A Second Chance

Ch. 2 making plans

Velma's P.O.V.

Before we drive back into town, I realize that there are a few things we need to talk about without even the slightest possibility of being heard and I remembered Mr. E saying something about bugs so I wrote down on a piece of notebook paper that we kept in the back of the mystery machine and wrote

Everyone out.

I hear Fred's and Shaggy's door open and close at the same time as mine and we all walk about 20 yards away from the mystery machine before Shaggy asks, "Like, what's up, Velm?" grabbing my hand

"You guys, at this point, in this universe we barley know anything about the treasure, let alone evil entity. We don't know about most of the missing groups, just the Darrow family and the original Mystery Incorporated. We only know about two of the pieces of the planispheric disk. Cassidy is still working for Mr. E. You guys aren't supposed to know Angel is Cassidy or vice versa. We don't know who Mr. E is. We do not know what happened to the missing kids. We haven't even heard about the Freak. We live with our parents, who, along with nearly every other adult in town hate us solving mysteries. We are supposed to be fairly recently broken up…" she punctuates by pulling her hand out of Shaggy's "need I go on?

"No we got it and, you're right but, as opposed to talking about all of our past… er… future cases and relationships all at once how about we talk about a few at a time like right now we could talk about the Obliteratrix the Freak and what happens after and the changes we'll make. And how we're going to deal with certain people"

Everyone was silent then "ok that could work good idea Daph." Fred said

"Like, where should we start?"

"How about explaining how we know what we know and, who we should tell, and what we should do about Mr. E's bugs." I see storm clouds forming I hope it doesn't rain well we're outside

SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSD SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSD

An hour or so later the gang drops me off and I quickly run into the house to get my wallet so I could ride the bus up to the stop near K-GHOUL. The entire time I was trying to convince myself that this was no different than the times we did this in the other universe but, everything in my mind is screaming that it's different.

It's usually someone we meet days or a few weeks before and, we only think that they may have the information but this time it's someone we've known for years, we trust her; she's a friend, and we know that she has the information. I'm going to have to lie through my teeth to get her to tell us what happened and I may have to play at her weaknesses that she doesn't know we know. It is the only way we can find to change one part of the ending or we hope, at least that's Daphne and Fred's argument. But it's still lying. For a good reason. The argument goes round and round in my brain.

When I get off at the stop closest to K-Ghoul and as I'm walking there I drag my feet half hoping the right words would come to me the other half hoping the moment I have to lie would never come. Since I'm so deep in thought, I don't notice the point where the sidewalk is really uneven and trip and fall. My glasses fall off, I pick them up after some scrambling and, when I get up and I feel pain on my lower leg below the knee sharp enough to cause me to let out a small yelp I look down and see a cut that's about 3 inches and looking down I see a piece of glass with some blood on it I pick the shard up and throw it into the nearby alleyway and trying not to look at the bloody leg I smile bitterly well there's my plan I think, it's written in the crimson trails going down my skin.

A few minutes after that I get to the studio I slip in a wait until she notices me there which takes a little bit, so I make a small noise to let her know, her reaction is still similar to when I came and told her I knew that she was Cassidy Williams

"Good lord, Velma. Baby doll, are you trying to kill me from fright?"

"Sorry Angel," I said moving my hand that was off what I knew was the bloody cut "had a small run in with some monster, something calling itself the Freak of Crystal Cove, he thinks we're talking to a member of the Original Mystery Incorporated he made that abundantly clear."

"The Freak he came after you guys?

"Just me, a few minutes ago, when I was walking here, he said that our blood is on the original Mystery Inc.'s hands"

"Is that why your leg's bleeding?"

Time to put my lying to the test, "Yeah, his knife was his 'warning'."

"Wait, you mean, he hurt you with his knife?" she asked skeptically

"Yeah, I kinda froze."

