Standing outside Le Chez Food, the warmth of the kitchen fading behind me, I really did start to wonder. Where in the world was Scooby?
Velma, Daphne, and Fred were all here. The gang was assembling perfectly, exactly like it was supposed to happen. So why was the most important member missing?
This was seemingly a timeline a year or so before the show truly began, before the Mystery Machine and the established dynamic and all those cases that made them legends. Maybe I just hadn't met him yet? Or somehow missed him at home, though that seemed unlikely given that a Great Dane wasn't exactly easy to overlook.
I looked up at the sky, watching the colors shift from gold to deep purple. The streetlights were starting to flicker on, casting long shadows across Crystal Cove's main strip.
It was getting late. Almost time for the meeting.
I'd try to find Scooby later. Right now, Fred was waiting, and I wasn't about to keep the gang waiting on their first real investigation.
I was there in no time flat.
Crystal Cove High looked different at night—darker, obviously, but also more atmospheric. A kind of place where you could actually believe something mysterious might happen instead of just boring high school stuff.
I arrived at the designated meeting spot near the west entrance and immediately spotted Fred's calling card: an open window on the first floor with a literal arrow drawn in chalk right below it, pointing upward.
I was going to question the logic of leaving such an obvious marker, but honestly? That was peak Fred. So I might as well get used to it.
I took a simple leap, grabbed the windowsill, and pulled myself through easily. My more gangly limbs actually worked in my favor here—all reach, easy leverage.
The hallways were extremely dark except for the occasional emergency exit sign casting red glows at regular intervals. I moved carefully, trying to keep my footsteps quiet on the tiles finish. The school had a particular emptiness, when a building meant for hundreds of people suddenly held only a handful.
I spotted my locker first, then them. Three silhouettes huddled near Mr. Wickles's classroom door.
Fred noticed me approaching and his face lit up. He opened his mouth, clearly about to shout my name, before Daphne's hand shot out and covered it.
"Shh!" she hissed, though she was smiling.
I crept closer, and everyone seemed ready tense, excited, about doing something we definitely weren't supposed to be doing.
Mr. Wickles's classroom had some light partially peaking, visible as thin lines around the door frame. The windows in the door were blocked by some decorated sheet of paper, probably left over from a class project.
Fred moved in first, positioning himself by the door handle. He looked back at us, made a silent countdown with his fingers—three, two, one—and slowly turned the knob.
The door opened without a sound, smooth and quiet. Say what you wanted about Crystal Cove High, but their maintenance budget was clearly solid.
We edged closer, peering through the widening gap.
And there was Mr. Wickles.
He was a fairly short man, overweight and middle-aged, with that particular baldness pattern where the top was completely bare but the sides still held on stubbornly. He wore casual clothes, jeans and a paint-stained button-up—and stood at an easel, completely absorbed in his work.
But he wasn't seemingly doing anything nefarious.
He was painting.
The room was somewhat filled with his creations. Paints were strewn everywhere tubes, brushes, palettes with dried colors crusting at the edges. Artifacts in various states of completion lined the tables. And there, on one of the lab tables, a black suit of medieval armor lay completely disassembled, its pieces arranged carefully.
On the computer screen in the corner, I could make out what looked like a news article. Something about a museum, but it was too far away to read the details.
"We totally busted him," Daphne whispered, and there was a teasing edge to her voice. "Doing his hobby."
Fred's face fell slightly, disappointment clear even in the dim light.
Daphne noticed immediately and leaned closer, her whisper apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"
But I wasn't paying attention to their exchange.
Something was off indeed.
"This doesn't look like some ordinary hobby," I said quietly, kicking my brain into overdrive.
The gang looked at me, confused.
I pointed through the gap, keeping my voice low. "Like, he's not just painting for fun. Look—" I gestured to the artifacts. "Those are replicas. Exact replicas of what look like museum pieces. And that painting he's working on? There's a smaller version right next to it. He's copying them" hearing my reasoning Fred leaned in closer, studying the scene with renewed interest.
Mr. Wickles moved suddenly, and Fred reflexively widened the door crack to keep him in view.
The teacher set down his brushes with careful precision and walked over to the student lab table that held the disassembled armor. The metal pieces caught the light from his computer screen, glistening with an almost oily quality.
