Chapter 5
Chapter 5
It was now apparent that the gang was not working on just one mystery, but two at the least if not three. The city’s amusement park had to be shut down until further notice because Madkat and Rex Shard were spotted using it as their whereabouts, leading many to wonder if it was a fake amusement park. At the same time, Gerry Jenkins was in danger of losing his business because of three specific investors: Dale Dublin, Morty Michaels, and Jack Jerky, all of which were competing to be the one to buy him out and start a vodka business. Yet, nobody in town ever drank vodka since nobody could stand the smell of it. Finally, the city was having problems with counterfeit $1 bills, $2 bills, $5 bills, and $10 bills, all of which were portraying George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Hamilton in sports clothing.
T-Bone and Razor, armed with their weaponry, searched high and low for the villains, but had little to no success finding them. All they were finding in the fun-house was the typical scary things you might see in a fun-house
“Feels like Halloween, doesn’t it, buddy?” T-Bone commented.
“I’ll say it does,” Razor replied. “If the villains are trying to scare us away, they’ll have to do better than that.” He pulled off a bed sheet “Nothing but a cheap bed sheet on a spring.”
The duo continued their search.
25 minutes had gone by, and Mystery, Inc. was beginning to get worried.
“Wonder what’s taking them so long?” Daphne commented.
“Like, maybe the villains are leading them on a wild goose chase?” Shaggy suggested.
“It’s possible,” Felina replied. “But, it’s also possible they might have fallen into a trap.”
Madkat and Rex Shard, meanwhile, were setting their adversaries up for diversion.
“Do you have any idea how they discovered our acts of smuggling these counterfeit bills?” Rex had asked.
“What difference does it make?” Madkat replied. “Soon, I’ll be laughing my head off when they come to their doom! All I need is to lure them in.”
Indeed, the SWAT Kats had their share of falling into traps. Most of them time, it was beyond their control. This one wasn’t, but it was living proof that anybody could make a mistake. Why? When the duo came to Door #13 (since all the doors were numbered), they could hear Madkat speaking over the loudspeakers (through a microphone), stating, “You’ll never catch me, not even if you find me in Door #13.”
The door was locked, but the duo decided to take a running start and ram into the door. Although they got it open, they soon found themselves falling down into what looked like a pit of no return.
“Thank you so much for dropping in! Hope you enjoyed the trip!” Madkat giggled.
“Leave it to Madkat to fool us like this,” T-Bone groaned.
“And, rub it in with jokes older than the history of the British Empire,” Razor echoed.
“Can we get out by shooting our weapons out and climbing up?”
“I doubt it. The wall is too smooth. We’d just slide back down. Looks like we’re here for a while.”
“Can we still try to contact Felina and the Enforcers?”
“I can try.” Razor punched a few buttons on his gloveatrix. “Meanwhile, I’m wondering about Rex Shard. Luckily for us, he isn’t that crazy green crystal he used to be. I don’t want to have to do another sonic boom at Mach 5 like that.”
“Neither do I, but it was the only way we were able to defeat him the last time.”
“I guess this teaches us to look before we leap.”
“It does, but anything could have been behind this door.”
“True.”
“I have a feeling T-Bone and Razor are in trouble,” Fred spoke up. “It’s up to us to find them.”
“Unh-unh! Not me!” Scooby protested.
“Must we?” Shaggy echoed.
“Oh, come on, Shaggy!”
“Sorry, don’t like surprises! I’m allergic to them!”
“This is no time to be a chicken!” Velma echoed. “They’re our friends, and they need our help!”
“Will you come if I give you a Scooby Snack, Scooby?” Daphne asked, having to go to the last resort once more.
“Hmmm. Two?” Scooby shot back.
“Okay. Two it is.” Daphne tossed the Great Dane two Scooby Snacks. After munching on them, Scooby decided to follow them in. Not wanting to leave his best friend, Shaggy went ahead and walked inside.
“Scooby-Doo!” Scooby cheered.