"Here let me grab a couple wraps for that. Then you can explain what happened, and why you were up in this area of town without the rest of the gang." she said walking toward the recording room where she kept most of her first aid things she grabs a wrap and some Neosporin "So?"

"I thought you should know the gang will ask you, probably sooner than you think, if you know more then you say about The missing kids and the other groups prior to them."

"Velma… this mystery you're chasing… it's dangerous."

"We know, we aren't stopping."

She finally looks up and half asks half tells me in a loud, urgent whisper "Velma, you do know the dangers behind that piece you found? The Freak is just one of them. Yes, he is dangerous but, there are people deeper into this mystery, their motives are the darker, more deadly ones, they are the people that wear the masks of allies. Those are the most dangerous. I'm trying to help but people like the Freak could come after you more often, with more than a knife and from all sides if you get in too deep. So yes I'm trying to help you guys and if, in the end, it means you guys are mad at me but alive I will continue the best I can." She pauses then continues, "What did the freak want anyway?"

"He said he wanted us to stop looking into his past crimes. I told him no. he then said that all our blood is on the Original Mystery Inc.'s hands. He swung, I didn't avoid. You you can see the results."

"He did mostly miss he mostly clipped you, baby doll, you got lucky"

"Thanks," I pause for a moment, "Are you gonna tell the rest of the gang?"

"Honestly, soon I promise but how will they react. I lied to you from the moment I met you"

"Cas-Angel we do trust you completely. You do know that don't you? We told you more about this or any one of our mysteries then we have anyone in town." I smile realizing she gave me a way to explain why we weren't surprised when Fred's "Mayor Dad" was unmasked "Wait, you seem to have met the freak before."

"That's what happened to the original Mystery Inc, he got in our heads, in our dreams. he blackmailed us with fabricated document on our parent claiming they did crimes and if we didn't give him the piece of the disc, the scroll we found in the old Spanish church and leave town and never return, he'd release them. We later found out Pericles was behind it but we could never figure it out who else was. A couple years later, Brad and Judy wanted to come back, find some answers me and Ricky didn't. We split up, I haven't heard from them sense, me and Ricky split up a few years later. I came back here as Angel Dynamite after about a decade. Met you kids about two months later and, you know the rest.

"And who knew about the scroll besides you five?"

"Fred's dad translated it for us a librarian at the school helped us find some facts about it our parents all helped a little and our friend, Teddy, who helped if we needed more people than we had."

"Ok were any of them out of town when the freak attacked any time"

"The librarian and our parents"

"K,"I write it down and start to smile "Angel, I think I know who the Freak is."

"How did you… we always got stuck between the two of them when trying to figure it out." She said clearly surprised

"There are a few things we had that you didn't have, like which of these two know that we have a part of the disk and, who didn't know who has the piece to those questions give only one possibility."

"You can't be serious, if he is the freak… you all are in a heap of trouble."

"We need more evidence. I need to tell the rest of the gang. But first you need to tell the rest of the gang ASAP or I can't explain how I know. Please, he will go after them next."

"I will baby, I promise."

"Angel, we aen't going to stop, we're following this mystery wherever it leads,weather that's with you, or against you or anyone else, but I know I want to be able to trust you, and I think the others will as well." I warn before turning to leave "goodbye, Angel" I finished stepping out into the night and walking to the bus stop trying not to put too much weight on my hurt leg I can feel Cassidy's stare linger on me for a minute or two until the rain starts I stand for about five minutes until the bus comes I hope on and whisper "This is gonna be harder than I thought it would be."

A/N so I'm sure many of you thought I was done with this story, truth is, I kinda forgot about it, the last three years, were a bit crazy, there's been a bunch of family stuff and friend stuff and medical and moving into high school, and somewhere in all of that, I fell out of this fandom, but in the past few months things have calmed a bit and I rewatched SDMI, I have a few rough drafts written for the next few chapters. and have some pretty cool ideas where to take the story, and they're clearer then the ones I had when I was 13, I hope you guys continue reading this.