We all saw the gleam in his eyes despite only catching his profile. this intense focus, like he was looking at something precious.
"He's definitely up to something," Fred whispered, and there was vindication in his voice.
Then a loud bang echoed from somewhere down the hallway.
The sound was sharp, but the object sounded malleable, like something heavy hitting the floor.
Fred's reflexes kicked in once more, immediately—he closed the door, quick and silent.
"Damnit," we heard Mr. Wickles mutter from inside the classroom.
Then came a grunt from the opposite direction, followed by a flash of light sweeping through a distant corridor.
"A security guard!" Velma hissed, her eyes wide.
From inside Wickles's room, I heard metal rumbling, pieces of armor shifting, being moved quickly.
But I ignored it.
"Like, we gotta get outta here," I said urgently, already backing away from the door.
Fred opened his mouth, and I could see it in his face—he wanted to stay, wanted use one of his traps, or just see this through.
But the rest of us were already moving, bolting back down the hallway toward the window we'd come through.
Our footsteps echoed too loud in the empty corridor despite our attempts at stealth. We wrapped around the corner, and there the open window, our escape route, freedom just a few yards away.
Then something weird happened.
The lights flickered on. rapid, strobing flashes that made the hallway feel disjointed and wrong.
Thuds echoed from somewhere behind us.
"Stop!" Fred suddenly yelled, throwing his arm out.
My reaction was quick enough—I halted immediately, my sneakers squeaking on the ground.
But Daphne and Velma couldn't stop in time.
They took two more steps and suddenly shot upward into the air with matching yelps of surprise.
A net, one of Fred's traps that he must have set up earlier deployed from the ceiling, enclosing both girls in thick rope netting that pulled them up to about eight feet off the ground.
The only problem about a rich school is that everything is spacious, including the ceilings.
"Fred!" Daphne hissed, trying to keep her voice down despite the situation.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Fred whispered back frantically. "I set that up before you guys got here, I forgot—"
The flashlight beam from the security guard's position flickered into the hallway we'd just been in.
"Who's there?" a male voice called out, authoritative and suspicious.
"Get us down!" Velma whispered urgently, her hands gripping the rope netting.
"Quickly!" Daphne added, but her irritation made her voice rise slightly, barely loud enough to carry.
"I hear you!" the security guard shouted. "Come out where I can see you!"
Footsteps. Coming closer.
Fred was already moving, pulling out a pocket knife and reaching up to the net. He started sawing at the rope with quick, desperate movements.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
The rope barely frayed.
"Like, dude, hurry!" I urged, glancing back toward where the security guard's flashlight was growing brighter.
Fred was putting his full strength into it, his arm muscles straining, sweat already beading on his forehead.
Three seconds. Four. Five.
One strand started to separate.
Six. Seven. Eight.
The footsteps were getting closer. The flashlight beam was sweeping methodically, searching from a slight distance.
Nine. Ten seconds just to cut a single strand.
As fate would have it, the blade was dull. Completely, impossibly dull.
"We're gonna be chopped liver," I muttered, my heart hammering.
Then—
CRASH.
"ahh! urghh"
We all froze.
Another loud crash followed, like structure collapsing, something big and heavy hitting the floor with enough force to shake the building slightly.
The flashlight clattered and went dark.
Silence.
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. Slowly, carefully, I moved first, forward toward the corner, toward where we could see into the other hallway.
"Shaggy, don't—" Velma whispered, but I was already moving.
I had to know.
I reached the corner and peered around the edge, just enough to see.
And there it was.
A black gleaming knight.
But it didn't look like a normal costume, it radiated this presence that made my forensic brain short-circuit because nothing about this made sense.
The metal was darker than it had just been, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. The helmet had no visible eye slits, just smooth, curved darkness. And the weirdest thing, this faint glow of black emanating from inside the joints—not bright enough to illuminate anything, just enough to suggest something was inside that should not be.
The security guard lay crumpled against a destroyed slab of wall, not moving.
The Black Knight stood over him, completely still now, and as if sensing something.
Then the helmet turned.
Toward me.
My breath stopped.
Every instinct I had—both from my old life and this new one—screamed the same thing.
Run.