Upon entering, the group immediately came across all the same spooky tricks that Madkat and Rex Shard were throwing at them, and Lenny prayed hard he wouldn’t get possessed by Madkat’s spirit again because this time he was determined to say no.
“There’s still a chance he might get at me anyways,” he said.
“Why is that?” Felina asked.
“I think he thinks I’m still despised and insane from losing the late night wars to Litterbin.”
“That’s true. After all, he’s your ancestor, so it was your face on the haunted jack-in-the-box.”
“Like, I know you don’t like to talk about it,” Shaggy put in. “But, I did want to ask you something. Is Mr. Litterbin’s ancestor also a court jester, by chance?”
“David and I finally did the research on that, and the answer is ‘yes,'” Lenny nodded. “Madkat went insane after losing to a rival jester, just as I lost my sanity after losing the late night wars to David. History has a history of repeating itself, so don’t just watch the reruns.”
“Right.”
“Do you consider Madkat your version of the Joker?” Velma asked Lenny.
“I would think so. I can’t think of any other Batman enemies to make any accurate comparisons, but you’re absolutely right to say the correct analogy is that Madkat is to the Joker as T-Bone and Razor are to Batman and Robin. Except T-Bone and Razor can both hold their own. They don’t have one in charge and one as a sidekick.”
As usual, Fred proposed that the gang split up, and as usual, Shaggy and Scooby kept running into trouble in the form of Madkat’s props, from the ghouls and ghosts to moving sidewalks, and even a few skeletons to boot. Naturally, they kept running for their lives being who they were, and naturally, they kept running into more.
“Zoinks! Like, we’re surrounded!” Shaggy exclaimed.
Note that Felina and the Enforcers (as well as Callie) had taken a different route inside the fun-house, and so they couldn’t see or hear what Shaggy and Scooby were doing. Fred, Velma, and Daphne, however, were able to find their friends after about what felt like 35 minutes worth of searching and getting nowhere fast, only to separate again when some of the skeletons began coming their way. This whole process took about an hour and a half to finish.
“Sorry! Cowards first!” Shaggy announced as he and Scooby started to run away. Upon seeing what it was, however, Scooby changed his mind and decided to go for the bones.
Madkat and Rex Shard grew impatient of their mechanical monsters not doing their jobs and burst out onto the scene to see what the problem was. Scooby freaked out upon seeing the two, but instead of barking for help and running away in fear, he decided to bark out of bravery and chase the two around the halls. Not paying attention, Madkat decided to open a door and run inside to hide from “that crazy mad dog that’s madder than me,” as he put it. Not until too late did he and Rex realize that they entered Door #13!
“Watch out, T-Bone; we got company!” Razor exclaimed upon seeing the duo fall down.
“Catch of the day: two absolute blockheads!” T-Bone echoed.
“Oh, drat!” Rex groaned.
“Scooby,” T-Bone called upon sighting the Great Dane, “call your friends and tell them to help get us out of here!”
“Right, T-Bone!” Scooby replied.
Five minutes later, the SWAT Kats were back up on the surface and helping the Enforcers take the villains in for questioning, but their task was sidetracked when the SWAT Kats had to rescue the victims from a burning building using a foam bomb. Madkat decided to attempt to make a getaway after attempting to possess Lenny one last time, but the comedian-turned-detective wasn’t falling for it. The two wrestled, and the spirit of Madkat seemed to be winning until Felina stepped in to pull them apart, assisted by Lenny trying to kick Madkat off. Unfortunately, the duo made too much effort, and while not a single innocent civilian was hurt in the aftermath of the fire, Madkat’s soul got pushed into the building as it fell to its destruction, trapping it forever, and forever sealing it in the flames of Hades.
“I didn’t want him to go that way; I just wanted him off me,” Lenny sighed as the group consoled him.
“It wasn’t your fault; he tried to take over your body again,” Callie replied. “You were trying to stop him and save yourself.”
“And, we do have the other prisoner in question,” Felina added. “We’ll still get him to tell all.”
“If you say so.” Lenny rode back to Enforcer HQ in silence. It was personal to him even if he ultimately saved the world from further doom. After all, Madkat was his ancestor.
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