institution was bustling with tons of people, and the lines appeared to be mercifully short.
Shaggy could feel his shoulders tense up as he waited for his turn in line. He hated doing adult things; he'd much rather just eat, and sleep, and have fun. While Shaggy did realize he was far more sensitive than the average adult, a question lingered in his brain: why did adult life have to be so emotionally demanding? The movies and TV always taught you that adulthood meant great freedom, but in reality, Shaggy felt like he had far more freedom as a child. Taking care of yourself in a cold, cruel world was hard.
"Next!" the bank teller said. Shaggy quickly scurried up to the counter, with Scooby and Scrappy by his side. The teller wore a disinterested scowl. He looked as if the perils of office life had beaten all of the fun out of him.
"Um, like I'm here to…uh…check some cash…I mean cash some checks." Shaggy stuttered. If his knees knocked any harder with nervousness, Shaggy probably would have answered them.
"Hey, you know, we usually don't allow dogs in here!" the bank teller informed.
"We already did that plot, mister!" Scrappy snapped.
"Fine." the teller growled. "Just give me the checks and get outta here!"
"Like...al…alright." Shaggy stuttered, as he handed a stack of five checks to the man. He was so nervous that all of the checks accidentally slipped out of his hand and fluttered to the floor.
"Somethin' wrong with ya, mister?" the teller demanded.
"Like, n-n-no. Sorry." Shaggy could feel himself getting even more nervous by the second. He was sure all of the stuttering and mistakes he was making surely would make him look like some kind of clown. "Here you go."
The teller promptly snatched the checks out of Shaggy's hand and began to enter them into his computer one-by-one. The first few checks seemed to evoke no emotional reaction from the man until he got to the last one.
"Hey, what kind of business do ya think we're running here, mister?" the teller snapped when he looked at the fifth and final check. His face was scrunched up as he sneered at the shaggy-haired man.
"Like, a bank?" Shaggy answered naïvely.
"Your check bounced!" the teller replied with a biting tone. "It says to pay you 893 Transylvanian dollars!"
"Uh, like…maybe it's a typo." Shaggy gulped, as he sheepishly grinned at the man.
"A typo? Yeah, right. Even worse yet, it says it's signed by 'Vladimir Nosferatu, the Vampire Foreman'. You think you're some kind of joker or somethin'?" the bank teller accused.
"Sorry. Like, just forget about it and cash the other checks." Shaggy said.
"Forget about it? Buddy, it seems like you're trying to scam the bank!" the teller sneered.
"Hey, don't talk to Shaggy like that, buster!" Scrappy added in with a growl.
"Don't tell me how to do my job! You're lucky I even allow you mutts in here!" the teller hissed.
"Who are you calling mutt, you joke of a bank teller? Why they oughta call you…" Scrappy paused for a brief second, trying to think of a witty insult. What he came up with was, in his opinion, passable. "Bank smeller!"
The banker's face turned a scarlet shade of red. Even without him saying anything, Shaggy could see a rage boil up inside of him.
"That does it! Nobody tells Bobby Bankerman how to do his job!" Bobby Bankerman bellowed.
"Ruh-roh! Re's ronna blow!" Scooby gulped.
"Zoinks! Like, let's get outta here!" Shaggy gasped, as he and Scooby began running in the opposite direction.
"Ah c'mon Shaggy. We gotta tell that mean old teller what's what!" Scrappy feistily rebuked.
"I'm gonna get you!" Bobby shouted. To the surprise of everyone in the bank, Bobby leaped over the teller's counter and began chasing them.
"Like, how do I always manage to drive people to the point of murderous rage?" Shaggy chuckled nervously as he continued running out of the bank.
"We rotta hide!" Scooby shouted in response.
"Like, yeah! But where?" Shaggy responded to the larger of his canine companions.
"We could hide behind that row of coffee mugs…but why do that when we can fight?" Scrappy inquired.
"Like, good idea, Scrappy! Or, at least the first part of it was." Shaggy complimented with a caveat.
Shaggy and his canines quickly scampered behind a display of large coffee mugs that were stacked by a steaming coffee maker. Scooby and Shaggy knew in order to escape this terrifying teller, they'd have to duck down behind it and get lower than Lil Jon at the club on a Friday night.
"Where are they?" Shaggy and his dogs could hear the bank teller snarl as he ran by.
Shaggy and Scooby tried not to make a peep, but Scrappy appeared to be as feisty as ever.
"Lemme at 'em! Lemme at 'em!" Scrappy threatened.
"Shhh, Scrappy!" Scooby whispered, trying to calm his overeager nephew down.
"Ah ha! I heard somethin' behind that coffee maker! Think you could hide from Bobby Bankerman, huh?" the bank teller snarled.
"Like, we gotta get outta here!" Shaggy shouted. He attempted to run away, but he was so nervous that he accidentally bumped into Scooby. This caused the cowardly companions to both tumble to the ground and knock over the coffee maker. Hot coffee proceeded to spray all over the floor, the row of coffee mugs, and unfortunately, Bobby Bankerman. The bank teller began to shout in anguish as hot coffee sprayed all over his trousers.
"Oww!" Bobby yelled. "That hurt! Now I'm even more angry!"
"Like, looks like Bobby's about to blow!" Shaggy replied in horror, as he jumped to his feet and began scrambling away from the belligerent banker.
"Re've rotta ret outta rere!" Scooby whimpered.
"Scooby's right! Let's get out of this bank!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"C'mon, guys! We've gotta teach that teller a lesson!" Scrappy rebuked.
"I think we better leave before he teaches us a lesson." Shaggy gulped.
"Rhere's a roor!" Scooby pointed to a large wooden door ahead of them.
"Like, good eyes, Scoob!" Shaggy complimented his canine. "Maybe that door goes outside!"
Shaggy and Scooby raced towards the door with Scrappy following close behind.
"Oh, wowee! I wonder what's behind that door, Uncle Scooby!" Scrappy exclaimed, excitement bursting from his little puppy vocal chords.
"Ri ron't know." Scooby said plainly, as he opened the door. Unfortunately for him, the door handle was slippery with fresh oil, causing him to fall forward against a large metal safe.
Shaggy looked at his surroundings to see there was not only one safe, but rather, a full row of safes.
"Like, looks like we'll be safe in there!" Shaggy chuckled.
Scooby let out a chuckle in response, before he heard a loud beep followed by a click at his back. He was quickly flung across the room when the safe door unexpectedly opened.
"You must have bumped just the right combination when you fell against the safe, Scoob!" Shaggy pointed out.
"Bank robbers!" a man screamed. Shaggy quickly realized it was not the voice of Bobby Bankerman. It was a different man wearing black trousers and a light blue button-up shirt.
"What are you talking about, mister? We're not bank robbers!" Scrappy shook his head in confusion.
"Then I guess a series of mishaps made that safe just magically open on its own?" the man put his hands on his hips in disapproval.
"Like, yeah, that's actually exactly what happened!" Shaggy explained.
"Yeah, right! Alright, I'm gonna give you about three seconds to explain yourselves, or else I'm calling the sheriff to send you robbers off to the hoosegow!" the man threatened.
"Oh yeah? And just who are you, buddy?" Scrappy challenged.
"I'm the bank manager, and I don't take kindly to people robbing this financial institution!" the bank manager growled. "Now, I repeat, what's going on?"
"Like, we told you!" Shaggy gulped, feeling a lump of fright in his throat. "The safe accidentally opened when we fell against it."
"Yeah, right! You happened to bump against the exact correct combination? That's the most ridiculous excuse I've ever heard!" the bank manager's face was getting increasingly bright red with anger by the moment.
"Like, I think we've gotta get outta here, Scoob." Shaggy whispered to his best friend.
"Ri agree!" Scooby gulped, as the cowardly duo began making a run for it. Since the bank manager was standing in front of the door, Shaggy and Scooby had to slip out on either side of him, much to the bank manager's bother.
"Argh! I'm gonna get you robbers!" the bank manager snarled.
"Not before I get you first!" Scrappy threatened. "Lemme at 'em! Lemme at 'em!"
"Like, we need to go get Scrappy!" Shaggy exclaimed.
"R'mon, Rappy!" Scooby said in a worried voice, as he scrambled back and grabbed the feisty pup, who was currently putting up his dukes in front of the bank manager. This caused the manager to attempt to snatch Scooby in a bear hug type hold, but thankfully, Scooby was able to pick up the peeved pup in his arms in the nick of time before he could be captured.
Scooby realized his rescue was especially in the nick of time, as Bobby had also just caught up with them.
"Where are they? Where are they?" Bobby Bankerman snarled in a chaotic rage. "Nobody escapes Bobby Bankerman!"
"Bobby, how many times do I have to tell you to stop saying your name everytime you come into a room?" the bank manager snapped.
"Sorry, sir." Bobby hung his head.
"Like, I think we're home free now, Scoob!" Shaggy laughed nervously, as they once again came into the main lobby where they'd originally been standing in line. Shaggy's trusty canine companion double-checked his perception, and quickly saw that he was correct; the bank manager and Bobby were nowhere in sight.
Feeling a sense of invigoration and success, Scooby (with Scrappy in his arms) and Shaggy scrambled out the front door and down the stairs. The feeling of the sunshine kissing their backs told them that they were safe.
"Phew, that was a close one!" Scrappy said, as he jumped out of his relative's arms.
"Like, you can say that again." Shaggy replied, taking a breath of the cool morning air. "Ah. Now we can, like, completely ignore the fact that we seriously inconvenienced two people and drove them into a manic rage!"
"Reah!" Scooby replied with a chuckle.
Author's note:
I hope you enjoyed this little story! I wanted to approach it with a tone that was very self-referential and parody-like, so there are quite a few references.
All the jobs Shaggy mentioned were actual jobs that the group had during The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Hour - them working at a chinese food factory was in the episode "Chinese Food Factory;" they worked at a carnival in "Scooby's Three Ding-a-Ling Circus;" them working as magician's magicians is from "Backstage Scooby;" they got a job as construction workers in "Hard Hat Scooby;" and lastly, they got a job doing research for a werewolf in "Canine to Five."
The gig that Scrappy mentioned with the Olympics knockoff is referencing Laff-a-Lympics. Shaggy saying Snagglepuss was litigious is a reference to a joke from the reunion special Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now?
My descriptions of certain scenes were written in a goofy way, and that was intentional lol. The line about Shaggy and Scooby getting lower than Lil Jon is referencing the song "Get Low" by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz.